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Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1

T >> Thomas Babington Macaulay >> Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1




Mr. Hallam reprobates, in language which has a little surprised
us, the nineteen propositions into which the Parliament digested
its scheme. Is it possible to doubt that, if James the Second had
remained in the island, and had been suffered, as he probably
would in that case have been suffered, to keep his crown,
conditions to the full as hard would have been imposed on him? On
the other hand, we fully admit that, if the Long Parliament had
pronounced the departure of Charles from London an abdication,
and had called Essex or Northumberland to the throne, the new
prince might have safely been suffered to reign without such
restrictions. His situation would have been a sufficient
guarantee.

In the nineteen propositions we see very little to blame except
the articles against the Catholics. These, however, were in the
spirit of that age; and to some sturdy churchmen in our own, they
may seem to palliate even the good which the Long Parliament
effected. The regulation with respect to new creations of Peers
is the only other article about which we entertain any doubt. One
of the propositions is that the judges shall hold their offices
during good behaviour. To this surely no exception will be taken.
The right of directing the education and marriage of the princes
was most properly claimed by the Parliament, on the same ground
on which, after the Revolution, it was enacted, that no king, on
pain of forfeiting, his throne, should espouse a Papist. Unless
we condemn the statesmen of the Revolution, who conceived that
England could not safely be governed by a sovereign married to a
Catholic queen, we can scarcely condemn the Long Parliament
because, having a sovereign so situated, they thought it
necessary to place him under strict restraints. The influence of
Henrietta Maria had already been deeply felt in political
affairs. In the regulation of her family, in the education and
marriage of her children, it was still more likely to be felt;
There might be another Catholic queen; possibly a Catholic king.
Little, as we are disposed to join in the vulgar clamour on this
subject, we think that such an event ought to be, if possible,
averted; and this could only be done, if Charles was to be left
on the throne, by placing his domestic arrangements under the
control of Parliament.

A veto on the appointment of ministers was demanded. But this
veto Parliament has virtually possessed ever since the
Revolution. It is no doubt very far better that this power of the
Legislature should be exercised as it is now exercised, when any
great occasion calls for interference, than that at every change
the Commons should have to signify their approbation or
disapprobation in form. But, unless a new family had been placed
on the throne, we do not see how this power could have been
exercised as it is now exercised. We again repeat that no
restraints which could be imposed on the princes who reigned
after the Revolution could have added to the security, which
their title afforded. They were compelled to court their
parliaments. But from Charles nothing was to be expected which
was not set down in the bond.

It was not stipulated that the King should give up his negative
on acts of Parliament. But the Commons, had certainly shown a
strong disposition to exact this security also. "Such a
doctrine," says Mr. Hallam, "was in this country as repugnant to
the whole history of our laws, as it was incompatible with the
subsistence of the monarchy in anything more than a nominal
preeminence." Now this article has been as completely carried
into elect by the Revolution as if it had been formally inserted
in the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement. We are
surprised, we confess, that Mr. Hallam should attach so much
importance to a prerogative which has not been exercised for a
hundred and thirty years, which probably will never be exercised
again, and which can scarcely, in any conceivable case, be
exercised for a salutary purpose.

But the great security, the security without which every other
would have been insufficient, was the power of the sword. This
both parties thoroughly understood. The Parliament insisted on
having the command of the militia and the direction of the Irish
war. "By God, not for an hour!" exclaimed the King. "Keep the
militia," said the Queen, after the defeat of the royal party.
"Keep the militia; that will bring back everything." That, by the
old constitution, no military authority was lodged in the
Parliament, Mr. Hallam has clearly shown. That it is a species of
authority which ought, not to be permanently lodged in large and
divided assemblies, must, we think in fairness be conceded.
Opposition, publicity, long discussion, frequent compromise;
these are the characteristics of the proceedings of such
assemblies. Unity, secrecy, decision, are the qualities which
military arrangements require. There were, therefore, serious
objections to the proposition of the Houses on this subject. But,
on the other hand, to trust such a King, at such a crisis, with
the very weapon which, in hands less dangerous, had destroyed so
many free constitutions, would have been the extreme of rashness.
The jealousy with which the oligarchy of Venice and the States of
Holland regarded their generals and armies induced them
perpetually to interfere in matters of which they were
incompetent to judge. This policy secured them against military
usurpation, but placed them, under great disadvantages in war.
The uncontrolled power which the King of France exercised over
his troops enabled him to conquer his enemies, but enabled him
also to oppress his people. Was there any intermediate course?
None, we confess altogether free from objection. But on the
whole, we conceive that the best measure would have been that
which the Parliament over and over proposed, namely, that for a
limited time the power of the sword should be left to the two
Houses, and that it should revert to the Crown when the
constitution should be firmly established, and when the new
securities of freedom should be so far strengthened by
prescription that it would be difficult to employ even a standing
army for the purpose of subverting them.

