1660

A PROJECT OF TOLERATION

583

6. Ecclesiastical Debates. 1660.-On ecclesiastical matters the two parties were less harmonious. The cavaliers wanted to restore episcopacy and the Prayer Book. The Presbyterians were ready to go back in religion, as in politics, to the ideas of August, 1641, and to establish a modified episcopacy, in which bishops would be surrounded with clerical councillors, whose advice they would be bound to take. To this scheme Charles gave his approval, and it is probable that if nothing else had been in question Parliament would have accepted it. Charles, however, had an object of his own. His life was dissolute, and, being without any religious convictions, he cherished, like some other dissolute men of that time, a secret attachment to the Church of Rome. In order to do that Church a good turn, he now asked for a toleration in which all religions should be included. The proposal to include Roman Catholics in the proposed toleration wrecked the chances of modified episcopacy. Cavaliers and Presbyte

Dress of the Horse Guards at the Restoration: from Ogilby's Coronation Procession of Charles II.

rians were so much afraid from Ogilby's Coronation Procession of Charles II.

of the Roman Catholics that when a bill for giving effect to the scheme for uniting episcopacy and Presbyterianism was brought into Parliament, it was rejected through fear lest it should be a prelude to some other tolerationist measure favouring the Roman Catholics. On December 29, 1660, the Convention Parliament was dissolved.

7. Venner's Plot and its Results. 1661.-No one in the Convention Parliament had had any sympathy with the Independents, and still less with the more fanatical sects which had received toleration when the Independents were in power. The one thing which the people of England as a body specially detested was the rule of the

Shipping in the Thames, circa 1660: from Pricke's South Prospect of London. Cromwellian army, and the two parties therefore combined to persecute the Independents by whom that army had been supported. In January, 1661, a party of fanatics, knowing that they at least had nothing to hope, rose in insurrection in London under one Venner, a cooper. The rising was easily put down, but it gave an excuse to Charles-who was just then paying off the army-to retain two regiments, one of horse and one of foot, besides a third, which was in garrison at Dunkirk. There was thus formed the nucleus of an army the numbers of which, before long, amounted to 5,000. To have an armed force at all was likely to bring suspicion upon Charles, especially as his revenue did not suffice for

1661-1662 REACTION IN CHURCH AND STATE

585 the payment of 5,000 men without having recourse to means which would cause ill-feeling between himself and Parliament.

8. The Cavalier Parliament, and the Corporation Act. 1661. On May 8, 1661, a new Parliament, sometimes known as the Cavalier Parliament, met. In times of excitement, nations are apt to show favour to the party which has a clear and decided opinion; and, on this occasion, nine-tenths of the new members were Cavaliers. The new Parliament voted that neither House could pretend to the command of the militia, nor could lawfully make war upon the king. Before the end of 1661 it passed the Corporation Act, which was aimed at the Presbyterians as well as at the Independents. All who held office in municipal corporations were to renounce the Covenant, and to take an oath of non-resistance, declaring it to be unlawful to bear arms against the king; and no one in future was to hold municipal office who had not received the Sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. This Act did more than exclude from corporations those who objected to submit to its injunctions. In many towns the corporations elected the members of the House of Commons, and hence, by excluding non-conformists from corporations in towns, Parliament indirectly excluded them from many seats in the House of Commons.

9. The Savoy Conference, and the Act of Uniformity. 1661— 1662.-After the dissolution of the Convention Parliament, the old number of bishops was filled up, and, in April 1661, a conference between some bishops and some Presbyterian clergy was held at the Savoy Palace, and has therefore been known as the Savoy Conference. The two parties differed too much to come to terms, and the whole question of the settlement of the Church was left to the Cavalier Parliament. In 1662 Parliament decided it by passing the Act of Uniformity. Every clergyman and every schoolmaster refusing to express, by August 24, his unfeigned consent to everything contained in the Book of Common Prayer, was to be precluded from holding a benefice. On August 24 (St. Bartholomew's day), about 2,000 clergy resigned their cures for conscience' sake, as their opponents had, in the time of Puritan domination, been driven from their cures, rather than take the Covenant.

