Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/384

370 professed that no man had a more profound veneration for parliament and its rights than himself, and that to convince them of it, he had indorsed a declaration of his views, in which he had left everything to their settlement.

This paper was the celebrated "Declaration of Breda," to which the people afterwards so often called Charles's attention, and which he took the earliest opportunity to forget, and falsify by a return to all the Stuart despotisms, oppressions, and persecutions. In this paper he granted a free pardon to all who should accept it within forty days; the confirmation of all estates and titles, and in religion "liberty to tender consciences, and that no man should be disturbed or called in question in any way regarding religion." But all these promises "on the word of a king" were rendered perfectly nugatory, by excepting all such persons and such measures as parliament should in its wisdom see fit to determine otherwise. This specious declaration, which had been drawn up by Hyde, Ormond, and Nicholas, in fact secured nothing, for once in power, a servile parliament might undo everything, as it eventually did. Prynne, who was in the house, pointed all this out, and warned them that Charles had been too long under the counsels of his mother, and too long in France and in Flanders, "the most Jesuited place in the world," to be in religion anything better than a papist. That at best he would be found only a prelatist, and that his word had already been proved, on various occasions, of no more value than his father's. That the royalists, he said, would never cease instilling into him that the presbyterian religion, now the religion of the nation, had destroyed his great-grandmother, tormented his grandfather, and put to death his father; and that as certain as there was a restoration, there would be a destruction of all the liberties of England, civil and religious. The pious Sir Matthew Hale urged on them the necessity of some better guarantee than this declaration of constitutional rights before they readmitted the king.

But all warning was lost on the house: the crisis was come, the parliament and nation seemed smitten with a sudden oblivion of all their past miseries and oppressions under this house, and every branch of the community seemed impatient to be the first to put its neck once more under the Stuart yoke, and under the foot of the most debauched, unprincipled, and scandalous member of it, that it had ever given birth to. Instead of sending Grenville to the Tower, the commons voted him thanks and a present of five hundred pounds. The speaker, in communicating these votes to Grenville, launched into the most extravagant terms of joy on the prospect "of having their king again." The commons drew up a most glowing letter to his majesty, in which they declared their thankfulness to God for putting the thoughts of returning into the king's mind, "to make him glorious in the eyes of his people;" protesting that "the persons of their kings had always been dear unto parliaments," and that they "could not bear to think of that horrid act committed against the precious life of their late king," &c. They not only delivered this letter to Sir John Grenville, but appointed twelve of their members to wait on his majesty at the Hague. The London corporation were as enthusiastic and as profuse of their proffered devotion; they presented Grenville with three hundred pounds, also appointed some of their members to wait on the king, made haste to erect the royal statue in Guildhall, and to pull down the arms of the commonwealth.

Montague had long been prepared to go over to the king on the first opportunity; and lest he might seem to be sent by the parliament, and not by his own voluntary act, he set sail for the coast of Holland, leaving Lawson to bring over the deputations going to his majesty. He lay to at Scheveling, and sent word to the king that the fleet was at his command. The duke of York, whom Charles had made admiral, went on board, and was received with all respect and submission. Soon after came up the other ships with six members of the peers, twelve of the commons, fourteen from the city of London, and eight or ten of the most popular ministers of London of the presbyterian party, including Reynolds, Calamy, Case, and Marten. These gentlemen entered zealously on the hopeless task of endeavouring to persuade Charles to leave their form of worship in the ascendant, and to abstain from the use of the common prayer book and the surplices; but they got no further satisfaction than that he would leave all that to the wisdom of parliament. On the 24th of May he embarked at Scheveling, in the Naseby, which the day before had been re-christened the Royal Charles, the rest of the ships at the same time having doffed their republican appellations of unpleasant memory, and assumed right royal ones. On the 26th he landed at Dover, where, amid the thunder of cannon, he was received by Monk at the head of a splendid assemblage of the nobility and gentry. From Dover to Canterbury, and thence to London, the royal journey was one triumphant procession. The crowds of gentry, the shouting people, presented only the aspect of a most loyal nation, amongst whom it could scarcely be imagined such a thing as a commonwealth had been enacted. On Blackheath he was received by the army with acclamations. The lord mayor and corporation invited his majesty to a splendid collation in a tent prepared for the purpose, and all the way thence to Whitehall, attended by the chief nobility and by his life guards, and several regiments of cavalry, the houses being hung with tapestry, and the windows crowded with applauding people, the king riding betwixt his two brothers, beheld nothing but a most loyal people. When he dismissed the last of his congratulators from the hall where his father perished, he turned to one of his confidants and said, "It surely must have been my own fault that I did not come before, for I have met no one to-day who did not protest that he always wished for my restoration."

 CHAPTER IX.

entire break up of the ancient system of the kingdom, which occurred in the reign of Charles I., the destruction of the monarchy, which had lasted from the conquest 582 years, and the establishment of a commonwealth, attended by an equal revolution in the national religion, and numerous other changes of a more permanent and influential character, make it necessary for us to review the circumstances of the nation at a much shorter date than we have 