"SIR,--I see you are greatly scandalized at our slow and confused
Proceedings. I confess you have cause enough; but were you but
within these walls for one half day, and saw the strange make and
complexion that this house is of, you would wonder as much that ever
you wondered at it; for we are such a pied Parliament, that none can
say of what colour we are; for we consist of Old Cavaliers, Old
Round-Heads, Indigent-Courtiers, and true Country Gentlemen: the two
latter are most numerous, and would in probability bring things to
some issue were they not clogged with the numerous uncertainties of
the former. For the Old Cavalier, grown aged, and almost past his
vice, is damnable godly and makes his doting piety more a plague to
the world than his debauchery was, for he is so much a by-got to the
B(ishop) that he forces his Loyalty to strike sail to his Religion,
and could be content to pare the nails a little of the Civil
Government, so you would but let him sharpen the Ecclesiastical
Talons: which behaviour of his so exasperates the Round-Head, that
he on the other hand cares not what increases the Interest of the
Crown receives, so he can but diminish that of the miter: so that
the Round-Head had rather enslave the Man than the Conscience: the
Cavalier rather the Conscience than the Man; there being a
sufficient stock of animosity as proper matter to work upon. Upon
these, therefore, the Courtier mutually plays, for if any Ante-court
motion be made he gains the Round-Head either to oppose or absent by
telling them, If they will join him now he will join them for
Liberty of Conscience. And when any affair is started on behalf of
the Country he assures the Cavaliers, If they will then stand by him
he will then join with them in promoting a Bill against the
fanatics. Thus play they on both hands.... Wherefore it were happy
that he had neither Round-Head nor Cavalier in the House, for they
are each of them so prejudicate against the other that their sitting
here signifies nothing but their fostering their old venom and lying
at catch to stop every advantage to bear down each other, though it
be in the destruction of their country. For if the Round-Heads bring
in a good bill the Old Cavalier opposes it, for no other reason but
because they brought it in."[98:1]
Such was the theatre of Marvell's public actions for the rest of his
days, and if at times he may need forgiveness for the savagery of his
satire, it ought to be found easy to forgive him.
The two members for Hull were soon immersed in matters of much local
importance. They began by quarrelling with one another, Marvell writing
"the bond of civility betwixt Col. Gilby and myself being unhappily
snappt in pieces, and in such manner that I cannot see how it is
possible ever to knit them again." House of Commons quarrels are usually
soon made up, and so was this one. The custom was for _both_ members to
sign these letters, though they are all written in Marvell's hand--but
if this was for any reason inconvenient, Marvell signed alone. No
letters, unless in Marvell's writing, are preserved at Hull, which is a
curious fact.
One of these bits of local business related to a patent alleged to have
been granted by the Crown to certain persons, authorising them to erect
and maintain _ballast wharfs_ in the various ports, and to make charges
in respect of them. This was resented by the members for the ports, and
on Marvell's motion the matter was referred to the Committee of
Grievances, before whom the patentees were summoned. When they came it
appeared that the patent warranted none of the exactions that had been
demanded, and also that the warrant sent down to Hull naming these
charges was nothing more than a draft framed by the patentees
themselves, and not authorised in any way. The patent was at once
suspended. Marvell, like a true member of Parliament, wishes to get any
little local credit that may be due for such prompt action, and
writes:--
"In this thing (although I count all things I can do for your service
to be mere trifles, and not worth taking notice of in respect of what
I owe you) I must do myself that right to let you know that I, and I
alone, have had the happiness to do that little which hitherto is
effected."
The matter required delicate handling, for a reason Marvell gives:
"Because, if the King's right in placing such impositions should be
weakened, neither should he have power to make a grant of them to you."
Another much longer business related to a lighthouse, which some
outsiders were anxious to build in the Humber. The corporation of Hull,
acting on Marvell's advice, had petitioned the Privy Council, and were
asked by their business-like member "to send us up a dormant credit for
an hundred pound, which we yet indeed have no use of, but if need be
must have ready at hand to reward such as will not otherwise befriend
your business." Some months later Marvell forwards an account, not of
the ￡100, but of the legal expenses about the lighthouse. He wishes it
were less, but hopes that the "vigorous resistance" will discourage the
designers from proceeding farther. This it did not do. As a member of
the bar, I find two or three of the items in this old-world Bill of
Costs interesting:--
To Mr. Scroggs to attend the Council, ￡3 6 0
" " " again for the same, 3 6 0
Spent on Mr. Scroggs at dinner, 18 0
To Mr. Scroggs again, 3 0 0
Fees of the Council Table, 1 10 0
Fee to Clerk of the Council, 2 0 0
For dinner for Mr. Scroggs and wine after, 1 0 0
To Mr. Cresset (the Solicitor), 20 0 0
To Mr. Scroggs for a dinner, 1 0 0
The barrister who was so frequently "refreshed" by Marvell lived to
become "the infamous Lord Chief Justice Scroggs" of all school
histories.
A week before the prorogation of Parliament, which happened on the 19th
of May 1662, Marvell went to Holland and remained there for nine months,
for he did not return until the very end of March 1663, more than a
month after the reassembling of the House.
