at their power, and controverted their title. This parliament, of 1658, was dissolved. Unless Cromwell could exterminate the Catholics, convert the inflexible Presbyterians, chill the loyalty of the royalists, and corrupt the judgment of the republicans, he never could hope the cheerful consent of the British nation to the permanence of his government, which was well understood to be coextensive only with his life. He did not connect himself with the revolution, for he put himself above it, and controlled it; nor with the monarchy, for he was an active promoter of the execution of Charles; nor with the church, for he overpowered it; nor with the Presbyterians, for he barely tolerated their worship without gratifying their ambition. He rested on himself; his own genius and his own personal resources were the basis of his power. Having subdued the revolution, there was no firm obstacle but himself to the restoration of the Stuarts, of which his death was necessarily the signal.

The accession of Richard Cromwell, in September, 1658, met with no instant opposition. Like his father, he had no party in the nation; unlike his father, he had no capacity for public affairs. He met a parliament in January, 1659, but only to dissolve it; he could not control the army, and he could not govern England without the army. Involved in perplexities, he resigned. His accession had changed nothing; his abdication changed nothing; content to be the scoff of the proud, he acted upon the consciousness of his own incompetency, and, in the bosom of private life, remote from wars, from ambition, from power, he lived to extreme old age in the serene enjoyment of a gentle and modest temper. English politics went forward in their course.

The council of officers, the revival of the "interrupted Long Parliament, the intrigues of Fleetwood and Desborough, the transient elevation of Lambert, were but a series of unsuccessful attempts to defeat the wishes of the people. Every new effort was soon a failure; and each successive failure did but expose the enemies of royalty to increased indignation and contempt. In vain did Milton forebode that, "of all governments, that of a restored king is the worst;" nothing could long delay the restoration. The fanaticism which had

made the revolution had burnt out, and was now a spent volcano.

Monk was at that time the commander of the English army in Scotland. Sir William Coventry, no mean judge of men, esteemed him a drudge; Lord Sandwich sneered at him plainly as a thick-skulled fool; and the more courteous Pepys paints him as "a heavy, dull man, who will not hinder business and cannot aid it." When Monk marched his army from Scotland into England, he was only the instrument of the restoration, not its author. Originally a soldier of fortune in the army of the royalists, he deserted his party, served against Charles I., and readily offered to Cromwell his support. Incapable of laying among the wrecks of the English constitution the foundations of a new creation of civil liberty, he now took advantage of circumstances to gratify his own passion for rank and fortune. He cared nothing for England, and therefore made terms only for himself. He held the Presbyterians in check, and, prodigal of perjuries to the last, he prevented the adoption of any treaty or binding compact between the returning monarch and the people.

Yet the want of such a compact could not restrain the determined desire of the people of England. All classes demanded the restoration of monarchy, as the only effectual guarantee of peace. The Presbyterians, hoping to gain favor by an early and effectual union with the royalists, contented themselves with a vague belief that the martyrdoms of Dunbar would never be forgotten; misfortunes and the fate of Charles I. were taken as sureties that Charles II. had learned moderation in the school of exile; and his return could have nothing humiliating, for it was the nation itself that recalled its sovereign. Every party that had opposed the dynasty of the Stuarts had failed in the attempt to give England a government; the constitutional royalists, the Presbyterians, the Independents, the Long Parliament, the army, had all in their turn been unsuccessful; the English, preserving a latent zeal for their ancient liberties, were at the time carried away with a passionate enthusiasm for their hereditary king. The Long Parliament is reassembled; the Presbyterians, expelled before the trial of Charles, resume their

