Courting the Moderates: Ideology, Propaganda and the Emergence of Party, 1660-1678

Courting the Moderates

This page intentionally left blank

Courting the Moderates Ideology, Propaganda, and the Emergence of Party, 1660–1678

John Patrick Monta˜no

Newark: University of Delaware Press London: Associated University Presses

 2002 by Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corp. All rights reserved. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or persoanl use, or theinternal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by the copyright owner, provided that a base fee of $10.00, plus eight cents per page, per copy is paid directly to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, Massachusetts 01923. [0-87413-770-5 $10.00 + 8¢ pp, pc.] Associated University Presses 2010 Eastpark Boulevard Cranbury, NJ 08512 Associated University Presses 16 Barter Street London WC1A 2AH, England Associated University Presses P.O. Box 338, Port Credit Mississauga, Ontario Canada L5G 4L8

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Monta˜no, John Patrick, 1955– Courting the moderates : ideology, propaganda, and the emergence of party, 1660– 1678 / John Patrick Monta˜no. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-87413-770-5 (alk. paper) 1. Great Britain—Politics and government—1660–1688. 2. Political parties— Great Britain—History—17th century. 3. Moderation—Political aspects—Great Britain—History—17th century. 4. English literature—Early modern, 1500–1700— History and criticism. 5. Politics and literature—Great Britain—History—17th century. 6. Propaganda, British—History—17th century. 7. Political parties in literature. I. Title. DA445 .M55 2002 941.06′6—dc21 2002023122

printed in the united states of america

This book is dedicated to my mother Patricia and to the loving memory of my father John

This page intentionally left blank

Contents Acknowledgements Introduction

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11.

9 13

Part I: Ideology and Propaganda Historiography The Changing Rhetoric of Moderation The Restoration in Verse Royal Theater and the Street Theater Pulpits and Sermons Propaganda in Prose Controlling the Printed Word

27 52 72 101 138 164 200

Part II: Parliament and Party The Speeches from the Throne A Court Party? Collective Actions in Parliament Conclusion

229 253 273 302

Appendix I: Dates of Parliamentary Meetings, 1673–78 Appendix II: On the Statue Erected by Sir Robert Viner Appendix III: A Satire on the Earl of Shaftsbury’s Career Appendix IV: James Hick’s Letter to Muddiman’s Subscribers Appendix V: A Caution for ye Country Man’s Choice Appedix VI: An Association of Lords . . . Notes Bibliography Index

7

309 311 321 324 326 327 328 379 407

This page intentionally left blank

Acknowledgments There was a time when I believed this book would be little more than a thorough revision of my doctoral dissertation, which dealt with many of the same issues over the single decade of the 1670s. That assumption proved to be something more aptly described as a pipedream. Extending the work to include the 1660s, fortifying the analyses of the earlier version, and incorporating the many excellent recent works on the Restoration ended up taking far longer than the preparation and writing of the dissertation itself. The result is the product of several additional years of research and reformulation. It is a much different book than previously imagined and, I hope, a much better one. Throughout the process, the work has had many allies and supporters. Any attempt to list all the people who have contributed along the way would make these acknowledgments nearly as long as the book itself. Consequently, there are many great friends to whom I am indebted in so many ways who must be omitted here. The number of people and organizations who helped me produce this book is daunting. Harvard University, the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, the Huntington Library Fellowship Program, the W. M. Keck Foundation, and the General University Research Grants of the University of Delaware all contributed to finance the necessary research. The earl and countess of Sandwich were gracious hosts who generously allowed me to poke around in their library at Mapperton. Librarians and archivists, the essential accomplices in any research project, will receive far too little credit here as elsewhere. I am extremely grateful to the many librarians who have done so much to assist me over the years. To the entire staff at the Houghton Library at Harvard, as well as those at the Clark and the Huntington Libraries in southern California, I offer my sincerest gratitude. I would like to thank the staff at the British Library and at the Public Record Offices—both Kew and Chancery Lane—in London. Finally, to the anonymous woman who gave me a tour of Duke Humfrey’s Library at the Bodleian and helped shepherd me through my very first research adventure, my eternal thanks. Material from my article, “The Quest for Consensus: The Lord Mayor’s Day Shows in the 1670s,” in Restoration Culture and Society in the Stuart Restoration: Literature, Drama, History, 9

10

acknowledgments

edited by the Gerald MacLean, is reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press. When it comes to acknowledging scholarly debts there are two people who clearly merit pride of place. Professor John Brewer helped transform this work from a mass of thoughts into a series of ideas which may now add up to a book. His assistance, his guidance, and his encouragement were absolutely essential to this project. His importance as an inspiration and mentor cannot be overestimated, and I can never thank him sufficiently. Years ago I was fortunate enough to meet another of John Brewer’s students, Professor Kathleen Wilson. She proved an impossible act to follow, but her scholarship and achievements never prevented her helping me and others. Kathleen Wilson’s devoted support and her keen, ungilded comments over the years have been a constant source of comfort. This book would never have reached this stage without her. There is no way adequately to acknowledge my debt and gratitude to these two great scholars, but I do wish to state here how pleased and proud I am to call them friends. Southern California’s Public Schools rarely come in for praise these days, but Mr. Wilbur Sullivan suffered, truly suffered, through two years as my history teacher, never imagining that he was contributing to my career as a historian. Mr. Richard Washburn daringly risked lending me books during these years and fomented my love of books and history; to him and to Lisa Washburn, my thanks. As an undergraduate in Santa Barbara I was blessed with two great teachers of English history, both of whom proved willing to spend countless hours with an eager history major. Professors J. Sears McGee and Alfred Gollin deserve considerable credit for inspiring my love of English history. I remain grateful for their guidance and always try to emulate their approach when teaching. My years as a graduate student at Harvard University brought me into contact with many people who contributed—intentionally or not—to this book. I am sure Professor Peter Mandler will be surprised to learn that the topic emerged from an obscure conversation we had while roaming aimlessly through campus. Professor Wallace MacCaffrey was always a source of insightful commentary and support when I was very much wandering in the desert. I remain grateful for his help throughout. In my early years in Cambridge, Ms. Karen Sandbom was the sturdy refuge her name implies. Years later, Steven C. A. Pincus offered crucial assistance without even knowing. My experience and colleagues in the Committee on Degrees in History and Literature contributed in many ways. Both Dr. Richard Ingber and Professor Jan Thaddeus taught me as much as they taught any of the students in the Program, though I am not sure they will want to be held responsible for some of my readings of Restoration literature. I would like to thank them along with Professor David Harris Sacks,

acknowledgments

11

Professor Ted Widmer and the rest of my colleagues from History and Literature, a group whose methods inform many of these pages. With apologies to the host of others who were also smarter than I, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my former students Sam Sifton, Dr. Marie Henson, and Professor Suzie Steinbach. I wish to thank the Department Chair, Professor Ronald Mellor for his support and encouragement during my time at the University of California, Los Angeles. These years afforded me an excellent opportunity to mine the outstanding holdings in early modern English history and culture at the Clark and Huntington Libraries, as well as those at the University Research Library. Professor Gerald MacLean offered generous advice in the process of reading and editing material that appears in chapters 2 and 3. I also must reiterate my thanks to the librarians and archivists at all these institutions. Two UCLA students in particular participated in discussions which helped to clarify important issues for me, Ms. Ashley Jones and Ms. Johanna Johannesson. The University of Delaware has provided a host of colleagues and friends for whom I have great affection. I would like to thank the entire Department of History for their unwavering support. In particular, Professors John Bernstein, Jesus Cruz, and James Brophy who read all or part of the manuscript. Professors Carol Hoffecker and John Hurt offered some welcome advice when the book was in its latest phase. Many thanks to Professors Ann Boylan and Peter Kolchin, great people who do so much to make the University of Delaware such a pleasant place to work. Professor David Pong has been a steady and special friend since the day I was hired. To our Chair, Professor Carole Haber, my most heartfelt gratitude, I trust she knows why there is insufficient room to express it here. I am fortunate that the English Department at Delaware has been generous in its tolerance of my tortured readings of Restoration literature. I would like to thank Professor Don Mell, Professor Bonnie Kime Scott and especially Professor Lois Potter whose advice, goodwill, suggestions and support are always available for every member of the University community. Thanks also go to Tim Decker, who read the entire manuscript and saved me from many egregious errors. The completion of this book, like everything else completed in the History Department, could never have occurred without the help of Mrs. Marie Perrone, Mrs. Pat Orendorf, Mrs. Donna Ries, and Ms. Janine Johnston: I ought to express my thanks to them daily, but I hope this will serve as a start. Finally, there are a few personal acknowledgments that cannot be omitted. Thanks are owed to my extended family whose good humor and resolute irreverence provide such an important contrast to research and career. Their support has always been appreciated, if only now acknowledged. To the Varelas, Silbaughs, Trejos, and others, no, I did not forget

12

acknowledgments

your role in the story. Ray and Mary Ann Brittenham have been constant in their support over the years. Sudhir and Rosaleen Mulji have been unceasing in their hospitality in both Ireland and England, and a great deal of the research in London was done while staying in their home. Perhaps I owe these two couples the greatest thanks for the children they have raised: Sangita, Kabir, Gopali, and Sachin Mulji, extraordinary individuals and great friends who have endured regular, interminable visits to their flats in London and elsewhere. Ashley Rountree and Leslie Dunton-Downer, incredibly, have managed to add to the luster of Paris. Anthony Berner and Carol Brittenham are surely the best friends a person could find 3000 miles from home. Finally, paeans to Megan Reid are entirely unnecessary for anyone who knows her. For those who do not, you have no idea what you are missing.

Introduction Historians have often viewed the reign of Charles II as a quaint but unimportant period joining the two great conflicts between Crown and Parliament. For years the historiography of the Restoration remained a captive of the traditional view of the period: an era packed with fascinating and charming figures who lent themselves to dazzling biographies.1 And until recently a whiggish emphasis on the great constitutional struggles leading to the triumph of parliamentary government limited the work on Restoration politics. There were studies on the emergence of party labels2 and affiliations, but these tended to look for the roots of the party divisions of a later time rather than at the contemporary basis for political division. However, a revisionist school has emerged of late which views the reign of Charles II as worthy of study on its own terms. The outpouring of new writing on the religious divisions, political culture, and public opinion in the Restoration has addressed many questions which helped inspire the present work. This book uses the growing importance of public opinion as a point of departure. I want to argue that the nation’s thirst for news and the consequent concern for public opinion led political opponents to articulate increasingly cohesive ideological positions. While these positions shared much of the same language, rhetoric, and beliefs, a study of Restoration political culture does reveal distinct emphases within some common assumptions about the ancient constitution and the Protestant religion. To understand this, I have read as widely as possible in the official political culture of these years.3 In doing so, I found evidence of a coherent political ideology which rejected the extreme innovations of the past in favor of a safe, sensible, and moderate set of traditions. From the outset, Restoration governments relied on an ideology of moderation to ostracize their opponents and to provide a political identity for their supporters. The ideology did not create a group of toadies or blind followers. Indeed, moderates proved very willing to hold the king accountable if his government adopted “immoderate” policies such as toleration, arbitrary rule, or pro-Catholic alliances. An active public sphere guaranteed that 13

14

introduction

such deviations were widely known. However, ministers like Clarendon or Danby, who credibly identified themselves with the common law, the Established Church and the ancient constitution, enjoyed widespread support among those committed to such moderate verities. In fact, both Clarendon and Danby survived nearly seven years with moderate supporters who considered them enemies to both fanatic and papist excess. Beyond seeking ideological support, courtiers and ministers also began to manage and organize groups in both Houses. The trend became more efficient and systematic throughout the Restoration. Danby’s Papers reveal that he could rely on close to 150 MPs and a sizable majority in the Lords. The preparation, organization, and whipping in the 1670s begins to look very much like an incipient political party. When combined with coordinated speeches, the publication of sponsored defenses of policy, and clearly identifiable principles, I believe an argument can be made that we are seeing the evolution of the first political party. Not a bribed bloc of placemen, but a disparate group of dependents and fellow travelers who demonstrated their devotion to ideological principles by turning on their leaders in both 1667 and 1678. Ideological distinctions appeared early in the Restoration. As the fault lines became clearer, ministers recognized the importance of organizing in order to exercise power more effectively. In the aftermath of the civil war both Clarendon and Danby were able to take advantage of the widespread hostility to factious and disloyal parties to gain support for their Protestant policies. When this tactic was combined with the monopoly of patronage held by the court, the strength of Danby’s “loyal” or “Court” party—the “Treasurists”—began to alarm his opponents. Their reaction has often been mistaken for the first political party. Organized by the earl of Shaftesbury, the “first Whigs” are portrayed as the defenders of parliamentary liberty. However, in light of the well-established ideology of moderation sponsored by the government and the increasing efforts to organize supporters in Parliament, it is clear that the process of forming a political party was initiated at Whitehall.
This book is primarily concerned with the ideological divisions in Restoration political culture. For this reason a vast majority of the evidence presented will perforce be drawn from contemporary printed materials intended for consumption by various audiences within the emerging public sphere. Most of the political culture was written and printed in the capital, a fact which leaves the impression of a work concerned solely with the metropolis. However, following the Civil War and Interregnum, a wellarticulated ideology was produced in London and disseminated to a nation

introduction

15

which had a developed sense of national political consciousness. Following a discussion of recent historiography, there is a chapter which aims to demonstrate the way in which the political culture of London informed the culture in the rest of the nation. Similarly, a chapter on sermons intends to show how the government used the pulpit as a way to spread official ideology, especially to those with little or no access to the Royal Theaters or to the print culture. While the majority of printed material discussed in Part I was necessarily directed toward a literate and limited audience, the governments of Charles II never forgot the role of the populace in the flight, defeat, and martyrdom of his father. Accordingly, even before the king’s return his advisors were careful to monitor the political culture associated with the monarchy. Similarly, after the Restoration they provided a steady diet of propaganda carefully designed to reach the widest possible audience.4 The people’s access to official propaganda was assured thanks to the provision of spectacles, pageants, Proclamations, and the ritualized destruction of the images and symbols of the Cromwellian regime. In addition, the reestablishment of the Anglican Church meant that regular Days of Humiliation or of Thanksgiving—Charles I’s execution and the restoration of his son foremost among them—became official opportunities for sermons on such key themes as duty, obedience, unity, and the need to reflect on recent history. The ability to “tune the pulpits” provided the surest means of presenting the government ideology to a vast audience rooted in an oral culture which had the sermon at its very core. By studying the official political culture of these years, I aim to show the development of a political ideology which provided the basis for political allegiance. Indeed, one important consequence of this ideological division was the recognition of alternative views of the authority in church and state—views openly acknowledged with the emergence of the labels whig and tory in 1679. Scholars have demonstrated the importance of accommodation and consensus in early modern English politics. During the breakdown of the constitution from 1614–40 and well into the Civil War, people clung to assumptions about agreement and consent, each side fighting under the banner of the ancient constitution and the Protestant church. The consensual views regarding mixed monarchy and the Elizabethan Settlement required a Popish Plot in the 1630s to explain the divisive conflict in England. Thus, the dreaded threat of tyranny and arbitrary government was always associated with the idolatry of the Roman Catholic religion. In these years, the threat to English liberties was always papist, and always foreign or supported by foreigners. The Elizabethan Settlement was intended as a moderate compromise in a time of troubling religious diversity. It sought to comprehend as many of the queen’s subjects as possible and thereby to strictly limit the religious

16

introduction

justifications for disobedience. Many hoped that those who stood without would be limited to those addicted to popery or some equally extreme sect like anabaptism. All good Protestants would welcome the newly Established Church in the name of unity. Despite Puritan criticisms there remained a traditional consensus devoted to the Elizabethan Settlement as the basis of English liberty and salvation. Papist or foreign influence at the Caroline court was the only threat capable of destroying the unity of England. Looked at in this way, the Elizabethan Settlement could not have differed more from the Restoration Settlement. Despite attempts at restoring unity in the 1640s and 1650s, political consensus had taken some hard knocks in these years. The resulting disorder convinced the Presbyterians and others that a restoration of the old government of King, Lords, and Commons was the only solution. However, recent events had proved that the threat of tyranny and arbitrary government was just as likely to come from domestic dissidents as from Roman Catholics; popularity might prove as dangerous as popery. Furthermore, by 1662 the restored government was abandoning compromise and comprehension for an exclusive settlement in both politics and religion. Catholics still remained outside the political nation, but now nonconformists—identified almost exclusively by their religious beliefs—were judged unfit to participate as well. In fact, the religious qualifications established by the Clarendon Code were to prove the most divisive factor in Restoration England. Indeed, the ideology of the government was based on religious distinctions, and it used these differences to gain support and to proscribe its opponents. The construction of a consensus based on exclusion may have been oxymoronic, but it was certainly not new. For generations anti-popery fears had served to define otherness and to unify the nation. In similar fashion, an ideology of reconciliation and moderation allowed the government to brand its opponents as extremists and fanatics who would place private interest above the public good. More importantly, government propaganda was ever ready to point out how extremism and private interest led inevitably to arbitrary government. When all other arguments failed to persuade, the Major-Generals, the Rump, the regicides, and the rule of the saints could all serve as reminders. The consensus which rejected tyranny and arbitrary government lived on, but the threat was no longer from foreign papists alone. Traditional fears of arbitrary government were now marshaled to justify the exclusion of nonconformists from both religious and secular office. The combination of Royalism and Anglicanism in the early 1660s brought the restored king and government considerable support. The elections to the Cavalier Parliament produced a House of Commons which

introduction

17

pushed the king and Clarendon down the path to exclusion. The first blissful years of the restored constitution of king-in-Parliament produced the Act of Uniformity, along with the Corporation, Five-Mile, and Conventicle Acts. Throughout this honeymoon period the king only had eyes for Anglican Royalists, but Charles was never renowned for fidelity. When the relationship began to sour in 1665, he soon abandoned his devoted Chancellor and turned to the Cabal to muster support from those currently excluded from politics. The prospect of toleration and an end to the persecuting state in 1667 caused an outpouring of tracts and pamphlets in favor of liberty of conscience. For five years the dissenting case for conscience was put before the public. For the first time we can see an alternative ideology of liberty and conscience vying with the exclusive and uniform views of the Anglican Royalist alliance. These years were crucial to establishing distinct ideological positions in English political culture. While the second Conventicle Act, the failure of Indulgence, the renewed activities of the Surveyor of the Press, and the resurrection of the Anglican alliance under Danby may have spelt defeat for the dissenters, ideological divisions were now part of the public discourse. It was the very public debate surrounding this early Restoration crisis which convinced the earl of Danby that the king must eliminate diversity of opinion. He worked closely with the bishops and insisted that Charles make known his loyalty to the Anglican church. He tried, and failed, to limit officeholders to those opposed to any alteration in the government of church or state. The late 1670s witnessed an ideological propaganda campaign which proclaimed the king’s loyalty to moderation, to the church as established by law, and to the nation’s prosperity through an alliance against France. At the same time, the political culture continued its smear campaign by depicting all opposition to the government as extremist, fractious, and tending toward rebellion. Any reasonable subject would recognize that the king’s interests were at one with the nation’s: ideologically, the choice between moderate monarch and extremist fanatics was obvious. Danby did not rely on words and culture alone. He looked to increase his support with a series of policies intended as evidence of the king’s and the government’s moderation. Aware of the people’s concern with diplomacy and alliances, Danby aimed to dissociate the government from all things French. New duties were added to French wines and textiles, French fashion was openly disparaged at court, and Proclamations were regularly issued banishing priests from London. The unpopular alliance with Louis XIV was ditched and the three Dutch Wars forgotten for the sake of a Protestant alliance symbolized by the marriage of William and Mary.

18

introduction

Danby aimed to distance the government from French influences—with the notable exception of the king’s French mistress—thereby demonstrating Whitehall’s abhorrence of popery and arbitrary rule. Again, Danby’s goal was to reduce the ideological choice to one between tradition, reason, moderation, loyalty, and the Established Church versus fanatic or papist extremism. The effectiveness of these policies played a decisive role in Danby’s undoing. On the one hand, the simple clarity of the government’s ideology made it popular and familiar in the national consciousness. While it generated considerable support, it also meant that Danby and the government were held accountable when Ralph Montagu and Titus Oates exposed the ideology as a screen for pro-French and arbitrary policies. Secondly, the large body of support for Danby in Parliament was considered a serious threat by republicans like Algernon Sidney and the first Whigs like the earl of Shaftesbury. The strength of the large party of pensioners and supporters organized by Danby helped convince many that he aimed to corrupt the institution of Parliament and to introduce absolute monarchy. By 1679 many of his erstwhile supporters agreed that he must be brought low by any means necessary. Any talk of organization and adherents in Parliament leads one directly to the controversial topic of political parties. The debate is sustained in part by the lack of agreement about the definition of party; as a result, each successive historian establishes his or her own definition in order to prove or disprove the existence of party. The criteria used here are as follows: a shared set of beliefs, clearly defined leadership, parliamentary organization, and the ambition to gain and exercise power. If this is an acceptable definition for the late seventeenth century, then a nascent political party can be easily identified by 1678. More importantly, the organization, parliamentary support, and persuasive ideology of Danby’s group of “Treasurists” may well have forced his opponents to organize and propagandize in response: in many ways the first whigs were a reaction to the first tories. In a recent book, Paul Halliday offered the activity of “partisan politics” as an alternative to party. For him, the exclusive settlement of the early 1660s created increased partisanship in the localities, but not necessarily political parties. A large part of the present book examines the process of ideological division which led to the recognition and acknowledgement of alternative views of the constitutional settlement of church and state. Ideological divisions, I believe, were a prerequisite for the birth of political parties. One of the central themes of this book is that a clearly discernable ideological divide was both articulated and recognized by the 1670s. The ideological polarization can be seen in the rival newspapers, pamphlets, political clubs, civic spectacles, petitioning campaigns, and party names of the Exclusion Crisis. The birth of party was not without complications, but

introduction

19

party labels and the acceptance of ideological division would survive and mature into the whigs and tories who never had to authenticate their existence as parties.
Interest in Restoration politics has soared in the last twenty years. The continuing importance of religion and the competition for power at the local level are two significant additions to our understanding of the period. As a result, works which incorporate the Celtic fringe, the colonies, and the European dimension of English history have a provided a more complete account of events.5 The relationship between ideology, political culture, and public opinion is a topic drawing considerable attention as well. However, in all these trends historians maintain their Janus-like tendency to observe the past while keeping their gaze fixed on the shape of the future. The consequence for Restoration history is the enduring controversy over the origins of political parties. This book aims to contribute to the debate without making any claims to resolve it. It takes up Tim Harris’s contention in Politics Under the Later Stuarts that the formation of parties was a process rather than an event, arguing that while there is no fixed time of birth there is an identifiable term of gestation. The argument disputes Jonathan Scott’s view in Algernon Sidney and the Restoration Crisis that the conflict was entirely about “popery and arbitrary government” and that the Exclusion Bills were a symptom of these fears. Like Richard L. Greaves and Gary S. De Krey, I believe the nation witnessed growing ideological divisions beginning in the 1660s and increasing after 1673. While popery remained part of the mix, these divisions were largely about matters of religion, the persecuting state, and the coercive authority of the Established Church. Chapter 2 of this book looks at the way public opinion and the continuing threat of fanaticism helped to establish an exclusive Anglican religious settlement as the sine qua non of traditional order, unity, and economic prosperity. Aware of the enduring public aversion to the extreme measures of the Interregnum, the court and government sought support through the articulation of an ideology of moderation. Chapter 3 looks at how this message was developed in the outpouring of verse associated with the Restoration. Chapter 4 attempts to demonstrate the ubiquity of this ideology on the London stage as well as in the spectacles presented on the streets of the capital. The efforts to bring the message of official moderation to the general population are examined through a reading of Anglican sermons in chapter 5. The concern for public opinion and the public sphere is seen in the government’s willingness to engage in polemical exchanges and pamphlet debates discussed in chapter 6. The government’s recognition of the

20

introduction

importance of ideology and propaganda is further illustrated by its efforts to control news and printed materials of all kinds. Chapter 7 looks at the inconsistent and admittedly inadequate endeavors to censor the press. In spite of its limited success, the government’s renewed efforts to enforce the Licensing Act after 1673 demonstrate a serious concern about public opinion. By the end of the Second Dutch War, the king had decided against the coercive Clarendon Code and in favor of toleration. During this time, the Cabal called off the watchdog of the press, Sir Roger L’Estrange. But it is significant that the House of Commons looked to thwart the king by introducing another Conventicle Act, showing once again the extent of the divisions within the court as well as between the king, the duke of York, and the Cavalier Parliament. It was this kaleidescope of alliances and policies which would bedevil all attempts at a unified policy under Charles II. More importantly, the differences at Whitehall provided the context in which dissenters first offered an alternative ideology which emphasized toleration and liberty of conscience over uniformity and order: an early ideological division which had little to do with popery or arbitrary government. The group of ideological dissidents was neither republican nor hostile to the king. Indeed, the opposition to popery and arbitrary government, no matter what its origins, was part of the shared (and moderate) values of the time. Similarly, proponents of the different ideologies rarely disagreed over constitutional issues: there were shared values and distinct emphases, but little desire for renewed confrontation. Those excluded from the Restoration religious settlement were painfully aware that the persecution emanated from the Cavalier Parliament and not the king, while Anglican Royalists were prepared to oppose the monarchy if they believed the Church in danger. People wanted the king and Parliament to govern in the nation’s interests, but differed over the surest way to achieve this. The rhetoric and ideology of moderation are discussed in the six chapters which form Part I of this book. By drawing on plays, poems, pamphlets, sermons, and other licensed materials, chapters 3 through 6 demonstrate the coherence of government propaganda during Charles II’s reign and its ubiquity in English political culture. These chapters also demonstrate how government propaganda tried to reduce the choices to unity or faction, monarchy or rebellion, reason or extremism, an Established Church or fanaticism, in order to exalt the virtues of moderation. The venerated via media of mixed monarchy and the Elizabethan Settlement conveniently juxtaposed moderation to the late violations of the ancient constitution in Church and State. The ideology of moderation was a siren song to a nation weary of violence, innovation, Puritan morality, and military rule. An ideology of moderation which appealed to the common sense of the English and which

introduction

21

promised the restoration of the “good old days” helped to establish the shared political identity which is the necessary precursor to political organization. Despite the shared political values of these years, religious differences remained a source of discord. In order to gain and to exercise power, all sides had to rely on collective action, cooperation, and organization. Part II of this book attempts to bring the issues of ideology and organization together. Beginning with chapter 8, there is an analysis of the speeches opening various parliamentary Sessions in these years, drawing parallels between the addresses to Parliament and the printed propaganda of the government. Chapter 9 recounts the mechanism of party organization and parliamentary management, especially under the earl of Danby. The last chapter looks at various ways in which members of the “Treasurists” or “Court Party” concerted their efforts during parliamentary Sessions. The final chapters are intended to offer evidence for the existence of an organized party in both Houses and its reliance on the rhetoric of moderation. Scott is right to see the “broad public consensus” which existed in 1678.6 The nation supported mixed monarchy and opposed any sort of arbitrary government. The persistent fear of fanaticism and of the crowd meant that Danby’s enforcement of the laws against both popery and dissent brought him widespread support. In tandem with fiscal efficiency, economic prosperity, and the marriage of Mary to William, his organized supporters in Parliament were capable of leading uncommitted centrists to support the government. It is the union of ideology and organization which makes this a political party under Danby. The ideological challenge of dissenters and the organizational efforts under Shaftesbury should be seen as responses to these developments. After all, one of the problems of whig history has always been its focus on the whigs. Consensus and ideology can be dangerous weapons. The exposure of Danby’s relations with Louis XIV immediately placed him on the wrong side of the “broad public consensus.” The importance of ideology and public opinion is apparent in the extent to which Danby was held accountable. The public, the parliamentary moderates, and most of his dependents abandoned him on principle: the menace of arbitrary government was now linked definitively to popery and the court. In a cataclysmic turn of events, the dire predictions of Marvell and others had turned out to be true.7 Danby’s organization and manipulation of the prerogative were part of a sinister plot to destroy the ancient constitution. Consequently, many Cavaliers, Anglicans, Royalists, and future tories joined the chorus of condemnation: Danby was held accountable to the values he pretended to share. By 1681 the attempts to control the king, the appearance of the mob, and the specter of rebellion brought most of these people back to the tory ranks. While hostility to Danby remained, the basic principles of modera-

22

introduction

tion embodied in the Established Church and the king also remained. The purges in local government and the quo warranto proceedings against the Corporations were the first steps in yet another attempt to organize an effective political party. As in the early 1660s, it began with a massive round of purges intended to exclude immoderate men from all civic and religious offices.

Courting the Moderates

This page intentionally left blank

I Ideology and Propaganda

This page intentionally left blank

1 Historiography When Keith Feiling wrote The History of the Tory Party in 1932, he downplayed the importance of political principles in the formation of parties. For him the Restoration was an age still fundamentally static, when the first concern of a Member of Parliament was his own harvest and society ran in genial channels of local allegiance. . . . Party divisions must not be exaggerated . . . and it is well to register the conviction that to exaggerate that clash of ideas and interests which party signifies, is as untrue in an historian of the seventeenth century as it is wanton in those who make the public opinion of a later day.1

By 1961 such Namierite views were under attack. In The First Whigs, J. R. Jones insisted that “political issues rather than social interests and connection, played the dominating role in early Whig politics.”2 Despite their different views, both scholars believed that 1679 witnessed the birth of political parties. The debate continues even today; some scholars searching for the causes of, some altogether denying the existence of, political polarization. While I agree with Jones’s emphasis on politics and issues, I want to push the formation of parties to a much earlier date. Furthermore, I will endeavor to show that the earliest political ideology was developed by the ancestors of the first tories. Within years of The First Whigs, some scholars pointed to the importance of a vague mass or unconnected center in the House of Commons which “never led in the House, but once gained, always carried it.”3 Yet no scholar has attempted to determine the way in which this crucial section of the Houses was gained. By studying political culture and demonstrating the importance of ideology and principle, I argue that English politics and political moderates were heavily influenced by ideological considerations. If one examines the large fluctuations in the recorded divisions of the House of Commons, it is apparent that this centrist group was essential to the survival of any ministry in the reign of Charles II. Clarendon, the Cabal, and Danby were all supported by, eventually opposed by, and finally brought down by this section of the House. More importantly, each 27

28

courting the moderates

desertion was related to specific national and international issues. Clarendon was brought down because of malversation and his conduct of foreign policy;4 the Cabal by the Declaration of Indulgence, the Stop of the Exchequer, and foreign policy; and Danby by the Popish Plot and his alleged complicity with Louis XIV. The downfalls indicate that the all-important group of moderates or centrists was sensitive to policies which offended their fundamental principles. Thus they needed an ideological “program” or “platform”—however primitive—which they could support as a way to maintain parliamentary as well as public support. At the same time, too much attention paid to parliamentary politics can be highly misleading; in the 1670s Parliament passed remarkably few laws and very rarely sat. Indeed, a well-crafted presentation of the government’s platform and policies was often more effective in winning adherents when Parliament was not sitting. The ideology permeating the political culture of the Restoration met with far fewer challenges when there was no Parliament to provide a forum for criticism. In the period from the vote of Supply following the Triple Alliance in 1670 until the revelations of Titus Oates in October 1678, the two Houses sat for only 386 days and three times were prorogued for over a year.5 The sporadic gatherings produced only minimal amounts of legislation. There is no comparable example after the accession of Henry VIII for such legislative barrenness.6 This was not, however, a product of a corrupt court, the “Merry Monarch’s” political detachment and his indolence, nor the absence of ideas and policies among ministers. In fact, the government used the recesses to influence public opinion through its control of the nation’s pulpits and its control of the printed word. By condemning the radical tactics of its opponents while simultaneously portraying the moderation and reason of the court, the government sought to increase its support throughout the nation and to secure the backing of uncommitted MPs. In this sense, moderation was an alternative to the Scylla and Charybdis of popery and fanaticism, both of which led inexorably to tyranny. The association of popery and arbitrary government was well established by 1660, but in the previous twenty years England had experienced the tyranny of military rule imposed in the name of religious and political freedom.7 Happily, the last twenty-five years have seen a torrent of new work on the Restoration. Nevertheless, the methodology and the questions asked remain bound to the revolutions which preceded and followed it.8 An important legacy of the Civil War is that historiography today continues to rely on binary oppositions: localism versus centralism, Anglican versus Puritan, court versus country, gentleman versus bourgeois. While dichotomies are undoubtedly useful analytical categories, they are still determined by the search for the antecedents of political parties. Indeed, the moment when opponents openly acknowledged political polarization with

1: historiography

29

the names “Whig” and “Tory” in 1679, still attracts prospectors digging for party roots. It also guarantees that the “crisis” which forced parties into the open continues to draw the lion’s share of historians’ attention.9 Even those committed to detaching the crisis from the cause of exclusion have trouble avoiding these years.10
The months following the death of Cromwell had seen the erosion of popular support for army rule and the constitutional experiments of the 1650s.11 The political, religious, and social innovations of the Interregnum led many to long for the traditional government of King, Lords, and Commons. Tim Harris’s work demonstrates how propaganda and ideology must “reflect in some way the common opinions of the age.” If propagandists have any hope of influencing an audience, they “must know the sentiments and opinions” of the people they wish to persuade.12 Although Harris is writing of the Exclusion Crisis, the same point might well be made of the years immediately after the Restoration. The vast majority of the nation was anxious for an end to the arbitrary government which had resulted from years of civil war, religious liberty, and the search for a political alternative to monarchy. For most, a return of the ancient constitution and the traditional leaders of society was the obvious solution. Mark Kishlansky has shown how strong the assumptions about unity and harmony in society were in the years before the Civil War.13 This consensus may have idealized an organic society that never was, but very few would have disputed the notion that unanimity had been abandoned in 1641 with tragic results. The indisputable consequences of division were an unpleasant reality by 1659, and the nation was ready to welcome back the ancient constitution of King, Lords, and Commons. Charles II may have been an unknown, but he was preferable to the known alternatives like Lambert.14 While there may have been no consensus about what form the future settlement would take, the vast majority agreed that arbitrary government, military rule, and various forms of radicalism were unacceptable alternatives to monarchy. The longing for peace and order provided the exiled king with a good deal of support. If nothing else, his link to the past meant that he represented ideals desired by a majority of the nation. Paul Seaward has written convincingly about the caution and fear which tempered the aims of the restored government. He argues that Clarendon was wary of alienating the people at a time when most experienced soldiers were recent enemies of monarchy. More importantly, Seaward draws attention to Clarendon’s conviction that the country needed to be wooed. To win over the people, he emphasized the government’s devotion to the law, the subject’s liberty, and

30

courting the moderates

public order. Clarendon also took great pains to publicize the king’s commitment to the ancient constitution and the Protestant religion. The emphasis on continuity with laws and traditions of the pre-war period was a direct appeal to the fears of the gentry, because the law placed strict limits on the arbitrary power of Parliament and the king. For this reason, the “rhetoric of royalism stressed law as much as it did loyalty.”15 While Seaward’s work does much to show how the law and the desire for order were crucial to the reconstruction of the old regime, he spends much less time examining the ways the country was to be wooed. Part I of this book will use a wide range of sources to describe this process. It is clear that the experiences of the past proved that Parliament was influenced by a variety of forces and that popular participation in politics had been crucial to the king’s defeat as well as to the survival of the various governments of the 1650s.16 It should, therefore, come as no surprise that the returning government looked to influence public opinion. In fact, Clarendon and his fellow travelers may also have “deliberately sought to build support for their position by appealing to the middle ground.”17 An appeal to the moderate center was rooted in ideals about the unity of the nation. In the same way that many believed Charles I had threatened these traditional assumptions, most people now accepted that the Council of State and the Major-Generals were a much greater threat. Furthermore, the same group that led the opposition to Charles I was now in the vanguard of support for the restoration of his son.18 At this time Presbyterianism signified the moderate parliamentarians whose representatives were expelled from the Long Parliament in December 1648. Jealous of any threat to the existing social order, and therefore hostile alike to radical political theories and the enthusiasms of the sects, by 1659 they so generally desired the king’s return that any distinction between those who had conformed to the Protectorate and those who had entered Charles II’s service was becoming nugatory.19

Once we recognize them as supporters of tradition and the Protestant religion, as well as enemies of arbitrary government, it is easier to understand why the moderate center (including moderate Presbyterians) would throw their support behind whichever side represented the traditions associated with the Elizabethan golden age. Ronald Hutton has shown how Monck’s denunciation of both fanatics and royalists established public confidence in his moderation. In January he had written of his desire for a “speedy and good setlement in the Commonwelth, not uppon any phanaticall parties or principalls, but uppon the true basis of interest and righteousness [that we may] . . . bee freed from this phanatic humour which hath borne sway soe long.” A fortnight later he insisted to Parliament that “it is the sober interest must establish

1: historiography

31

your dominion.”20 It was in this context of reunion and moderation that secluded members were returned to Parliament on 21 February, transforming the republican Rump into the Presbyterian assembly of the late 1640s. Meanwhile the English gentry, both Presbyterian and Anglican, began to reassert their traditional authority in local and national affairs. A number of local studies have noted the continuity in provincial urban politics during the War and Interregnum. David Scott, for instance, argues that from 1640–62 in many cities the “traditional socio-political order remained firmly in place.”21 Subjects who longed for the traditional order demanded a free Parliament, because “faith in parliament went hand in hand with devotion to the rule of a law which protected property and respected status.”22 The innate conservatism of the gentry was common throughout much of the nation by 1659. The appeal of moderation and reunion was recognized by Monck, Clarendon, and the king by 1660. Many scholars have noticed the concern for public opinion at the Restoration, at the fall of Clarendon, during the Dutch Wars, and again during the Exclusion Crisis.23 I want to emphasize how public opinion in the Restoration was sensitive to ideological distinctions and willing to hold politicians accountable to their publicly professed beliefs.24 As a result, there was a broad consensus in favor of restoring national unity and returning to the traditions rooted in the common assumptions about the English nation. The desire for legitimacy and order— religious, social, and political—was strong in 1659. In addition to popery and tyranny, disorder, fanaticism, and rebellion would be stigmatized in the rush to the middle ground. Mixed monarchy and a moderate church settlement therefore would be the key elements in the rhetorical formula of moderation. The development of this traditional discourse provided a crucial link to the past and the prospect of a return to normalcy. The first part of this book looks at the rhetoric of moderation, its emergence as an ideology, and its appeal for moderate opinion. This is not to argue that the political culture was malignant or conspiratorial, for there was considerable popular support for the monarchy and the moderation it claimed to represent. Indeed, the very real support for the traditions and moderation of the past is evident in the ideological confrontations throughout the reign of Charles II: to move from moderation towards the arbitrary policies of either extreme was to risk the danger of being held accountable in the summary court of public opinion.25 In the end, ideology may hold the key to understanding the emergence of party politics.

Moderation, Ideology, and Public Opinion Lately historians of the Restoration have engaged in lively exchanges about politics and the emergence of political parties.26 The most provoca-

32

courting the moderates

tive claims on the issue were made by Jonathan Scott in Algernon Sidney and the Restoration Crisis, 1677–1683.27 Scott states categorically that there were no political parties in the reign of Charles II, that all talk of party in these years is teleological, anachronistic, and an obvious conceptual prolepsis.28 However, his claims that too much of the historiography remains whiggish in its anticipation of future developments are valuable and cannot be ignored. Scott rightly insists that, despite our “preoccupation with the shape of the future,” people during the Restoration were obsessed with the “shadow of the past.”29 As a result, Scott comes to the conclusion that the crisis of 1679–81 was part of the same crisis that had flared up repeatedly from 1620 to 1650. Thus exclusion—the attempt to alter the succession—was part of a “restoration crisis” rooted in public memory and in the failure of that “act of nostalgia” known as the Restoration Settlement.30 The importance of Scott’s discussion of the European aspects of the crises and especially his demands to incorporate earlier problems into the crisis of 1677–83 cannot be overemphasized. One of the problems with Scott’s analysis, however, is that he follows most earlier historians of the period in focussing on the polestar of the crisis, the years associated with the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Bills. He concedes that there were alternating periods of popular fears about popery, fanaticism, absolutism, and parliamentary tyranny but concludes that the “Whigs” of 1678–80 were the “Tories” of 1681–83.31 Mark Knights has shown how these varying concerns are not proof of “an absence of fundamentally held views,” a statement that seems to agree with Scott’s later assertion that “what polarity existed between the sides themselves was ideological, not organizational.” Knights’ work has offered convincing proof of “a structure of politics that owed more to the bonds of ideology than to party-enforced cohesion.”32 In Politics Under the Later Stuarts, Tim Harris is also willing to identify two sides with “distinct political ideologies” in 1679. More importantly for my work, Harris argues that “organization, although important, was nevertheless a secondary development” in the emergence of party. For him, “party organization developed gradually over time to cement a common political identity that had already been formed.”33 “Professed principles” distinguish “party” from “faction,” and these principles are essential to forming the common political identity Harris insists predated organized parties. What distinguishes professed principles from a political ideology, why the polarities of belief only emerged in the crisis years of 1677–83, and why the development of such “principles” are always associated with the whigs are the some of the primary concerns addressed in Part I of this book. Jonathan Scott has not been alone in looking to incorporate the early years of the Restoration into the discussion. Richard Ashcraft’s work on Revolutionary Politics has offered 1675 as an earlier alternative to David

1: historiography

33

Ogg’s and J. R. Jones’s claim that the whigs of 1678–81 were a political party. While keeping the spotlight on the whigs, Ashcraft is nonetheless willing to grant them an ideology which he examines through Locke’s writings on toleration and the Two Treatises.34 Mark Knights has noted that locating the first whigs in the early 1670s was also the view in Roger North’s Examen, which looked back from the perspective of 1740.35 However, lately scholars have attempted to push the notion of a “restoration crisis” closer and closer to the king’s return. Gary S. De Krey has argued forcefully for the first Restoration crisis taking place from 1667–73, the years in which he identifies the first concerted effort to challenge the hegemony of the Established Church. The argument for conscience was redesigned as a defense of liberty; it was the persecuting state and not the restored monarchy which was being threatened. The debate over the Second Conventicle Act saw dissenters with a clear cut agenda opposing coercion in the streets, in the courts, and in the press. For De Krey, this agenda was not rooted in the classical republicanism which informs so much of Scott’s argument. Instead, it was a radical ideology which aimed to dismantle the coercive basis of the restored union of church and state.36 I believe that the ideological challenge offered by dissenters was inevitable in the face of the government’s ideology of moderation. The appeal of traditionalist ideology, propaganda, or platform forced dissenters to draw upon many common themes and shared values in order to make the case for conscience. The emphases on liberty and toleration were distinct from order and uniformity, but the goal in each case was the public and parliamentary support of those devoted to the traditions of mixed monarchy and the Protestant religion. The problem for dissenters was the need to uncouple the defense of Protestant belief from the coercive authority of the persecuting state. To do so, they needed an ideology which articulated an alternative to the official view that associated dissent with rebellion. The fall of Clarendon would provide an early opportunity to reaffirm ideological differences openly. The radical defense of religious liberty was indeed an alternative to the “political agenda of the persecuting state,”37 but its appearance as an ideological challenge presumes that there was an ideology to oppose. The crisis of 1667–73 remains important because the coercion necessary to enforce religious uniformity was linked with the practice of arbitrary government. The government’s support for toleration led to the parliamentary backlash resulting in the Second Conventicle Act. However, it was the alliance with France and the Declaration of Indulgence which caused widespread fears of arbitrary government: even those most in favor of toleration hesitated to grant the king the power to dispense with parliamentary statutes. De Krey avoids calling this “effort organized by identifiable leaders” a party, but he does claim that the methods of political association and

34

courting the moderates

collective action it developed were revived and increased in 1679.38 His willingness to recognize ideological disputes in 1667–73 is a major contribution to the revision of Restoration politics. Yet by describing the “rhetorical and intellectual challenge to the restoration ideology of obedience and non-resistance” De Krey implies that there was an identifiable “restoration ideology” to be challenged. In looking ahead to the appearance of the first whig party, too many scholars have assumed that a coherent ideology was essential only for the government’s critics. But looking back at the “restoration crisis” from the perspective of the late seventeenth century, it is clear that the “rhetorical and intellectual challenge” of these years was a response to a government ideology that offered more than obedience and non-resistance. In fact, the ideology of moderation was articulated from early in the 1660s, providing a potent rhetorical formula that appealed to the broad center of the political nation after the king’s return. As the best, and only, alternative to the polarities of popery and fanaticism, it provided a safe haven from the dangers of arbitrary government. The very long shadow of the past was a constant reminder that tyranny, disorder, military rule, and false religion resided equally at either extreme. This is a problem addressed in a significant article by Richard L. Greaves. He agrees with Harris’s and De Krey’s efforts to shift the focus away from the “aftershocks” of Lawrence Stone’s mid-century earthquake, namely the crises of 1678 and 1688. Like Scott, he sees the fault lines stretching back to 1638 and beyond, making the entire reign of Charles II one of instability due to the internal tensions of the Restoration Settlement, the legacy of the revolution, and the growing fears of a militant, Catholic France.39 But for Greaves, the first Restoration crisis occurred from 1658–64. In these years the terms of the settlement—and, I would add, the definition of moderation—were first disputed. Appealing for a less “whiggish” perspective, he modifies Scott’s claims about the centrality of popery and arbitrary government and introduces the issues of legitimate authority and order. In Greaves’s view, the ultimate goal of the restoration of monarchy was to settle the “questions of legitimacy, authority, and religion.” Greaves provides an important summary of the challenges faced by the government following Cromwell’s death and Booth’s Rising: Between 1660 and 1664 the authorities had to suppress a military revolt by John Lambert; Thomas Venner’s Fifth Monarchist uprising, which lasted nearly seventy-two hours and left some forty dead; the republican Tong plot; the much more serious conspiracy of Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and eight members of the Irish Parliament to secure the interests of English landowners in Ireland and a state church loyal to the principles of the Solemn

1: historiography

35

League and Covenant; and the 1663 northern rebellion, whose manifesto cited the need to protect lives, liberties, and estate and to extirpate popery. This period also witnessed a struggle at Westminster over comprehension, toleration, indemnity, and control of the corporations.40

Clearly, this crisis of order added to the “insecurity of the gentry” and encouraged the Cavalier Parliament to pass the Clarendon Code, undermining any hope of the religious liberty promised in the Declaration of Breda. Chapter 2 aims to show how the increasingly exclusive settlement in church and state contributed to a stricter and more limited definition of moderation, thereby perpetuating religious differences as a deeply divisive element in politics and society. According to James Rosenheim, the reconstruction in 1660 combined accommodation with repression, forcing many respectable creeds beyond the pale.41 Thus the years following the king’s return can be characterized as an effort of “insecure men to bolster their recently acquired positions of authority and the vision of an orderly society to which they subscribed.”42 For these men, the need to reassert the traditional order was rooted equally in the very unsettled present and the remembrance of things past. If we follow Greaves in characterizing 1658–64 as the first restoration crisis, making De Krey’s crisis of 1667–73 the second, and the crisis of 1677–83 the third, then perhaps we ought to extend Scott’s conception of a restoration crisis to include the entire reign of Charles II. This is not to say that his reign was one long calamity, but to recognize the inherent instability which fueled the recurring crises from 1660–1715. In light of the Restoration crises and instability, I wish to show how the emerging ideological divisions are the first part of the process of party formation throughout these years. If the shadow of the past determines that the roots of ideological division are to be found in the 1640s and 1650s,43 then viewing Charles’s reign in its entirety should help us to understand the polarization that occurred after 1678. My contention is that ideological differences are a necessary prerequisite for the emergence of political parties. It was the desperation to avoid a return to the divisions of the Civil War which inspired the emphasis on unity and moderation. The rhetoric of moderation led to a government ideology which staked out the middle ground, using a discourse drawing on the languages of history, religion, the law, and the legitimacy of the ancient constitution. Furthermore, moderation offered a return to political unity and religious uniformity, the benchmarks of the traditional social order. In the context of the recent upheavals, moderation proved a difficult discourse to argue against. The difficulty was evident in 1668 when Richard Temple lamented how difficult it was “in decency to appear against it.”44 The language of moderation will also

36

courting the moderates

help us to understand the “polarities of belief” at each extreme and the varieties of emphases which precluded the ideological consensus sought. The “insecure men,” the magistrates and clerics of the returning establishment, were anxious to reconstruct the legitimacy of their authority in the eyes of the public. They aimed to reassert their authority through documents and actions intended to garner the support of public opinion. The role of propaganda and public opinion have received increasing scholarly attention since Tim Harris’s pioneering book on London Crowds in the Reign of Charles II. Harris is willing to take Restoration propaganda more seriously than J. R. Jones did in The First Whigs, acknowledging that the whig and tory propaganda of the Exclusion Crisis shared many slogans and values. The works of Sutherland, Frank, Schwoerer, and Fraser have shown how both printed and handwritten news reached a political nation beyond Westminster and London.45 However, the existence of propaganda may not be absolute proof of its effectiveness or importance. Despite the many splendid works on cities, towns, counties, and corporations, the relationship between the localities and the capital remain murky. Local rivalries and local issues were undoubtedly at the forefront of many conflicts, but religious differences related to the Restoration Settlement also played a vital part. In a notable recent book, Paul D. Halliday examines nearly two hundred Corporations and concludes that “partisan politics” in the Corporations was constant after 1650. This “activity” was an essential precursor to anything that might be called a party. Halliday is willing to accept the influence of the past and of religion in Corporate competition, but he insists that both influences were common well before political parties had become an accepted part of the political nation.46 If propaganda has a role to play in the formation of parties, then its ability to reach beyond a political elite and to affect opinion and policies must be demonstrated. Steven C. A. Pincus and John Miller have both written on this topic. Pincus has offered abundant evidence demonstrating the role that public opinion played in shaping the political culture and the making of English foreign policy during the first two Anglo–Dutch Wars.47 In his view, fear of universal monarchy explains the enthusiasm for fighting Dutch Protestants as well as the growing ideological and public opposition to Louis XIV that followed. His article on “Coffee Houses” argues for an active public sphere in these years, which witnessed considerable political debate and the importance of public opinion. But for Pincus, and many others, ideology and opinion are almost always instruments of political opposition. Invariably, political culture and collective action are associated with one or more of the Restoration crises and are viewed as a means of challenging government policies.48 An important contention which links the two parts of this study is that both an ideology aimed at influencing public opinion as well as the earliest forms of party

1: historiography

37

organization were generated first by the government and imitated by its opponents and later by the whigs of the Exclusion Crisis. The tactics of the government—the first tories—were the basis for the process of party formation which took place in this period. In addition to the extensive patronage available for influencing members of Parliament, the prerogative power to call and to end parliamentary meetings, the ability to speak with one voice from the pulpits of the Established Church, and the monopoly over all licensed (hence legal) political culture provided the government with considerable power to shape if not entirely control the public discussion of religion and politics. John Miller has touched on the issue in an article on public opinion in the Restoration.49 He stresses that “popular politics” are “not inherently different from ‘elite politics’ . . . [and] that divisions of politics and religion ran vertically through all strata of society, rather than horizontally, dividing one stratum from another.” According to Miller the years 1640– 42, 1659–60, 1678, and 1681–82, all demonstrate public opinion and popular support shifting from one group to another. For Miller a “wide section” of the people was concerned with politics and “its opinions were taken seriously by the government.” He shows the many ways—written, printed, and oral—by which news was spread and demonstrates how difficult it was to control. Since the attempts at controlling news were futile, he argues the government recognized the need to disseminate views of its own.50 Thus, public opinion influenced royal policies, with the king aiming to frame policies that would meet with popular approval or help prevent another rebellion. Additionally, the government granted significant powers to the Surveyor of the Press to improve his ability to censor printed material and to discover and silence illegal printers and publishers. A necessary variation on this theme was the official effort to craft rapid responses to public criticism in order to sustain popular support and to maintain the initiative in the public sphere. The king occasionally shaped his policies in order either to undermine support for his opponents or to counteract the accusations of the growing threat of popery and arbitrary government.51 Mark Knights and Tim Harris agree with Miller that both sides used the press to “woo popular support” during the Exclusion Crisis in an attempt to gain the active support of public opinion. Gary S. De Krey sees the debate over the Second Conventicle Act as a contest for public support.52 But Miller makes other assertions about public opinion which raise questions addressed in the first part of this book. In referring to the success of L’Estrange’s Observator, he states that “Charles II’s reign witnessed less a struggle by the crown to control the opposition press than a battle for the hearts and minds of a divided political nation, a division reaching far wider than the landed classes and learned professions.”53 Throughout the battle between the

38

courting the moderates

divided political nation, there existed the polarities of belief mentioned by so many of the historians cited above. But these “extremes of ideological, political, and religious polarities” only rarely attracted more than the most committed and dedicated adherents. The many crises of the seventeenth century, whatever their number, drew moderates to one pole or another, regularly providing the temporary appearance of massive popular support. However, moderates by definition are wary of extremes, and recent experience had shown that extremism could come equally in the form of popery or fanaticism. Indeed, the ideology of moderation never tired of making this important point. In accepting the significance of public opinion, Miller raises a number of questions: At what point did the restored government come to appreciate opinion’s role in politics? Was the government only concerned with popular support at times of crisis? Was the government’s propaganda always a reaction to or an imitation of its opponents? Did the government of Charles II shape its policies to suit public opinion? Was the public awareness of politics and events sophisticated enough to hold politicians accountable for their actions and propaganda? The answers to these questions are necessary for understanding the importance of ideology to Restoration politics. Some of these questions are addressed in Part I, but as a preliminary response let us emphasize that, in the aftermath of the Civil Wars, the nation was nearly unanimous in its desire for stability and order. In addition, by the end of 1659, it appeared that the ancient constitution provided the best hope of restoring them. Considerable divisions remained in 1660, but with the exception of some very radical extremists most people “shared the same basic political and constitutional values.”54 So long as the king adhered to these values, the nation was willing to support him with their hearts and their purses. With the king’s executive powers restored nearly intact, people looked to him to rule and accepted that he would exercise the same initiative in policy-making as had his predecessors. Both Charles I and Cromwell had acted arbitrarily, and their methods of rule—Personal and military—had been rejected in turn. These early examples of political accountability indicate that the nation would expect Charles II to pursue policies which respected his subject’s liberties, the laws of England, and the Protestant religion. Thus any attempt to exploit public opinion or to gain support for an ideology would hinge on the government’s credibility. In other words, the concern for public opinion not only transformed English political culture, but also meant that the government would now be held accountable for its ideology. When the king attempted to dispense with statute law, when he appeared to favor Catholicism, or when he allied himself and the country too closely with the interests of France, the supporters of moderation invariably fell away. The earl of Danby combined sound finances with a Protestant foreign policy,

1: historiography

39

strict Anglicanism, and the creation of a healthy “court party” in Parliament to make the king and government extremely formidable by 1678. Still, when the agreements with Louis XIV revealed the official ideology to be a sham and a deception, the Treasurer was held accountable. The extensive support for his policies evaporated overnight.

Varieties of Arbitrary Power The one value that unified the political nation was an abhorrence of arbitrary government, which was viewed as part of a process that led to the tyranny and absolutism that distinguished the people on the continent from the English.55 From the Papal Bull condemning Elizabeth until the Thirty Years’ War, arbitrary government was part of a conspiracy led by the Catholic Church in general and the Jesuits in particular. During the reign of Charles I, the Popish Plot was associated with the court.56 But the 1650s witnessed the appearance of the multitude in politics, two civil wars, the beheading of the king, and the disintegration of a society based on hierarchy and degree. Worst of all, the years of political and religious innovation culminated in the most arbitrary form of government of all: the military rule of the Major-Generals. Faced with the demons of popery and the many-headed monster, it is easy to understand why people saw moderation as the best alternative. The ideology of moderation, rooted so firmly in the recent past, was aimed directly at people wishing to preserve the via media of mixed monarchy from the despotic extremes of popery and fanaticism. This view, while acknowledging Scott’s emphasis on a “restoration crisis” which goes beyond the single issue of exclusion, also offers an alternative to his fusion of popery and arbitrary government. In the same way that he and J. C. D. Clark dismiss any discussion of party in the Restoration as teleological, the idea that the “restoration crisis” was only about “popery and arbitrary government” might be questioned for the same reason. Today every English schoolchild knows that popery was the cause of the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89; thanks to Scott’s chapter on the “Shadow of the Past,” we are reminded of how the issue of Catholicism threatened the monarchy in the 1670s as well as the 1620s, 1630s, 1640s. Nevertheless, an openly Catholic James was widely supported at the death of his brother and the challenge of the duke of Monmouth was easily seen off. More importantly, to fetter arbitrary government to popery is to ignore the events of 1681–83, the arbitrary governments of the Interregnum, and the public disturbances of 1659–64. It is worth noting that none of the radical threats listed above had any connection to the popery of the Counter-Reformation.57 The fear of arbitrary government was extremely real in 1660, but the threat was

40

courting the moderates

associated with fanatics and republicans, not with Roman Catholics. Rather than the foreign and papist threat described by Peter Lake and Robin Clifton, arbitrary government was vividly remembered as the product of a domestic, factious party which had lately ruled at the point of the sword. The death of Cromwell deprived the Protectorate government of much of its popular support and eroded its credibility. In many ways, the restoration of monarchy resulted from the Interregnum government being held accountable for its failure to defend the country from arbitrary government. Even worse, the parliamentary promise to uphold and preserve the true church had resulted in the proliferation of religious sects, each with a radical social, moral, or political program to advance: and this omits altogether the theological doctrines tolerated under Cromwell. So the fear of arbitrary government, no matter what its origins, was not new in 1660. It was the ingredient in an ideologically polarized society which made moderation so palatable both before and after the Civil Wars. If the king could do no wrong (and this was as true, constitutionally, in 1660 as it had been in 1630) then the arbitrary actions of any given monarch could only be explained as a conspiracy led by evil councillors.58 However, different opinions about the identity of the leaders of such a plot had emerged after the 1630s. On the one hand, the Personal Rule of Charles I, his French queen, his refusal to support the Protestant cause or to defend his sister, and the growing influence of Catholics at court all contributed to the fear of a Popish Plot. Such a conspiracy by definition would aim to establish arbitrary government and extirpate Christian liberty. To others, the Puritan elevation of the word and the power of individual congregations was viewed as subversive and a threat to all good government. In the 1630s, we see a popular plot to undermine authority contending with a popish plot to abolish religion and the law: two polarities of emphasis, each aiming to expose the enemies of the ancient constitution. The shared values remained intact, only the source of the conspiracy—the identity of the conspirators—divided the nation. Eliminate the committed conspirators, avoid the ideological extremes, and the traditional unity would be preserved. The coveted traditional unity may never have existed, but Mark Kishlansky and Conrad Russell have shown how important accommodation and unanimity were to parliamentary “selection” before the wars. Seaward, Scott, Harris, Greaves, and Knights have all referred to a moderate middle group looking for compromise throughout the many crises of the Restoration. These were the people who went back and forth, supporting whichever side was seen as most credibly opposed to arbitrary government. The middle group agreed on the merits of an orderly society, but during the Restoration period they were regularly presented with alternative views about the best way to achieve it during the actual Restoration.