What took him there nobody knows. Writing to the Trinity House about the
lighthouse business on the 8th of May 1662, Marvell says:--
"But that which troubles me is that by the interest of some persons
too potent for me to refuse, and who have a great direction and
influence upon my counsels and fortune, I am obliged to go beyond
sea before I have perfected it (_i.e._ the lighthouse business). But
first I do thereby make my Lord Carlisle (who is a member of the
Privy Council and one of them to whom your business is referred)
absolutely yours. And my journey is but into Holland, from whence I
shall weekly correspond as if I were at London with all the rest of
my friends, towards the affecting your business. Then I leave Col.
Gilbey there, whose ability for business and affection to yours is
such that I cannot be wanted though I am missing."
It is plain from this that Lord Carlisle is one of the powerful persons
referred to--but beyond this we cannot go.
Whilst in Holland Marvell wrote both to the Trinity House and to the
corporation on business matters.
In March 1663 Marvell came back in a hurry, some complaints having been
made in Hull about his absence. He begins his first letter after his
return as follows:--
"Being newly arrived in town and full of business, yet I could not
neglect to give you notice that this day (2nd April 1663) I have been
in the House and found my place empty, though it seems, as I now
hear, that some persons would have been so courteous as to have
filled it for me."
In none of these letters is any reference made to the debates in the
House on the unhappy Bill of Uniformity, nor does any record of those
discussions anywhere exist. The Savoy Conference proved a failure, and
no lay reader of Baxter's account of it can profess wonder. Not a single
point in difference was settled. In the meantime the restored Houses of
Convocation, from which the Presbyterian members were excluded, had
completed their revision of the Book of Common Prayer and presented it
to Parliament.
In considering the Bill for Uniformity, the House of Lords, where
Presbyterianism was powerfully represented, showed more regard for those
"tender consciences" to which the king (by the new Prayer Book called
for the first time "our most religious King") had referred in his Breda
Declaration than did the House of Commons. "The Book, the whole Book,
and nothing but the Book" was, in effect, the cry of the lower House,
and on the 19th of May, ten days after Marvell had left for the
Continent, the Act of Uniformity became law, and by the 24th of August
1662 all beneficed ministers and schoolmasters had to make the
celebrated subscription and profession, or go out into the wilderness.
There has always been a dispute as to the physical possibility of
perusing the compilation in question before the day fixed by the
Statute. The Book was advertised for sale in London on the 6th of
August, but how many copies were actually available on that day is not
known.
The Dean and Chapter of Peterborough did not get their copies until the
17th of August. When the new folios reached the lonely parsonages of
Cumberland and Durham--who would care to say? The Act required a verbal
avowal of "unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything contained
and prescribed in and by the Book of Common Prayer, and administrations
of the Sacraments and other rites and ceremonies of the Church according
to the use of the Church of England, together with the Psalter, and the
form of manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating Bishops, Priests,
and Deacons" to be made after the service upon "some Lord's day" before
the Feast of St. Bartholomew, _i.e._ the 24th of August 1662. The Act
also required subscription within the same time-limit to a declaration
of (_inter alia_) uniformity to the Liturgy of the Church of England "as
it is now by law established."
That this haste was indecent no layman is likely to dispute, but that it
wrought practical wrong is doubtful. The Vicar of Bray needed no time to
read his new Folio to enable him to make whatever avowal concerning it
the law demanded; and as for signing the declaration, all he required
for that purpose was pen and ink. Neither had the incumbent, who was a
good churchman at heart, any doubts to settle. He rejoiced to know that
his side was once more uppermost, and that it would be no longer
necessary for him, in order to retain his living, to pretend to tolerate
a Presbyterian, or to submit to read in his church the Directory of
Public Worship. Convocation had approved the new Prayer Book, which was
in substance the old one, and what more did any churchman require? As
for the Presbyterians and others who were in possession of livings, the
failure of the Savoy Conference must have made it plain to them that the
Church of England had not allowed the king to keep his word, that
compromise and comprehension had failed, and that if they were to remain
where they were, it could only be on terms of completely severing
themselves from all other Protestant bodies in the world, and becoming
thorough Episcopalians. No Presbyterian of any eminence was prepared to
make the statutory avowal. Painful as it always must be to give up any
good thing by a fixed date, it is hard to see what advantage would have
accrued from delay.
When the day came, some two thousand parsons were turned out of the
Church of England. Among them were included many of the most devout and
some of the most learned of our divines. Their "coming in" had been
irregular, their "going out" was painful.
Save so far as it turned these men out, the Act was a failure. It did
not procure that uniformity in the public worship of God which it
declared was so desirable; it prevented no scandal; it arrested no
decay; it allayed no distemper, and it certainly did not settle the
peace of the Church. Inside the Church the bishops were supine, the
parochial clergy indifferent, and the worshippers, if such a name can
properly be bestowed upon the congregations, were grossly irreverent.
Nor was any improvement in the conduct of the Church service noticeable
until after the Revolution, and when legislation had conceded a somewhat
shabby measure of toleration to those who by that time had become rigid,
traditional, and hereditary dissenters. Then indeed some attempts began
to be made to secure a real uniformity of ritual in the public worship
of the Church of England.[104:1] How far success has rewarded these
exertions it is not for me to say.
