Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/382

368 commanded Monk to march into the city to seize ten of the leading opponents in the council, and to break down the gates and portcullises of the city.

On the 9th of February, two hours after midnight, he received this trying order. He reflected—if he refused his commission would be immediately withdrawn, and his plans cut short; he obeyed, and marching into the city, began with all coolness and imperturbability to remove the posts and chains from the streets. The citizens, who expected different conduct from him, and entreated him earnestly to desist, assailed his men during their labour with groans and hisses. The post and chains removed, Monk wrote to the parliament that he considered that sufficient to crush the refractory spirit of the citizens, but he received a peremptory order to complete the business, which he did by destroying the gates and portcullises, though the soldiers themselves loudly expressed their indignation. He then returned in no agreeable mood to Whitehall. There, however, news awaited him of conduct on the part of parliament, which seemed to him to show that they now thought that they had made him their pliant instrument, and destroyed at the same time his popularity with the people. Whilst he had been doing their ungracious work in the city, they had been receiving with high approbation a petition from the so-called fanatic or ultra party, headed by the celebrated Barebone, praying that no man might sit in parliament, or hold any office under government, who did not take the oath to abjure Charles Stuart or any single person. This was so plainly aimed at himself, who had excused himself from this oath, that a council of his officers was immediately called, whose loud resentment of this ungrateful conduct was expressed in a letter drawn up in his name, and despatched to the house the next morning, complaining bitterly of their allowing this attack upon him and advising that they should take immediate measures for filling up all the vacancies in parliament, as the only measure which would satisfy the people. To show that this was not a mere admonition but a command, he instantly quitted Whitehall, marched back into the city, summoned again the common council, which he had dispersed, and assured them that the conduct of parliament had now convinced him that they were betraying the interests of the country, that he was sorry that he had obeyed them so far as to do injury to "that famous city, which in all ages had been the bulwark of parliament and of general liberty;" and that therefore he had determined to unite his lot with theirs, and to obtain through them a full and free parliament.

This announcement was received not only with astonishment, but with the most enthusiastic expressions of joy. The mayor and council plighted their troth with him and the officers, he was invited to dine at the Guildhall, and all the bells in the city were set ringing in exultation. The corporation attended the general to his lodgings amid the acclamations and the bonfires of the people, at which they roasted rumps in ridicule of the parliament, and heaped on it every infamy which wit and ribaldry could devise. This coup d'etat awoke the parliament to their blunder; they had made an enemy of the very man and army into whose hands they had put a power which could instantly crush them. There were some zealots, the Haselrigs and Scots, who advised to replace Fleetwood in the chief command, and bring back the expelled regiments; but Sunday, which intervened, enabled the more sober counsel to prevail, and they sent a deputation to invite the general to return to Whitehall, and promised that the writs for the excluded members should be ready by the day appointed. But these incidents had made an advance in Monk's proceedings. He had seen, as he came up the country, the universal demand for the restoration of the Long Parliament, and the unmitigated contempt for the present one. He had felt the pulse of the country also as to the return of the king, and his intercourse with the city had only confirmed the impression that the whole body of excluded members must come back as a stepping-stone to the recall of Charles. The presbyterian interest in the city was as strong as ever, and its enmity to the independents unabated. He therefore called together his officers to discuss with the deputation the points at issue, and the officers insisted that the excluded members must be restored. Monk then placed the city in a state of defence, and returned to Whitehall. There he summoned the excluded members who were in town, together with the members of the sitting parliament, and read them a paper, in which he assured them that the nation at large demanded a full and free parliament, as the only means of settling these bleeding nations. He declared that he would impose no restrictions on them himself, but that his guards should freely admit all the excluded as well as the other members, to take measures for a dissolution of the present parliament, and the calling of a new one, full and free, on the 20th of April next. That he did not believe that monarchy or prelacy would be tolerated by the people, but that a moderate presbyterian government, with liberty of conscience, appeared most likely to be acceptable. That as to the peers, if it were not proper to restore to them their house, yet he thought their hereditary marks of honour should be left them.

This speech equally confounded the royalists and the ultras. He recommended a presbyterian government and the exclusion of the monarchy; but he saw well enough what the effect of his measure would be; the royalist excluded members would rush in, and the recall of the king would be the inevitable consequence. Accordingly the excluded members proceeded directly to the house with the other members. The guard under Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper opened and admitted them. At this sight Haselrig, Scott, and the republican party, thought it high time to consult their own security, and disappeared from the house. The house at once set to work; annulled all the orders by which they had been excluded; elected a new council of state, in which the most influential members were royalists; appointed Monk commander-in-chief, and commander of the fleet in conjunction with Montague; granted him twenty thousand pounds in lieu of Hampton Court, which the Rump had settled on him; freed from sequestration Sir George Booth and his associates, who had risen for the king, together with a great number of cavaliers and Scottish lords taken at the battle of Worcester; borrowed sixty thousand pounds of the common council; established for the present the presbyterian confession of faith; ordered copies of the solemn league and covenant to be hung up in all churches; placed the militia,