1: historiography

41

The development of well-articulated alternatives contributed to the political instability of Charles II’s reign. And the alternatives, so often reduced by historians to a conflict between king and Parliament, were frequently expressed in religious terms. The fear of popery and its sibling, arbitrary government, were two of the primary causes of the breakdown in 1640–42. However, the subsequent yoking of arbitrary government to fanaticism was just as important to the return of monarchy and to the shape of the Restoration Settlement.59 Indeed, several scholars have recently addressed the relationship between political and religious issues in the Restoration. Tim Harris’s book on late Stuart politics argues that the whiggish view of a titanic clash between defenders of parliamentary freedoms versus the absolutist ambitions of the monarchy is too restrictive. For Harris, both Cavaliers and High Anglicans saw the Restoration as marking the return to constitutional propriety after the tyrannies and constitutional irregularities committed by the Parliamentarian and republican regimes during the 1640s and 1650s, and looked to the rule of law to protect their vision of the proper order in both Church and State.60

The willingness to recognize the religious context of Restoration politics places the Restoration Settlement at the heart of the crisis. But despite the historical spotlight trained on popery, the Settlement was largely concerned with dissent, and especially with dissenters’ connections to adherents of the “good old cause.” The Declaration of Breda had promised a free debate on the issue of tender consciences, but the rebellious actions of radicals following the king’s return and the election of the Cavalier Parliament shattered any hopes for a broad church settlement. Even before the Presbyterians were hurled into the void, religious differences became the most divisive element in English society. Sectarianism was the cause of the recent breakdown of order and good government. Consequently, a general consensus existed in favor of authority and order, one which grew stronger in the face of repeated challenges. In this light, the decision to restore the Book of Common Prayer “had as much to do with order and authority as with religion.”61 The consensus in favor of legitimate authority was linked to traditions about the ancient constitution and shaped by the memory of the past. Everyone agreed that arbitrary government subverted legitimate authority and that popery remained a threat to an ordered society. But the expanding power of the Anglican Church and the coercive legislation of the Clarendon Code demonstrated the powerful fears produced by the lack of religious uniformity. The growth of arbitrary government was associated with popery during the Third Dutch War and the years encompassing the Popish Plot; it was connected with fanaticism at the Restoration, in

42

courting the moderates

1670, 1674, and again after 1681. Public fears of arbitrary government as a method or style of rule were linked to the government’s alliance with France, to the persecuting state’s coercive religious policies or, alternatively, to royal efforts to modify the restrictive religious legislation of the Cavalier Parliament.62 Just as the defense of liberty of conscience spurred ecumenical cooperation from various groups, the devotion to authority and order made for strange bedfellows in the search for moderate solutions to the problem of arbitrary government. A considerable variety existed within the rhetoric and ideology of moderation, but there was an ideological consensus that went beyond the shared language and similar rhetoric that Tim Harris notices during the crisis of 1678–81.63 Paul Seaward’s work on the reconstruction of the old regime attests to the widespread support for “a persuasive rhetoric calculated to appeal to those gentry who were . . . conservative, legalistic, and anxious to restore peace and stability.” While recognizing the diverse attitudes in matters of religion, he rightly notes the general acceptance of a desire for order and unity. For landowners and for many others, sectarianism was the original sin which precipitated the late misfortunes. Therefore conscience, dissent, and nonconformity were “an expression of political, not simply religious, antagonism to the established order.”64 In its ambition to restore the world it had lost, the Cavalier Parliament came to view toleration of dissent as a continuing betrayal of the customs and traditions which ordained the political necessity of religious uniformity. For these rejuvenated royalists and Anglicans, the return of order and hierarchy were appealing on social, political and religious grounds. With each paroxysm of violence from 1660–63, the question arose about just what would satisfy those opposed to an Established Church. What type of authority were they willing to obey? Did their tender consciences allow them to resist the legitimate authority in church and state? Was their armed rejection of unity, authority, and order an example of their enduring reliance on the power of the sword? Was it a legacy of their tendency towards military rule and arbitrary government? These were the fears used by Anglican Royalists and Cavaliers to establish the public perception linking dissent with sedition and fanaticism with arbitrary government, a perception well established by 1662.65 The most notable contribution can be found in the writings of Peter Heylyn and Henry Foulis. Heylyn had defended the Church of England’s role in maintaining civil order early in the Civil War, while Foulis detailed the fanatic conspiracy which resulted in the arbitrary government of the 1650s.66 According to Mark Goldie, many other contemporary theorists also believed that Catholic theory made revolutionary Calvinism possible, and that both granted the people political power and thus the right to rebel. The consequences were identical: they led to disorder by stripping the mon-

1: historiography

43

archy of its authority.67 Most importantly here, because of periodic disturbances, the arbitrary government of armed fanatics remained more than just a memory throughout Charles II’s reign. For contemporaries, the survival of the monarchy was not nearly as certain as we now know it to have been. The 1650s were a shining example of how arbitrary government could form an unholy alliance as readily with dissent as with popery. The ideology of moderation never tired of repeating this history lesson, and the moderate center of the political nation proved very willing to apply it to contemporary developments. The study of moderation is influenced by the recent rejection of binary oppositions, one of the most valuable products of the late revisionism, as a means of analyzing Restoration politics. To understand recurring crises in a fluid and dynamic political culture, historians have identified a wide variety of emphases within a discourse which shared a language rejecting arbitrary government and the polarities of popery and fanaticism. The basic values shared by moderates help to explain how large numbers within the political nation could support the restoration of monarchy and the church, oppose the parliamentary policy of coercion, reject the royal offers of Indulgence, endorse the Anglican policies of Danby, champion the Bills of Exclusion and rally to the royal cause by the end of 1681. Despite the open Catholicism of the king’s brother and heir, the fear of popery took a back seat to the threat of “an absolute, arbitrary, and unaccountable power lodged in the multitude.”68 Any coalition or association of men who persuaded the public that they were most likely to defend the traditional order against the growth of arbitrary government was able to gain widespread support. By 1678, repeated crises had forced the contradiction into the open: how could polarities of belief exist within an ideology of moderation? As a result, with a battle for the hearts and minds of the people taking place on the streets of London, the nation faced a choice between competing ideological arguments.69 The arguments had been developing since the 1660s within the shared rhetoric of moderation. While different versions emphasized obedience over conscience, monarchy over Parliament, uniformity over toleration, and tradition over radicalism, the extremes of republicanism and the absolutism which disdained moderation altogether were rarely a factor.70

Management, Organization, and Party Arbitrary government was most commonly, but not exclusively, associated with popery or fanatic extremism. When viewed as part of the evolution of tyranny or absolute power, arbitrary government was sometimes linked to the corrupting influence of the court. Beyond the financial costs

44

courting the moderates

of corruption was the threat it posed to the traditions of the ancient constitution. Thus, every attempt to manage Parliament or to corrupt its members was considered an assault on English liberties. Efforts to “pack” the House of Commons by James I, Charles I, and Cromwell had been met with fierce parliamentary opposition. Furthermore, the repeated designs to organize supporters in the Cavalier Parliament were considered attempts to corrupt the independence of members and thereby thwart the people’s will. According to the received history of the English Parliament, a House full of government creatures was the first stage in the growth of arbitrary power. Denunciations of pensioners and bribed members were common during Danby’s time; these were the villains who played such a prominent role in Marvell’s Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government and the Seasonable Argument to Perswade all the Grand Juries in England to Petition for a New Parliament, or A List of the Principal Labourers in the Grand Design of Popery and Arbitrary Power. However, if organization (or corruption) is an important variation on the theme of arbitrary government, it is significant here for its role in the development of political parties. Jonathan Scott insists that whatever parties existed in these years were “ideological, not organizational.” He also insists on the distinction between ideas and political structures. For Tim Harris, ideological distinctions and organization are part of the process leading to political parties. So if we can both identify a coherent ideology and demonstrate attempts at parliamentary and extra-parliamentary plans for organization and concerted action, then there may be a case for the existence of political parties before the eighteenth century. Furthermore, by associating these components of party with the Crown and the court, I want to argue for a Tory party which predated the “first Whigs,” eventually compelling them to organize—ideologically and structurally—along already established lines. The ideological crisis of 1667–73 resulted in the Test Act, excluding papists from office. At this point, the dissenting ancestors of the first Whigs abandoned their collective actions and their ideological defense of toleration because the Indulgence provided a precedent for the arbitrary use of the dispensing power in civil matters.71 However, the victory for political principle over self-interest was a pyhrric one at best. The exclusion of Catholics and the rejection of toleration convinced the king to return to the moderate and centrist solutions of Clarendon. The appointment of Danby soon led to the revival of the alliance between the Anglican Royalists and the government, and this led inescapably to a renewal of religious persecution. Significantly, these years also resulted in the recognition of different “sides” in the Commons, with uncomfortable reflections about the “distinctions in the House between the country gentlemen and the courtiers,” and references to “this side of that House, and that side,”

1: historiography

45

and official denials of such divisions from Secretary Coventry, who insisted that “there was none, nor ought to be none.” The editor of The History of Parliament’s volume on the House of Commons, 1660–89, claims that these complaints are the earliest evidence “which shows that members were sitting according to party.”72 This development took place in February 1673, a time when whatever management engaged in by the Cabal was in a shambles. Therefore, members must have begun sitting on opposite sides of the chamber based on their identifiable ideological differences. De Krey’s illuminating work on the “crisis” of 1667–73 recognizes that “dissenters also experimented with methods of political association and collective action that would be further developed by the London Whigs (and Tories) in the crisis of 1678–83.” Accepting Harris’s call to view the formation of parties as a process rather than an event, De Krey sees this as an early stage in the process, insisting that “party had become a feature of London politics in 1667–73.”73 As noted previously, Greaves argues that the “ideological challenge to the ethic of persecution was underway well before 1667.” He sees the roots of party already in the ground as early as the elections in 1661 and offers examples, throughout the 1660s and 1670s, of opposing groups or parties vying for local offices, organizing to acquire power, and developing a rudimentary ideological program.74 The chronology of the “process” offered by De Krey, Greaves, and Harris has considerable merit. But concentrating on dissenters and whigs begs the question of whether an opposition party can exist on its own. Their argument implies that the political associations and collective actions of dissenters were developed in a vacuum. On the contrary, ideology and collective action were the best means available to counter the growing influence of the government in both Houses of Parliament. Though nothing like the disciplined parties of later centuries, there were regular efforts to organize government supporters in Parliament following the Restoration. Taken in conjunction with the ideology of moderation, this incipient organization reveals a process of party formation under way well before the Exclusion crisis and largely undertaken by the precursors of the later Tories. Until recently, the scholarship on the birth of political parties shared two key assumptions. With some slight variation, historians have agreed with David Ogg’s assertion that the choice between exclusion or a popish successor led to “the clear-cut forms of political party.”75 By fixing the birthdate of parties to the Exclusion Crisis, Ogg’s argument leads naturally to the second assumption: namely, that opponents of the government first developed a coherent system of party management under the earl of Shaftesbury. This development has been pushed back slightly by Richard Ashcraft, who believes that Shaftesbury’s first organization of a party began in 1675.76 The late revisions offered by Harris, De Krey, and

46

courting the moderates

Greaves have introduced the formation of party as a process that began in the 1660s, but all three historians continue to assume that opponents of the court or ancestors of the whigs were responsible for planting the seeds of party. In doing so, they dismiss important earlier scholarship on organization during the Cavalier Parliament. As early as 1923, E. S. de Beer and Keith Feiling were arguing that Danby was responsible for the first organized party. Knowledge of this government organization persuaded others of the need to consolidate their opposition under Shaftesbury.77 Andrew Browning’s magisterial work on the earl of Danby yields further evidence of party organization, identifying previous court parties under Clarendon and the Cabal.78 Despite these works and a host of articles79 on “parties” and “groups” during the Restoration the whiggish fixation with the government’s critics persists. D. T. Witcombe’s Cavalier House of Commons unequivocally rejects the idea of opposing parties before 1674, reducing cooperation among members to confusing examples of faction characterized by mutability.80 Paul Seaward provides a wealth of detail on the structure of parliamentary politics from 1660–67, but also sees parliamentary divisions being rooted in the factions at court. While demonstrating how prevalent management and organization were in the 1660s, he argues that Clarendon and Sir Henry Bennet had rival groups that were weapons of the competing factions at court. Seaward acknowledges that the factions were led by managers and that by 1665 the king realized he could not direct parliamentary business without the cooperation of court managers.81 So for Seaward the need to “manipulate” Parliament “encouraged the development of new methods of doing so.” He says that Bennet refined Clarendon’s methods in an attempt to construct a “commons ‘party’,” granting that the later 1660s and 1670s saw the same methods developed more systematically, leading to “the more tightly organized court faction of Danby.”82 Seaward’s excellent analysis of early 1660s is unnecessarily clouded by the lack of clear distinction between faction and party. While they are not the same thing, the fact that competing factions sometimes cooperated is evidence of the process of party formation. Even now in the new millennium, many wellorganized political parties remain subject to faction. Within years of the king’s return, Clarendon and others sought to manage the Cavalier Parliament by organizing reliable supporters of the government. Seaward and Witcombe are right in seeing a confusing number of rival groups in the 1660s. It is true that the prize sought was ministerial power rather than control of Parliament for the court, yet by the mid 1660s it was becoming apparent that the surest way to ministerial power was the ability to lead the Cavalier Parliament.83 Factions and rivalries for power remained common features of court politics, but the desire for a reliable group of supporters grew with every succeeding government.84 Clarendon

1: historiography

47

was careful to avoid the appearance of interfering with the liberty and independence of members, fully aware of the charges of arbitrary government that would result. But his Life and personal papers provide evidence of advance preparations, a management committee, regional leaders, and the influence wielded by lawyers devoted to the Lord Chancellor.85 Despite his management efforts, Clarendon was challenged and forced to join with Bennet once the king recognized the more sophisticated methods developed by the latter. Rather than allow two court factions to divide his support in Parliament, Charles ordered Clarendon to include his rivals Bennet and Clifford on the parliamentary management committee. Forcing the rivals to work together was crucial to Clarendon’s survival and improved the government’s effectiveness from 1663–66. Charles acted to prevent ministerial divisions from hampering parliamentary business; thus J. R. Jones’s claim that this moment introduced a style of management that changed parliamentary politics is not entirely off the mark.86 Certainly, the king grasped the importance of maintaining a united front against his parliamentary critics. With parliamentary Sessions still the best opportunity for concerted criticism of the government, the growing economic and religious tensions during the Second Dutch War made firm leadership of the Parliament an absolute necessity. It should come as no surprise that when Clarendon fell he was succeeded by a junta which included some of the most effective organizers at court. The heritage of parliamentary managers that begins with Clarendon and Arlington is fundamental to our understanding of late Stuart politics. Neither these men nor their immediate successors were the leaders of political parties, but their increasingly sophisticated managerial programs were necessary steps in the process of party formation. The names of experienced managers and organizers recur throughout these years. The ambition for office, and the power and patronage it brought, was undoubtedly shared by the politicians who reached the top of the greasy pole. Access to patronage provided the ability to gain influence by dispensing offices, jobs, favors, pensions, and titles. Clarendon was the most influential of the king’s ministers at the Restoration, but Bennet used his access to the royal brothers and promises of future rewards to increase his support. Among his most important allies were Thomas Clifford, Joseph Williamson and William Coventry.87 The three men are not only significant as managers and ministers, but they are also a crucial bridge connecting Clarendon to Danby. It is undeniable that the organization of parliamentary groups in the Cavalier Parliament has a pedigree that stretches from beginning to end, with Shaftesbury alternately denouncing or utilizing the type of managerial skills he had developed before 1674. Recognizing the need to coordinate ministerial influence in the face of parliamentary discontents, successive ministers, like the king in 1663,88

48

courting the moderates

developed the methods of influence, management, or organization which were fairly consistent from 1662–78. Though management was not new to Parliament at the time, the length of the Cavalier Parliament provided the opportunity to increase the influence of the government. As a result, the involvement of many of the same men in the 1660s and 1670s must have improved the overall organization of ministerial influence. Also, the relatively static membership of the Upper House combined with the loyalty of the recent creations and the bishops meant that the House of Lords contained elements that resembled something very like an organized party.89 Not surprisingly, a large majority of Lords shared the king’s distrust of radicalism, and they formed a solid body of support for the restrictive legislation of the Clarendon Code.90 As early as 1664, Lord Wharton was preparing (admittedly unreliable) lists of supporters for the king. He was later displaced by the earl of Bridgewater, who tried to manage the Lords in the Anglican interest.91 Both were aided by Sheldon, who not only regularly collected proxies from bishops too feeble to attend, but also wrote constantly warning others not to neglect their parliamentary duties.92 The effectiveness of such management was greatly augmented by the presence of the duke of York and, after March 1670, by the regular attendance of the king. Even in the king’s absence, the Chancellor or Keeper directed the business of the House, stated royal policy in the important opening speeches, and guided debates through his role as Speaker. With the exception of 1667–73, this important position was held by two of Charles’s most effective servants—Clarendon and Sir Heneage (Lord) Finch. Though Finch remained in Danby’s shadow, he and Clarendon consulted with the king and his ministers about parliamentary business both before and during each session.93 The limited numbers of peers attending most debates, the reliable bloc of episcopal votes, the natural conservatism of a body abolished during the late troubles, and the king’s influence and presence in the House provided the government with ample opportunity to create a solid majority in the Lords. This is not to say that the Lords were just another of the king’s lapdogs. The restored crown had critics in both Houses, but most peers were devoted to an ideology which placed religious uniformity and the rule of law before any particular monarch. Indeed, many moderates opposed the king in the late 1660s and the early 1680s when he adopted policies of Indulgence or of arbitrary government. The House of Lords was capable of being managed in these years, but the king’ supporters would only fall in line so long as his government adhered to their publicly professed principles. Ideology was therefore central to the process of transforming parliamentary factions into political parties. After the ecumenical alliance of discontented courtiers and favorers of dissent brought down Clarendon, the Anglican Royalists found themselves

1: historiography

49

temporarily rudderless. The king’s decision to rely on the members of the Cabal in his search for a more comprehensive church settlement forced the old “Clarendonians” into a closer alliance with the Established Church. In 1668 Archbishop Sheldon rallied supporters in both Houses to prevent the debate on a proposed Comprehension Bill.94 Aware that the battles over privileges were part of “a design to break this parlt,”95 Anglican Royalists were able to hang together solely because of their shared principles. Their group was able to ward off Comprehension, obtain Supply for the king, push through the Second Conventicle Act, and limit the growth of popery through their support of the Test Act. Deprived of the organizational advantages provided by court preferments, administrative office, and the influence over patronage, the Anglican Royalists were still able to pass legislation dear to their hearts and to ride out the ideological challenges to the Conventicle Act. What finally convinced the king to turn once again to his Cavalier supporters were the bicameral disputes in 1668–69 and the growing disarray while the various factions of the Cabal vied for power. The group was disposed to work with the king so long as he “adhered firmly to the Restoration Church settlement.”96 The efforts to break the Parliament after 1667 illustrates the antiClarendonians’ fear of the Anglican Royalists’s strength and coherence in each House. The early years of Charles’s reign had shown how potent the alliance between Cavaliers and the Established Church could be when they had the support of the king. In the wake of the divisions at court associated with toleration, popery, and the Third Dutch War, the king turned to a new minister. The government’s desperate need for money led Danby to search for parliamentary allies under every stone. By the end of 1674, he turned to the most reliable group in Parliament at that point: the Anglican Royalists. Danby and Williamson turned to Archbishop Sheldon for guidance, and were told in no uncertain terms that strict enforcement of the laws against papists and dissenters was required.97 Such a calculated appeal to the Anglicans brought the government some much needed support both in and out of Parliament. Danby was not only able to play to the Anglican gallery until his fall, but he also laid a stronger foundation for his ministry by organizing members in both Houses. The Lord Treasurer initiated a systematic organization of his government’s supporters from the moment he first advised the king.98 When combined with an anti-French foreign policy and sound financial policies, this well-organized group struck fear into the hearts of Danby’s adversaries.99 It is no wonder that 1675 is seen by Ashcraft as the birthdate of the first (whig) political organization, and by Swatland as a time when “Court and Country parties developed in both Houses.”100 Indeed, organizational lists, collection of proxies, meetings to prepare for sessions and to arrange

50

courting the moderates

speakers—Danby’s methods—were all emulated and adopted by Shaftesbury by 1675. Shaftesbury tried to rally his supporters in advance of the 1675 Session, arguing that a dissolution of the present Parliament was the surest path to avoid arbitrary government.101 As so often in the Restoration, the initiative rested with the king and his ministers; opponents and critics reacted to their actions.102 Jonathan Scott is dedicated to the belief that parties are an eighteenthcentury phenomenon which have no place in the discussion of Restoration politics. Though willing to admit ideological struggles, he denies the existence of organizational structure in political groups. His theory flies in the face of considerable evidence of Danby drawing up lists of probable supporters in each house, of a hard core of reliable “dependents,” and of Danby’s practice of conveying the “government’s intentions to these men in letters, at secret meetings, or via Court peers who had friends and relatives in the Commons.”103 There was also a significant scale of whipping in the Lords and the routine collection of blank proxies before every Session.104 Andrew Swatland notes that Danby’s management and collection of proxies was more systematic and thorough than the previous attempts by Clarendon, though the practice had been well established by the bishops in the early 1660s.105 These rudimentary methods of organization were developed throughout the reign, each manager drawing upon and improving the techniques of his predecessors. Scott rightly emphasizes the shadow of the past in the Restoration, but would have us believe that eighteenth-century party structures have no history: perhaps they emerged fully formed from the head of Walpole. Danby’s organization of a party went beyond simply counting heads. There are notes in his own hand of arguments to be used in Parliament, of meetings to coordinate tactics, and of instructions to his parliamentary managers.106 To win over the large body of uncommitted members he ordered renewed enforcement of the penal laws. He persuaded the king to dismiss Justices of the Peace and Lord Lieutenants who refused to comply. Dissident members of the Privy Council were replaced, a clear demonstration that Danby had convinced the king to make it known that Charles should “reward his friends and punish his enemies.”107 Aware of the public campaign to declare the Parliament dissolved in 1677, Danby even organized a printed response which he believed steadied many waverers.108 Here again the ability to animate supporters through the profession of principles can be taken as evidence that a shared ideology of moderation preceded the gradual organization of a party structure.109 The implosion of Danby’s organization should not be taken as evidence that it did not exist. Even the great arachnid, Sir Robert Walpole, came crashing down in 1742. The failure of court management in 1678 was really about self-interest, ideological principles, and accountability. The

1: historiography

51

pensioners, placemen, dependents, and officeholders all had good reason to look to the future once Montagu’s revelations signaled Danby’s demise. For the Anglican Royalists who supported Danby’s conservative, efficient, and Anglican policies, the Plot, the army, and the secret dealings with Louis XIV sent them cascading into the ranks of his enemies. Danby was reviled as a great hypocrite and clearly held accountable for his sham policies favoring the church and the Protestant religion abroad. Finally exposed as an instrument of popery and arbitrary government, Danby now served as a rallying point for national unity. The threat of arbitrary government was again associated with popery and the court’s attempts to bribe members of Parliament. The Cavalier Parliament was finally dissolved and the public turned in all its ferocity against a number of innocent Catholics. But this crisis was not only about exclusion. It was very much the crisis of opinion discussed by Mark Knights. Danby would wallow in the Tower years after the crisis had passed, and his role in the events of 1688–89 only partially rehabilitated his reputation. However, the moderate ideology he betrayed survived. In less than two years, the fears of renewed civil war, religious fanaticism, popular disorder, and the arbitrary power of Parliament caused the moderate center to choose the lesser evil of monarchy and the Established Church once more.110 The Tory reaction would see further developments in parliamentary organization, this time concentrating on the borough charters.111 The campaign would provide the last Catholic king with a huge majority in both Houses, but in the end his affinity for arbitrary government would prove ideologically incorrect.

2 The Changing Rhetoric of Moderation The fragmentation of political unity in the 1640s was one of the most important legacies of the Civil War. The novel tactic of purging one’s opponents from politics had opened the corridors of power to new men after 1644, excluding others in the process.1 In addition, the tactics of John Pym and others had generated a much wider audience for political culture. Following the king’s restoration, a rhetoric of moderation was developed: no natural occurrence, it was the product of a restored government anxious to take advantage of traditional assumptions about political consensus to present this renewed unity to the widest possible audience. Thus, in the emerging government ideology, the “late troubles” were, by definition, a product of the end of moderation. Accordingly, beginning with the Declaration of Breda, Sir Edward Hyde relied on a rhetoric which could incorporate all those willing to support the traditional verities of moderation, loyalty, and obedience. Since Elizabeth, composition had been preferred to competition and faction.2 David Underdown reminds us that, “according to the prevailing theory of consensus there could be no such thing as two sides in a seventeenth-century Parliament.”3 Halliday has shown how the assumption of unity applied to local governments as well, contributing to, rather than quelling, the purges and counter-purges from 1644–1727.4 The Presbyterians’ desire for “a monarchy strictly bounded and balanced by Parliament, and surrounded by advisers who would defend it” had remained the same throughout the 1640s and 1650s.5 A balanced government was the ideal they hoped to realize by supporting the restoration of Charles II. Unfortunately, a decisive transformation had taken place during the Civil War: the unity and consensus previously maintained by comprehending and accommodating one’s opponents was now sustained through purging and excluding them.6 While most acknowledged the need for unity, it comes as no surprise that those who had been excluded by the king’s enemies saw no reason to be accommodating when Charles returned. Accordingly, the rhetoric of moderation would emphasize unity and con52

2: the changing rhetoric of moderation

53

sensus, but it would also serve to justify the exclusion of any one who refused to swallow it whole. The emerging rhetoric had two obvious goals. First, it aimed to end the recent divisions in the body politic and to be a rallying point for unity. Second, it sought to emphasize moderation, loyalty, tradition, and the ancient constitution as the basis for restoring national unity. The clarity of this rhetoric also served the alternative function of making it easy to identify those rejecting it as extremists, a category inspiring little sympathy in 1660. The rhetoric of moderation was espoused by the poets and playwrights flocking to the court. While the court was inevitably a place of faction and competing views, the polemical supporters who hoped to prosper there showed a remarkable ability to speak with a single voice. Furthermore, similar views can be found in the official newsbooks and the public spectacles associated with the king’s return. It is also notable that an incredible variety of public rituals were inspired by the same muse, ensuring the widest possible audience for a traditionalist rhetoric. Additionally, a scriptural justification for moderation and obedience was offered from many pulpits and in printed sermons sponsored by the government. In fact, the exiled government’s concern for public opinion is evident from the moment it had a genuine hope of returning to power. This chapter examines a variety of textual, performative, and rhetorical forms which reflect the development of this rhetoric in England’s political culture from 1660–62. It also tries to show how the continuing threats from former soldiers and religious fanatics allowed the definition of moderation to become increasingly exclusive by 1662. So long as the earl of Clarendon was the most influential figure at the court, the government played upon the nation’s fears and the consequent longing for the order and traditional forms of authority. With the restoration of the king and the election of the Cavalier Parliament, the reconstruction of the final pillar of order and authority became increasingly likely. As the religious controversies dragged on and sectarian disorders continued, the logic of religious uniformity and the merits of an Established Church became evident. The divisiveness of the Restoration religious settlement has become an accepted part of Restoration historiography. But for contemporaries it was obvious that the refusal of so many to conform also indicated their political unreliability. If nonconformity was a form of civic disobedience, then dissent undeniably remained a variety of extremism. Paul Halliday has shown the ways in which “spiritual sympathies would provide the center around which the purgative impulses driving partisan politics would revolve in the years ahead.”7 As a result, moderation was narrowly equated with conformity, a restrictive definition which excluded all non-Anglicans from that privileged category. Thus, as the virtues of moderation pervaded

54

courting the moderates

the political discourse of these years, this ideology was used to establish the terms under which men would be allowed to participate in the political nation. Loyalty to the re-established authority in church and state became the essence of moderation. By recapturing the discourse and articulating an ideology, the public campaign condemning the fanaticism and extremism of the past allowed the government to use its celebration of moderation to justify the statutory exclusion of nonconformists from politics after 1662.
Among the promises in the king’s Declaration from Breda was a guarantee that the events of the recent past would be consigned to oblivion and forgotten. While the Act of Indemnity would lend the force of law to this amnesia, there were a few events that the Cavaliers remembered rather clearly. The iconoclasm aimed at cathedrals and churches during the Civil War years was an example to the new government of how effectively rituals of demolition had complemented the petitions, sermons, Fast-Days, and Days of Public Humiliation used to unite the supporters of Parliament. The public demonstrations had provided the symbolic and ideological forum for sustaining hostility toward monarchy and episcopacy.8 In response, the partisans of Charles II took part in public celebrations meant to denigrate their adversaries and demonstrate popular support for the ancient constitution.9 The 10th of February witnessed the “Roasting of the Rump,” an evening described as “possibly the greatest expression of popular rejoicing London has ever known.”10 By April, Marchamont Nedham had been stripped of his control of the newsbook and replaced by Henry Muddiman. A torrent of jeering pamphlets about the Rump poured forth, including The Rump, The Rumps Arse Scalded, Mistress Rump, The Buriall of Mother Rump, A Dispute between Old Noll and the Devill, In a Rumpish Way, and The Rump’s Fart.11 Printed pictures of the king—still a hanging offense—began to appear in London. Then “Dr Morley, the Kings chaptline, was before the Councill of State, and gave an account of the Kings religion and that his Majesty was a good Protestant, upon good testamonys.”12 Soon proscribed rituals associated with the Anglican Church were resurrected, rites readily identified as signs of the shifting loyalties. Traveling to London in May 1660, one troubled Puritan registered his disgust at finding “May-poles in abundance. . . . I saw a morris-dance, which I had not seen of twenty years before. It is a sad sign the hearts of the people are poorly employed when they can make a business of playing the fool as they do.”13 Foolish it may have seemed, but members of a group oppressed and excluded for nearly twenty years were celebrating their sudden liberation.

2: the changing rhetoric of moderation

55

Matthew’s prediction (12:25) of a divided kingdom being “laid waste” had been borne out in the 1640s and 1650s. The general desire for unity and consensus would be used by the government to great effect in the aftermath of the king’s restoration. While in exile, Charles’ advisors were painfully aware of how the “parties and animosities” had wasted the land, and they aimed to abolish the “notes of discord, separation and difference of parties” and replace them with “a perfect union . . . under our protection.”14 Protecting and ruling a reunited people was plainly the ideal, but the king’s Declaration had also acknowledged differences of opinion in religion and even hinted at a “liberty to tender consciences.”15 However, the very word “conscience” evoked a defense of “separatism”—two concepts directly opposed to unity and order. Indeed, pursuit of religious uniformity would lead to the most exclusionary aspects of the Restoration settlement.16 The usefulness of a (re)unified church for the government can be seen from the moment the king returned. When Charles Stuart entered London on his thirtieth birthday, the dominant sentiment in England was one of awe at the bloodless, effortless—even miraculous—means by which the ancient institutions had been restored.17 After twenty years of division, war, written constitutions, and military rule, the ancient form of government—represented by the king—paraded into London on a fine spring evening. As for that most puritanical of Cavaliers, Sir John Evelyn, he stood in the strand, & beheld it, & blessed God: And all this without one drop of bloud, & by tht very army, which rebell’d against him: but it was the Lords doing, et mirable in oculis nostris: for such a Restauration was never seene in the mention of any history . . . since the returne of the Babyllonian Captivity, nor so joyfull a day, & so bright, ever seene in this nation: this hapning when to expect or effect it, was past all humane policy.18

Evelyn’s conviction that events were the language in which providence communicated with humankind was not unique.19 In fact, the government would rely on this commonplace belief when it began to use the nation’s pulpits to disseminate ideological justifications for the need for unity in the church and state.20 But it was early yet, and reconciliation remained the basis for good fellowship. When Monck finally released the king’s conciliatory Declaration from Breda, the promise of an “indulgence” to be determined by Parliament was intended to reassure Presbyterians and others apprehensive about the return of an intolerant episcopal church.21 Even before the Declaration of Breda, any reference to a restrictive alliance between church and king had

56

courting the moderates

been met with a swift response. In March, the exiled court distanced itself from Matthew Griffith when he published his provocative sermon, Fear God and the King—and dedicated it to Monck.22 The exiles’ determination to shape public opinion is clearly seen in the reaction to this publication. Hyde wrote to Barwick in March, telling him that he “and Morley, together with the Bishops of Ely and Salisbury, should let such men know the King’s sense of the mischief they do.”23 Hyde’s desire to control statements associated with the king can be seen in his instructions to Gervase Holles in England that “nothinge must be attempted on the king’s behalf otherwise than it shall be directed.”24 By associating the General with the specter of an Established Church, Griffith had unintentionally soiled the image of unity and conciliation, and the reward for his mistake was to be clapped into Newgate without delay.25 Griffith’s imprisonment is proof both of the emphasis on moderation and of the power of the pulpit. Both sides were well aware of the role that sermons had played throughout the late troubles, and neither was willing to accept an open market in the religious and political instruction of the populace.26 Soon after the king’s return, one Grand Jury was harangued on this topic by Sir Peter Leicester, who insisted that due obedience and uniformity in the 1640s “would have expelled those dregs of Traison, which were of late sucked in by the Common breath from the dugges of a giddy-headed part of our clergy in their abused pulpits, to the great disturbance of the Peace & Tranquillity of our nation.”27 The widespread conviction that the absence of uniformity had allowed the abuse of the pulpit guaranteed that most Anglicans and Cavaliers wanted to maintain a strict control over access to the hearts and minds of the people. At the same time, the clergy’s ability to lecture the nation on a regular basis was a weapon much coveted by the restored government. Anglicans working for the king’s return knew that paeans to the church were unlikely to further the royal cause. A rigid episcopal settlement would mean the exclusion of their Presbyterian allies and others. Griffith’s allusion to the alliance between the church and king caused Edward Hyde to write to his clerical allies in England: he reminded John Barwick that moderation and conciliation were the words of the day, and that linking the monarchy too closely with episcopacy in the popular mind was likely to do far more harm than good. Fanning the flames of division and alienating his emerging Presbyterian allies was the last thing the king needed in 1660. [T]his last post hath brought over three or four Complaints to the King, of the very unskillful Passion and Distemper of some of our Divines, in their late Sermons. . . . One Dr Griffith is mention’d for having preach’d a Sermon of that kind, and since printed and dedicated it to the General; who, they say, is extreamly offended at it. . . . [T]he King is really troubled at it, and extreamly

2: the changing rhetoric of moderation

57

apprehensive of Inconvenience and Mischief to the Church, and himself, from Offenses of that Kind; . . . [The King wishes the bishops] to interpose their Authority, to conjure those Men, to make a better Judgement of the Season, and not to awaken those Jealousies and Apprehensions, which all Men should endeavour to extinguish. And truly, I hope, if Faults of this Kind are not committed, that both the Church and Kingdom will be better dealt with, than is imagin’d: And I am confident, those good Men will be more troubled, that the Church should undergo a new Suffering by their Indiscretion.28

So, while the exiled Charles had willingly listened to Anglicans preach, he instructed the surviving bishops to absent themselves from his arrival at Dover.29 The government’s cautious approach was maintained, with the bishops being kept in the background for months after the re-establishment of monarchy. The restored court would not allow fears of an exclusive church settlement to threaten the assumptions about unity. Following the king’s return, the Convention went about the business of pulling down the legislation which had pulled down the ancient constitution. The Presbyterians strove to demonstrate their loyalty to monarchy. However, their consent to civil forms was not matched by a devotion to episcopacy. Lax attendance in the House by royalists soon left the Presbyterians with a majority in the Commons, so Bills in favor of episcopal government made no progress.30 Soon the terms for conformity were reduced to the acceptance of infant baptism, a far cry from the visions of the episcopacy.31 Perhaps the government was giving unity too long a lead. As a result, the government exploited both the king’s prerogative powers and its ability to provide a public display of support for episcopacy. The Convention was adjourned for the last time on the same day as the aged Juxon—Charles I’s Chaplain—was elected to the See of Canterbury. One week later began the nomination of new prelates. The news was published on 20 September, with the boastful comment that “the great confusion of [parliamentary] business now over, the further settlement of the Church is thought of, and in order to it, his Majesty hath now given order for making the Bishop[s] . . . notwithstanding the factious endeavours of some seditious persons.”32 For those unaware of the clergy’s attitude toward such “seditious persons,” the sermons preached on these occasions unveiled the Anglican vision of schism. English political culture was about to gain a linguistic aspect which emanated directly from divines associated with the government. More importantly, by adding an oral dimension to the official propaganda, sermons swelled the audience for the government’s views spectacularly. The change in the rhetoric of moderation was first heard in a sermon preached at the translation of the three surviving bishops, including William Juxon to Canterbury. Despite his infirmity, Juxon was an impor-

58

courting the moderates

tant symbol of the Anglican Church’s resurrection, having accompanied both Strafford and Charles I on their march to the scaffold. Mercurius Publicus provided the necessary gloss on the occasion, remarking how “[t]his day was a day of Rejoycing to all that love That, (whereof God is the Author) Order in the Church.”33 If anyone missed the import of this reversal of fortune, a more pungent example was provided that afternoon by the execution of six of the royal martyr’s judges, led by the quaking Hugh Peters.34 The grisly displays of royalist triumph continued for three days with continued executions of regicides. Evelyn recorded how he “met their quarters, mangled and cut, and reeking, as they were brought from the gallows in baskets on the hurdle. Oh, the miraculous providence of God!” Evelyn rightly understood these events as “the direct and purposeful intervention of God in the affairs of the English nation.”35 Further instruction about divine intentions was offered in the sermon preached at Juxon’s, translation to Archbishop. To reach an audience beyond those present on so august an occasion the sermon was published as A Peace Offering in the Temple. The preacher, Richard Henchman, spoke at length, and he made little mention of peace.36 The sermon marks an important transition, for it argues that in the context of recent events, “the work of the Bishops was not so much to convert infidels as to confute heretics and schismatics.” The need for this was as much secular as religious, for the “Incendiaries and Firebrands of Christian Society” were those most likely to stir up the passions of the multitude and “make a Separation and Disagreement in Society.” Thus the primary function of the episcopacy was to reprove those who, “because all things go not according to their minds, presently fly out into open Railings against Authority . . . because some differ a little from their Humours, Fancies, and Opinions.”37 Withholding consent was a willful act of excluding oneself from “Christian Society.” Henchman reminded his listeners and readers what the absence of conformity and reason meant: “When we let loose the reins of our affections to lust, anger, ambition, pride, envy, malice . . . then we overthrow all, and bring in a Chaos of confusion amongst us, [and] provoke God’s anger against us.” Suddenly, the rule of passion and separation from the established authority were the cause of both chaos and God’s anger. A Peace Offering in the Temple is a crucial early example of an author linking unity to conformity and making conformity dependent on episcopal authority. Now unity and uniformity were ordained as the sine qua non of political tranquility and social order. It was beginning: the rhetoric of unity and moderation was gaining an aggressive tone. Two weeks later Canon John Sudbury preached at the first consecration to be held in England in sixteen years. Five bishops were created that day,

2: the changing rhetoric of moderation

59

including Gilbert Sheldon (London) and George Morley (Worcester). These two influential court divines must have savored a sermon which insisted that there is a necessity of this Office, with this Power and Authority, to preserve Truth and Peace and Unity, and to prevent the manifold and great Mischiefs which Parity, the Mother of Anarchy and Confusion, would soon produce: which must needs be greater in the Church then in the State. For there is nothing that so effectually rules the Multitude as Religion, the name whereof is so venerable, that they are more apt to follow their Preachers than their Princes.38

The influence of religion was so transcendent that that rebels had often used it to “preach down Bishops” and “transport” the people. Accordingly, religion’s pivotal capacity for suppressing sedition was the main argument for religious uniformity in 1660. To avoid a return to anarchy, hierarchy in the church was tendered as the principle instrument for transmitting and enforcing the government’s beliefs, for “nothing so effectually rules the Multitude as Religion.” Sudbury noted that the church could best defend the government’s interests by maintaining a monopoly on access to the public’s “affections.” Strict control of the pulpit was intended to eliminate civil broils, for all great mischiefs in society arise “from the rents and divisions in the Church. . . . Whence have Heresies and Schisms arisen, and do still arise, but from this that the Bishop . . . is by the Pride and presumption of some despised? . . . This is that which hath so often changed the Pulpit into a Theater, from whence so many instead of preaching the Gospel of Peace, have blown the Trumpet of War, and perverted that which God hath ordained.”39 Sudbury’s sermon—at one of the Church’s earliest public ceremonies— illustrates how Anglican leaders were already staking their claim to an exclusive partnership with the restored monarchy. Significantly, the Anglicans foresaw a dual role for themselves: on the one hand, they would disseminate the belief in the providential endorsement of the Restoration; on the other, the clergy would use their renewed authority to institute conformity to Cavalier and Anglican beliefs. In this way, whoever refused his consent to clerical teachings was willfully choosing to be excluded. The Anglican desire to change the “pulpit into a Theater” for presenting plays which “effectually ruled the multitude” was central to their association with the government. The churchmen would find ready allies in the next Parliament, a body dominated by young royalists devoted to the Jacobean maxim of “no Bishop, no King.” By 1661, Cavaliers were anxious to support a program devoted to the principles of episcopacy and hierarchy as well as to unifor-

60

courting the moderates

mity and order. They saw in these principles the strongest bulwarks against the sources of the late troubles—ambition, zeal, and private interest. These sins inspired the conspiracy which had destroyed the traditional consensus favoring monarchy. In what followed, once it is recognized that “the predominant language of politics was overwhelmingly the language of religious parties and civil war wounds,”40 the government’s desire to reduce the discourse to a choice between the extremes of rebellion and loyalty, fanaticism and reason, nonconformity and obedience, takes on added resonance. The recent afflictions of the church and king were both a lesson and a chastisement, but they were only one act in the great theater of providential judgement.41 The remarkable ease with which the old order returned was considered a very real deus ex machina. In the end, episcopal control would provide the restored government with the Greek chorus necessary to explain the complicated plot developments and to explicate the relationship between religion and politics. And it was this reciprocal relationship that aided the re-creation of consensus—among those allowed to participate—in the political nation. When Parliament reconvened on 6 November, such claims were frequently reiterated. William Sancroft saw the king’s return as the first step towards the resurrection of clerical power: Blessed for ever be that God, who hath restored to us such a Gracious Sovereign . . . the Nursing Father of his church. . . . Blessed be this Day . . . in which we see the Phoenix arising from her Funeral Pile . . . our Holy Mother, the Church, standing up from the Dust, and Ruins, in which she sate so long, taking Beauty again for allies . . . remounting the Episcopal Throne, bearing the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven with her, and armed (we Hope) with the Rod of Discipline.42

Few could have missed the Laudian echoes in this sermon. The alliance between beauty and religion and the papist overtones of the church claiming to bear the keys of heaven may have been anathema to some, but they were to be forced to kiss the rod of Anglican discipline repeatedly in the years to come. Gilbert Sheldon had already told Clarendon that it was “necessary that . . . [dissenters] be governed . . . by power and force, all other courses will be ineffectual, ever have been so, ever will be.”43 In rejecting any distinction between religious and secular disobedience, the Anglicans offered the government the support of every pulpit in the land. Those rejecting a consensus based on reason, scripture, and tradition were placing self-interest before the public good, relying on ambition to justify disobedience. This view provided the essence of the new rhetoric of unity. The public support for the emerging unity was demonstrated in January

2: the changing rhetoric of moderation

61

when “Oliver Cromwell’s vault beeing broken open, the people crowded very much to see him, who gave sixpence a peece for to see him.”44 Conversely, it may be that the first group to see the writing on the wall was the Fifth Monarchists. Their calamitous rising in January may or may not have been a desperate reaction to recent developments; it was, however, a very public example of the reliability of episcopal warnings about fanatics.45 The violence in the streets must have affected the elections in 1661, for it was soon apparent—despite the early results in London—that a Cavalier landslide was in the making.46 Soon thereafter Clarendon pleaded with the older royalists to “use all your interest with your friends . . . to pull up those bitter roots from which rebellion might hereafter spring . . . [and work to] advance the King’s lawful royal power.”47 As the coronation neared, the “episcopal party” in Parliament and Convocation was readying the final settlement of the Church. Their task was made easier by the fact the Convocation was boycotted by most Presbyterians, “who thought it unlawful to have anything to do in the choosing of such a kind of assembly,” a body elected on a franchise which excluded many ministers, thereby allowing “the Diocesan party wholly . . . [to carry] the choice.”48 As a result of the Presbyterians’ decision, both assemblies were now united on the need for a narrowly defined liturgy promoted by an unchallenged episcopal hierarchy. The search for unity continued, but conciliation was less and less in evidence. Presbyterians had withdrawn from Convocation because their allies had been excluded for religious reasons. Soon the revanchist Clarendon Code would spring from the new Parliament. This legislation would commission the exclusion of dissenters from pulpits and corporations, but the role of Anglicanism was not simply negative. By reconciling civic obedience with Christ’s teachings, the church aimed to reassure tender consciences that “never was man the worse subject for being a good Christian.”49 The linkage of salvation and obedience offered a scriptural justification for consenting to restored authority and for joining the Established Church. The growth of political unity was advanced from 1660–61 by the exclusion of those unwilling to accept the restored monarchy. Within a year, the Act of Uniformity would exclude anyone refusing to conform to the Anglican Church. In the years to come, the re-established church was repeatedly called upon to justify the exclusive legislation of the Cavalier Parliament. With its unparalleled access to the hearts and minds of the people, the church was in a unique position to buttress and to champion the moderate ideology of the government. It would prove a key factor in persuading the public of the divinely ordained basis for the restored monarchy. There were, however, other methods and allies available to disseminate the benefits of the traditional order and institutions. Thus, John Dryden, the bishop

62

courting the moderates

of London, the common hangman, the City Poet, and many others were to offer their views on the significance of restoration.50
Immediately upon the king’s return, a wide array of poets—Dryden and Waller foremost among them—had tendered a host of interpretations of restoration and panegyrics to monarchy, all of which had been assiduously hawked to the public in the official newsbooks.51 However, by 1661 the king and his government needed a poetic vision which included and inspired people beyond the confines of Whitehall. This is where public spectacles had the most to offer. Some demonstrations of the return to the good old days continued to show signs of neglect. In April a new may pole reaching forty-one yards high was erected, accompanied by morris dancers described as “the worst that ever were.”52 Still, the monopoly on public rituals, in addition to the support of an established church, provided the government access to the widest possible audience. A propaganda campaign waged through spectacles and sermons could reach anyone willing to pay attention: education, wealth, status, even literacy itself were equally unnecessary. The oral and visual presentations of the official ideology could be designed and tailored for any social group, for any occasion, on any topic. Clarendon was well aware of the need to win over public opinion. He wanted the king’s official Entry to be designed so “that the novelties and new inventions, with which the kingdom had been much intoxicated for so many years together, might be discountenanced and discredited in the eyes of the people.”53 By offering a vision of the providential agency in the most recent revolution of fortune’s wheel, the pageantry emanating from the court in 1661 provided an early edition of the government’s propaganda under Charles II. Providing a focal point for national unity remained its principle goal. In fact, the ideology, imagery, and language of the king’s Entry and of his coronation—despite the differences in the intended audiences—were strikingly similar. Beneath portentously radiant skies on 22 April 1661, Charles II emerged from the Tower of London as the centerpiece of a procession intended to represent the resurrection of monarchy and the traditional order in his realm of England. An ensemble of twenty-four violinists introduced their mellifluous new sound to the English crowd as a symbol of the returning harmony and concord associated with monarchy.54 The anticipated consequences of this restoration were portrayed throughout the procession. At different venues the king, part actor and part spectator, would be confronted with paintings, mottoes, representative figures, and a scene with songs and speeches. For Charles II’s Entry, the four themes chosen for the

2: the changing rhetoric of moderation

63

“illustrated lecture . . . on government and political philosophy” examined the causal relationship between the return of monarchy, naval superiority, domestic peace, and commercial prosperity.55 The first of the four triumphal arches prepared for the king was inscribed Adventus Augustus. The golden age that was sure to follow this advent was displayed in the Naval Arch, the Temple of Concord, and the Garden of Plenty. The vision of restored monarchy drew upon images from the panegyrics of 1660 and served to establish the authorized version of the ideology of monarchy. The repeated invocation of the merits of patience while awaiting providential justice had already been used to great effect in May 1660 to explain the failure of Booth’s Rising: Booth’s forward Valour only serv’d to shew He durst that duty pay we all did owe: The’ Attempt was fair; but Heav’ns prefixed hour Not come: . . . ’Twas MONK, whom Providence design’d to loose Those reall bonds false freedom did impose.56

Similarly, in the final scene of the king’s Entry, the firmament itself was called upon to promote the emerging royalist doctrine: . . . the Star, which at Your Happy Birth Joy’d with his Beams (at Noon) the wond’ring Earth, Did with auspicious lustre, then, presage The Glitt’ring Plenty of this Golden Age; The Clouds blown o’re which long our joys o’recast, And the sad Winter of Your absence past.

With the image of a passing storm and the consequent return of monarchy and plenty, the king’s Entry into the City ended.57 The massive crowds— many lured by the wine running in the Conduit—were ample proof of the enthusiasm for unity and contentment in the nation. The glorious spring weather on that day seemed to epitomize the transition from the sad winter of the Interregnum. Civil war, social upheaval, and that most terrifying of shibboleths—innovation—had finally passed overhead like so much inclement weather. The Puritans in the crowd may have been gratified by the absence of any prelatical presence in the day’s procession, for at their recent investments and ordinations, “the bishops [were] so high that few do love them.”58 However, such gratification was to be transitory, for the Anglican hierarchy would play a leading role in the king’s coronation—an occasion that offered the clerical version of what unified the nation. When Charles II awoke for his coronation on 23 April—St George’s

64

courting the moderates

Day—he was greeted once again with sparkling blue skies, a sign that Providence was a willing participant in the happy event. The newsbooks were careful to point out that “both Heaven and Earth conspired to make it glorious; the weather itself (as once the Sun) standing still on purpose, that not one drop of rain durst offer to fall . . . for as those giddy Brethren . . . are forced to confer, that as we never had such a King, so there never was such a Coronation.”59 Providentialism was so widespread that recent events—the bloodless Restoration, the defeat of the Fifth Monarchists, even the radiant skies—all argued for deific support for monarchy.60 But the bitterest wormwood for the “giddy brethren” was that the bright sunshine on this day illuminated the scarlet robes of the episcopacy marching pointedly ahead of the aristocracy into Westminster Abbey. Not only did the bishops officiate throughout the coronation, they were also given the distinct privilege of paying their homage to the king before the rest of the nobility.61 The bishops were then given the opportunity to present their vision of the restored order in a sermon by the bishop of Worcester. The personal chaplain of Clarendon and one of the most active Anglicans at court, Morley was a perfect choice for the occasion. From the outset, Morley emphasized the union between religion and politics. Civil rebellion was equated with the rise of sectarianism, and the Interregnum was portrayed as a punishment for the people’s sins and willful disobedience to divinely ordained authority. The proposed relationship between church and state was now closer than ever. Once the causes of the calamity were understood, the partners would work together to guarantee they never infected the body politic again. After a year of discretion, the church at last presented its vision of the Restoration. Here the importance of the pulpit in Restoration political culture is demonstrated with remarkable clarity. While assuring his audience that the traditional order of monarchy and an established church were ideals, Morley warned them of the many scriptural parables which proved that though the constitution of a State be never so sound and healthful, and though He that sits at the Helm be never so skilful and careful, yet if the . . . People be wicked and willful, God doth usually permit the madness and folly of such a People, with permitting them to be instruments of their own misery, by changing the best form of Government under one lawful Hereditary Prince, into the worst kind of Tyranny, under many lawless Usurpers and Oppressors.62

If the people had incurred the wrath of God, it was not difficult to discover the cause of their willfulness and disobedience. They had fallen prey to the wiles of Satan and through their own greed and covetousness had become the tools of the ambitious and evil men among them. Once these conspira-

2: the changing rhetoric of moderation

65

tors had uprooted the church, the destruction of monarchy was comparatively simple. For, where there is no Authority to prevent or restrain the people they are easily set on fire and inflamed by their seditious Demagogues, I mean their Orators and Preachers, [and are] transported by the violence of their own Passions, beyond all rules and bounds of Religion, or Reason, of Modesty, of common Honesty, nay of Humanity itself, to do the most absurd, extravagant and outrageous actions, without considering, or caring, or fearing, what may be the issue of them.63

Preachers, sedition, demagoguery: the necessary allies of the late rebellion were identified by Morley. Once they were acknowledged they could be purged from the body politic. Conveniently, the church (soon to be granted a monopoly on the nation’s pulpits) was ideally situated to deal with this unholy trinity. Sermons, through their ability regularly to reach a nationwide audience, regardless of education or literacy, would prove a blunt instrument in the campaign to disseminate official ideology. With these most fundamental tenets of Anglican doctrine firmly established, the bishop proceeded to the application of his text to the day’s events. Once the nation was convinced that Charles II was an instrument of the divine will—and “have we not reason to believe that such a Prince is mark’d out by the Divine Providence for some Great and Glorious Work, or other?”64 — then the people must yield up their obedience to him for the sake of their own salvation and prosperity. Of course, providence had designed the king’s life to prepare him for his great and glorious work, breeding him in the school of hard knocks and inuring him to affliction, “in order to the felicity of his future Government.”65 Moreover, the greatest pattern for Charles’s life—and analogue for what his future held—was provided by the tribulations of David, for “God had the same Design in the breeding of them both; namely, to make them as Glorious afterwards by their Actions, as they had been formerly by their Sufferings.”66 Such were the mysterious ways of providence as revealed by events, and by the bishop of Worcester. In his peroration Morley finally abandoned his allusive style. The bishop now referred his audience to the figure seated on his throne in Westminster Abbey. He affirmed the king’s role in banishing strife, fear, jealousies, and divisions; he declared him the confirmation of the nation’s hopes; and he proclaimed the monarch’s special relationship with God.67 In the end, as if to confirm the alliance of church and state, Morley recalled the assertions of the preceding day’s pageantry. He assured the political elite present at the coronation, that once “our Good Old Government Civil and Ecclesiastical is once settled, then, but not till then, we may expect that the Ancient Splendour and Honour, together with the Peace, Pros-

66

courting the moderates

perity and Security of the English Nation will be Restored and Setled also.”68 In Morley’s view, only the final re-establishment of the church’s privileges and powers now stood between England and the golden age promised by the Triumphal Arches at the procession. If the nation would only apply the providential signs and lessons, then unity would be firmly settled. And if Anglicanism were restored, there would never again be a shortage of clerical assistance in making the proper applications, identifying malignants, or championing consent. Meanwhile, the Cavaliers in the Commons were embarking on their campaign of retribution. From the opening of the Cavalier Parliament in May, the House of Commons sought to ensure religious and political uniformity by excluding all those who opposed the strictest settlements of church and state. Even before the first readings of the legislation that made up the Clarendon Code, the reanimated royalists began heaping indignities on the “fanatics.” On the day that Parliament opened, London also witnessed the Anglicans marching proudly into Convocation, led by the bishops while “the Choyre [did] sing the Te Deum in English.” The king spoke briefly to open the Session and “assured them that he is as Zealous for the Church of England and as much prejudiced against those that doe not love the Common Prayer booke as any of them.” In portentous words that alerted the members of both Houses of his intention to follow the lead of the Cavaliers before him, Charles bid them “to trust him for it that he will see uniformity in Religion settled.”69 The king’s speech was followed by the customary Chancellor’s speech at the opening of Parliament.70 Clarendon endorsed the church’s view of the link between sedition and nonconformity. Recalling the imagery and diction of the consecration sermons in 1660, Clarendon objected to the irreconcilable preachers “who by their function should be messengers of peace, and are in their practice the only trumpets of war, and incendiaries towards rebellion!” Such fanatics were only content when released from all obedience, and insisted on “repeating the very expressions, and teaching the very doctrine, they set on foot in the year 1640.” If the same strategy were to be employed in the years to come, then there would have to be a stricter response than in the past. Speaking for the king, Clarendon recommended that Parliament use its “utmost vigilance, utmost severity and . . . no part of your lenity or indulgence” in dealing with them.71 The Lord Chancellor was echoing the newsbooks and sermons of the preceding months, but now the talk of intolerance was being promoted as policy. Authority, both Civil and Ecclesiastical, was to exercise its utmost severity on the “irreconcilable preachers.” Political exclusion may have been the least of their worries. Smelling blood in the water, the Cavaliers ordered the Covenant burnt by the common hangman. The newsbook described the festivities with

2: the changing rhetoric of moderation

67

relish, offering more evidence of a moderation beginning to thirst for revenge: The executioner (to give the hangman his due) did his part perfectly well; for having kindled his fire, he tore that Solemn League into very many pieces: first burned the Preface, & then cast each parcel solemnly into the fire, lifting up his hands & eyes, not leaving the least shread, but burn’d it root & branch. . . . This is that fatal Oath born in Scotland, & fed in both kingdoms with the blood and lively hood of more thousand Christians than this Oath had words; for . . . this Covenant consists of that Beastly number of 666 words, neither more nor less.72

On 18 May Mercurius published a petition from Devon requesting the return of episcopacy. Other counties quickly presented similar petitions, the duplication demonstrating the growing popularity of public displays of triumphalism. Official publications reported the assaults on puritanical symbols, underscoring the doctrines to be shunned by the loyal party. Many unreconciled observers bemoaned these developments, sensing the proscription that was certain to follow. The Mather Papers are filled with letters sent across the Atlantic which decry the open denigration of the godly.73 The Reverend Henry Newcome had noticed the change in 1661, when “all England was in movement; mummings, guisings, Maypoles, the things that the Puritans most denounced, were everywhere seen.”74 It is obvious that both sides recognized the power of ritualized destruction and ridicule; the humiliation which preceded exclusion was celebrated or lamented by each side. In anticipation of the king’s birthday, the tireless public hangman initiated a campaign intended to rally public support and to open a period of celebration and thanks for the nation’s deliverance. On 22 May “the Scotch Covenant was burnt by the common hangman in divers places in London. Oh, prodigious change!”75 Unlike the poems, plays, and printed sermons prepared for this occasion, the ritualized destruction of the acts and monuments of the Interregnum were directed at a popular audience throughout the countryside.76 The encouragement of such spectacles exemplify the official appreciation of the variety of audiences it wanted to reach. Also, the unrestricted and accessible venues for the festivities are an indication of the government’s sensitivity to the importance of the public sphere. The hangman spent 28 May incinerating the Engagement, the Abjuration of the Stuarts, the Act declaring England a Commonwealth, and other symbols of fanatic unity. Throughout the countryside, the public responded in kind: the king’s birthday and restoration were celebrated by his advocates sniffing about for hidden copies of the Covenant and then torching any they found. Lengthy accounts of these revels crowded the popular press for weeks.77 In Halesworth, Suffolk, the blazing effigies of Cromwell, Hugh

68

courting the moderates

Peters, and the Covenant were so large that the town was put at hazard. In Exeter, the denigration of nonconformity was carefully orchestrated to mock fanatic legislation, religious hypocrisy, and local rebels. In the center of the town, an old nag was mounted with the counterfeit of a Covenanter, with an ugly Vizard, whereof the nose was independent, the eyes elevated and looking asquint, in his right hand extended he carried between his fore-finger and thumb a sheet of white paper, whereon was written . . . THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT: On his forehead the name of a great man who was alive last week, and on his brest THOMAS BOLD, the Covenant fixed to his rump, and severall Pamphlets and Libels . . . fastned to several parts of him & the horse. Thus he was led all through the streets . . . and in the evening hanged & burnt to ashes, with many shouts & Acclamations.78

Civic displays of support for monarchy and the church were proof of the nation’s solidarity at a time of continued tension about fanatic plotting.79 Such demonstrations were portrayed as evidence of the public satisfaction with the recent changes. The people’s support for these activities was depicted as a sign of the restored political unity and the hostility to those who rejected it. In the wake of the symbolic eradication of the acts and monuments of the Commonwealth and Protectorate came the formal resurrection of episcopacy and uniformity. Already on 17 May the Irish Parliament had ordered that the laws be put in execution “against all contemners of the Government of the Church by Archbishops and Bishops . . . & Common Prayer Book either by disobediences, words or otherwise.”80 In England, on 26 May, every MP was required to take the sacrament according to the Anglican rites—a refusal meaning disqualification. On 30 May, the Commons introduced a Bill for returning the bishops to the House of Lords. On 25 June, the Commons established a Committee on Religion—ignoring the conference at the Savoy as well as Convocation. The religious question was considered so important to the maintenance of public order that Parliament arrogated to themselves the power to settle it. The debate on the religious settlement did not last long in the Commons, for by 8 July a Bill for Establishing the Book of Common Prayer was “brought up to the Lords by a very great number . . . to testifie their great desire for settlement of the Church of England.”81 As the public ridicule increased, the much ballyhooed conciliation of the court diminished. An exclusive church settlement would mean that even Presbyterians were outside the consensus, barred as extremists from the privileged order of moderates. By the time Parliament adjourned on 30 July, the Cavaliers had struck at the roots of the Puritan movement. In addition to the symbolic and legislative attacks on their more “tender” opponents, the royalists in Parliament

2: the changing rhetoric of moderation

69

had also begun to curb discussion through restrictive definitions of tumults, sedition, conventicles, and petitioning. The Licensing Act and a Surveyor of the Press were soon to follow.82 Anyone unwilling to conform to the laws of church and state would be deprived of access to the people through Licensing, Anglican control of the pulpit, and the bishop of London’s control of religious printing. In addition to restricting the symbolic displays aimed at the widest popular audience, the printed political culture intended for a more refined, literate audience was to be strictly controlled as well. By the end of 1661, all pretense of conciliation with the Presbyterians disappeared. They, too, were to be excluded from the Established Church and the Corporations.83 In a show of force, John James, a preacher in Whitechapel, was executed for sedition. The newsbooks—which proudly proclaimed on their masthead that they existed for the “Information of the People, and to Prevent False News”—provided the gruesome details of James’s torments alongside the instructive editorial comment that such brutality should be a “sufficient warning to all Dispensers of Sedition, as well from Pulpit as by unlicensed Pamphlets.”84 The torrent of Cavalier propaganda and Anglican sermons, combined with the emerging censorship and political exclusion, was yielding the restored government a popularity unseen since the time of Elizabeth. And in these halcyon years of the early Restoration, most of the nation was indeed unified in its support for the government. By September, it seemed that there was no indignity too great to be heaped upon even moderate Presbyterians. Puritans in both old and New England were aghast at the scorn now being offered to their beliefs. If the reopening of the Theater were not sufficiently offensive, the revival of Ben Jonson’s Bartholemew Fair offered a burlesque of Presbyterianism’s most revered leaders. The king—accompanied by the bishop of London and the earl of Manchester, a former Presbyterian—took great delight in seeing the two hypocritical Puritans in the play converted into caricatures of Mr Baxter & Mr Callamy, whose Habit & actions were sett forth: prayers made in imitation of the Puritan . . . [and] representing the Puritan put in the stockes for stealing a pig, & the stockes found by him unlockt, which he admires at as a wonderfull providence & fruite of prayer, upon which he consults about his call, whether he should come forth or not. . . . etc. I heere it hath beene acted againe.85

By permitting the King’s Players to ridicule those who had been instrumental in his restoration—and by attending with his leading spiritual advisor—Charles was serving notice that unreconstructed Presbyters, no matter how loyal, would be unwelcome in the reunited body politic. Even more telling, the presence of bishop Sheldon at this occasion was a signal

70

courting the moderates

that the Established Church and the government were in a partnership which now controlled a complete and uncompromising monopoly over the nation’s beliefs. The exclusion of the Presbyterians from the Established Church cast them in the role of fanatics, and, in the name of order and obedience, they would be marginalized in the political arena as well. In October the Archbishops wrote to all the bishops “intimating a command from his Majesty that they shall cause their clergy in every parish . . . to read the two Acts . . . against tumults and disorders . . . in their several churches, whereby none may plead ignorance of the same.”86 On the same Sunday, the bishop of London established four lectures in the City, the actions being linked because “the abuse of the Pulpit having created many dangers to his Majesty’s Person, and indeed most of those Crimes prohibited in the Act.”87 The announcement of the lectures in Mercurius characterized church–state relations: with these lectures all “good Subjects may hear pure and wholesome Doctrine, be truly taught how to Fear God and Honour the King, and receive Antidotes against such poysonous Principles as the . . . [lectures] in the late Licentious times did too often endeavour to infuse into the looser people.”88 There can be no clearer confession of the restored government’s intentions to co-opt the puritan tactics of the past and to use its control of the pulpit to influence opinion and to instruct the people. The strategy remained a constant feature of Charles II’s reign: whatever the ideology of the government—and it was to vary considerably during these years—it could be developed in London, disseminated by the bishops, defended by the clergy, and regularly presented to all loyal members of the undivided political nation. With this bald admission of the church’s role in instructing and pacifying the populace, the government of Charles II revived the bond between church and king which would eventually form the backbone of the Tory party. By the end of 1661, one more public message remained to be sent. At the reconvening of Parliament in November, the king himself attended in full regalia to welcome the bishops back to the House of Lords. While acknowledging there was no need for his presence, Charles insisted that it was not “strange that I come to see the Lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons of England met together.”89 The king was obviously sensitive to this image of the restoration of the traditional unity of the political elite. A traveler returned from a long absence was present that day. Peter Mundy’s journal reveals how readily the ideology of moderation was understood in terms of the rhetoric of unity and consensus accepted since the reign of Elizabeth:90 The Parliament sate after the old manner, Lords Spiritual and Temporall and House of Commons. Thus you may see how the Almighty hath bin pleased to bring it [to] passe that now Monarchy sitts triumphant againe, having bin so

2: the changing rhetoric of moderation

71

long distressed and in a manner banished, and Religion (formerly distracted through divisions) to an uniformity, the old Protestant religion restored, cherished and protected by the higher powers, formerly contemned and persecuted. God grant it soe long to continue with peace and plenty.91

Mundy’s words would have heartened the propagandists, ideologues, and supporters of the government. The divine approval of the renewed alliance between the (established) church and state was taken as proof that peace, prosperity and plenty would quickly follow. The assumption was to be at the center of Restoration political ideology. The allure of unanimity was rooted in the events of the Civil War. Pride’s purge and the king’s execution were unmistakable signs that the rule of the sword had displaced political consensus. The factious cleansing of the Bench and Corporations in that period had further impoverished the rhetoric of unity. Thanks to the policies, purges, and propaganda that followed the king’s return, a consensus among the conforming elite had been established by 1662. It is clear that the government was well aware that sermons were an opportunity to harangue the populace—a harangue that could be answered only illegally after 24 August 1662. Although there was no religious persecution in the first two years after the Restoration, the host of public spectacles and rituals in these years were aimed at discrediting the beliefs and symbols of the “fanatics.” Indeed, the conflation of puritanism with rebellion allowed them to be branded as extremists ever after. Excluding fanatics from politics was a simple policy to defend. The Anglican emphasis on obedience and loyalty made membership in the Established Church an obvious condition for political participation. Acceptance of the church and king meant loyalty and obedience to the traditional order: the seeds of a government ideology were in the ground.

