Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/437

] preparing deluges of fresh blood in another direction. Middleton assured Charles that the restoration of prelacy was now the earnest desire of the nation, and a proclamation was issued, announcing the king's intention. Only one of the bishops of Laud's making was now alive, Sydserfe, a man of no estimation, who was sent to the distant see of Orkney, though he aspired to the archiepiscopal one of St. Andrews. That dignity was reserved for a

very different man, Sharp, a pretended zealot for the kirk, who, at the same time that he urged Middleton to restore episcopacy, persuaded his clerical brethren to send him up to London to defend the independence of the kirk. He went, and to the astonishment and indignation of the ministers and people, returned archbishop of St. Andrews. He endeavoured, by a letter to Middleton of May 28th, to prove that he had served the kirk faithfully till he saw that it was of no avail, and that he took the post to keep out violent and dangerous men. This, after such a change, could be only regarded as the poor excuse of an unprincipled man. His incensed and abandoned friends heaped on him execrations, and accused him of incontinency, infanticide, and other heinous crimes. By tills measure, and the co-operation of such men as Middleton and Lauderdale, all the old bitterness was revived, and the horrors of a persecution which has scarcely an example in history. By Sharp's advice three other bishops were appointed, Fairfowl to the see of Glasgow, Hamilton to Galloway, and Dr. Robert Leighton to Dunblane. Leighton was the son of that Dr. Leighton whom Laud had so unmercifully treated and mutilated for his tract against prelacy. And now his son embraced prelacy, but was a very different man to Sharp—pious, liberal, learned, and a real ornament to the church, though entering it by such a change. The four bishops went up to London to receive ordination, which was administered to them by Sheldon, bishop of London, at Westminster, with a splendour which greatly offended the puritan simplicity of Leighton. They were invited to take their seats in the house of parliament, where Leighton had very soon an opportunity of opposing the introduction of the oath of allegiance and supremacy, which, however, all men were required to take. Sharp drove on this and other irritating measures; all meetings of presbyteries and synods were prohibited under penalty of treason. and Sharp soon recommended the enforcement of an oath abjuring the solemn league and covenant; and with these terrible weapons in their hands, Middleton, Sharp, and Lauderdale drove the presbyterians from all offices in the church, state, or magistracy, and many were compelled to flee from the country. The most astonishing thing was, that the spirit of the people had been so subdued by the arms and supremacy of Cromwell, that instead of rising as their fathers did, they submitted in passive surprise. It required fresh indignities and atrocities to raise them again to the fighting pitch, and they came In a short time the number of prelates was augmented to fourteen, and the kirk appeared to be extinguished in Scotland.

Whilst these things were taking place in Ireland and Scotland, in England the king and his cavalier courtiers were running a high career, and it was deemed prudent to have a formally though not constitutionally elected parliament, as a better authority for his daring proceedings and plans against the national liberties. The aristocratic and tory influences were in full swing. The old great families, the old gentry, the cavaliers, and the clergy, were all united to strain every old corrupt practice to pack a parliament of their own fashion. Royalists, cavaliers, and the sons of cavaliers predominated in the new parliament, which met on the 8th of May, 1661. Not more than fifty or sixty of the presbyterian party were elected, for the cavaliers everywhere proclaimed them the enemies of the monarchy, and they were scared into silence. This parliament, from the eager pursuit of the loaves and fishes by the majority of its members, acquired the name of the Pension Parliament, and to the disgrace of the country, continued to sit much longer than the so-called Long Parliament, longer, in fact, than any English parliament except one, had ever sate —it continued eighteen years. The parliament and the church far outrun the court in zeal for the destruction of liberty and the restoration of a perfect despotism. The commons commenced its proceedings by requiring every member, on pain of expulsion, to take the sacrament according to the rites of the church of England. They ordered, in conjunction with the lords, the solemn league and covenant to be burnt by the common hangman; they proposed to annul all the statutes of the Long Parliament, and restore the Star-chamber and Court of High Commission, but in this they failed. They passed a bill declaring that neither house, nor both houses together, had any legislative power without the king; that in him resided the sole command of the militia, and all other forces of land and sea; and that an oath should be taken, by all members of corporations, magistrates, and other persons bearing office, to this effect:—"I do declare and believe that it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsever to take arms against the king, and that I do abhor that traitorous position of taking arms by his authority against his person, or against those commissioned by him." This was called the corporation oath. They restored the bishops to their seats in the house of peers; they made episcopalian ordination indispensable to church preferment; they revived the old liturgy without any concession to the prejudices of the presbyterians, and thus drove two thousand ministers from the church in one day; they reminded the sufferers that the Long Parliament had done the same, but they did not imitate that parliament in allowing the ejected ministers a small annuity to prevent their starving; they declared it a high misdemeanour to call the king a papist, that is, to speak the truth, for he was notoriously one; increased the rigour of the law of treason, and knocked on the head the last chance of popular liberty by abolishing the right of sending petitions to parliament with more than twenty names attached, except by permission of three justices of peace, or the majority of the grand jury. So furiously rose the stream of reaction, to such a pitiable condition was that great England reduced which had read so imperishable a lesson to, kings and courtiers. England had yet other lessons to give before she had effectually placed kingship on its true basis. When this parliament had done these notable feats, and passed a bill of supply, Charles prorogued them till the 28th of November.

On assembling at that time they were alarmed by Clarendon with rumours of fresh conspiracies in every part of