Mr. Hallam thinks that the dispute might easily have been
compromised, by enacting that, the King should have no power to
keep a standing army on foot without the consent of Parliament.
He reasons as if the question had been merely theoretical, and as
if at that time no army had been wanted. "The kingdom," he says,
"might have well dispensed, in that age, with any military
organisation" Now, we think that Mr. Hallam overlooks the most
important circumstance in the whole case. Ireland was actually in
rebellion; and a great expedition would obviously be necessary to
reduce that kingdom to obedience. The Houses had therefore to
consider, not at abstract question of law, but an urgent
practical question, directly involving the safety of the state.
They had to consider the expediency of immediately giving a great
army to a King who was, at least, as desirous to put down the
Parliament of England as to conquer the insurgents of Ireland.

Of course we do not mean to defend all the measures of the
Houses. Far from it. There never was a perfect man. It would,
therefore, be the height of absurdity to expect a perfect party
or a perfect assembly. For large bodies are far more likely to
err than individuals. The passions are inflamed by sympathy; the
fear of punishment and the sense of shame are diminished by
partition. Every day we see men do for their faction what they
would die rather than do for themselves.

Scarcely any private quarrel ever happens, in which the right and
wrong are so exquisitely divided that all the right lies on one
side, and all the wrong on the other. But here was a schism which
separated a great nation into two parties. Of these parties, each
was composed of many smaller parties. Each contained many
members, who differed far less from their moderate opponents than
from their violent allies. Each reckoned among its supporters
many who were determined in their choice by some accident of
birth, of connection, or of local situation. Each of them
attracted to itself in multitudes those fierce and turbid
spirits, to whom the clouds and whirlwinds of the political
hurricane are the atmosphere of life. A party, like a camp, has
its sutlers and camp-followers, as well as its soldiers. In its
progress it collects round it a vast retinue, composed of people
who thrive by its custom or are amused by its display, who may be
sometimes reckoned, in an ostentatious enumeration, as forming a
part of it, but who give no aid to its operations, and take but a
languid interest in its success, who relax its discipline and
dishonour its flag by their irregularities, and who, after a
disaster, are perfectly ready to cut the throats and rifle the
baggage of their companions.

Thus it is in every great division; and thus it was in our civil
war. On both sides there was, undoubtedly, enough of crime and
enough of error to disgust any man who did not reflect that the
whole history of the species is made up of little except crimes
and errors. Misanthropy is not the temper which qualifies a man
to act in great affairs, or to judge of them.

"Of the Parliament," says Mr. Hallam, "it may be said I think,
with not greater severity than truth, that scarce two or three
public acts of justice, humanity, or generosity, and very few of
political wisdom or courage, are recorded of them, from their
quarrel with the King, to their expulsion by Cromwell." Those
who may agree with us in the opinion which we have expressed as
to the original demands of the Parliament will scarcely concur in
this strong censure. The propositions which the Houses made at
Oxford, at Uxbridge, and at Newcastle, were in strict accordance
with these demands. In the darkest period of the war, they showed
no disposition to concede any vital principle. In the fulness of
their success, they showed no disposition to encroach beyond
these limits. In this respect we cannot but think that they
showed justice and generosity, as well as political wisdom and
courage.