3 The Restoration in Verse A great part of the Nation may be said to be Neuters; that is to say, persons not addicted to any one Party, but would fain have Peace, and no Taxes, and are possessed with a phantasie, that there is no way to procure the one, or be rid of the other, but by letting in Charls Stuart. Marchamont Nedham, 1660

Somewhere between the death of Cromwell on 3 September 1658 and the return of Charles II on his thirtieth birthday in May 1660 occurred “one of those silent revolutions in public opinion, so widespread and, within the central body of neutral opinion, so general that at first it proved irresistible.”1 Both of the preceding quotations emphasize the importance of “neutral” or “central” opinion in determining the political settlement at the Restoration. The same group of MPs would continue to hold the balance in the political nation into the eighteenth century at least. At this time, they opted for a return to monarchy and tradition and probably agreed in principle with the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion. However, their experiences in the 1640s and 1650s had taught them to abhor the extremism of popery, fanaticism, and radicalism in all its forms. Each of these extremes was now known to result in arbitrary government, but more importantly, all extremism was understood to be a consequence of abandoning the traditions of unity, concord, consensus, and moderation. So despite the fears of an atavistic rebellious spirit in the nation, this body of “Neuters” longed for a moderate settlement which would put an end to controversy and extremism in politics. The quest for the traditional moderation dictated that the voice of rebellion be silenced, but only the committed Royalists desired a return to personal rule or unfettered monarchy. In framing the Declaration of Breda, Clarendon and the king acknowledged the need for moderation. Poets quickly recognized the tone set by the government, and the panegyrics dedicated to Charles as well as the Coronation pageantry concentrated on the virtues of prudence, moderation, and patience. John Dryden and his fellow panegyrists were not the only writers to identify the value of Charles’ patient fortitude while in exile. The king’s 72

3: the restoration in verse

73

prudent acceptance of destiny and fate was an example for his subjects to follow: by contrasting the king’s Christ-like willingness to “suffer for Himself and us” with the disorder and confusion of the Commonwealth, the coronation pageantry and poetry hoped to guide the nation into more moderate courses. Both poets and polemicists received official support for their vision of the power of literature and its ability to demonstrate the merits of moderation to the people. The powerful combination of printed propaganda, public spectacles, and oral presentations from stage and pulpit helped to guarantee that official views would reach an audience as diverse as the English nation itself. The thirst for news and information had become nearly insatiable during the Civil War and Interregnum, and this had helped to sustain divisions within the political nation.2 In fact, one important reason for the pretended moderation in the official political culture was the desire to limit the divisions in the audience and in public opinion. However, within a few days of the dissolution of the Convention Parliament in January 1661, the few remaining troops were called out to crush the armed rising of the Fifth Monarchists in London.3 As a result, very few of the moderate group disputed the need for harsh measures against the sectaries. The Parliament which met in May was strongly committed to the combination of church and king. Similarly, at the religious conference called at the Savoy, the Anglican clergy refused to countenance comprehending Presbyterians or to consider tolerating sectarians. Not content with this victory, Charles looked to eradicate the remnants of Commonwealth radicalism in its local nests of sedition: to secure the return of the borough members [of parliament] he desired by entrusting their election to packed corporations, nominated by himself for the purpose, [and he] was but following, with strict fidelity, a precedent created by Cromwell himself.4

The Corporation Act empowered commissioners to root out all those refusing the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and to disable them from serving in local offices. An oath renouncing the Solemn League and Covenant was also required, and the commissioners were given discretionary power to disqualify anyone who was hostile to the government, whether he subscribed the Oaths and repudiated the Covenant or not. Paul Halliday has recently provided an impressive account of the role which partisanship played in English local politics after the earliest Cromwellian purges in the 1650s. The ideal of accommodating one’s adversaries was now abandoned in the hope of ridding the body politic of those opposed to the official definition of unity.5 These developments were followed by the institution of the Clarendon Code and the infamous St. Bartholomew’s Day ejection of hundreds of

74

courting the moderates

nonconformist ministers. There can be little doubt that reaction was on the march. However, this was not strictly the desire for a pound of flesh; there remained serious concerns about the thousands of disbanded—and unpaid—soldiers. The government’s spies sent in reports from every part of the country of meetings, plots, arms caches, and further risings.6 As expected, London was in the vanguard of this activity. It had returned four ardent dissenters to the Parliament, and there is extensive evidence in the State Papers of Londoners objecting to unlimited monarchy and episcopacy.7 Government spies combed the streets, frequented pubs to assess numbers, visited conventicles and churches to observe and listen, and were even purposely imprisoned to pry secrets from criminals and to enlist informers.8 More important for the purposes of this book is the effort made to ferret out and destroy the literature, printed or in manuscript, by which the proscribed party sought to rouse its supporters. The apprehension about the power of literature and culture is clearly apparent. Here we see an awareness of the varied audience for all sorts of political culture. In addition to the executions, immolations, and humiliations described in the previous chapter, the government attempted to limit the amount of printed propaganda available to the most literate members of society. In the very first Session of the Cavalier Parliament, the Commons sent a Bill to the Lords for the regulation of printing. The Bill was rejected when the Lords insisted on the exemption of their own houses from search.9 The next year a Licensing Act was passed, but this did little to stem the tide of seditious literature.10 The Interregnum had greatly stimulated the habit of printed debate and, in the process, provided work for a plethora of skilled printers. It was estimated that at the Restoration there existed over sixty master craftsmen along with 100 apprentices and 150 journeymen.11 As nearly all of them were steeped in “radical” or “nonconformist” views, they were unlikely to disappear or to begin advocating monarchical positions in the early 1660s. Indeed, on St. Bartholomew’s Day in 1662, a host of Cromwellian ministers who refused to subscribe to the new religious uniformity were ejected from their positions. A collection of their sermons on that day was immediately published and appeared throughout the country. This edition of Farewell Sermons was reprinted many times and emerged as one of the many complaints of L’Estrange in his quest for the position of Surveyor.12 Worse still, the Act of 1662 had left the oversight and suppression of seditious literature in the hands of the Stationers’ Company.13 In light of the split within the Company, there was little chance that regulation would be effective. The booksellers (or stationers) were not to be trusted with this mission, since they were both party and judges in the dispute. They had already given ample proof that “they prefer[red] their Private Gayn before the well-fare of the Publique.” On the other side, the printers were

3: the restoration in verse

75

just as untrustworthy; both sides of the Company only volunteered to Regulate for their own purposes and to ‘conquer’ the other side. In 1662 the Stationers had the upper hand because there were so many printers “that One Half must either play the Knave or Starve.”14 Enter Sir Roger L’Estrange, a vigilante who had been tilting at nonconformists and republicans for years before the Restoration. He hoped to return to the system that restricted the number of legal printers to twenty.15 In one sense, L’Estrange considered even this to be a concession, since he doubted that there existed twenty master printers in the country who had not been infected with some form of radicalism during the Cromwellian period. Although his Considerations and Proposals in order to the Regulation of the Press was not implemented, he did manage to succeed Sir John Berkenhead as Surveyor and Licenser in August 1663. He objected to the fact that not one bookseller had been fined by the Stationers’ Company in three years, despite the flood of seditious literature; moreover, there was good reason for his concern. Many of the booksellers of the Cromwellian period were churning out impressive numbers of dangerous works. The Speeches and Prayers of the regicides was published close on the heels of their executions. The Phoenix, or the Solemn League and Covenant appeared in 1661 and led to a successful manhunt, although the sentences were inexplicably light.16 The most popular of these publications were the two volumes of Farewell Sermons and numerous books of Prodigies.17 The latter had been spawned by the Reverend Henry Jessey’s The Lord’s Loud Call to England, being a true relation of some late, various and wonderful judgements or handy-works of God, by earthquake, lightening, whirlwind, great multitudes of toads and flyes . . . also of the strange changes and late alterations made in these nations [London, 1660]. The pamphlet was standard Anabaptist fare, intended primarily to reinforce the opinion that God was marching side by side with the Anabaptists and their fellow-travelers and to undermine any loyalty to the present government.18 The notorious printer Elephant Smith was imprisoned on three separate occasions for publishing this tract,19 yet he continued his collaboration with Jessey in the following years. In 1661 and 1662 they presented to the world the two installments of Mirabilis Annus, or The Year of Prodigies and Wonders and Mirabilis Annus Secundus.20 This type of interpretation of natural wonders, astrology, and climate was extremely popular in Restoration England and was in no way monopolized by nonconformists. However, many of the early examples were closely associated with those hostile to the return of church and king. The repeated violations of the same group of printers inspired L’Estrange to complain to the king that It seems a little too much to Reward the Abusers of the Press with the Credit of Superintending it: upon a Confidence that They that Destroy’d the Last King for their Benefit, will now make it their business to Preserve This to

76

courting the moderates

their Loss. . . . As the Effectual Regulation of the Press is not at all the Stationers Interest, so is it strongly to be suspected that it is as little their Aym: for not One Person has been Fin’d, and but one Prosecuted . . . since the Late Act, notwithstanding so much Treason and Sedition Printed and disperst.21

Here again one finds the concept of moderation as a necessary antidote to the continuing threat of extremism and the poisonous effects of sedition. Self-interest determined the Stationers’ refusal to defend the king’s interests, so L’Estrange argued that it was his duty to silence those aiming to destroy the moderate settlements in church and state. One of the first triumphs of the new Surveyor was the discovery, trial, and conviction of Brewster and others in connection with the Speeches and Prayers of the regicides. This followed the only conviction and execution of a printer in Charles II’s reign. John Twyn was discovered by L’Estrange to be in possession of a segment of the pamphlet Mene Tekel or The Downfall of Tyranny. As the government was anticipating an uprising in the north, a pamphlet calling for the deposition and murder of the king and insisting that the times “required the Lord’s people to sell their garments and buy swords” was indeed troublesome. The execution of Twyn within six months of the new Surveyor’s appointment served notice that he would bring the leaders of seditious printing to heel and demonstrated his willingness to prosecute the factious to the full extent of the law.22 In the next six years, L’Estrange was to claim that he suppressed more than six hundred seditious pieces.23 While his campaign was by no means the end of offensive pamphlets and books, it considerably curtailed the “feminine part of every rebellion”24 and confined the printing and distributing of information primarily to those who offered little criticism of king and court. The importance of this monopoly was not ignored by L’Estrange in his “Epistle Dedicatory to the King” in 1663: [It is estimated] there have been Printed near Thirty Thousand Copies of Farewell Sermons (as they call them) in Defiance of the Law . . . and they are now Printing it in Dutch too, for the greater Honour of the Scandal. By These Arts, and Practices, the Faction works upon the Passions and Humours of the Common People; and when they shall have put Mischief into their Hearts, their Business is to put Swords in their Hands, and to engage them in a direct Rebellion . . . . The Visible Boldness and Malice of the Faction . . . [is owing to] Diverse of the very Instruments, who are Entrusted with the Care of the Press, being both Privy, and Tacitly Consenting to the Corruptions of it.25

It is important to note here the conflation of the “Arts” necessary to play upon the “Passions and Humours of the Common People” and the inevitable march towards “direct Rebellion.” The “Malice of the Faction” was such that if the malcontents were allowed to publish freely and manipulate

3: the restoration in verse

77

the feelings and ideas of the populace, it was certain that they would once again put “Swords in their Hands.” L’Estrange’s was the most ardent and open statement of the fear over the printed word and misinformation, but it was by no means the only one.26 Very few of the resurrected royalists doubted that “the faction” remained in existence, awaiting an opportunity to regain power. Another of L’Estrange’s worries in 1663 was the welter of old sedition which remained in circulation. To ignore these works was to open the door to the back-dating of new libels in order to escape the Surveyor. Furthermore, L’Estrange viewed these tracts as perhaps even more dangerous: they were far more direct and clever since they were written in “a time of freedom.” Anything less than full and complete suppression would also place all honest stationers at a disadvantage if they refused to sell wellknown libels of the 1640s.27 One further reason to eliminate old pamphlets condoning the war and execution of Charles I was that they made the English Nation cheap in the Eyes of the World, to find the Blood and Virtues of the Late King, appear so little to be considered, beside the Hazardous Consequence of Blasting the Royal Cause, and of Discouraging Loyalty to Future Generations, by transmitting the whole Party of Royalists, in so many Millions of Virulent Libels, to Posterity, for a Prostitute Rabble of Villains, and Traytors.28

In other words, anything less than a wholesale prohibition of the writings, ideas, and political theories of the Interregnum was both dangerous as well as damaging to the king’s—and to the Nation’s—reputation.29 Concern for the king and country’s standing was to resurface with a vengeance in order to justify the Third Dutch War. The degradation of the king and people in the eyes of the world would be used to rouse public support for the conflict. L’Estrange was not alone in adopting this attitude and his appointment is ample proof of the government’s acceptance of his views. But the efforts to dominate the political culture available to the nation was not confined to silencing the advocates of their discredited opinions. A unifying ideology had to be offered in its place. The accessibility of an ideology of moderation with its natural, commonsensical, even scriptural roots was ideally suited to the task. Aspiring poets of the Restoration would regularly contrast the merits of moderate rule to the extremism of the Interregnum with great polemical effect.
With the repeal of the Triennial Act in the spring of 1664, Clarendon and the Anglicans were firmly in control: “The royalists . . . had legislated

78

courting the moderates

themselves into the control of the church livings and the borough corporations. The Parliament which they controlled was indefinitely perpetuated. The meetings of their rivals were made unlawful. The efforts of the party of force to overthrow them had not only failed but had largely contributed to Anglican success.”30 The policies of the government, however, were not restricted to proscription and censorship. Beginning with the Declaration of Breda, Charles and Clarendon had initiated a brilliant campaign of public relations. Continuing until Charles’ triumphant progress to London, every effort was made to impress upon people the advantages and joys of monarchy. Indeed, the king’s restoration was a mystery verging on the miraculous, and to most it seemed to occur with incredible ease and rapidity. Panegyrists and writers of all sorts registered the bewilderment of the time, and “religiosity combined with loyalism to confer a peculiarly exalted significance on the event, working to achieve for the political change heightened, near-mythical status.”31 In “Astraea Redux,” Dryden captures this image of surprise perfectly: Yet, as wise Artists mix their Colours so That by degrees they from each other go, Black steals unheeded from the neighb’ring white Without offending the well couz-ned sight, So on us stole our blessed change; while we Th’ effect did feel but scarce the manner see. Frosts that constrain the ground, and birth deny To Flow’rs that in its womb expecting lie, Do seldom their usurping Pow’r withdraw, But raging Floods persue their hasty Thaw: Our Thaw was mild, the Cold not chas’d away, But lost in kindly heat of lengthened day. [125–36]

The gradual, divinely ordained nature of the change was depicted as entirely natural as well as providentially moderate and gradual. Dryden was to prove essential to the creation of the official vision of the meaning of restoration. In the first years of Charles II’s reign, the most common forms of political culture produced by the court and its supporters were plays, pageantry, and poetry.32 For the poets, the task was especially tricky because they were forced to rely on the forms and motifs of praise used during the Commonwealth and Protectorate. Following the king’s return, the most appropriate poetic genre in which to work was the panegyric. It is too easy to dismiss Restoration panegyrics as sycophantic attempts to curry favor and to trowel praise onto the monarch. Nicholas Jose has traced very clearly the need for panegyrists to develop some quality of newness

3: the restoration in verse

79

which was superior to the encomiums lavished on the Protector. Some, like Dryden and Waller, not only had to surpass Cromwellian panegyric, but had to surpass their own earlier efforts, “when wee were not ourselves.” The primary aim was “the creation of a panegyric vision which was freshly coherent in its own terms, as a means of answering and buttressing themselves against the memory of the ascendancy of the saints and the republicans. The high uniformity of Restoration panegyric is partly a consequence of that memory.”33 In addition to that memory, the uniformity was also related to the close knit literary world at court.34 As a result, the Restoration is most often portrayed in poetry as a complete, lofty, and renewed edifice in stark contrast with the ruins of the Commonwealth. One common alternative was to turn to the imperial tradition that had flourished under Elizabeth and haunted her less charismatic successors: the tradition of the golden age of Rome which followed the Civil Wars won by Octavian, later Augustus. The strategy was modeled in large part on Virgil’s Eclogues and had as its major theme the rebirth or restoration of Charles as redeemer.35 Not only had the king returned to restore monarchy and traditional government, but also a golden age which was believed to exist changelessly in history. In the end, “the golden age was recommended, always perfect, always the same, yet requiring genuine restoration and return.”36 The other side of this coin, which will appear in the Heroic Drama to come, is the appeal to a vision of history and heroism that made a concern with the realities of the present look short-sighted and trivial. Dryden in particular tried to depict topical passages and personages as timeless. He looked to classical imagery and settings to support his view of divine right monarchy, which in part stems from his fondness for avoiding the individual and ephemeral in favor of traditional patterns of order.37 While panegyrics were immensely popular with the court—and many were ordered printed as broadsides—the timeless and heroic virtues they credited to the monarchy and government were not taken lightly. Their dominance in the political culture of the time and their wide circulation likened them to dragons’ teeth sown throughout the political nation. One of the earliest panegyrics was by the young Cambridge poet John Dryden. He had much to answer for thanks to his recent “Heroick Stanzas, Upon the Death of His Late Highness, OLIVER, Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland.” Fortunately for Dryden, he produced two far superior poems in the following two years: “Astraea Redux. A Poem On the Happy Restoration and Return of His Sacred Majesty Charles II,” and “To His Sacred Majesty, A Panegyrick on His Coronation.”38 Here for the first time, one can find the use of classical allegories and some of the typologies and sociopolitical values which Dryden was to develop so effectively in his Heroic Plays. According to Anne T. Barbeau, Dryden indicates in his various works

80

courting the moderates that man in the state of nature . . . has two tendencies, one to generosity and courage, one to revenge and insolent pride. . . . [Dryden feels] it is possible to create social harmony and justice on earth if the former tendency prevails and the latter is brought under restraint. Society, for Dryden, is not the antithesis of the state of nature; it does not replace natural impulses with servile observance of laws. Rather, it is the cultivation and bringing to fruition of the generous impulses of man in the natural state.39

The conflict between generosity and pride can be found in Dryden’s early poetry as well as the Heroic Plays. While Barbeau’s informative work may offer an idealized view of Dryden’s purposes, it is plain how readily such ideals could be put to polemical uses. More importantly, the redemptive imagery that fitted so neatly into both biblical and classical allegory was ideal for Restoration panegyric, a genre with longstanding polemical conventions. Charles II’s return was to initiate a “golden age” in general and a return of justice, prosperity, peace, and good government in particular. Beginning with “Astraea Redux,”40 Dryden showed that it was by hoodwinking the people that lawless rebels and ambitious tyrants had banished the monarch and virtuous government from the kingdom: For his long absence Church and State did groan; Madness the Pulpit, Faction seiz’d the Throne: [21–22] For when by their designing Leaders taught To strike at Pow’r which for themselves they sought, The Vulgar gull’d into Rebellion arm’d, Their blood to action by the Prize was warm’d; The Sacred Purple then and Scarlet Gown [31–35] The Rabble now such Freedom did enjoy, As Winds at Sea, that use it to destroy: Blind as the Cyclops, and as wild as he, They own’d a lawless savage Libertie Like that our painted Ancestors so priz’d Ere Empire’s Arts their Breasts had Civiliz’d. How Great were then Our Charles his woes, who thus, Was forc’d to suffer for Himself and us! [43–50]

In addition to the faction’s ability to “gull” the vulgar, it is important to notice the consequences of the unfettered freedom which ignores the civilizing influences of patience, prudence, and moderation—virtues which Charles exhibits throughout. No doubt the redemptive allusions of the king’s willingness to “suffer for himself and us!” would not have been missed by a society fresh from a religious controversy of the first order.

3: the restoration in verse

81

Charles II’s patience in adversity and willingness to accept the harsh Fate meted out to him was equally amenable to classical models of virtue: His Manly Courage overcame his Fate. His Wounds he took like Romans on his Breast, [56–57] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . He would not like soft Otho hope prevent, But stay’d and suffer’d Fortune to repent. [67–68]

These early images of passive obedience were to become a staple in much of the official propaganda of the Restoration. For Dryden, it was imperative that one not fight against providence, even if that meant bowing to laws or rulers one despised. As long as one maintained a willingness to abide by both moral and civil laws, then Fate or the historical process would eventually “repent” and reward the virtuous. Any attempt to influence or dictate fortune would lead to false or temporary gains at best: “But when ourselves to action we betake, / It shuns the Mint, like Gold that Chymists make” [161–62]. Indeed, the failure of Booth’s royalist uprising of 1659 could be explained in these terms: destiny had already arranged a scenario for the restoration of right government. Such a view of the historical process did not invalidate Booth’s rebellion, rather it explained its complete annihilation at the hands of the hated Army. Th’ Attempt was fair; but Heav’n’s prefixed hour Not come; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ’Twas MONK, whom Providence design’d to loose Those real bonds false freedom did impose. [147–52]

One further element of Dryden’s view of the Restoration demands attention. The use of false information to “gull” the rabble in order to gain its support was a sword which would be turned against those who wielded it; indeed, this same misguided cleverness would eventually hasten the demise of the rebels. A similar vision of the historical process was adopted by Clarendon in his History of the Rebellion. The most influential minister of the early Restoration insisted that “the hand and judgement of God will be very visible” in his History—an account written expressly so that “posterity may not be deceived.”41 It is essential to the view of history to be examined here that the antagonists acquired some early success— usually through guile—and then inadvertently engineered their own demise while “the restoration of government is achieved by way of moderation on the part of the virtuous.”42 Religions Name against it self was made; The Shadow serv’d the Substance to invade:

82

courting the moderates Like Zealous Missions they did Care pretend Of Souls in shew, but made the Gold their end. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ’Twas hence at length just Vengeance thought it fit To speed their Ruin by their impious wit. [191–200]

“Astraea Redux” was, of course, only one of many panegyrics written at the Restoration of Charles II. It is used extensively here because of its obvious literary merit and because it was one of the earliest expressions of many of the values developed for polemical ends throughout the reign. Simultaneously, however, the reopening of the theaters and the outburst of pageantry to celebrate the king’s return were adding to the images of monarchy: The tradition of street pageantry was an old one and incorporated emblematic imagery, verbal and visual, with a long political ancestry of political service. At the Restoration the public displays shared the desire of printed panegyric to praise the event while also determining what form the renewed nation should take. Like the writers, the organizers of pageantry sought to inspire in their audiences an exalted sensation of wonder.43

Leslie Hotson has amply proved that English theater was alive, if not entirely well, despite the Commonwealth’s attempt at suppression.44 In 1656, William Davenant convinced the Council of State to countenance a performance of his new “opera,” The Siege of Rhodes.45 In 1655, for the first time since the execution of Charles I, a diminutive Lord Mayor’s Show was permitted. In the next fall, the Skinners were granted permission to stage a more traditional—and much grander—spectacle. This included the hiring of a playwright, the use of barges, Gyants, and marching bands, and the staging of a mock-battle on the Thames. The public or “folk” theater was to become an important medium for expressing the values of the restored government; along with sermons it was an ideally accessible means of transmitting a message, and it required no literacy whatsoever. The procession from one setting or monument to the next provided a series of “set changes” which proved exceedingly advantageous: what was said both verbally and visually in each tableau was addressed directly at the person thus honoured and his retinue. His or her presence before each of the tableaux in turn provided a common link between them all. The effect was inevitably to endow the pageants with a unity of theme instead of the unity usually discernible in plot or through character. . . . This dictated a unified thematic content, presented in the form of a sermon which used a variety of texts to treat appropriate but independent aspects of a single topic. . . . which thus resulted in an illustrated lecture in dramatic form on government and political philosophy.46

3: the restoration in verse

83

Although Dryden and other “serious” poets denounced street theater and pageantry, it was remarkable how many values and messages were shared by the “popular” and “elite” dramatists. Dryden would use pageantry’s appeal to “English idiots” to degrade the medal struck to commemorate Shaftesbury, but his awareness of its popularity is an implicit acknowledgement of the ability of public spectacles to generate huge audiences in London.47
One of the best examples of a government spectacle which directed official ideology at an audience of the entire nation is the two days surrounding the king’s coronation. Indeed, the efforts devoted to the oral, visual, and printed aspects of the ceremonies is indicative of the official concern to reach a wide and varied audience. The coronation of Charles II was preceded by a triumphal Entry into the City of London. Following “the glorious Restauration of our Sovereign to His Throne, and of His Subjects to our Laws, Liberties, and Religion, after a dismal Night of Usurpation, and Oppression,” the City decided to imitate the “antient Romans, who, at the return of their Emperor, erected Arches of Marble, which, tho we . . . would not equal in Materials, yet do ours far exceed theirs in Number, and Stupendous Proportions.”48 The painting on the first arch depicted the monarch’s arrival at Dover and bore the caption, “ADVENTUS AUG.” Already one can see the relationship with the classical references in “Astraea Redux.” On the pedestal to the left of the “advent” of Augustus was a woman representing Rebellion, with her attendant, Confusion.49 As in earlier panegyrics, the triumph of monarchy is presented as the alternative to the rule of tyranny, rebellion and confusion. A painting on the upper level of the arch showed the carnage in the English countryside, “representing DISORDER in Charles’s absence.”50 It should come as no surprise that on the opposite pedestal was a representation of the monarchy, supported by Loyalty: “Monarchy is said to be supported by Loyalty, because the Love of the Subject is the securest Guard of the Prince.” Closer still to the values expressed in “Astraea Redux” was the motto under the painting of Charles driving Usurpation (a monster with many heads looking suspiciously like Cromwell) into the jaws of Hell, which read VOLVENDA DIES EN ATTULI ULTRO.51 Once again one finds patience, fortitude, and a reliance on the ultimate probity of Fate praised as the only justifiable path. It was only necessary for Charles to remain true to the timeless values of patience in adversity and faith in the historical process as the temporal expression of divine justice in order to regain his throne. If his subjects had the prudence to follow this royal example, then order and prosperity—a golden age—would follow.

84

courting the moderates

The second stop on the king’s progress was the Naval arch. Here a painting of Neptune hung beneath the motto from Virgil’s 4th Georgic: GENERIS LAPSI SARCIRE.52 On the pedestals of this arch were living figures of Asia, Europe, Africa, and America, each bearing the flags of the companies which traded there. Surely the Plantations, merchants, and Trading Companies were anxious to participate in the good feelings at the Restoration as well as to maintain their privileges; yet the message was probably intended to point to the prosperity stemming from the return of monarchy, peace, and empire. At the king’s arrival at this arch, a living figure of the Thames made the following speech: . . . Hail, Mighty Monarch, whose Imperial Hand Quiets the Ocean, and secures the Land; The City whom I serve with neighbouring Floods Exporting yours, importing foreign Goods, With anxious grief did Your Absence Mourn; Now with full Joy she welcomes Your Return; Your Blest Return !! By which she is Restor’d To all the Wealth and remotest lands Afford. . . .53

The Third Arch was entitled the Temple of Concord, bearing the motto CONCORDIA INSUPERBILIS. Beneath Concord herself stood women representing the four cardinal virtues: Justice, Prudence, Temperance, and Fortitude. The role that each of these virtues played in Dryden’s works will be discussed below, but their importance was already marked by the publication of “Astraea Redux.” If the English were to remain subject to the three values, then there would be no need to ask the question, COMES NOT HERE THE KING OF PEACE, Who, the Stars so long fore-told, From all the Woes should us release, Converting Iron-times to Gold?54

Finally came the Arch of the Garden of Plenty, festooned with cornucopias, Bacchus figures, and the like. It also portrayed one great Shield and motto referring to the Temple of Janus built by Numa. A woman representing Plenty was shown shutting up the doors to the Temple.55 When one combines the images of Naval superiority, Concord, and Plenty with the advent of Augustus, it becomes apparent that the panegyrists and authors of pageants wished to claim that Charles had inherited the mantle of empire and was indeed inaugurating a golden age for the English state. The host of Latin quotations—primarily Virgilian—made it clear that Ogilby did not intend the king simply to graft Roman virtues onto the royal oak. Such slogans as “UNITAS,” “PATER PATRIAE” and “MENS OMNIBUS UNA” indicate that the king’s return was partially dependent

3: the restoration in verse

85

on the people. One reason for printing and distributing an account of the coronation was “that the Ingenuous may be instructed, the Malevolent silenced, and Misinformations prevented.”56 Ogilby and his rival Walker printed multiple versions—at various prices—of the coronation pageantry. The various prices are an indication of the recognition of the various audiences present at the day’s events. Furthermore, the multiple versions indicate an awareness of the need for different types of printed programs to accompany and enhance the visual displays and vocalized commentary. The availability and the demand for the guides is evidence of the lively political culture as well as the government’s sensitivity to public opinion and the public sphere.57 Ogilby’s pageantry and the accompanying texts brought the ideas of courtly panegyrists onto the streets of London. The virtues and ideology found in the poetry, proclamations, ballads, and spectacles of 1660 were now reiterated in a medium accessible to all sections of the populace. The striking similarities between Ogilby’s views and the conclusion to “Astraea Redux” should come as no surprise: And now times whiter Series is begun, Which in soft Centuries shall smoothly run; Those Clouds that overcast your Morn shall fly, Dispell’d to farthest corners of the Sky. Our Nation, with united Int’rest blest, Not now content to poize, shall sway the rest. Abroad your Empire shall no Limits know, But like the Sea in boundless Circels flow. Your much lov’d Fleet shall with a wide Command Beseige the petty Monarchs of the Land: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Their wealthy Trade from Pyrate’s Rapine free, Our Merchants shall no more Advent’rers be: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . At home the hateful names of Parties cease And factious Souls are weary’d into peace. The discontented now are only they Whose crimes before did your Just Cause betray: Of those your Edicts some reclaim from sins, But most your Life and Blest Example wins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oh Happy Age! Oh times like these alone, By Fate reserv’d for great Augustus throne! When the joint growth of Arms and Arts foreshew The World a Monarch, and that Monarch You.58

With the ascendancy of the Anglican Royalists in 1662 one can find a definite trend in the values and ideals expressed in the writings of those loyal to the restored government.59 The theatrical attempts to reconcile

86

courting the moderates

past collusion with ardent loyalty has been aptly described by Nancy Klein Maguire.60 Playwrights would further develop many of the same ideas on the stage in the years to come. The basic elements of moderation, uniformity, and loyalty would appear in publications as diverse as Heroic Plays, the polemics of L’Estrange, anonymous pamphlets, official newsletters, the London Gazette, speeches from the throne, and royal Proclamations. Dryden’s efforts in the 1660s eventually earned him the joint position of Poet Laureate and Historiographer Royal. A close look at his criticism and Heroic Dramas will reveal the clearest expression of the emerging court bid to win over and hold the center of a volatile political nation. By relying on the clarity of Dryden’s writings we should be able to discover the common threads of the ideology of moderation which reappear throughout the other examples of Restoration political culture.
Notwithstanding the variety of political culture which accompanied the king’s restoration, the events of 1665–70 did much to alienate moderate opinion from the court. In spite of the close ties established with the Church by Clarendon, the sybaritic activities of Charles and his courtiers gave the impression of an immoral and profane court, which revived fears of godless rulers and divine chastisement. The ineptitude associated with the Second Dutch War, followed closely by the Fire and the Plague, convinced many that Providence was reproaching the entire nation for the excesses of its leaders. The fall of Clarendon and the government of the Cabal did little to assuage the discontented supporters of the government. The design to introduce toleration was met with hostility by those Anglicans who had suffered for the Church in the late troubles, thereby depriving the government of its natural allies, most importantly the Church itself. When the policy of toleration was suddenly abandoned for a French alliance in 1670, suspicions of the Cabal became so widespread that the government was driven to evade parliamentary criticism by a succession of prorogations lasting nearly two years.61 One attempt to defend the government in this period was the revival, by Sir Edmund Waller, of the ut pictura poesis tradition, a device in which a poet instructs a painter on the details to be used in his painting.62 The support generated by this device vanished when a torrent of satires appeared which used the same device to ridicule the events praised by Waller. The attacks on the official propaganda led to two important developments. The first was the resurrection of the Surveyor of the Press. Payments to L’Estrange had been neglected by the Cabal after 1667 because of his irrepressible animosity toward nonconformity. By 1670 the alterations in government policy and the satirical attacks on the court and the duke of York convinced the government to set loose the Surveyor once more.

3: the restoration in verse

87

The second development to come out of the public criticism of the Second Dutch War was the appointment of John Dryden as Poet Laureate and Historiographer Royal. Dryden’s panegyric to the king in 1660 had drawn attention to his accomplishments and his Annus Mirabilis in 1667 brought him to the forefront of the king’s champions. Annus Mirabilis was the one piece written on the king’s behalf which had equaled the popularity of the many satires attacking the government. More importantly for this book, Annus Mirabilis acts as a crucial bridge between the ideology of the 1660s and the 1670s. The latter decade saw the zenith of the Heroic Drama, a genre ideally suited to the promotion of ideology. More particularly, the political culture of the 1670s also witnessed a shift in emphasis away from the king’s merits and the many beneficial consequences to result from his return. In their place one finds a series of characters who provided examples of how the loyal Christian subject should act. At the same time, antagonists were presented to illustrate both the alternative and its inevitable aftermath. One reason for the change was that by the time of the Anglican– Royalist “triumph” of 1664, many of the arches erected for the coronation were serving as illustrations of the government’s shortcomings rather than its benefits. The “garden of plenty “ was overrun with Dutch weeds once again. The ideal of maritime supremacy was about to be dashed in the naval war with the United Provinces—much to the chagrin of the true believers in imperial restoration. One of the most glaring and well-known deviations from the picture painted by the poets was the morality of the court. Even such staunch royalists as John Evelyn were appalled by the revels at Whitehall. Evelyn, devout as he was loyal, lamented in a diary entry from 1664 that he was sorry “that such a wretched custom as play to that excesse should be countenanced in a court which ought to be an example of virtue to the rest of the kingdome.”63 Worse still, after attending the theater to see the earl of Orrery’s Mustapha, he regretted being present at such a forum for vice and lechery. He decried how seldom he dared attend the public theaters, as they were abused, to an atheistical liberty, [with] fowle and undecent women now (now and never till now) permitted to appeare and act, who, inflaming severall young noblemen and gallants, became their whores and to some their wives, witnesse the Earle of Oxford, Sir R. Howard, Pr Rupert, the E. of Dorset and another greater person than any of these, who fell into their snares, to the reproach of their noble families, and ruine of both body and Soule.64

Evelyn’s extreme piety may have made him particularly sensitive to the evil influence of actresses, but their appearance on the stage surprised many. There can be no denying that life at court was sometimes scandalous, and the excluded puritans were unlikely to have any sympathy. Moreover, the well-known generosity of Charles II combined with the

88

courting the moderates

incompetence of Lord Treasurer Southampton to offer very public examples of the way in which mistresses, courtiers, and hangers-on kept the Royal Household in constant need of funds. Furthermore, lady Castlemaine was a continual drain on the Irish revenue and a relentless opponent of the Lord Chancellor.65 The ineffective administration of the king’s finances meant that the limited revenues granted in 1661 were entirely insufficient. The duke of York complained to Pepys in 1663 about the publick management of business: it is done, as he observes, so loosely and carelessly, that the kingdom can never be happy with it, every man looking after himself, and his own lust and luxury; and that half of what money the Parliament gives the King is not so much as gathered . . . whereas now the very Commissioners of Assessments and other publick payments are such persons, and those that they choose in the country so like themselves, that from top to bottom there is not a man carefull of any thing, or if he be, is not solvent; that what between the beggar and the knave, the King is abused [of] the best part of all his revenue.66

While the lax morality of the court might have revolted the puritan element, and the wasteful management appalled the landed element, both grievances could be blamed on courtiers and ministers. But by 1663 the king was evidently embarking on a religious policy of his own. Even if the policy aimed to realize the type of moderation promised at Breda, the triumphant Cavaliers in the Commons wanted no part of it. They had already squelched a move in the direction of Indulgence in 1662, yet the king did not abandon his desire to mitigate the penalties against some nonAnglicans: “All the newes is the great oddes yesterday in the votes between them that are for the Indulgence to the Papists and Presbyters, and those that are against it, which did carry it by 200 against 30. And pretty it is to consider how the King would appear to be a stiff Protestant son of the Church; and yet willing to give a liberty to these people, because of his promise at Breda.”67 The divisions within the court itself and, more importantly, between the king, his ministers, and the Parliament were becoming increasingly public. Letters to New England reported the rifts within the court as well as the existence of “Proctors” for the bishop’s interests in the Commons: By the votes of the Parlt upon this Decl[aration]n, you see the Crowne & the Miter are ingaged. The Bpps sent letters to all they acompted true sones of the Church, to come up & make heade against the Declaration. Severall angry presbiters of the House supposing Popery to be the game, would not come up, soe that the Bpps party in the House caryed it, against the Court party . . . & yet two of the greatest Proctors the Bishops had in the House of Commons fell in with the Court pty.68

3: the restoration in verse

89

These divisions were to haunt the remainder of Charles II’s reign and to undermine the effectiveness and trust of his government. Worst of all, the king’s determination to pursue distinct foreign and religious policies of his own would ultimately destroy the power and the party which the earl of Danby developed in the late 1670s. The king’s attempt at an Indulgence in 1662 helped to thwart the efforts of Clarendon to increase the king’s supporters in Parliament. The contretemps over the Indulgence convinced the king to adjourn the Parliament, causing Pepys to worry that Charles’ speech to Parliament was very short, and not very obliging; but only telling them his desire to have a power of indulging tender consciences, and that he will yield to have any mixture in the uniformity of the Church’s discipline; and says the same for Papists, but declares against their ever being admitted to have any offices or places of trust in the kingdom; but God knows, too many have. . . . The Commons in Parliament, I hear, are very high to stand to the Act of Uniformity, and will not indulge the Papists (which is endeavored by the Court Party), nor the Presbyters.69

In the end, we see a growing alarm at the divisions between the king and Commons. It is also significant that Pepys refers to a “Court Party”: not only is he aware of supporters of the court who are angling for more comprehensive religious policy in opposition to the Cavaliers in the Commons, he readily identifies them as a “party.” Pepys’s concerns were in stark contrast to the ideals of moderation and unity presented in the official propaganda. George deForest Lord argues that “to judge from the poetry which celebrates them, the first five years of the Restoration were halcyon ones. Except for one or two inferior squibs on the plight of the Cavaliers . . . not a breath of criticism survives among all the commendatory verses on the royal family, on Lord Chancellor Hyde, or on Charles’ reigning mistress, the countess of Castlemaine.”70 Nonetheless, despite the torrent of praise and congratulations pouring from the pen of government supporters, there remained a feeling at court that the support of men other than the Anglican Royalists was necessary for the success of the restored monarchy. Added to these troubled waters in 1665 was the Second Dutch War and, soon thereafter, the Plague and the Fire. The golden age was already showing signs of tarnish.
The Second Dutch War was in part a result of the Report of the Parliamentary Committee on Trade and Plantations of 1664. The mercantile community and members of Parliament were joyously supportive of this move to sweep their competitors from the seas.71 Much to the delight of

90

courting the moderates

Charles and the Treasury Commissioners, who had succeeded Southampton after his death, Parliament voted to support the king “with their lives and fortunes” and provided an initial Supply of £2,500,00.72 But in less than two years the money was gone, Clarendon was banished from the realm, and Charles II was well on his way to losing the support of the moderates who were crucial to his strength in Parliament and the country. The bumbling conduct surrounding the Second Dutch War is well known. Tremendous sums were squandered, great naval victories not followed up, and very little gained in the end.73 The Great Plague of 1665 did little to bolster morale, and it was not uncommon to find comments describing it as a fitting punishment for the sins of the country—and of the court. The interpretations only intensified when the plague was succeeded by the Great Fire of London, which reduced a significant portion of the City to ashes. Dryden attempted to short-circuit this line of attack in Annus Mirabilis by having the king, in a prayer for an end to the Fire, acknowledge his errors and call for any Judgements to fall on him alone: Thou, who hast taught me to forgive the Ill, And recompense, as Friends, the Good misled: If Mercy be a Precept of thy Will, Return that Mercy on they Servants head. Or, if my heedless Youth has stept astray, Too soon forgetful of thy gracious hand; On me alone thy just Displeasure lay, But take thy Judgements from this mourning Land. We all have sinn’d, and thou hast laid us low. . . . [1052–61]

Ominously, the fire had broken out on 3 September—the anniversary of Cromwell’s greatest victories as well as his death. Like his fellow courtier Dryden, Evelyn considered the recent chastisements as entirely deserved in light of the ingratitude following God’s “favour in restoring Church, Prince, and People from our late intestine calamities.”74 The biblical tone of the recent calamities contributed to the government’s growing unpopularity. The fear of an uprising or plot was everywhere, and the scheduled meeting of Parliament looked dangerous: When Parliament met on September 21 . . . for the first time in the reign the speech from the throne contained no reference to plots. This was highly unsatisfactory to the Commons which felt that the origin of the fire had not been adequately investigated. They appointed a committee to secure information regarding priests and Jesuits and to probe the rumours of conspiracy. A bill for the inspecting of public accounts, and another against the importation of Irish Cattle were passed at the instigation of Buckingham and Ashley over the

3: the restoration in verse

91

Chancellor’s protest, and an attempt was made to impeach Lord Mordaunt as a precedent for similar action against the Chancellor.75

Although Clarendon was able to avoid impeachment proceedings, events increasingly pointed to his loss of control. By 1666, the celebrations for the king’s birthday and Restoration on 29 May made London a contested space where a united nation had once cavorted. Pepys relates his astonishment as he struggled home through the bonfires: “Lord! to see the difference how many there were on the other side, and so few ours, the City side of the Temple, would make one wonder the difference between the temper of one sort of people and the other: and the difference among all between what they do now, and what it was the night when Monk come [sic] into the City.”76 An abortive rising of fanatics in Scotland in November caused great alarm but was easily routed.77 Yet this was a Pyrrhic victory at best. The combination of plague, fire, and war led to a minor seventeenth-century tax revolt. Hearth tax riots were reported from many places, and the sailors were engaging in their accustomed rowdiness in London.78 The imprisonment of Buckingham brought the Chancellor a temporary respite in May, and he made sure that the preparations for negotiations and a peace were reported constantly in the London Gazette. Using the Gazette may have influenced a wide body of public opinion, but the dangers of popular support were obvious once the humiliation in the Medway helped to doom the Chancellor. Professor Pincus has traced the failure of Anglican–Royalist foreign policy and shown the relationship between foreign policy and shifting ideological considerations. The ideological nature of diplomacy was in part a consequence of the divisions between the king and Parliament but also an example of the variety of opinions and strategies within the court. In light of the ideological diversity, it is important to remember how moderation could, and often did, mean different things at different times. One of the results of the ideological diversity within the court was the ability of the Cabal to pursue a policy of toleration. The king was persuaded that a majority of the nation (and Parliament) was in favor of a more comprehensive religious settlement. The new alignment of politicians known as the Cabal convinced Charles that a cessation of persecution would go a long way toward silencing the criticisms of his court. With Buckingham as the leader of a ministry containing no committed Anglicans, it appeared that a more comprehensive religious policy would have its day. Indeed, the first step taken by the new ministers was to end the hostilities with the Dutch.79 By January 1668 England had joined the Triple Alliance in an attempt to check the aggrandizement of Louis XIV and to guarantee the survival of the True Church. However, as soon as the religious aims of the Cabal

92

courting the moderates

became apparent, any support from the Anglicans and moderates began slipping away. For them toleration was associated with the disorder and extremism of the recent past, so Anglican Royalists were able to don the mantle of tradition and moderation once again. The signs of the times were familiar to their collective memories, with the marked return of public preaching, the lack of uniformity, and the empty purses of informers and spies all indicating the direction of policy.80 It seemed that the views being expressed by the duke of York were now indicative of official attitudes: [T]he King by name, with all his dignities, is prayed for by them that they call Fanatiques, as heartily and powerfully as in any other churches that are thought better: and that, let the King think what he will, it is them that must help in the day of warr. For so generally they are the most substantiall sort of people, and the soberest; and . . . [of] all the old army you cannot now see a man begging about the streets; but what? You shall have this captain turned a shoemaker; the lieutenant a baker; this a brewer . . . and every man in his apron and frock, &c as if they never had done anything else: whereas the other with their belts and swords, swearing and curssing, and stealing; running into people’s houses, by force oftentimes, to carry away something; and this is the difference between the temper of one and the other; and [James] concludes (and I think with some reason,) that the spirits of the old parliament soldiers are so quiet and contented with God’s providences, that the King is safer from any evil meant him by them one thousand times more than from his own discontented Cavalier.81

The supposed loyalty of the “Fanatiques” would eventually earn them another Indulgence, the real reason for James’ sympathy and support for their cause. The discontented Cavalier was now to be blamed for the lack of unity during the recent war and the exclusive religious settlement dismantled in the quest for consensus. An extensive pamphlet campaign after 1668 aimed to associate liberty and toleration.82 Yet too much liberty was linked in many minds with the discredited social, religious, and political experiments of the 1650s. One of the greatest scourges of the nonconformists, Sir Roger L’Estrange, was one of the first victims of the new government. The Surveyor of the Press had no legal authority and was totally dependent on the Warrants granted him by the Secretaries of State. These were now withheld from L’Estrange and granted to the Stationers Company. L’Estrange insisted that the Stationers would neither persecute nor harass the printers and booksellers since it was surely not in their interest to do so.83 While L’Estrange sulked in his tent as the wronged warrior he undoubtedly considered himself to be, the Cabal quickly realized his importance to any government. Freed from his watchful eye, Bristol, Newcastle, and Hull resumed their roles as major entrepots for the import of libels from Holland. Islington, Clapham, and Moorfields were well known centers of

3: the restoration in verse

93

seditious printing. By 1668 the group of libelers known as the Confederates had learned to dish out the maximum of irritation with the minimum amount of risk. In April, Arlington decided to cut his losses and asked L’Estrange to return. His salary was resumed on the 24th, and he was granted the right to “look to” the Stationers and demand a complete survey of all the Printing Houses in the City and Westminster.84 The primary reason for the recall of the Surveyor was the flood of damaging satires of the court, satires which were often direct responses to the official propaganda intended to dominate the field. The popularity of nonconformity was acceptable to the Cabal so long as it was confined to the application for licenses to worship. Once nonconformists engaged in an ideological defense of toleration and liberty, they offered an alternative to official views and opened the door to the possibility of rival ideologies contesting for public support. This indeed was the thin edge of the wedge: ideological divisions were the beginning of what contemporaries recognized as different “parties” in the nation.85
In the middle of the war Sir Edmund Waller, ever mindful of his “Panegyric to My Lord Protector” and elegy “Upon the Late Storm and of the Death of His Highness” [1658], took it upon himself to revive the ut pictura poesis tradition of flattery. His “Instructions to a Painter”86 was an attempt to celebrate the English naval victory off Lowestoft on 3 June 1665, in general, and the duke of York, in particular.87 Unfortunately, the many details omitted in the cause of poetic license cried out for a response as the war situation worsened. In the event, Waller’s greatest achievement may have been to inspire the resurrection of the painter convention in satirical poetry. It is thought, though not certain, that Marvell wrote at least four different ripostes to this poem—all of them full of brilliant and devastating satire.88 These four poems (and there are dozens written by lesser lights) “paint” the battle as a masterpiece of errors, avarice, and pusillanimity. The elevated, larger-than-life elements of Waller’s poem were easy prey in a genre which emphasized a careful eye for visual detail. Marvell’s satires were immensely popular, and even the moderate royal supporters would have been suspicious following the exposure of Waller’s deceptive reporting. The official concern for both public opinion and control of the public sphere can be seen in its reaction to these satires. The government now found itself engaged in fighting the same set of books and libels it had worked so hard to suppress in the last five years.89 In addition to the host of painterly “Advices” now emerging, The Phoenix of the Solemn League

94

courting the moderates

and Covenant, the Book of Prodigies, the Wise Virgins, the Mirabilis Annus, and scores of other similar productions all resurfaced, teeming with prophecies foreshadowing the destruction of monarchy and the return to a rule of saints. This use of circular theories of history and eschatology was familiar from the earlier panegyrics to the monarchy: “Common to all eschatological expectations . . . was the belief that the great event would be . . . a circular one. The specification of what was to be renewed constituted the criterion of ideological differentiation.”90 By 1667 the great arches supporting the theory of a renewed golden age were collapsing under the weight of their own promises. The Dutch had shown their ability to surpass the English in trade, and in a society which believed in a zerosum international economy, the success of the United Provinces was like a blight in the “Garden of Plenty.”91 Worse still, the “Naval” arch and dreams of maritime imperial supremacy had turned to dust after an initial victory in 1665; the humiliation in the Medway provided the coup de grace. These developments insured that the “Temple of Concord” had certainly been violated on more than one occasion, and there were many authors and readers willing to believe that a true “restoration” would mean the return to a moral and godly government. Clearly, the ideology92 of the panegyrics was being turned against the restored monarchy. It was painfully obvious that the king and his government had not lived up to the claims made for them in the panegyrics and pageants. The Second Dutch War had demonstrated one of the most important aspects of the new political culture. While an effective propaganda campaign might well influence or even shape public opinion, it also established a number of virtues or promises to which one might be held accountable. This accountability in turn provided a shape and a credible foundation for later criticism. In this way, a viable public sphere combined with a vibrant political culture to influence official propaganda. By the 1670s we begin to see a move toward instruction and lessons for the subject and away from promises and predictions about the advantages of monarchy. In the absence of cultural hegemony, ideology and propaganda could be dangerous double-edged swords. In the midst of these attacks on the royal image so carefully crafted before the war, John Dryden published Annus Mirabilis. Dryden was to prove essential in the difficult process of recapturing and defending the moderate, centrist ideology of the 1670s. His mastery of genres and diction, as well as rhetoric and polemic, made him the perfect poet to champion the cause of the monarchy and the court. Dryden had the ability to take commonplace virtues and use them for polemical ends. The rhetorical and polemical aspects of Dryden’s writings have become clearer in light of Stephen Zwicker’s and Michael McKeon’s works. They have shown that any attempt to objectify the satire and poetry of the Restoration is to miss

3: the restoration in verse

95

its real meaning. Such reductionism assumes there is a fictional author addressing a fictional audience and attempting to argue according to the most likely form of persuasion. But relying on fictional constructs ignores the actual “discourse” taking place and the susceptibilities of the actual historical audience. The refusal to acknowledge an ongoing discourse, in turn, allows critics to view Dryden’s works as an art object rather than as propaganda. No doubt, Dryden’s talents as a propagandist were recognized when he was made Poet Laureate in 1668, hard on the heels of Annus Mirabilis.93 Dryden’s goals were twofold in Annus Mirabilis. First he hoped to reiterate the many traditionalist commonplaces which had been developed in the political culture of the Restoration. Secondly, he wanted to add certain ideological elements which would make any kind of opposition appear unreasonable: It is important to note that what Dryden manifestly adopts is not a “moderate political position” but the name and language of moderation, and he does so in order to argue for a position which may or may not be moderate but whose moderation depends on its context and on the perspective from which it is viewed. . . . [His moderation is actually] the identification of his political opponents as extremists in both senses but also in the identification of Dryden himself as a man whose moderation—between two extremes—permits him a measure of apolitical impartiality.94

Here we see that the manifest partisanship of panegyric is being jettisoned. The fall of Clarendon, the rise of a ministry favoring nonconformity, the Fire, and the defeat by the Dutch were all extremes which compelled defenders of the court to seek the stance and language of centrist politics. Within the first fifty lines of Annus Mirabilis, Dryden points to the monarch’s concern for the four elements of the golden age. After opening with a picture of Holland’s rapaciousness and threat to English trade and “Plenty” he states: Such deep designs of Empire does he [Charles] lay, O’re them whose Cause he seems to take in hand: And, prudently would make them Lords at Sea, To whom he with ease he can give Laws by Land. This saw our King; and long within his breast His pensive counsels ballanc’d to and fro; He grieved the Land he freed should be oppress’d, And he less for it than Usurpers do. [33–40]

Having demonstrated Charles’ concern for the Navy, for England, and for balance and moderation, he illustrated the “Concord” so dear to king and

96

courting the moderates

subjects: “The Loss and Gain each fatally were great; / And still his Subjects call’d aloud for war: / But peaceful Kings, o’re martial people set, / Each other’s poize and counter-ballance are.”95 As early as this tenth verse, one can see the subtle adjustments in Dryden’s discourse. The use of the term “subject” rather than “people” throughout the poem is only one indication of Dryden’s attempt to reinforce the importance of hierarchy.96 It was crucial to Dryden’s argument that people be persuaded to accept natural subordination. Such a necessity becomes clearer as he makes apparent that this is the only relationship capable of preserving the civic and economic interest of every citizen. Clearly, the preservation of hierarchy is in the interest of all Englishmen. Dryden goes on to argue that self-interest is thus intertwined with the interest of others: a “mutual love” between subject and monarch is accordingly loyal, sensible, and practical. Finally, the mutuality of interests is only “another way of expressing the idea of oneness with a larger, encompassing entity, a conviction of which it is Dryden’s aim to inculcate in his audience. ‘Us’ must be a perpetually inclusive category, all terms contained in the emotive term ‘family’.”97 The mutuality and the conflation of the interests of monarchy and people were to become key elements in the centrist discourse of the 1670s. Moreover, it was to be the threat of a breakdown of hierarchy and order which the government would dangle over the heads of wavering moderates from 1673–85.
Dryden was made Poet Laureate in 1668, the same period in which Charles requested the Archbishop of Canterbury to confer the degree of M.A. on the poet. Soon after, Dryden was to add the position of Historiographer Royal to his sources of remuneration. It was apparent that his brand of talent would be needed in the days to come. With the exile of Clarendon and the consequent trend toward toleration, the number of Anglican Royalists who blindly stuck by the court was quickly diminishing. It became increasingly apparent that their loyalty to the Established Church took precedence over their devotion to the king. The Cabal’s advances to the nonconformists and the public articulation of a defense of liberty and conscience frightened many.98 The government’s public challenge to uniformity was met with the harsh new Conventicle Bill of 1670. Parliament demonstrated its commitment to this coercive piece of legislation by taking the time to make three attempts before persuading Charles to sign it into law.99 Worse still, neither Anglican Royalists nor dissenters were likely to support the developing alliance with France. Although religion may not have replaced economic interest entirely as the major influence on England’s foreign policy, the policies of Colbert were making

3: the restoration in verse

97

the French increasingly threatening in this period.100 Dryden had given ample proof of his unparalleled ability to argue in verse in the early 1660s; now his talents would be put to use in the royal theaters to provide “patterns of virtue.” The Heroic Dramas and critical writings which dominated Dryden’s attention until 1676 contained expositions of the ideals which ought to govern the actions of Englishmen. More inclusive than the “disguised moderation” which Steven Zwicker points to in the poetry, the choice of a via media—or moderate stance—is linked to passive obedience as the only rational decision in the face of the unfolding of a history guided by providence. The stage was an ideal setting for the presentation of instruction to the audience. Offering timeless virtues to be followed at all times enabled Dryden to avoid an unrealizable vision of monarchy’s benefits. By giving each of the plays a historical setting, Dryden could construct “an action which is instructive in the traditional, Horatian sense. . . . [W]hat appears to be the working of fate during the course of the plays is finally revealed to be that of divine justice.”101 Not surprisingly, the plays are filled with historical situations which parallel contemporary events or issues and always utilize the same scheme of values to resolve the recurring conflict between internal and external laws. Dryden’s early attempts at writing for the stage were decidedly unsuccessful.102 His first play, The Wild Gallant, was acted in 1663, but was not deemed worthy of publication until 1669. In 1664, he gave the world The Rival Ladies, which was admired by some, but it was not until he collaborated with Sir Robert Howard on the lavishly staged Indian Queen that we have any indication of his penchant for drama. Full of this shared triumph, Dryden rushed to finish a sequel on his own; the Indian Emperor was performed in 1665. While the outbreak of the plague drove Dryden into the countryside (where he wrote Annus Mirabilis and The Essay on Dramatic Poesy), his play appeared in print when he returned to London in 1667. No other Heroic Drama by Dryden was to wait so long before appearing in the booksellers’ stall. It is important to note how anxious the writer was to see his plays in print. He stated openly in 1681 that his ambition was “to be read [because] . . . the hidden beauties of a play . . . [the] silent graces . . . [such as] clearness of conception, purity of phrase [must] of necessity escape our transient view upon the theatre.”103 Without question, there is a “clearness of conception” in Dryden’s heroic plays. Anne T. Barbeau has elucidated much of that “conception” in her book, The Intellectual Design of John Dryden’s Heroic Plays. She has shown how the “curiously religious manner” in which Dryden viewed history was carried over from the earlier poems to the Heroic Plays. She argues that, in Annus Mirabilis, “Astraea Redux” and the Heroic Plays, Dryden presents history—since the start of the Christian era—as moving toward the implementation of Redemption in the secular sphere. In such a view, the return

98

courting the moderates

of Astraea to the world is imminent, and “men can therefore look ahead to the establishment of a utopian society in which commerce, science, and the arts will flourish.”104 Another aspect of this view, seen as early as 1660 in “Astraea Redux,” is Dryden’s belief that history cannot be influenced by man, but is a preordained plan which—through the workings of providence—will both justify and verify his moral philosophy. Before attempting his first Heroic Play, Dryden had pointed to the similarities of man’s role in the hands of providence and the characters created by a playwright: [T]hough they seem to move freely in all the sallies of their passions, yet you make destinies for them which they cannot shun. They are moved (if I may dare say so) like the rational creatures of the Almighty Poet, who walk at liberty, in their own opinion, because their fetters are invisible; when indeed the prison of their will is the more sure for being large; and instead of an absolute power over their actions, they have only a wretched desire of doing that which they cannot choose but do.105

In the plays, we are presented with two types of heroes, examples of “exact” virtue and of “passionate” virtue. The latter, like Booth in “Astraea Redux,” attempt to shape or influence history. For them, as for the rebels, tyrants, and lawbreakers, there can be no lasting victory. In the end, the onward rush of history will sweep them from the stage and make way for the patient examples of exact virtue. These lessons—historical, moderate, scriptural, natural—were intended by their very objectivity and timelessness to serve particular polemical ends. For Dryden, the patterns of exact virtue were those who accepted the constraints of civil, religious, and natural laws. In each of the plays, the hero’s virtue was indicated by the choices made when these laws come into conflict. As with so much of Dryden’s thought, the via media was considered the only reasonable stance to adopt. In his critical writings, he repeatedly created pairs of extremes which erred in different ways. In his Discourse Concerning Satire and An Essay of Dramatic Poesy, he set up pairs of epic poets, contemporary dramatists, lyric poets, and even translators. Each of the great writers mentioned—most of whom he admired greatly—is accused of falling prey to some excess. On satire, Statius is compared to Lucan; Ariosto (luxurious) to Tasso (dry and flatulent); Milton (flat of thought) to Spenser (lacking uniformity of design). On poesy, Shakespeare is compared to Jonson; French drama to English; and Denham and Waller (correct but dull) to Cowley and Suckling (lively but carried away by wit).106 In both his critical writings and Heroic Plays, Dryden’s valorization of moderation serves as an implicit pattern for civil and political action. Through his use of the dual heroes in the Heroic Plays, “he suggests that norms do exist even if a single representative or pattern of absolute perfec-

3: the restoration in verse

99

tion cannot be found.” In keeping with his own critical remarks, Dryden’s Heroic Plays usually have a pair of characters who represent his concept of the norm. The norm is a “duality to him, a composite of internal moral impulse and external moral obligation to civil and parental law.” Faithful to his membership in the Royal Society, Dryden presents logical, even scientific, views on man’s obligations within society, allowing the historical settings to demonstrate the unchanging validity of the positions. Whenever an ambitious or selfish impulse is allowed to override public duties, disorder invariably follows. The relevance of this lesson during the Restoration was apparent. Thus, Dryden’s ability to apply the lessons of duty and obligation to a variety of issues made his dramas both topical and polemical while allowing him to assert his moderation. In response to the growing explications of liberty of conscience, the official claims of moderation were used to disguise the Anglican Royalists wish for an exclusive, uniform settlement in both church and state. The norm of Dryden’s heroic drama, according to Barbeau, “is a healthy balance of wit and judgement, a via media which is reached by the pair of heroes in each of the plays.”107 Removed from the Theater, the via media was an important polemical device. Faced with a choice between Catholicism and fanaticism or tyranny and rebellion, moderation seemed the obvious choice. In all of the plays, just such a conflict arises between internal and external laws. The duty to obey a parental or civil authority challenges a personal or moral position of the character. Each of these conflicts is readily traceable to a contemporary political or religious issue. Conveniently enough, for the Historiographer Royal, the solution—the via media—takes the form of passive obedience to the externally constituted laws. Dryden felt, along with Filmer and Hobbes, that subjects were obligated to obey the laws of the state in order to insure some form of order in the polity. This obedience must extend to a usurper or tyrant if the alternative is rebellion or chaos. Of these three writers, however, only Dryden believed that laws created by the civil authority ought not to be placed above the dictates of conscience or private morality: “If the rights of private conscience are not be respected by the ruler, then the subject must offer resistance of a nonviolent kind, even though such resistance may lead to punishment.”108 While appearing to incorporate the notion of liberty of conscience, Dryden’s moderation is clearly intended as a defense of passive obedience. In his formulation, a government cannot force one to act against conscience, but the only recourse is inactivity and submission. Dryden’s writings had an undeniable polemical purpose throughout the Restoration. The historical settings of the plays were meant to provide instructive examples to Dryden’s readers and audience. Careful attention to the values presented clearly shows that the only safe and reasonable position was a via media which shunned all extremes. Furthermore, a

100

courting the moderates

vision of history which assumed a progress towards a just and prosperous society ensured that fate or destiny was not to be shaped or enduringly altered by ambitious, impulsive extremists. Implicit in such an outlook was an emphasis on loyalty or, in the face of extremity, passive obedience. Resistance to external laws was as futile as attempting to act in the place of providence; there were plenty of recent precedents for that. Dryden stressed the importance of historical precedent rather than rational argument in his political philosophy. The plot of each of the Heroic Plays combined a well-known incident from the past with elements of contemporary debate. Responding to heavy criticism of the Heroic Plays as dull and repetitive, Anne T. Barbeau admits that the five plays may indeed appear similar, but “each has a strict geometrical design—a politically and historically significant action along with a range of characters, each the exponent of a single political attitude. It is in subject matter that the plays differ.”109 If in fact Dryden was swayed by polemical considerations—and it is known that the king suggested and commented on at least one of the dramas—then it should be revealing to examine the “politically significant” actions he chose and the political attitudes exemplified.

4 Royal Theater and the Street Theater In order to determine the basic elements of an official ideology, it will be helpful to turn away from the poetry written in the early years of the Restoration and to compare the works written by John Dryden for the Royal Theaters, with their official portrayal of order, to the more ephemeral literature for a similar ideology, polemic, and rhetoric. The emerging political sphere so often associated with the coffeehouses and the thirst for news also included the spectacle on the streets of London.1 Not only did these pageants bring the ideology of moderation to the unwashed and illiterate, they also were sponsored and paid for by City Guilds, long assumed to be the center of opposition to the government. Thus, the virtues of moderation were promoted by the princes of commerce as well as by the court. These licensed pageants, along with all legally sold pamphlets and broadsides, certainly had the approval of the government, and they were just as certainly intended for a much different and broader audience. As a result, values and arguments were likely to take a much cruder form and were unlikely to contain the syllogisms and rhetorical flourishes intended for a well-educated audience. Because of this, the ideology was more accessible, but the similarities to Dryden and other playwrights is undeniable: the shared values, common principles, and similar rhetoric are an indication of the importance of ideology as well as the ubiquity of polemical uses of moderation in Restoration political culture. If the pageantry and street theater of the 1670s contains the values delineated by the dramatists and poets associated with the court, it can be argued that the government was attempting to appeal to a much wider audience than those able to frequent the Royal Theaters.2 A concern for public opinion helps to explain the government’s efforts as patron and censor of all types of cultural production. Also, the subject matter of the pageants and, more directly, of the pamphlets, relates to current events and crises, a topicality already noticed in the subject matter of Dryden’s Heroic Plays. There is no doubt that ideological responses to political developments are evidence of the government’s recognizing its accountability in the public sphere. The emphasis on loyalty, duty, and the pervasiveness of 101

102

courting the moderates

the faction was directed at the centrists who supported any government which defended this simple ideology. The government’s ability to dominate—if not monopolize—the publication of an ideological platform was a critical advantage in the contest for the support of the moderate opinion opposed to renewed divisions and extremism that parties within the body politic represented. Dryden’s Heroic Plays were written from 1668–75, followed by a similar tragedy in which he attempted to “imitate the divine Shakespeare; which, that I might perform more freely, I have disincumber’d myself from rhyme.”3 The rhymed couplet which characterized each of these works led to some of the first critical polemics in English, and a number of biting parodies. The Rehearsal, by George Villiers, the second duke of Buckingham, portrayed the Poet Laureate as Mr. Bayes—an appellation which stuck to Dryden for many years. Nonetheless, Dryden remained loyal to Heroic couplets because of his unsurpassed talent for contending in verse. In order to clarify his views on passive obedience, reason, moderation, loyalty, and ambition, Dryden utilized a series of historical settings which contained conflicts appropriate to his aims. The Poet Laureate then provided soliloquies in verse for characters representing different ideological positions. Dryden’s choice of settings was an indication of his desire to defend established authority: the conquest in the new world, persecution in Rome, succession in India, and the final days of Antony and Cleopatra, were all events which could be manipulated to point out the conflict between private interest and public duty as well as the importance of moderation and obedience. While the heroic characters were demonstrating the validity (and timelessness) of the values which Dryden advocated, the remaining members of the cast provided examples of the consequences of abandoning the patterns of “exact virtue.” The ambition and insatiable will of characters invariably brought them into conflict with providence or the forces of destiny. Rather than shape history, they end up swept away by it.4 The fate of these characters, and those who follow their lead, is another manifestation of the concern for the demagogues’ ability to gull the people into forsaking their duty to the king and government. Indeed, after Dryden’s final Heroic Drama, ambition and its repercussions were to become the dominant themes in government propaganda. In both the Royal Theaters and the street theater, moderation and the via media would take a back seat to the polemical emphasis on the dangers of extremism.
In the ten years following the re-opening of the theaters after the Plague and Fire of London, Dryden published thirteen dramatic works. The major-

4: royal theater and the street theater

103

ity of these were comedies, clearly of the second rank.5 This choice can be attributed to the contemporaneous fondness for bawdy comedies, as well as to Dryden’s agreement to produce at least three plays a year for the King’s Theater.6 No doubt, the comedies were easier and quicker to write, but the timing of the Heroic Dramas is instructive. The new dramatic forms appearing throughout the 1660s not only created a series of mythic virtues to be associated with Charles II. In the hands of loyal playwrights attached to the court, the different forms were able to present a series of settings and characters to provide instruction to both audience and readers. In many ways, the role of the court dramatists was to work as “a public relations team advertising the restored monarchy.”7 Besides allowing Dryden to exercise his unequaled ability to argue in verse, the dramas presented much-needed support for the policies of the court to a politically important audience. The nature of the audience and the Cromwellian hostility to representation which closed the theaters in the 1650s guaranteed that this would be an unashamedly partisan theater. Even before the king’s return artists and preachers were singing his praises, and the reopening of two official theaters, the King’s and the Duke’s, created unprecedented opportunities for playwrights both young and old. They were highly unlikely to bite the hand that fed them. Often the king or his most influential advisors were in attendance, and the close personal ties with the court ensured the political reliability of most playwrights.8 Nancy Klein Maguire has detailed how two close friends of the king, Sir William Davenant and Thomas Killigrew, exercised a monopoly on the theater, assuring close control of the plays performed. There was considerable business sense in this since the audience itself was royalist and partisan.9 Despite their repeated claims of nonpartisanship this close knit group was anything but politically neutral. Besides the king’s close personal relations with a number of actresses and his family ties to some of the theaters’ leading figures, his love of the stage and habit of suggesting, requesting, and commissioning plays “made the early Restoration theater a natural and effective tool for propagandizing on behalf of the new regime.”10 The same group would prove the backbone of the government’s propaganda wing for years to come.11 Prompt publication, By Order of the King, combined with free advertisements in the Gazette, offered the views of Dryden and others to the public soon after the performance.12 Perhaps it was the Poet Laureate’s talent for engaging in controversy in verse which led him to use rhymed couplets in the plays under consideration. Then again, it may have been the king’s preference for the French Theater. In any event, Dryden devoted a good deal of time and energy to defending that decision. In essays, prologues, epilogues, and dedications he tried to justify his choice of such an odd genre:

104

courting the moderates

Tragedy performs viva voce, or by action, in dialogue; wherein it excels the epic poem, which does it chiefly by narration, and therefore is not so lively an image of human nature. However, the agreement betwixt them is such that, if the rhyme be proper for one, it must be for the other. Verse, ’tis true, is not the effect of sudden thought; but this hinders not that sudden thought may not be represented in verse, since those thoughts are such as must be higher than nature can raise them without premeditation, especially to a continuance of them, even out of verse; and consequently you can not imagine them to have been sudden either in the poet or in the actors. A play, as I have said, to be like nature, is to be set above it; as statues which are placed on high are made greater than the life, that they may descend to the sight in their just proportion.13

It is the carefully crafted “higher thoughts” mentioned in this passage which provide some insight into Dryden’s government-sponsored opinions. As the most handsomely rewarded writer at court, Dryden’s example must have been widely influential. The first of Dryden’s rhymed Heroic Dramas was performed in 1665 and published during the Second Dutch War. It is known that Charles II suggested the writing of Heroic Dramas to a number of the playwrights at court in the mid 1660s. Dryden had collaborated with Howard on the spectacular The Indian Queen in 1664; he wrote the sequel on his own, partly because of the success of The Indian Queen and partly to make use of the lavish sets and costumes introduced. While the sequel by Dryden was performed and published before his elevation to the Laureateship, it exhibited many of the values to be found in the later plays. The general plot of the latter play is the expansion of Christianity during Cortez’s conquest of the Aztecs. Within the narrative structure can be found the common themes of history, or providence, passive obedience, and most importantly in this initial heroic drama, the conflict between internal values and external obligations. For Montezuma, Cortez, Odmar, and Guyomar, love forces them to make decisions which involve a rejection of “exact virtue.” In this case, passion is associated with the recent disorders in England. For Clarendon as well as for Dryden, ambitious men had appealed to the passions of the multitude in order to detach the people from their duty to the king. Once this virtue was abandoned, the fanaticism and extremism associated with the passions was inevitable. In The Indian Emperor, Montezuma, the passionate character, refuses for personal reasons to take advantage of the opportunity Fate provided to save his realm: Kalib.