Marvell did not remain long at home after his return from Holland. A
strange adventure lay before him. He thus introduces it in a letter
dated 20th June 1663:--
"GENTLEMEN, MY VERY WORTHY FRIENDS,--The relation I have to your
affairs, and the intimacy of that affection I ow you, do both
incline and oblige me to communicate to you, that there is a
probability I may very shortly have occasion to go beyond sea; for
my Lord of Carlisle being chosen by his Majesty, Embassadour
Extraordinary to Muscovy, Sweden, and Denmarke, hath used his power,
which ought to be very great with me, to make me goe along with him
Secretary in those embassages. It is no new thing for Members of our
House to be dispens'd with for the service of the King and Nation in
forain parts. And you may be sure that I will not stirre without
speciall leave of the House; that so you may be freed from any
possibility of being importuned or tempted to make any other choice,
in my absence. However, I can not but advise also with you, desiring
to take your assent along with me, so much esteeme I have both of
your prudence and friendship. The time allotted for the embassy is
not much above a yeare: probably it may not be much less betwixt our
adjournment and next meeting; and, however, you have Colonell Gilby,
to whom my presence can make litle addition, so that if I cannot
decline this voyage, I shall have the comfort to believe, that, all
things considered, you cannot thereby receive any disservice. I
shall hope to receive herein your speedy answer...."
What was the "power" Lord Carlisle had over Marvell is not now
discoverable, but the tie, whatever it may have been, was evidently a
close one.
A month after this letter Marvell started on his way.
"GENTLEMEN, MY VERY WORTHY FRIENDS,--Being this day taking barge for
Gravesend, there to embark for Archangel, so to Muscow, thence for
Sweden, and last of all Denmarke; all of which I hope, by God's
blessing, to finish within twelve moneths time: I do hereby, with my
last and seriousest thoughts, salute you, rendring you all hearty
thanks for your great kindnesse and friendship to me upon all
occasions, and ardently beseeching God to keep you all in His
gracious protection, to your own honour, and the welfare and
flourishing of your Corporation, to which I am and shall ever
continue a most affectionate and devoted servant. I undertake this
voyage with the order and good liking of his Majesty, and by leave
given me from the House and enterd in the Journal; and having
received moreover your approbation, I go therefore with more ease
and satisfaction of mind, and augurate to myselfe the happier
successe in all my proceedings...."
It was Marvell's good fortune to be in Lord Carlisle's frigate which
made the voyage to Archangel in less than a month, sailing from
Gravesend on the 22nd of July and arriving at the bar of Archangel on
the 19th of August. The companion frigate took seven weeks to compass
the same distance.
Nothing of any importance attaches to this Russian embassy. It cost a
great deal of money, took up a great deal of time, exposed the
ambassador and his suite to much rudeness and discomfort, and failed to
effect its main object, which was to secure a renewal of the privileges
formerly enjoyed in Muscovy by British merchants.
One of the attendants upon the ambassador made a small book out of his
travels, which did not get printed till 1669, when it attracted little
notice. Mr. Grosart was the first of Marvell's many biographers to
discover the existence of this narrative.[106:1] He found it in the
first instance, to use his own language, "in one of good trusty John
Harris' folios of _Travels and Voyages_" (two vols. folio, 1705); but
later on he made the sad discovery that this "good trusty John Harris"
had uplifted what he called his "true and particular account" from the
book of 1669 without any acknowledgment. "For ways that are dark" the
old compiler of travels was not easily excelled, but why should Mr.
Grosart have gone out of his way to call an eighteenth-century
book-maker, about whom he evidently knew nothing, "good and trusty"?
Harris was never either the one or the other, and died a pauper!
A journey to Moscow in 1663-64 was no joke. Lord Carlisle, who was
accompanied by his wife and eldest son, although ready to start from
Archangel by the end of September, was doomed to spend both the 5th of
November and Christmas Day in the gloomy town of Vologda, which they had
reached, travelling by water, on the 17th of October. Some of this time
was spent in quarrelling as to who was to supply the sledges that were
required to convey the ambassador and all his _impedimenta_ along the
now ice-bound roads to Moscow. It was one of Marvell's many duties to
remonstrate with the authorities for their cruel and disrespectful
indifference; he did so with great freedom, but with no effect, and at
last the ambassador was obliged to hire two hundred sledges at his own
charges. Sixty he sent on ahead, following with one hundred and forty on
the 15th of January 1664. It was an intensely cold journey, and the
accommodation at night, with one happy exception, proved quite infamous.
On the 3rd of February Lord Carlisle and his _cortege_ found themselves
five versts from Moscow. The 5th of February was fixed for their entry
into the city in all their finery. They were ready on the morning of
that day, awaiting the arrival of the Tsar's escort, but it never came.
Lord Carlisle had sent his cooks on to Moscow to prepare the dinner he
expected to eat in his city-quarters. Nightfall approached, and it was
not till "half an hour before night" that the belated messengers
arrived, full of excuses. The ambassador was hungry, cold, and furious,
nor did his anger abate when told he was not to be allowed to enter
Moscow that night, as the Tsar and his ladies were very anxious to
enjoy the spectacle. The return of the cooks from Moscow and the
preparation of dinner, though a mitigation, was no cure for wounded
pride, and Lord Carlisle, calling Marvell to his side, and with his
assistance, concocted a letter in Latin to the Tsar, complaining
bitterly of their ill-treatment _inter fumosi gurgustii sordes et
angustias sine cibo aut potu_, and going so far as to assert that had
anything of the kind happened in England to a foreign ambassador, the
King of England would never have rested until the offence had been
atoned for with the blood of the criminals. When, some forty years
afterwards, Peter the Great asked Queen Anne to chop off the heads of
the rude men who had arrested his ambassador for debt, he had, perhaps,
Marvell's letter before him.