The Parliament was certainly far from faultless. We fully agree
with Mr. Hallam in reprobating their treatment of Laud. For the
individual, indeed, we entertain a more unmitigated contempt
than, for any other character in our history. The fondness with
which a portion of the church regards his memory, can be compared
only to that perversity of affection which sometimes leads a
mother to select the monster or the idiot of the family as the
object of her especial favour, Mr. Hallam has incidentally
observed, that, in the correspondence of Laud with Strafford,
there are no indications of a sense of duty towards God or man.
The admirers of the Archbishop have, in consequence, inflicted
upon the public a crowd of extracts designed to prove the
contrary. Now, in all those passages, we see nothing, which a
prelate as wicked as Pope Alexander or Cardinal Dubois might not
have written. Those passages indicate no sense of duty to God or
man, but simply a strong interest in the prosperity and dignity
of the order to which the writer belonged; an interest which,
when kept within certain limits, does not deserve censure, but
which can never be considered as a virtue. Laud is anxious to
accommodate satisfactorily the disputes in the University of
Dublin. He regrets to hear that a church is used as a stable, and
that the benefices of Ireland are very poor. He is desirous that,
however small a congregation may be, service should be regularly
performed. He expresses a wish that the judges of the court
before which questions of tithe are generally brought should be
selected with a view to the interest of the clergy. All this may
be very proper; and it may be very proper that an alderman should
stand up for the tolls of his borough, and an East India director
for the charter of his Company. But it is ridiculous to say that
these things indicate piety and benevolence. No primate, though
he were the most abandoned of mankind, could wish to see the
body, with the influence of which his own influence was
identical, degraded in the public estimation by internal
dissensions, by the ruinous state of its edifices, and by the
slovenly performance of its rites. We willingly acknowledge that
the particular letters in question have very little harm in them;
a compliment which cannot often be paid either to the writings or
to the actions of Laud.

Bad as the Archbishop was, however, he was not a traitor within
the statute. Nor was he by any means so formidable as to be a
proper subject for a retrospective ordinance of the legislature.
His mind had not expansion enough to comprehend a great scheme,
good or bad. His oppressive acts were not, like those of the
Earl of Strafford, parts of an extensive system. They were the
luxuries in which a mean and irritable disposition indulges
itself from day to day, the excesses natural to a little mind in
a great place. The severest punishment which the two Houses
could have inflicted on him would have been to set him at liberty
and send him to Oxford. There he might have stayed, tortured by
his own diabolical temper, hungering for Puritans to pillory and
mangle, plaguing the Cavaliers, for want of somebody else to
plague with his peevishness and absurdity, performing grimaces
and antics in the cathedral, continuing that incomparable diary,
which we never see without forgetting the vices of his heart In
the imbecility of his intellect minuting down his dreams,
counting the drops of blood which fell from his nose, watching
the direction of the salt, and listening for the note of the
screech-owls. Contemptuous mercy was the only vengeance which it
became the Parliament to take on such a ridiculous old bigot.

The Houses, it must be acknowledged, committed great errors in
the conduct of the war, or rather one great error, which brought
their affairs into a condition requiring the most perilous
expedients. The parliamentary leaders of what may be called the
first generation, Essex, Manchester, Northumberland, Hollis,
even Pym, all the most eminent men in short, Hampden excepted,
were inclined to half measures. They dreaded a decisive victory
almost as much as a decisive overthrow. They wished to bring the
King into a situation which might render it necessary for him to
grant their just and wise demands, but not to subvert the
constitution or to change the dynasty. They were afraid of
serving the purposes of those fierce and determined enemies of
monarchy, who now began to show themselves in the lower ranks of
the party. The war was, therefore, conducted in a languid and
inefficient manner. A resolute leader might have brought it to a
close in a month. At the end of three campaigns, however, the
event was still dubious; and that it had not been decidedly
unfavourable to the cause of liberty was principally owing to the
skill and energy which the more violent roundheads had displayed
in subordinate situations. The conduct of Fairfax and Cromwell at
Marston had, exhibited a remarkable contrast to that of Essex at
Edgehill, and to that of Waller at Lansdowne.