A day shall come when in their power Thy cruel Foes shall be; Then shall thy Land be free, And thou in Peace shalt Raign:

4: royal theater and the street theater

105

But take, O take that opportunity, Which once refused will never come again. Montezuma. I shall deserve my Fate if I refuse That happy hour which Heaven allots to use; But of my Crown thou too much care do’st take, That which I value more, my Love’s at stake. [2.1.57–66]

Faced with a similar choice, however, Cortez chooses to turn his back on love for the sake of virtue and out of loyalty to his monarch. Although he agrees with the woman he loves that the orders of his king are misguided, he will not take it upon himself to judge, even for the sake of love: Cortez. Monarchs may err, but should each private breast Judge their ill Acts, they would dispute their best. Cydaria. Then all your care is for your Prince I see, Your truth to him out-weighs your love to me; You may so cruel to deny me prove, But never after that, pretend to Love. Cortez. Command my Life, and I will soon obey, To save my Honour I my Blood will pay. Cydaria. What is this Honour which does Love controld? Cortez. A raging fit of Vertue in the Soul; A painful burden which great minds must bear, Obtain’d with danger, and possess with fear. [2.2.30–41]

In addition to his loyalty and subjection to external laws, Cortez hints at the necessity of passive obedience. If “each private breast” were placed on a par with the judgement of monarchs, then the inevitable outcome would certainly be chaos. An audience of courtiers and royalists would have had little reason to disagree with such a political philosophy. Indeed, when the Indian hero, Guyomar, is urged by the object of his desire to disobey the “stubborn,” “slothful,” “unwise” Emperor for “the publick good,” he responds similarly: Guyomar. Take heed, Fair Maid, how Monarchs you accuse: Such reasons none but impious Rebels use: Those who to Empire by dark paths aspire, Still plead a call to what they most desire; But Kings by free consent their Kingdoms take, Strict as those Sacred Ties which Nuptials make; And what e’re faults in Princes time reveal, None can be Judge where can be no Appeal. [4.2.76–83]

Obviously Dryden portrayed both of his protagonists as rejecting any idea that the subject had any right—let alone the ability—to judge the

106

courting the moderates

monarch. He undoubtedly wished to denounce the casuistry which justified rebellion against the king in the name of the king.14 Moreover, in placing identical beliefs in the speeches of the Aztecs and the Spanish, Dryden was able to demonstrate that certain values were both timeless and applicable to all societies. Not only was human nature the same in different historical settings, but also among different cultures. The same justification for the use of distant settings can be seen in the portrayal of the characters from each society. There is no idealizing of “primitive” Indians nor of the Christian Spaniards: “In fact, there is a careful balance between lawless Indians and lawless Christians:” the priests and Pizarro are shown to be as rapacious and cruel as Odmar and the High Priest of the Aztecs.15 In the same way that history demonstrated the universality of good and evil, as well as essential political ideals, Dryden clearly showed history as the governing force in all significant progress and change. Rather than showing the superiority of Christianity prevailing over the heathens, The Indian Emperor seems to argue that Christianity expanded “not simply by conquest or by force of civil authority; its enemies seem rather to bring about their own defeat. The victory belongs to the force that shapes history rather than to the strength of Christians.”16 In many ways the “patterns of virtue” demonstrate their moderation and obedience through inactivity, relying on Providence and its divinely-ordained instruments. If civil authority was not the way in which religion was to be determined, then perhaps the harsh regularities of the Clarendon Code were not the best means to establish concord in Restoration England. Charles II had little desire to persecute his subjects on the basis of religion. His attempts at Indulgence in 1662 and again a decade later were both defeated, but they provide ample evidence of his “broad” views on the religious settlement. The longstanding fear that Charles II was “soft” on Catholicism and his supposed conversion to Rome on his deathbed each point to the same conclusion. Moreover, many of his counselors felt the support of nonconformists was crucial to the war effort in 1665. A lessening of persecution might have enhanced their quiescence during the war with the Protestants of the United Provinces. This may well have been one of Dryden’s concerns when he wrote at the beginning of the conflict: Montezuma. Or this must be enough, or to Mankind One equal way to Bliss is not design’d. For though some more may know, and some know less, Yet all must know enough for happiness. Christian Priest. If in this middle way you still pretend To stay, your Journey never will have end. Montezuma. How’ere, ’tis better in the midst to stay, Then wander farther in uncertain way. [5.2.73–80]

4: royal theater and the street theater

107

Dryden was to return to the issue of toleration at the outbreak of the Third Dutch War in the second part of The Conquest of Granada. At the very least, in these years Dryden viewed a tolerant attitude toward religion as a sensible, moderate position to hold. In the absence of absolute truth,17 the “middle way” was preferable to wandering towards “uncertain” extremes. The quest for political stability, so central to Orrery’s Heroic Plays, is at the heart of the Conquest of Granada. The lesson was clearly stated: “Union preserves a Commonwealth and discord destroys it.” Once again, Dryden offered a warning against polarized bifurcations and recommended a via media as the most secure route. If this view is combined with Dryden’s emphasis on historical forces, one might argue that he was opposed to legislation as the proper method for establishing a religious settlement. More importantly, this was a position the court—led by the Cabal— was to adopt by 1668.
Soon after the fall of Clarendon, the control of court policy passed into the hands of the motley assortment of ministers known as the Cabal.18 Of these, Clifford was a known Catholic and Arlington a secret one; Ashley and Buckingham were to become the champions of the nonconformists before the end of the reign; Lauderdale was by turns a presbyterian and persecutor of Scottish dissenters. As a result, their religious policies were a far cry from the monolithic Anglicanism of Clarendon.19 Consequently, following the exile of Clarendon, “the episcopal party in Parliament went through a period of disorganization, disinterest, and lack of purpose which lasted until 1673.”20 Indeed, by the time the Cabal was stripped of its influence at court, a majority of the episcopacy was opposing the wishes of the ministry in the House of Lords. This amputation of the support of the bench was a significant loss to the court in Parliament. The bishops searched for a party in the Lords with which to ally, and they weakened the position of the government by their refusal to attend the House of Lords. In 1668, the bishops had allied with those in favor of the Roos divorce case, thereby hoping that Charles would abandon the queen and produce an heir to preempt the Catholic duke of York. In 1669–70 the bench had supported the king in his efforts to limit the power of the Conventicle Act, but by 1672 the church was working with the country interest in order to revoke the Declaration of Indulgence.21 Dryden’s loyalty to the court was demonstrated in the early 1670s when he penned a justification of toleration. In both Tyrannick Love, or the Royal Martyr, and The Conquest of Granada, one finds Dryden utilizing the familiar theme of obligation to private conscience in conflict with the duty or loyalty owed to the monarch. The usual solutions of passive obedience

108

courting the moderates

and a patient confidence in the justice of providence are reaffirmed using examples of early Christian martyrs and an Islamic sect which dissented from the beliefs of its Prince. In 1669, the same year in which Charles and the Cabal hoped to allow the Conventicle Act to lapse as a first step towards a more comprehensive religious settlement, the King’s Players acted Dryden’s new tragedy, Tyrannick Love, or the Royal Martyr. Dryden admitted that he was moved to write the play in part by “the Commands of some persons of Honour . . . [who felt] it would be of good Example to undertake a Poem of this Nature.” He went on to confess that instruction, both religious and moral, was his design from the outset, for “pleasure was not the only end of Poesie; and that even the instructions of Morality were not so wholly the business of a Poet, as that the Precepts and Examples of Piety were to be omitted. For to leave that employment altogether to the Clergie, were to forget that Religion was first taught in Verse.”22 The action takes place in fourth-century Italy: the heroine, St. Catherine, the virgin martyr, had suffered in Alexandria, but Dryden set the play in Aquileia so the tyrant Maximin might be slain by the Romans immediately after his execution of the saint. Dryden’s treatment of St. Catherine of course, allowed him to provide an example of passive obedience to the point of martyrdom alongside the inevitable result of a tyrannous reign. Maximin, the leader of the Sixth Persecution, wanted to crush the “nonconformists” (i.e. the Christians) in the Empire. St. Catherine managed to inspire wholesale conversions simply through her example of piety and learning: Placidius. The Christian Princess in her Tent confers With fifty of your learn’d Philosophers; Whom with such Eloquence she does perswade, That they are Captives to her reasons made. I left ’em yielding up their vanquish’d cause, And all the Souldiers shouting her applause; [2.1.129–34]

Maximin ordered her brought before him to provide some remedy, Lest this contagious Errour spread too wide. Placidius. Y’ infected zeal you must no mercy show: For, from Religion, all Rebellions grow. Maximin. The silly crowd, by factious Teachers brought To think that Faith untrue their youth was taught, Run on in new Opinions blindly bold; Neglect, contemn, and then assault the old. The infectious madness seizes every part, And from the head distils upon the heart. And first they think their Princes faith not true,

4: royal theater and the street theater

109

And then proceed to offer him a new; Which if refus’d, all duty from ’em cast, To their new Faith they make new Kings at last. [2.1.140–52]

This passage contains many of the Restoration truisms concerning the use of religion as a doorway through which rebellion enters and the ability of “factious Teachers” to turn the “silly crowd” against their monarch. Later, in Tyrannick Love and The Conquest of Granada, Dryden provides the first indication that political loyalty need not be incompatible with religious nonconformity. A ruler could insist on duty from subjects in the public sphere, but to dictate to their private conscience was a recipe for disaster, because “Conscience is without the power of Kings.”23 It is worth noting that neither St. Catherine and the Christians nor Abdelmelech and the Abencerrages are threats to the society in which they lived. Interestingly, both examples are those of Christians facing persecution in a nonChristian state. Each might be read as a plea for toleration since the characters were not of the Prince’s religion, yet they remained politically loyal throughout. When Maximin declares that allowing a free conscience was to put the “worst Weapon in a Rebels hand,” Porphyrus answered, Its Empire, therefore, Sir, should bounded be; And but in acts of its Religion free: Those who ask Civil pow’r and Conscience too, Their Monarch to his own destruction woo. With needful Arms let him secure his peace; Then, that wild beast he safely may release. [4.1.610–16]

The attempt to regulate “conscience”—as in the Clarendon Code and the Conventicle Act in particular—was certain to lead to turmoil because it inspired legislation which governed that which could not be influenced by the state: reason. Such a policy would surely fail, and worse still, would create disaffection. Imposing a specific faith on unwilling hearts was impossible since belief was not a matter of choice: If, for Religion you our lives will take; You do not the offenders find, but make. All Faiths are to their own believers just; For none believe, because they will, but must. Faith is a force from which there’s no defence; Because the Reason it does first convince. And Reason Conscience into fetters brings. [4.1.599–605]

Having made this plea for the wisdom of toleration in private religious matters, Dryden left no doubt as to the path to be followed if a monarch insisted on dictating to conscience. One must hold the line on private

110

courting the moderates

values, but this in no way permitted resistance to public obligations. The passionate hero, Porphyrus, repeatedly offers to slay the tyrant and save both Catherine and the Empress Berenice. St. Catherine, a pattern of exact virtue, denounces such a plan, because it is not the province of the meager wit of man to pass judgements on tyrants; only Fate could determine the verdict and ensure that justice was realized. To assume the role of providence was both selfish and presumptuous in the extreme: St Cath. The will of Heav’n, judg’d by a private breast, Is often what’s our private interest. And therefore those, who would that will obey, Without their int’rest must their duty weigh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thus, with short Plummets Heav’ns deep will we sound, That vast Abyss where we must not launce too far; We here but Coasters, not Discov’rers are. Faith’s necessary Rules are plain and few; We, many, and those needless Rules pursue: Faith from our hearts into our heads we drive; And make Religion all Contemplative. [4.1.515–51]

Even Berenice, who loves Porphyrus and fears the impending sentence of death which awaited her along with St. Catherine, was horrified at the thought of assassinating the tyrannical Emperor for her own sake. Porphyrus’s justification that the crime was “excus’d by the necessity” was feeble. The Empress’s fear of death was but a sign of weakness and was never allowed to cohabit with a wicked thought. Indeed, The Horrour of this deed——— Against the fear of death has arm’d my mind; And now less guilt in him than you I find: If I a Tyrant did detest before, I hate a Rebel and a Traitor more: [4.1.568–72]

In the end, for all of Dryden’s abhorrence of tyranny and willingness to argue for toleration, he refused to condone man’s acting in place of providence. As with Montezuma, St. Catherine was willing to die for her beliefs. More importantly, Berenice, a far less committed Christian, drew upon her faith in passive obedience to accept death rather than permit her lover to murder a tyrant. Not surprisingly, the dependability of history in punishing wrongdoers was demonstrated clearly in the death of Maximin at the close of the play. In the end, the lesson of Dryden’s Heroic Dramas is that the tyranny of a king is a direct cause of anarchy in the state, and that rebellion on the part of either a well-meaning hero or a power seeker feeds the

4: royal theater and the street theater

111

flames. Only the citizen who respects both the moral and the civil law can bring constructive, orderly change to the historical scene. Dryden’s plays imply a definite direction to historical change; heavenly justice working in history seems to be guiding mankind toward a millennium, a just and redeemed world.24

The ideological uses of these views is undeniable. Roman history and recent events were clear evidence of the proper path to follow. This insistence on passive obedience was the outcome of Dryden’s polemical manipulation of the equity of history and providence. The historical examples in Tyrannick Love were evidence of the strength of these values: the eventual beatification of Catherine and the grisly demise of Maximin were an irrefutable vindication of Dryden’s disguised polemics. Indeed, the historical settings allowed Dryden to adopt a stance of moderate nonpartisanship: these examples were evidence of providence at work in history, not ideological, polemical, or partisan in any way. Whatever the vagaries of the policies emanating from the court, propagandists like Dryden could rely on the same ideology of passive obedience to instruct the audience about the proper response for any rational, Christian, moderate subject.
Dryden repeatedly chose historical settings for his plays to help prove the validity of his arguments. St. Catherine herself acknowledges that she was placed “as on a Theater, / Where all my acts to all Mankind appear, / To imitate my constancy or fear.” The effectiveness of examples or patterns of virtue was reaffirmed in the conversion of the Empress, who admitted, “Your Arguments my reason first inclin’d, / And then your bright example fix’d my mind.”25 Dryden was to rely on the force of historical example in determining much of the political philosophy in his writings as well. Despite the idealistic pretenses of the Plays, the emphasis on passive obedience meant that all historical examples demonstrated both the natural and scriptural basis of authority. Accordingly, the arguments and supporting evidence of Sir Robert Filmer appealed to Dryden. The neat historical example of human society’s progression from Genesis to the Restoration proved more persuasive than some mysterious social contract; in truth, the leap of faith necessary in the latter position proved too much for Dryden and Filmer. As early as the poem “To His Sacred Majesty, A Panegyrick on His Coronation” (1661), Dryden had written, When Empire first from families did spring, Then every Father govern’d as a King; But you that are a Soveraign Prince, allay Imperial pow’r with your paternal sway. [ll 93–96]

112

courting the moderates

Interestingly, despite his admiration for the writings of Thomas Hobbes,26 Dryden seems openly to reject the arguments of Leviathan in Tyrannick Love. When Valeria warns her tyrant father he would find it difficult “my free-born will to bound,” he responds with a Hobbesian diatribe on the powers of rulers, free-will, and fate: I’le find that pow’r o’re wills which Heav’n ne’re found. Free will’s a cheat in any one but me: In all but Kings ’tis willing slavery, An unseen Fate which forces the desire, The will of Puppets danc’d upon a wyre. A Monarch is The Spirit of the World in every mind; He may match Wolves to Lambs, and make it kind. Mine is the business of your little Fates: [4.1.296–305]

When one compares the longevity of patriarchy with the demise of Maximin, it is not difficult to select the example Dryden would have one admire. His condemnation of tyranny fit neatly with his rhetoric of “disguised moderation.” While appearing to glorify free will and liberty, Dryden’s works repeatedly present characters exercising their free will in order to choose obedience, both passive and active. St. Catherine, like so many characters, relies on faith and reason to guide her free will to the unthreatening virtues of patience, duty, and obedience.
By the time Dryden wrote his final Heroic Drama and discarded the rhymed couplet, Thomas Osborne, later earl of Danby, had replaced the members of the Cabal as the king’s most trusted advisor. Among the many changes introduced by Osborne, a return to a strict Anglican policy played a central role.27 If he had any hopes of finding support in Parliament, Osborne needed to win back those who had defected as a result of the Cabal’s religious toleration and the Indulgence of 1672. Worse still, the abandonment of the Triple Alliance and the close association with Louis XIV increased the suspicions about religion at court. Then, on Easter Sunday, 1673, Evelyn remained behind to see whether according to costome the Duke of York receiv’d communion with the King; but he did not, to the amazement of every body. This being the second yeare he had forborn and put it off, and within a day of the Parlament sitting, who had lately made so severe an Act against ye increase of Poperie, gave exceeding griefe and scandal to the whole nation, that the heyre of it, and ye sonn of a martyr for ye Protestant religion, should apostatize. What the consequences of this will be, God onely know, and wise men dread.28

4: royal theater and the street theater

113

It seemed apparent that the fearsome trio of France, absolutism, and Catholicism had replaced conspiracy and fanaticism as the foremost shibboleth of the day. It was the king’s opponents’ ability to win the war for public opinion that Thomas Osborne sought to undo. In the February 1673 Session, the bishops had voted with the king’s opponents in favor of the Test Act. Their willingness to place the interests of the church before those of the king showed Charles that Anglican support was not unconditional. As a result, the king turned to Sir Thomas Osborne, originally a prot´eg´e of Buckingham but a man who understood the importance of the Established Church for the Anglican Royalists. In this context, Osborne set out to reconstruct foreign policy, to curtail French commercial inroads, and to recreate the alliance with Anglicans and moderates. He recognized the necessity of bringing the government’s policies in line with the ideology expounded in the Royal Theaters and in more popular areas of the public sphere. By the summer the Indulgence had been withdrawn, and Osborne began to woo the bishops, beginning with the addition of Morley and Ward to the Privy Council. Although the king was still interested in easing the difficulties for the recusants, the twin demons of the Cabal and the Indulgence guaranteed that Osborne would receive every opportunity to revive the ties between church and king.29 Unfortunately, whatever progress Osborne made was hindered by the growing fears engendered over the succession. The fact that Charles was not going to provide a legitimate heir, along with James’s marriage in 1673—to the staunchly Catholic Mary of Modena—meant that Parliament had to be prorogued on the first day of the Session to silence criticisms of the match. This ploy by the king created grave concern in both Houses and caused a popular display of public disapproval, when “the youths of the citty burnt the Pope in effigie, after they had made procession with it in great triumph, they being ill-pleased at the Duke for altering his religion and marrying an Italian woman.”30 Many had hoped the recent divorce case of Lord Roos had been a dry run for the anticipated jettisoning of the barren Queen Catherine. In light of the king’s refusal to follow this course, there had long been hints that the king would legitimate his natural and favorite son; in 1662 Pepys wrote that “the Duke of Monmouth is in so great splendour at court, and so dandled by the King, that some doubt, that, if the King should have no child by the Queene (which there is no appearance of), whether he would not be acknowledged for a lawful son; and that there will be a difference follow between the Duke of York and him; which God prevent!”31 On the other hand, the duke of York had two devoutly Protestant daughters by his first wife Anne Hyde, and there was little indication by 1675 that Mary of Modena would bear him the son necessary to take precedence over Mary and Anne. In light of these events, it is not surprising to find the Poet Laureate

114

courting the moderates

writing a play concerned with family loyalty and the issue of succession. Dryden had not neglected his duties as an ideological prop for the government since Tyrannick Love. He had attempted to capture public attention as well as mobilize opinion against the Dutch in the not very creditable tragedy, Amboyna, or the Cruelties of the Dutch to the English Merchants. Rather than offer examples or instruction in 1673, the author simply played upon the national irritation with the United Provinces and tried to foster support for the war effort. With the cessation of hostilities, he turned for the last time to Heroic Drama. Aureng-Zebe, or the Great Mogul—which Charles II read in manuscript, offering suggestions for its final revision—was produced in 1675. It depicted the woes of the rightful successor, Aureng-Zebe, who was to be passed over (and, according to Indian law, executed) because of his elderly father’s infatuation with the wife of the tragic hero. In place of the primary emphasis on passive obedience one finds in Tyrannick Love and The Conquest of Granada, Dryden pointed to the irresistible nature of Fate. Whatever the problems with the duke of York as heir—and Charles was certainly aware of these—it was not for the king or anyone else to alter the rightful succession. If monarchs were in fact God’s anointed, then neither man nor Parliament could contemplate any justification for tampering with the hereditary succession. Indeed, anyone who attempted to do so was not only ambitious for power but certainly motivated by purely selfish ends. This was patently the case with the Emperor who disinherited AurengZebe in the face of his unwavering loyalty. His tyranny and false motives are evidenced in his explanation for holding Aureng-Zebe’s wife: O’er him and his a right from Heaven I have; Subject and son, he’s doubly born my slave. But whatsoe’er his own demerits are, Tell him, I shall not make on women war. And yet I’ll do her innocence the grace, To keep her here, as in the safer place. [1.1.174–79]

Typically, Aureng-Zebe exhibited the virtue of passive obedience despite his disenchantment with Fortune. This disgruntled attitude took the form of annoyance at being granted free will yet at the same time being constrained by virtue from acting in one’s own interest. The necessity of accepting one’s Fate even in the face of reason was exactly what the English nation would be asked to do in welcoming the Catholic heir to the throne. With the dread of Catholicism coming to the forefront of English political debate following the Declaration of Indulgence, this was a lot to have asked. Catholicism was inextricably linked with both absolutism and France in this period. By the mid 1670s many of Danby’s tactics in Parliament, his changes in the administration of the Plantations, and the govern-

4: royal theater and the street theater

115

ment of Scotland frightened many into believing that a conspiracy in which Catholicism and absolutism would march arm in arm was developing in England. Aureng-Zebe was not the only virtuous character to question the fairness of heaven. At one point, the loyal and infatuated Arimant is asked by the woman he loves to carry a letter to her lover. Having threatened to destroy the missive, he is told bluntly, “You know you must obey me, soon or late: / Why should you vainly struggle with your fate?” Arimant then apostrophizes, I thank thee, Heaven, thou hast been wondrous kind! Why am I thus to slavery designed, And yet am cheated with a freeborn mind? Or make thy orders with my reason suit, Or let me live by sense, a glorious brute—[3.1.42–46]

Similarly, Aureng-Zebe laments his punishment for remaining true to virtue. His father demands that he yield his wife or forfeit any claim to the throne and, hence, his life. Aureng-Zebe refuses to hand over his wife to the lecherous Emperor and will not be intimidated by threats.32 Willing to accept death rather than violate his private values, he is told by the Emperor, “Thy younger brother I’ll admit this hour: / So mine shall be thy mistress, his thy power.” Faced with this cruel reward for his merits, the hero bitterly declaims, How vain is virtue, which directs our ways Through certain danger to uncertain praise! Barren, and airy name! thee Fortune flies, With thy lean train, the pious and the wise. Heaven takes thee at thy word, without regard, And lets thee poorly be thy own reward. The world is made for the bold impious man, Who stops at nothing, seizes all he can. Justice to merit does weak aid afford; She trusts her balance, and neglects her sword. Virtue is nice to take what’s not her own; And, while she long consults, the prize is gone. [2.1.502–13]

Despite his disenchantment at being abandoned by Fortune and having to join “the pious and the wise” in settling for his virtue as its own reward, Aureng-Zebe never considers taking any “bold” action to redress the wrongs under which he labors. No matter how unfairly ironic the situation of Aureng-Zebe—or the condition of the English succession— there was no alternative to the passive obedience which looked to Fate for justice and unswervingly trusted “her balance.” Dryden was presenting topical issues

116

courting the moderates

on the stage for clear polemical reasons. The succession was a potentially explosive question (viz 1679) and Dryden was looking to preempt future controversy by providing a way forward through the example of his hero. When offered the military support of many Omrahs, Aureng-Zebe entreats his friends to Employ their swords, like mine, for noble ends. No more: Remember you have bravely done; Shall treason end what loyalty begun? I own no wrongs; some grievance I confess; But kings, like Gods, at their own time redress. [2.1.22–26]

To take any other course would mean that Aureng-Zebe raised power to a place higher than virtue. Opting for the crown rather than loyalty to his personal virtue would signal a glorification of power; choosing to rebel for personal gain would indicate an insatiable and uncontrollable will. Each of these was equally insidious. To allow boundless ambition to drive one to an attempt to shape historical events was a recipe for disorder and certain failure. Patience and providence were rooted in assumptions about the righteousness of one’s cause. As a riposte to the Hobbesian apotheosis of power, one finds the megalomaniacal Morat included in Aureng-Zebe. Half-brother to the rightful heir, Morat worshiped force as his only deity. For him, true greatness existed only in the exercise of power. Morat’s unquenchable lust for glory made him incapable of patiently awaiting his accession to monarchy. Rather than accept the great turn of fortune provided by his father’s disinheriting Aureng-Zebe in his favor, Morat chose to march on the capitol and grab the Imperial seat at once. To be known as “Rebel, tyrant, murderer” did not concern him; usurpation is a meaningless term after force and the will of a great man have raised him to the throne. When the validity of Morat’s definition of greatness was questioned by Indamora— “Tell me, what is’t at which great spirits aim, / What most yourself desire?”—Morat readily admitted that it was nothing more noble than “Renown and fame, / And power, as uncontrolled as is my will.”33 Morat’s fanatic devotion to his own desire for power makes him a slave to his criminal ambition.34 As with the Lord Protector, the strong man of action had a better claim to exercise regal power. Hereditary succession, the will of Heaven, is nothing in comparison to the will of a man with the wherewithal to seize the throne and subject destiny to his desires: Birthright’s a vulgar road to kingly sway; ’Tis every dull-got elder brother’s way. Dropt from above he lights into a throne; Grows of a piece with that he sits upon;

4: royal theater and the street theater

117

Heaven’s choice, a low, inglorious, rightful drone. But who by force a sceptre does obtain, Shows he can govern that, which he could gain. Right comes of course, whate’er he was before; Murder and usurpation are no more. [5.1.66–74]

Morat’s views on usurpation needed little refutation in 1675. His adoption of the Hobbesian-like political philosophy which insisted on power as the only legitimate “road to kingly sway” was made clear in the play, along with the results of such a theory. When Aureng-Zebe chose death rather than surrender Indamora to the Emperor, he lamented only that Fate had not allowed him “to have died in fight for you [the Emperor].” A puffed-up Morat insisted that Fate was most unkind to him, since it would allow Aureng-Zebe to “fall by any hand but mine.” To the virtuous hero, these attitudes are straight from a state of nature: When thou wert formed, Heaven did a man begin; But the brute soul, by chance, was shuffled in. In woods and wilds thy monarchy maintain, Where valiant beasts, by force and rapine, reign. In life’s next scene, if transmigration be, Some bear, or lion, reserved for thee. [3.1.257–62]

Furthermore, Morat’s usurpation, in a scarcely veiled allusion to Milton’s Satan, is prophesied to become an insupportable burden. “Even you yourself, to your own breast shall tell / Your crimes; and your own conscience be your hell.”35 Through all this, Dryden was attempting to show the consequences of a selfish, insatiable will as well as to warn those fearful of a Catholic successor against taking it upon themselves to shape history. Placing one’s self on an equal level with Providence or Fate were not simply a first step toward destruction, but also a false notion of true greatness. The consequences of active resistance to established authority was still fresh in England’s collective memory. The death, destruction, and disorder which followed were indisputable and many believed that the tyranny of the late 1650s was evidence of divine displeasure and part of the requisite chastisement. Dryden had hinted at the moral of Aureng-Zebe as early as the “Dedication:” True greatness, if it be anywhere on earth, is in a private virtue; removed from the notion of pomp and vanity, confined to a contemplation of itself, and centring in itself. . . . If this be not the life of a deity, because it cannot consist with Providence, it is, at least, a god-like life. I can be contented . . . with an humble station in the temple of virtue.36

118

courting the moderates

There was no need to mistake force for the greatness which comes from a virtuous life. Many times in the heroic plays Dryden had pointed to the superiority of maintaining private virtue in the face of injustice or tyranny. More importantly, the preservation of such virtues as passive obedience, particularly when one had the strength to combat perceived ills, was the purest manifestation of greatness. The ability to conquer one’s will, the power to resist the temptation which Fortune sometimes placed before one— these were virtues which helped to avoid chaos and rebellion. They could be applied equally to the lives of monarchs and subjects. A faith in history and the divine justice exhibited therein was the only alternative which squared with reason. The patience and moderation, which a balanced reason dictated, were the surest way to a just and orderly society.37 The glowing example of Indamora in Aureng-Zebe was sufficient to persuade Morat of the strength of these values. This was just the sort of reaction playwrights desired from their audience: How you confound desires of good and ill! For true renown is still with virtue joined; But lust of power lets loose the unbridled mind. Yours is a soul irregularly great, Which, wanting temper, yet abounds with heat, So strong, yet so unequal pulses beat; . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dare to be great, without a guilty crown; View it, and lay the bright temptation down: ’Tis base to seize on all, because you may; That’s empire, that, which I may give away: There’s joy when to wild will you laws prescribe, When you bid Fortune carry back her bribe: A joy, which none but greatest minds can taste; A fame, which will to endless ages last. [5.1.88–111]


In the five Heroic Plays Dryden had used many of the same ideas first enunciated in his early Restoration poems. The importance of finding a via media between extremes was an essential part of relying on reason rather than wit. The necessity of placing the public interest above private desires is underlined by the examples of chaos or tyranny which resulted from those who would look to their individual desires as the sole means to determine their actions. Such insatiable wills were invariably misled into believing that they had the power to shape history, which is to say that they exalted selfish ambitions to a position above Providence or divine justice. Many of the characters in the plays made the mistake of thinking of “historical circumstances as being shapeless unless the strong individual

4: royal theater and the street theater

119

can give them shape; if there is a providence in history, it is as inefficient and as blind to merit as a lottery.” The characters whom Dryden would have us admire accept the ultimate wisdom of the unwinding of history. Tyranny or persecution are opportunities to behave virtuously and to endure patiently until the justice of destiny intervenes. The patterns of exact virtue realize that they have no right to “act in the face of providence. . . . They must give shape to their own lives, rather than to the world about them.”38 All these characters represent ideals, but the polemical lessons to be learned from Dryden’s heroes teach people to avoid any and all resistance to established authority. The historical examples selected for each plot provided irrefutable proof of the equity and moderation evident in the unfolding of the historical process.39 The polemical advantages gained by the presentation of such topical questions is undeniable. The unwavering loyalty to external obligations—obligations to laws, monarchs, parents—is repeatedly shown to be one of the greatest virtues. In all of the plays, Dryden created a conflict between the demands of external obligations and a loyalty to private conscience. A careful adherence to private beliefs was another great virtue, and, at least by 1668, freedom of conscience was insisted upon. Nonetheless, when external obligations could not be reconciled with personal beliefs, the only reasonable, justifiable and acceptable choice was a passive obedience which often resulted in cruel and seemingly undue punishment. The same lesson was offered in All for Love, Dryden’s effort in 1677 to “imitate the divine Shakespeare.” In choosing the last days of Antony and Cleopatra he portrayed once more the tensions between love and public duty. Mark Antony is torn between, on the one hand, his obligations to Rome, his legions, his abandoned wife and family, his friendship with Ventidius and, on the other hand, his love for Cleopatra. Despite the frustrating mutability displayed by Antony, in the end he opts for the traditional, Roman form of passive obedience. With his loyal friend and general, he commits suicide in order to save his few remaining soldiers, free his wife, spare Rome further conflict, and avoid further indignity. Significantly, his efforts to shape the future and guarantee Egyptian independence for Cleopatra are frustrated by her suicide. But more important than the continuation of Dryden’s ideological design here are the polemics offered in his dedication to the printed edition in 1678. In one more example of the relations between politics and propaganda, the opinions appear in a dedication to the earl of Danby. Dryden openly admits that there is “somewhat of a tie in nature betwixt those who are born for worthy actions, and those who can transmit them to posterity.” Moreover, while this may be an unequal alliance, writers are not entirely “unprofitable members of the commonwealth, when we animate

120

courting the moderates

others to those virtues which we copy and describe from you.”40 The flattery continues with his comparison of the Treasurer’s virtues with those of the king’s, virtues anchored in the official ideology of the late 1670s: “Moderation is doubtless an establishment of greatness . . . in a minister of state; so equal a mixture of . . . virtues that he may stand like an isthmus betwixt the two encroaching seas of arbitrary power and lawless anarchy.”41 But beyond praising Danby and the king for preserving an English “government which has all the advantages of liberty beyond a commonwealth, and all the marks of kingly sovereignty without the danger of a tyranny,” Dryden also throws off the mask of impartiality to uncover the motives and ancestry of the government’s critics. These malcontents “would persuade the people that they might be happier by a change. ’Twas indeed the policy of their old forefather, when himself was fallen from the station of glory, to seduce mankind into the same rebellion with him by telling him that he might be freer than he was.”42 Finally, Dryden hinted at the effort of turncoats, like Shaftesbury, to exploit the people, simultaneously reminding the Lord Treasurer of the model for such criticism. In addition, the lessons of the stage were shown to hold the solutions to the temptations of innovation and private interest: He who has often chang’d his party, and always has made his interest the rule of it, gives little evidence of his sincerity for the public good; ’tis manifest he changes but for himself, and takes the people for tools to work his fortune. . . . Neither is it enough for them to answer that they only intend a reformation of the government, but not the subversion of it: on such pretenses all insurrections have been founded; ’tis striking at the root of power, which is obedience. Every remonstrance of private man has the seed of treason in it.43

In an indication of the growing confidence in official circles, Dryden recommended the sort of sharp response seen with increasing regularity by 1677–78: when it came to sedition, a true Englishman must “be fir’d with indignation, and revenge himself as he can on the disturbers of his country.”44 By repeatedly invoking the notion that individuals should never attempt to shape or to change history, Dryden hoped to demonstrate through numerous examples that patient loyalty and passive obedience were not only proper, but inevitably brought their own reward. In addition, these values were so timeless, universal and reasonable that they could be applied to a series of widely different conflicts—political, religious, familial—and would always be validated. The emphasis on a via media was designed to disguise the polemical intentions within the structure of the plays and to appeal to the uncommitted moderates throughout the nation who held the key to political success. Dryden’s depiction of the center as the only

4: royal theater and the street theater

121

available alternative to the fanatic commitment to extremes provided an apparently nonpartisan choice for those unattached to court or country. If Dryden the Poet Laureate and Historiographer Royal (the first time both offices had been joined in a single royal patent) can be seen as a spokesman for the official view, then the values examined above ought to be reflected in other political pieces approved and licensed by the Surveyor of the Press. Both the London (originally Oxford) Gazette and the official newsletters were written under the direction of the Secretaries of State. It is unlikely that these elements of Restoration political culture would express views that were not acceptable to the government.45 Furthermore, the supplementary broadsides, including the pageantry of the Lord Mayor’s Day, which received the approbation of Sir Roger L’Estrange, are certain to contain values and political positions in tune with the government’s aspirations.46 Significantly, these materials can be found to hold increasingly similar views, evidence of a coherent expression of political ideology during the 1670s. Furthermore, the growing influence of Danby curtailed the divisions within the court. While the king continued to waver in his devotion to his minister’s Anglican policies, the political culture and polemics produced by the government was uniformly devoted to Anglicanism as the truest form of moderation. The dangers of extremism, nonconformity, and disobedience were regularly presented to the widest possible audience on the stage, in the newsletters, through Proclamations, in pamphlets, and in the street theater of the Lord Mayor’s Day Show.
A convenient place to begin such an inquiry is with the pamphlet campaign in favor of liberty of conscience from 1669–72, the years preceding the Third Dutch War. By 1670, the brief halcyon days of the Cabal were approaching their autumnal equinox. When the king announced the Triple Alliance to Parliament, he also requested that it consider how to establish a better union among his Protestant subjects.47 Yet, on 25 January 1671— the anniversary of the conversion of St. Paul—the duke of York met with the king to discuss his recent avowal of Catholicism. This lack of unity in the royal family meant that, in spite of the popularity of the Triple Alliance and the growing hostility to French mercantile advances, the king was resolved to look for the support of France once more. The first indications of the changes in royal policy and the growing divisions within the Cabal were the sudden abandonment of the Triple Alliance and a commercial treaty with France. The result was the Secret Treaty of Dover. In conjunction with the treaty the king ordered a lax enforcement of the new Conventicle Act and began negotiating with Louis for a concerted attack on the Dutch.48 Buckingham

122

courting the moderates

arranged the public treaty, while Clifford and Arlington dealt secretly with the king’s sister, seeking a French subsidy in return for Charles’s agreement to re-establish the Roman Catholic religion in England.49 Despite every effort to limit public knowledge of the secret articles, reports of the money supplied by Louis immediately appeared in the countryside: Another particular I have from another hand—which probably will not be mentioned in the ordinary papers—viz., that Sir Thomas Bond laste weeke arrived at Rye from France, with 600,000 pistolls [sic], a present to his Majesty from the French King—those are the words of the letter—and that on Monday last 40 of His Majesty’s Guards with 12 wagons went down to Rye to convoy it up to London.50

To make matters worse, the Cabal showed no ability to improve either the royal finances or the standards of behavior at the court. Evelyn reports lodging “this night at New-market, where I found ye jolly blades raceing, dauncing, feasting, and revelling, more resembling a luxurious and abandoned rout, than a Christian Court.”51 Not surprisingly, the burden of the war debts, continuing courtly extravagance, and inefficient administration of all aspects of the revenue—with the notable exception of the Household and the Guards—guaranteed serious headaches for the ministers once Parliament convened and provided a forum for grievances.52 If the Cabal was not creating enough problems on its own, events in the winter of 1670 added to the discontent surrounding the wanton actions of some courtiers. In December the duke of Ormonde was attacked by ruffians and taken to Tyburn to be hanged; only the fortunate appearance of his household saved his neck.53 In January, a tax on the Theaters was opposed on the grounds that the Players were part of the king’s pleasure. At this point, Sir John Coventry asked if the king’s pleasure lay among the men or women players, causing the duke of Monmouth to lead the King’s Guards in an attack which left Coventry with his nose slit.54 Parliament showed its dissatisfaction by quickly passing the Coventry Act, which outlawed malicious maiming and wounding. Indignation was manifested further when opponents distributed a series of unprinted ballads, insinuating that such actions would threaten any hope for Supply in Parliament. One libel complained: “And now all the fears of the French / And pressing need of navy / Are dwindled into a salt wench / And amo, amas, amavi. / Nay he’ll venture his subsidy so she can cloven see, / In female revenge, the nostrils of Coventry.”55 By May 1670, the disarray in the City was neatly symbolized when the infamous Colonel Blood came within a hair of walking off with the Crown and regalia, again only an accident preventing the plot from succeeding. At the end of the year, Monmouth and the new duke of Albemarle drew swords and ran through an elderly beadle who unwittingly objected to their

4: royal theater and the street theater

123

disorderly conduct. As would be expected, Libels critical of these events poured forth, each intending to draw parallels between the mayhem on the streets and the ineffectiveness of the government.56 In New England, Puritans awaited the inevitable chastisement from heaven: “considering the grat Degeneracy in the nation, by the countenance given to the Debauchednesse of all sorts; the multitudes of Playes, the snares of Danceing Schooles; the frequency of Maskes; the impudency of sinners & lewd persons of both sexes, doe both increase the sins of the land & snares of the younger sort. The land is filled with sin. The patience of God is admirable.”57 All of these incidents were telling examples of the morality at court, the disregard for the law, and the dangerous attitudes which flourished while the king’s government was run by members of the Cabal. A typical view of the lifestyle of the court was circulated in manuscript at this time: “Taking of snuffe is a mode at Court, / And so is a Hatt, and a feather. / Feeding of Ducks is a princely Sport, / But making of Cuckolds is better. / The King [God blesse him] every day, / Makes hast from ye Council Table, / And nimbly over ye Greene trips away / To a place, where he’s far more able.” The denigration of the king and nobility were dark memories of the 1640s. Royalists were convinced of the importance of reputation throughout the Restoration: Dutch medals and woodcuts disparaging the king and nation were to serve as a pretext for the Third Dutch War.58 This indicates that the concern for public opinion must not be underestimated in this period.59 As a result, 1670 saw L’Estrange given full powers to represent the king in all matters dealing with the Press; moreover, for the first time he was given far-reaching powers to inflict penalties. According to Kitchin, his appointment was owing largely to Charles’s annoyance at the increase in libels directed at him and the court.60 The reaction of the Surveyor was both swift and profoundly public. In March 1671, a newsletter reported that a “bookseller has been convicted of circulating a scandalous pamphlet in MS. called the ‘Advice to a Painter,’ in which their Majesties and many of the nobility were maligned. He is fined and to stand in the pillory . . . [and another pamphlet] was ordered to be burnt by the common hangman.”61 Not surprisingly, some of these squibs on the Cabal, Charles’s new mistresses, and the extravagant behavior of courtiers attempted to link Coventry’s punishment for words spoken in Parliament to the corrupt influence and interference from the court. One ditty in manuscript called “A Song on Coventry’s Nose” began, Beware all yee, parlimenteers, How each of his Vote, he disposes; Bab May in ye Commons, ye King in ye peeres Sitt telling your Fates, and your Noses,

124

courting the moderates And decree att ye Motion of every slutt Which Nose shall continue, and which shall be cutt.62

The imputation of a king and minister “telling” members in the Houses was meant to warn people of the efforts to manage and corrupt parliamentary government. Organizing a party in either House was a deeply resented activity usually associated with arbitrary government. In the same way that an ideology emphasizing moderation was intended to attract the loyalists and centrists in society, allegations of immorality and arbitrary rule were designed to undermine official claims of moderation and commitment to the ancient constitution of church and state. Supporters of the government were not about to take this abuse lying down. There were attempts to respond in the public arena, in addition to the defenses presented at the Royal Theaters. In 1670 a pamphlet called The Cloud Opened or, the English Hero. By a loyal and impartial pen echoed many of the themes of Dryden’s plays, including the disclaimer of any polemical purpose and the claim to impartiality in the title.63 The pamphlet’s Drydenesque opening ran, “[i]n the late tyranny, when reason seemed the most extravagant freak, and religion and loyalty had the repute of such grand malignant.” It continued in a similar vein by stating that “all excesses are equally dangerous.”64 The pamphlet went on to defend the actions of the military commanders in the Second Dutch War, most of whom were still being pummeled in satires like the “Advice to a Painter” poems. It is apparent that the emphasis on moderating reason and balance was not confined to Dryden’s intellectual design. Indeed, the steady balance of the English constitution and law was demonstrated in the treatment of the English hero. As with Dryden’s heroes, patient virtue was shown to be a more secure way to greatness than superabundant zeal. Patience is used as an example for others and for more directly polemical purposes to justify the [in]actions of the heir apparent. In this case, the decision of the hero, James, not to follow up his initial victory is justified by the need to avoid shaping destiny: We have had the war, by which the kingdom is so many millions in debt; our hero, in probability might have lost his sword, and, if he had been a Dutchman, might have forfeited his head . . . yet the extremity of law might thus have proved the supreme injury. . . . [His] suprabundant zeal or valour concluded of an engagement, by mistaken proposition of the accruing honour and safety to his prince and country, in whose cause his noble, though her not best informed spirit, could have been content to have finished an errand in waves, the best emblems of inconstant greatness and giddy fortune’s favours.65

Furthermore, the same people who would have supported the hero in rashly pursuing the Dutch were the same ones who would dictate to the

4: royal theater and the street theater

125

king over the use of his prerogative in personal matters: “How appositely is the prince’s prerogative pleaded in the favour of schism by the protosticklers of it, which would allow him none in religion? And yet thus they can hope a privilege for such as, void of tenderness and conscience to a prince could deny him a liberty they would have indulged to the meanest subjects.”66 The usual virtues of balance, patience, and obedience were all present in this pamphlet, even if the style and diction of the text left clarity by the wayside. This opaqueness may not have been unintended, however, since the division of the fleet and James’s failure to destroy the Dutch after his initial victory were still matters of reproach and inquiry. In any case, the method of defending the Duke and the government—as early as 1670—bore a striking number of themes in common with the efforts of the court dramatists led by John Dryden.
The pageantry in the streets of London for the annual Lord Mayor’s Day offered an indispensable supplement to the pamphlets and plays in expressing official views to the public. Besides its obvious affiliation with the stage and opera of the times,67 these pageants provided a didactic setting not unlike the historical backgrounds of Dryden’s Heroic Plays: “Although it derived from earlier drama, its distinctive affiliation was with the contemporary panegyric, political pamphleteering, and propagandistic display.”68 The outdoor staging of this participatory theater was an important element in communicating with those officially excluded from the political nation. As social anthropologists have pointed out, these cathartic effects allow people to express their feelings, if only temporarily. In support, L. J. Morrissey has argued that the “desire to include the mass of Englishmen . . . accounts for the frequent allegorical staging of simple virtues (often rural or seafaring) and for the frequent speeches by representative figures.”69 The expected allegorical figures of Commerce, Concord, Loyalty, and so forth are joined here by rough pilgrims, WestCountry men (usually from “Zummerzet-zheer”), and sailors or soldiers, all of whom make “blunt speeches” to the Chief Magistrate. The blunt speeches provided an opportunity to instruct government officials, a possibility which led to an interesting form of political discourse: On the one hand there was the distinguished visitor and his retinue who processed from one stage to the next and thus saw the whole show in its predetermined sequence of scenes. . . . [A] second audience reaped a compensatory reward which must not be overlooked: the spectacle of what, to the actors, was the primary audience but which, to the stationary audience, was an integral part of the show. They thus participated with the author—at least as observers—in the moral lecturing of the sovereign and his household. As watchers, these

126

courting the moderates

subjects could assist in putting their ruler in mind of his duties and responsibilities towards them.70

It should come as no surprise that Charles II took full advantage of this chance to show himself at one with his people. Rather than boycott the Lord Mayor’s Day and remain within the confines of Whitehall, showing himself only to a select band of courtiers at exclusive Court Masques as his father had, Charles appeared in three great Triumphs at the beginning of his reign and attended most of the Lord Mayor’s Day pageants.71 These Shows had been discontinued for many years following the Fire—many of the Gyants, Temples, Ships and Settings having tragically burned—but were resurrected after the election of Sir George Waterman as Mayor in 1671. The king and a distinguished collection of the court were present on this day and for most years until the Exclusion Crisis.72 By 29 October 1671 (the annual Lord Mayor’s Day), disenchantment with the Cabal, the morality at court, the alliance with France, and the king’s religious policy was rampant. However, these Shows provided another chance to demonstrate that such negative commentary was either unmerited or out of place, with the moderate king willingly listening to instruction from his subjects. Waterman’s election in 1671 also marks the debut of Thomas Jordan as “City Poet.” Jordan had been an ardent Royalist in the 1640s and had resurfaced in 1659 writing a number of broadsides supporting General Monck. In the 1660s Jordan earned his bread as an actor, his most memorable performance being Captain Penniless in Money is an Ass in 1668. However, it was probably his royalist writings in 1641–42 which warranted him the right to author and produce the Lord Mayor’s Pageant in 1671.73 Much later, in 1684, Jordan was to declare openly that it gave great “content to the multitudes” when the king, his greatest nobles, or the Lord Mayor rode “amongst the Bryers, Brambles and Thickets of the Multitude.”74 As much as Jordan may have agreed with more modern views about the opportunity for his Shows to release pent up energies or hostilities among the people, he usually toed the line when it came to offering instruction to the king and Mayor, which is to say that most of the instructions were directed at the audience or the multitude.75 In October 1671, Charles II was only months away from issuing his Declaration of Indulgence. In anticipation of this, the government’s implicit halt in the enforcement of the laws against Dissenters was a source of concern to Anglicans in and out of Parliament. As in so many other areas, the City was in the vanguard of championing the cause of nonconformity. Not surprisingly, the speeches and allegorical settings in Jordan’s Show for this year emphasized the merits of harmony and union. In the very first speech, Orpheus, “the Hierolyphick of good Government,” relates how he

4: royal theater and the street theater

127

originally brought harmony to the warring animals in nature. As in the king’s Entry in 1661, we encounter the symbolic use of music to demonstrate harmony and order to a popular audience. The title of the Show, London’s Resurrection to Joy and Triumph, also offers an initial indication of the affinity of Jordan’s views with those of Dryden in Annus Mirabilis and elsewhere. The linking of Peace with Plenty, as well as Consent with Good Government, furthered the common ground. The importance of Union in breeding peace was no doubt intended as an alternative to the exclusive Anglican settlement currently under siege at the court: By the sweet power of his [Orpheus’s] hand, Reduc’d their salvage Natures, made ’um stand Listen, attend, and with their active paws Dance and conform their feet to Musicks Laws. Such is the power of Concord, and Consent, The very soul of humane Government. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . We hope y’ are one That will restore our long lost Union. ’Twill make us Rich, and Righteous, and please God, Firm to our Friends, fierce to our Foes abroad. Union breeds Peace, and Plenty in a Land; But Cities self-divided Cannot stand.76

If the point was not clear enough in the allegory of nature, then the representative figures who appeared in the droll at the end of the Show made it hard to ignore. Hayden (a West Country man), Freeman and Billet (a soldier) conclude the premiere Droll by transforming their cacophonous boasting into a chorus: “Let the City, the Country, the Camp and the Court, / Be the Places of Pleasure, and royal Resort: / And let us observe, in the midst of our Sport, / That Fidelity makes us as a Fort: / A Union wellgrounded no Malice can hurt.” This was probably a reference to the fears about nonconformist loyalty during any of the conflicts with the Dutch.77 To add spice to the production in the final droll, Oliver Faction joins the previous trio to gloat about the joys of faction. The loyal trio denounces the memories of the 1640s, and Citizen insists Oliver Faction will fool no one in the City because “Their hearts now with faith and reality / Are united so much unto Loyalty, / Love, true Religion and Loyalty, / They to the Sovereign power do fix.”78 It should come as no surprise, with the declaration of the Third Dutch War just over four months away, that the Lord Mayor’s Show should mention loyalty, unity, and true religion. On the one hand, the divisions within the court were making the defense of government policies difficult. The unpopularity of the new Conventicle Act needed to be whitewashed by the government at the same time that the

128

courting the moderates

king would need the quiescence and support of his nonconforming subjects while grappling with the Dutch. Union is presented here as an obvious alternative to the division represented by Oliver and the supporters of the good old cause. This was not to be the last time the Lord Mayor’s Show would include a bald defense of the government’s position. The monarch’s and his leading ministers’ interest in these public spectacles would remain steady in the years to come. In 1672, six months into the Third Dutch War, Charles attended the Triumph for Sir Robert Howard of the Grocers Company. At the Guildhall, he was joined by his brother, the duke of Monmouth, Prince Rupert, the Archbishop of Canterbury, all the Bishops present in London, the Resident Ambassadors, and the Secretaries of State.79 His appearance with the Anglican hierarchy was probably a response to criticisms resulting from the Declaration of Indulgence issued in March of the same year. By persuading the bishops to join him, the king was able to mollify Anglican Royalist opinion and, perhaps, show that religious policy was not a Manichean choice between an Established Church or a multiplicity of independent congregations. The Company of Grocers did not put on nearly as impressive a Show as the Skinners before them, though this in part may be explained by the damage to their trade from the war. In the event, the commercial justification of the conflict was supported by the allegorical figure of America in the Triumph. This was an attempt to gratify the king as well as to fan the embers of hostility to the Dutch. After praising English merchants, America lamented that in addition to the English, “Divers Nations, lately come / Ransac’d my Riches, over-ran my Land, / Ruin’d my Princes, (my sad Fate was such) / The Haughty Spaniard, and the cruel Dutch / (Than which the Devil is not worse).” In other words, in contrast to the actions of other traders (and the absence of the French here is notable), the English established a fair trading market in their Plantations; therefore America willingly appeared to “bear my share in the Triumphant Glory” of Sir Robert, who is most importantly “A Faithful Subject to a Gracious King: / And may they both ever preserved be / From publick Force and private Treachery.”80 The distinction drawn between public and private in this piece evoked Dryden’s visions of internal and external virtues. Internal dissent would be a government obsession throughout the Third Dutch War. Thus Jordan was careful to argue that dissent was a type of “private Treachery” which ignored duty and threatened the public good. Apparently he was paying attention when attending the King’s Theater. The alliance with France against England’s co-religionists was accompanied by a new flourish of sedition and false news. By 1673, the parliamentary criticism of the Indulgence caused the king to abandon it. The nonconformist community turned against this use of the royal prerogative.

4: royal theater and the street theater

129

The growing fears of Catholic influence at court led to the Test Act, while at the same time the alliance with France was generating widespread discontent. For example, the growing anti-Catholicism of the 1670s was addressed in a song written for the Mayoral banquet in 1673. Attacks on the queen, the Duke, and his new Catholic duchess were associated with the hellish disorders of the past, while divinely ordained monarchy was credited with the prosperity of the country. “Let the King’s health go round / The Queen’s and the Duke’s health be crown’d”81 was followed in a peroration which ended with a warm welcome to the king as a symbol of the welfare of English commerce and a denunciation of those who were so hotly opposing him: Divisions are base And of Lucifer’s race Civil wars from the bottom of Hell come; Before ye doth stand The Plenty of the Land And my Lord Mayor doth bid ye welcome.

By the end of 1674, less than a year after the cessation of hostilities, Sir Thomas Osborne was firmly established as the king’s most influential minister. Soon created the earl of Danby, he proved the most adept minister of the Restoration at appealing to the Anglican moderates. Danby set out to regain the allegiance of this essential group by reshaping royal policies to fit the outlook of the largest political bloc in the nation; as a way of hedging his bets, he simultaneously devoted his considerable talents to organizing a reliable group of supporters in each House. Professor Zwicker recognized that “in the center stood the common good, the ancient constitution with its balance of Parliamentary privilege and kingly prerogative. Throughout . . . [Danby] made a special effort to fix his identity with the true Protestant faith and with the assertion and maintenance of the laws and liberties of his subjects, a code established in 1660, and repeatedly invoked by Charles.”82 The Lord Treasurer immediately pushed the king to improve the administration of the revenue, break with the French, ally with the Anglican hierarchy, and restrict French imports. It needs to be noted that no matter how adversarial English politics may have been in the years to come, the court held fast to its claims of mutual affection and its emphasis on loyalty. In fact, in 1674, 1675, and again in 1678, the Lord Mayor’s Show was dedicated to new magistrates who were called a “truly Noble Pattern of Prudence and Loyalty.” In these years of rare and unproductive parliamentary Sessions and the consequent accusations of absolutism or tyranny, one still finds repeated allegorical representations of the virtues developed so acutely by the poets and dramatists associated with

130

courting the moderates

the court: Concord, Loyalty, Fortune, and Prudence were the concepts behind the didactic pronouncements by historical figures. 1675 saw the defeat of Danby’s or the Bishop’s Test, an oath never to alter the government of church or state as presently established. With this attempt to legislate all non-Anglicans out of the political process fresh in people’s minds, the first Pageant in the progress ended with a speech by Triumph, which included all the virtues considered essential to an ordered state: The Influence with which you are indu’d Are Prudence, Justice, Temperance, Fortitude. [points to them] To match with these, four bright Beams more are sent ye, Piety, Peace, with Purity and Plenty.83

With the failure of Danby’s Test, MPs retained the right to consider alterations in the church. This check to the renewed alliance between church and state revived fears of the potential links between religious dissent and civil disobedience. While no lackey of the government, Jordan had no problem repeating the commonplace views found throughout the official political culture. In what was a likely reference to the failure of the Test, a droll song at the Banquet portrayed the “Epicure . . . in the Habit of a Town Gallant,” denouncing lawyers described as “Suits which the Clients so wear out in slavery, / Whilst the Pleader makes Conscience a Cloak for his knavery.”84 And any doubts as to Jordan’s loyalist affiliations were dispelled in a lengthy droll on the place of Coffee-houses—an institution which would be ordered closed by Royal Proclamation just over a month later. Though this closure was never enforced, it was clearly part of a polemical assault on the unreliability and bias of all opposing views: You that Delight in Wit and Mirth, And live to hear such News . . . . . . . . . I’ll send you to a Rendezvous, Where it is smoaking new. Go hear it at a Coffee-House, It cannot but be true. . . . . . . . There’s nothing done in all the World, From Monarch to the Mouse, But every day or night ’tis hurl’d Into the Coffee-House. . . . . . . . . So great an University, I think there ne’er was any; In which you may a Scholar be, For spending of a penny.

4: royal theater and the street theater

131

. . . . . . . . Here men do talk of everything With large and liberal tongues. . . . . . . . . . . They’ll give a broadside presently Soon as you are in view; With stories that you’ll wonder at, Which they will swear are true.85

An initial Pageant in 1676 had Government—dressed as Cicero— utilizing many of the arguments found in the Heroic Plays and other parts of the official political culture. As the question of the succession, unfortunately twinned with that of popery, became the dominant issue following the break with France, the issue of loyalty came increasingly to the fore. Conveniently, the example of the king’s patient suffering, exhibited in the discourse of the 1660s, served as a pattern for men of the 1670s to follow. Similarly, the emphasis on obedience was linked to a faith in Providence in order to prop up support for James. Passive obedience, an integral ingredient in the proposed Test, was once more praised as the only acceptable response to outrageous Fortune. The “fierce spirits” who would alter the hereditary succession were no different from the other historical personages who would have deprived men of their rights under the guise of preserving their liberty. To have allowed them to do so was not only the greatest form of tyranny or absolutism, but an end to good government, order, and the law. The ever-ready example of the Protectorate, the establishment of the Excise, and the rule of the Major-Generals all lent additional weight to the arguments already made in Dryden’s Aureng-Zebe. Cicero advised the new Lord Mayor to stand as an example to others for these very reasons: I wish you good Success, Sir, in the Event For there’s no living without Government. Let Justice guide your Heart; you’ll have to do With many men, and many Natures too: Let nothing byass you. . . . Give good Example; live upright your Self: The Ruine of a Nation then begins, When Purple Robes do cover Scarlet Sins: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Correct these Knaves, who by false force and might, Would Hector modest men out of their Right. . . . Purge this fair City from such foul Pollution, The laws are good, put them in Execution If Malefactors be not kept in aw, [sic] Lust, Theft, and Murder will become Law.86

132

courting the moderates

Jordan went on to instruct the Lord Mayor in the importance of remaining ever-vigilant in his leadership of the City. Aureng-Zebe had ended on a similar demand for action in order to avoid the outcomes threatened by passivity. Many there were within the Mayor’s “Flock” who wished to alter the government or dictate to the rightful rulers under the pretense of defending the English constitution. Clearly, such conspirators were certain to test the courage and virtues of the Mayor. Luckily, Davies’s elevation to the Mayoralty was an act of Providence, and if he adhered closely to the dictates of virtue, as Charles always had, then he was certain to survive any unexpected squalls: Tamberlaine. You have a Flock that may, for ought I know, Try both Your Conduct and Your Courage too: In this Great Fold many fierce Spirits lurk, As hard to be reduc’d as the Great Turk There is a Wolf doth neither bark nor grin Which eats the Sheep, and puts himself in the skin. . . . Fortune. . . . the King Embarks you now For a year’s Voyage; doubt not, though Storms blow, The Power that brought You on, will bring you through. And as Your Power doth from Caesar spring, Assume his Courage too in everything: He’s blest, that doth obey God and the King.87

While the Lord Mayor may not have been a royal servant, it was seen as his responsibility to prevent disorders of the sort that had driven Charles I out of his capital. Jordan had no reservations in the 1670s about advising the various patterns of loyalty of their duty to keep the City in order. Jordan’s assumptions about the consequences of ignoring such examples were manifested in the stage directions for the final pageant in 1676. Transforming the rustic setting previously used to represent Plenty or the joys of rural life, Jordan here placed a field with rustic scenes around a group of “mad Frolick Sheperds” who were dancing out of time with the accompanying music. They demonstrated their dementia “with many ridiculous gestures, which the worst [sic] it is done, the better it pleases, being intended for a description of Disorder, and an Elaborate Expression of Confusion.”88 The possibility of replacing Concord, Union, and Plenty with disharmony, disorder, and confusion was here presented in a way simple enough for any and all audiences to understand. In contrast to the harmonious and ordered cavalcade of the Royal Entry in 1661, the ridiculous dancing of 1676 represented how easily the extremism of the “late troubles” might return.

4: royal theater and the street theater

133

In 1678, the pageantry of the Lord Mayor’s Day tried once more to praise the embattled government within the context of contemporary discourse. Produced on 29 October, at least part of the Show must have been written after the initial revelations of Titus Oates. Montagu had not yet returned from France with his damning evidence of Danby’s complicity with the French king’s inducements to Charles; this may help to explain the continued use of loyalty and union with the monarchy as central themes in the face of the incipient Popish Plot. The good fortune in the election as Mayor of a member of the Grocers Company was associated with the ability of patterns of exact virtue to inspire the same in others. Jordan notes in his “Dedicatory Epistle” that merchants have long been esteemed and valued by monarchs: In that by their Cast, Adventures, Diligence, and Vigilance, incognite Countries have been discovered, Royal Amity introduced and confirmed with Transmarine Estates and Princes. As also (by Reason of their generous Examples, and prevelant Perswasions) very brutish Nations, with barbarous Natures, have been reduced to meekness, Order and Civility . . . [Edwards is a person] whose Examples and Precepts are both prudent and pious, and may justly provoke all Persons under Your Government to be regular and obedient. . . .89

The reference to “all Persons” made the demand for obedience applicable to papist plotters as well as nonconformist critics, once again providing the ideology of the government with a veneer of moderation and inclusiveness. A further response to the efforts to distinguish the court from the people can be found in the fortification representing the Fortress of Government. The defenders of the Fortress are led by Fidelity, with “his Associates, Confederates and Attendants, Loyalty, Vigilance, Justice, Constancy, Wit, Concord, Religion, Union and Truth.” Each of these soldiers carried a Shield or various emblems with “preceptive, Divine and Moral Motto[es].” Some of the most telling of these in 1678 were Loyalty—Deum Timete, Regum Honorate, Constancy—Immota Triumphs, and Concord, with a garland of red and white roses. Undoubtedly the most significant was Justice, with the ominous motto, Iniquitatem intermittite, et Justiciam facite,90 a reiteration of the threat of action from a king forced to abandon his patient, forgiving, and merciful inclinations. As in 1676, the instructions offered to the Mayor included a call to “execute Justice” in order to “Purge” the “City from such foul Pollution.” The same advice would be offered to the king at the end of Absalom and Achitophel, with the implicit threat carried out during the Tory reaction following the Oxford Parliament and the Rye House Plot.91 At the Fortress of Government, the initial speech of the Show is delivered by Fidelity. Surely a faithful devotion to duty or obligation was

134

courting the moderates

needed at this time; during the previous week, on 21 October, the king had opened Parliament with an announcement of the plot against his life. In an attempt to rally the people and the Parliament around the government, Jordan shows in the first Pageant, “The faithful fortress of just government,” described by Fidelity with each of the essential pillars of government carefully enunciated: “The adamantine rock ’tis built upon / Merits the name of true religion. / The walls are made of Union, and well known / To be intire; Truth is the cornerstone. / The battlements are Concord.” Naturally, Union was to be limited to those within the exclusive church settlement. By 1678 the “true church” is not only the basis of just government, it is the foundation for the walls of unity in the state. Having described the foundation and supports of government, Fidelity then enumerates the now familiar and expected virtues which make it “right” and “wholesome”: “Loyalty, Vigilance, Fortitude, and Wit, / With Constancy, and Concord, govern it; / Who all, by turns, do take orders from me, / That bear the title of Fidelitie.”92 The ideology in this pageant is typical of the official culture of the 1670s. Unfortunately, the king’s rogue foreign policy was about to set off a chain of events that would discredit all the claims made in government propaganda. In many ways, Danby’s accountability for these claims is the proof of how well the public understood the ideology of moderation by 1679. In the event that spectators (or those who were to read the printed copy) missed the purpose of his writings, Jordan went on to reveal the intention behind Restoration street theater: And though this fort, thus arm’d and top’d by Glory, Is but a model built by Allegory, The moral’s pertinent, and pregnant too, It intimates your government and you: Without these virtues which are here set forth, A magistrate will want much of his worth. Rebellion, fraud, whoredom, and felonie, In a short time will grow greater than he.93

It is important to note how Duty had now replaced all attempts to instruct the king or to utilize blunt speeches and representative figures as spokesmen for those outside the political nation. Where “the people” did appear after 1675, it was solely to voice similar expressions of Loyalty, Fidelity, and Obedience. Where blunt speech was used, it was to denounce representatives of faction or conspiracy. Often a representative of fanaticism attempted to seduce the common man; suddenly a historical recollection of the usurpation, the war or tyranny causes the rejection and humiliation of the tempter and a chorus of loyalty closes the scene. In 1678, the Drolls at the Guildhall demonstrated well this longed-for unity.

4: royal theater and the street theater

135

After the first song, an increasingly cantankerous exchange between Crab (from “Zummer-zet”) and Swab (a sailor), in which they argue about their relative contributions to the national welfare, Self (a Citizen) enters. The trio is unable to determine why the country is faced with problems even though each seems to be fulfilling his role. Finally, when Self wonders “What the reason is / That doth cause all this,” the threesome resolves the issue with the type of plain-speaking usually directed to the king or Mayor: Swab. Want of amity Breeds calamity, We are too much divided; By atheistick persons too Religion is derided. Self. With arguments as light as air, Swab. Opinions got in Reason’s chair, And would controul the great affair Of man’s eternal being. Crab. The new-vound lights have spoil’d our zights, And caus’d this disagreeing. III. Swab. Though the citizens, With tongues and pens Are new distresses faining. . . .

After further squabbling each realizes his dependence on the other and their mutuality of interest: the sailor to bring in goods and protect the citizen, the country man to provide food and wool for city and sailor, the citizen to buy the goods of each and make the country prosperous and wealthy. Not surprisingly, the Droll, and the Lord Mayor’s Show for 1678, ends with a chorus:94 Self. Your sheep and your ships do replenish our stock, And therefore God prosper the fleet and the flock: The one in the winter-time keepeth us warm, The t’other brings treasure, and guards us from harm If we want your traffick, and you want our coyn, Like members, let’s all in one body conjoyn. CHORUS. Since union and concord bring plenty and peace, And amity is the kind cause of increase: Let love from division our fancys release, And all our dissentions ever shall cease.