On the 6th of February Lord Carlisle and his suite made their public
entry into Moscow; but so long a time was occupied over the few versts
they had to travel, that it was dusk before the Kremlin was reached.
The formal reception of the ambassador was on the 11th of February.
Marvell was in the ambassador's sledge and carried his credentials upon
a yard of red damask. The titles of the Russian Potentate would, if
printed here, fill half a page. All the Russias, Great, Little, and
White, emperies more than one, dukedoms by the dozen, territories,
countries, and dominions--not all easy to identify on the map, and very
hard to pronounce--were read out in a loud voice by Marvell. At the end
of them came the homely title of the Earl and his offices, "his
Majesty's Lieutenant in the Counties of Cumberland and Westmorland."
The letters read and delivered, the Tsar and his Boyars rose in their
places simultaneously, and their tissue vests made so strange, loud, and
unexpected a noise as to provoke the ever too easily moved risibility
of the Englishmen.[109:1] When Marvell and the rest of them had ceased
from giggling, the Tsar inquired after the health of the king, but the
distance between his Imperial Majesty and Lord Carlisle being too great
for the question to carry, it had to be repeated by those who were
nearer the ambassador, who gravely replied that when he last saw his
master, namely on the 20th of July then last past, he was perfectly
well. To the same question as to the health of "the desolate widow of
Charles the First," Carlisle returned the same cautious answer. He then
read a very long speech in English, which his interpreter turned into
Russian. The same oration was rendered into Latin by Marvell, and
presented. Over Marvell's Latin trouble arose, for the Russians were
bent on taking and giving offence. Marvell had styled the Tsar
_Illustrissimus_ when he ought, so it was alleged, to have called him
_Serenissimus_. Marvell was not a schoolmaster's son, an old scholar of
Trinity, and Milton's assistant as Latin Secretary for nothing. He
prepared a reply which, as it does not lack humour, has a distinct
literary flavour, and is all that came of the embassy, may here be given
at length:--
"I reply, saith he, that I sent no such paper into the
Embassy-office, but upon the desire of his Tzarskoy Majesty's
Councellor Evan Offonassy Pronchissof, I delivered it to him, not
being a paper of State, nor written in the English Language wherein I
treat, nor put into the hands of the near Boyars and Councellors of
his Tzarskoy majesty, nor subscribed by my self, nor translated into
Russe by my Interpreter, but only as a piece of curiosity, which is
now restored me, and I am possessed of it; so that herein his
Tzarskoy majestie's near Boyars and Councellors are doubtless ill
grounded. But again I say concerning the value of the words
_Illustrissimus_ and _Serenissimus_ compared together, seeing we must
here from affaires of State, fall into Grammatical contests
concerning the Latin tongue; that the word _Serenus_ signifieth
nothing but still and calm; and, therefore, though of late times
adopted into the Titles of great Princes by reason of that benigne
tranquility which properly dwells in the majestick countenance of
great Princes, and that venerable stillness of all the Attendants
that surround them, of which I have seen an excellent example when I
was in the presence of his Tzarskoy majesty, yet is more properly
used concerning the calmness of the weather, or season. So that even
the night is elegantly called _Serena_ by the best Authors, Cicero in
Arato 12, Lucretius i. l. 29. '_Serena nox_'; and upon perusing again
what I have writ in this paper, I finde that I have out of the
customariness of that expression my self near the beginning said, And
that most serene night, &c. Whereas on the contrary _Illustris_ in
its proper derivation and signification expresseth that which is all
resplendent, lightsome, and glorious, as well without as within, and
that not with a secondary but with a primitive and original light.
