Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/434

420 fusion commences. Before this great transfer of taxation from the land to customs, excise, and other popular burdens, it must be borne in mind that there was no debt. So long as the land had to pay the taxes, the aristocracy were not willing to incur a national debt; the moment they had made this transfer, and could, living on their exempted lands, revel in the sweets of taxation, a debt was commenced. Charles, we shall find, borrowed nine hundred thousand pounds of the merchants of London, and soon informed them that he never could repay it, it must remain a debt on the nation, the interest alone being obtainable. The debt thus commenced, has now grown, as the direct consequence of this grand fiscal revolution, to upwards of eight hundred million sterling. Macaulay has well said that this was not the first age of borrowing, but the first of funding.

We have dwelt on this most impudent and greedy transaction of the aristocracy of the restoration—a transaction so glaringly unjust, that it was vehemently opposed by the upright members of the commons, and only passed by a majority of two, the more particularly—because it is the turning point of our whole modern system of taxation, of extravagance, of gigantic wars, which could not otherwise have been carried on, of the huge pressure of our debt, the growth of our taxation, and of the power of that aristocracy and aristocratic interest, by which we are yet mastered, and the perpetual struggle which constitutes the great and onerous warfare of our parliamentary and political life. Englishmen cannot make themselves too intimately familiar with the origin, growth, and all the wonderful ramifications of this grand fiscal revolution.

This great bargain having been completed at the close of the year, the convention parliament was dissolved. The year 1661 opened with a fifth-monarchy riot. Though Harrison and some others of that faith were put to death, and others, as Overton, Desborough, Day, and Courtenay, were in the Tower, there were secret conventicles of these fanatics in the city, and one of these in Coleman Street was headed by a wine cooper of the name of Venner, who, as we have already seen, gave Cromwell trouble in his time. On the night of the 6th of January, Venner, with fifty or sixty other enthusiasts, rushed from their conventicle, where he had been counselling his followers not to preach, but to act. They marched through the city towards St. Paul's, calling on the people to come forth and declare themselves for king Jesus. They drove some of the train-bands before them, broke the heads of opposing watchmen, but were at length dispersed by the lord mayor, supported by the citizens, and fled to Caen Wood, betwixt Highgate and Hampstead. On the 9th, however, they returned again, confident that no weapons or bullets could harm them, and once more they put the train-bands and the king's life-guards to the rout. At length, however, they were surrounded, overpowered, and, after a considerable number were killed, sixteen were taken prisoners, including Venner himself, who, with eleven others, were hanged, the rest being acquitted for want of evidence. Pepys says there were five hundred of the insurgents, and their cry was, "The king Jesus, and their heads upon the gates!" that is, the heads of their leaders who had been executed and stuck there.

Charles at the time was at Portsmouth with his mother, and Clarendon made the most of the riot, representing it as an attempt to liberate the regicides in the Tower, and restore the commonwealth. Fresh troops were raised and officered with stanch royalists, and a large standing army of that stamp would soon have been raised, had not strong remonstrances been made by the earl of Southampton and others, and equally strong obstacles being existent in the want of money. The house of commons, moreover, spoke out plainly before its dissolution, as to the raising of a new army, saying they were grown too wise to be fooled into another army, for they had discovered that the man who had the command of it could make a king of himself, though he was none before. The known intention to put the duke of York at the head of it, was another strong objection. So the design for the present was abandoned.

In England, Scotland, and Ireland, the king was, of course, beset by the claims of those who had stood by his father, or could set up any plea of service. There were claims for restoration of estates, and claims for rewards. Charles was not the man to trouble himself much about such matters, except to get rid of them. In Ireland the catholics and protestants equally advanced their claims. The protestants declared that they had been the first in Ireland to invite him back, and the catholics that they had been strongly on the late king's side, had fought for him both in Scotland and England, and had suffered severely from the late usurpers. The protestants, however, were in possession of the forfeited estates, and Charles dared not rouse a protestant opposition by doing justice to the catholics, who, though the most numerous, were far the weakest party. Besides, the different interests of the claiming parties were so conflicting, that to satisfy all sides was impossible. Some of the protestants were episcopalians, some presbyterians. The latter had been vehement for the commonwealth, but to ward off the royal vengeance they had, on the fall of Richard Cromwell, been the first to tender their allegiance to Charles, and propitiate him by an offer of a considerable sum of money. Then there were protestant loyalists, whose property under the commonwealth had been confiscated, and there were the catholics, who had suffered from both parties, even when ready to serve the king. There were officers who had served in the royal army before 1649, and had never received the arrears of their pay; there were also the widows and orphans of such. To decide these incompatible demands Charles appointed a commission. But little good could possibly accrue from this, for though there were lands unclaimed sufficient to have pacified all who had just claims, these had been lavishly bestowed on Monk, the duke of York, Ormond, Kingston, and others. Every attempt to take back lands, however unjustly held by protestants, threatened to excite a protestant cry of a dangerous favouring of catholics, and of a design to reinstate the papists, who, they averred, had massacred a hundred thousand protestants during the rebellion. Charles satisfied himself with restoring the bishops and the property of the episcopalian church, and left the commission to settle the matter. But appeals from this impassable tribunal were made to himself, and he at length published his celebrated declaration for the settlement of Ireland, by which the