The preceding examples illustrate how Jordan shared a common language of rhetorical and ideological emphases between the Lord Treasurer

136

courting the moderates

and the writers associated with the government. Certainly he favored the commercial and mercantile views of his patrons in the Guildhall, but the common ideological values which emerged show how flexible and polemically varied the ideology of moderation could be. Susan Owen feels that Jordan’s emphasis on “loyal Protestantism” somehow sets him apart from the king’s propagandists.95 Such a view ignores how much this moderate position was part of the official political discourse in the 1670s. Only after the exposure of Danby’s duplicitous dealings with Louis XIV does the Lord Mayor’s Day Show become a locus for opposition. While the public sphere was largely abandoned by the court in 1679–80, once the menace of the crowd dictating to the king was apparent in 1681, the contest for popular support turned against the City and the Whigs. Abhorrers and Tories were never ashamed to be the king’s party or the Episcopal party: since they never wavered from being the “loyal Protestants” Owen calls the Whigs. But swallowing Whig rhetoric whole makes the early Tories proponents of popery and arbitrary rule, an imagined community with no real basis in fact. What is clear is that even City Poets such as Thomas Jordan knew full well what views were being presented on the stage, were acceptable to the Surveyor of the Press and, more importantly, were popular with the government. There is no evidence of Danby or others attempting to influence Thomas Jordan, nor would there have been any need. Although he was hired by the Company of the Lord Mayor elect, it would have been foolhardy to trumpet alternative values at functions where the king, the Lords, the Secretaries and the Lord Treasurer were present. It should not be forgotten that Charles and a substantial retinue attended each of the Lord Mayor’s Days from its revival in 1671 until 1677.96 In the same way, there is no proof of Thomas Jordan’s joining Dryden and the wits at Will’s Coffee-house nor of his commenting on Heroic Plays. But in light of the active public sphere that existed in London, it is unlikely that a playwright and the City Poet would be unfamiliar with the writings of the Poet Laureate and the instinctive mood of the Royal Theaters. One certainty is the confluence of their attitudes towards moderation, loyalty, obedience, and the use of historical examples. Furthermore, it is known that the king suggested plays to and commented on drafts for Dryden and that the views expressed by Jordan and the playwrights coincided nicely with the centrist policies adopted by Danby after 1674.97 If Danby could rely on a propaganda machine to express the new moderate ideology and policies of the government, if he could limit his need for parliamentary Supply, and if he could establish a reliable group of dependents for the times Parliament was summoned, then the Treasurer would be advancing the process of creating something very like an effective political party. His opponents clearly recognized the dangers of what he was doing.

4: royal theater and the street theater

137

They did their best to undermine and to counter the official propaganda; they complained of a “Court” party and the “Treasurists” in Parliament; they did all in their power to have the Cavalier Parliament dissolved, including the use of an external plot many knew to be untrue. The Plot was necessary largely because of Danby’s growing strength in Parliament as well as the popularity of an ideology which offered simple and traditional verities as an antidote to the extremism of the alternatives. We have seen how effectively that was brought before a variety of audiences in London, but one of the most important means of reaching an audience beyond the capital remains to be discussed. And it is to the pulpits and sermons—both oral and printed—to which we now turn.

5 Pulpits and Sermons To this point the ideology discussed has emanated from poets and playwrights associated with the restored court. While these writers made up a close-knit and influential group congregating around London and Whitehall, their audience was certain to be equally limited and influential. The settings of the plays as well as the refined nature of the writing, rhetoric, and allusions guaranteed them an elite and well-educated audience. The previous chapter examined the way in which public spectacles brought many of the same ideas to more of the people, but with the exception of the king’s Entry and coronation, these shows were limited to a single day and almost exclusively to the city of London. In fact, the one way in which the government’s ideology was regularly and accessibly presented to the vast majority of the population was through sermons. In addition to those delivered from pulpits to a congregation, a significant number were licensed and printed, many of them “By Command.” The importance of sermons has long been acknowledged by scholars, but only very rarely have they been studied in their own right.1 W. A. Speck admits that “the pulpit rivaled the press as an instrument of political persuasion, and sermons on state affairs seem to have been more popular with Stuart clergymen than exhortations to piety,” yet declines to include them in his discussion of political propaganda.2 Professor Elton hardly mentions them as an important “point of contact” with the court.3 Kevin Sharpe finds it regrettable that no historian working on religion under the early Stuarts “has paid serious attention to the literary texts of the age—the drama, the play of conscience, the devotional lyric,”4 a list which conspicuously omits the printed sermon. Significantly, historians of an earlier, and less secular, age were more willing to recognize the central role which sermons played in the seventeenth century. Macaulay offered a typically vivid description of the Restoration pulpit. It was to a large portion of the population what the periodical press now is. Scarce any of the clowns who came to the parish church ever saw a Gazette or a political pamphlet. Ill informed as their spiritual pastor might be, he was yet better informed than themselves; and his harangues were never answered. At every

138

5: pulpits and sermons

139

important conjuncture, invectives against the Whigs and exhortations to obey the Lord’s anointed resounded at once from many thousands of pulpits; and the effect was formidable indeed.5

An important book by Lori Anne Ferrel has helped to vindicate Macaulay’s views on the importance of sermons. In Government by Polemic: James I, the King’s Preachers, and the Rhetorics of Conformity, 1603– 1625, she shows how court sermons, read by privy councillors, court hangers-on, continental observers, univerity scholars, and British clerics, “were arguably the most influential printed political works available to an early modern audience.”6 Unlike the court masques of the early Stuarts or the Royal Theatres of the later Stuarts, printed sermons not only had a much wider audience, they also provided an official view of government thinking, “voiced in the influential language of religion by men adept at the powerful arts of rhetoric.”7 Similarly, for Peter McCullough sermons were the most notable, visible, frequent, and carefully noted literary genre at court, and he points out that James’ first act in the “literary realm” was not making the Lord Chamberlain’s Men into the King’s Men, but attending a sermon in Berwick.8 He rightly complains that studies of court culture ignore sermons, neglecting the fact that “religion at court, particularly its presentation and consumption from the court pulpit, was a crucial cultural and political ‘point of contact’ in Elizabethan and Jacobean England.”9 Alternatively, the Laudian efforts to limit sermons is often seen as a crucial factor in the cultural, political, and religious divisions which preceded the Civil War. As a result, both the king and the parliamentary regime of the 1640s responded with a host of Fast Days and Days of Public Humiliation which revolved around the sermon.10 The arguments of Ferrell and McCullough accurately reflect the attitudes of important officials in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Henry VIII was careful to have his break with Rome, his divorces, and his marriages defended from the pulpit. Likewise, court sermons were watched by Ambassadors and civil servants to assess royal attitudes under Henry and Elizabeth.11 William Cecil’s first action under Elizabeth was to remind her “to consider the condition of ye prechar at Pawles Cross, that no occasion be gyven to hym to stirr any dispute towchying the governance of ye realme.” Just over a month later the Queen published a royal injunction prohibiting preaching, doing so to silence the pulpits while her first Parliament met.12 It should come as no surprise that the early years of Charles II’s reign saw the publication of Heylyn’s Cyprianus Anglicus, a life of Laud which contained the telling story of how Elizabeth, “when she had any business to bring amongst the people, she used to tune the Pulpits, as her saying was; that is to say, to have some Preachers in and about London, and other great Auditories in the Kingdom, ready at command to

140

courting the moderates

cry up her design.”13 It was this precedent which informed so much of Restoration court preaching. Not only was the Established Church to “cry up” the ideological designs of the government, but it was also to provide proper instruction to a nation which had so recently been hoodwinked into rebellion by false shepherds and ambitious rebels. The role of hypocrisy and deceit in the outbreak of the Civil War was a commonplace of Restoration propaganda. Clarendon only decided to write “so that posterity may not be deceived,” and to show “how the poor people, under pretence of zeal to religion, law, liberty, and parliaments . . . [were] furiously hurried into actions introducing atheism, and dissolving all the elements of the Christian religion.”14 Thomas Hobbes was even more convinced that the most important seducers of the people were “ministers; ministers, as they called themselves, of Christ; and sometimes, in their sermons to the people, God’s ambassadors; pretending to have a right from God to govern every one his parish and their assembly the whole nation.”15 As a youth, Charles II had been advised by the duke of Newcastle to maintain uniformity in the church. Newcastle even recommended that all sermons have prior approval of the episcopacy: I should wishe no man to preach his owne sermons, but sch as our Reverend Bishops should approve of, that is, as so many Homilies for the proper Sundays and Hollydays, for the Compas of a yeare, to bee made, & printed, and so sent to Every person of the parish to be preacht and to preach no other, & those Sermons to . . . perpetually Instruckt the people, of their obedience to their superiors, & Governours. . . . Thus shall your Majestie bring great quiet to your selfe, & your people, In not Disputing your right & prerogative in pulpetts, to Inflame the people with Disobedience, or rayle of their Governours, & Every Sunday to make Libels of them in their Sermons, & when once Authoryty is Dispised, what can follow but a Civil warr.16

Most importantly, the dispossessed or exiled Anglican leaders were convinced that an Established Church closely allied to the king was the only way to prevent a repeat of the disorders and deviations of the Interregnum. At the first consecration sermon, John Sudbury had spoken of the necessity of bishops for preserving “Truth and Peace and Unity. . . . For there is nothing so effectually rules the Multitude as Religion . . . [for] they are more apt to follow their Preachers than their Princes.”17 In the months before the king’s restoration, Clarendon and others kept a watchful eye on the sermons printed in London. Matthew Griffith’s Fear God and the King not only horrified them, but also provided an early example to their determination to “tune the pulpits” by making sure that “nothinge . . . be attempted on the King’s behalf otherwise than it shall be directed.”18 Indeed, it is clear from the very beginning of 1660 that the returning government realized that sermons had a broader audience and a potential for wider

5: pulpits and sermons

141

dissemination than did any other type of printed texts. It is essential to recognize what preachers and the government realized: “the unique ability of religious language to shape political action.”19
In Government by Polemic Lori Anne Ferrell argues persuasively that during the reign of James I there existed two distinct views of moderation—one which saw it as toleration from the episcopacy and the king and another which considered sacramental conformity an act of loyalty to the royal supremacy. For her, “carefully crafted rhetorics—aimed at unifying the church by promoting ‘moderation’—in actuality constructed the sterotype of ‘Puritanism’ that destroyed the political cohesion of the early Stuart Church.”20 In the same way, the changing definition of moderation from 1660–62 was rooted in polemic and rhetoric. From the outset, liberty was associated with the restoration of monarchy—a powerful claim in light of the military rule of the recent past. More importantly, liberty was associated with order, a rhetorical device which allowed preachers and propagandists to associate the cultural, religious, and political offenses of the interregnum with their opponents. In the same way that Jacobean preachers “constantly redrew the artificial boundaries of a construct called ‘moderation’ in response to events and demands,” restoration preachers used moderation “to create a discouse of exclusion” that limited political participation to those who conformed to the Established Church.21 On the first Sunday following the Restoration, Thomas Pierce preached in St. Paul’s on England’s Season of Reformation of Life. Like so much of the propaganda which appeared in these years, this sermon insisted that the “false freedoms” of the past decade should be replaced by the real liberty found in duty and obedience. Pierce told his auditors that “our Liberty does consist in a faithful Discharge of our Allegiance. That ’tis the Interest of the Subject, Not to be able to Rebel. That the Prerogative of the King, is the people’s privilege. That to lessen his Power, is to destroy their Rights. For unless he be able to crush, or injure, he is not able to defend, and protect his Subjects.”22 The official propaganda would become more subtle in the years to come, but the message would remain the same. The dutiful subject was free to obey, and the interest of the nation was to have a king too powerful to resist. Soon after his restoration, the king issued a Declaration which reminded the nation “how much the Peace of the State is concerned with the Peace of the Church, and how difficult a thing it is to preserve Order and Government in Civil, whilest there is no Order or Government in Ecclesiastical Affairs.”23 Since the country remained at risk from both papist and fanatic alike, it was clear that “since by the wonderful blessing of God, the hearts

142

courting the moderates

of this whole Nation are returned to an obedience to Monarchique Government in the State, it must be very reasonable to support that Government in the Church which is established by Law, and with which the Monarchy hath flourished through so many Ages.”24 Although the religious settlement was yet to be determined, the restored government was staking out a crucial “moderate” position which assumed that order and stability were only possible with an Established Church. There was no need to defend this position since “this little part of the World . . . hath had so late experience of it, that We may very well acquiesce in the Conclusion . . . it being a subject We have had frequent ocassion to contemplate upon, and to lament, abroad as well as at home.”25 In this opening paragraph, the government had linked the peace of the state with order in the church, and, more importantly, associated all dissenting opinion with the lamentable memories of the recent past. The events of the king’s first years on the throne did little to alter the views expressed above. The protracted negotiations at the Savoy, the constant fear of disgruntled Cromwellian soldiers, the hostility to episcopacy manifested at the London elections, and the rising of Fifth Monarchists all contributed to the concerns about disobedience and the renewal of disorder. The fact that so many pulpits remained in the possession of non-Anglican preachers offered little comfort to the Lord Chancellor or the Anglican leadership. However, matters took a turn for the better with the elections to Parliament in March and April 1661. The overwhelming victory for the Anglican Royalists, which created the Cavalier Parliament, opened the door for the re-establishment of the church. Although it may have been more for political than for religious reasons, the earl of Clarendon would now have the Established Church he felt necessary for the order and stability in the state.26 The attitude of the newly elected Commons was clarified by their choice of Thomas Pierce to preach to them on 29 May, the first anniversary of the king’s return. Pierce told the new MPs never to forget that God had delivered them from the house of bondage. He told them never to forget Him in “whatever represents or presents Him to us. But you especially must never forget him presented to you in his Viceregent; whom the more you do enable to be indeed what he is stiled, Defensor Fidei. . . . The more you strengthen that Hand, which under God is to brandish the Sword of Justice . . . the better protected your Peace will be from the ungainable enemies of each extream.”27 The king was presented as God’s viceregent, and the House was encouraged to grant him sufficient power to act as the defender of the faith. In addition, this version of Christian moderation was already suggesting that the king needed to act in order to protect the nation from extremists. Furthermore, activities in London had shown that the tyranny and false religion of the past decade

5: pulpits and sermons

143

had done nothing to convert these fanatics: they were to remain ungainable enemies in the face of all the evidence. In the month before this sermon the king’s entry and coronation had laid the groundwork for the official propaganda of the 1660s. While much was promised in the Arches and Shows which lined the streets, the issue of religion was left to the more private ceremony of the king’s coronation. There, Morley had spoken openly about the need for order and episcopacy. Indeed, the leading role played by the bishops on that day was a key signifier of things to come. Their return to the House of Lords in November was a further sign of the times. It should come as no surprise then that Seth Ward, a future bishop, was chosen to preach before the king on 5 November of that year. Like the choice of Pierce on 29 May, Ward’s selection was filled with significance. Sermons originating from the court were certain to offer an overt political message. As the single most popular form of reading material, such sermons were guaranteed a large as well as an influential audience, and they were read for entertainment and instruction, “but also to decipher what the king believed.”28 In this instance, Ward was careful to address the issue of religious divisions. Eschewing all pervarication, Ward began by laying all divisions at the feet of Satan: “Amongst all the stratagems of the Devil, tending to the undermining of Religion . . . [is the opinion] That Religion is an enemy to Government.”29 He went on to summarize the many justifications for separating themselves from an Established Church, but resolved their arguments into one: “That Religion . . . is prejudicial to Policy; and that to be a thorow-paced, a sincere and zealous Christian, is to be dangrous to the State.”30 By portraying all tender consciences as enemies of the state, and doing so in a sermon to the king, Ward was serving notice that anyone outside the moderate religious settlement now being prepared would be viewed as a threat to order and stability. When taken in conjunction with Pierce’s suggestions about the sword of justice, it is easier to see how Dr. Ferrell’s “construct of moderation” was utilized once again in the Restoration. By associating all non-Anglicans with the tyranny and disorder of the past, the sermons issuing from the court were justifying the exclusion of fellow Protestants on the grounds of extremism, fanaticism, and disloyalty. Another example of an official sermon which contributed to the ideology of moderation was provided on the most important day on the Anglican Royalist calendar. Nathaniel Hardy was chosen to preach to the House of Commons on 30 January, the day of Charles I’s execution, and, for many, his martyrdom for the Church of England.31 The manipulation of the event had begun before the Banqueting Hall on the morning of the execution. Bishop Juxon had chosen Matthew 27, on the trial and crucifixion of Christ, to be read to Charles I on the fateful day. The same text was

144

courting the moderates

added to the Book of Common Prayer in 1660 when 30 January was ordered to be kept as a day for fasting and humiliation. By adding this to the Act of Attainder for the regicides, parliamentarians explicitly acknowledged official sermons as the ideal means for the dissemination of political ideology. More importantly, “the clergy just as clearly cherished the opportunity offered.” Furthermore, in the years to come they “showed themselves more and more reluctant to relinquish a powerful instrument of political propaganda.”32 Since Charles I had cruelly been deprived of a proper burial and the attendant funeral sermon, thousands would now be delivered—thousands freed from the constraints that existed in the immediate aftermath of the king’s martyrdom. According to Helen Randall, “preachers indulged in all the rhetorical artifices by which they could embrace the spirit of humiliation and contrition to which the Day was dedicated. The release from bondage of the old-style Anglican sermon did indeed lead to amplification of the old extravagances.”33 When one considers the contemporary estimate that every 30th of January witnessed the preaching of more than three thousand sermons, the prospect of converting the audience to obedience and right reason was unique.34 Nathaniel Hardy’s sermon was careful to associate Charles I with the current rendition of moderation and, astutely, with Josiah, who turned neither to the right nor to the left. The preacher was adopting one of the three main analogies drawn from the Old Testament: Josiah owing to his sorely lamented death; Saul because of his inviolability; and “with Saul and Jonathan together because of David’s beautiful elegy for them.”35 Hardy reminded the Commons that, despite the threats against his life, Charles “turned neither to the faction of the Schismaticks, nor the superstition of the Papists: for which cause he commended the Church of England’s Religion to his Son Charles the Second, as keeping . . . the middle way between the Papists Superstitious Tyranny, and the meannesse of fantastick Anarchy.”36 Once again the Church of England was presented as the only refuge from tyranny on the one side and anarchy on the other. The via media was represented as the surest path to moderation, and the only choice open to a rational, loyal, and obedient Christian. Throughout the 1630s the king had been accused of superstition and tyranny, yet in the end he had been brought down and martyred by faction and anarchy. The external threat of popery remained, but the internal threat of fanaticism which had nearly destroyed the country was considered a more active and sinister enemy in 1661.
With the return of the bishops to the House of Lords, the Anglicans were well on their way to renewing their alliance with the state. Members of the

5: pulpits and sermons

145

episcopacy were regularly chosen to preach before the king and court, and to publish their sermons for public consumption. In March, Benjamin Laney, bishop of Peterborough, instructed his audience on the importance of episcopacy and, naturally, the danger of diversity of opinion. Once again, a sermon given by a member of the hierarchy, preached directly to the king, and “Published by his Majesty’s Special Command” was certain to reach a large and influential audience. More to the point, people were well aware that it was likely to contain insights into the ideology and policies of the government. Laney was typical of many Restoration churchmen: a man educated in the arts of rhetoric, and capable of delivering an extended oration designed to persuade an audience. Indeed, like most sermons, his was primarily preached in order to persuade. He began his sermon by arguing that God intended Christians to follow bishops as their shepherds. Laney admitted the possibility of being led astray, but insisted that being led astray was a valid excuse for error, since bishops derived their authority by succession from the apostles, who received it from Christ. “It is but reason that Christ should have the choice of his own Ministers. The Sheep that belong to those other Shepherds, can plead nothing for their obedience to them. . . . If these fall into an error by the misguidance of their Shepherds, they are in sad and worse conditions, which admits no plea or excuse or extenuation from the Shepherd.”37 Laney’s insinuation of fire and brimstone was a conventional defense of an Established Church. However, he went on to provide a more contemporary condemnation for rejecting uniformity in the church. One of the most dangerous ideas to survive the recent turmoil was the claim for individual conscience. Laney was careful to address this theory in terms of its political implications. He denounced this justification for disobedience as a type of sickness, another guide “which is brought in to avoid the Shepherds, is the Conscience. That is the Presbyterians’ strongest fort against Obedience. If he can get his Conscience about him, he thinks himself so safe that he may bid defiance to all Authority.”38 Laney was careful to remind his audience how easily individual conscience could be mistaken for ambition, or self-interest, or some other willful emotion: [W]e must be sure we mistake not somewhat else for the Conscience. Every disease and distemper of the mind, causeless scruple, slight perswasion, groundless fear is not the Conscience, against which we are bound not to act. The tender Conscience, for which so much favour is pleaded, may prove in some no better than a disease of the Soul, a spiritual Splene, For though it be good to be tender of offending God . . . where it Proceeds from the good temper and constitution of the soul . . . [and is] not affected or taken up for a purpose, as the sturdy beggar carries his arm in a string, that it may be a Patent to beg and be idle.39

146

courting the moderates

In the end, the bishop warned against the dangers of private judgement, which can so easily be mistaken. More importantly, in a line of reasoning reminiscent of the Heroic Drama already discussed, Laney warned that private judgement “must not be arbitrary, for that we think we have reason to decline in the publick Magistrate, to govern by Will and not by Laws. Many a Conscience if it were examined, will prove to be nothing but will, not judgement.”40 Clearly, the refusal to accept an episcopal church was not truly owing to conscience, but to individual judgement, a transparent veil for personal will, the cornerstone of anarchy. For if every individual could choose when to obey and when not to obey, then disorder would surely be the order of the day. In fact, Laney’s conclusion was simple and to the point: an Established Church led by shepherds who succeeded directly from Christ and the Apostles was the surest way to peace and salvation: “To summe up all, if not Reason, nor Scripture, nor the Spirit, nor Conscience will discharge us of the duty we owe to the Church . . . let us not rashly fling away so great a blessing, that in all our doubts and fears, for our quiet and security, we may have recourse to the Shepherds and Bishops of our Souls.”41 In the end, those outside the church were in favor of “a true arbitrary Will-worship; instead of a lawful, orderly serving of God, a confusion of all.”42 Beyond fixing the bond between conscience and confusion, this sermon contributed to the definition of moderation which would justify the exclusion of so many from the Established Church and from politics. Conversely, the need for an alternative version of liberty and conscience would play a major role in the development of the ideological divisions which helped shape the process of party formation. Within a year of their election, the Cavalier Parliament would break ground on the Clarendon Code with the passage of the Act of Uniformity.43 Despite bearing the Lord Chancellor’s name, the Code is the clearest example of the divisions over religious policy within the court. More importantly, the king’s desire for indulgence, toleration, or comprehension would keep him at odds with this Parliament until its dissolution in 1679. Ministers from Clarendon to Danby would be forced to try to find ways to satisfy these two masters while having no way to control either. So while the king continued to dream of an Indulgence, his government was taking steps to propagate orthodox thought and conformity. Even before the passage of the Act of Uniformity, a Proclamation was published for the “Re-Printing, Publishing and Using of a Book, Intituled, God and the King.” This Proclamation is a perfect example of the government’s view of the power of words and ideas. On one hand, the book was filled with the important notion that the king of England was “Immediate under God . . . [and doth rightfully claim] whatsoever is required by the Oath of Allegiance.”44 On the other hand, the Proclamation was issued due to subjects’ tendency to lose sight of these issues during the “late times of

5: pulpits and sermons

147

Libertinism and Distraction”; an idea rooted in the belief that sound doctrine could instruct the people and persuade them to “understand and perform the said Oath [of Allegiance].” In addition, this Proclamation offers important insights into how official doctrine was distributed and spread beyond Westminster and London. The book was ordered reprinted, and “all Printers, Stationers, and Booksellers” commanded not “to ask, take, or demand” at any “time or times hereafter . . . above the price or sum of six pence.” Furthermore, the king commanded that all ArchBishops, Bishops, Mayors, Sheriffs, Bayliffs and all other officers “advise all School-Masters and Teachers . . . to teach their Scholars the said Book. . . . And also that it be recommended to all Masters of Families and Apprentices to have one of the said Books . . . with advice to read and be instructed in the same, and the contents and true meaning thereof).” The union of God and the King—the union which Clarendon, Barwick and others had not dared not speak of in 1660—was now the red meat being fed to the Cavaliers in Parliament. Similar Proclamations may have been uncommon, but the faith in the power of the printed word and of instruction are undeniable. Clearly, the power of ideology should not be depreciated, for the struggle for public support is at the forefront of Restoration politics. One reason for this loyalty to clerical publication was the government’s recognition of the benefits of an Established Church speaking with one voice from every pulpit in the land. In his book on Scotland under James VI, Maurice Lee Jr. has described a country ruled “by pen,”45 a policy influenced by the king’s native calvinism, which relied on the remarkable power of the word, both spoken and printed. Moreover, the religious foundation of civil authority and the Erastian nature of the Church of England were assumptions rooted in patronage; propagandists and preachers served the king and church. In fact, “the throne commanded obedience, the pulpit was their metier.”46 The desire to establish uniformity in the pulpits can be seen in Charles’s Directions concerning preachers in 1662. It began with a direction that “no preachers in their sermons presume to meddle with matters of state.” On the contrary, they were to confine their efforts to “instruct[ing] the people in their bounden duty of subjection and obedience to their governors . . . and to the established laws according to the . . . homilies of obedience, and the articles of religion set forth by public authority.”47 Furthermore, to guarantee a unity of instruction, “the archbishops and bishops of this kingdom are to take great care whom they license to preach, and that all grants heretofore made . . . be accounted void and null.”48 In this way, the merits of an established, episcopal church would have their fullest effect. All preachers would hereafter be licensed by an Anglican hierarchy which was responsible for the matters discussed as well for as the instruction on offer. The official ideology would now

148

courting the moderates

reach every member of the Established Church. Those unwilling to attend were, by definition, willfully excluding themselves. The king’s directions are particularly important in light of the Act of Uniformity. When it took effect on 22 August, hundreds of noncomforming ministers were silenced.49 Seth Ward was unable to contain his glee at this turn of events, describing it as the clearest manifestation of God’s plan. For him, it was “a wonder that the spirit of Godliness should so seize upon the enemies of the church and cause them to do that work themselves, wch could hardly have been done any other way, that some few of them at London should trappan [sic] the whole party, so as to make an universal riddance of them at once—surely my Ld this is the Lords doing.”50 The Anglicans’ sense of triumph was somewhat tempered by the popularity of the Farewell Sermons that appeared in the autumn, but the clerical attitudes to sedition and opposition would soon be placed before the public. In December, one of the Chaplains in Ordinary to His Majesty preached about the power of language to undermine authority and order. Elaborating on what was fast becoming a central pillar of the official ideology, William Haywood discoursed on the way in which seditious thoughts become rebellious deeds. For him, “Words are the readiest Instruments; Words the bellows that kindle the Sparkes; Words the Wind that ventilate the Flame. . . . So that no little good service might be done, in quieting first the Tongue of the Multitude, that their Hearts and their Hands might return to a better temper.”51 Haywood was convinced that a strict control of the public sphere was the only way to avoid a return to the type of bloodshed that had marred Christian history: “As if there were no Law for the Tongue; as if Slander were not the crime that hunted Christ to his death, and his most faithful Servant our late Sovereign.”52 The warnings about the relationship between sedition and disorder were emphasized by recalling how easily the criticism of the government had managed to turn the world upside down: “How ill befits it to hear the worst revile the best? . . . Ignorance to deprave Learning? Rudeness Experience? Youth to Censure Age? Illiterate Idiots to teach revered Prelates? The off-scouring of the Rabble, the scumme of the Rout, to belch against God’s Anointed?”53 While Haywood’s views were not particularly Christian, they were very much of a piece with the attitudes of the government. There were those who were willing to acknowledge that most people in the late rebellion had been led astray by misinformation,54 but, like Sir Roger L’Estrange, Haywood believed that propaganda or instruction was only effective when allowed to reach the people unopposed. The same point was made repeatedly in the years to come. The government was convinced that whenever people assembled, “there must be some to teach and instruct them. How dangerous a thing it is promiscuously to suffer Harangues and Orations to be made to the people by such who possibly

5: pulpits and sermons

149

may be Trumpets of Sedition, who by Slandering the Government . . . may inflame people to Rebellion? It is therefore necessary, that none be allow’d that liberty to speak to Multitudes assembled together, but such with whom a King may safely trust His people.”55 In addition, all the murmuring and obloquy against the moderate governments in church and state was certain to flow from the willful extremists who had led the nation into utter ruin under the king’s late father. Haywood’s sermon provided an excellent summary of the official ideology in 1662. The shifting definition of moderation was now firmly attached to uniformity and to an Established Church. The tolerant attitude toward “tender consciences” found in the Declaration of Breda was now abandoned in favor of unity. Moderation was no longer defined as a tolerant king and a comprehensive religious settlement; moderation now meant a willingness to conform to an Established Church as an act of loyalty to the king. Conscience and religious scruples were hereafter defined as a reproach to authority, and “every Reproach to those in Authority is a pushing against Authority; and every pushing against Authority, a step to bring in Anarchy; and Anarchy is the worst kind of Tyranny, turning a peaceable Order of Men into the Confusion of wild beasts.”56 The threat of renewed anarchy was meant both to frighten people and to discredit the pleas for conscience, “as if the disobedience to Supreme Authority were not so much the greater [grievance] . . . Or as of those that swallowed the Oath of Non-adherence and Covenants of Rebellion without scruple of conscience, were to be regarded while they pretend conscience against Uniformity.”57
The joining of moderation with strict conformity was a significant aspect of the early Restoration. As the Second Dutch War dragged on, much was made of a conflict with fellow Protestants. Once again, the use of religion to undermine support for the government was answered from the pulpit, and answered in a classic exposition of the official attitude about sedition and its ultimate designs. After asserting that princes alone must settle religious differences in order to avoid civil war, the preacher offered an important reminder: Not that War be quite left out of the sectaries reckoning. For though Civil War and Rebellions have their beginnings for the most part from the ambition or discontents of a few, yet because the people, who are the necessary instruments of that mischief, be not apt to serve the ambition of others, if comes barefaced to them, the mask of religion is always put on, wherein all people are concerned. . . . And therefore, you shall scarce heare of a Rebellion of late times, in which Religion did not carry the Colours at least, if not command in Chief.58

150

courting the moderates

The central place of religion in promoting divisions was one of the commonplaces of Restoration propaganda.59 Similarly, obedience was hailed as the safest fort against the enemies of uniformity. At this point, the Anglican Royalists were able to insist that the only threat to the harmony and union restored in 1660 were the extremists who scrupled at the moderation of an Established Church which only aimed to maintain peace and unity.60 The importance of the clerical hierarchy in sustaining the civil order was eloquently described by Robert South during the war. Preaching at the consecration of the bishop of Rochester, South remarked on a bishop’s dual role in shaping and controlling public opinion: “To teach, indeed, must be confesst his Duty; but then there is a Teaching by Example, by Authority, by restraining Seducers, and so removing the Hindrances of knowledge. And a Bishop does his Church, his Prince, and Country more Service by ruling other mens Tongues, than he can by imploying his own.”61 South recommended that bishops encourage obedience and conformity, and added a suggestion that the new bishop take swift action to punish those neglecting their duty: “When an insolent despiser of Discipline, nurtur’d into Impudence and Contempt of all Order by a long Risk of License and Rebellion [appears] . . . Severity and Resolution are the Governours (i.e. Bishop’s) Vertues, and Justice it self is his Mercy; for by making such a one an example . . . he will either Cure him, or at least Preserve others.”62 To neglect the need for discipline was to make authority seem lax or contemptible, “and was not this method observed in the late most flourishing and successful Rebellion? For how studiously did they lay about them, both from the Pulpit and the Press, to cast a slurr upon the King’s Person. . . .”63 Unfortunately, the calamities of 1665–66 and the humiliations at the hands of the Dutch had served to bring the court and government into contempt. The increasing aversion in turn led to the fall of Clarendon and convinced the king to turn for support to the Cabal and their stratagem of religious toleration. Although the Cabal shifted English foreign policy away from its alliance with France and moved to license nonconformist meetings, the church continued to preach about the merits of uniformity.64 This period also saw a relaxation in the control of the press, leading to the articulation of an alternative ideology of liberty and moderation.65 While the Anglicans no longer monopolized the nation’s pulpits, they continued to argue forcefully against diversity of opinion and nonconformity. In addition to their customary concerns about the need for uniform instruction, they expounded on the increasing dangers of an active and open marketplace of ideas. One distinguished churchman worried about the ability to “poyson the Clubs and Coffee-Houses with Phanatick Discourses, or even with Atheism it self, to destroy all Religion. . . . We

5: pulpits and sermons

151

desire them not to fill the World with their Pamphlets, Parallels, Philanxes, [sic] Exhortations, Apologies &c . . . which are apt only to inflame Parties, and make People Jealous, and the Government Uneasie.”66 In fact, it was this period of toleration and Indulgence and limited censorship which convinced the Anglicans to increase their warnings about the bonds between nonconformity and rebellion and to look for ways to silence their opponents once more. The granting of licenses to nonconformists caused considerable consternation in the church. Worse still, the hierarchy was appalled to learn “that by ye prevalence of the ye Duke of Buckingham with his Ma[jes]ty, Dr Wilkins was nominated to ye See of Chester, wch if true doth prognostick to this Church but ill.”67 Known for his latitudinarian views, Wilkins was just the sort of appointment the Anglicans feared. Many worried his nomination was the first in a series of appointments which would fill the hierarchy with men inclined toward toleration or comprehension. As a result, court preachers took every opportunity to instruct the king about the dangers of nonconformity. As to be expected, the anniversary of his father’s suffering for the Church of England was considered an ideal setting to remind the king and people of the dangers of diversity of opinions. For Helen Randall, these years mark an abondonment of sermons which relied on an “indirect to a direct method of propaganda.” In place of a dependence on rhetoric, emotion, and biblical analogies, we find a more straightforward attempt to instruct subjects in their duty: “the appeal to tears begins to give way before a more-or-less rational appeal to political conscience.”68 In the same way that moderation and unity had characterized the early government propaganda, only to be supplanted by exclusion, the religious persuasion of the 30 January sermons would be transformed into political instruction in the 1670s. If rhetorical and figurative weapons were the only ones used, then perhaps only a metaphorical repentance would be accomplished. Part of the Restoration regime’s recognition of the public sphere by 1670 was the willingness to use the sermons on 30 January to “the quite specific lesson of the civic responsibility of the electorate.”69 Similarly, the ability to inspire lamentations and fastings was no longer sufficient in itself. The ideas that justified the tragedy and informed the consequent troubles had to be discredited in the mind of the public. In a sermon on the appointed Day of Fasting and Humiliation for Charles I’s martyrdom, one of the Chaplains in Ordinary warned the king of the consequences of allowing conscience and religion to cover evil: “If the Devil himself were to preach sedition to the world, he would never appear otherwise than as an Angel of Light; his pretence would be Unity, when he designed the greatest Divisions; and the preservation of Authority, when he laid the seeds of Rebellion.”70 The accusation of hypocrisy and the use of Religion as a mask for ambition was to form one the most

152

courting the moderates

effective weapons in the government’s arsenal for the remainder of the reign. The example of the late rebellion would also allow Anglican preachers to demand both a monopoly on the pulpits and a strict censorship to limit the lies intended to undermine popular support for authority: “Thus whatever the pretenses are, how fair and popular soever is the opposition men make to Authority, ambition and private discontents are the true beginners of them: but these must be covered over with the deepest dissimulation.”71 The divisions within the court are at no time more apparent. The king was hearing his religious policies criticized in a sermon on the anniversary of his father’s martyrdom. His ministers and his bishops were publicly at odds, with the Archbishop leading the parliamentary opposition to the king’s government. One churchman privately gloated over Sheldon’s “great prudence and indefatigable industrie to prepare the votes of ye Commons against they met for so nobel and happie a concurence to discourage nonconformists and Sectaries who did openly boast what assurance they had in the undertakings . . . to procure them a most fractious toleration.”72 The hierarchy of the church agreed with the official ideology: “ambition and private discontents” were at the root of all disobedience, no matter the dissimulations and religious pretexts given for resisting “Authority.” By 1669 the king was much in need of parliamentary support, and Sheldon’s careful marshaling of supporters and proxies in preparation for the Session obliged the king to accept renewed persecution of Conventicles:73 “Now I will tell you some news which will please you: There goes out a strict command to the LLds Lieutenants and Deputy Lieutenants to suppress Conventicles in theyr respective Counties. I alwayes sayd that the insolencies of the Sectaries would prove to our . . . advantages.”74 The relief of the hierarchy was clear in the bishop of Durham’s remark that “the King is resolved to stick unto his owne party in the Parliament which I make no question will very faithfully and amply serve him in the defence of his Kingdome and the Church.”75 Despite the Second Conventicle Act, the continued granting of licenses to dissenters and the Treaty of Dover kept the churchmen in a constant state of anxiety. In the year before the Declaration of Indulgence and the Anglicans’ time in the wilderness, a number of sermons were preached extolling the church’s ability to buttress the civil order by safeguarding the unity of religion. In a device aptly chosen for a sermon to the Artillery Company, William Durham compared the church to an Army, and a terrible one too; but ’tis while shee marches with Banners, while due Order and Discipline is maintained, and every Soldier keeps his own place and station; so long the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against her. But when these are neglected, or trampled under feet, she is quite another thing . . . She

5: pulpits and sermons

153

may be a Multitude, a Rout, but will hardly bear the name of an Army. Believe it, Sirs, Order is a precious thing, and Government a rare Jewel . . . without which all things would run into present Confusion.76

While the government had vacillated between toleration, persecution, and indulgence, Anglican preachers had remained true to the official ideology of the 1660s, which defined moderation as religious conformity and obedience to the established governments in church and state. Their sole access to the nation’s pulpits had been restricted, but Anglicans continued their efforts to silence their rivals wherever possible. The church did not relinquish its influence in the public sphere easily. Hackett was outraged that Wilkins (“a brother in evil’) was allowed to preach to the king in Lent and that his ideas were ordered printed: “What a pittifull sermon of his, preacht in lent, is commanded to bee printed. Is it because ye Court likes no sermons longer than a quarter of an hour?”77 Reports of opposing views were forwarded to the highest levels along with demands for public humiliation. In 1669 Hackett poured out his “groanings about a most horrid and impious book. . . . Many of my learned & Best Clergie call on mee to do my endeavour [sic] the booke both be burnt wth all ignomonie, & this black mouth & pertinacious heretick bee delivered up to Secular iudgement.”78 Even after the Declaration of Indulgence, one bishop wrote “to Sir Joseph Williamson, & to Mr Coventrie for a particular list of all the licenses they have given to ye Presbyterians &c in my Diocese. That I may know who preach according to that Power: And proceed after those who teach without license. . . . I beseech yr Grace to inform me whether those who are Licensed may preach in any other place than what is expresst in the Their License.”79 Through it all, Anglican preachers never wavered from their conviction that conscience and comprehension were simply disguises for resistance and rebellion. They did everything in their power to hold the line against toleration and to rally their flock by setting an example for them about the importance of strict conformity. In 1670 Archbishop Sheldon “sent letters to all the Bishops, to call the Clergy before them, & exhort them to conformity, both in reading ye Common Prayer without addition or omission, & to weare the Church Ornaments, & to be sober and painfule in theire calling, & likewise to endeavour the Suppression of Conventicles, according to law.”80 Once the Treaty of Dover, the Indulgence, the Stop of the Exchequer, the duke of York’s marriage, and another unsuccessful war had eroded the government’s support both in and out of Parliament, the members of the Cabal began to turn on one another. Finally, when Shaftesbury took up with the nonconformists and the Test Act exposed the popery in high places, the king looked once more to the Anglican Royalists who had opposed both extremes throughout. By the end of 1673 Sir Thomas

154

courting the moderates

Osborne was advising Charles to renew his alliance with the Established Church. In doing so, the government regained its most formidable ally in the contest for popular support and public opinion.
From late 1673, Danby worked tirelessly to make the king’s loyalty to the Protestant religion and his hostility to France apparent to the nation. Clearly, the first step to be taken was to re-establish the alliance between church and king. In order to make the government’s moderation and Protestantism apparent to the people, Anglicans were once more allowed to monopolize the nation’s pulpits and to denounce the faction which threatened to use the pretense of religion to divide the country again. For the next five years, the rhetoric and ideology of Anglican sermons would mirror the official propaganda presented on the stage, the streets of London, and the pamphlets licensed by the government. Not only were sermons at court recognized as important indices of royal opinion, but those recommended for publication were also distributed, emulated, and reproduced throughout the country. By 1674 Danby was doing all in his power to bring the king around to ending all hopes of a renewed liberty for tender consciences. Following the parliamentary Session, most nonconformists continued to worship openly, and Morley recognized that few Justices would be willing to “be very forward to put those Laws in Execution until some publick notice be given by way of Proclamation or other wise yt they may doe soe.”81 However, by the time one of the Chaplains in Ordinary was chosen to preach to the Mayor and Alderman on 30 January, the government was willing to allow the association of dissent and disobedience to be cried up once more. The printed sermon’s dedication declared it was obvious that the Mayor and Aldermen had not consulted the people before ordering publication, for “it is a Truth as evident, as it is severe, that so many as there are among us of Dissenters from the Church of England, so many there are, who are more or less unsound in Tenets concerning Magistracy. . . . If now you have ordered this to come to them at their homes . . . it should be instrumental to cause the despoiled Spirit of Loyalty and Obedience, Humility and Sobriety to return unto any of them, I shall account it a happiness.”82 By equating dissent with “unsound tenets concerning magistracy,” Meggott was able to expose the bonds between nonconformity and rebellion. For “whatever hypocritical Colours it may be painted over with . . . there never yet was any Rebellion or Civil War, where Religion or Liberty . . . were not one or both pretended . . . [and it will be difficult] to produce an Instance of any one, where personal Disgusts and selfish Designs were not the first promoters and fomenters of it.”83 Here again we see the shift in the

5: pulpits and sermons

155

strategies of the official sermons: after some traditionally rhetorical opening images, the preacher concentrates exclusively on plain and simple instruction. The accusation of hypocrisy and deceit would serve as a primary theme in the official propaganda in the late 1670s. This instruction was intended as a direct response to the recent arguments in favor of liberty of conscience. The emphasis on dissimulation was capable of discrediting the demands for liberty by exposing them as a mask for “selfish Designs” and disobedience. When combined with reminders about the parallels with 1641, this rhetorical strategy frightened many away from those who qualified their civil obedience with demands for liberty of conscience. Once again, warnings about the consequences of extremism were careful to depict them as alternatives to moderation, order, and duty. Another important theme in the sermons and propaganda of the 1670s was the idealization of the Church of England and its position as the via media between popery and fanaticism. This moderate and rational stance was meant to appeal to the many centrists who dreaded popery as much as fanaticism. Too often these “loyal Protestants” are assumed to be the backbone of the later Whigs.84 In fact, the vast majority of these centrists were devoted to church and king, so long as the monarch defended the Established Church. For them, the church was the surest bulwark against the religious, social, and political experiments endured during the church’s years in the wilderness. In light of the persecution and “action” demanded by the church, the via media was clearly an example of the disguised moderation seen elsewhere in the official writings. One sermon insisted that the Church of England was the best of all churches, “securing men on the one hand from the wild freaks of Enthusiasm; and on the other from the gross follies of Superstition. And our Church hath this peculiar advantage, . . . that it acknowledgeth due and just Subordination to the Civil Authority, and hath alwayes been untainted in its Loyalty.”85 A similar point was made in an anonymous pamphlet of the same year, which recalled that the murderers of Charles I “were in plaine terms the Papists and the Sectaries: who (like Sampson’s Foxes) have their Tails tied together, though their Heads seem far asunder.”86 This clever gambit turned the charges of arbitrary government back on the accusers. It was a commonplace belief that Catholicism was characterized by tyranny and arbitrary government, but it was an undeniable historical fact that “Enthusiasm” and extremism ended in military and arbitrary rule. Furthermore, in an early indication of the government’s response to accusations of popery, the nonconformists were equated with the fanatics of the 1640s, who were portrayed as Catholic dupes: “the Presbyterian was but the Jesuit’s Agent, and did that work for him, which he could not do for himself.”87 The ability to conflate nonconformity with popery, and the refusal to accept the Established Church with Jesuitical casuistry was an effective

156

courting the moderates

means of justifying the exclusion and persecution of dissenters. As Danby adopted policies and positions which made the government’s loyalty to the Protestant interest and its hostility to France more and more apparent to public opinion, it became easier and easier to characterize their rejection of conformity as the type of wilful disobedience which had rent the nation in 1641. The efforts to discredit dissenters gained momentum after 1674. Their rejection of the church was taken as proof of their threat to the secular order. Also, their religious scruples were seen as a stratagem to lure the ignorant masses into their planned rebellion. Indeed, the official propaganda became increasingly interested in the lessons of history, particularly the recent calamities which seemed so similar to current events. In a sermon on the importance of keeping controversy out of the pulpit, John Prince recalled how fanatics had lured people away from the lawful pulpits and into “Chambers and Barns.” He marveled at “the fluctuation of the humour of the giddy Multitude, who shall sometimes turn Churches into Stables, and Stables back again into Churches.”88 These veiled references to the Cromwellian period were as nothing when compared to the similarities noticed in another pamphlet. It was considered “worthy of regard, that these very methods now used to make the clergy contemptible, did not many years since bring a King to the Scaffold, dishonour and begging upon the Nobility and Gentry, consternation and slavery upon all Orders and Degrees of men . . . except such as were Vassals to the Usurper, and the Instruments of his Tyranny and Malice.”89 The scare tactics in this piece were intended to remind people of the consequences of abandoning one’s duty and following ambitious men who promised to introduce liberty and the true religion. History had shown what the inevitable outcome of religious “reform” would be: “A popular Religion will inavoidably introduce and end in a popular Government. For the freedom that incites men to make their pretences to the Spirit the foundation of dissenting from an Established Church, will encourage them at last to rebel against that Prince, who indulged them that liberty.”90 However moderate and centrist the Church of England may have considered itself, it was absolutely committed to excluding nonconformists from politics as a result of their disobedience to civil authority. After 1674, all nonconformists were suspect in their allegiance and loyalty to the Crown. The Test Act—Danby’s, or the Bishop’s Test—of 1675 may have failed in Parliament, yet it was an excellent indication of the meaning of moderation under an Anglican Royalist government. One preacher proudly announced on his title page that his sermon was “Published to promote that in others which in the worst of times he practised himself.” He maintained that wives, children, and servants are all expected to obey, and that a subject’s “Obedience and subjection is a part of their Religion;

5: pulpits and sermons

157

and so essential a part, that he that is not a good Subject, cannot be a good Christian.”91 Higham pulled no punches, even asserting that Christ’s refusal to call in the aid of Angels while on the Cross was meant as an example “that we that bear his name, should tread in his steps, and suffer any thing rather than resist Authority.”92 Having denied all nonconformists their status as Christians, Higham went on to tie them to the murder of Charles I. In addition, Higham took up the cudgels against dissenting preachers and contributed to the government’s assault on uncontrolled information: “Our late pious King of blessed Memory, was first preached to death in the Pulpit, before he was put to death on the Scaffold. Had not the tongues of some Jesuited Incendiaries been so sharply invective, the swords of their Proselites had not proved so fatally keen, as first to subdue his Power, and afterwards to assasinate and murder his person.”93 Higham’s attitudes mirrored those of Dryden, L’Estrange, and others. The ability of these writers to conflate fanatics and Jesuits not only verified the church’s rhetoric of moderation, but also discredited the nonconformist case for conscience and liberty. In this way, the official propaganda of the 1670s provided the ideological underpinning for Danby’s Protestant policies. Furthermore, by associating dissenters with the murderers of Charles I and the fomenters of civil war, religious radicalism, and military rule, these sermons undermined the ideological justifications for toleration and liberty of conscience. The effectiveness of the Anglican preachers and government propagandists drove Shaftesbury, Sidney, and others to adopt more desperate measures to dissolve the Parliament and to bring down the earl of Danby. In the end, such tactics only opened the door for further attacks on the critics of the governments in church and state.
In addition to renewing the government’s alliance with the church, Danby made every effort to silence and to discredit his opponents.94 At the same time that government propaganda trumpeted the merits of obedience and the moderation of the king and the Established Church, every opportunity was used to provide evidence of the king’s devotion to the ancient constitution and the Protestant cause. Shifting diplomatic alliances, fiscal responsibility, Proclamations against priests and popery, the rejection of French fashion, equestrian statues, and plans to re-inter the Royal Martyr were all part of a public program to sustain and to increase public support for the government. Similarly, a revitalized propaganda campaign coincided with a wide-ranging policy of censorship and the denunciation of all criticism of established authority. Attacks on the government were answered directly, and sermons and books circulated around various dioceses.95 More importantly, the imprecations ringing down from the pulpits

158

courting the moderates

bore a distinct resemblance to the instruction being offered in the Theaters and in prose. By 1675, the government had grown weary of the criticisms of its policies which filled an increasingly active public sphere. The Third Dutch War had shown how effective libels and pamphlets could be in undermining popular support. In addition to the abortive plans to close down the coffeehouses, a general offensive was launched against misinformation and false news. The government’s opponents were obviously aiming to detach the “giddy Multitude” from their allegiance in order to use the people to serve some private ambition. In the same way that Jesus had been made ridiculous “in order to his Crucifixion; arai’d in a ridiculous robe, arm’d with a reed instead of a Sceptre, then mockt and bowed to in reproach,” satires and criticisms of the king were meant to bring him into contempt: “The Coffee-house Rebell is more mischievous, than he that takes the field, and a Prince is sooner murder’d with a libell, than a sword. And therefore it will concern those who are in Authority to consider of what effect it may be, that there are so many mockers of this form and level.”96 Another attack on libelers made a similar point, this sermon being careful to remind the audience that the pernicious tactics which destroyed both Christ and the late king were favored by extremists on both sides: ’tis strange to see how lovingly Jesuites and Sectaries agree together to dethrone and murder the Lords Anointed. . . . Their Principles and practices [are] much alike. . . . All these Doctrines are deliverd by the Jesuites either expressly or at least implicitly; and since they first give [sic] the premises, whereof such rebellious conclusions are the clear and natural issues, ’tis easie to see to whom our late Pamphleteers are beholding for their Destructive Principle, and that they have whet those Swords, wherewith they have cut off the head of their Prince. . . .97

Anglican preachers, along with John Dryden, Thomas Jordan, and others, were offering the king instruction on the need for action against these distributors of false news. They were also contributing to a discourse which depicted all criticism of the government as part of a cunning deception designed by ambitious men who cared only for their own private gain. Equally important, the censures of the moderate establishments in church and state were exposed as the instruments of extremist factions which might be papist or fanatic—in either case the destructive consequences would be the same. There were claims during the reigns of both Charles I and II that government censorship aimed to cut the godly off from the Word and to keep the people in darkness. Similar claims were made in favor of liberty of conscience after 1668: to coerce one’s conscience was the highest form of

5: pulpits and sermons

159

tyranny. This potent argument was answered in kind in late 1675. Choosing a passage from 2 Peter 3:16, one of the king’s Chaplains denounced fanatic claims that Scripture should be freely interpreted by all Christians. Miles Barnes argued that Christ had anticipated men’s ability to be misled, indeed “He foresaw there would be false Prophets, and false Teachers, whose business it would be to seduce the Ignorant, and Debauch the Credulous. . . . [Therefore] He appointed Overseers and Pastors of His Flock” and gave them authority.”98 Of course, in keeping with the government’s ideology, spiritual overseers and pastors were to be supported by secular authority. By 1676, the calls for action seen in earlier sermons and in advice to the Lord Mayors were also being heard throughout the country. In an Assize Sermon at York, Thomas Cartwright offered the Judges instruction which must have chilled the hearts of the government’s adversaries. He was appalled to think that there were those who would “blaspheme GOD and the KING, and deflower the Beauty of his Crown with Satyrical Invectives, and gratifie his Enemies with Libels against his Person and Government.” In words directed at all “good Subjects and Christians,” but meant particularly for the Judges, he demanded that they “apprehend such Disloyal Thiefs, Whom you take Pillaging your Princes Good Name; the forward Receiver of any evil report, being as bad as he that brings it. And remember that Railing against Kings was a Capital Crime in David’s Judgement, who commanded Solomon to put Shimei to death for it.”99 The official attitude to false news was being made clear throughout the nation. Also, the Anglican preachers were providing the necessary scriptural authority for the punishment of the government’s critics. Indeed, the heightened virulence of the demands for harsh reprisals was a sign of the government’s growing confidence and resolve. The king and his church were to be defended with resolution and firmness. Not only were attacks on his reputation, person, and policies to be answered, but in the future authors, printers, and distributors of such calumnies would be hunted down and punished with increasing regularity. The failed Test of 1675, the fifteen-month prorogation, and the knowledge of Danby’s growing support in both Houses caused the government’s enemies to intensify their charges of arbitrary government. Their charges were contrasted with their own concern for English liberties, and contributed to the increasing ideological divisions after 1667–72.100 In a perfect example of the government’s concern for public opinion, this challenge was answered in the Theater, in prose, and from the pulpit. Demands for liberty were characterized as an artifice which served the private interests looking to undermine the public order. In addition, demands for liberty were described as a threat to the unity in church and state. By drawing on the recent past, the preachers and polemicists provided horrifying examples of the consequences of the type of “liberty” demanded.

160

courting the moderates


Few could have forgotten the fallout from the liberty experienced in the 1650s. Arguments that liberty was from God had led directly to the radical sectarianism which then spawned the military tyranny. This precedent was used repeatedly to counter the claims of arbitrary rule in the late 1670s. Calls for unbridled liberty were met with the argument that “the natural consequences of this would be the overthrow of all Laws, and Order, and Government in the World. . . . And so this imaginary notion of a boundless liberty will appear to be only one of the false colours that sin puts upon evil, on purpose to tempt men to the commission of them.”101 With the real purpose of the calls for liberty exposed to the public, preachers were careful to identify liberty with the divisions which had haunted the land during the civil war. The real danger of false liberty was schism, which “breaks the Precious Unity of the Church. . . . And instead of Love, Joy, Peace . . . [which] secure the Publick Peace, There arises Hatred, Variance, Wrath, Strife, Evil Surmising, Sedition, Heresies, Murders, Those ugly Works of the Flesh, which dissolve the Bonds of Society, and exclude Men from the Kingdom of God.”102 The panoply of ills listed above must have lessened the attraction of liberty for many. So long as the government and court was exhibiting its devotion to the Protestant religion, the moderate church provided a comfortable via media between papist tyranny and the anarchy of boundless liberty. Furthermore, the demand for increased liberty was designed to serve and “promote the Interests of a little Tribe or Faction.” For the sake of their “private and particular Notions and Opinions, regardless . . . [of] the good of the Church, and the peace of the World.”103 This was the same stratagem used in 1641, and indeed by the zealots in ancient Jerusalem, who made use of religion “only as a cloak to cover their malice and ill nature, their rapine and violence, and the greatest villainy and oppression.”104 Cave’s decision to relate his opinions about liberty to the biblical past proved wholly unnecessary when it came to providing instruction to the king’s Judges. For Thomas Cartwright, “True Liberty” was to be found in obedience to the laws: When Men fling off their Obedience . . . [they demand] a Liberty to manifest [their] folly and wickedness, to be unjust and unruly. . . . [This] is the greatest Slavery on this side of Hell; and yet a little more of this Liberty they would fain have . . . The Crowd would fain be let loose, to do what they please; which Freedom . . . they are taught (by them who best know how to set a Rebellion on foot) to pretend Conscience . . . for all their Aims and Actions, how dark and dangerous soever; which fond pretense hath in all Ages bid defiance to the Swords and Scepters of Sovereign Princes, and Countermanded the Laws of

5: pulpits and sermons

161

their Inacting; and wherever the Rabble had a mind to Rebel, every thing . . . was their Conscience.105

The ideological challenge presented by demands for liberty was being answered from the pulpit with references to scripture, reason, and evidence of recent history. The use of conscience was shown to be a cloak for schism and disobedience and the first giant step on the road to rebellion. The preachers’ praise for the conformity resulting from an Established Church flowed easily into a defense of unity in the state. In this view, any dissent from the former was inevitably a threat to the latter: Such insinuations as Liberty of Conscience, and Priviledg [sic] of the Subject, when there is no unjust invasion of either, are stale and fulsome; the Design is smelt, like Gunpowder, at a distance; nor can we now so easily be cheated into our own ruine, to satisfie the Malice, Avarice, or Ambition of a few: And certainly we must be infatuated or bewitch’d, if we are twice in the same Age vanquished by one Little Stratagem.106

The ability to contrast liberty or conscience with obedience and Christianity was a key aspect of the official polemic. The church was crucial to making the connection between nonconformist liberty and rebellious ambition. At the same time that government actions and policies were making the king’s moderation, justice, and Protestantism apparent to the nation, the political culture was swamped with evidence of the deceit, hypocrisy, and rebellious nature of the king’s critics. In addition to a willingness to answer its critics and their arguments, the government also showed its readiness to attack their leaders directly, both in print and from the pulpit.
The sermons that emanated from the government after 1674 were a driving force in establishing the tone of government propaganda. Preachers helped to lead the condemnation of libelers and false news; they repeatedly denounced the calls for liberty of conscience as a type of schism which led inevitably to civil disorders; they publicized the scriptural warnings about “murmurings” and “reproaches to authority”; most dramatically, the pulpits resounded with vivid descriptions of the way religion was once again being used as a cloak to disguise the private interest and rebellious intentions of the government’s critics. In the end, preachers allied with the government did yeoman’s work in discrediting the ideology of liberty and conscience and redefining it as a blind for ambition and disobedience. There was one more task for the government preachers to perform. As the insinuations of popery and arbitrary government were leveled at the

162

courting the moderates

government with increasing regularity, the king’s Chaplains managed to “tune the pulpits” so that they struck a similar chord designed to disparage the leading critics of the king and his government. In the summer of 1675, a sermon which focused on an Old Testament figure, Corah, combined a hostility to misinformation with a subtle attack on those—like Corah— who used fabrications and lies to manipulate the people. According to the suitably named Richard Standfast, “violent men, to carry on a design, will dare to say that which they themselves do not believe: and do these things for the supporting of the Cause. . . . ’Tis a bad cause doubtless that must be carried on by Lying and Libelling, by Slanders and Forgeries, by Flattery and Dissimulations; which, with whomsoever they are found, will be evidence sufficient to convict such men to be Deceivers and Seducers.”107 Corah had seduced the Jews into calling Moses and Aaron to account, and this “hath ever been the practice of Factious and Seditious persons; . . . to perswade the people to think well of themselves, and ill of their Governours. . . . By all which it doth appear, that their aim was to change the Government, both in Church and State, and so Prince and Priest go down together.”108 In the years to come, simply exposing the designs and stratagems of the king’s opponents was considered insufficient. After a rash of pamphlets which characterized the failed 1675 Test as the height of arbitrary government, the political culture sponsored by the government began to focus its attacks more directly on the leaders of the faction. If there were incessant attempts to mislead the people, then there must be some evil agency at work. It was a truth universally acknowledged, that “the vulgar part of Mankind look upon their Superiors, that as they stand under higher and stronger obligation to Virtue and Piety, so they are furnished with happier advantages of understanding the true natures and differences of things. . . . Vice is never more fatally prosperous and successful, than when it has the patronage of great Examples to recommend it.”109 By this point in time, there can have been little doubt that the “superiors” described were best exemplified by the earl of Shaftesbury. He had demonstrated the rankest ingratitude in turning against the king after 1673, he had fomented the divisions between the two Houses in 1675, and he was to continue to act as Danby’s greatest foe until 1679.110 The attacks on Shaftesbury became more and more apparent after his release from the Tower in 1677. His popularity was recognized as a serious threat to the government, and the subject of numerous attacks from the pulpit. By 1678 leaders like Shaftesbury were conflated with the worst villains in history, and their concern for liberty and conscience described as a fiendish attempt to destroy established authority.111 More importantly, a particular leader was singled out as the cause of the nation’s woes. When Thomas Sprat preached before the king in 1678, he took time to ponder

5: pulpits and sermons

163

“the most dangerous Animosities, and Schisms, that have infected the Christian Church.” He concluded that the greatest divisions had “most frequently risen from a Factious Admiration of some particular Man . . . some Head of a Party, some Author of an Opinion?”112 Again, there could have been no doubt that Shaftesbury was the man described in this passage. In the same way that sermons at court helped prepare the way for stricter censorship and the hostility to misinformation, the thinly veiled attacks on Shaftesbury might have been preparing public opinion for the arrest of the “Head of the Party.” Indeed, the publication of Absalom and Achitophel was used to generate support for his arrest in 1681. In the end, it was the exposure of the king’s secret dealings with Louis XIV—and Danby’s complicity therein—which destroyed the edifice so carefully constructed by the Lord Treasurer. However successful the government’s propaganda campaign may have been in the 1670s, the repeated warnings about the deceptions, lies, and disguised intentions of the king’s opponents were easily turned against the government after Ralph Montagu presented the dreadful evidence of Danby’s participation in a papist scheme to liberate the king from Parliament. Indeed, this was the very height of arbitrary rule: a government in cahoots with the leader of militant Catholicism in an attempt to eliminate representative institutions and, in all likelihood, to restore the Roman Catholic Religion in England. The Anglican Church was to return to its privileged position in England after 1681, but for a few years its calls for duty and obedience to established authority were viewed with deep suspicion. In many people’s eyes, the polemics of the Restoration church and the rhetoric of moderation were considered part of a grand design to overthrow the ancient constitution. Still, the collapse of Danby’s government in 1679 should not be taken as evidence that sermons emanating from the court were ineffective. Like so much of the official propaganda, the ideological plausibility of the sermons was what made a foreign threat—the Popish Plot—so necessary to bringing Danby to the Tower and, more importantly, so necessary for the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament.