For if the Sun be, as he is, the first fountain of light, and Poets
in their expressions (as is well known) are higher by much than those
that write in Prose, what else is it when Ovid in the 2. of the
Metamorphoses saith of Phoebus speaking with Phaethon, _Qui terque
quaterque concutiens Illustre caput_, and the Latin Orators, as
Pliny, Ep. 139, when they would say the highest thing that can be
exprest upon any subject, word it thus, _Nihil Illustrius dicere
possum_. So that hereby may appear to his Tzarskoy Majestie's near
Boyars and Counsellors what diminution there is to his Tzarskoy
Majesty (which farr be it from my thoughts) if I appropriate
_Serenissimus_ to my Master and _Illustrissimus_ to Him than which
_nihil dici potest Illustrius_. But because this was in the time of
the purity of the Latin tongue, when the word _Serenus_ was never
used in the Title of any Prince or Person, I shall go on to deale
with the utmost candor, forasmuch as in this Nation the nicety of
that most eloquent language is not so perfectly understood, which
gives occasion to these mistakes. I confess therefore that indeed in
the declination of the Latin tongue, and when there scarce could be
found out words enough to supply the modern ambition of Titles,
Serenissimus as several other words hath grown in fashion for a
compellation of lesser as well as greater Princes, and yet befits
both the one and the other. So there is _Serenissima Respublica
Veneta_, _Serenitates Electoriæ_, _Serenitates Regiæ_, even as the
word Highness or _Celsitudo_ befits a Duke, a Prince, a King, or an
Emperour, adjoyning to it the respective quality, and so the word
_Illustris_. But suppose it were by modern use (which I deny)
depressed from the undoubted superiority that it had of _Serenus_ in
the purest antiquity, yet being added in the transcendent degree to
the word Emperour, the highest denomination that a Prince is capable
of, it becomes of the same value. So that to interpret
_Illustrissimus_ unto diminution is to find a positive in a
superlative, and in the most orient light to seek for darkness. And I
would, seeing the near Boyars and Counsellors of his Tzarskoy Majesty
are pleased to mention the Title given to his Tzarskoy Majesty by his
Cesarian Majesty, gladly be satisfied by them, whether ever any
Cesarian Majesty writ formerly hither in High-Dutch, and whether then
they styled his Tzarskoy Majesty Durchluchtigste which is the same
with _Illustrissimus_, and which I believe the Cæsar hath kept for
Himself. But to cut short, his Royal Majesty hath used the word to
his Tzarskoy Majesty in his Letter, not out of imitation of others,
although even in the Dutch Letter to his Tzarskoy Majesty of 16 June
1663, I finde Durchlauchtigste the same (as I said) with
_Illustrissimus_, but out of the constant use of his own Court,
further joyning before it Most High, Most Potent, and adding after it
Great Lord Emperour, which is an higher Title than any Prince in the
World gives his Tzarskoy Majesty, and as high a Title of honour as
can be given to any thing under the Divinity. For the King my Master
who possesses as considerable Dominions, and by as high and
self-dependent a right as any Prince in the Universe, yet contenting
Himself with the easiest Titles, and satisfying Himself in the
essence of things, doth most willingly give to other Princes the
Titles which are appropriated to them, but to the Tzarskoy Majesties
of Russia his Royal Ancestors, and to his present Tzarskoy Majesty
his Royal Majesty himself, have usually and do gladly pay Titles even
to superfluity out of meer kindness. And upon that reason He added
the word most Illustrious, and so did I use it in the Latin of my
speech. Yet, that You may find I did not out of any criticisme of
honor, but for distinction sake use it as I did, You may see in one
place of the same speech _Serenitas_, speaking of his Tzarskoy
Majesty: and I would have used _Serenissimus_ an hundred times
concerning his Tzarskoy Majesty, had I thought it would have pleased
Him better. And I dare promise You that his Majesty will upon the
first information from me stile him _Serenissimus_, and I
(notwithstanding what I have said) shall make little difficulty of
altering the word in that speech, and of delivering it so to You,
with that protestation that I have not in using that word
_Illustrissimus_ erred nor used any diminution (which God forbid) to
his Tzarskoy Majesty, but on the contrary after the example of the
King my Master intended and shewed him all possible honor. And so God
grant all happiness to His most high, most Potent, most Illustrious,
and most Serene Tzarskoy Majesty, and that the friendship may daily
increase betwixt His said Majesty and his most Serene Majesty my
Master."
On the 19th of February the Tsar invited Lord Carlisle and his suite to
a dinner, which, beginning at two o'clock, lasted till eleven, when it
was prematurely broken up by the Tsar's nose beginning to bleed. Five
hundred dishes were served, but there were no napkins, and the
table-cloths only just covered the boards. There were Spanish wines,
white and red mead, Puaz and strong waters. The English ambassador was
not properly placed at table, not being anywhere near the Tsar, and his
faithful suite shared his resentment. Time went on, but no diplomatic
progress was made. The Tsar would not renew the privileges of the
British merchants; Easter was spent in Moscow, May also--and still
nothing was done. Carlisle, in a huff, determined to go away, and,
somewhat to the distress of his followers, refused to accept the costly
sables sent by the Tzar, not only to the ambassador, Lady Carlisle, and
Lord Morpeth, but to the secretaries and others. The Tzar thereupon
returned the plate which our king had sent him, which plate Lord
Carlisle seems to have appropriated, no doubt with diplomatic
correctness, as his perquisite in lieu of the sables; but the suite got
nothing.
The embassy left Moscow on the 24th of June for Novgorod and Riga, and
after visiting Stockholm and Copenhagen, Lord Carlisle and Marvell
reached London on the 30th of January 1665.
During Marvell's absence war had been declared with the Dutch. It was
never difficult to go to war with the Dutch. The king was always in want
of money, and as no proper check existed over war supplies, he took what
he wanted out of them. The merchants on 'Change desired war, saying that
the trade of the world was too little for both England and Holland, and
that one or the other "must down." The English manufacturers, who felt
the sting of their Dutch competitors, were always in favour of war. Then
the growing insolence of the Dutch in the Indies was not to be borne.