If there be any truth established by the universal experience of
nations, it is this; that to carry the spirit of peace into war
is weak and cruel policy. The time for negotiation is the time
for deliberation and delay. But when an extreme case calls for
that remedy which is in its own nature most violent, and which,
in such cases, is a remedy only because it is violent, it is idle
to think of mitigating and diluting. Languid war can do nothing
which negotiation or submission will not do better: and to act on
any other principle is, not to save blood and money, but to
squander them.

This the parliamentary leaders found. The third year of
hostilities was drawing to a close; and they had not conquered
the King. They had not obtained even those advantages which they
had expected from a policy obviously erroneous in a military
point of view. They had wished to husband their resources. They
now found that in enterprises like theirs, parsimony is the worst
profusion. They had hoped to effect a reconciliation. The event
taught them that the best way to conciliate is to bring the work
of destruction to a speedy termination. By their moderation many
lives and much property had been wasted. The angry passions
which, if the contest had been short, would have died away almost
as soon as they appeared, had fixed themselves in the form of
deep and lasting hatred. A military caste had grown up. Those who
had been induced to take up arms by the patriotic feelings of
citizens had begun to entertain the professional feelings of
soldiers. Above all, the leaders of the party had forfeited its
confidence, If they had, by their valour and abilities, gained a
complete victory, their influence might have been sufficient to
prevent their associates from abusing it. It was now necessary to
choose more resolute and uncompromising commanders. Unhappily
the illustrious man who alone united in himself all the talents
and virtues which the crisis required, who alone could have saved
his country from the present dangers without plunging her into
others, who alone could have united all the friends of liberty in
obedience to his commanding genius and his venerable name, was no
more. Something might still be done. The Houses might still avert
that worst of all evils, the triumphant return of an imperious
and unprincipled master. They might still preserve London from
all the horrors of rapine, massacre, and lust. But their hopes of
a victory as spotless as their cause, of a reconciliation which
might knit together the hearts of all honest Englishmen for the
defence of the public good, of durable tranquillity, of temperate
freedom, were buried in the grave of Hampden.

The self-denying ordinance was passed, and the army was
remodelled. These measures were undoubtedly full of danger. But
all that was left to the Parliament was to take the less of two
dangers. And we think that, even if they could have accurately
foreseen all that followed, their decision ought to have been the
same. Under any circumstances, we should have preferred Cromwell
to Charles. But there could be no comparison between Cromwell and
Charles victorious, Charles restored, Charles enabled to feed fat
all the hungry grudges of his smiling rancour and his cringing
pride. The next visit of his Majesty to his faithful Commons
would have been more serious than that with which he last
honoured them; more serious than that which their own General
paid them some years after. The King would scarce have been
content with praying that the Lord would deliver him from Vane,
or with pulling Marten by the cloak. If, by fatal mismanagement,
nothing was left to England but a choice of tyrants, the last
tyrant whom she should have chosen was Charles.

From the apprehension of this worst evil the Houses were soon
delivered by their new leaders. The armies of Charles were
everywhere routed, his fastnesses stormed, his party humbled and
subjugated. The King himself fell into the hands of the
Parliament; and both the King and the Parliament soon fell into
the hands of the army. The fate of both the captives was the
same. Both were treated alternately with respect and with insult.
At length the natural life of one, and the political life of the
other, were terminated by violence; and the power for which both
had struggled was united in a single hand. Men naturally
sympathise with the calamities of individuals; but they are
inclined to look on a fallen party with contempt rather than with
pity. Thus misfortune turned the greatest of Parliaments into the
despised Rump, and the worst of Kings into the Blessed Martyr.

