Commonwealth (Continued). page 8

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 He reflected - if he refused his commission would be immediately withdrawn, and his plans cut short; he obeyed, and marching into the city, began with all coolness and imperturbability to remove the posts and chains from the streets.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 com- mander-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, and all the chief commands throughout the kingdom, in the hand of the principal nobility and gentry; and only stipulated that no person should be capable of office or command who did not subscribe to the confession - "that the war raised by the two houses of parliament against the late king was just and lawful, until such time as force and violence were used upon the parliament in the year 1648."

But at this point it was contended by the royalists that the house of lords was as much a house as themselves, and that they could not legally summon a new parliament without them; but Monk would listen to nothing of this kind. He declared that as much had been conceded as the country would bear; and the parliament was reluctantly compelled to dissolve itself at the time fixed.

There could certainly be no longer any uncertainty as to whither all this was tending. The royalists were again in full power all over the kingdom, the very insurgents in the cause of Charles were liberated, freed from all penalties, and in many cases advanced to places of trust; yet Monk still dissembled. Ludlow, a stanch republican, on the readmission of the excluded members, went to Monk to sound him as to his intentions, and urged the necessity of supporting the commonwealth, which had cost them so much. Monk replied with solemn hypocrisy, u Yea, we must live and die together for a commonwealth." Yet Monk had now made up his mind: he saw that all was prepared, all perfectly safe, and during the recess he was busy arranging with the king's agents for his return. Immediately on Monk's joyful reception by the city, a Mr. Baillie, who had gone through Cheapside amongst the bonfires, and heard the king's health drunk in various places, and people talking of sending for the king, had posted off to Brussels, where Charles was. On this Sir John Grenville and a Mr. Morrice, a Devonshire royalist, were instantly sent over to Monk, with propositions for the king's return. Clarendon assures us that so early as the beginning of April these gentlemen were in London, and in consultation with Monk, who told them that if the king would write a letter to parliament containing the same statements, he would find a fit time to deliver it, or some other means to serve his majesty; but that Charles must quit Flanders to give his partisans confidence that he was out of the power of the Spaniards, and would be free to act on their call; that he must go to Breda, and date his papers thence.

All this was done, and so little secrecy was observed by the royalists on the continent, that it was immediately known at all the courts that the king was about to be recalled, and Spaniards, Dutch, French princes and ministers, who had treated Charles with the utmost neglect and contempt, now overwhelmed him with compliments, invitations, flatteries, and offers. The Dutch court, where the mother of the young Stadtholder was his sister, had been as uncourteous as the rest, but they now united in receiving him and doing trim honour. Breda already swarmed with English royalists, who flocked from every quarter to pay their court.

All this was observed in England with a complacency which sufficiently indicated that men's minds were made up to the restoration of the monarchy. The ultra-republican party alone, whose zeal never condescended to measure the chances against them, endeavoured to raise the soldiers to oppose the menaced catastrophe. The army had on all former occasions maintained the commonwealth. The emissaries of the republicans, therefore, spread themselves everywhere amongst the soldiers, warning them of the certainty of all their sacrifices, their labours, and their victories being in vain if they did not once more save the state. The old fire revived; the soldiers contemplated the loss of their arrears if the royalists came into power, the officers the loss of their lands and their commands. They began to express vehement discontent, and the officers flocked into the capital and called on Monk to take measures for the maintenance of the commonwealth. He professed to be bound to that object, though he had at the time in his pocket a commission from Charles constituting him lord- general of all the military in the three kingdoms. He ordered the officers to return to their posts, and put an oath of obedience to the parliament to the privates - all who refused it being discharged.

Disappointed in this quarter, the republicans managed to effect the escape of Lambert, who had been committed to the Tower, and who now appeared in Warwickshire, where he induced six troops of horse and some infantry to accept his command. On the approach of general Ingoldsby, however, who was sent against him, his troops deserted him, he was captured, and conducted back to the Tower with every indignity.

On the 25th of April the new parliament assembled; the royalists showed a decided majority, and though the presbyterian party managed to carry the election of Sir Harbottle Grimstone as speaker, the royalist tendency was overwhelming as to the main object. Ten of the peers assembled in their house, and elected the earl of Manchester speaker, and on beholding this the rest of the peers hurried up to town, and soon appeared a full house, excepting such peers as had served in the king's parliament at Oxford, or whose patents dated subsequently to the commencement of the civil war.

But all the interest was concentrated on the proceedings of the house of commons. On the 1st of May Sir John Grenville presented himself at the door of the house, and requested to speak with the lord-general. Monk went to him, and received, as a matter of which he knew nothing, a letter addressed to the speaker. Looking at the seal, and affecting to discover that it bore the royal arms, he ordered the guards to take care that the bearer did not escape. Grenville was speedily called in, and asked how he became possessed of this letter, and on replying that he brought it. from the king, he was ordered into custody as a traitor. But here Monk interfered, saying that this was unnecessary; he perceived that he was a kinsman of his, and would be security for him. The letters were now opened, and proved to be really from the king, one addressed to the commons, another to the lords, a third to the lord mayor and corporation, and the fourth to Monk and Montague, lord-admirals. In the letter to the commons Charles informed them that, in the present unhappy circumstances of the nation, he recommended them to consider whether the only way to restore all to peace and prosperity was not to return to the ancient and time-honoured constitution of king, lords, and commons, under whom the kingdom had flourished so many ages. He 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.