Stories were circulated how the Hollanders had proclaimed themselves
"Lords of the Southern Seas," and meant to deny English ships the right
of entry in that quarter of the globe. A baronet called on Pepys and
pulled out of his pocket letters from the East Indies, full of sad tales
of Englishmen having been actually thrashed inside their own factory at
Surat by swaggering Dutchmen, who had insulted the flag of St. George,
and swore they were going to be the masters "out there." Pepys, who
knew a little about the state of the royal navy, listened sorrowfully
and was content to hope that the war would not come until "we are more
ready for it."
In the House of Commons the prudent men were against the war, and were
at once accused of being in the pay of the Dutch. The king's friends
were all for the war, and nobody doubted that some of the money voted
for it would find its way into their pockets, or at all events that
pensions would reward their fidelity. A third group who favoured the war
were supposed to do so because their disloyalty and fanaticism always
disposed them to trouble the waters in which they wished to fish.
The war began in November 1664, and on the 24th of that month the king
opened Parliament and demanded money. He got it. Clarendon describes how
Sir Robert Paston from Norfolk, a back-bench man, "who was no frequent
speaker, but delivered what he had a mind to say very clearly," stood up
and proposed a grant of two and a half million pounds, to be spread over
three years. So huge a sum took the House by surprise. Nobody spoke;
"they sat in amazement." Somebody at last found his voice and moved a
much smaller sum, but no one seconded him. Sir Robert Paston ultimately
found supporters, "no man who had any relation to the Court speaking a
word." The Speaker put Sir Robert Paston's motion as the question, "and
the affirmative made a good sound, and very few gave their negative
aloud." But Clarendon adds, "it was notorious very many sat silent."
The war was not in its early stages unpopular, being for the control of
the sea, for the right of search, for the fishing trade, for mastery of
the "gorgeous East." The Admiralty had been busy, and a hundred
frigates, well gunned, were ready for the blue water by February 1665.
The Duke of York, who took the command, was a keen sailor, though his
unhappy notions as to patronage, and its exercise, were fatal to an
efficient service. On the 3rd of June the duke had his one victory; it
was off the roadstead of Harwich, and the roar of his artillery was
heard in Westminster. It was a fierce fight; the king's great friend,
Charles Berkeley, just made a peer and about to be made a duke, Lord
Muskerry and young Richard Boyle, all on the duke's ship the _Royal
Charles_, were killed by one shot, their blood and brains flying in the
duke's face. The Earls of Marlborough and Portland were killed. The
gallant Lawson, who rose from the ranks in Cromwell's time, an
Anabaptist and a Republican, but still in high command, received on
board his ship, the _Royal Oak_, a fatal wound. On the other side the
Dutch admiral, Opdam, was blown into the air with his ship and crew. The
Dutch fleet was scattered, and fled, after a loss estimated at
twenty-four ships and eight thousand men killed and wounded; England
lost no ship and but six hundred men.
The victory was not followed up. Some say the duke lost nerve. Tromp was
allowed to lead a great part of the fleet away in safety, and when the
great De Ruyter was recalled from the West Indies he was soon able to
assume the command of a formidable number of fighting craft.
In less than ten days after this great engagement the plague appeared in
London, a terrible and a solemnising affliction, lasting the rest of the
year. It was at its worst in September, when in one week more than seven
thousand died of it. The total number of its dead is estimated at
sixty-eight thousand five hundred and ninety-six.
On account of the plague Parliament was summoned to meet at Oxford in
October 1665.
Marvell must have reached Oxford in good time, for the Admission Book of
the Bodleian records his visit to the library on the last day of
September. His first letter from Oxford is dated 15th October, and in it
he tells the corporation that the House, "upon His Majesty's
representation of the necessity of further supplies in reference to the
Dutch War and probability of the French embracing their interests, hath
voted the King ￡1,250,000 additional to be levied in two years." The
king, who was the frankest of mortals in speech, though false as Belial
in action, told the House that he had already spent all the money
previously voted and must have more, especially if France was to prefer
the friendship of Holland to his. Amidst loud acclamations the money was
voted. The French ambassadors, who were in Oxford, saw for themselves
the temper of Parliament.
Notwithstanding the terrible plight of the capital, Oxford was gaiety
itself. The king was accompanied by his consort, who then was hopeful of
an heir, and also by Lady Castlemaine and Miss Stewart. Lady Castlemaine
did not escape the shaft of University wit, for a stinging couplet was
set up during the night on her door, for the discovery of the authorship
of which a reward of ￡1000 was offered. It may very well have been
Marvell's.[116:1]
The Duke of Monmouth gave a ball to the queen and her ladies, where,
after the queen's retirement, "Mrs. Stewart was extraordinary merry,"
and sang "French songs with great skill."[116:2]
Ten Acts of Parliament received the royal assent at Oxford, of which
but one is still remembered in certain quarters--the Five Mile Act,
which Marvell briefly describes as an Act "for debarring ejected
Nonconformists from living in or near Corporations (where they had
formerly pursued their callings), unless taking the new Oath and
Declaration." Parliament was prorogued at the end of October.
Another visitation of Providence was soon to befall the capital. On
Sunday morning, the 2nd of September, Pepys was aroused by one of his
maid-servants at 3 A.M. to look at a fire. He could not make out much
about it and went to bed again, but when he rose at seven o'clock it was
still burning, so he left his house and made his way to the Tower, from
whence he saw London Bridge aflame, and describes how the poor pigeons,
loth to leave their homes, fluttered about the balconies, until with
singed wings they fell into the flames. After gazing his fill he went to
Whitehall and had an interview with the king, who at once ordered his
barge and proceeded downstream to his burning City, and to the
assistance of a distracted Lord Mayor.