6 Propaganda in Prose Thanks to the Licensing Act and the harsh penalties for sedition, the government’s control over the public and the private Theaters provided the opportunity for something akin to the cultural hegemony discussed by Gramsci. The limited number of venues for performance, along with the government imprimatur required for printed matter, served to identify most aspects of the political culture as either illegal or official. While there was plenty of illegal material, the vast majority of the nation still viewed sedition as the “feminine part of rebellion” and the most dangerous weapon available to those who supported the good old cause. However, the continuing divisions within the court and the growing discord between the religious policies of the Cabal and those of the Established Church opened the door to criticisms of official policy. When the Cabal allowed various defenses of liberty to appear after 1668, a torrent of opposition pamphlets appeared.1 But the opportunity to present alternatives to the official ideology soon led to the recall of Sir Roger L’Estrange. We have already seen his zeal as Licenser and Surveyor of the Press following 1662, and he continued to tilt at nonconformists whenever the Privy Council saw fit to renew his powers. Fortunately for the government, the Surveyor was to prove an important ally as they marched toward an entirely novel type of conflict with the Dutch.2 In the course of the Third Dutch War, William of Orange became so desperate to destroy the Anglo–French alliance that he initiated a propaganda campaign designed to influence English public opinion and destroy popular support for the conflict. Using a former secretary of the earl of Arlington, Pierre Du Moulin, William sponsored pamphlets intended to expose the arbitrary and papist aspects of the war. The Declaration of Indulgence and the Stop of the Exchequer were both resented in England, and Du Moulin hoped to build on this resentment in order to undermine any support for a war against fellow Protestants. The exchange of warring pamphlets during these years had two important consequences: beginning with the defenses of liberty discussed in De Krey’s “First Restoration Crisis” and continuing with the Dutch efforts to undermine public support 164

6: propaganda in prose

165

for the War, the pamphlet emerged as the most popular genre for controversy and debate; secondly, the similarities to the 1640s convinced the government to respond in kind with pamphlets sponsored directly from the court. In particular, pamphlets which went beyond the presentation of official views to address and to confute the seditious arguments offered against them. Like the plays and sermons in these years, a more aggressive tone is apparent, along with a more explicit course of instruction for the loyal subject. In the end, the give and take of this pamphlet conflict made the ideological divisions in the nation, and in the political culture, evident to all. At the beginning of the confrontation, the traditional English enthusiasm for war with the Dutch was plain. Dreams of military glory and the City merchants’ dreams of making further inroads into the resented prosperity of their Dutch competitors meant that the criticisms in Du Moulin’s pamphlets were largely ignored. The politic revocation of the Indulgence and Shaftesbury’s rousing speech at the opening of Parliament persuaded most MPs that they ought to assist the king in protecting the nation’s honor and commerce. Despite these initial successes in the public sphere, the resignations of James and Lord Treasurer Clifford—due to the Test Act—gave Du Moulin the opportunity to portray the war against co-religionists, the issue of a Catholic heir, and the religious policy of the Cabal as part of the expanding Catholic influence at the highest levels of power. At the same time, the growing affinity for all things French at court and the duke of York’s brazen decision to marry a Catholic against the wishes of Parliament lent additional credence to the Dutch incriminations. By 1673 support for the government and the war—from Anglican Royalists as well as from nonconformists—was replaced by fears of the Franco-Catholic tendencies of the king and his successor. Naturally, the role of the public sphere in this transition was not lost on the government: the lively printed debate on liberty and conscience coincided with a Dutch propaganda campaign which provided an important lesson about freedom of the press. Consequently, the 1670s would witness an unprecedented effort to control and to provide information to the public. Following the Peace in 1674, the court showed a renewed commitment to controlling all forms of political culture. These efforts are apparent in the increasing sponsorship of pamphlets defending government actions and in the attempt to limit both the printing and the distributing of criticism and false news.
Reflections on the King and nation were to play a large role in the attempt to justify the Third Dutch War to the people. The Dutch annoyance at Charles’s ready abandonment of the Triple Alliance was manifested in a

166

courting the moderates

number of scurrilous pamphlets, pictures, and medals. In response, a further crackdown on the distribution of false news was ordered once it was learned that “under the Pretence of selling Gazettes and Newsbooks, Hawkers vend sedition.” Frustrated at this means of circumventing the controls on booksellers, in the summer of 1670 the government ordered magistrates not to permit “Hawkers, whether men or women to carry about, cry, or disperse any Gazettes, Newsbooks, Libells, or other Pamphlets whatsoever. . . . They are all such to be forthwith apprehended and sent to the House of Correction to be there kept at hard Labor.”3 Hard labor may have been a light sentence in 1670, but the point was made about official attitudes towards the free flow of information. A similar concern for reputation can be seen in the fact that New Englanders—no great friends of the monarchy—resented the insults aimed at Charles II: “as for our King; they have most vilely abused him by strange, base pictures & representacions, & that these many yeers, that flesh & blood is not able to bear it. Touching their drunkenness, it is grown proverbiall; & for their long feastings & compotations they have hardly their paralele. Certanly God is highly provoked by them.”4 The importance placed on public opinion and political culture during the Restoration is further demonstrated by the fact that the government never relied on repression alone. In 1670, not long after the departure of his sister, the duchess d’Orleans, the king “suggested” to John Evelyn the idea of writing an account of the previous Dutch War. Evelyn recorded how Charles ordered the “Secretaries of State to give me all the necessary assistance of papers and particulars relating to it, and enjoyning [sic] me to make it a little keene, for that the Hollanders had very unhandsomely abus’d him in their pictures, books and libells.”5 Evelyn must have been working on this project throughout the Third Dutch War, but the book was not completed before the peace in 1674 and was quickly withdrawn by the king. This is unfortunate, for Evelyn’s views would undoubtedly have been of a higher order than the views expressed in some pamphlets printed in the next two years. The only remaining evidence of this tract is the introduction; after fifty pages in which he glorifies the virtues of commerce, Evelyn did make it a “little keene.” He claimed that the right of the flag had been long granted to the English kings: nor has this been so much as question’d, till that arch rebel, for ends of his own, would once have betray’d it, and that late demagogue De Witt, with no less insolence, would have perverted his countrymen, by entering into an injuros disquisition in justification of the warr he would have made us swallow, but his Majesty was not to be so hector’d out of his right.6

Evelyn’s ad hominem attacks and prickliness about the striking of flags are less significant than his attitudes concerning demagogues and public opin-

6: propaganda in prose

167

ion. But justifications for war—a war which coincided with the Declaration of Indulgence and the Stop of the Exchequer—required more populist reasons. Accordingly, a host of hastily prepared pamphlets were licensed in the early months of the conflict. In the summer following the declaration of war, a lengthy pamphlet entitled A Justification of the Present War Against the United Netherlands was licensed by L’Estrange.7 An ardent defense of the king’s justification for initiating the hostilities, this book concentrated on the importance of the reputation and credit of the king to all Englishmen. The concern for reputation may be a poor pretense for going to war, but its importance in this period should not be underestimated. In 1663 Sir Roger L’Estrange considered a loss of reputation to be one of the best deterrents to seditious publishers. He suggested that offenders be “condemn’d to wear some visible Badge, or Marque of Ignominy, as a Halter instead of Hat-Band, one Stocking Blew, and another Red: a Blue Bonnet with Red T. or S. upon it, to Denote . . . Treason, or Sedition. . . . This proposal may seem Phantastique at first sight; but certainly there are Many Men who had rather suffer any other Punishment than to be made Publiquely Ridiculous.”8 Thanks in part to the pamphlet debate over liberty of conscience, we now find prose expositions with the same emphasis on hierarchy and the didactic nature of history already seen in Dryden and Jordan: [T]he experience of all ages doth confirm it for a truth. It is no vain, or empty design, for a prince to preserve that credit and renown which appertains unto his quality; it is hereby that he shall insure himself of those that waver in their friendship or allegiance; it is hereby, that he shall retain his armies in discipline and courage; it is hereby, that he shall continue in his other subjects their due reverence and respect. In fine, the reputation of a prince is all in all; and, that being once lost, the most powerful and prudent remedies become ineffectual to the support of his crown and tranquility of his dominions.9

Besides threatening the stability of England, such libels were an affront to the entire nation. The monarch could not be self-interested in such a case. The union of the king and people was placed in stark contrast to the efforts to divide the nation for the sake of particular, selfish, factious reasons. The mutuality of interest, the literary and actual conflation of king and people, made it imperative for Charles to act. To fail to do so would have been a dereliction of duty of the first order on the part of any monarch: whatsoever private citizens may do, in some cases, princes do not discharge their duty, nor take the requisite care for their subjects, if they do not avenge notorious contumelies and indignities. . . . [S]uch of them as are negligent in this case, do not only run into great perils from foreign kings, but from their own domesticks and subjects, who will be prone to despise, trample upon, and ruin them. . . . [D]ivines and civilians [agree and] do not allow a prince the

168

courting the moderates

liberty to pardon indignities and contumelies done to his person, because his reputation is not properly his own, his subjects share therein. . . . 10

In a final remark concerning the importance of political culture and its images, the writer clarified the government’s position on libels in creating and determining lasting impressions in political life: “Men ought to be cautious how they irritate an enemy by contumelious language, and other indignities, since the impressions thereof are more violent and durable in the minds of men than what are accessioned by common, and even grevious injuries.”11 This piece is followed by a letter from Dr. Collins, physician to the Czar. The letter offers another account of the importance of visual images in popular culture: The Hollanders have another advantage, by rendering the English cheap and ridiculous, by their lying pictures, and libelling pamphlets; this makes the Russian think us a ruined nation. They represent us by a lion painted, with three crowns reversed, and without tail. . . . With many such scandalous prints, being more ingenious in the use of their pencils than pens. These stories take much with the barbarous people, when nobody is present to contradict them.12

The same rhetoric was used to justify and announce the war when the king printed the official Declaration against the States Generall for public consumption. Charles looked to rouse the nation with reports of how the Dutch “dare be so bold with Our Royal Person, and the Honour of this Nation so near Us, as in their own Countrey, there being scarce a Town within their territories that is not filled with abusive Pictures, and false Historical Medals and Pillars; some of which have been exposed to the publick view by command of the States themselves.”13 This Declaration was printed in the Gazette in March 1672, and was accompanied by the king’s Declaration of Indulgence. While the Indulgence was unquestionably a bid to secure some form of toleration for both dissenters and Catholics, the government also considered it wise not to be persecuting the nonconformists while at war with the Dutch.14 For years, government spies—among them Aphra Behn—had kept a close watch on revolutionary plotting in the United Provinces and reported on the close ties between English republicans and the Netherlands.15 The war was certain to be risky enough without the added threat of fifth column activity at home. While both governments were keenly aware of the importance of public opinion in sustaining an effective war effort, the English were particularly concerned about efforts to disaffect the people. As early as May 1672, there were reports that the Dutch would adopt this course of action: The King, hearing that among other malicious practices of the Dutch they intend to send over by the English ships that are discharged a quantity of

6: propaganda in prose

169

scurrilous and seditious pamphlets to disinfect his subjects, wishes you to order the officers as well as the outposts to search for such books . . . and examine the masters on oath what books or prints they bring.16

Perhaps the most interesting result of this incipient propaganda war was the cooperation between the political pamphleteers and the English or Dutch government which supported them. On one side, Pierre Du Moulin, a former secretary of Arlington who became disenchanted with that minister’s increasing affection for France, signed on with William of Orange to lead the opposition to the new English foreign policy. In his first action in the Dutch service, Du Moulin suggested a Memorial in response to the English declaration of war. This Memorial was to consist of attempts to persuade, divide and intimidate the Cabal; attempts to pressure Charles and lead him to distrust his ministers, and, finally, and most important, attempts by intrigue and propaganda to cause trouble for Charles and danger for his ministers by giving Parliament a sense of the dangers of the French alliance and by joining hands with the Country party in opposition.17

Having served Arlington in Sweden and France, Du Moulin was all too familiar with the nuances of English politics. He hoped that by providing the English with uncensored news he could bring them to their senses and enlighten them as to the consequences of accepting a French alliance. He also knew enough of the situation in London to distribute his propaganda at the opening of parliamentary Sessions: To kindle this fire, all hands are at work to provide combustible matter, and no endeavors will be omitted to blow it up into a flame. That in order to this Monsr Fagel was preparing an elaborate Manifest and Remonstrance which should be ready to come forth at the first session of Parliament. To keep time with this there is another Tractate . . . intended to be addressed to the Parliament, entitled England’s Appeal from the Cabal at Whitehall to the Supreme Council of the Kingdom.18

The government in London was in no way a stranger to such practices, nor was it ignorant of Dutch activities. Officials at every southern port were vigilant in their attempts to uncover the importation of Dutch propaganda. Early in this war of pens, two Dutch emissaries, Zas and Arton, arrived in England without credentials—ostensibly to treat for peace. The pair was arrested and brought before the Council in January 1673. Despite the protestations of Zas and Arton, the Privy Councillors denounced them as spies sent to influence the Parliament and clapped them in the Tower. Shaftesbury, the Chancellor, provided the final nail in their coffin by stating, “Is not this a time (to speak plainly) of disturbing the King’s service? The Parliament approaches.”19 If there were any doubt about the

170

courting the moderates

need to counter the Dutch influence, it was dispelled with this incident. Public denunciations of the Dutch tactics were voiced in Parliament, with Secretary Coventry condemning the attempt to shatter the unity and concord so cherished in the official propaganda: “did not [the Dutch] pursue our ruin by all imaginable ways? . . . Those fellows are in the Tower now, that brought pretended treaties from Holland . . . all in hopes of setting up a difference betwixt the King and his Parliament,”20 The echo of 1641 was surely audible to those present, and as always duty and obedience were implied as the only viable alternative. With the ominous alliance between internal fanatics and foreign enemies impending again, the threat of seditious dissent came to the fore. Moreover, Shaftesbury was keenly aware of the damage done by public criticism at the openings of parliamentary Sessions. What made it more threatening than ever was the late articulation of an ideological challenge to the coercive powers of the Anglican Church. Despite the granting of hundreds of individual licenses to preach, the Second Conventicle Act included a chilling example of the resilience of the persecuting state, because Letters went to each Assize Judge with lists of conventicle leaders to be “proceeded against and punished according to law.” At the same time that nonconformists achieved increasing liberty, Archbishop Sheldon returned to the Privy Council, which responded to the discovery of a conventicle with an Order that the “Pulpitt and Seats . . . [were] to be taken away, but alsoe the whole building itselfe to be pulled downe and utterly demolished.”21 In addition, the reactionary response to the public campaign for liberty of conscience continued with a threat to pull down another house “if seditious meetings, under pretence of Religious Worship” continue. For Anglican Royalists, the association of conscience and sedition remained. The recent activities of London dissenters convinced Anglican Royalists that their version of moderation and unity needed to be defended at all costs.22 Once again the peace and unity of the nation was threatened by fanatics as well as papists. For its part, the government prepared to defend its foreign and domestic policies in print. Alerted by the arrest of the Dutch spies, it immediately engaged in similar activities, with a level of collaboration demonstrated in a letter from Henry Stubbe at Whitehall to Sir Joseph Williamson, the king’s Plenipotentiary to the Peace Congress at Cologne.23 Stubbe implored Williamson’s assistance in acquiring materials for two defenses of the king and the royal policies which he was planning. The first, entitled An Apology for the King’s Majesty’s Declaration, concerned the recent rejection of the Dutch offers for peace. Stubbe’s familiarity with the tropes of official propaganda is clear in his proposal for a work which was ostensibly that of an “old commonwealth man” and would expose the overtures of the United Provinces to the faction. The aim of the pamphlet

6: propaganda in prose

171

was to illustrate the Hollanders’ support for rebellion as well as to give the lie to their justifications for the “flag, fishing, and dominion of the seas.” More interesting, however, is the proposed Address to the King’s Subjects. As Stubbe was resident at Whitehall and in touch with Williamson, the approval, if not the outright encouragement, of the government in these endeavors is likely. The Address concentrated on the threat of fanatic plotters, resurrecting a key element of the exclusive discourse of the 1660s, a theme destined to become a central pillar in government propaganda hereafter. In addition to defending the king’s recent uses of the prerogative and making the connection between reputation and prosperity, Stubbe proposed to use the “Dutch contumelies to the King and nation of England” to generate renewed unity. The abstract Stubbe submitted to Williamson reads as follows: I represent his generous concern for his subjects’ welfare and trade. I represent his admirable prudence in the noble conduct of affairs since the Treaty of Breda; I excuse his stop of the Exchequer and Declaration; I descant upon the growth of the Dutch by contumelies to the King and nation of England, and show that the true way to advance trade and every man’s rents is to make the King formidable abroad and honoured at home. I advise to peace and unity. . . . The rule I go by is this: that no nation is more zealous for their honor than the English; that if they be put into a great passion they forget their particular interests and animosities; that the security of the King against Holland or France (if occasion) lies in the affection of his people, and I doubt not by the effects of the first book to make the third most effectual to our peace and union at home.24

The collusion between Stubbe and the government intended to expose how foreign and fanatic efforts to detach the people from their affection for the king were both selfish and dangerous to the nation’s prosperity. The attempt to shatter England’s peace and prosperity was shown to originate from either Holland or France, fanatic or papist. Clearly susceptible to the official views himself, Stubbe presented the continued affections of the people, as well as peace and union at home, as the most likely outcome of official support for his project. The growing complicity between the government and pamphleteers, similar to that already seen with preachers, poets, and playwrights, was to provide greater clarity and coherence to the official propaganda in the years to come. Here again, the offensive propaganda by the Dutch was to be used both to enhance the war effort and to point the way to union and prosperity in England. Stubbe was careful throughout to conflate the interests of the king and people as well as of the king and Parliament. It was not possible to view the insults of the United Provinces as particular to the king; therefore, the fostering of a secular nationalism was necessary to defeat notions that

172

courting the moderates

the interest of England and the United Provinces were one.25 Not surprisingly, the relating of French expansion (territorial and commercial) to the divisions among Protestants was to become the focal point in proDutch propaganda. Hence, secular nationalism was central to Stubbe’s desire to convince the English to forget “their particular interests,” a position with a marked resemblance to Dryden’s comments on private versus public obligations. If Englishmen were to act in unison to combat the “contumelies” of the Dutch and to reassert the nation’s honor, then the conflict would not only result in peace, but also in the advancement of “trade and every man’s rents.”26 The defense of the mutual interests of king and nation indeed had much to offer. Sadly, no matter how popular the previous “trade war” with the Dutch had been with the merchant community, the breaking of the Triple Alliance to side with France had only served to increase the suspicions of the Cabal.27 It was by no means clear what their long range goals were, but whether the government took the path of Buckingham and Shaftesbury or that of Arlington and Clifford, they were destined to alienate the mass of moderates and Anglicans.28 Moreover, even the Dissenters proved more loyal to the rights and privileges of a parliamentary system than to any form of toleration based on the royal prerogative which might include the Catholics. It has been argued that “[t]he [Conventicle] bill itself was the ‘most malicious’ but the last triumph of the royalist churchmen in the Commons. . . . The proviso that the Lords sought to affix to the bill reaffirmed the King’s dispensing power in religion and [according to Andrew Marevell] ‘would have restored Him to all civil or ecclesiastical Prerogatives which his Ancestors had enjoyed at any Time since the Conquest. There was never so compendious a Piece of absolute Tyranny.’ ”29 Marvell, surely the most eloquent spokesman for the nonconformist cause, denounced the Declaration solely on constitutional grounds in his brilliant piece of mockery, The Rehearsal Transpros’d. He considered it, as he had the Conventicle Act of 1670, “the Quintessence of arbitrary Malice.”30 As a result of such criticism, the king accepted the fact that the time was not right for facing his Parliament. Accordingly, the Session scheduled for 16 April was twice prorogued by Proclamation until 4 February 1673. Once the Parliament convened, the Commons immediately demonstrated its obsession with the government’s religious policy. In addition, Supply remained a source of rancor, which the Stop of the Exchequer had only exacerbated. Without abating the government’s insolvency, the Stop had ruined the king’s credit along with many of the Goldsmiths who had invested their money in the Exchequer.31 In addition, this means of circumventing Parliament’s control of the purse was considered highly dangerous. The alliance with France—following a Supply to support the Triple Alliance—also raised some eyebrows, but

6: propaganda in prose

173

domestic issues, in general, and the Declaration of Indulgence, in particular, dominated politics. Clearly, the victor in the battle of pens was as yet undetermined. England’s Appeal, though finished, had not been sent to London in time to coincide with the February Session. Shaftesbury’s speech at the opening of Parliament was a ringing defense of the war and included his now famous reference to Juvenal, Delenda est Carthago! This identification of the Dutch as the national enemy (regardless of family or religious affiliations) meant that the total destruction of Holland was essential to the security and future prosperity of England. The Lord Chancellor’s diplomatic views were accepted without criticism by the Parliament and ordered printed by the Lords.32 In contrast to the government’s preoccupation with the war, the Commons was ultimately concerned with domestic issues, a concern which was immediately apparent. The battle lines were drawn when Charles, in his speech from the throne, defended the war, requested money for the army, the navy, and the payment of debts, and insisted that the he would “take any contradiction of his policy [of Indulgence] ill.” The Commons immediately denounced the by-elections ordered by Shaftesbury during the prorogation and voided all thirty-six returns. It then resolved on an address to the king, insisting that penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical could not be suspended but by Act of Parliament. With characteristic flexibility— after a brief stand and a second address—Charles gave in and withdrew the Declaration.33 The disenchantment at court with this parliamentary victory was evident in a pamphlet of that year. Although the majority of nonconformists had turned against the Declaration once they were convinced that it was, in all likelihood, a first step toward a return to Rome, an anonymous author felt it were greatly to be wished, that there were more love and charity amongst us; and that all men would consider seriously what they do, when they take it upon themselves thus to impose their own principles upon all others, as such that are only right, and condemn all others, as erroneous; this is to magnify themselves as infallible, and despise all others.34

The comparison of strict conformity with Papal infallibility was a good scoring point, but too little and too late. With a Proclamation announcing the king’s breaking the Great Seal and another enforcing the penal laws against papists, it was noted in Nottingham that the “news was received with so much joy that bells and bonfires rang and flamed as they never did since the Restoration. The Fanatics contended with the Conformists who should show most zeal in expressing their joy.”35 But Parliament was not to be so easily pressured or placated. After voting a Supply of £70,000 per

174

courting the moderates

month for eighteen months, the Commons held the Supply hostage to the Test Act, refusing to send up the money Bill until the Test passed in the Upper House. The Bill met with last minute resistance in the Lords, led, not surprisingly, by the Treasurer’s attempt to exclude the servants of both the Queen and James from the Test. This attempt was eventually abandoned in the quest for money. On 29 March Charles signed both the Supply and the Test Bills into law and adjourned the Houses until October. In one sense this meeting was a success for the government. Charles was granted over a million in Supply for the upcoming campaign and the longdreaded attack on his foreign policy never developed. Shaftesbury’s description of Holland as England’s natural enemy had not been contradicted by anyone, the Dutch intrigues in Parliament of which the government had been so afraid had failed to materialize, and the Dutch had entirely failed to exploit the disharmony between king and Parliament to their own advantage. The French alliance remained unchallenged, and a second campaign against the Dutch was now possible which, if successful, would immeasurably strengthen Charles.36

In fact, the only real attempt to foment trouble in the Parliament had been thwarted when Abraham van Bemde was arrested. However, the Session had shown that the fear of the fanatics which had justified the Clarendonian persecution now had an evil twin in the growing fear of popery and arbitrary government. Anglicans were joining with nonconformists to prevent a religious settlement which comprehended Catholics and was based on the royal prerogative. If, by 1673, the popularity of Shaftesbury’s Delenda est Carthago! speech provided proof that the efforts of Du Moulin were unsuccessful, then the passage of the Test Act provided the key which unlocked the Pandora’s Box of English opposition. It was now clear that the last point of England’s Appeal would become the focus of Dutch propaganda: “to make known the pernicious ends and aims of the contrivers of this war and league, viz. for the destruction of the Protestant religion, and the subversion of the fundamental laws of this kingdom.”37 Following the February Session of 1673, the polemic salvos of Du Moulin struck with increasing accuracy. The menace of popery and arbitrary government was fertile soil in which to nurture the seeds of political dissent. Additional nutrients were graciously provided by an incident which exposed just how high the influence of Rome had reached. On 17 May “the people about towne entertain[ed] themselves with a story concerning my Lord Treasurer being overthrowne in his coach as he was comeing privately from Somersett House with Father Patricke on Whit Sunday eve.” Another report gave a fuller account, and lamented the effect the occurrence would have both on public opinion and the Parliament:

6: propaganda in prose

175

The whole towne is now no longer in doubt of my L.T.’s being a Roman Catholique . . . [for] such was the misfortune that that afternoone, comeing out of Somersett House in a private coach . . . [it] was unfortunately overthrowne, and his Lordship and the Father exposed to the view of the streete, one bringing his hatt, another his perriwig, with complements that they were sorry for the mischance. . . . [G]reat wagers are laid dayly in the coffeehouses about the meeting of the Parliament, some saying they must, others they cannot safely meet.38

Worse still, James’s Catholicism was now an open secret and the Indulgence was remembered “as as [sic] great a Prerogative Act as hath been done this good while”—an action which smacked a bit too much of the arbitrary and absolute form of government often associated with popery.39 The relationship between arbitrary government, popery, and the French alliance was just the combination which the writers of Dutch propaganda hoped to use to convince the English people that their liberties were threatened by the alliance with France. The political nation was neither surprised nor reassured when both the Lord Treasurer and the duke of York resigned their places in June—refusing on the last possible date to take the Oath required by the Test.40 Every effort, of course, was made to limit public awareness and reaction to these developments. Robert Southwell reported that “His Royall Highness has thought fit to surrender all his charges and imployments, and the enclosed proclamation is for the direction of such as acted by his commissions; butt this proclamation is not to be printed, and only to passe the Great Seale, with copyes thereof to such as are concerned therein.”41 When later in the summer Prince Rupert returned from the battle off the Texel so incensed at the conduct of the French that he swore “not to goe out with them againe,” it appeared certain that the pro-French policy could not survive another meeting of Parliament.42 Officials were well aware how easily an anti-French stance might be a rallying point for opponents of the government. Indeed, the hostility to the French alliance had reached the point where “to speak the language of the town, we have so much kindness and respect [for France], that our only business, though to the prejudice of our own affairs, is to please them, with which opinion people are so strangely led away, that they are ready to adore those they think oppose the French interest at Court, so that any great man might at a cheap rate make himself their darling.”43 If this opinion were insufficient to lead the people away, then the current reports running through the country of the intended marriage of James to the Catholic Princess Mary of Modena would certainly have added to the government’s concerns about public opinion and the need for better control of information. The attractiveness of this match was not enhanced by the rumors that her dowry was to be paid by none other than Louis XIV.44

176

courting the moderates

The accounts of popular attitudes reaching Williamson must have contributed to the tone of the official newsletters and their efforts to put a positive spin on the royal matchmaking: A courier has brought the news from Modena that the treaty of marriage is concluded, and that the Princess may be expected in two months. She will be received here with all the joy and satisfaction imaginable. His Royal Highness has been these two days complimented by the whole court on his intended marriage.45

But the bullish reporting in the newsletter was unable to assuage those distressed by the growth of popery, and the attitudes of those near the king. Williamson learned of public attitudes as well as the nature of writings circulating in London: “The people continue their averseness to Popery, and dayly comes pamphlets and bookes against it, one of which is enclosed, as is also a strange ugly thing about Baxter, which makes a very great noyse, that Dr. Parker should license . . . which I hope he did not.” The dread over the religion of the king’s brother and heir was made worse by reports that the court was filled with the most “debaucht profane persons and publique atheists which they say openly they learne of the D. of B., one yesterday publickly in company I am told saying he believed neither Heaven nor Hell. These kind of reports make the Towne full of malicious libels. I am told of severall, and promised the copyes of some which I dare not venture by the Post.”46 It was in this context of increasing dissatisfaction, as well as sales of England’s Appeal amplifying the outcry over the pervasive Catholic influence at court, that Charles turned to Thomas Osborne. The hostility to the war, to the Cabal, and to the prospect of a papist successor at last convinced the king to turn to his Anglican Royalists supporters once more. The parliamentary majority of nearly one hundred enjoyed by Clarendon at the height of his power had evaporated in the course of the war.47 In the hope of regaining that support and of depriving Dutch pamphlets of so many easy targets, the king looked to Osborne, an ardent royalist and strict Anglican. From the moment this change of faces became known, it led to public satisfaction to find “a new face of things to turne to the olde Protestants againe.”48 The new minister held discussions with the king, offering Charles advice which provided proof of the ability of Dutch propaganda to turn public opinion against the government. Osborne prepared talking points for his discussions with Charles, and in two early meetings with the king, he spoke of the need to end the war and of the absolute necessity at all times and “in all things to promote the Protestant interest both att home and abroad.” He explained how essential it was “to keepe firme to the Triple Alliance, and to indeavour to bring all Protestant

6: propaganda in prose

177

princes into itt.” He assured the king that a firm commitment to the Protestant interest, combined with rigid honesty in finance, would enable the king to regain the Crown’s many natural adherents and lessen the dependence on parliamentary grant.49 At the same time, the new Treasurer aimed to regain the support of those who, while opposing the Declaration during the debates in 1673, still believed that “all the parties gather about the King as their pillar, the sons of the Church to uphold it, the Dissenters for Indulgence, the Recusants for their preservation against the storm; though they stand at a distance from one another, on the several sides of the pillar, and in truth, in the mouth of all he is beloved.”50 Illness prevented Osborne from attending most of the Session beginning 27 October, but there is little anyone could have done to salvage the government’s position. Nonetheless, his influence at court can be seen as early as June, when Williamson heard that “the people are extreamely pleased to see the Duke of Ormonde called into the Cabinett Councell againe, for, to speak their words, he is a good Protestant and Englishman.”51 Ormonde was an unimpeachable Royalist, and his return to the Council was intended to deflect accusations regarding the lack of Protestants among the king’s advisors. The recess beginning 29 March had been an adjournment, and Charles decided that a short prorogation—one week—was in order. This curious maneuver was due to the anticipated criticism of the duke of York’s second marriage and the need for further Supply. Significantly, the ceremonies attending the introduction of new peers on 20 October was deliberately prolonged by the Lord Chancellor, an early example of Shaftesbury’s shifting allegiances. Because of this delay, before the Black Rod reached the Commons to summon them for the prorogation, members of the lower House forced the Speaker to take the Chair. Next came a short speech which complained that it was in vain to suppress popery in the nation “if it got a footing so near the throne; that the Duke of York had intentions to marry a papist, an Italian lady of the House of Modena, kin to two Cardinals,” and ended with a motion requesting a halt to the Duke’s nuptials.52 However, by the time the new Session opened on 27 October, Mary of Modena was safely arrived in London and the marriage consummated. The king would not be dictated to on the issue of royal weddings, but he was wise enough to silence his parliamentary critics with a weeklong adjournment, thereby depriving his opponents of the public relations opportunity to oppose the match from the floor of the two Houses. This was not the last time that a royal wedding was to be carefully timed in relation to a parliamentary Session. Pierre Du Moulin was not the type to miss so apt a moment to strike. Realizing the success of England’s Appeal and foreseeing the outrage at James’s insensitivity in his choice of spouse, Du Moulin sent a letter to Charles purporting to be from the Estates General offering peace terms:

178

courting the moderates

When Charles received it, he remarked that it was more like a manifesto than a letter, and indeed it was plainly intended to be printed and distributed in London (as was duly done), and, being dated 15/25 October, was timed to coincide with the opening of Parliament on the 20th.53

This letter, along with the king’s answer to it, was later published by the government as The letter sent by the States General . . . to His Majesty together with His Majesty’s Answer to said letter. The writings of Du Moulin were compelling the government to conduct negotiations in public in order to avoid the complete loss of public support. By the end of 1673 the concern for public opinion was having an important influence on the king’s foreign policy. This thrust, along with England’s Appeal, hit home with many MPs. Despite the king’s protestations that his desire for peace was thwarted by Dutch truculence, the Parliament insisted on raising grievances before considering further support for the war. In addition, the marriage of James had brought concerns about the succession to the forefront once again. This volatile issue guaranteed that the questions of foreign policy and the growth of popery were now inextricably linked in people’s minds. Indeed, Thomas Osborne’s initial task would be to put this matter to rest. In a striking alteration in public opinion, a series of events and a steady stream of Dutch propaganda persuaded many that the danger to English commerce and liberties was now greater from the aspirations for universal monarchy which emanated from France rather than the States.54 The protectionist policies of Colbert and the French conduct in the war convinced many that England was being used as a pawn to assist the aggrandizement of Catholicism on the continent. The French alliance had been denounced since the battle of the Texel. For example, Rupert and M. Martel had printed accounts of the action, so the coffee-houses and from them the people continue their too open hate to the French, and discourse of them with the greatest contempt imaginable; . . . a letter is published in manuscript about Town pretended to be writt by Mons Martell to the French King, not only in his own defense for fighting without orders, but accusing the Comte d’Estrees of all. . . . This does so inflame the people that every apple-woman makes it a proverbe, Will you fight like the French??55

A significant section of the public suspected that the aim of Louis XIV and his cousins in London was to bring England back into the Roman Catholic fold. These were the very concerns which Dutch propaganda aimed to create. In many ways this success owed as much to the ubiquity of the fears pervading the public sphere as to the polemics of these years. The belief that the king had abandoned his true friends in favor of papist or nonconformist advice was used against him to great effect.

6: propaganda in prose

179

Sir Henry Capel, whose family had suffered greatly for the Stuart cause, hinted broadly that the war was no longer in England’s interests: “If this war was for the maintenance of the Crown and nation, [he] would venture all he has, life and fortune, for it.”56 It seems that Du Moulin’s long-hopedfor melange of popery, arbitrary government, and the French alliance had finally taken. John Ayloff, a member of Du Moulin’s group in England, provided a powerful image of the direction of government policies, causing a considerable scene in the House of Commons by placing a “french sabot under the chair of the Speaker of the House of Commons to indicate the danger of England falling under the domination of french despotism, Popery, and the ‘wooden shoes’ and poverty that went with it.”57 This was just the sort of symbolism which had worked so effectively in the year following the king’s return. Ayloff was well aware that the sabot would serve as the perfect indication of the fascination with French tyranny and despotism as well as the absence of moderation in government circles. The disenchantment of moderates and Anglican Royalists was readily apparent. When the Commons agreed to a motion preventing any further grant of money until the previous Supply was collected, the resolution also insisted that the kingdom be “secured from Popery, Popish Counsels and Councillors.”58 Dutch propaganda was now a driving force in increasing the fear of Catholicism in high places. As a result, the king decided on a short recess in the hope that cooler heads might prevail. In his speech on 4 November, the king implicitly acknowledged the efficacy of Dutch propaganda when he promised to suppress popery. In effect, he accepted that the opposition in Parliament reflected the discontent in the country. In light of this, the need to shape public attitudes was particularly necessary to counter the attacks by the Dutch and others which were clearly undermining support for the government.59 The day after the prorogation the many bonfires and effigies commemorating the Gunpowder Plot must have provided cold comfort for the government’s newfound hostility to papist influence.60 The one-week Session was not to be the last in which the divisions between the government and the legislature resulted in no legislation being passed.61 Before the next Session, Danby wrote notes for a meeting with the king in which he offered his views on the best means of regaining the support of the nation. He was well aware of the support that existed in Parliament and in the nation if the king were only to rely on his loyal allies, the Anglican Royalists. He knew there were many who found itt a greate evill under the sunne that the King’s conscientious good friends are (as they always have been) little regarded, both in themselves as in principles they owne. . . . I assure you it sticks in a great many men’s stomacks, and undoubtedly if such men and their principles were butt att this day regarded, all

180

courting the moderates

would speedily doe well, and on my conscience itt is come to a crisis that if they bee not willingly complyed with all by such as may have oppertunity to doe itt, they will repent and wish they had.62

With this in mind, Osborne approached the king with a memorandum entitled the “State of the present condition of the Crowne,” in which the new Treasurer stated the themes he would rely on over the next five years. To regain [This Parliament], they must be gratified by executing the laws both against popery and nonconformity, and withdrawing apparently from the French interest. . . . As to money, itt is probably to bee feard that [no Parliament] . . . will give anything proportionable to the wants of the Crowne till satisfied in theire feares as to France. . . . . From all which itt seems as if the compliance must necessarily conclude in a resolution to give satisfaction in the point of France.63

Clearly, the success of Dutch propaganda in associating king and court with popery and France had eroded support for the government and the war. While the conflict ended in 1674, Danby was still faced with the task of eliminating the fears over religion and the “French interest” in order to regain the support of parliamentary moderates and public opinion in general. He recognized that fear of papist influence at court was allowing his opponents to seize the initiative in the debates taking place in the public sphere. Danby realized that the basis for the success of the extremists who wished to place further restrictions on the power of the Crown was the connection established between popery and arbitrary government, and “it was the fear of what would happen when James succeeded that gave them their hold over the great body of moderate opinion in the House.”64 The Lord Treasurer expended a great deal of energy in attempting to unravel this Gordian knot created by the Dutch and the English opposition.
The first bolt thrown by the court was the printed Answer to the peace proposals of October. By disputing the Dutch letter (which was printed in tandem with the response) on each point, the author hoped to beat the Dutch at their own game. This pamphlet, dated 17 November, coincided with the king’s Proclamation for the suppression of Popery and the prohibition of Roman Catholics from entering the precincts of Whitehall. The desired reaction was soon related to Williamson: “His Majesties late Order forbidding Roman Catholics the Court, and a subsequent Proclamation for

6: propaganda in prose

181

the putting the laws in execution against them, hath given great satisfaction to the people, and ’tis hoped will allay the impetuous heates that lately appeared in the Parliament and gave that shamefull advantage to his Majesties enemies abroad.”65 Whatever positive effects these actions may have had, it was clear that something grander would be necessary if the king were to salvage anything from his relationship with his cousin Louis. The government was now aware that the Dutch would not respond to the king’s letter “till such time as the Parliament is sitting, and so endeavor to some sinister Impression amongst the people before the king can have leisure by any Publick Reply to discover the facillity of their Insinuations, but I hope they will find the generality of the people more upon their guard then possibly they suppose them.”66 Coventry was certain about the direction of Dutch tactics and their desire to wait for a meeting of Parliament in order to create a “sinister Impression amongst the people.” The importance of public opinion and the timing of “any Publick Reply” can be seen as primary concerns of both sides in the conflict. But if the king and his ministers could easily see through these stratagems, Coventry’s faith in the credulity of the public comes across as half-hearted. In a final attempt to save the alliance and gain an additional grant in the January Session, Charles “relied greatly on the effects of his proclamation of 17 November against Popery, on the reductions which he had made in the strength of the army, and on the efforts of Danby, Seymour, and Finch to build up on this basis a Court Party of Cavaliers and Anglicans in the Commons.”67 Danby’s intentions to eliminate French influence were made known to moderate MPs at a series of meetings which preceded the meeting of Parliament. Evidence that contemporaries recognized the importance of a centrist group in the Commons is seen in one MP’s account of these gatherings: “Severall of our members are in toune and severall caballs carryed on; but if I am able to guesse (soe long before hand) that moderate party will be most prevalent; yt is called the moderate party that would supply the King’s occasions, but would be secured in religion and freed from other apprehensions; I am confident there is a great deale of good meaning, if we could hit on the right meanes of bringing it about.”68 These were the very moderates, both in and out of Parliament, to whom the official propaganda was addressed. Its appeal to moderation, tradition, reason, duty, loyalty, and the Established Church mirrored their deeprooted hostility to fanaticism, enthusiasm, ambition, and self-interest. The new Lord Treasurer was fully committed to finding the right means of winning back their goodwill. When the Session opened, the new direction of government policy was laid out and ably expounded by Lord Keeper Finch. The king’s Speech was full of declarations of his own desire for peace and the obstinance of the Dutch. If the nation was to avoid a second disaster in the Medway, then

182

courting the moderates

money for ships was needed at once. But despite the eloquence of the new Lord Keeper, the hopes of the court and courtiers were soon dashed. Even before the vote of thanks, the morality of the duke of Buckingham, currently engaged in a tryst with the countess of Shrewsbury, was raised. Worse still, after a very tepid vote of thanks for the king’s Speech and the recent steps against popery, the Commons immediately fell on evil councillors. On the second day, the earl of Shaftesbury rose in the House of Lords for the first time as an opponent of the government. He spoke of the 16,000 Catholics in and around London, and suggested the House take under consideration the best means for preventing the massacre which threatened daily. The campaign to publicize the government’s hostility to popery led to a Proclamation in which the king, “at Parliament’s request,” commanded all papists to be at least ten miles from Westminster during the sitting of Parliament.69 But this public demonstration of the king’s willingness to work with Parliament and to eliminate the danger from Catholics during the Session was offest by one more timely piece of Dutch propaganda, the Answer to His Majesty’s Declaration of War. Beyond the indignation at the continuing public discussion of foreign affairs, there was considerable resentment that the Dutch had “sent printed Copyes to severall of the Members before having sent it to His Majesty.”70 Another scurrilous pamphlet followed, causing such anger at court that one informant gloated to Du Moulin that “the King was in Cabal on Thursday night last, when he said he would give anything to know how or by what means the manifesto and the Relation (a terrible new book which he had read . . .) came out.”71 Not only were politics and diplomacy being freely discussed in the public sphere, the king surely understood that Dutch sedition was helping to shape the criticisms of his actions. Indeed, the ability to link domestic concerns to popish influence was manifested in the questions posed to members of the Cabal: who had advised the end of the Triple Alliance? The attack on the Smyrna fleet? The Stop of the Exchequer? The issuing of the Declaration of Indulgence? It was in this context that Danby determined to end the court’s association with popery, to make known his renewed alliance with the Established Church, and to eliminate the criticism of the government by halting the spread of sedition and false news. The first step taken was the king’s decision to eliminate the most audible forum for criticism of himself and his policies. He silenced his most vocal opponents with a sudden prorogation which halted all legislation in its tracks, “to the great surprise of both Houses and the whole towne, and without passing soe much as one Bill.” Besides motions aimed at the Duke, the king “had clearly discovered a combination betwixt the discontented and turbulent Commons . . . and some hottspurs in the Upper . . . and the

6: propaganda in prose

183

Republican drifts of the Citty of London . . . [so] he hath cutt off the designe of all the factious bills that were in the forge.” One MP complained that the king had not gone far enough, remarking that “His Majesty used no preamble to the prorogation . . . although I could have wished that he had rattled us up for our mis-spent time, in ravelling too far into the government and plucking at all the feathers of his prerogative, for this possibly might have taught us more moderation at our next meeting (if any such can be hoped for).”72 In fact, the ending of the Session was a sign that public opposition was no longer to be tolerated. The dismissal of Parliament may have been proof of James’s influence, but the decision to fall back on a policy of retrenchment to sustain the crown until the political situation improved was unquestionably an example of Danby’s growing ascendancy in the counsels of Charles. Lord Conway wrote to his patron that “the Court seemes to have no other Interest but in contracting of expenses. They will discountenance Papists . . . and call a new Parliament when the king hath not immediate want. [The] King says, He had rather be a poore King then no King.” A month later Conway sent an alarming letter which claimed that “the project of all Affaires at Court depend upon the regulation of Expenses. When this was searcht into, it appeared that every yeare since the king came in, he had exceeded his constant Revenue a Million of Money. . . . the Treasurer, who took much pains to see through the bottome of the cheat, desired . . . the King might be moved to put a stop to all Sallaryes and Pentions.”73 While Danby utilized his considerable financial skill to free the crown from depending on parliamentary grants, he redoubled the government’s efforts to shape popular opinion. The French alliance had fanned the flames of English anti-Catholicism and severely threatened the government’s claims to moderation in the public eye. The need to distance Charles from Louis is apparent in the report that “our citizens are making of the pope’s effigies and martyring them with great ceremony on every occasion of a bonfire, and . . . at the duchess’s arrival they did the same again, and it so pleases the vulgar that many people come up purely out of curiosity to see a Pope, inquiring whereabouts lives a Popemaker with such zeal that one would guess they would bind their children apprentices to the trade.”74 The effects of the pamphlet skirmishing which accompanied the Third Dutch War reminded the government of two things: public opinion could be influenced and it was important that any attempt to do so be controlled by those who supported government policies. The termination of the Peace Congress in February 1674 signaled the return of Sir Joseph Williamson to London. This soon led to a significant improvement in domestic intelligence—an advance which markedly inhibited the importation of pamphlets from abroad. In May 1674, the new Dutch Ambassadors rented Exeter House from the earl of Shaftesbury

184

courting the moderates

(such accommodations proving a bit grand for a man no longer benefitting from office). Thanks to information provided by Williamson’s informants, the king “soon suspected the Dutch ambassadors of ‘managing practices’ with MPs to press Charles to ally with Holland against France. . . . Whether Charles’s suspicions were justified or not, they strengthened his determination to break up such connexions between the Dutch and his discontented subjects before Parliament met again.”75 The Secretaries’ overseeing of the Gazette and official newsletters also helped to ensure a modicum of clarity in the defense of the government’s policies. Concurrently, the many activities of the Lord Treasurer included the provision of a steady diet of events and publications for public consumption, each of which would serve as a demonstration of the new attitudes of the government. The propaganda war which accompanied the Third Dutch War had shown how effective well-designed pamphlets could be. The Dutch had achieved a maximum impact by timing their publication to coincide with the meetings of Parliament. William of Orange had also been careful to work with a pamphleteer like Du Moulin who was familiar with English politics in order to maintain the high quality and efficacy of the Dutch attacks. By concentrating on the issues of popery and arbitrary government, Du Moulin had cleverly used the ideology of moderation against the Cabal. The extensive use of the king’s dispensing power (leading to the Second Conventicle Act), the Declaration of Indulgence, the alliance with France against Dutch Protestants, and the discovery of papists in high places were all used to demonstrate the existence of popery and arbitrary government. As a result, this version of events inexorably undermined support for both the Cabal and the war. A government which had ridden to power promising to end the coercive and exclusive religious policies of Clarendon had ended in unmitigated disaster. Their policies (and for some, their religious affiliation) alienated the very dissenters they had hoped to lead and resurrected fears of arbitrary power. There was abuse of the prerogative in the search for toleration on one side and the growing dread of a Catholic heir to the throne on the other: the time was ripe for the ideology of moderation. Not surprisingly, Danby soon realized the safest way between the arbitrary methods of popery and fanaticism was in the arms of the Established Church.
A shrewd politician of the Restoration, Danby was well aware of the need to adopt policies which fell in with the hearts and minds of the people. The centrist policies he advocated to the king at the end of 1673 indicate his recognition of the need for a political and religious platform that could

6: propaganda in prose

185

win the support of the moderates in the Parliament and the nation.76 This support was crucial if Danby were to have any hope of addressing the critical problem of the king’s finances. The new Lord Treasurer knew the value of an organized body of supporters in Parliament, and the Third Dutch War had shown that any government must have a set of policies which received the approval and support of public opinion. Accordingly, Danby set out to organize his supporters in Parliament, and to transform England’s foreign and religious policies. He raced toward the center by abandoning any consideration of toleration. To do this, he looked to gratify public opinion “by executing the laws both against popery and nonconformity, and withdrawing apparently from the French interest.”77 Significantly, Danby accepted the necessity of making these changes apparent: he never wavered in his apprehensions about the state of public opinion.78 In 1674 Danby moved to renew the alliance between church and state. He must have known that Clarendon’s power in the early 1660s was founded on his alliance with Anglican Royalists and his willingness to gratify their hostility to fanatics. The restoration of order and tradition was linked to the Established Church in their collective memory. In addition, the recent overtures to nonconformists had gained the government limited support, eventually leaving the king open to criticism from Anglicans and nonconformists. Finally, the freedom of the Press had allowed the court to be portrayed as popishly inclined, making it an easy target for criticism in the public sphere. Alternatively, some of the advantages of turning to Anglican Royalists was their unity when compared to the nonconformists and that their alliance with the king would provide much needed credibility for his commitment to Protestantism. Accordingly, Danby soon moved to restore Anglican Royalists to favor, and a series of gestures trumpeted the elimination of the Catholic presence at court.79 In November 1673, the Privy Council ordered the Lord Chamberlain and High Steward to make sure that no Catholics were permitted in the royal Presence or Palaces and by May Justices of the Peace were ordered to transport priests and Jesuits. This was followed by a public display of the government’s concern for morality with an inquiry into “riotous Drunks at the Playhouses.”80 By late 1674 Danby was preparing for a summit with Sheldon and the bishops to discuss renewed persecution of nonconformity and an Anglican Test. This failed Bill would have created an Anglican Royalist definition of moderation in terms more exclusive than the Clarendon Code. Under it, Anglican Royalists aimed to limit politics to those who accepted the present government in church and state, making passive obedience the basis of order and stability. This restrictive measure would allow the branding of all nonconformists and reformers as rebels who advocated a return to the 1640s. As a public display of his new francophobia, the king printed a Declaration of his intention to “weare no Pointz or Laces from abroad.”81

186

courting the moderates

The public emphasis on the government’s anti-French and pro-church policies also gave accusations of dissenter extremism added resonance. The combination of Danby’s political policies with the aggressive and accusatory pamphlets of the late 1670s was designed to reveal his opponents as extremists. Consequently, the government’s willingness to harass both popery and dissent forced its opponents to focus their criticism on corruption and arbitrary government. Therefore, the abuse of the prerogative in not summoning Parliament and the knowledge of Danby’s growing number of pensioners became the most credible way to link the government with arbitrary government.
Within a year of becoming Treasurer, Danby had instituted many of the practices which he had recommended to the king as the best means of winning the hearts and minds of moderates who opposed both popery and fanaticism and favored the established traditions in church and state. He quickly established peace with the Dutch (and ordered Evelyn’s attack on them recalled),82 moved away from the French by placing restrictions (in the form of additional duties) on French imports, brought order to the king’s revenues and re-established firm ties with the church and its hierarchy. Proclamations and Orders-in-Council poured forth, driving Catholics from the court and London. The king demonstrated his solidarity with English cloth workers and his rejection of all things French—mistresses excepted—by disdaining French fashion and insisting that on the issue of wearing French textiles, “no subjects [were] to do so—none doing so [to be] allowed to appear in his Majesty’s Presence.”83 Yet owing to James, the issues of succession and popery continued to haunt the king and court. With typical aplomb, Danby turned to new methods to defend the values of the government. Propaganda took on a more aggressive tone; the satires became harsher, and examinations of history to uncover the similarities to the 1640s became more frequent. Following the unsuccessful attempt to pass the Non-resisting Test in 1675, official propaganda concentrated on the “republican” nature of the opposition. By the time Marchamont Nedham wrote the Pacquet of Advices to the Men of Shaftesbury in 1676, the linkage between the government’s policies and the propaganda defending them was undeniable.84 Another example of the direct relationship between the government and polemicists can be found in April 1674, when Thomas Turner offered Arlington a manuscript written by Justice Morton during the Civil War and styled Jus Regium, sive Jus Monarcheae Anglicanae. Turner promoted this discourse as ideal for the times when the king and Parliament were once again at odds. Founding his arguments on the didactic historical examples

6: propaganda in prose

187

so dear to Dryden and others, the judge relied on “the puissance of reason and argument, drawn out of all histories, ecclesiastical and civil, out of the laws of god, of nature, of nations, the civil, canon and municipal laws of this kingdom, and all the books of polity.”85 Danby must have welcomed the printing of such a treatise in which the author’s principle endeavor was to assert the indispensable ligeance of the subject to the sovereign, and that tremendous veneration which is owing from the people to their prince. He retells likewise that poisonous tenet of the co-ordination of the two Houses with the Kings of England in the power legislative, and enforces infinite other particularities, which may perhaps prove doctrines not unseasonable for the present times. . . .

More importantly, it was obvious from the context that this had been written during the late troubles so that the any criticisms of its partisanship and polemical prejudices would be obviated. Turner pointed to this particular value in his letter to the Secretary of State, writing how apparent it would be “to every reader that the scene of this book was laid for 1648 and to redress those dreadful convulsions of the state, and so this treatise will now glide into the world without suspicions of contrivance for these present times.”86 The association of current events with the “late troubles” would become one of the most important motifs of the 1670s. Like the historical settings of the Heroic Dramas, the lessons of history were offered as non-partisan prose versions of the disguised moderation witnessed earlier. In other words, the glorification of passive obedience, the supremacy of the monarchy, and the important lessons of history were to be regularly presented to audiences beyond the Royal Theaters after 1673. But the issue of popery (and the succession) were not about to disappear as long as the king’s only sons were illegitimate. Steven Pincus has shown the importance of ideology to foreign policy in this period, but the sudden shift in alliances after 1674 was not enough to end the apprehensions about popery and arbitrary power. Danby was well aware of the nation’s antiCatholicism and knew it was crucial that the king be viewed as similarly hostile. Therefore, the Treasurer needed an alliance between the church and king as proof of the monarch’s devotion to the Protestant cause. By October 1674 he had persuaded the king to have Williamson write to the bishops desiring them to convene “to consider several weighty matters relating to religion and the interests of the church, and particularly what may be further necessary to be done for the preservation and security of the Protestant religion.”87 When the leading members of the episcopacy met at Lambeth in January 1675, the king begged them to join with him in shaping the direction of religious policy. There is no doubt that Charles had his own policies and

188

courting the moderates

wished to relieve his Roman Catholic subjects. His attempts at Indulgence in 1662 and 1672 must have convinced him that the goal was unattainable. As a result, after 1673, as he had before 1667, the king relied on a minister who had support both in and out of Parliament. Following Danby’s advice, Charles instructed the bishops to “debate and consider amongst yourselves what I can do for the effectual preventing of that danger [the growth of popery] and the preserving of the Church of England as it is now established by law, and I would have you let me know . . . what it is you would offer me in order to these ends.”88 Under Danby, the Anglican hierarchy was no longer asked to choose between comprehension and toleration. Thus the primacy of the Church of England was now assured, and the aspirations of its competitors dashed. For this reason, the response of the bishops was wide-ranging. Despite the monarch’s paternal care, “his firm resolution and unwearied endeavors expressed in his answer to the addresses of both Houses,” “his proclamations frequently issued,” and his “directions given to the judges and justices,” the church was still threatened from all sides: Atheism and profaneness daily abound more and more, and defections are frequently made on the one side to the superstitious and idolatrous practices and the usurpations of Rome, on the other to the pernicious and destructive novelties of the various sects raised in the worst times. . . . They humbly conceive that nothing is more necessary than the suppressing of atheism, profaneness and open and professed wickedness, without the amendment or punishment of which nothing can avail to the preservation of a Church.89

While implicitly acknowledging the correlation of “various sects” with the “worst of times,” the churchmen went on to elaborate on the problem of the growth of popery. They accepted the effectual expedients of the king to date, but offered additional advice. Although the king had published an Order in Council in March informing the Lord Keeper to “signify His Majesties Pleasure to the Judges, that in their Several Circuits, they cause the Laws against Popish Recusants to be put in Execution, and . . . [insure] their speedy Conviction,” the bishops begged the king to encourage and quicken the conviction of Roman Catholics. Similarly, despite the prior publication of a Proclamation offering a reward for the apprehending of priests and Jesuits, they also recommended that care be taken that no Mass be celebrated in any part of the kingdom.90 While the prelates accepted the inherent rebelliousness of the nonconforming community, they concentrated their attentions on the threat presented by the growth of popery. Still, the connection of popery with arbitrary government was becoming such a commonplace of seditious writings that the government did everything in its power to signify its hostility to Catholics, in general, and to the French, in particular. The move to sunder this equation in the people’s

6: propaganda in prose

189

minds was begun early in 1674, when the Treaty of Westminster was followed by several requests from the weavers to protect their trade. In spectacles designed for those outside the audience at the Theaters, the public hangman burnt a collection of foreign gloves and laces, followed soon after by an immolation of foreign hats. In July, the Gazette was filled with references to the Commissioners negotiating a regulation of trade between the English and the Dutch, and before the next Session, Charles announced a Treaty Marine with the Dutch to be appended to the Peace.91 These steps towards closer ties with the Dutch were exemplified by the decision in May to command “the immediate return of all the King’s subjects” now serving in the army of France.92 The government’s willingness to order this recall of troops following a parliamentary address is an example of Danby’s overwhelming desire to demonstrate his distance from the pro-French policy of his predecessors as well as to establish the English monarch once more as the Defender of the Protestant Faith. Nonetheless, there were still grave doubts among the moderate Anglicans as well as among the government’s more hostile opponents concerning the court and the views of some of its leading figures—most importantly the dukes of York and Lauderdale. In order to preclude the type of criticisms which surrounded these two influential members of the court, Danby launched a two-pronged attack on the insinuations of a popishly affected court. One flank of this assault was the licensing of a series of treatises, discourses, and polemics against the Church of Rome. Beginning in April 1675, the Gazette was constantly adorned with advertisements for the latest publication favored by the government. Among these were included (Roger Twisden), Some Considerations of present Concernment; How far the Romanists may be trusted by Princes of another Perswasion; An Historical Vindication of the Church of England in point of Schism, as it stands separated from the Roman; The Abominations of the Church of Rome; The Fallibility and Falsehood of the Church of Rome.93 At the same time, the government granted one of England’s earliest historians, Robert Brady, permission to write a history of England which would include the reign of Charles II. This account would show not only the iniquity of the parliamentary leaders in the 1640s, but also the fabrication and manipulation of the supposed Catholic menace of 1640–42. It was the type of historical evidence which Dryden used to illustrate the justice of destiny (read history) and the pitfalls of abandoning the loyalty and obedience owed to the crown. Robert Brady made use of the same arguments in requesting the assistance and approbation of the government for his project: I think without arrogance that I may deserve as much encouragement in the affair wherein I begged your favour as some undertakers have had in such

190

courting the moderates

things, as being more serviceable to his Majesty and more tending to the right information of the people. I hope my loyalty cannot be suspected. The crown never did nor can receive injury from a complete impartial history, written without reflections on persons or things. Some brave men and such as have done it and their country eminent service have perished by fragments and partial story (picked out of mouldy parchments and obscure authors which perhaps they never knew of), improved by the artifice of cunning abettors of popular envy, malice, fury or mistake.94

Brady’s letter is significant in its appeal for government support; he feels he deserves as much as others who have received official encouragement. The patronage and collusion of the government was crucial to those writing on its behalf. The intimate relationship between the court and the Theaters and the evidence of the king’s interest in suggesting, vetting, and even commenting on drafts of plays are examples of official interest in political culture. Furthermore, the provision of documents, the supply of information, the promise of reward, and the circulation of approved sermons are all part of the government’s participation in the creation of a coherent ideology and an official political propaganda. It is also a perfect example of the belief in the power of the printed word and its ability to sway public opinion, especially when it was complete and impartial. Brady was not the only ally of the government to be concerned with the necessity to shape opinion and to prevent the “cunning abettors of popular envy” from having access to the people. In fact, the more Danby’s policies tacked into the Protestant wind, the more support he received for silencing fanatic opposition. If “the people” were provided with the “right information,” then misinterpretation and the consequent ability to seduce them into rebellion would be reduced, if not eliminated. If nothing else, this line of reasoning was sure to be influential with Secretary Williamson, a man devoted to the discovery of all types of sedition and dissent.95 Another side to Danby’s offensive was a result of his renewed camaraderie with the Anglican hierarchy. Having co-opted the episcopacy into the formation of religious policy, he now planned to try the strength of their commitment to Anglicanism (and the concomitant parliamentary influence) in fulfilling his goal of forming an alliance consisting of Cavaliers, Anglicans, and moderates in both Houses. The Session in April 1675 saw the introduction of the Test requiring an oath never to alter the government of church or state. Danby undoubtedly wished to use this Anglican Test as a demonstration of his pro-church views and to allay accusations of popery at court. Introduced in the Lords by the earl of Lindsey, a relative of Danby’s, the Bill never reached the House of Commons, owing to the squabbling over the privileges of the respective Houses which erupted in conjunction with the legal case of Shirley v. Fagg in May.96

6: propaganda in prose

191

The debates in the Lords over the Bill were prolonged and characterized by the earl of Halifax who condemned the bishops for their subservience to the crown.97 In the Commons, MPs “lett fall many curst short speeches” and refused to vote thanks for the king’s Speech: to do so “they must thanke for ye Convention at Lambeth, and for a few Lds and Bps advising yt wch ye Parlt never yet desired and which in very truth was plaine persecution.”98 A pamphlet quickly appeared which mocked the political role of the episcopacy by noting that the bishops “are so near an infallibility that they were always found in this session of one mind in the Lords’ House,” and that one mind was always the same as the court’s.99 The controversy dividing the two Houses brought all parliamentary business to a standstill and led to a prorogation, but the government carried the fight to the opposition with an immediate response in kind to the Letter to a Person of Quality. As in the latter stages of the Third Dutch War, pamphlets attacking Danby’s government were quickly answered until he fell from power in 1679. Opposing views were never allowed to monopolize the popular attention for long. Allies of the government were given various kinds of “encouragement” and “favor” in providing the right sort of information to the people. In fact, the Letter to a Person of Quality initiated another struggle for the support of public opinion. One of the earliest replies was a pamphlet which argued that the true definition of an honest MP required membership in the Church of England. By the mid 1670s the official propaganda concentrated on the private virtues that Dryden associated with religion and conscience. Such beliefs were to be arrived at through right reason and to result in an “intire submission” to the judgement and authority of the traditional governors of the church and state. Thus, the qualifications for a worthy MP could be easily catalogued: As for his religion, he is a sincere, as well as open professor of that which by our laws is now become essential to his office, I mean that of the Church of England. Nor is he of it, because it is established by law . . . he maturely examined its first principles, and found them agreeable to the Divine Will, and right reason. . . . And being thoroughly satisfied in the fundamentals, for its discipline, he intirely submits himself to the judgement and authority of those, to whose conduct and discretion, the government of the church has been in all ages committed.100

Having established the importance of obedience and reason as well as his confidence in the historical establishment of the church, the pamphleteer acknowledged, however, the legitimacy of genuine religious dissent. By 1675 the official position had shifted to emphasize the danger of those who feigned misgivings in religion for the sake of worldly interest. The underlying ambition of such men was beneath contempt. If there was anything

192

courting the moderates

more to their actions than self-seeking greed, it was surely a quest for worldly power cloaked in the spirit of religion. This truly was the world turned upside down: private virtues being used to disguise a disregard for public obligations: [T]hough he be a zealous churchman himself, yet he is so far from persecuting those who dissent from the established religion, purely for conscience-sake, that he is ready to pity their weakness . . . whenever that time shall come, when it will be his chance to meet with those, whose scruples arise rather from a real defect of their understandings, than some worldly interest or desire of filthy lucre, an obstinate, peevish, or self-conceited humour, or the vain-glorious spirit of contradiction.101

If there remained any doubt who the government considered its greatest enemy at this point, then the character chosen as the object of “utmost scorn” is revealing. Of course, the “honest and worthy Parliament-Man” was a person of unbending loyalty, constancy, and fortitude. Apparently, he was also an adherent of the disguised moderation which characterized so much of the official propaganda. No matter what the dictates of conscience, he would adhere to the established laws, civil and religious, and remember his duty to God and king. Clearly, anyone who neglected such obligations was misguided and potentially dangerous, but for the honest and virtuous man there existed a more insidious cancer in the body politic: there is one sort of men [sic], whom he thinks worthy of the utmost degree of his contempt and scorn; I mean, those false and treacherous friends who have formerly gone along with, nay, much before him, in the same cause; those pretended zealots for their country and religion, who for their own paltry interest . . . made it their business to set us together by the ears, with their noisy clamours, against popery and slavery. . . .102

The “little Lord,” as Shaftesbury was known, was the obvious target of this onslaught. His status as renegade from the royal cause was constantly hurled in his face. As Lord Chancellor during the Stop of the Exchequer and Declaration of Indulgence and author of the notorious Delenda est Carthago! speech, he was an easy target for those wishing to portray all opponents of the government as ambitious and self-serving. In addition, former ministers who later criticized the king were branded as quintessential examples of the characters who would shape history for personal gain. Their previous willingness to serve the king only proved that the pretense of protecting English liberties was simply a cloak for their ambition. This character of an honest and loyal Englishman was not the only instance of government propaganda responding to attacks. The extent to which official writings were informed by the virtues presented on the stage

6: propaganda in prose

193

is an indication of the pervasiveness of these received values. Another pamphlet from 1675 offered a characterization of a fanatic which centered on his extremism and deceit.103 By adopting the mask of religiosity, the fanatic gained a reputation for devotion and integrity. However, in the cause of defending the nation’s freedom against popery and arbitrary government, his “business is rebellion.” Such practices were the result of his contentious principles, which knew nothing but “antipodes to everything commanded.”104 As in the previous pamphlet, the self-serving hypocrisy of fanatics was reiterated. This theme made it clear that the contretemps associated with Shirley v. Fagg and the growth of popery were part of a design to satisfy the ambitions of conspirators who only pretended to have the public good at heart: [H]is generation is founded in corruption, and his extraction of the same parentage with monsters, not intended, but produced. His principles are like the chaos; a confused lump of everything and nothing . . . what he is, no man knows, no, nor the angels in heaven. . . . Nor is his practice much unsuitable to his principles; he puts on religion as a cloke, not a garment, and varnishes his impostures with Holiness to the Lord. Thus Absalom pretends a sacrifice, when his business is rebellion; and Herod a worship, when his design is murder . . . [Machieavel] had taught him, he that would gain by deceit, must first acquire a credit, by, at least, a shew of integrity. . . . [He] runs counter to all things in power, and treads the antipodes to every thing commanded, and for no other reason, but because commanded. . . .105

The official propaganda did not restrict itself solely to parrying the thrusts of sedition or attacking its leaders. Both during and after the addled Session of 1675, the government continued to display a commitment to licensing a wide variety of materials intended to influence public opinion. There is no doubt that the attempt to dominate the political culture provided a coherent and consistent ideology in many genres and formats. The awareness of and concern for a wide audience is apparent in the variety of mediums adopted by the government. By 1674 the public sphere was awash in plays, poems, pamphlets, broadsides, and Proclamations. In addition to these printed works, ballads, spectacles, sermons, woodcuts, medals, and statues provided oral and visual expressions of official views. Beyond the renewed efforts to silence opposing views, the government’s encouragement and promotion helped to create a consistent ideology for people to support. This incipient political ideology was a distinct change from the muddled platform of the Cabal and an important early development in the formation of parties. The Proclamation recalling all soldiers in the French service has already been noticed; the election of the Draper, Sir Joseph Sheldon, was accom-

194

courting the moderates

panied by the official gesture of a public conflagration of hats and gloves, and the king issued an order that he would not wear any foreign points or laces after his return to Whitehall, likewise ordered that after Michaelmas none of his subjects wear any such points or laces, and the Lord Chamberlain of the household is not to permit any of his subjects wearing such to appear in his Majesty’s presence.106

To the surprise of many, Charles proved “so resolute in yt [that] ye D of Portsmouth, who has abundance of rich point by her, could not prevaile with his Majesty to give her leave to weare it out, nor so much as to make a bed of it, so shee must loose it all.”107 The determination to demonstrate the government’s concern for the Protestant interest was creating an unprecedented resolve at Whitehall when it came to breaking the ties with France. One of the king’s most faithful allies in the City was Sir Robert Viner. On the king’s forty-second birthday, Viner had presented the City with an equestrian statue of Charles. Originally designed to commemorate Sobieski’s victory over the Turks, the statue had been reworked to represent Charles II straddling Cromwell.108 Not long after its presentation to the public, Danby unveiled another reminder of the effects of an overzealous opposition. As part of a program “that might unite and best pacify the minds of the people against the next session of Parliament,” Danby erected a second equestrian statue in London.109 This was also a return to the imperial imagery of the coronation. The attempt to conflate the Augustan Age with royal virtues relied on the Royal Martyr in 1675. While the positive effects of the statues are unknown, the works quickly generated considerable ridicule.110 Effective or not, they were viewed as worthy of a response. Undoubtedly the contesting of the public sphere was welladvanced by 1675. The government’s obsession with censorship, with hawkers and the distribution of sedition, with coffee-houses, and with conventicles was readily matched by their rivals’ attention to each piece of propaganda presented to the public. Significantly, the satires did their best to expose the court’s corruption of MPs, express the dread of a Catholic successor and the hypocrisy of the revived church–state alliance. Interestingly enough, many of the accusations were rebuttals of the themes developed by the government. Before the end of the summer recess, a pair of satires appeared poking fun at the Lord Treasurer and at the monuments. Soon thereafter, a far more virulent poem appeared: a dialogue between the two horses when their riders were away. Interestingly, each of these poems demonstrated an uncanny familiarity with the tactics of the Lord Treasurer. The first of these attacks, combining the events of 1672 and 1675, began by wondering at the para-

6: propaganda in prose

195

dox of a gift given by a Goldsmith so soon after the Stop of the Exchequer. It concluded that the poor quality of the monument was intentional, designed to repay the king for the Stop through the grotesque rendering of both horse and rider: But now it appears from the first to the last To be all revenge and malice forecast, Upon the King’s birthday to set up a thing That shows him a monster more like than a King. When each one that passes finds fault with the horse, Yet all do affirm that the King is much worse.111

Far more insulting were the comments on the king and government which unquestionably refer to 1675. The poet referred to the attempts to create a court party in Parliament—“But a market, they say, does suit the King well / Who the Parliament buys and revenues does sell”—and also states clearly the dread of the duke of York: “But with all his faults pray restore us our King, / If ever you hope in December for spring; / For though the whole world can’t show such another, / Yet we’d better by far have him than his brother.” This lighthearted mockery of the royal family was abandoned in the later poem on the statue being prepared at Charing Cross. Here the poet concentrated on the excessive powers—and gains—of the Lord Treasurer while attempting to expose the real intentions of Danby’s many public spectacles. The poem insinuated that the alliance with the church hierarchy was just a mask for creeping Catholicism at Whitehall: Or the bishops and Treasurer, did they agree’t, To repair with such riffraff our Church’s old pale? No, to comfort the hearts of the poor Cavalier, The late King on horseback is here to be shown. What ado with the kings and statues is here! Have we not had enough already of one? Does the Treasurer think men so loyally tame, When their pensions are stopp’d, to be fool’d with a sight? And ’tis forty to one, if he play the old game, He’ll reduce us ere long to forty and eight.112

This scoffing at Danby’s aspirations both in erecting the statue of Charles I and in attempting to legislate passive obedience was not the response wished for by the Treasurer. The plan to equate the woes of Charles II with those of his father and the government’s opponents with the rebels of 1641 had been craftily turned against the court. Danby’s strategy was depicted

196

courting the moderates

as certain to lead to the demise of Charles II, just as the counsel of Laud and Strafford had brought the monarch to the scaffold in 1648. The satirist cleverly avoided attacking the monarchy—particularly a king who died for the Anglican faith—in the hope of laying the blame on evil councillors. Charles I’s martyrdom and piety were acknowledged in order to condemn the current conditions at court: “So the statue will up after all this delay, / But to turn the face to Whitehall you must shun; / Though of brass, yet with grief it would melt away, / To behold ev’ry day such a court, such a son.”113 These public monuments were not the only way in which Charles and his ministers tried to associate his problems with events of the past. The lessons of the past were not lost upon the king. He was careful to avoid repeating the mistakes of his father and defended his servants with vigor. In both Sessions of 1675, there had been attacks on—and addresses for the removal of—the earl of Lauderdale as Commissioner for Scotland. Refusing to be dictated to, Charles issued a pardon for all Lauderdale’s actions since his appointment as Commissioner. To preempt any hope that public opinion might force him to abandon Lauderdale as his father had abandoned Strafford in 1641, Charles made two public demonstrations of his support: in the midst of the Session, a newsletter reported that “Lauderdale was yesterday in ye evening in Hide Park with ye king in his Majesty’s own coach, when there was more company and greater splendor in ye Parke yn there has been any time this yeare, wch has so offended ye Parlt, they looking upon it as an indignitie put upon ym for ye King to honor yt person so signally whom they now complain of.” In the same manner, after renewed attacks on the duke in the fall, and a request that he be forbidden the king’s presence, “great notice was taken by the House of Commons, when they went up to the House of Lords and heard the prorogation, that the Lord Lauderdale, concerning whom they formerly made an address to the king that he might not be so near his person, had the honor to carry the sword that day before the king.”114 In the end, although the statue of Charles I had not been a complete success in communicating the government’s Cavalier affiliations, the king’s public appearances with his beleaguered minister had shown that Charles II was fully capable of delivering a public message without wasted words. The stinging satires and the vicious attack in “The Dialogue Between the Two Horses” did not deter Danby from disputing the public sphere. In fact, the attacks on ministers, religion, and the statues convinced the government to step up its efforts to influence popular sentiment. The parliamentary Session in the fall had foundered once again on the rock of bickering between the Houses over privileges. The flow of satires and attacks on government was fulfilling the demands for political news in an increasingly active public sphere. Official concerns about the accessibility

6: propaganda in prose

197

of news and criticism can be seen in the decision to order the closing of the coffee-houses because, during any meeting of Parliament, and throughout the fifteen-month prorogation announced by the king, these nests of sedition served as public spaces for criticism of the government. Until the time when the king would face his legislature again, Danby did all in his power to tighten his hold over the access to popular opinion.115 At the same time, the government also continued to offer its ideology of moderation as an alternative to the ambition, self-interest, and hypocrisy of its rivals. There is no doubt that the campaign to shape public opinion through various mediums was aimed at a variety of audiences. In many ways, the official fixation on the importance of coffee-houses as one the greatest threats to civic unity is an eloquent testimony about which audience caused the most concern. Danby’s attempt to legislate the exclusion of those who rejected monarchy and episcopacy, as then established, may have been similar to the developments of the early 1660s, but his Test faced a far more sophisticated and hostile reception. The implications of this failed Bill were carefully explained in order to expose the arbitrary tendencies of the government. For example, A Letter From a Person of Quality to a Friend in the Country recounted the April Session of 1675 and the heroic efforts of certain peers—with Shaftesbury as their champion—to defeat the Test and preserve English liberties. The Letter characterized the Bill as a “State Master-Piece” and compared the co-operation of the monarchy and hierarchy to French absolutism and Catholicism. The author plainly understood Danby’s ultimate goals in Parliament: First, to make a distinct Party from the rest of the Nation of the High Episcopal Man, and the Old Cavalier. . . . Next they design to have the Government of the Church Sworn as Unalterable, and so tacitly owned to be of Divine Right . . . the advantages of which, the Prelates of Rome hath sufficiently taught the World. Then in requital to the Crown, they declare the Government absolute and Arbitrary, and allow Monarchy as well as Episcopacy to be Jure Divino, and not to be bounded or limited by humane laws.116

The insinuation of absolutism could not be ignored. In what was becoming a regular part of Restoration political culture, the attack was answered in a series of books and pamphlets licensed by the government. Before Parliament reconvened in October 1677, a tract appeared with the pithy title The Cause and remedy of the Distempers of the Times. In certain discourses of Obedience and Disobedience. A few weeks later another treatise appeared which utilized the other side of the government’s polemical scimitar, The Mystery of iniquity unfolded, or the false Apostles . . . [and] their secular Designe & Means of accomplishing it, by corrupting Christian Religion

198

courting the moderates

under Pretence of promoting it. These works relied on many of the arguments of the Heroic Plays and earlier poems, with the latter pamphlet accentuating how misguided ambition and mendacity were used to undermine loyalty, obedience, and the true religion. The tracts were given a prominent place in the Gazette’s advertisements.117 For those in search of a clearer explication of these virtues and their role in history and politics, an advertisement in January announced the availability of a new play currently at the Royal Theatre—Dryden’s Aureng-Zebe. The drama revolved around the issues of loyalty, obedience, ambition, and succession. Along with the prose efforts sponsored by the government, the historical lessons of the Poet Laureate helped to clarify the proper virtues as well as the consequences of rejecting them for private gain. The instruction was also exceedingly timely.118 The universal acceptance of these virtues was demonstrated neatly in Shaftesbury’s need to address them in his speech to the Lords in November of 1675. While paying lip service to many of the values found in the literature of the government, he turned the key element of passive obedience on its head. He ostensibly agreed that public considerations must come before personal ones, but reasoned that passive obedience only extended to the laws and particular frame of government established before any family of kings. It is important to note how revealing is his impulse to counter these arguments, as well as his use of the historical precedent of Archbishop Laud to justify rejecting them. In his printed speech, he referred to the principle of [complete] passive obedience as an innovation of Laud, and “as it is new, so the most dangerous destructive doctrine to any government and law that ever was.” He admitted that we all agree, that the king and his government is [sic] to be obeyed for conscience sake, and that the divine precepts require, not only here, but in all parts of the world, obedience to lawful governors: But this family are our kings, and this particular frame of government is our lawful constitution, and obligeth us as belonging only to the particular laws of our country. This Laudean doctrine was that root that produced the bill of test the last sessions. . . . [but] Monarchy of divine right cannot be bounded nor limited by human laws; nay . . . [all liberties] are to give away not only the interest, but the will and pleasure of the crown. And that the best and worthiest of men (holding this principle) must vote to deliver up all we have, not only when reason of state, and the separate interest of the crown requires it, but when the will and pleasure (if known) would have it so; for thus must be a man of that principle, as the only rule and means of right and justice.119

It seems clear that Shaftesbury was well aware of the threat posed by the failed Test of 1675.120 At the same time, he realized the undeniable currency of the court party’s ideals and the danger of Danby’s policies to those

6: propaganda in prose

199

who would oppose established authority. When Shaftesbury made this speech, Danby had already survived three years without parliamentary assistance, and it was well known that Danby had put the king’s house in order.121 Clearly, Danby’s willingness to eliminate the waste and corruption at court was depriving the king’s opponents of a popular line of attack. Without the aid of “extraordinary” circumstances, nothing but time stood between Danby and his aim to develop a dominant court party in the House of Commons. The lively pamphleteering from both sides in the years 1668–77 shows how cognizant the politicians were of the public sphere and public opinion in the Restoration. The government’s ability to anticipate and to answer the criticisms of its enemies is evidence of the increasing sophistication when it came to public debates. Most importantly, the willingness of all sides to engage in a struggle for the hearts and minds of the nation proves just how essential ideological distinctions were becoming after 1668. Indeed, the battle for public opinion was already providing incontrovertible testimony of the different “sides,” “groups,” “factions,” and even “parties” within the nation. Secretary Coventry may have objected to Sir Thomas Meres having “now and often heretofore labored to make a distinction in the House between the country gentlemen and the courtiers, whereas there was none, nor ought to be none; and [Meres] often used the words ‘of this side of the House and that side’ which were not parliamentary,” but that was largely because the Secretary had the advantage to be on the king’s side, and no man could admit to being on another.122 Finally, officially sponsored propaganda and pamphlets were now being challenged by both alternative ideologies and a campaign sponsored from abroad. The tactics on each side may have been eerily similar in these years, but the government always had one substantial advantage. Official control of printing and the press gave them the ability to limit the amount of alternative views reaching the public. Indeed, the loss of this power in 1679 was a key factor in making the Exclusion Crisis such a crucial part of the more general “restoration crisis.”

