parliament arrived, and they chose sir Harbottle Grimstone for their speaker; a man who, though at first attached to the opposite party, was yet a royalist in his heart. The affections of all were turned towards the king; yet such were their fears, and such dangers attended a freedom of speech, that no one dared for some days to make any mention of his name. They were terrified with former examples of cruelty; and they only showed their loyalty in their bitter invectives against the late usurper, and in execrations against the murderers of their king. All this time, Monk, with his usual reserve, tried their tempers, and examined the ardour of their wishes; at length he gave directions to Annesley, president of the council, to inform them that one sir John Granville, a servant of the king, had been sent over by his majesty, and was now at the door with a letter to the commons.

Nothing could exceed the joy and transport with which this message was received. The members for a moment forgot the dignity of their situations, and indulged in a loud exclamation of applause. Granville was called in, and the letter eagerly read. A moment's pause was scarcely allowed: all at once the house burst out into an universal assent to the king's proposals; and, to diffuse the joy more widely, it was voted that the letter and declaration should immediately be published.

The king's declaration was highly relished by every order of the state. It offered a general amnesty to all persons whatsoever, without any exceptions but such as should be made by parliament. It promised to indulge scrupulous consciences with liberty in matters of religion; to leave to the examination of parliament the claims of all such as possessed lands with contested titles; to confirm all these concessions by act of parliament; to satisfy the army under general Monk with respect to their arrears, and to give the same rank to his officers, when they should be received into the king's service.

This declaration was not less pleasing to the lords than to the people. After voting the restitution of the ancient form of government, it was resolved to send the king fifty thousand pounds, the duke of York, his brother, ten thousand, and the duke of Gloucester half that sum. Then both houses erased from their records all acts that had passed to the prejudice of royalty. The army, the navy, the city of London, were eager

in preparing their addresses to be presented to his majesty ; and he was soon after proclaimed with great solemnity at Whitehall and at Temple Bar. The people, now freed from all restraint, let loose their transports without bounds. Thousands were seen running about frantic with pleasure; and, as lord Clarendon says, such were the numbers of the royalists that pressed forward on this occasion, that one could not but wonder where those people dwelt who had lately done so much mischief.

Charles took care to confirm the substance of his declarations to the English commissioners, who were despatched to attend him into his native dominions. Montague, the English admiral, waited upon his majesty to inform him that the fleet expected his orders at Scheveling. The duke of York immediately went on board, and took the command as lord highadmiral. The king went on board, 'and, landing at Dover, was received by the general, whom he tenderly embraced. Very different was his present triumphant return from the forlorn state in which he left the coast of Sussex. He now saw the same people, that had ardently sought his life, as warmly expressing their pleasure at his safety, and repentance for their past delusions. He entered London on the twenty-ninth of May, which was his birth-day. An innumerable concourse of people lined the way wherever he passed, and rent the air with their acclamations. They had been so long distracted by unrelenting factions, oppressed and alarmed by a succession of tyrannies, that they could no longer suppress these emotions of delight to behold their constitution restored, or rather, like a phoenix, appearing more beautiful and vigorous from the ruins of its former conflagration.

Fanaticism, with its long train of gloomy terrors, fled at the approach of freedom; the arts of society and peace began to return; and it had been happy for the people if the arts of luxury had not entered in their train.

CHAPTER XI.

CHARLES II.

A. D. 1660-1677.

THIS is one of the most extraordinary epochas in English history, in which we see the people tossed into opposite factions, and, as the sea after a storm, still continuing those violent motions by which they were first impelled. We see them at one period of the following reign, with unbounded adulation, soliciting the shackles of arbitrary power; at another, with equal animosity, banishing all the emissaries of unbounded power from the throne; now courting the monarch and then threatening those on whom he most depended. There seems a clue that can unravel all these inconsistencies While the people thought the king a protestant, they were willing to intrust him with their lives and fortunes; but when they supposed that he was more inclined to popery, all their confidence vanished, and they were even willing to punish papists, as the most proper method of showing their resentment against himself.