The fire raged four days, and made an end of old London, a picturesque
and even beautiful City. St. Paul's, both the church and the school, the
Royal Exchange, Ludgate, Fleet Street as far as the Inner Temple, were
by the 7th of the month smoking ruins. Four hundred streets, eighty-nine
churches (just a church an hour, so the curious noted), warehouses
unnumbered with all their varied contents, whole editions of books,
valuable and the reverse of valuable, were wiped out of existence. Rents
to an enormous amount ceased to be represented any longer by the houses
that paid them. How was the king to get his chimney-money? How were
merchants to meet their obligations? The parsons on Sunday, the 9th of
September, ought to have had no difficulty in finding texts for their
sermons. Pepys went to church twice, but without edification, and
certainly Dean Harding, whom he heard complaining in the evening "that
the City had been reduced from a folio to a duo decimo," hardly rose to
the dignity of the occasion.
Strange to say, not a life was actually lost in the fire,[118:1] though
some old Londoners (among them Edmund Calamy's grandfather) died of
grief, and others (and among them Shirley the dramatist and his wife)
from exposure and exhaustion. One hysterical foreigner, who insisted
that he lit the flame, was executed, though no sensible man believed
what he said. It was long the boast of the merchants of London that no
one of their number "broke" in consequence of the great fire.
Unhappily the belief was widespread, as that "tall bully," the monument,
long testified, that the fire was the work of the Roman Catholics, and
aliens, suspected of belonging to our old religion, found it dangerous
to walk the streets whilst the embers still smoked, which they continued
to do for six months.
The meeting of Parliament was a little delayed in consequence of this
national disaster, and when it did meet at the end of the month, Marvell
reports the appointment of two Committees, one "about the Fire of
London," and the other "to receive informations of the insolence of the
Popish priests and Jesuits, and of the increase of Popery." The latter
Committee almost at once reported to the House, to quote from Marvell's
letter of the 27th of October, "that his Majesty be desired to issue out
his proclamation that all Popish priests and Jesuits, except such as not
being natural-born subjects, or belong to the Queen Mother and Queen
Consort, be banished in thirty days or else the law be executed upon
them, that all Justices of Peace and officers concerned put the laws in
execution against Papists and suspected Papists in order to their
execution, and that all officers, civil or military, not taking the
Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance within twenty days be displaced."
In a very real sense the great fire of London continued to smoke for
many a weary year, and to fill the air with black suspicions and civil
discord.
Parliament had not sat long before it was discovered that a change had
taken place in its temper and spirit. The plague and the fire had
contributed to this change. The London clergy had not exhibited great
devotion during the former affliction. Many of the incumbents deserted
their flocks, and their empty pulpits had been filled by zealots, who
preached "Woe unto Jerusalem." The profligacy of the Court, and the
general decay of manners, when added to the severity of the legislation
against the Nonconformists, gave the ejected clergy opportunities for a
renewal of their spiritual ministrations, and as usual their labours,
_pro salute animarum_, aroused political dissatisfaction. Some of the
more outrageous supporters of the royal prerogative, the renegade May
among them, professed to see in the fire a punishment upon the spirit of
freedom, for which the City had once been famous, and urged the king not
to suffer it to be rebuilt again "to be a bit in his mouth and a bridle
upon his neck, but to keep it all open," and that his troops might enter
whenever he thought necessary, "there being no other way to govern that
rude multitude but by force."
Rabid nonsense of this kind had no weight with the king, who never
showed his native good sense more conspicuously than in the pains he
took over the rebuilding of London; but none the less it had its effect
in getting rid once and for ever of that spirit of excessive (besotted
is Hallam's word) loyalty which had characterised the Restoration.
The king, of course, wanted money, nor was Parliament disposed to refuse
it, we being still at war with Holland; but to the horror of that
elderly pedant, Lord Clarendon, the Commons passed a Bill appointing a
commission of members of both Houses "to inspect"--I am now quoting
Marvell--"and examine thoroughly the former expense of the ￡2,800,000,
of the ￡1,250,000 of the Militia money, of the prize goods, etc." In an
earlier letter Marvell attributes the new temper of Parliament, "not to
any want of ardour to supply the public necessities, but out of our
House's sense also of the burden to be laid upon the subject." Clarendon
was so alarmed that he advised a dissolution. Charles was alarmed, too,
knowing well that both Carteret, the Treasurer of the Navy, and Lord
Ashley, the Treasurer of the Prize Money, issued out many sums upon the
king's warrant, for which no accounts could be produced, but he was
still more frightened of a new Parliament. In the present Parliament he
had, so Clarendon admits, "a hundred members of his own menial servants
and their near relations." The bishops were also against a dissolution,
dreading the return of Presbyterian members, so Clarendon's advice was
not followed, and the king very reluctantly consented to the commission,
about which Pepys has so much to say. It did not get appointed at once,
but when it did Pepys rejoices greatly that its secretary, Mr. Jessopp,
was "an old fashioned Cromwell man"; in other words, both honest and
efficient.