Mr. Hallam decidedly condemns the execution of Charles; and in
all that he says on that subject we heartily agree. We fully
concur with him in thinking that a great social schism, such as
the civil war, is not to be confounded with an ordinary treason,
and that the vanquished ought to be treated according to the
rules, not of municipal, but of international law. In this case
the distinction is of the less importance, because both
international and municipal law were in favour of Charles. He was
a prisoner of war by the former, a King by the latter. By neither
was he a traitor. If he had been successful, and had put his
leading opponents to death, he would have deserved severe
censure; and this without reference to the justice or injustice
of his cause. Yet the opponents of Charles, it must be admitted,
were technically guilty of treason. He might have sent them to
the scaffold without violating any established principle of
jurisprudence. He would not have been compelled to overturn the
whole constitution in order to reach them. Here his own case
differed widely from theirs. Not only was his condemnation in
itself a measure which only the strongest necessity could
vindicate; but it could not be procured without taking several
previous steps, every one of which would have required the
strongest necessity to vindicate it. It could not be procured
without dissolving the Government by military force, without
establishing precedents of the most dangerous description,
without creating difficulties which the next ten years were spent
in removing, without pulling down institutions which it soon
became necessary to reconstruct, and setting up others which
almost every man was soon impatient to destroy. It was necessary
to strike the House of Lords out of the constitution, to exclude
members of the House of Commons by force, to make a new crime, a
new tribunal, a new mode of procedure. The whole legislative and
judicial systems were trampled down for the purpose of taking a
single head. Not only those parts of the constitution which the
republicans were desirous to destroy, but those which they wished
to retain and exalt, were deeply injured by these transactions.
High Courts of justice began to usurp the functions of juries.
The remaining delegates of the people were soon driven from their
seats by the same military violence which had enabled them to
exclude their colleagues.

If Charles had been the last of his line, there would have been
an intelligible reason for putting him to death. But the blow
which terminated his life at once transferred the allegiance of
every Royalist to an heir, and an heir who was at liberty. To
kill the individual was, under such circumstances, not to
destroy, but to release the King.

We detest the character of Charles; but a man ought not to be
removed by a law ex post facto, even constitutionally procured,
merely because he is detestable. He must also be very dangerous.
We can scarcely conceive that any danger which a state can
apprehend from any individual could justify the violent, measures
which were necessary to procure a sentence against Charles. But
in fact the danger amounted to nothing. There was indeed, danger
from the attachment of a large party to his office. But this
danger his execution only increased. His personal influence was
little indeed. He had lost the confidence of every party.
Churchmen, Catholics, Presbyterians, Independents, his enemies,
his friends, his tools, English, Scotch, Irish, all divisions and
subdivisions of his people had been deceived by him. His most
attached councillors turned away with shame and anguish from his
false and hollow policy, plot intertwined with plot, mine sprung
beneath mine, agents disowned, promises evaded, one pledge given
in private, another in public. "Oh, Mr. Secretary," says
Clarendon, in a letter to Nicholas, "those stratagems have given
me more sad hours than all the misfortunes in war which have
befallen the King, and look like the effects of God's anger
towards us."

The abilities of Charles were not formidable. His taste in the
fine arts was indeed exquisite; and few modern sovereigns have
written or spoken better. But he was not fit for active life. In
negotiation he was always trying to dupe others, and duping only
himself. As a soldier, he was feeble, dilatory, and miserably
wanting, not in personal courage, but in the presence of mind
which his station required. His delay at Gloucester saved the
parliamentary party from destruction. At Naseby, in the very
crisis of his fortune, his want of self-possession spread a
fatal panic through his army. The story which Clarendon tells of
that affair reminds us of the excuses by which Bessus and Bobadil
explain their cudgellings. A Scotch nobleman, it seems, begged
the King not to run upon his death, took hold of his bridle, and
turned his horse round. No man who had much value for his life
would have tried to perform the same friendly office on that day
for Oliver Cromwell.

One thing, and one alone, could make Charles dangerous--a
violent death. His tyranny could not break the high spirit of the
English people. His arms could not conquer, his arts could not
deceive them; but his humiliation and his execution melted them
into a generous compassion. Men who die on a scaffold for
political offences almost always die well. The eyes of thousands
are fixed upon them. Enemies and admirers are watching their
demeanour. Every tone of voice, every change of colour, is to go
down to posterity. Escape is impossible. Supplication is vain. In
such a situation pride and despair have often been known to
nerve the weakest minds with fortitude adequate to the occasion.
Charles died patiently and bravely; not more patiently or
bravely, indeed, than many other victims of political rage; not
more patiently or bravely than his own judges, who were not only
killed, but tortured; or than Vane, who had always been
considered as a timid man. However, the king's conduct during his
trial and at his execution made a prodigious impression. His
subjects began to love his memory as heartily as they had hated
his person; and posterity has estimated his character from his
death rather than from his life.

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