ernment of the Army, were appointed. The commissions of unfriendly officers were cancelled; and orders were sent to Lambert and the most considerable of his partisans in the camp, to withdraw to their homes, — orders which, after the recent transactions in London, they could not resolve to disobey.1

Monk's

of London.

1660.

Feb. 3.

The further devices of Monk need not be recounted. He blinded the Commonwealth's men, and kept the royalists in suspense, till he saw that the safe moment for action had come. He quartered his soldiers in Westminster, and himself in Whitehall. By a occupation recommendation, which in the circumstances was a command, he restored to their seats in the House the Presbyterian members who had been expelled. The Parliament, thus reinforced, named him commander-in-chief; again, as far as a vote could avail, made Presbytery the rule of the Church of England; and issued a summons for the meeting of a new Parliament. By its own vote, a session of less March 15.

than three months ended in its final dissolution.

Feb. 21.

April 25.

The Convention Parliament- as it has since been called, because it was not summoned by the King's writ-came together on the early day appointed. The course Convention which it would take was easily foreseen from the Parliament. result of the elections. Lambert escaped from the Tower, to which he had been committed by April 11. the Council, and collected some troops in Warwickshire. Against him, Monk despatched a force under Colonel Ingoldsby, who was desirous of atoning for his vote in the High Court of Justice for the death of the late King. Deserted by some of his soldiers, Lambert was taken prisoner, and with insult was led back to the Tower.

1 The Fairfax papers contain a very interesting account of communications, at this moment, between Monk and Lord Fairfax, who, since he had re

VOL. II.

36

signed the command of the army, nine years before, had been living in retirement. (Memorials of the Civil War, II. 151 - 171.)

The Parliament had scarcely been organized, when Sir John Grenville, who had before been a confidential messenger to Monk, presented himself to the two Houses with letters from the King, who, by Monk's advice, had come to Breda in Brabant.

The letters were accompanied with what was called the royal Declaration. In it the King promised a free pardon to all persons, except such as should be excepted by Parliament, for offences committed during the late disorderly times; indulgence to private consciences in matters of religion; an uncontrolled decision by Parliament of questions relating to property which had been alienated by confiscations or fines; and the payment of arrears due to the army, with its continuance upon the actual footing. A large majority of the Lower House consisted of persons who had acted with the popular party; and they did not fail to see the desirableness of obtaining some security for the fulfilment of these engagements, and of causing them to be expressed with more explicitness and precision. But such arrangements would require time; and it was thought that, at so critical a juncture, time could not by any means be afforded. While negotiations were pending, the soldiers might again come to an understanding together, and consolidate, under a single head, that power which, when not disunited, was irresistible. In adjusting the terms of an agreement with the King, Presbyterians and Episcopalians, now alike eager for his return, would be sure to quarrel. The precious moment of opportunity for an escape from the evils which were experienced and dreaded was not to be lost, even though, in profiting by it, serious hazard was incurred.1

The Houses resolved that the government of England was, and ought to be, by King, Lords, and Commons. They voted a present to Charles of fifty thousand pounds,

1 Baxter's account (Reliq. Baxterian., the Presbyterians were moved to proI. 216) of the considerations by which mote the Restoration is deeply touching.

May 25.

Entry of

Charles the

Second into

and ten thousand and five thousand pounds respectively to his brothers, the Dukes of York and Gloucester. Admiral Montague was despatched to Scheveling with a fleet. The Duke of York went on board, and hoisted his flag as Lord High Admiral. At Dover, in the presence of an immense throng, that covered the beach and the heights, the King was greeted by Monk. Crowds, lining the road to London, poured out their joyous acclamations. As he approached the capital, he passed between the ranks of the army, and met the view of eyes which had seen him last at Worcester. The dignitaries of the City came in procession across London Bridge to do him hom- May 29. age. Flags waved on the turrets. Tapestries hung on the walls of the houses. Young and old filled the windows, and covered the roofs. Flowers strewed the pavement. Bells, cannon, and trumpets uttered their noisy welcome. Fountains ran with wine. Regiments of horse and foot went before and followed. Shouts rent the air. On horseback, between his brothers, Charles passed to Whitehall; and Englishmen, after twenty years of costly struggle, were again vassals of the head of the house of Stuart.