When Charles came to the throne he was thirty years of age, possessed of an agreeable person, an elegant address, and an engaging manner. His whole demeanour and behaviour were well calculated to support and increase popularity. Accustomed during his exile to live cheerfully among his courtiers, he carried the same endearing familiarities to the throne; and, from the levity of his temper, no injuries were dreaded from his former resentments. But it was soon found that all these advantages were merely superficial. His indolence and love of pleasure made him averse to all kinds of business; his familiarities were prostituted to the worst as well as the best of his subjects; and he took no care to reward his former friends, as he had taken no steps to be avenged of his former enemies. It required some time before the several parts of the state, disfigured by war and faction, could come into proper form a council was composed, in which members of the church of

England and presbyterians were indiscriminately admitted; and the king's choice of his principal ministers was universally pleasing to the people. Sir Edward Hyde, who had attended. him in his exile, was now created a peer by the title of lord Clarendon, and appointed lord chancellor and first minister of state. This excellent man is better known now by his merits as an historian than as a statesman; but his integrity and wisdom were equally excellent in both capacities. The marquis, afterwards created duke of Ormond, was appointed lord-steward of the household, the earl of Southampton high treasurer, and sir Edward Nicholas secretary of state. These men, combined by private friendship, and pursuing one common aim, laboured only for the public, and supported its interests with their own.

Notwithstanding the joy of the people was unbounded, yet something was thought to be due to justice, and some vengeance was necessary to be taken upon those who had lately involved the nation in its calamities. Though an act of indemnity was passed, those who had an immediate hand in the king's death were excepted. Even Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, now dead, were considered as proper objects of resentment; their bodies were dug from their graves, dragged to the place of execution, and, after hanging some time, buried under the gallows. Of the rest, who sat in judgment on the late monarch's trial, some were dead, and some were thought worthy of pardon. Ten only, out of fourscore, were devoted to immediate destruction. These were enthusiasts, who had all along acted from principle, and who, in the general spirit of rage excited against them, showed a fortitude that might do honour to a better cause.

General Harrison, who was first brought to his trial, pleaded his cause with that undaunted firmness which he had shown through life. What he had done, he said, was from the impulses of the Spirit of God. He would not, for any benefit to himself, hurt a hair of the poorest man or woman upon earth; and during the usurpation of Cromwell, when all the rest of the world acknowledged his right, or bowed down to his power, he had boldly upbraided the usurper to his face; and all the terrors of imprisonment, and all the allurements of ambition, had not been able to bend him to a compliance to that deceitful tyrant. Harrison's death was marked with the same

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admirable constancy which he showed at his trial; so that the greatness of some virtues which he possessed in some measure counterbalanced the greatness of his guilt.

Carew, Coke, Peters, Scot, Clement, Scrope, Jones, Hacker, and Axtell shared the same fate. They bore the scorn of the multitude, and the cruelty of the executioner, not simply with fortitude, but with the spirit and confidence of martyrs, who suffered for having done their duty. Some circumstances of scandalous barbarity attended their execution. Harrison's

entrails were torn out, and thrown in the fire before he expired. His head was fixed on the sledge that drew Coke and Peters to the place of execution, with the face turned towards them. The executioner, having mangled Coke, approached Peters, besmeared with the blood of his friend, and asked how he liked that work. Peters viewed him with an air of scorn: "You have butchered a servant of God in my sight; but I defy your cruelty."

This was all the blood that was shed in so great a restoration. The rest of the king's judges were reprieved, and afterwards dispersed into several prisons. Charles, being directed in all things by Clarendon, gave universal satisfaction, as well by the lenity as the justice of his conduct. The army was disbanded that had for so many years governed the nation; prelacy, and all the ceremonies of the church of England, were restored; at the same time that the king pretended to preserve an air of moderation and neutrality. In fact, with regard to religion, Charles, in his gayer hours, was a professed deist, and attached to none; but in the latter part of his life, when he began to think more seriously, he showed an inclination to the catholic persuasion, which he had strongly imbibed in his exile.

But this toleration, in which all were equally included, was not able to remove the fears or quell the enthusiasm of a few determined men, who, by an unexampled combination, were impelled by one common phrensy. One Venner, a desperate A. D. enthusiast, who had often conspired against Cromwell, 1661. and had as often been pardoned, had by this time persuaded his followers that, if they would take arms, Jesus would come to put himself at their head. With these expectations, to the number of sixty persons, they issued forth into the streets of London in complete armour, and proclaimed king