seats; and the parliament is dissolved, to be succeeded by a new assembly. The king's return is at hand. They who had been its tardiest advocates endeavor to throw oblivion on their hesitancy by the excess of loyalty; men vie with one another in eagerness for the restoration; no one of them is disposed to gain the certain ill-will of the monarch by proposing conditions which might not be seconded; they forget their country in their zeal for the king; they forget liberty in their eagerness to advance their fortunes; a vague proclamation on the part of Charles II., promising a general amnesty, fidelity to the Protestant religion, regard for tender consciences, and respect for the English laws, was the only pledge from the sovereign. And now that peace dawns, after twenty years of storms, all England was in ecstasy. Groups of men gathered round buckets of wine in the streets, and drank the king's health on their knees. The bells in every steeple rung merry peals; the bonfires round London were so numerous and brilliant that the city seemed encircled with a halo; and under a clear sky, with a favoring wind, the path of the exiled monarch homeward to the kingdom of his fathers was serene. As he landed on the soil of England, he was received by infinite crowds with all imaginable love. The shouting and general joy were past imagination. On the journey from Dover to London, the hillocks all the way were covered with people; the trees were filled; and such was the prodigality of flowers from maidens, such the acclamations from throngs of men, the whole kingdom seemed gathered along the roadsides. The companies of the city welcomed the king with loud thanks to God for his presence.

The tall and swarthy grandson of Henry IV. of France was of a disposition which, had he preserved purity of morals, would have made him one of the most amiable of men. It was his misfortune, in very early life, to have become thoroughly debauched in mind and heart; and adversity, the rugged nurse of virtue, made the selfish libertine more reckless. Attached to the faith of his mother, he had no purpose so seriously at heart as the restoration of the Catholic worship in England; but even this intention could not raise him above his natural languor. Did the English commons impeach Clarendon,

Charles II. could think of nothing but how to get the duchess of Richmond to court again. Was the Dutch war signalized by disasters, "the king did still follow his women as much as ever," and took more pains to reconcile the rival beauties of his court than to save his kingdom. He was incapable of steady application, read imperfectly, and, when drunk, was a good-natured, subservient fool. In the council of state, he played with his dog, never minding the business, or making a speech memorable only for its silliness; and, if he visited the naval magazines, "his talk was equally idle and frothy."

His bounty was that of facility, and left him to be "governed by the women and the rogues about him;" and his placable temper, incapable of strong revenge, was equally incapable of affection. He so loved present tranquillity that he signed the death-warrants of innocent men rather than risk disquiet, though of himself he was reluctant to hang any but republicans. "For God's sake, send for a Catholic priest," said he, on the last morning of his life, in the desire for absolution; but checked himself, lest he should expose the duke of York to danger. He pardoned all his enemies, no doubt sincerely. The queen sent to beg forgiveness for any offences. "Alas, poor woman, she beg my pardon !" he replied: "I beg hers with all my heart; take back to her that answer."

On the favor of this dissolute king of England depended the liberties of New England, where dissoluteness was held a crime and adultery punished by death on the gallows.

VOL. I.-24

CHAPTER II.

THE NAVIGATION ACTS.

THE republican revolution in England set in motion the ideas of popular liberty which the experience of happier ages was to devise ways of introducing into the political life of the nation. The swift and immoderate loyalty of the moment doomed the country to the necessity of a new revolution.

All the regicides that were caught would have perished but for Charles II., whom good nature led at last to exclaim: "I am tired of hanging, except for new offences." Haste was, however, made to despatch at least half a score, as if to appease the shade of Charles I.; and among the selected victims was Hugh Peter, once the minister of Salem, the father-in-law of the younger Winthrop; one whom Roger Williams honored and loved, and whom Milton is supposed to include among

Men whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent

Would have been held in high esteem with Paul.

As a preacher, his homely energy resembled the directness of the earlier divines; in Salem he won general affection; he perseveringly strove to advance the interests and the industry of New England, and assisted in founding its earliest college. Monarchy and episcopacy he had repelled with fanatical passion, but was not a regicide. He could thank God for the massacres of Cromwell in Ireland; yet was benevolent, and would plead for the rights of the feeble and the poor. "Many godly in New England dared not condemn what he had done.” In October, 1660, on his trial, he was allowed no counsel; and even false witnesses did not substantiate the specific charges urged against him. "Go home to New England, and trust God