London.

It is a misery of human affairs, that sometimes they present only such a choice among evils as appears to require the elevation of unworthy men to the most exalted places. The justice of England has provided the workhouse and the treadmill for the use of persons of habits and tastes like his whom her sad necessity now raised to be the head of her Church, the master of her sages, the pattern of her gentlemen, the object of reverential loyalty to her divines and her magistrates, to her teachers and her youth, to her maids and matrons. With no honest purpose to direct his life; utterly without sense of responsibility for the right fulfilment of a vast trust; surrendered, with all his faculties, to a libertinism gross and shameless; unconscious even of dishonor in

The Earl of
Clarendon.

taking bribes from abroad for the supply of his vices; an infidel in his hours of wantonness, and a Romanist in the pensive hours which followed some extraordinary debauch; -such was the prince with whom sober, religious Protestant England was to renew her experiment of monarchy. The first period of the reign of King Charles the Second is occupied by the ministry of the Earl of Clarendon, which extended through seven years. Edward Hyde, a man of good family and bred to the bar, had been a member of the Long Parliament, in which at first he took the popular side. But, three months before the late King began the war, Hyde, who had then been a year or more in private correspondence with him, withdrew from the Parliament, and joined him at York.1 His services were welcomed as of the utmost value; and, in the management of the King's business and the preparation of papers addressed to Parliament and to the people, Hyde and Lord Falkland were the persons chiefly employed. After the negotiation at Uxbridge, Hyde was sent to the West of England with Prince Charles, whom in the following year he accompanied to the Isle of Jersey. There he employed himself two years upon his "History of the Late Troubles." After the King's execution, he joined the prince at Paris, and was sent by him on an embassy to Spain. Returning thence, he received the appointments, first of Secretary and then of Lord Chancellor, and became the director of the affairs of the exiled family.

Hyde was a man of ability and resolution; faithful and vigilant in all that related to his master's interest; bigoted in his attachment to the royal prerogative, and to the Episcopal Church of England. Free from the vices of the libertine court of which he was the guardian, his strictness would have deprived him of the prince's friendship, if his wisdom and activity could have been dispensed with. His bearing to equals and inferiors was uncom

'Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon, written by Himself, I. 91 -139.

promising, arrogant, and harsh; and Puritanism and Puritans he hated with a vindictive animosity. In the train of the restored King he came back to England as Lord Chancellor, after an absence of fifteen years, in which time England had changed in many things, and he in scarcely anything except age and the temper induced by the irritating experiences of exile. His capacity and past services marked him out for the head of the government. He was created Earl of Clarendon; and his confidential friend, Sir Edward Nicholas, was made one of the Secretaries of State, William Morrice, a retainer of General Monk, being the other.

Early pro

after the

tion.

The course of early proceedings tended on the whole to quiet the apprehensions of those who had reluctantly acceded to the recall of the King. The Earl of Manchester, formerly General for the Parliament, ceedings was made Lord Chamberlain; Edward Montague, Restora the Parliament's Admiral, now created Earl of Sandwich, was placed in command of the fleet; the privy seal was given to the venerable Lord Say and Sele; Hollis, so prominent in the early opposition of the Long Parliament to the court, was raised to the peerage. In the circumstances, nobody complained of the elevation of George Monk to be Duke of Albemarle. The judicial proceedings of the time when the royal authority was in abeyance were ratified by Parliament. An Act of Indemnity was passed, after a vigorous struggle, especially in the House of Lords, to make its terms less indulgent. It excepted from mercy those who had been directly concerned in the death of Charles the First, to whom were added Vane and Lambert by name. After granting the avails of the tonnage, poundage, and excise duties to the King for his life, and making provision for reducing the army and for discharging the arrears of its pay, the Parliament was adjourned.

Sept. 17.

1 Statutes at Large, II. 649.