IO. The Dissenters. 1662.-The expulsion of the dissenting clergy, as they were now called, made a great change in the history of English Christianity. The early Puritans wished, not to separate from the national Church, but to mould the national Church after their own fashion. The Independents set the example Q Q

II.

of separating from the national Church, in order to form communities outside it. The Presbyterian clergy who kept up the tradition of the early Puritans were now driven out of the national Church, and were placed in very much the same position as the Independents. Hence, these two bodies, together with the Baptists and the Society of Friends-popularly known as Quakers-and other sects which had recently arisen, began to be known by the common name of Dissenters. The aim of those who had directed the meeting of the Savoy Conference had been to bring about comprehension, that is to say, the continuance within the Church of those who, after its close, became Dissenters. Their failure had resulted from the impossibility of finding any formularies which could satisfy both parties; and in consequence of this failure the Dissenters now abandoned all thought of comprehension, and contented themselves with asking for toleration, that is to say, for permission to worship apart from the Church, in their own assemblies.

II. The Parliamentary Presbyterians. 1662. The Presbyterian clergy were followed by most of their supporters among the tradesmen and merchants of the towns. They were not followed by the Presbyterians among the gentry. The party in Parliament, which had hitherto styled itself Presbyterian, had originally become so mainly through dislike of the power of the bishops. They now consented to accept the Prayer Book, when they found that the regulation of the Church was to depend on Acts of Parliament and not either on the bishops or the king. The few members of the House of Commons who had hitherto been known as Presbyterians formed the nucleus of a party of toleration, asking for a modification of the law against Dissenters, though refusing to become Dissenters themselves.

12. Profligacy of the Court. 1662.-On the other hand, the members of the Cavalier party had, in 1641, become Royalists because they desired the retention of the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, and, in 1662, the Cavaliers were supporters of the Church even more than they were Royalists. As soon as Charles expressed his approval of the Act of Uniformity, and not before, the House of Commons voted him a chimney tax of two shillings on every chimney. If Charles had been an economical man, instead of an extravagant one, he might possibly have contrived to live within his income. He was, however, beyond measure extravagant. The reaction against Puritanism was not political only. There were plenty of sober men amongst the English gentry, but there were also many who had been so galled by the restrictions

1662-1663

CHARLES AND LOUIS XIV.

587

of Puritanism that they had thrown off all moral restraint. Riot and debauchery became the fashion, and in this bad fashion Charles's court led the way.

13. Marriage of Charles II., and Sale of Dunkirk. 1662.In 1662 Charles married Catharine of Braganza, a Portuguese Princess. He professed his intention of leading a new life, but he was weak as water, and he soon returned to his evil courses. Politically alone was the marriage of importance. Catharine brought with her the possessions of Tangier, and of Bombay, the first spot on the soil of India acquired by the English Crown. It was also a seal of friendship between Charles and Louis XIV. of France. Louis had made peace with Spain by the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, but he still sympathised with the efforts of Portugal to maintain the independence of which Spain had robbed her in 1580 (see p. 454), and which she had recovered in 1640. Charles's marriage was, therefore, a declaration in favour of France. In November, 1662, after Parliament had dispersed for a vacation, he further showed his attachment to France, by selling Dunkirk to Louis for 200,000l. By abandoning Dunkirk, Charles saved an annual cost of 120,000/., which he would be able, if he pleased, to spend on an army. It may be doubted whether the possession of Dunkirk was of any real use, but there was a howl of indignation, in consequence of its loss, especially directed against Hyde, who had been created Earl of Clarendon in 1661, and was building a town house on a scale commensurate with his dignity. This house was popularly called Dunkirk House, it being falsely supposed that Clarendon received from Louis bribes which were expended upon it.

14. The Question of Toleration Raised. 1662-1663.-Before Parliament met, Charles, on December 26, 1662, issued a declaration in favour of toleration. He asked Parliament to pass an Act enabling him to mitigate the rigour of the Act of Uniformity by exercising that dispensing power which he conceived to be inherent in him.' Again and again, in former reigns, the king had dispensed from the penalties imposed by various laws, though there had been times when Parliament had remonstrated in cases where those penalties were imposed to restrain the Roman Catholic religion. When Parliament met again in 1663, the Cavaliers rejected the king's proposal. They would hear nothing of toleration for Dissenters, and still less of toleration for Papists.' The fear of a restoration of 'Popery' was the strongest motive of Englishmen of that day, and Charles, who, unlike his father,