The shrewd Secretary of the Navy Office here puts his finger on the
real plague-spot of the Restoration. Our Puritan historians write rather
loosely about "the floodgates of dissipation," etc., having been flung
open by that event as if it had wrought a sudden change in human nature.
Mr. Pepys, whose frank Diary begins during the Protectorate, underwent
no such change. He was just the same sinner under Cromwell as he was
under Charles. Sober, grave divines may be found deploring the growing
profligacy of the times long before the 29th of May 1660. An era of
extravagance was evidently to be expected. No doubt the king's return
assisted it. No country could be anything but the worse for having
Charles the Second as its "most religious King." The Restoration of the
Stuarts was the best "excuse for a glass" ever offered to an Englishman.
He availed himself of it with even more than his accustomed freedom. But
it cannot be said that the king's debauchery was ever approved of even
in London. Both the mercurial Pepys and the grave Evelyn alike deplore
it. The misfortune clearly attributable to the king's return was the
substitution of a corrupt, inefficient, and unpatriotic administration
for the old-fashioned servants of the public whom Cromwell had gathered
round him.
Parliament was busy with new taxes. In November 1666 Marvell writes:--
"The Committee has prepared these votes. All persons shall pay one
shilling per poll, all aliens two, all Nonconformists and papists
two, all servants one shilling in the pound of their wages, all
personal estates shall pay for so much as is not already taxed by the
land-tax, after twenty shillings in the hundred. Cattle, corn, and
household furniture shall be excepted, and all such stock-in-trade as
is already taxed by the land-tax, but the rest to be liable."
Stringent work! Later on we read:--
"Three shillings in the pound for all offices and public employments,
except military; lawyers and physicians proportionate to their
practice."
Here is the income-tax long before Mr. Pitt.
The House of Lords, trembling on the verge of a breach of privilege,
altered this Poll Bill. Marvell writes in January 1667:--
"We have not advanced much this week; the alterations of the Lords
upon the Poll Bill have kept us busy. We have disagreed in most.
Aliens we adhere to pay double. Nonconformists we agree with them
_not_ to pay double (126 to 91), to allow no exemptions from patents
to free from paying, we adhere; and we also rejected a long clause
whereby they as well as the Commoners pretend distinctly to give to
the King, and to-day we send up our reasons."
The Lords agreed, and the Bill passed.
Ireland supplied a very stormy measure. I am afraid Marvell was on the
wrong side, but owing to his reserve I am not sure. An Irish Cattle Bill
was a measure very popular in the House of Commons, its object being to
prevent Ireland from sending over live beasts to be fattened, killed,
and consumed in England. You can read all about it in Clarendon's _Life_
(vol. iii. pp. 704-720, 739), and think you are reading about Canadian
cattle to-day. The breeders (in a majority) were on one side, and the
owners of pasture-land on the other. The breeders said the Irish cattle
were bred in Ireland for nothing and transported for little, that they
undersold the English-bred cattle, and consequently "the breed of Cattle
in the Kingdom was totally given over," and rents fell. Other members
contended in their places "that their countries had no land bad enough
to breed, and that their traffic consisted in buying lean cattle and
making them fat, and upon this they paid their rent." Nobody, except the
king, gave a thought to Ireland. He, in this not unworthy of his great
Tudor predecessor, Henry the Eighth, declared he was King of Ireland no
less than of England, and would do nothing to injure one portion of his
dominions for the benefit of another. But as usual he gave way, being in
great straits for money. The House of Lords was better disposed towards
Ireland than the House of Commons, but they too yielded to selfish
clamour, and the Bill, which had excited great fury, became law, and
proved ineffective, owing (as was alleged) to that corruption which
restrictions on trade seem to have the trick of breeding.[123:1]
It is always agreeable to be reminded that however large a part of our
history is composed of the record of passion, greed, delusion, and
stupidity, yet common-sense, the love of order and of justice (in
matters of business), have usually been the predominant factors in our
national life, despite priest, merchant, and party.
Nowhere is this better illustrated than by two measures to which Marvell
refers as Bills "for the prevention of lawsuits between landlord and
tenant" and for "the Rebuilding of London." Both these Bills became law
in February 1668, within five months of the great catastrophe that was
their occasion. Two more sensible, well-planned, well-drawn, courageous
measures were never piloted through both Houses. King, Lords and
Commons, all put their heads together to face a great emergency and to
provide an immediate remedy.
The Bill to prevent lawsuits is best appreciated if we read its
preamble:--
"Whereas the greatest part of the houses in the City of London having
been burnt by the dreadful and dismal fire which happened in
September last, many of the Tenants, under-tenants, and late
occupiers are liable unto suits and actions to compel them to repair
and to rebuild the same, and to pay their rents as if the same had
not been burnt, and are not relievable therefor in any ordinary
course of law; and great differences are likely to arise concerning
the Repairs and rebuilding the said houses, and payment of rents
which, if they should not be determined with speed and without
charge, would much obstruct the rebuilding of the s^d City. And for
that it is just that everyone concerned should bear a proportionate
share of this loss according to their several interests wherein in respect of the multitude of cases, varying in their circumstances, no certain general rule can be prescribed." |
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