7 Controlling the Printed Word The tangled religious policies of the Cabal had only added to the confused alliances and ambitions at court. The Secret Treaty of Dover is a perfect example of the how the Cabal might pursue a policy with at least three different—and contradictory—goals in mind. To make matters worse, the king, not to mention his Catholic brother, each pursued distinct individual agendas. In this light it comes as no surprise that the court and the government had little hope of speaking with one voice or of maintaining a united front in the ideological controversies of the day. The official political culture which had served the government so well in the six years following the Restoration was a thing of the past. Whatever the reasons behind the Cabal’s support for liberty of conscience, it is undeniable that the policy led to the torrent of pamphlets which argued in various ways for toleration as a form of liberty from the persecuting state—the first Restoration crisis of Gary S. De Krey. However, these ideological “exchanges” were nothing more than sedition in the eyes of men like Sir Roger L’Estrange. Worse still, this sedition was followed by the circulation of false news and Dutch efforts to appeal to public opinion and to parliamentary dissidents. All these developments served to reaffirm the faith in censorship and the suppression of sedition and false news. It is important to remember that “Charles II’s reign witnessed less a struggle by the crown to control the opposition press than a battle for the hearts and minds of a divided political nation, a division reaching far wider than the landed classes and learned professions.”1 For L’Estrange and Sir Joseph Williamson at least, the battle was very much about winning the hearts and minds of the people and controlling the liberties of the opposition press. In the end, once the earl of Danby re-established a single voice for government policy and propaganda, he looked to the “bloodhound of the Press” and the vigilant Secretary of State to help him to silence his opponents.
The activities of L’Estrange were always encouraged by the Secretaries and the Treasurer when Parliament was approaching or was in Session. As 200

7: controlling the printed word

201

a result, in the weeks before and after the convening of the Houses, there were nearly always instructions issued for the discovery and suppression of seditious publications, because meetings of Parliament were a time when a majority of the men of influence were present in London. Furthermore, Dutch activities during the Second Dutch War had shown how effective a propaganda campaign during a parliamentary Session could be. From the opening speech of the king and Lord Chancellor, the attention of the country was focused on Westminster. Issues of national concern were debated, and naturally there was no finer opportunity for propaganda and criticism to have its most profound effect. For this reason, a good deal of the extra-parliamentary debate took place while the Houses were sitting. Satirical pieces such as Marvell’s imaginary king’s speech at the opening of the Parliament of 1675 were certain to do the most damage if they coincided with the arrival of MPs.2 By the same token, during adjournments and prorogations the government’s attentions were concentrated on the misinformation and false news which circulated through London and the countryside like a seditious infection. As early as 1672 Henry Stubbe, in his Justification of the Present War, had confessed his guilt on this score: I acknowledge myself to have been of the number of those, who, by reason of their ignorance of private negotiations, and the real transactions of state, together with that epidemical jealousies of court designs, did believe that this war was needless and unseasonable: That it was projected by some courtiers, and others, who sought to advantage themselves by the publick calamities, or by pensions from the Crown of France; that the Dutch were so humble and submissive. . . . I was jealous of the growth of popery, and thought it to be the interest of this kingdom, not to weaken or destroy a republick pretending to protestancy.3

But Stubbe quickly realized the dangers of these epidemical jealousies and looked to insulate himself and others. He recalled those halcyon days when people did not allow themselves to be taken in by the insinuations and slanders of foreign agents or ambitious men who hoped to benefit from tumult. Based on this, Stubbe was forced to confess that the arcana imperii were of such a nature that only the king and his Privy Council had the discrimination to deliberate on matters of state: I thought the times happy, when men employed themselves in other descouyrses and practised obedience, rather than disputes: When they believed that prudent and solid doctrine . . . that it was only for the counsellors of kings to debate and examine the utility and prejudices, the justices and injustice of wars; the other subjects not being to expect [sic] an ample account of all the motives and inducements by which their king is swayed, nor be so infatuated, as to think they can debate or decide matters, without any better cognisance,

202

courting the moderates

than what ariseth from the vulgar brain, a narrow prospect of things, and popular reports and suggestions.4

Stubbe’s conclusion reflects a common attitude to the circulation of news in this period. It was generally accepted that sedition and false news were the seeds from which the late troubles flowered. The 1670s had reaffirmed the belief that misinformation was one of the most destructive weapons in the opposition arsenal. Dryden had pointed repeatedly to the necessity for and the salutary effects of obedience, and official propaganda regularly denounced “the Faction” and its self-serving misrepresentations of government policies and actions. But the government of Charles II did not rely exclusively on polemics and propaganda. In fact, an aggressive campaign to control information was waged by the Secretaries. Assisted by the Surveyor of the Press, they controlled the licensing of nearly all printed material and launched search after search for the printers and authors of seditious materials. By 1675, the government even considered closing the coffeehouses in a desperate attempt to limit the news circulating in the nation.5 The monopoly over the printed word made it possible to control the legal forms of information available for public consumption.6
Letters of News and public diurnalls existed at least since the time of Elizabeth and were common throughout the Interregnum. In 1643 Sir John Berkenhead had written the Mercurius Aulicus from Oxford for the king, providing an early example of royalist awareness of the need to contest the public sphere by exposing the fraudulent claims of their opponents. By 1648, the defeated royalists distributed Mercurius Publicus, a newsbook written for “the further discovery of that mystery of iniquity the present Parliament at Westminster and the timely information of the abused people of England.” Well before the execution of Charles I, the government was convinced in its view that the nation was being misled by false news and specious information. Unfortunately—for the king—this royalist newsbook was not enough to undeceive the people. During the Protectorate, Marchamont Nedham had written the Publick Intelligencer and the Mercurius Politicus, but following Cromwell’s death he was distrusted by all sides.7 Nedham was dismissed in May 1659, but his successor’s incompetence led to Nedham’s recall by the end of the summer. The failure to replace Nedham forced the Rump to authorize at least five other newsbooks. Thus the monopoly of news was ended.8 The host of short-lived newsbooks which followed was an indication of the public’s thirst for news: a thirst which was in no way quenched by the restoration of monarchy. The skirmishing surrounding the newsbooks and newsletters is impor-

7: controlling the printed word

203

tant not so much for its ultimate outcome, but because the combatants involved—Roger L’Estrange, Henry Muddiman, and Joseph Williamson—were all to be key figures in providing and limiting the access to information throughout the 1670s. By the time of the Third Dutch War, Muddiman had established himself as the primary source of intelligence in England. His newsletters were postmarked “Whitehall” and written under the watchful eye of Secretary Henry Coventry. Macaulay’s picture of numerous newsletter-writers in this period is accurate, and one of Muddiman’s earliest rivals by 1663 was Joseph Williamson. Much of the news in rival newsletters was drawn from the Secretaries or were summaries of Muddiman’s.9 “Opposition” newsletters were largely unknown until the Exclusion Crisis, though it is true that the Second Dutch War saw some variety of reporting in the newsletters of Muddiman and Williamson. By this point the Presbyterian views of Muddiman were at odds with the Anglican Royalist ones of Williamson, with the latter gaining the unchallenged support of Secretary Arlington.10 In the end, nearly all information available in England—printed or in manuscript—was overseen by officials at court. The domestic news printed in the Gazette11 was largely limited to Proclamations and Orders in Council. Parliament, except for its openings, closings, and extended prorogations, was rarely mentioned. The newsletters, intended for a much smaller audience, included parliamentary proceedings and other domestic events, but newsletter writers were careful to withhold opinions and avoid editorializing. The one thing agreed upon was the need to provide accurate news from the government and prevent the appearance of seditious or misleading information designed to undermine the loyalty of the people. The competition to shape public opinion in London began at the moment Monck broke camp at Coldstream. Before heading south, Monck sent his brother-in-law, Thomas Clarges, to establish an alternative voice to Nedham’s two newsbooks. Clarges enlisted the support of Henry Muddiman, who tried to disguise the General’s contempt for the Rump by calling his newsbook The Parliamentary Intelligencer ( in contrast to Nedham’s Publick Intelligencer), the first issue appearing at Christmas 1659. The book justified its existence by claiming to offer reliable information instead of the maliciously designed false news which currently existed. Muddiman insisted he acted for the public welfare, stating that he had “never writ anything of this sort till entreated to it for a just vindication of his excellency [Monck] and the army, to give faithful intelligence of their transactions, which we were so basely and falsely represented by the pamphleteers then in being.”12 The fear of the insidious damage inflicted by false news resulted in a second newsbook by Muddiman within ten days. On 5 January 1660, as Monck prepared to march for London, Mercurius Publicus (an evocation of a royalist newsbook in 1648) was pub-

204

courting the moderates

lished to counter Nedham’s Mercurius Politicus.13 With the dissolution of the Rump, [16 March 1660] the Council of State prohibited Nedham’s newsbooks, though to little effect. Despite Nedham’s disappearance in April, his newsbooks were carried on until June, when Muddiman was given sole right to both printed and handwritten news.14 Over the next several years, he and Williamson were to remain key players in the government’s attempt to monopolize the flow of information. For a few years Muddiman’s news dominated the field. In July 1660 the government learned that “a clique of Fifth Monarchy men were actually attempting to control the whole of the newspaper press of the nation, and was [sic] issuing four periodicals a week . . . and insulting the Government journalist.” On 18 July the Privy Council gave orders for the suppression of all printed news not written by Muddiman, and beginning with the Parliamentary Intelligencer for 23 July, the newsbooks were headed Published by Authority. Muddiman was attached to the office of the Secretary; the resulting franking privileges allowed Muddiman to distribute his manuscript news at no charge to himself. For the same reason, all letters addressed to Muddiman were allowed to pass without charge, establishing him as the greatest single source of information.15 As a result of the competition among the newsbooks, many errors occurred in the reporting of parliamentary news. Accordingly, the House of Commons overturned the precedent of the Long Parliament and published an order—in Mercurius Publicus, 28 June 1660—that “no person whatsoever do presume at his peril, to print any votes or proceedings of this House, without the special leave and order of this House.” Parliament was joining with the king in demanding that the cultural authority of the press and the right to participate in the political process be strictly limited.16 Muddiman carefully adhered to this ruling, and the printed news throughout the Restoration was marked by a paucity of domestic events. Consequently, the manuscript newsletters became essential for anyone interested in domestic affairs.17 Thus Muddiman gladly yielded control of the newsbooks to L’Estrange in 1663. Sir Roger L’Estrange had been an adversary of Presbyters and the faction in the 1640s. From 1658–60, he had written a plethora of royalist tracts excoriating rebellion and religious fanaticism. As a result, L’Estrange had earned the sobriquet “bloodhound of the press” thanks to his unsolicited efforts to expose seditious printers from 1660–62 and, preceding the Press Act of 1662, he was appointed Surveyor of the Press. His abilities were certainly required, for the uprising of the Fifth Monarchy Men, the executions of the regicides, and the St. Bartholomew’s Day ejections had all lent themselves to the cause of sedition, with Dying Speeches, Farewell Sermons, and books of Prodigies all pouring off the presses.18 Consequently, L’Estrange began his campaign for more com-

7: controlling the printed word

205

plete control of the printing industry. Like Milton and Hobbes, L’Estrange believed “in the necessity for press censorship . . . [and that] men take books seriously enough to demand of them a strict accounting.”19 Naturally, the government’s concerns for the printed word cut both ways: in November 1662, following the bishops return to the House of Lords, a Proclamation recommended to “all his Majesty’s loving subjects the having and using the Book entitled God and the King.”20 It is important to note that L’Estrange provides an important insight into early Restoration attitudes about the relationship between rebellion and the printed word. The Surveyor importuned the government for greater powers, and his Momento of 1662 as well as the Minute of a Project for Suppressing Libels documented his views.21 By 1663, he had added the office of Surveyor of Printing and Printing Presses to his titles. His appointment came soon after the publication of his Considerations and Proposal in Order to the Regulation of the Press. This pamphlet, one of many he wrote on the issue of censorship, is a perfect example of the common belief that the press was a powerful instrument in the hands of a small group of malignants who exploited the passions of the multitude so that after they “put Mischief into their Hearts, their next Business is to put Swords in their Hands, and to Engage them in a direct Rebellion.” In Harold Weber’s apt words, “L’Estrange runs from print to sword, persuasion to rebellion, without hesitation.”22 While the government never achieved anything close to complete control of the Press, the relentless pursuit of regulation remains significant. When the Northern Conspiracy of October 1663 was shown to have ties to the seditious activities of the “Confederates,” the bloodhound was finally set loose.23 Having taken over the newsbook in the same period, L’Estrange was now the only man allowed to print news in England. L’Estrange’s control of the newsbooks coincided with the enactment of the majority of the Clarendon Code, and these books became the voice of the Anglican triumph. The Surveyor’s obsession with sedition soon transformed the news Published by Authority into the scourge of dissent and sedition, an association which remained a permanent fixture in L’Estrange’s world. No matter how timely these attacks may have seemed to some, the newsbooks soon came under fire. With L’Estrange in charge, the news content was inexcusably thin, forcing him to reduce the size of his newsbooks by half and even to enlarge the print. It is likely that the limited information offered by L’Estrange contributed to the growing popularity of the newsletters. In fact, the situation deteriorated to the point where L’Estrange was reduced to including Muddiman’s newsletter inside his newsbook in order to sustain interest. Finally, the coverage of the Dutch War and the Plague caused such widespread disenchantment with the newsbooks that L’Estrange soon lost control.24

206

courting the moderates

Joseph Williamson, secretary to Arlington, was another figure obsessed with sedition and misinformation. When the court fled from the plague to Oxford, he hatched a plot to wrest the newsbooks from L’Estrange. On 16 November 1665 Williamson had the first number of the Oxford Gazette printed, ostensibly to keep the nation informed of the news at court.25 This single page of two closely printed columns on each side sold for a penny. The headings, from Paris, the Hague, Brussels, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Cologne, and elsewhere were an early indication that the sources of the Gazette were superior to those used by L’Estrange. Additionally, the size of the Gazette was identical to Muddiman’s written news, and the two could be folded and posted together with ease.26 The success of the Gazette was immediate and complete. James Hickes wrote to Williamson in the first week that “in [a] few words, no publick intelligence to this day ever received so general an applause. And I hope you have ordered it so as that they may be printed here in London for the general content of all.”27 The newsbooks were now to be “taken into the offices of the Secretaries of State.”28 Williamson had disposed of L’Estrange, yet he had gained control of neither the printed nor the written news. However, when the court returned to Hampton Court at the end of January, Muddiman quit Arlington’s service for Secretary Morrice’s; Williamson was left with the Gazette, but Muddiman’s information, talents and newsletters were taken to another office in Whitehall. At that point, another newspaper was started under Secretary Morrice which quickly outdistanced the Gazette: The stories of each days action [against the Dutch] is now given at large in the diurnalls, of which there are now two, the Gazette written by order of Mr. Williamson, Lord Arlington’s Secretary, and the Current Intelligence, by Muddiman, written by order of Mr. Cooke, Sir William Morrice’s Secretary.29

Indeed, it was only the Great Fire that saved the venerable London (no longer Oxford) Gazette from extinction.30 In the end, Muddiman warded off further ambushes on his newsletters and maintained his position as the leading “intelligencer” of the Restoration.
Both Muddiman and L’Estrange appreciated the importance of hostile pamphlets and timely rumors because of their activities as opponents of the established government. Muddiman justified writing the Parliamentary Intelligencer by claiming it rebutted the news “so basely and falsely represented by the pamphleteers then in being.”31 L’Estrange’s views on this issue were even stronger. His experience as amateur sleuth and then Surveyor had shown him how quickly and effectively sedition worked on the

7: controlling the printed word

207

minds of the people. When he was given control of the newsbook in 1663, he admitted frankly that he was of two minds about providing any information at all to those outside the government: supposing the Press in order, the people in their right wits and news or no news to be the question, a Public mercury should never have my vote, because I think it makes the multitude too familiar with the actions and counsels of their superiors, too pragmatical and cencorious [sic], and gives them not only an itch but a kind of colourable right and license to be meddling with the Government.32

Like the other writers addressing the various elite and popular audiences for political culture, L’Estrange aimed to enlighten people about their previous errors and to offer instruction to guide them in the future: “There is not anything which at this instant more imports his Majesty’s service . . . than to redeem the public from their former mistakes and deliver and protect them from the like for the time to come. To both which purposes the prudent manager of a gazette may contribute in a very high degree.”33 The newsbooks, and even the Gazette, were to fail in this regard, yet government propaganda was to devote its attention both to “redeeming the public” and to “protecting them from the like” mistakes by providing images of the proper virtues in every form available to popular political culture. In the end, L’Estrange confessed that providing news might have its place since the pliable minds and affections of the people could be played upon by the proper authorities. Despite his repeated disdain for the people, L’Estrange had a real feel for the sensibilities of different audiences. He proved a master of the simple style with a true flair for invective. He realized that lengthy and logical treatises (or Heroic Dramas) could have no part in sustaining the allegiance of the rabble: simple, sanitized versions of events provided them all the information they deserved: ’tis none of the worst ways to address to the genius and business of the common people whose affections are much more capable of being tuned and wrought upon by convenient hints and touches in the shape and air of a pamphlet than by the strongest reasons and best notions imaginable under any other and more sober form whatsoever.34

Although this statement is typical of L’Estrange’s immoderate style, his concerns over unlicensed publications and ill-intentioned news reports were common among influential ministers at the court. In fact, the attempts to control the Press and to restrict the spreading of false news were constant under Charles II. As a result, the descriptions of the insidious nature of these types of sedition occur again and again, almost without variation.

208

courting the moderates


L’Estrange’s appointment as Surveyor and his capacity as leading nemesis of sedition and dissent in the early 1660s made him an important ally of Clarendon.35 He had done impressive work in confiscating seditious works, closing illegal presses, and arresting many associated with the publication and distribution of seditious materials. However, in the aftermath of Clarendon’s banishment, the definition of sedition shifted dramatically. At the end of 1667 one newsletter reported that “the Archbishop of Canterbury is in so much disfavour with the King that he forbad him to preach on Xmas day and appointed the Bp of Hereford.” Within a year, “the heads of the Presbyterian party here in towne were lately with the King to give him thankes for the Connivance that hath beene at their meetings, with a promise of their peaceable living under the govt; his Majesty told them he looked upon them as very good Subjects, and that he hoped they would behave themselves so as not to forfeit that favor that was showed them.”36 Not surprisingly, the favor showed to them had coincided with the favor withdrawn from L’Estrange. Denied his share of the profits from the Gazette, he spent the years from 1667–70 neglecting his duties as watchdog and bickering with the Stationers Company.37 This took place at a time when unlicensed printing was reaching new heights. The Catholics were rebutting accusations of having started the Fire while the puritanically minded were busy fulminating against the lax morality of the court. In February 1668 a printed libel called Vox and lachrimae Anglorum was left at the doors of the House of Commons. A few days later, a manuscript libel was directed to the Sergeant of Armes, and addressed “from the Countess of Castlemaine’s quarters,” purportedly a plea from the Countess and the City’s prostitutes for protection.38 In addition to literary insults, liberties were taken with the king’s property and courtiers. On 29 May Charles returned to Whitehall to find C[arolus]: R[ex] with a crown painted above the inscription, “Hobbes his Religion, Hyde his Moralls gave / And this day birth to an ungratefull knave.” This was not the only insult visited upon the royal grounds: the Duke had his chamber pilfered on two separate occasions, a “paper posted at Scotland Yard read, ‘All fanatics that want employment, lett them repaire to Wallingford House and they shall be presently entertained,’ ” and a member of Arlington’s household even took advantage of the Queen’s dairy cow.39 It is a safe bet that L’Estrange’s belief in the close relationship between print, persuasion, and rebellion was being reaffirmed during his hiatus as an active Surveyor. With L’Estrange on the sidelines, the only policing of the press came from the Stationers Company. That it was not in their interest to do so had been demonstrated convincingly in 1662 by L’Estrange.40 When it became known that the Dutch were smuggling pamphlets into the ports of Hull,

7: controlling the printed word

209

Bristol, and Newcastle, the Council faced the need for stricter measures than those taken by the Stationers.41 This state of affairs convinced Arlington to renew the Surveyor’s salary and entreat his assistance. For obvious reasons, L’Estrange was careful to remind the Secretary how things had deteriorated during his absence: “I do persuade myself that the Government will find it a hard matter to reduce the Press to the order I had brought it. Had I been still allowed according to his Majesty’s bounty, I would have kept it as clear as I had then made it.”42 The king conceded the justice of these remarks, and after packing the Stationers Company with loyal printers to no effect, he issued a Quo Warranto against their charter. In this way, he hoped to give the Surveyor of the Press a permanent influence over the Stationers.43 When the Company amended its by-laws and came to terms with L’Estrange, the king agreed to stop the attack on its charter. In the wake of this triumph, L’Estrange wasted little time in validating his value to the government. By November, he had arrested two printers and seized countless pamphlets; in March a newsletter featured evidence of the penalties for sedition: One Palmer a bookseller has been convicted of circulating a scandalous pamphlet in MS. called the “Advice to a Painter,” in which their Majesties and many of the nobility were maligned. He is fined, and is to stand in the pillory . . . [On the] 20th a pamphlet having been circulated as Lord Lucas’s speech in opposition to the Subsidy Bill in Parliament, complaint was made in the Lords’ House . . . [and] it was ordered to be burnt by the common hangman.44

While the newsletters were careful to publicize the renewed vigor of government actions, the varied attacks on the king and court and the torrent of pamphlets articulating defenses of liberty of conscience helped revive fears about public opinion and the competing interpretations of current events. Obviously, the emergence of the political sphere was in no way a welcome development during the Restoration; the recent examples of “a popular political culture formed by a concerned and active citizenry of an unprecedented size and awareness” persuaded the government that unofficial forms of propaganda had to be eliminated.45 However, convictions remained very difficult to secure: the resistance of the Stationers, conflicting warrants and the dubious legality of the General Warrant all contributed to the Surveyor’s woes. While the inability to convict most offenders did little to hamper L’Estrange’s vigilance, from this point on any attempt to malign the king or his court would be met with the type of humiliating public recrimination which L’Estrange had recommended in 1663. The plethora of medals, lampoons, and pamphlets resulting from the Second Dutch War, along with the reaction to the Conventicle Act, must have alerted Charles II to the seditious discontent his actions in 1672

210

courting the moderates

would provoke. The activities of Du Moulin and the Dutch, as well as the official responses, have already been noticed. But Charles’s government took steps to insulate the people from the cancerous effects of enemy propaganda. Even before the attack on the Smyrna Fleet (which preceded the Declaration of War), Muddiman reported that “his Majesty having been informed of ye great and dangerous inconveniences that may happen by permitting such great and publick resort of all persons to coffee houses . . . has desired the Lord Keeper and the Judges to give their opinion in writing how far he may lawfully proceed agst them.”46 In May, an anonymous pamphlet argued that England would be much-improved if “ye discourse of ye Public affaires and Gov’t may be for ever hereafter banished out of ye Club. And ye Gov’t may ever be continued in ye hands of him who hath been miraculously restored to it and belongs unto by Inheritance.”47 As would be expected, the king’s ministers were to concentrate a good deal of attention throughout the war on preventing the arrival of seditious literature and warning the people away from the false news introduced by the Dutch. The justification remained consistent: the king’s enemies were attempting to seduce the people into opposing him through lies and attacks on his character. It was the same mine dug by the rebels in 1640 and if it were allowed to explode, the results would be identical.48 Unfortunately, the continuing fears of universal monarchy increased the ability of Du Moulin to use the alliance with France, the Catholicism of James, and the French conduct in the war under Admiral D’Estrees to strip the government propaganda of much of its credibility.
When the Estates General released the English merchant ships which had been in Dutch ports at the outbreak of hostilities, Arlington warned his assistants that “they intend to send over by the English ships that are discharged a quantity of scurrilous and seditious pamphlets to disinfect his [the King’s] subjects.”49 Thanks to this bit of “intelligence” and the escalating activities of Du Moulin, the State Papers for 1672–73 are full of orders to search ships, watch the ports, visit coffeehouses and, finally, an Order in Council for suppressing the spread of false news. On 30 September L’Estrange was unleashed once more and given a General Warrant allowing him or any of his deputies or any of the king’s Messengers to “search for, seize, and bring away, all seditious, scandalous or unlicensed, portraitures, pictures, books, pamphlets, or papers imprinted or imported contrary to law, and to deface and make unserviceable the offending press, and to . . . examine all persons suspected to be the printers, authors, dispensers or publishers thereof.”50 The work of L’Estrange and the Secretaries was made easier at the beginning of 1673 when the notorious Col-

7: controlling the printed word

211

onel Blood tipped off the government that a host of Dutch pamphlets were to be smuggled in by the Spanish Ambassador, probably in casks of butter.51 In light of the impossibility of achieving anything like absolute or complete censorship, the government was forced to match its efforts to control information with a campaign to discredit the insinuations and criticisms of its adversaries. As the misinformation was clearly intended to undermine public support for the government, the official response was able to rely on its well-developed assumptions about the real purpose of sedition: to deceive the “Common People” and to “put Mischief into their Hearts . . . [and] Swords in their Hands.”52 The government’s defense against these Dutch barbs illustrates the consistent values of the writers engaged on the government’s side. Whether they were employed by the government or simply the exponents of received values is an issue less important than the coherent argument advocated by them all. At the opening of the conflict, a clever pamphlet exposed the way in which the Estates General used deception, rumors, and false news to inflame the Dutch people against Charles and the English: first they begin with his Majesty . . . that he is a man of no credit, no faith, a Rogue, a Traytor and will not keep his Articles with them, and that ye only way of making themselves great is to ruin him and England and with such Scandalous Lyes and storyes they humour ye Community and they being half drunk Submit to anything.53

This disparagement of Charles II is seen not simply as false but as characteristic of the Dutch mentality. Earlier, the pamphleteer had expounded on the distinctions between the English and Dutch—the latter being “greatly Sotts, droanes and cowards”—and no doubt hoped the people of England would not be so easily taken in as their enemies across the Channel. In the long run, it was best to rely on the Officers of State to determine the national direction since the Dutch were so accomplished at deception. It was, after all, the key to political success in Holland: I’ll assure you that any man that hath a good faculty of Lyeing and Drinking need not want preferment. . . . I have often thought it good Policy . . . to have some 20 or 30 able Lyars in pay in the Country. . . . I must Confess ye faculty of lyeing and dissembling and representing their Actions in a Magnifying Glass and their enemys with a wrong end of a Perspective is that which keeps up the minds of ye Community.54

Unfortunately, the combined efforts of the pamphleteers and guardians at the ports could not prevent the well-aimed arrows from Du Moulin’s quiver hitting their mark. With hostility mounting to both the French alliance and to the creeping Catholicism at court, the stream of Dutch

212

courting the moderates

propaganda began to erode the nation’s faith in the king’s intentions. The government was rightly being held accountable for its alliance with France, with both Anglican Royalists and dissenters opposing the king for the same reasons. Short of altering its policies, the government’s only recourse was to silence the opponents who were contributing to the growing public opposition. One correspondent of Williamson complained that “there is not a place in the world soe fruitful in liing storyes as London, and, though the falseness of these storyes is usually within two or three dayes layd open to the world, yet the people are ready to receive new ones, and to believe them till theye alsoe are detected. From hence it is that our enemyes gather stubbornness for these reports are usually framed to the disadvantage of our owne affaires.”55 Toward the end of the war, Sir Thomas Player criticized coffeehouses, resenting how “the common people talke anything, for every carman and porter is now a statesman; and indeed the coffee-houses are good for nothing else. It was not thus when wee dranke nothing but sack and clarett. . . . These sober clubbs produce nothing but scandalous and censorious discourses, and at these nobody is spared.”56 Clearly, no matter what the government did to expose the misinformation swirling around the public sphere, nothing seemed to slake the public thirst for news. For this reason, the government stepped up its efforts to silence its critics and to curtail the ready availability of opposition political culture. With the English failing to win the propaganda war by 1674, a new direction was in order. One improvement that was sure to follow close on the heels of the Peace Treaty was the increase in domestic intelligence which would come with the return of Sir Joseph Williamson from the Congress at Cologne. Immediately upon his return, another Proclamation was published “forbidding subjects by speaking or writing to publish false reports, especially of an intended dissolution of Parliament, or to intermeddle in private discourse with State affairs, or the person’s of the King’s ministers, spreading calumnies and stirring up dislike to the government.”57 At the same time, unprecedented numbers of warrants were issued to L’Estrange and the messengers of the Stationers to search for pamphlets and publishers, to destroy illegal presses, and to imprison anyone discovered engaged in this activity. Williamson also maintained his contacts in Holland and pushed them to do all in their power to “come to the distinct and the full knowledge of the instruments and means employed to work upon the Parliament and the people here.”58 In the end, these measures curtailed the flow of Dutch propaganda, which finally ended with the Peace. Until other nations chose to imitate that example, the root of sedition would be English citizens who objected to the king’s policies and dreaded the growth of those inseparable twins—popery and arbitrary government. The polemical characterization of Dutch propaganda as the product of a mendacious culture had backfired on the government. For example, the

7: controlling the printed word

213

Test Act had revealed the existence of popery in high places and confirmed many of the worst fears about the Declaration of Indulgence. When Charles published his Proclamation for the suppression of Popery in November 1673, many well-placed observers expressed skepticism: “This would indeed give great satisfaction to the people could they believe that the King’s command in this particular would be punctually executed, but they have seen so many proclamations and orders which have hardly been remembered some days after they were published, that they will not take much notice of this until they see the effect follow.”59 For this reason, it was the government’s distinct lack of credibility at this time which informed the argument in a pamphlet following the peace. In the Reflections Upon the League with France, the Danger of Popery and Arbitrary Power &c, the author linked the opposition’s accusations of popery at court to the “Catholic menace” which was used to disaffect the people in 1641.60 One theme which the government would not abandon was the invidious nature of false news. The purpose of deceptive information was to create the assumption on the part of those outside government that they had sufficient information to criticize the government’s policies. However, the argument that the Dutch propaganda was all a fabrication devised to inspire tumults among the people had proven hollow. By 1674 as many people distrusted the government’s statements as they did those of the Dutch. In the letter “written before the late peace concluded with Holland,” the author developed one variation on the theme of false news and misinformation. No longer were the Dutch blamed for crying up popery for their own gain. There were precedents for the manipulation of religious hysteria to fan the flames of revolution and upheaval, and they had little do with foreign meddling. In the pamphlet dated 7 December 1673, but printed following the Peace, the author condemns those who use the fear of Catholicism and absolutism to help them “disinfect” the people. The repeated claims that a French Alliance would infect the government with visions of absolutism were rejected. This was the same ploy utilized in 1640– 41, when concerns over religion were used to “scare up the undiscerning multitude.” These insinuations were the offspring of those “who over busy themselves in crying about the buzz of false and uncertaine rumors, and the drewfull imaginations of an arbitrary and lawless power.” History had shown that such accusations were transparent; after all, these fanatics had installed the most arbitrary government in England’s history—the same fanatics who pretended to be so fearful now for the survival of English liberties.61 When this pamphlet was published, Danby had been Treasurer for roughly six months. Far from wishing to denigrate the Dutch, Danby planned to make his Protestant policies the basis for recapturing the support of the nation’s moderates. Nonetheless, his commitment to monopolizing the access to public opinion is seen in the Proclamation to Restrain

214

courting the moderates

the Spreading of False News, and Licentious Talking of Matters of State and Government: “Whereas of late many persons ill affected to the Government have assumed to themselves a Liberty in their ordinary Discourses to censure and defame the proceedings of State, Whereby they endeavour to create and nourish in the minds of his Majesties good Subjects an evil opinion of things they understand not: And further to promote their Seditious ends, they do daily invent false News, and spread the same abroad amongst the People.”62 The central themes of this Proclamation show the same shift in emphasis already noted in sermons, plays, and pamphlets. While sedition and rumor were to remain central concerns, the villains from now on were to be the extremists who had divided the nation in the late troubles. Their goal was to nurture discontent in the country, for although the people were presented with regular evidence of their neighbors misfortunes, “yet they must never be contented but must be every day and very often in every day finding fault with the Government.”63 Halftruths and misleading interpretations of the government’s intentions would once again be the method for creating distress and increasing distempers in England. The picture was the same in London and the provinces; the people twice a day visited coffeehouses or prating schools in London, and its lines of communication the mart of lies and fooles . . . [and] Mr Muddiman’s Creame of Intelligence communicated twice a week by his letters to very many diverse . . . country coffeehouses . . . where his letters being read and annotations being made upon them and guesses and conjectures rashly heaped . . . [upon them], faction spreads her wings and carries it . . . to be chewed over again at every Conventicle and Congregation meeting and repeated at every market or countrey meeting and at feasts and entertain ments . . . [where it would displease them] to heare of any thing . . . that is well done either in Church or State.64

Again we see the trope about the dangers of false news and its ability to foment dissent in the body politic. From the time Danby became Lord Treasurer until his fall in the Exclusion Crisis, this cancer was to be blamed on the fanatics. The events of 1640– 41 and the complications which followed were to be recounted on innumerable occasions in the hope of insulating the people from exposure to this fatal disease. These preventative measures were to be combined with the government’s own propaganda to develop a robust body of Anglican/Cavalier support.
The prorogation from February 1674 to April 1675 witnessed the new Lord Treasurer’s first steps towards unifying a solid group of supporters in

7: controlling the printed word

215

both Houses of Parliament. The Cavalier agenda of severing the close ties with the French, financial retrenchment at court, renewal of the alliance with the church, along with the careful use of propaganda and spectacles were all to be combined with the use of influence to gain a working majority in Parliament. One element in this strategy was the move to end the opposition’s access to the public.65 The first abortive attempt to realize this was the Test Bill of 1675. The failure of this effort to proscribe all who refused to uphold the status quo in church and state was followed by an outpouring of critical pamphlets and squibs. In May, a government spy had warned that “some talk much of new lampoons. If any of them come to my hand, as I am promised some, I may send them to you.”66 There were promising early reports from the countryside, one subscriber reporting that he had “received the Weekly Letter last Friday, which has been viewed by several gentleman and others. They much rejoice at his Majesty’s good thought of his Parliament, and opinion of establishing the Protestant Religion.”67 But by the October meeting, the government’s opponents struck back in Parliament and in public. The first in a long line of Place Bills was introduced which consisted of an oath attesting to one’s freedom from bribes since 1673: “nor have I given my vote in Parliament for any reward or promise whatsoever.” By now, the bid to depict Danby’s management and organization as a species of arbitrary government had begun. Publicly, Shaftesbury’s Letter from a Person of Quality and another pamphlet advocating the dissolution of the Parliament were being distributed. The earl also delivered his anti-episcopal speech in the Lords and seconded Lord Mohun’s motion for the dissolution of the Parliament.68 Secretary Williamson must have been pained to hear from Yarmouth that “we are well stored with speeches and votes, as the e of Shaftesbury’s, [and] the d of Buckingham’s . . . so that no endeavours are wanting to make the Court odious to the people, and all men being dissatisfied are too credulous, so that now but to accuse is sufficient to condemn.”69 Defenders of the government were agreed that public dissatisfaction was at the root of people’s credulity. Thus, the propaganda campaign in support of Danby’s Anglican Royalist policies was as important as the suppression of false news. The actions taken to preclude public opposition had been insufficient, but the salutary effects of anticipating opposition stratagems convinced Danby of the need to increase his efforts.70 The brazen attacks on official policies in the Letter to a Person of Quality drew an immediate and comprehensive response. The tactics used in this instance provided a useful example of the government’s strategy in the contests to come. After a debate in the Lords, “this little book” about the last Session and the Test, “with some sharp reflections and remarques upon severall bishops and some great ministers of state is brought in by bishops and ordered burnt by the common hangman.”71 The Surveyor was

216

courting the moderates

given a warrant to arrest the author, publisher, and printer of the Letter and to seize all the copies he discovered. A Bill was introduced for “explaining and supplying defaults in An Act for Preventing frequent abuses in printing seditious, treasonable and unlicensed books and pamphlets and for regulating printing and printing presses.”72 In the end, the motion in the Lords for dissolving the present Parliament was only partially gratified by a prorogation of fifteen months. The Privy Council thought as one about the need to curtail the opposition’s ability to play upon the innate credulity of the people.73 Every opportunity was taken to limit public expressions of opposition to the royal policies. The attempt to enter dissenting opinion into the official record was opposed by a group identified as attached to Danby. The right to enter a Protest was accepted, but “ye Treasurists say they ought not to add ye reasons for yt dissent, because then ye reasons of ye minor part appearing upon record, and not those of the other side, every body will be apt to be partiall and be swayed by wt they see, as agt wt they doe not see, and to censure the major part of the House.”74 It was the public’s tendency to credit the arguments and information presented to them which fueled the government’s commitment to publish its views and to eliminate any forum for the expression of opposing views. To begin with, the government did its best to remind people of the consequences of returning to the misfortunes of the year 1641. Writers for the government were careful to point out the real intentions of those who would beguile men into disloyalty—relying on their wit to glorify the private interest of individuals to the detriment of the king and nation: “So pleasing is the Itch of a little Wit in Print, that some men would not lose it any rate. [sic] But from you . . . I doubt not to find more Wisdom, than to be Witticsed out of the good old plain way of Honour, Allegiance, Publick Interest, and Peace . . . by a small Goblin, into the Bryars at best; but rather (I fear) into the Pit of Destruction.”75 Despite this expression of confidence in the public, the pamphlets from 1675 and the manuscript satires on the equestrian statues drove the government to more drastic measures to curtail seditious activity in the years leading up to the Exclusion Crisis. The official obsession with public gullibility explains the concern to suppress false news and to provide appropriate examples and instruction to the people. The government wish for hegemony over political culture was rooted in the belief that sedition had been essential to the outbreak of the civil war. Thus, the control of information was accompanied by constant reminders of the consequences that resulted from the free flow of sedition in the 1640s. The spate of sedition which accompanied the long prorogation in November resulted in a Proclamation ordering the closing of the coffeehouses. The king summarily withdrew the licenses on 29 December and demanded the suppression of these hotbeds of treasonable discourse by 10

7: controlling the printed word

217

January 1676, “these houses having produced evil consequences from idle and disaffected persons resorting to them, and by leading tradesmen and others to misspend their time, and occasioning the spreading of false reports to the defamation of the government and the disturbance of the peace.”76 The dubious legality of the king’s act forced the revocation of this order, but the recognizance required all proprietors to “allow no scandalous papers, books or libels to be brought into their house or to be read there, and to prevent all persons from declaring there, any false and scandalous reports against the government or ministers.” There can be no clearer statement of the government’s wish to limit the forums for opposition.77 The poisonous effects which coffee and coffeehouses had on the public sphere was summarized in a licensed satire of 1676. Coffee’s foreign roots were traced back to Satan himself and coffee itself personified as the midwife to false news, illegal printing, and as the wetnurse to the “Devil’s Children (Lies).” A SATYR AGAINST COFFEE A void, Satanick Tipple! hence Thou Murtherer of Farthings, and of Peace; And Midwife to all false Intelligence! ... Bak’d in a pan, Brew’d in a pot, The Third device of him who first begot The Printing Libels, and the Powder-plot. A Swill that needs must be accurst, And of all sorts of Drink the very worst, By which the Devils Children (Lies) are nurst.78

The reprieve granted to the coffeehouses was accompanied by a Proclamation for the Better Discovery of Seditious Libellers, a measure which anticipated the further proceedings against the Stationers in July. If there were any doubt as to the government’s familiarity with the leaders of seditious activity, it was dispelled by Charles’s suggestion to Shaftesbury that he remove himself from London. Williamson himself had called on Shaftesbury to tell him that “his Majesty thinks it were much fitter you were at home in the country; that now the term is done . . . [and] you can have no business of that kind further in town. . . . His Majesty knows more than it [sic] maybe your Lordship thinks he does of your being busy up and down here in the town, and therefore has thought fit to give you this warning.” The earl insisted that “business” did not allow him to abandon London for the country, but the combination of close government scrutiny and a crackdown on seditious printers no doubt alerted him to the need to

218

courting the moderates

move with caution.79 In fact, the assault on the earl’s Letter to a Person of Quality pointed directly at Shaftesbury’s self-serving ambition as well as his intention of stirring up trouble in the City in order to inflame the country: [Shaftesbury] hath lived to see the uttermost of his Old Trade of Jugling, having Jugled himself out of all at Court; and being passed hope of Jugling himself in again (all his Feats being well understood there—) he sets up at t’other end o’ th’ Town, to Jugle up a Mutiny in the City; in hope to find Combustible Matter there to set Fire to in the Country; and, at length, inflame a Party for his purpose in the Parliament, or rather in a New One, which he supposes will be the likeliest expedient: And truly, he did as good as tell us so in that Letter . . . intended to be a Fireball among the Citizens here; as appeared by the Industrious spreading Copies of it in all the Coffee-Houses.80

Shaftesbury’s activities in the public sphere were denounced for what they were, a scheme to use the coffeehouses to launch a Fireball into the country and to create a Party in Parliament to flatter his own ambition. While doing everything in his power to check the earl of Shaftesbury, Danby turned his attentions in 1676 to strengthening the numbers of reliable supporters in the House of Commons. The recognizance insisted on in January kept the coffeehouses relatively quiet and the number of libels tapered off. This in part was a product of the increased number of warrants granted to the Surveyor and messengers to root out scandalous printers and booksellers.81 When a treasonable pamphlet appeared in July purporting to be the speech of Mr. Jenks to the Common Council, L’Estrange descended once more on the Stationers Company.82 Jenks had urged the Common Council to address the king for a new Parliament to redress the country’s grievances. The justifications for the need to dissolve the Parliament were so similar to the reasoning of the Letter to a Person of Quality that one writer for the government claimed that Shaftesbury was behind this attempt to coerce the king as well. The use of a petition from the City to the monarch smacked so much of 1641 that the idea must have come from the old faction “which lately inspired Mr. Jenks with the wisdom of a statesman, to instruct his Majesty . . . in the old Presbyterian way of Petitioning; a sort of Saucy Humility much used by that Tribe in the beginning of their Rebellion.”83 Jenks’ speech was a litany of all the complaints which were to make up the platform of country parties for years to come. Unfortunately for Jenks, he was seconded by no one, summoned before the king and Council, and committed to the Gatehouse. The government was not alone in recognizing that the demand for a new Parliament sounded all too familiar, and, as Charles Hatton wrote to his brother,

7: controlling the printed word

219

This businesse of Ginks hath been long contriving by ye D of Bucks and Ld Shaftesb, ye later of whom did oppose making any such motion as yet, judging their businesse wase not yet ripe; but it is sd ye D of B wase for putting it now to ye test, and ye miscarriage hath occasioned great feuds amongst their partisans. Ginks denyes to have been incited. . . . But ye fanaticke party, who before were insolently high, are much crestfallen.84

This incident had immediate repercussions. Within a week L’Estrange was ordered to look to the Stationers again and insist on two new by-laws for the Company.85 Thus, the fortunes of those opposed to the government were at their lowest point in years. Retrenchments at court, increasing customs revenues, a Treaty with the Dutch, an expanding group of treasurists in Parliament, and an effective political culture all seemed to point to an unhindered extension of the Cavalier Parliament.
L’Estrange and Williamson had a firm grip—but not a stranglehold— on the printing houses in London by 1676. Danby’s mounting success in gaining supporters in both Houses was making it imperative that his opponents force Charles II to dissolve Parliament. To further this end, government opponents published a trio of pamphlets on the unconstitutionality of the fifteen-month prorogation. Relying on a tactic used by Du Moulin years before, the pamphlets appeared just prior to the parliamentary Session (followed in February by the Young Man’s Plea) and were accompanied by an eruption of seditious activity. These pamphlets were rightly described as “three great libels printed on the eve of Parliament, [designed] like a New Whig Gunpowder Plot to blow up the present Parliament.”86 The coherence of these pamphlets as well as their foreshadowing of the opposition’s goals in destroying Danby’s achievements proved that the parliamentary malcontents and seditious writers and printers were working in concert. Therefore, the government was determined to crush the axis of dissent. The government’s commitment can be seen in the decision to summon L’Estrange before the Council to account for the outpouring of seditious pamphlets and to report on “how such miscarriages may be prevented for ye future.”87 The Secretary and Surveyor collected the libels for presentation to the Libel Committee in the Lords. The Committee took the matter of the Press under consideration, ordered the public burning of the offending pamphlets, and sent Dr. Carey to the Tower for being found with proofs of the Grand Question. Unfortunately, the primary aim—proving the connection between Shaftesbury and the libels—was foiled when Dr. Carey refused to

220

courting the moderates

name the authors.88 However, Danby’s influence in the House of Lords led to the imprisonment of the four opposition leaders, Shaftesbury, Salisbury, Wharton, and Buckingham, for maintaining that the Session was illegal. With the vanguard of opposition sentiment safely locked away, the government went on the offensive. The battle began with a flood of arrests and seizures by L’Estrange and the messengers.89 These, in conjunction with the lengthy incarceration of Shaftesbury, provided intimidating examples of the determination to silence criticism.90 The Surveyor’s longstanding fears over the chapmen and hawkers were finally taken up by allies of the government in the Lords. This occurred after the Treasurer learned that the exertions of some foreign chapmen meant that “there is by them the greatest extremity and convenience of correspondence and intelligence betwixt the malcontents of both nations as can be devised, and it may as easily be prevented, by forbidding their commerce here under the color of the injury they do to the markets and displease nobody but those that trafficke with them for rebellion.”91 More importantly, by the time Parliament was to meet in 1678, Danby was devising the grounds for an attack on Shaftesbury. The Treasurer was convinced that without the little Lord as its head the opposition to the government was more subdued. When Shaftesbury returned to politics, his reputation and ambitions were smeared in a number of critical pieces, the government doing everything in its power to discredit him. In July a spy reported that “the first part of the answer to the men of Shaftesbury our old friend March[amont] Nedham is reported to have a finger in, and in the second Answer a hand, and also a piece called the Countermine is said to be his, at which our Nonconforming friends are much troubled.” 92 The most interesting aspect of the assault on Shaftesbury’s character is the close association of leading members of the government with the authors of these attacks. In addition to Danby’s sponsorship of these pieces, there is evidence of one draft being criticized by officials closely associated with the king. In an undated letter from the Leeds Papers which was written some time between June 1677 and the outbreak of the Popish Plot, Chief Justice Scroggs tells the Lord Treasurer his opinions of “ye Papers” against Shaftesbury.93 Scroggs warns Danby that comprehensive attacks on the nonconformists are mistaken, “this not being a time to stir ye spleenes of a whole Party, whatever may be done to a single Person.” However, the need to expose Shaftesbury’s ambition and self-seeking nature must not be lost. If these failings can be associated with the earl, the revelations will quickly dissipate his support: I would have everybody beleeve what is sed of yt little Lrd, which they will not, who are provokt themselves in ye same paper, but by all them at least, he will

7: controlling the printed word

221

be defended instead of exposed, wch I would have left without shelter: other Good yt can be expected from these Papers, consists chiefly in laying him so open, yt all men may see, wt they are already apt to beleeve.94

Attacks on Shaftesbury’s mutability had been made before. In response to the claim made (by Shaftesbury?) in the Letter to a Person of Quality that the earl had never been “bought or frighted out of his Principles,” one writer derisively wondered if “it may be the Penman of the Letter is some pleasant person, of little acquaintance with his Lordship: or, he Dreamt all the World to be made of Oatmeal, or to have been in a Dream these Thirty Years: And, so we may say, if we please, Dream On, that his Lordship is no Changeling.”95 But the hint of extremism or exaggeration might lay the government open to the same charge it leveled at its opponents. Scroggs insisted that there should be no loose accusations or false information, for criticisms which are “too loosely writt, [are] subject to many exceptions, either as Triviall, or not close.” In fact, a careful narrative of Shaftesbury’s own history seemed quite sufficient to Scroggs to destroy the earl’s popularity. To bring his perfidies into the light will have the benefit yt he himselfe may see yt he is seene: wch tho it will have little effect upon his modesty it may upon his guilt, tho not enough to make him leave his designes, yet to make him falter in ’em. . . . And I think if the Gent yt wrott these, would undertake his Caracter by its selfe, and be but Carefull in his stile, he is furnisht with very good material, sufficient in a great measure to spoile his Politic Intentions.96

By this point, men like Scroggs had such confidence in the values expressed so often in the 1670s by Dryden and others—including the dangers of throwing over public duties and obligations for the sake of private ambitions and lust for power—that the Chief Justice was certain that an account of Shaftesbury’s history, which exposed his deceitful posturing as a guardian of liberty, would ruin him. The involvement of a highranking legal officer like Scroggs is a clear indication of the government’s concern for ideology and the public sphere. The careful vetting of this piece further shows how the official propaganda was being coordinated at the highest level of authority. It is interesting to notice again the similarities between the arguments of the stage and of the pamphleteers. Dryden had gone to considerable lengths to demonstrate the dangers of neglecting public obligations for the sake of personal interest. Dryden’s allegorical use of historical events was the same method to be used by pamphleteers who wished to expose the dangers of being lured into disobedience by false news. For instance, the

222

courting the moderates

recent experience of the Civil War had shown that the people would follow a demagogue like Shaftesbury if sedition and false news were allowed to flourish unopposed. The example of the outbreak of the Civil War was used to demonstrate the consequences of the false news being spread by conspirators pretending to act in the nation’s interest. For this reason, the pointedly titled pamphlet, Honesty’s Best Policy, attempted to reveal Shaftesbury’s true colors. Similarly, when the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government tried to coopt the government’s tactics by interpreting recent events to illustrate the widening influence of Catholicism, L’Estrange retaliated with lightening speed. Consequently, the attempt to break Danby’s hold over the Parliament was met with the Growth of Knavery, and a fundamental premise of L’Estrange’s argument in the Growth of Knavery was the real intention of those dispersing false news and sedition. Still smarting from the failure to bring Shaftesbury to heel before the Libel Committee in 1677, L’Estrange insisted once again that the writers of sedition were all part of the same ill-meaning faction: “I dare assure, that the Author of Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend in the Country . . . is very particularly acquainted with the Author of An Account of the Growth of Popery . . . and the Seasonable Argument that follows it in ’77.”97 After establishing the cooperation of the malicious pamphleteers, L’Estrange spelled out their goals in printing treasonable libels. As for Marvell, he discourses of “King, Lords, Commons, Judges, Ministers of State; they are all made Conspirators, against the Sovereign Multitude . . . insomuch that he has left himself nothing to trust to, but the contemplation of a General Tumult, which is the very Point he drives at in his Appeal to the Rabble.”98 The specter of the rabble and the insinuation that the multitude would be given a leading role in the shaping of government were reminders of the chaotic years following Charles I’s execution. L’Estrange was to develop this parallel in describing the importance of misinformation in inciting the undiscerning hordes: This is not the first time that we have heard of words smoother than Oyl which yet are very Swords. It is the very Stile that brought the late King to the Block . . . it is the very Crown of the Parallel betwixt ’77 and ’41. . . . What was the Old Remonstrance, but a spiteful and Invidious Misrepresentation of the State of the Kingdom, under the Notion of declaring Common Grievances? . . . [Is it not] the Old Practice reviv’d of drawing and sollicitng Petitions against Grievances of their own framing; and managing Affairs of State by Tumults?99

By connecting seditious pamphlets and disorder, L’Estrange simultaneously played his ace and justified eighteen years of censorship of the press. If these “misrepresentations” masquerading as defenses of the people’s liberties could be exposed as attempts to raise tumults and through these

7: controlling the printed word

223

disorders gratify the ambitions of factious leaders, then perhaps men would appreciate the government’s desire to insulate them from the enthusiasm occasioned by false news and sedition. L’Estrange instructed his readers to view these attacks on the king and court “narrowly, and you shall find the Pique to be as well Personal as Seditious, and the Work only of some Mercenary Pen to serve his Principall’s Animosity, as well as his Ambition.”100 The designs of the faction in 1678 were no different from those of 1641, “that is to say, he would set the people together by the Ears.”101 The sole intention of dispersing misleading reports about the government was to manipulate the loyalty of the people and thereby lead them into revolt. The sycophantic love and reverence for the king is disingenuous: Here’s still the Crocodile of 41, nothing but Love and Reverence to his late Majesty too, till his Head was off. . . . These ill men have no Names, it seems; so that any Man that’s near the King, is by this Libeller set up for a Mark to the Outrage of the people. . . . Who are they, I pray, that he calls the Kingdom, but the Rabble still of 41, the Execrable Instruments of that Rebellion, and the Hopes of another?102

That the people were eminently impressionable was an article of faith for L’Estrange. The spreading of false news was part of a malicious design for a return to 1641. The same methods had caused fanaticism, revolt, regicide, social upheaval, and military tyranny in the past; what else could be intended this time? Is not Mercury as good Poyson in 77 as it was in 41? Do we not strike Fire the same way now, that we did then? And may not a Spark, in the Gun-Room do as much mischief this year, as it did thirty or forty years ago? Are not the People as much Tinder now, as they were formerly? and as apt to take ill Impressions? What if the same Method should work the same Confusion over again? or in truth, what is there else to be expected? For the same Cause, acting at Liberty, must eternally produce the same Effect. There’s no Chance-medley or Misadventure in the Case; but the thing is manifestly done with Prepense [sic] malice, and on set purpose, to embroil the State.103


The 1670s had shown the government’s attempts to limit the damaging attacks inflicted on it by scandalous reports and false news. The Second Dutch War had shown just how damaging the belief that the government was popishly affected could be. The earl of Danby was doing all in his power to present the king and court as anti-French and closely allied to the Anglican Church. But the Catholicism of the duke of York allowed much

224

courting the moderates

of the mud slung at the court to stick. This was surely one of the reasons why allegations of popery continued to haunt the government and why Roger L’Estrange was granted ever-increasing powers to regulate the Press throughout the 1670s. It goes without saying that Danby’s platform needed a protected market in order to prove convincing. If the Lord Treasurer had achieved a complete monopoly of Restoration political culture, the government might well have captured the hearts of the people. The Gazette and the newsletters contributed a closely monitored account of events—so close, in fact, that in 1676 the king heard of a report of ships being dispatched and of Monmouth’s presence on the Resolution. The king commanded Coventry to “send for Mr Muddiman and if the Letter be either owned or proved upon him to bring him before the Council . . . so that he and all others shall understand that his Majesty will not suffer that either Muddiman or any other presume to divulge any thing agitated in Council till his Majesty think fitting to declare it.”104 These two official sources of news combined with the images and printed propaganda from the government to make the Cavalier agenda of the Lord Treasurer appear quite credible. Danby’s success in gaining the support of Parliament forced the government’s opponents to concentrate their efforts in 1676 and 1677 on forcing a dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament. The failure of this maneuver caused a return to the theme of popery and arbitrary government, an accusation which the actions of the government, from censorship to propaganda to the marriage of William and Mary, might have weathered had it not been for the revelations in November 1678. The official counterattacks in 1678—and it is clear that the attacks on seditious pamphlets were organized from Whitehall—were successful in branding the opposition as power-hungry fanatics who would once more turn the world upside down. But Danby’s garment of Heroic values fell to his feet in November; this was not caused by the fabrications of Titus Oates announced by Charles at the opening of Parliament, but by the shocking letters brandished in the House of Lords by Montagu. The evidence of the Lord Treasurer’s secret financial negotiations with Louis XIV shattered the entente cordiale of moderates, Cavaliers, and Anglicans that Danby had worked so hard to create. The repeated warnings of the insidious aims of all dispensers of false news suddenly rebounded on a government condemned by its own sentence. Marvell’s dire predictions about the growth of popery were substantiated. With one half of the formula proven, the evidence of bribery, pensioners, prorogations, and arbitrary government suddenly made perfect sense. Forsaken by his moderate ideological supporters in Parliament, it was the Lord Treasurer who now took up residence in the Tower. From there, he could do his dependents no good: incarceration even deprived Danby of the most unprincipled creatures, who looked to preserve

7: controlling the printed word

225

their pensions, salaries, and sinecures. Without question, he had fallen from Olympian heights; indeed, his incarceration was to last five times longer than that of his rival, the earl of Shaftesbury. To understand this swift transformation, an account of parliamentary developments and the foundation of Danby’s influence in both Houses is needed.

This page intentionally left blank

II Parliament and Party

This page intentionally left blank

8 The Speeches from the Throne The government’s exertions to influence popular opinion can be seen in the various genres, actions, spectacles, and censorship used to present the ideology of moderation. However concerned the king’s ministers may have been with the public, it is certain their most important audience was Parliament itself. On the one hand, Parliament provided the most visible setting for criticism of and opposition to the government. On the other hand, Parliament’s control of the purse made them an essential part of the king’s power and authority. For these reasons, Parliament remained the most crucial forum for the presentation of official ideology. This fact was clearly recognized by the nation’s enemies during the two Dutch Wars of the Restoration. Indeed, the Dutch efforts to undermine popular support for the wars were carefully designed to coincide with the meetings of Parliament. Both sides realized that the opening of any Session was destined to focus the nation’s attention on Westminster, providing the perfect opportunity to present either criticisms or defenses of government policies. Thus, for the same reason opponents of the government concentrated their attacks near parliamentary Sessions, the government was careful to take advantage of the same settings to defend their policies using the same ideology and language found in the official propaganda. Each meeting of Parliament began with an address from the king to both Houses. Charles II’s aversion to public speaking meant that he regularly read his brief speech in a perfunctory manner and anxiously yielded to the Speaker of the House of Lords—the Lord Keeper or the Chancellor—to elucidate the government’s position. In the early years of the Restoration, Clarendon had an easy time of persuading his supportive audience of Cavaliers to support the king and help relieve him of his debts. By concentrating on the recent past and the continuing threat from the many plots uncovered in London, Scotland, Ireland, and the north, Clarendon may have unintentionally helped drive the Cavalier Parliament toward the exclusive settlement which still bears his name. But with Clarendon’s departure for France, Shaftesbury used the addresses to defend the Indulgence, liberty of conscience, the Stop of the Exchequer, the Third Dutch War, and 229

230

courting the moderates

other products of the Cabal’s disjointed collection of policies. The ideology of moderation was sometimes deployed, but the backbone of its support, the Anglican Royalists, were tuning the Chancellor out. As a result, the Cabal’s policy of toleration was greeted with the Second Conventicle Act, a most immoderate parliamentary response. The absence of any politician or program that might unify the different factions in the Parliaments following the fall of Clarendon created a political hydra which the king and his servants were unable to manage. Developing a political agenda which would appeal to a majority of MPs was thus a primary concern of the earl of Danby in 1673. The oscillating policies of the Cabal had destroyed whatever unity the supporters of the king once had. In fact, the memoranda sent by Danby to the king in late 1673 provide ample proof of the minister’s awareness of the need to distance England from the government, policies, and religion of France. The king’s new minister also realized that as long as Charles II appeared cap in hand before his legislature he was negotiating from a position of weakness. In the absence of an identifiable policy for the king’s friends to support, parliamentary Sessions were reduced to a request for Supply followed by a cacophony of grievances. In order to restore the king’s influence in Parliament, Danby was determined to use every weapon available in the royal armory. Support for the monarchy was to be tapped with a political agenda designed to attract the dominant group of Anglican Royalists and moderates in the country who would rally around any king not threatening the Anglican Church and the ancient constitution. These policies were to be defended and explained through the Crown’s [legal] monopoly of the Press. Through sound finance, the king would receive the entire sum voted him in 1661, and in conjunction with the improved administration of the revenues from trade, these measures would free the king from his dependence on parliamentary grants for survival. Furthermore, whenever the Parliament was convened, both Houses were to be reminded of the king’s many virtues and his overriding concern for the established government in church and state. The official ideology with its emphasis on the king’s moderation and his devotion to the Established Church was employed again. The opening address to Parliament was resurrected as the ideal setting for presentation of the king’s moderation and virtues. Additionally, the 1670s would witness the official ideology of the stage and sermons reflected in the addresses to Parliament. The emphasis on political instruction began to appear in these speeches as well, most of them presented by Lord Keeper, later Lord Chancellor, Sir Heneage Finch. Finch’s oratorical skills and his unwavering support for the new Lord Treasurer made him one of Danby’s most effective allies after 1673.

8: the speeches from the throne

231

With a return to Anglican Royalist policies and a strict attention to the royal finances, Danby brought the government’s actions back in line with the ideology of moderation. More importantly, Danby simultaneously set out to create an unwavering body of adherents in both Houses; these would be votes upon which the Treasurer could rely, and if combined with a sufficient number of parliamentary moderates persuaded by official propaganda, the government would possess a working majority in both Houses. If Charles could avoid foreign conflicts and accept Danby’s retrenchments, then the opportunity to summon Parliament at his convenience would present itself. If the plans of the Lord Treasurer bore fruit, then there was a possibility that a court party might emerge with the reliable support capable of convincing the king to combine management with policies that coincided with the nation’s ideological moderation. In this way, the organized supporters of Danby would be supported by a significant number of moderates who approved of the Anglican Royalist policies advocated by Danby. This dual strategy would provide the government with something very like a working majority in the late 1670s.
The thousand bonfires blazing in London on Charles II’s thirtieth birthday caused the monarch to grieve that it was his own fault he had stayed away so long, since everyone seemed so glad to have him back. More than a cynical example of royal wit, this remark indicated the king’s recognition of the host of pressing problems awaiting him. Despite his welcome, it was apparent that many of Charles’s subjects were still worried about the religious settlement to follow the return of monarchy. The survival of Charles II has obscured just how tenuous the restoration of monarchy must have appeared in 1660. The acclamations of the huge crowds lining the route from Dover to the capital were not mistaken for the voice of the enfranchised nation. In reality, those who had most to expect from the return to the traditional form of government experienced considerable trepidation about the immediate future. The loyal gentry were by no means convinced of their final victory over the saints. The violence, upheaval, and social chaos which had accompanied the Interregnum was seared too deeply on their collective memory to be forgotten in the panoply of the king’s return. It was known that “the same posts which brought loyal addresses from the country brought also rumours, and often more than rumours, of plot and conspiracy and smoldering rebellion.”1 The cheering and acclamations of the soldiers of Cromwell, Lambert, Harrison, and the rest of the saintly Generals resounded with as much menace as welcome. The Long Parliament had graciously dissolved itself, but in restoring the

232

courting the moderates

king the Members of Parliament were confident that comprehension for Presbyterians and limited monarchy would be part of the settlement.2 In the event, the king was welcomed back with a solid Cavalier majority in the House of Commons and was able to proceed in an atmosphere of triumphant royalism. Clarendon’s departing advice to the Convention Parliament—that they see to it that their successors were men well affected to king and church—was taken to heart. Over one-half of the Convention was returned, with less than one hundred members of the Long Parliament there to oppose them. The majority was joined by a group of young Cavaliers, a few of whom epitomized the profane, whoring, embittered courtiers of the Restoration Court.3 The sybaritic reputation of Charles and his closest associates was not left behind at Schevingen. Indeed, the king’s devotion to his pleasure during his last days as a bachelor was complete. Consequently, the control of affairs passed to General Monck and three close friends from the period of exile: the earl of Clarendon, the earl of Southampton and the duke of Ormonde. The High Anglican and moralistic tenor to their policies was manifested by the exhumation (and simulated execution) of Cromwell in April, and the tense relations with the king’s mistresses.4 But the opening of the Cavalier Parliament on 8 May also presented an opportunity to tell the new members about the continuing dangers to the restored unity and order in England. After the customary short speech from the king, Clarendon flattered the new Parliament by appointing them the physicians of the nation. He warned them of “a sort of Patients . . . who are so far from valuing your prescriptions, that they look not upon you as their Physitians, but their Patients.” Disdaining those who would take advantage of the king’s Indemnity, Clarendon identified the culprits and their devotion to the ideals of 1640: These are the seditious Preachers who cannot be contented to be dispensed with for their full obedience to some laws established, without reproaching and inveighing against those Laws how established soever; who tell their Auditories that the Apostle meant when he bid them stand to their Liberties, that they should stand to their Arms, and who by repeating the very expressions and teaching the very Doctrine they set on foot in the year 1640 sufficiently declare, that they have no minde that twenty years should put an end to the miseries we have undergone.

The Chancellor was preaching to the choir at this point, gratifying his audience with his attacks on sectarian ministers and hinting at the need for uniformity in the church to ward off divisions in the state. In the same way that Anglican preachers would use the sermon as an instrument of political instruction, Clarendon helped initiate the practice of using speeches to the opening of Parliaments as the place for addresses on the political necessity

8: the speeches from the throne

233

of religious uniformity. He went on to warn his audience of their duty in this regard: he assured them there was nothing worse than a minister “preaching Rebellion to the People as the Doctrine of Christ, adding Blasphemy and Pertinacitie to his Apostacie. . . . If you do not provide for the thorow quenching these Firebrands, King, Lords, and Commons shall be their meanest Subjects, and the whole Kingdom kindled into one general Flame.”5 To avoid a repeat of 1641, for the preservation of “King, Lords, and Commons,” and to avoid a general conflagration, the Cavalier Parliament was asked to conflate political moderation with a repressive religious settlement. The encouragement was to prove entirely unnecessary. On the odd chance that anyone was unconvinced of the need to crack down on sedition, the remainder of the Chancellor’s address was devoted to the rebellious plots and conspiracies infecting the country. He reminded them that following the dissolution of the Convention Parliament the most desperate and prodigious Rebellion brake out in this City that hath been heard of in any age, which continued two or three nights together with the Murder of several honest Citizens; let no Man undervalue the Treason . . . [for] by the multitude of intercepted Letters from and to all the Counties of England, in which the time was set down wherein the work of the Lord was to be done, by the desperate carriage of the Traytors themselves, and the bragging of their friends we may conclude the combination reached very far. . . .6

Clarendon would rely on the reports—and the very real existence—of radical plots to help him sustain public support for the restored monarchy throughout his years as Chancellor. While this tactic was effective both in and out of Parliament, it also convinced the Cavaliers of the need to create the persecuting state which inspired the “Restoration crises” identified by Greaves, De Krey, Scott, and Harris. As moderation became linked to exclusion, it forced nonconformists to respond with an alternative ideology of their own. The delicate process of inflicting the penalty for treason on the Protector’s corpse and other displays of vindictive royalism kept the public hangman occupied throughout 1661.7 The Act of Indemnity and Oblivion short-circuited much of the intended revenge, but the Cavaliers received their pound of flesh in the triumphs of the Church at the Savoy Conference, the restoring of temporal power to the clergy, an act against tumultuous petitioning, and traiterous speech. At the adjournment the Speaker expressed the reasoning behind these Acts: We cannot well forget the method how Our late miseries, like waves of the Sea, came in upon us: first the people were invited to Petition, to give colour to some illegal demands; then they must Remonstrate, then they must Protest, then they must Covenant, then they must Associat, then they must engage against Lawful

234

courting the moderates

Government and so the maintenance of the most horrid Tyranny that ever was invented.8

The branding of the government’s opponents as the heirs of 1641 would prove a central trope in the official propaganda. The desire to marginalize their views can be seen in the all-encompassing resolution aimed at any one with a tinge of sympathy for the recent past. It was declared treason not simply to make war against the king or to attempt to depose him or to put him to death; any expression of a desire to do so, any insinuation of his being either papist or heretic, any comment against the existing government, any statement maintaining the legality of the Solemn League and Covenant or the legislative authority of a Parliament without the king, was considered treason.9 Charles had every reason to express his gratitude for the laws against tumults, disorders, and petitions. But he was careful to thank them “with all my Heart, indeed as much as I can do for anything, for the repeal of that Act which excluded the Bishops from sitting in Parliament; it was an unhappy Act in an unhappy Time, passed with many unhappy circumstances, and attended with miserable events, and therefore I do again thank you for repealing it; you have hereby restored Parliaments to their primitive Institutions.” The return of the bishops was depicted as the final step in the restoration of the “primitive Institutions” of the ancient constitution. But the church was heading for re-establishment primarily because of its role in maintaining uniformity. Inexorably, the era of good feelings at the king’s return was infected with a desire for exclusion. By drawing on generally accepted principles and relying on shared rhetoric, successive governments eloquently defended the need for uniformity in church and state, portraying this political vengeance as a form of moderation.10
The articles of the Clarendon Code were the offspring of the most rabid section of Cavaliers. Although these laws were initially opposed by the statesman who gave them their name, the House of Commons and the Anglican gentry supported the intentions of all four Acts. Indeed, Clarendon was well aware of the benefits of allying with the church hierarchy. At the prorogation in May 1662 he reminded the Parliament of the Church’s role in discrediting the seducers of the people: And I make no question, but the great Piety and Devotion, the Moderation, Wisdom Charity, and Hospitality of my Lords the Bishops, in their several Dioceses, will in a short time recover the poor mis-led people. . . . I hope the Laity will soon return into the bosom of their dear Mother Church, and easily discern the Fraud and Imposture of their Seducers; and that all diligence and

8: the speeches from the throne

235

dexterity will be used, seriously and heartily to reconcile both Clergy and Laity, by all means which may prove effectual.11

However diverse the religious views of the king and Chancellor may have been, the concerns of this legislation were equally divided between issues of church and state, and intended to exclude the Presbyterians (let alone more radical sectaries) from participating in both secular and religious authority. The differences in the attitudes of the king, the Chancellor, and others made the court the setting for rivalries between factions advocating a variety of religious policies. Similarly, the king’s wish to indulge Catholics, Quakers, and others created further divisions between the court and Parliament. Following the demise of the first attempt at Indulgence in 1662, Charles adopted Clarendon’s advice and fell in with the spiteful policies of the Cavalier Parliament. As long as these two groups—the moderate Clarendonians and the arch-royalists—were allied, then the political position of the government was nearly impregnable. Those opposed to the restored government in church and state were credibly portrayed as fanatic devotees of the late usurping regime. The addresses to Parliament continued to harp on the threats from old Cromwellians, republicans, sectaries and others: often with good cause. The king warned of the persistence of his enemies in 1664: “You may judge by the late Treason in the North . . . how active the spirits of many of our old Enemies still are. . . . We are not yet at the bottom of that business: This much appears manifestly, that this Conspiracy was but a branch of that which I discovered as well as I could to you about Two years since.”12 Even more significant was the Chancellor’s growing commitment to organize and prepare his followers in Parliament. The readiness with which both Houses acceded to the king’s request for the repeal of the Triennial Act was a sign of his ability to lead Parliament in the 1660s. Clarendon recorded how he had frequent consultation with such Members of the Parliament who were most able and willing to serve him, and to concert all the ways and means by which the transactions in the Houses might be carried on with more expedition, and attended with the best success. These daily conferences proved very beneficial to his Majesty’s service, the Members of both Houses being very willing to receive advice and direction, and to pursue what was directed, and all things were done there in good order, and succeeded well.13

The generous financial settlement of the royal revenue at the Restoration and the promise to support the king with “their lives and fortunes” before the outbreak of the Second Dutch War provide ample proof of Clarendon’s achievements as well as the general loyalty to the monarchy.14 Yet by the time Dryden wrote Annus Mirabilis, the joyous confluence of king, Parlia-

236

courting the moderates

ment, people—and Chancellor—was becoming a delta with many different streams. The Plague, the Fire, and the fiasco at the Medway led to Clarendon’s impeachment and his decision to flee to France. But despite the fall of Clarendon, the Treaty of Peace, and the Triple Alliance, the new administration gained little favor. Even supporters of the government were not convinced that the nation’s ills had been remedied by Clarendon’s banishment: “This day was ordered a generall fast thro’ the nation, to humble us on ye late dreadfull conflagration, added to the plague and warr, the most dismall judgements that could be inflicted, but which indeede we highly deserv’d for our prodigious ingratitude, burning lusts, dissolute Court, profane and abominable lives.”15 The much-maligned immorality of courtiers was coupled in many people’s minds with the extravagance and waste witnessed during the Second Dutch War.16 However, the king’s Speech in February 1668 neglected the miscarriages of the war, and instructed the Houses to look to “a better union and composure” in religion so “that all might support as well as submit to government.” The king’s willingness to countenance comprehension was proof that he blamed the exclusive religious settlement for the erosion of support for his government. The abrupt change in religious policy is another example of the divisions within the king’s councils as well as his commitment to policies at odds with the majority of the House of Commons. The decision to promote a more inclusive religious settlement in the aftermath of the annus mirabilis did little to gain the support or submission of the Anglicans in Parliament: “As soone as they mett . . . they tooke notice of the rumour about towne of a Comprehensive Bill . . . and before the King made his speech . . . voted that the House do speedily desire the King that he would forthwith publish his proclamation for the effectual . . . suppressing seditious Conventicles.” The Commons demanded, and received, a Proclamation against Dissenters and then turned to debate a new Conventicle Bill.17 The remainder of the Session was burdened with calls for investigations, accounts, and future appropriations. The king was left to realize that a majority against Clarendon was not a majority in favor of the Cabal. Beginning on 1 May, a series of adjournments silenced the Houses until 1 March, when they were prorogued until 19 October 1669. When this Session returned to the questions of inspecting accounts and suppressing dissent it was quickly dismissed until February 1670.18 On successive occasions, the Parliament had been dismissed for over a year. This was an indication of the primary distinction between the governments of Clarendon and the Cabal. While Clarendon had been faced with the usual rivals and factions at court—including, at times, Charles himself—the Chancellor had maintained a solid body of supporters in both Houses of Parliament which had limited the controversies between the

8: the speeches from the throne

237

government and legislature before 1666. Conversely, with the exception of Arlington, each member of the Cabal had either served or lived under the government of the Protector. Their various interests in trade, the colonies, toleration, and foreign affairs led them to rely more heavily on a comprehensive interpretation of the king’s prerogative powers. The earliest manifestations of this view were the long intervals between Parliaments in the hope of dispelling opposition and criticism. Clearly, the Cabal’s lack of unity and political purpose made it impossible for them either to manage the House as Clarendon had or to maintain the support of the uncommitted moderates in the Commons, men who had demonstrated their dedication to the stability and safety offered by the Established Church and monarchy. It was equally clear that the opposition to the king was based entirely on criticism and negativity; they could find issues—comprehension of nonconformists, corrupt administration of revenues voted by Parliament, and immorality rampant among the courtiers—issues that appalled even the moderates inclined to support the monarchy. This indeterminate and independent center of the political nation was a classic example of MPs who favored church and king, but cast their votes on the merits of each question. When the king addressed their grievances and concerns, he received their support, but their devotion to the Established Church, manifested in their hostility to dissent, to popery, and to arbitrary government, would always override their loyalty to the king’s person. As would be expected, the commercial and military expansion of France had revived fears of universal monarchy. The passage of the Second Conventicle Act had allayed some fears, but it was apparent that concerns about the security of the religious settlement were an important wedge dividing the king from the support enjoyed until 1666. Charles looked to take advantage of the popular fears of France by opening Parliament for the first time in full regalia.19 He rode to Westminster in his robes of state, escorted by his Guards, evoking the panoply and display of the coronation with a renewed display of the glories of monarchy. His Speech at the opening was designed to draw upon the virtues of the official literature sponsored by the government in the early 1660s. He explained his Proclamation encouraging attendance as a consequence of his “having most Confidence in full Houses, where the Well-being of the Church, and all other Interests of the Crown and Nation, are best secured.” He went on later to reiterate his emphasis on the mutuality of interests between king and people, praying that divisions in Parliament would not interfere with the national welfare: “nothing but the Unity of your Minds and Counsels can make this Meeting happy, either to Me or to the Nation.” Assuring them that he had “fully informed Himself ” that previous monies had been spent for the purposes intended, he requested a further Supply to keep England’s defenses in readiness. He warned them in no uncertain terms

238

courting the moderates

that “it is your and the Kingdom’s Interest, as well as Mine; and the ill Consequence of a Want of an effectual Supply must not lie at My Door.”20 The ready acceptance in the House of Lords of the recommitted Conventicle Bill and the king’s assurances to fortify the Navy led to a hefty grant of Supply. With the passage of a Private Bill allowing Lord Roos to divorce his wife, the door seemed opened for Charles to discard his barren wife and thereby preempt the succession of James.21 The defensive preparations, the strict act against Dissenters, and the possibility of Charles producing an heir indicated that the mutuality of interests demanded by the king had indeed made “this Meeting happy.” The official response to these issues had halted the co-operation between the moderates and the government’s opponents. Sadly, this example of government accountability and responsiveness was short-lived. In May, the king welcomed his sister Henrietta, the duchess of Orleans, to London. She left behind two important legacies, the Secret Treaty of Dover and one of her attendants, Louise de Kueroualle, soon to be the king’s mistress, the duchess of Portsmouth, and the symbol of Franco-Catholic influence at the English Court. The two Treaties of Dover committed Charles to closer relations with France, with the secret articles, including financial inducements from Louis XIV which gave Charles the opportunity to rule through “the increase of royal power and the consequent diminution of parliamentary government.”22 But these matters were unknown when Parliament reconvened in October. In fact, the increase of French forces was used once again as the justification for further Supply, but the request to settle the king’s debts quickly led to reflections upon the royal lifestyle. Not surprisingly, the wantonness and waste at court was blamed for squandering the nation’s revenues. The holiday season saw more lawless activity by the king’s friends: this was the season of the attacks on the duke of Ormonde and Sir John Coventry; lord Ossory even threatened the duke of Buckingham’s life while in the king’s presence. In February, with Charles present in the Upper House, lord Lucas systematically denounced the waste and corruption of the administration. For obvious reasons, the lack of unity and coherence was again costing the government valuable support. Before the Session ended, moderate Anglicans and the nonconformists were driven into an alliance. While they had no coherent political program of their own, they were as one in their determination to curtail the extravagance at court and to stop the growth of popery. In fact, the dread of a second counter-Reformation was fueled by the advances of the French military juggernaut. Closer to home, by 1671 it was clear that the king was not going to oblige those who hoped the Roos case would lead to a Protestant heir. Not only was the duke of York the Heir Presumptive, but he also made no attempt to conceal his adherence to the Roman Church after

8: the speeches from the throne

239

his avowal to the king in January 1670; therefore, when the official Treaty with the French was signed in December, suspicions of the government reached new heights. Ronald Hutton has shown how this Secret Treaty was the product of the welter of policies and designs at court and in the government. The king and Lauderdale, James and Clifford, Arlington, and Shaftesbury: each faction envisioned important, if contradictory gains from the negotiations. Striking a blow at Dutch power, restoring the Catholic faith to England, increasing the king’s power, filling his coffers without recourse to Parliament, and allying England with Louis XIV’s rising star: never has one agreement meant so many things to so many politicians.23
The vagaries of the government’s foreign policy contributed to the decision to prorogue Parliament for twenty-one months. In that time, the Triple Alliance had been deserted and the Third Dutch War begun. The Catholic influence in the king’s councils which this conflict represented was further exposed by the trend toward absolutism—two menacing developments never separated in the seventeenth century. The use of the royal prerogative to govern without Parliament was the focus of opposition in 1673. Rather than criticize the king’s prerogative right to make alliances, his critics were prepared to raise the issue of the Declaration, the lengthy prorogation, and the fear of a standing army. In the same way that these traditional grievances appealed to the moderate MPs alienated by the immoderation at court, the king’s defense was rooted in the conventions of the official ideology. The opening speeches of king and Chancellor are classic and, by now familiar, explications of official views: I might have digested the Indignities to my own Person, rather than have brought it to this Extremity, if the Interest as well as the Honour of the whole Kingdom had not been at Stake. . . . Some few Days before I declared the War, I put forth my Declaration for Indulgence to Dissenters: And have hitherto found a good Effect of it, by securing Peace at Home, when I had War abroad. . . . There is one Jealousy more, that is maliciously spread abroad, and yet so weak and frivolous . . . but it may have gotten some Ground with some wellminded People; and that is, That the forces I have raised . . . were designed to controul Law and Property. . . . I will conclude, with this Assurance to you, that I will preserve the true Reformed Protestant Religion and the Church, as it is now established in this Kingdom; and that no Man’s Property or Liberty shall ever be invaded.24

The trope of a “well-minded People” being misled by sedition and malicious rumor was particularly powerful when used by the king. After this

240

courting the moderates

reassuring and moderate speech, Charles yielded to the Lord Chancellor. Shaftesbury’s task was to expand on the king’s Speech, and this he did with a vengeance, striking many of the same chords which Charles had borrowed from his Poet Laureate and others. He began by blasting the idea that the government aimed to return to the personal rule of the 1630s: by the Insinuations of some ill-affected Person, there have been spread strange and desperate Rumours, which your Meeting together this Day, hath sufficiently proved both malicious and false. . . . And the Coffee-houses were not to be blamed for their Apprehensions; since if that Conjunction [i.e. France and Holland] had taken Effect, then England had been in a far worse Case. . . . But both Kings knowing their Interests, resolved to join against them who were the common Enemy to all Monarchies, and, I may say, especially to ours, their only Competitor for Trade and Power at Sea. . . . [and] under all their present Distress and Danger, they are so Intoxicated with that vast Ambition, that they slight a Treaty and refuse a Cessation. . . . [L]et this be remembered, The States of Holland are England’s eternal Enemy, both by Interest and Inclination. . . .

Having dispensed with the accusations of arbitrary rule and having justified commercially the king’s Declaration and continuance of the war, Shaftesbury included a paean on royal moderation in matters ecclesiastical; the source of the Declaration of Indulgence was to be found in the king’s distaste for extremes, not in his fondness for Rome: His Majesty has so fully vindicated His Declaration, from that Calumny concerning the Papists, that no reasonable Scruple can be made by any good Man. . . . He loves not Blood, nor rigorous Severities; but where mild or gentle Ways may be used by a wise Prince, He is certain to chuse them. . . . His Majesty is not convinced, that violent Ways are the Interest of Religion, or the Church. . . . It is as impossible for the King to part with this Parliament, as it is for you to depart from that Loyalty, Affection, and Dutiful Behaviour, you have hitherto shewed towards Him.25

The Chancellor’s references to the king’s moderation and concern for the nation’s welfare, as well the Parliament’s continued “Loyalty, Affection and Dutiful Behavior,” were well-received by both Houses. The House of Lords joined in the government’s concern for public opinion by ordering that the speeches of both the king and Lord Chancellor be printed.26 The government’s foreign policy was not challenged—despite the fact that the king had entered the war using money voted to contain the power of his new ally, Louis XIV. However, Charles’s insistence that he would “take it very, very ill, to receive Contradiction in what I have done” was ignored. The Parliament had seen enough in the past three years to feel

8: the speeches from the throne

241

justified in their fears of arbitrary power. Rumors circulated everywhere in the public sphere about the arrival of French money, and the lengthy prorogation was ample proof of the desire to govern without parliamentary advice. These suspicions were given further credence when “Temple returned from the Hague with De Witt’s views of the relations between Charles and Louis XIV. The embassies . . . to William and Louis had borne fruit of similar knowledge, and by these and by unguarded revelations within the Cabal itself, suspicions of the deeper designs of the court had begun to make their way among those of the ministry excluded from the inmost secrets, and from them among men at large.”27 A Declaration of War without consultation was accepted, but the use of the prerogative once again to Stop all payments from the Exchequer in order to supply the king’s wants in the absence of Parliament was resented. The issuance of thirty-six writs for new members during the prorogation was seen as yet another abuse of the prerogative in an attempt to influence the makeup of the House of Commons. Worst of all was the policy of Indulgence. While the king was given the right to dispense with the laws on an individual basis as part of the Conventicle Act of 1670, a general Declaration was viewed with horror. If the king were allowed to combine his lawful use of the prerogative—that is, long prorogations following grants of Supply; foreign alliances which included financial provisions; the shutting up of the Exchequer to use ready cash owed to his subjects— with an ecclesiastical policy which gave Catholics freedoms unknown since the death of Mary, then English liberties were sure to be the next victims of arbitrary rule. These developments were the subject of concern from early in the war. From the outset, the Dutch fanned the flames of discontent through the pamphlet campaign intended to expose the current government’s affinity for arbitrary measure and papist alliances. Accordingly, the next Session opened with an Address demanding the withdrawal of arbitrary acts like the Indulgence and the election writs issued by the king. After Charles insisted on his right to Indulge his nonconforming subjects, a second, more sternly worded address compelled him to admit that he was “very much troubled, that That Declaration, which He put out for Ends so necessary to the Quiet of His Kingdom, and especially in that Conjuncture, should have proved the Cause of Disquiet in His House of Commons.”28 Opposition to government actions was now reflected in Parliament. As a result, the king withdrew the Declaration of Indulgence and began his voyage back to the political center. By 1673, most nonconformists had joined with their Anglican rivals in seeing the Indulgence as a threat to the Protestant religion in England. The cooperation between nonconformists and Anglican moderates forced the king’s hand. But having forfeited the prospect of toleration for the sake of parliamentary government, the nonconformists demanded a law that

242

courting the moderates

would prevent any further gains by the cancerous Catholic faith. Here was a perfect example of the single-issue politics that made it possible for such strange political bedfellows to sleep together; the Test Act was eased through the Commons and signed along with the Supply Bill. Popery and arbitrary government were the targets of the broad alliance of the government’s opponents. The domestic concerns of Protestant loyalists came before royalism or diplomatic concerns. Indeed, other than their relevance for internal politics, the French Alliance and the war with the Dutch were largely ignored. In spite of these obvious targets for parliamentary opposition, the king and his brother persisted in their dalliance with France and with Catholicism. Dutch propaganda provided an interpretation of the real intentions of the war, which contributed to the erosion of public support in England. James’s marriage to a Roman Catholic and the eventual resignation of Clifford and the duke of York were seen as proving many allegations made during the war. When the parliamentary objections to the match were brushed aside, hopes for a new Supply Bill evaporated. Then the attack on the king’s ministers convinced Charles to end the Session after one week. The government was held accountable for actions which flew in the face of its stated devotion to the moderate settlements in church and state. This would prove an important lesson in the ability of political culture to establish an ideological program for which the government was accountable. In the two-month recess which followed, the king realized that a change of ministers and policies was necessary to improve relations with his Parliament. Foremost among the recommendations proposed by Osborne was the need to break with France and to re-establish the alliance between church and king. The vacillating policies of the Cabal from 1668–73 had resulted in fears of popery at court and the reliance on arbitrary government which men considered an inevitable consequence of popish counsels. The generous Supply voted after the withdrawal of the Declaration of Indulgence and Shaftesbury’s Delenda est Carthago! speech was a clear indication of the Anglicans’ and the moderates’ willingness to support the king if assured of their security against popery and arbitrary government. Well aware that a majority of the current MPs had been elected in the euphoria of the Restoration and that the House of Lords was dominated by men who understood the importance of sticking by the king, Osborne directed his energies to persuading these natural Cavaliers that their interests were best represented by the government. His suggestions that retrenchment, a return to the Anglican Royalist policies of the 1660s, and an evident break with France were taken up before the next Session.29 In the months before and after the Parliament in January 1674, the king offered a public relations campaign to counter the negative effects of Dutch propaganda which had accompanied the recent meetings. From

8: the speeches from the throne

243

November 1673 to March 1675 there was a series of Orders from the Council for the suppressing and convicting of recusants, another forbidding all papists to come to the court or the palace at St. James. In addition to this response to accusations of popery in high places, the king made known his intention of punishing his soldiers and Guards “when they misbehave themselves towards the meanest Subject.” The decision to bring his Household to heel was also indicated when the king abrogated the privilege from arrest claimed by his servants.30 Moreover, the king’s troubled relationship with Parliament was transformed into one based on understanding and amity. The Session opened with a speech from the new Lord Keeper, Sir Heneage Finch.31 Finch was a friend and ally of Danby, and would prove himself one of the ablest expositors and defenders of the views found in Danby’s Memoranda to the king. He began his address to Parliament by expressing the king’s readiness to accept “any reasonable Proposition” the Parliament cared to contrive for their “own Assurance . . . [and] further Security . . . which escaped His Majesty’s Care.” Finch went on to detail the many ways in which the king was disdaining arbitrary measures in favor of the rule of law: And doth not every Man see that the King hath given new Life and Motion to such Laws as were long dead, or fast asleep; that He hath once more repaired that Hedge about our Vineyard, and made it a Fence indeed, against all those who are Enemies to the Planting of it. . . ? Do we not see that the King hath made it His Care and His Business to do all that is possible to preserve us in our Civil Rights too; that He makes the Laws of His Kingdom the Measures, not only of His Power, but His Prudence?

These protestations about the king’s care for the laws was meant to excuse and to disguise the recent abuses of the prerogative. Unfortunately, the royal patent creating the borough of Newark struck fear in the breasts of those who dreaded the packing of Parliament.32 The exacting of money from and long imprisonment of subjects in these years produced the first attempt to place the right of Habeas Corpus on the statute book. All the more reason for the Lord Keeper to emphasize the recent orders for persecution of Catholics and the reductions in the Army. He concluded his catalogue of royal concessions by saying that These are not single and transient Acts, but such Acts as flow from Habits; these are not Leaves and Blossoms, but true, solid, and lasting Fruits. Long! long! may that Royal Tree live and flourish, upon which these Fruits do grow! This is a Satisfaction equal to all your Wishes: Now, if ever, your Joys are full. There wants no more to the Improvement of the Happiness, but the Wisdom of the Parliament to use these Advantages with a due Moderation.

244

courting the moderates

Moderation was not to be the only virtue hoped for by the government. The plans of Osborne were ideally suited to play upon Anglican Royalist sentiments and fears. The king’s offer to publish his Treaties with France to demonstrate his unity with his people was contrasted to the Dutch attempt to divide the nation by inciting the rabble against the government: “Perhaps ’tis more than an honourable War doth allow, to go about to raise Sedition, though in the Country of an Enemy; but surely the Artifice of appealing in a Manner to the People, and making them the Judges of Peace and War, is a little too plain and open to take any Effect here.”33 Foreign efforts to divide the nation were denounced as dishonorable. More importantly, the raising of sedition and an appeal to the people was revealed to be an artifice that was too familiar from the late troubles in England. As always, the antidote for this poison was the moderation and duty which had been neglected at such cost after 1641. This was only the first step taken by the government to renew the cooperation between the government and Anglican Royalists. The emphasis on the threat from seditious sectaries was to prove one of the most attractive elements in the campaign to recreate the unity of the early 1660s. Reminding those sitting in the Cavalier Parliament of the dangers of sedition, sects, and appeals to the people was the most effective way to evoke the need for obedience and an Established Church. The break with popery and France (exhibited by a Marine Treaty with the Dutch) was part of the agenda laid out by Sir Thomas Osborne. Furthermore, the government was renewing its efforts to silence all types of sedition and to limit public access to this venom. If this were to coincide with a policy of strict Anglicanism, then the virtues associated with church and king—namely, steadfast support for the government—might rise from the ashes of the Cabal: Religion and Liberty stand secured by the most sacred Ties that are; nay, the King hath greater Interest in the Preservation of both than you yourselves; for, as Religion, the Protestant Religion, commands your indispensable Obedience, so ’tis a just and lawful Liberty which sweetens that Command, and endears it to you. . . . They were your Hearts that mourned in Secret for the Absence of the King. They were your Hearts and Affections to the King, which tired out all the late Usurpations, by your invincible Patience and Fortitude. It was you that taught our English World to see and know, that no Government could be settled here, but upon the true Foundations of Honour and Allegiance.34


The Lord Keeper’s use of the ideals and virtues so carefully expressed in the official literature was one of the first signs of a renewed interest in the

8: the speeches from the throne

245

support of the Anglican Royalists who had proven so reliable under Clarendon. Similarly, the government was aware that an effective propaganda campaign needed to reach beyond Parliament and the capital. It was a truth universally acknowledged that the pulpit was the surest route to a wider audience, and Danby immediately set out to mend fences with the church. Throughout 1674 and 1675, the Lord Treasurer did everything possible to demonstrate publicly the Anglican tone of the new government. The crackdown on dissenters (Catholic and nonconformist), the Peace with Holland, the Marine Treaty, the Lambeth Conference, the equestrian statues of the monarchs and the official propaganda licensed by L’Estrange, were all intended to attract both Anglican Royalists and all others not committed to nonconformity. Indeed, Danby was so successful in laying to rest the trepidations over popery and the French interest that the opposition was forced to fall back on the Lord Treasurer’s arbitrary actions—in the absence of Parliament—in 1674. The Heads of the Impeachment against Danby were so porous that the Commons refused to send them to the Lords. In fact, the divorce of the moderates from the opposition was so complete that the Houses voted thanks for the king’s gracious expressions without a debate.35 The speeches by the king and Finch were aimed directly at the Anglican Royalists and demonstrated the ascendancy of Danby’s views at this time. The king warned against the faction conspiring to force the dissolution of Parliament and, foreshadowing the Test to be introduced in this Session, devoted the rest of the speech to reaffirming his commitment to the Anglican Church: The principal End of My calling you now is, to know what you think may be yet wanting to the securing of Religion and Property, and to give Myself the Satisfaction of having used the uttermost of My Endeavours to procure and settle a right and lasting Understanding between Us; for I must tell you, I find the contrary so much laboured and that the pernisious Designs of ill Men, have taken so much place under specious Pretences, that it is high time to be watchful in preventing their Contrivances [to dissolve this Parliament]. I have done as much as on My Part was possible, to extinguish the Fears and Jealousies of Popery, and will leave nothing undone that may shew the World My Zeal for the Protestant Religion as it is established in the Church of England, from which I will never depart.36

Lord Keeper Finch went on—as always, at great length—to elaborate on the king’s wishes. The oratorical skills of Finch were a great boon to the government, and permitted brief, public explication of the ideals and virtues now championed by Danby to be presented and defended before members of both Houses of Parliament. The importance of the Navy and the need for Supply were depicted as part of the Garden of Plenty encountered earlier:

246

courting the moderates

We are newly gotten out of an expensive War. . . . The whole World is now in Peace with us, all Ports are open to us, and we exercise a free and uninterrupted Traffic through the Ocean; and we are reaping the Fruits of all this Peace, by a daily Improvement of our Trade, and the Increase of our Shipping and Navigation.37

The Lord Keeper then turned his eloquence upon those who complained of persecution now that the king had put the laws into execution against all Dissenters. The Crown was often enough a wreath of thorns, but much of the opposition to the king only served “to make those Thorns pierce deeper and far closer to the Royal Diadem than ever they did before.” The running to extremes by opponents of the government was the very type of activity which led to unrest and tumults. If the Lord Keeper was not preparing the Parliament for the upcoming Test Bill which was founded on passive obedience, he was certainly summarizing Dryden’s comments on the proper role of the subject: No Zeal can excuse it; for, as there may be a Religious Zeal, a Zeal for God, which is not according to Knowledge, so there may be a State Zeal, a Zeal for the Public which is not according to Prudence, at least not according to the Degree of Prudence which the same Men have when they are not under Transport of such a fervent Passion. . . . Raise up then, by your Example, the Hearts and Hopes of all those whom ill Men have wrought upon to such a Degree . . . [remind them this is] a Time of as much Justice and Peace at Home, as good Laws for the Security of Religion and Liberty . . . as great Plenty of Trade and Commerce Abroad, and as likely a Conjuncture of Affairs for the Continuance of these Blessings to us, as ever Nation prospered under.38

Peace and unity were once more conflated with prosperity and plenty. The implicit association of Dutch-inspired sedition with domestic fanatics was denounced as entirely unjustifiable. Taking his cue from the Heroic Drama, Finch discountenanced any claim that religious zeal can absolve one from civic obedience. “Ill Men” might well “wrought” upon the people, the example of the Anglican Royalists would convince the public that peace, plenty and security of religion were the product of loyalty to the king. The conciliatory tone of the king’s expressions and the sermonizing of the Lord Keeper paid dividends for the government. The easy exoneration of Danby from impeachment proceedings in the Commons and the slow but inexorable advance of the passive obedience Test in the Lords forced the opposition to adopt the strategies predicted in the king’s Speech. Rather than allow the Test Bill to be passed in the Lower House, the opposition used the case of Shirley v. Fagg to terminate any further business in the Parliament.39 The king struck almost a plaintive note in the final days before the prorogation: “I am sorry that Experience hath so quickly shewed you the Truth of what I then said: But I hope you are all convinced

8: the speeches from the throne

247

that the Intent of all this, in the Contrivers, is to procure a Dissolution. I confess, I look upon it as a most malicious Design of those who are Enemies to Me and to the Church of England.”40 The king was familiar with the goals of his opponents and thus quick to condemn the design of the enemies of the Church of England. Just as the opposition was forced by Danby’s policies to shift its emphasis from Catholicism to arbitrary government, the government would never again fail to remind the country of the “Practices” of its opponents and their inevitable outcome. Fanaticism, disorder and the most arbitrary of all governments, a military tyranny dictating every aspect of religion, politics, taxation, and leisure. In the October meeting, the legislature was pressed once again for Supply and told that “There is no Cause why any Fears of Religion or Liberty should divert you.” The greatness of the king and his government was laboriously spelled out by Finch, and the coordination within the political culture can be seen in his reference to the recently unveiled equestrian statues. Finch suggested that members “Peruse the Histories of Foreign Nations; and you shall find Statues and Altars too have been erected to the Memories of those Princes whose best Virtues never arrived to Half that Moderation which we live to see and enjoy.”41 However, the influence of the political culture and the voting strength of Danby in each House was of little avail when the disputes over privilege resurfaced in November. Fortunately, Danby’s efficacy as a man of business, combined with French subsidies, provided the opportunity for the king to survive without parliamentary grants for a time. The ability of the opposition to prevent Danby from taking advantage of his growing influence in Parliament convinced Charles that a long recess was the most effective way to silence the public criticism of his government, so on 22 November he declared a prorogation of fifteen months. When the Houses met again, the government’s influence was known to have grown dramatically.42 The government was equally aware that the response of its opponents would be to move for a dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament. If Danby were allowed to continue along the same road, then it seemed certain that his control of Parliament would be complete, and that the present Parliament would be perpetual. The response to the sedition greeting Members as they arrived in Westminster relied on arguments seen throughout the official polemics and on the stage. More significantly, it was now as foreboding as the reproaches of the censor of the Press. Therefore, the standard request for Supply to defend the nation was followed by Lord Chancellor Finch’s warnings that The Peace of the Church is harder to preserve than the Peace of the State; for they that desire Innovations in the State most commonly begin the Attempt upon the Church. And by this Means it comes to pass that the Peace of the Church is so often

248

courting the moderates

disturbed, not only by those poor mistaken Souls who deserve to be pitied, but by malicious and designing Men who deserve to be punished. . . . What Remedies are fit for this Disease . . . whether the Cure be a Work of Time and Patience, or of Zeal and Diligence . . . is wholly left to your Advice.43

The failure to legislate a requirement for MPs to advocate passive obedience was neither forgotten nor ignored. In fact, this example of the lack of unity and harmony in the country—two considerations of the utmost importance to the government’s ideological position—was taken as proof of the need to isolate those who would endeavor to alter the established and ancient constitution. The refusal to rally around the king and his government was fraught with dangers. No one should forget that a few malicious men had designs to divide the nation and to take advantage of the inevitable disorders. Finch reminded his auditors of the best recipe for peace and stability: nothing deserves the Name of Peace, but Unity; such an Unity as flows from an unshaken Trust and Confidence between the King and his People; from a due Reverence and Obedience to His Laws and to His Government; from a religious and an aweful Care, not to remove the ancient Landmarks, not to disturb those Constitutions which Time and Public Convenience hath settled; from a Zeal to preserve the whole Frame and Order of the Government upon the old Foundations; and from a perfect Detestation and Abhorrency of all such as are given to change: Whatever falls short of this, falls short of Peace too.

Finch had joined the host of other champions of the government in offering his audience lectures on civic responsibility. Furthermore, he also turned to historical examples to lend added authority to his arguments. In the same way that other polemicists used scriptural and classical images, Finch relied on the common experience of the late troubles to support his views and to discredit the actions and arguments of his opponents. The activities of the seditious authors and printers associated with the opposition were attacked as well. The Lord Chancellor wondered if it were possible that a nation so recently freed from tyranny and rebellion could fall prey to the same devices again. He doubted that so August an assembly could be so blind to the lessons of history; surely the nation itself was able to see that their misfortunes stemmed from the malefactors who opposed the king: Much of this rises from the Artifice of ill Men, who create and nourish all the Suspitions which they can Devise. . . . It would be somewhat strange, and without all Example in Story, that a Nation should be Twice ruined, Twice undone, by the self-same Way and Means, the same Fears and Jealousies. . . . [I]f a Kingdom be warned and cautioned against all Dangers from within by former Experiences, and then will either forget or make no Use of those

8: the speeches from the throne

249

Experiences . . . if a Kingdom be happy in the frequent Assemblies of their Great Councils, where all that is grevious may be redressed, and all that is wanting may be enacted, and then will render those Councils useless and impracticable, by Continuing endless Distractions: Who can wonder if their Affairs should begin to be less prosperous? 44

Finch, like Dryden and others, was relying on the unpleasant lessons of history to make his point: the last time insinuations of arbitrary government had been credited, the result was not only civil war but the most arbitrary of all forms of government, military rule. The similarities of the charges leveled at the government’s critics is an example of the clarity and coherence of the official political culture. Also, the increasing topicality of the speeches to Parliament and of most of the official propaganda indicates the acceptance of the public sphere. The willingness to defend government policies in ideological terms, relying on the well-established themes, and aimed at diverse audiences, has become a ubiquitous part of English politics by 1675. The government was conscious that accusations of arbitrary power were likely to touch a sensitive nerve following the long prorogation. This very point had been made in a number of pamphlets which had been circulated declaring the Parliament legally dissolved under a statute from Edward IV’s reign. This plot to divide the people from the monarch was, according to the government, typical of the school of thought which would place private interest above the public welfare. The Heroic Dramas had repeatedly shown the dangers of confusing private ambition with the public good, and the pamphlet exchanges from 1668–73 had shown just how real this threat remained. Neglecting this distinction opened the floodgates for disorder and rebellion; fortunately, placing one’s own interest above public obligations was a luxury not available to the king: Private Men indeed are subject to be misled by private Interests, and may entertain some vain and slender Hopes of surviving the Misfortunes of the Public: But a Prince is sure to fall with it; and therefore can never have any Interest divided from it. . . . Away then with all the vain Imaginations of those who labour to insure a Misbelief of the Government! Away with those ill-meant Distinctions between the Court and Country. . . . And let all who go about to persuade others that these are Two several Interests, have a Care of that Precipice to which such Principles may lead them: For the First Men that ever began to distinguish of their Duty never left off, till they had quite distinguished themselves out of all their Allegiance.45

Here again, loyalty to the monarchy was characterized as the true interest of every man. Without a doubt, the king’s interest and the public interest were indivisible, and anyone who shirked this allegiance was abetting the

250

courting the moderates

entrance of the serpent of disorder. History had proven as much, and the nation’s enemies were sure to benefit from any disaffection to the government. The positive effects of this line of argument were demonstrated by the first vote of Supply in four years. Although the money for ships was to be carefully monitored by the House of Commons, the Houses had accepted the contention that the king wished to put a fleet in readiness to ensure the public welfare. Suspicions remained about the government’s fondness for arbitrary power, but Danby’s desire to limit the growing power of France was finally acknowledged in the support he received in Parliament. The comfort provided to England’s enemies—the French—by the opposition to the government would be a central theme of the official propaganda in 1678. The marriage of Princess Mary in November 1677 was greeted with public celebrations of joy and a sense of relief. This most public demonstration of the king’s loyalty to the Protestant religion convinced many that the Dutch would not be swallowed up by the French while England turned a blind eye. By January 1678, the king was able to boast of his alliance with the Dutch for the preservation of Flanders—a policy suggested by the Parliament in the previous Session. When Supply was requested to “support those alliances,” the king was able to offer as proof of his good faith the decision to call home all English soldiers from the French service. At this point, the government was rewarded with a Poll Bill of one million pounds for “an actual war against France.” As a further sign of the nation’s hostility to France, the king even agreed to a proviso which prohibited all French imports being tacked to the Money Bill. The king soon added a ban on French wines to his disdain for French fashion.46 One of the consequences of the expanding public sphere was an increasingly sophisticated political nation. Opponents of the government—both foreign and domestic—joined the court in a contest to dominate the discussion in the political culture. As a result, constant accusations of hypocrisy and deceit helped foster an element of accountability. Danby’s policies and his alliance with the Dutch were clearly popular, but the fear of popery lurked just below the surface. Whatever gains had been made by the alliance with the Dutch were destroyed in May when the Parliament learned of an imminent peace settlement on the continent. At the same time, an Address requesting a declaration of war and the disbanding of the forces was rejected by the king as an infringement of his prerogative. In defending the prerogative, Danby was depicted as one conspiring to raise an army to be used in England during peacetime. In addition, the arbitrary actions of Lauderdale in Scotland remained a constant source of concern, but the publication of Marvell’s Growth of Popery in 1677 led many to support the opposition demands for actions which corresponded to official promises.

8: the speeches from the throne

251

In May, Parliament was recalled. The king hoped that Danby could wring Supply from an assembly he had worked for so long to manage. Unfortunately for the Lord Treasurer, his voting strength was being sapped by the recent truce between Louis XIV and the Dutch: many moderate MPs feared that the king might use any money they granted to maintain the present army. The Lord Chancellor did his best to allay these fears by blaming the undesirable turn in diplomatic events on the nation’s refusal to support the king’s foreign policy with a vote of Supply. However, the Dutch adoption of a separate peace was a direct result of the recent divisions in England. Consequently, the European “hopes of putting a considerable Stop to the Growth of the Power of France” were abandoned when the allies learned of the Parliament’s refusal to rely on the king’s wisdom in foreign affairs: As soon as it had taken Air, and they understood that there was a Resolution to give no Money . . . and when at last the King had received an Address which they took to be of such a Nature as was never seen or heard of before in any State. . . . Then they concluded with themselves, that it was in vain to rely any longer upon England, for England was no longer itself.47

The shocking innovation of a Parliament aggrandizing the power to determine foreign alliances was a dangerous precedent. While debates in Parliament concerning war and prohibitions of trade were certain to affront the bellicose French monarch, the Parliament now insisted on disbanding the forces. Such were the dangerous consequences of assuming the powers fit only for the king. In any event, the men behind such advice need not worry about the defenseless condition in which they left the country; that was the king’s concern. According to his ministers, the first step was to eliminate the factious elements in England in order “to preserve a State of Peace and Unity at Home, which is now more necessary than ever: He that foments Divisions now, does more Mischief to his Country than a Foreign Enemy can do.”48 Furthermore, Finch looked to expose the porous foundation of such opposition. He was meticulous in his use of the staples of the official propaganda: No Fears of arbitrary Government can justify, no Zeal to Religion can sanctify, such a Proceeding. It hath been so stale a Project to undermine the Government, by accusing it of endeavouring to introduce Popery and Tyranny, that a Man would wonder to see it taken up again. Have we forgotten that Religion and Liberty were never truly lost, till they were made a Handle and Pretence for Sedition? Are we so ill Historians as not to remember when Prelacy was called Popery, and Monarchy Tyranny; when the Property of Nobility and Gentry was held to be destructive of Liberty; and

252

courting the moderates

that it was a dangerous Thing for Men to have any Sense of their Duty and Allegiance?49

The remainder of the Chancellor’s speech was taken up with tracing the recent religious policy of the king and showing that criticism came from those “who complain only for Complaining’s Sake.” In a clever variation on a standard theme, Finch used the proliferation of libels as proof of the king’s moderation and his “Tenderness of the Liberty of the Subject.” In the end he appealed directly to the moderate Cavaliers who had stood behind Charles II in so many critical junctures: Let the World now see, that your Zeal to preserve the Government is the same it was when you were ready to die for its Restoration; and know, ’tis an Act as meritorious, and an Act of as great Duty and Loyalty to stand between the King and all those Practices of Libelers which tend to create a Misunderstanding between Him and His Parliament, as it is to fight for Him in a Day of Battle.

Duty and Loyalty remained the heavy artillery in the government’s battle plan. As the pillars of moderation, they served as the basis of the attempt to draw on the Anglican Royalists’ atavistic attachment to church and king. This traditional belief made them useful in countering accusations of popery and arbitrary power thanks to the dark shadow cast by the memory of the seditious libels and the tumultuous scenes which those prejudices had produced under Charles I. Repeated references to the situation and methods of 1640– 41 were used by government propagandists in the hope of dissuading the uncommitted center from joining the critics and maligners of the government. The example of the recent rebellion was offered as a spur to unwavering loyalty and obedience as well as a demonstration of the need to avoid divisions in the body politic. But as the ideological division grew sharper, the possibility of extreme resolutions increased. The traditional, rational, moderate solutions were presented as the strongest bastion against renewed upheaval. According to this version of history, a gulf between king and people caused by sedition was the perfect environment to cultivate the cancer of rebellion. Up to this time, the government had tried its best to inoculate the nation with a barrage of images, ideals, virtues, and warnings. Unfortunately, the anticipated succession of the duke of York precluded any effective immunity from the fears of popery and arbitrary power. The duke of Lauderdale’s actions in Scotland and the influence of the duchess of Portsmouth only served to increase the government’s vulnerability. It was left to the Lord Treasurer to establish some form of cooperation between Parliament and the government.

9 A Court Party? The various ideological defenses of the government’s position examined so far were not alone sufficient to ensure the loyalty and support of the uncommitted members of Parliament. Following the demise of the non-resistance Test in June 1675, the Treasurer turned his attentions to establishing a reliable body of supporters in each House. Using the examples of Clarendon and Clifford before him, Danby increasingly relied upon parliamentary methods more commonly associated with the eighteenth century. Furthermore, the government’s control of local offices, the advantages of a court appointment, the organization and meetings of like-minded politicians, the liberal dispersement of pensions, and “gratifications” were all utilized to cement the bonds between the court and its parliamentary backers. However, each of the ministers who aimed to manage the Houses in the king’s name faced the same insurmountable hurdle. While they remained responsible for the management of Parliament and for the actions of the government, none of them ever solved the riddle of how to prevent the king from pursuing his own personal policies. Indeed, this habit of Charles II was to prove crucial to the fall of Clarendon, the implosion of the Cabal, and the failure of Danby’s first court party. The resistance to calling this organized group of men in both Houses a party is one the few conventions remaining in Restoration historiography. In fact, the three recent biographies of Charles all agree on this point. The historians accept the received wisdom about the emergence of political parties: the Whigs came first, and the Tory or Court party emerged to challenge them during the Exclusion Crisis.1 Jonathan Scott will not accept the existence of political parties of any kind during the reign of Charles II.2 While Tim Harris has written persuasively on late Stuart politics and identifies a “process” of party formation, he joins in denying the existence of parties until 1679.3 The only dissident on this point is Andrew Swatland, whose excellent book on the House of Lords provides conclusive proof of two organized parties in the Lords beginning in 1675. Furthermore, Swatland also recognizes that the organized opposition in the Lords after 1675 was “a response” to the Anglican policies associated with 253

254

courting the moderates

the earl of Danby.4 His rejection of 1679–81 as a watershed in the emergence of party is refreshing. The willingness to see the parties of exclusion as a continuation of earlier groups in the Lords will be taken up here and applied to groups in the lower House as well.5 While the Lord Treasurer’s attempt to exert influence in Parliament was the basis for many of the accusations of arbitrary government after 1675, Danby’s methods were in no way novel. In many ways, the efforts to organize the moderate supporters of the king was defended as the surest alternative to the return of arbitrary government. From the moment the king returned, Clarendon attempted to coordinate his support in Parliament through the use of managers.6 Clarendon’s Elizabethan sensibilities made him wary of too much organization, leading him to remind the king that “meetings and cabals in Parliament had been always odious.”7 However, Clarendon’s younger rivals had very limited experience with Parliaments, and none of Clarendon’s traditional reservations about management of the Houses. In 1662–63, Sir Henry Bennet and Sir William Coventry told Charles of their plans to organize a “party” in the Commons. This group proved so annoying to Clarendon that the king was forced to intervene and insist that his Chancellor cooperate. By the time Clarendon was displaced by Arlington and the rest of the Cabal, the organization of MPs and the dispersal of rewards was generating accusations of corruption and jobbery.8 Before he chose exile to France, Clarendon rejected “a proposal made by the Presbyterian party who designed, therby, a division between the King and the duke of York.”9 Ignoring for the moment the bias of James in this account, it is plain that contemporary observers were aware of cooperating groups in Parliament. This early system of management was abandoned when the Clarendonians were driven from power, but the desire to identify, gain, and lead supporters in both Houses remained. The fractured nature of the Cabal prevented a single group or party from emerging, largely because no single minister was able to gain a monopoly over patronage and influence. Despite the absence of a single minister around whom to gather, the years of the Cabal witnessed some of the earliest contemporary accounts of party. Coventry decried Sir Thomas Meres’s insinuations of “a distinction in the House between the country gentlemen and the courtiers, whereas there was none, nor ought to be none,” and acted horrified that Meres “often used the words ‘of this side of the House and that side,’ ” but fears of “party” were common in these years. The earl of Sandwich wrote a detailed account of the many parties that existed at the end of 1669. While he makes it clear that each of these parties needed allies to have any chance of success, the evidence of organized groups is undeniable. Sandwich notes that “Buckingham’s Party of it selfe is found not soe stronge . . . as was supposed, and onely is stronge when . . . the Countrey Gentlemen or the

9: a court party?

255

Presbiterians joyne with them,” which they only did for ideological reasons.10 Sandwich considered the other great party to be “Ormond’s party [which] consists of the Duke of Yorkes freinds, [sic] the Church, the old Cavaliers, and the Clarendonians,” and that “these two partyes have levelled one at the other all this while.”11 In the face of these divisions and the king’s support for liberty of conscience, the other party agreed on certain principles that would characterize Anglican Royalist principle in the 1670s. At the prorogation in December 1669, the Church and the Cavaleer party of the H. Of Commons at a private meeting as is reported agreed. 1. To sticke unto the present church Government. 2. To uphold the Cavaleer party. 3. In order to the former to frame a test without which none should be eligible to parliament or any place of trust.12

In addition to the recognition of and cooperation among different parties in the House of Commons, Sandwich’s letter demonstrates the firm alliance between Anglicans and Royalists throughout the Restoration. Furthermore, it provides evidence as early as 1669 for their desire to shape a Test designed to exclude any one unwilling to commit to “uphold the Cavaleer party” or “to sticke unto the present church Government.” Of course, this was the basis for the “bishop’s Test” or “Danby’s Test” of 1675. Already, the organization and the ideology of a tory party are fairly well established. Despite the faction and hostility among the Cabal, the king’s new habit of attending the House of Lords in 1671 was considered part of a court design in both Houses to monitor opponents and to tally their supporters. A ballad noticed earlier had warned men in Parliament to beware how they voted, for “Bab May in ye Commons, ye King in ye peeres” was telling their noses with an eye towards future favor.13 Before long the policy of Indulgence was abandoned when MPs became convinced that it was a scheme aimed at the toleration of Roman Catholics. Worst of all, the highly suspect Treaty of Dover and the unpopular alliance with France coincided with talk of the duke of York’s second marriage raised the specter of popery and arbitrary government once more. The divisions at court, within the Cabal, and between the royal brothers and the Parliament, meant that the prospect of organizing a “party” was unlikely. For the same reasons, the king’s business was thwarted at every turn. Therefore, in the months following the military failures and domestic humiliations of 1672 and 1673, the king’s massive debts convinced him of the need for more effective counsel. By 1674 Sir Thomas Osborne had gotten the part, and he immediately set out to win over peers and MPs with popular policies and a strict attention to the king’s revenue. The coherent

256

courting the moderates

ideological defense of these policies presented on the stage, in print, during spectacles, and from the pulpit provided people with a rudimentary political platform to support. Once again, the moderation of the Established Church and the ancient constitution were offered as the safest alternative to the arbitrary government threatened by both papists and fanatics. At the same time, the support for the principles of the official ideology forced the government’s adversaries to develop an alternative ideology of their own. This is part of “the response” described by Andrew Swatland for the House of Lords.14 While this contest for the hearts and minds of the people took place, Danby looked to the king’s revenue because the Treasurer knew that a solvent king would be less dependent on Parliament and better able to reward his friends, largely through the regular payment of pensions and rewards, not to mention salaries. By the summer of 1674, Danby had laid many of the fears about popery to rest. He had re-established close ties with the Anglican hierarchy and insisted on strict enforcement of the laws against all those not conforming to the Church of England; he had exiled all priests not serving the Queen or foreign Ambassadors from the realm; he had forbidden all Roman Catholics from the court and the royal presence; finally, he had done his best to terminate the nation’s alliance with France.15 Unfortunately, Danby’s success in “makeing men beleeve not only your sincerity to the Protestant religion, but that your concernes for France were no other then as they might be most usefull to the interests of your owne people”16 frightened his opponents into looking for a way to end the present Parliament. If the Treasurer were able to combine the “concurrence of all the people of the kingdome” with an assured majority in the Parliament, then he could back up his assertion to the king “that nothing can spoyle his affaires att home but unsteadiness of resolution in those steps hee has begun.”17 With the king’s backing, Danby planned to ease people’s concerns over religion and foreign policy and thereafter rely on the Anglican Royalists and moderates in the House of Commons. It was just this scenario which led Shaftesbury and his cohorts to concentrate their political efforts on the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament, because its continued existence meant a slow but certain death for any group refusing to join ranks with the government. According to James, Shaftesbury and his allies, “seeing the King had more friends and interest in the house of commons, than they cared for, thought to break the parliament.”18 The evident financial skills of the Lord Treasurer made the government less desperate for parliamentary subvention while simultaneously providing the means for the creation of a sizable praetorian guard in both Houses. If the government were allowed to influence a sufficient number of MPs, then Parliament might be convinced to pass legislation which would allow for the type of parliamentary monarchy that existed in Scot-

9: a court party?

257

land.19 The high-handed rule of Lauderdale served as an ominous example of a Parliament dominated by court dependents. Lauderdale’s efforts to “fix” the Edinburgh elections in 1675 found his opponents unwilling to appeal to the courts, which were “all Constitute [sic] by the Duke of Lauderdale, who having been absolute Minister of Scottish affairs these 12 yeares, has filled the Judicatures so with his Creatures that . . . Justice and he cannot live Together in this kingdome.”20 Not surprisingly, Danby’s Protestant policies, his fiscal success, and the expanding number of court dependents all contributed to his opponents’ fears and their emphasis on the growth of arbitrary power by 1676. One of the most important aspects of Danby’s management of MPs was this group’s use of the themes of moderation, duty, loyalty, and ambition in the debates. It was this combination of ideology and organization that Danby hoped would create a government majority in the House of Commons.
Many scholars have pointed to the development of parties in the reign of Charles II. For example, both Professor D. T. Witcombe and W. C. Abbott have examined the makeup of the House of Commons carefully and found Namierite groups in the Cavalier Parliament. Abbott has argued at great length about the importance of by-elections as a reflection of popular opinion at this time, but it is important to note that Danby confined his efforts largely to influencing MPs after their election. While the government did exert itself in constituencies where it felt it had a controlling interest, most of Danby’s electoral activities were aimed at the next general election.21 It has been noticed above how the Earl of Clarendon “had every day conference with some select persons of the House of Commons who had always served the king and upon that account had great interest in that assembly.” The Chancellor admitted that “great pains were taken to have some of the king’s menial servants chosen, so that there was a very great number of men in all stations in the Court, as well as below stairs as above, who were members of the House of Commons.”22 The utilization of unwavering royalists in conjunction with those who took the king’s money was an important part of Clarendon’s success following the Restoration. While no one would condone “parties” or “cabals” in Parliament, local, family, and court rivalries were all drawn upon to sustain and eventually to challenge the Chancellor’s supremacy.23 It is important to remember that at no time during Charles II’s reign did the government approach anything near a majority in the Commons. From the many lists compiled by Danby, it is clear that he could never count more than 150 MPs as supporters, and the attendance record of dependents

258

courting the moderates

was never a reliable one. The parliamentary failures of both Clarendon and the Cabal were precedents that showed the need for an ideological program which was acceptable to the majority of unattached MPs. Cavaliers, Anglicans, and moderates were repeatedly willing to abandon their support for the king and government if they saw the church in danger. It was the same moderate centrists who refused to support or even turned against the king’s ministers when presented with the government’s inefficiency in the Second Dutch War or the Cabal’s suspicious foreign and religious policies. A majority of the nation supported the fundamental principles of government ideology, but the expanding public sphere and an increasingly sophisticated and informed public opinion meant that policies and actions met with extended scrutiny. The king and his government’s accountability for the official ideology was to haunt them throughout the Exclusion Crisis. One effective means of acquiring support in Parliament was the use of the myriad places and pensions at the government’s disposal. Of course, the reliance on such inducements was abhorrent to the government’s opponents and to the traditional theory of parliamentary liberties. The ability of Arlington, Williamson, and Clifford to master this approach was seen in both the fall of Clarendon and in the hefty Supply voted in 1670–71. Some MPs were so appalled at the unity of this phalanx in the Commons and how the “courtiers now carry all before them . . . [meaning] his Majesty will undoubtedly have a speedy and effectual Supply proportionable to his occasions,” that they sank to some organized theatrics themselves: in a protest over being denied figures concerning the king’s debts, “over 80 of them arose and went out of the house in discontent, and left the rest to vote as they pleased . . . wch will amount to a very great sum of money.”24 But the Cabal was a perfect example of the lack of unity which characterized the court and government of Charles II. The contradictory religious and foreign policies within the Cabal meant that the destruction of Clarendon was the only issue on which they agreed. Following the Second Conventicle Act and the Treaty of Dover (both secret and open) the king and each of his ministers were working at cross purposes. Once the combined influence of the Cabal was shattered in 1670, their early edition of organization and “party” quickly disappeared. On the one hand, Clarendon’s dependence on the ideological attractiveness of royalist sentiment and the organized cooperation in Parliament of the king’s friends had foundered on the rock of war. Caught between the Scylla of corrupt administration and the Charybdis of ambitious young men (including the king) fed up with Clarendonian moral homilies, the Chancellor’s Cavalier policies could not keep him afloat. On the other hand, the Cabal’s emphasis on parliamentary influence proved equally incapable of managing the Commons once its political and religious policies came under close scrutiny. When the members of the Cabal turned on

9: a court party?

259

each other, their supporters fragmented into the factions more familiar to the parliamentary history of this period. As a survivor from this period, Danby apparently learned that the next attempt to create a court party would need to be a mixture of ideological platform and parliamentary influence.
The earl of Danby’s ascendancy reflected his recognition of the importance of bringing together parliamentary influence and a coherent ideology. For the first part of his plan, he struggled to create an environment in which the government’s actions were made palatable to the nation at large as well as to the independent-minded MPs. The other half of his plan was the commitment of the available government revenues to support and enlarge a body of adherents in Parliament. The ideological expression and defense of the king’s policies demonstrates Danby’s insistence on the importance of gaining the hearts and minds of the nation. The fundamentals of the design to win over the people were catalogued by the new minister during the first months of his appointment. In October 1673, he informed Charles of the necessary first steps toward establishing the royal power on a solid foundation: In all things to promote the Protestant interest both att home and abroad. To keepe firme to the Triple Alliance, and to indeavour to bring all Protestant princes into itt. To suffer no diminution nor imbezzlement of the revenue either in England or Ireland.25

The need to return to the Protestant interest was obvious by the end of 1673, and, by February 1674, the king had acceded to the strength of Danby’s arguments. It should be noted that the last point made by Danby reveals the remainder of the Lord Treasurer’s plans. Danby realized that most MPs considered the Crown’s annual revenue to be sufficient for the king’s needs. In this view, it was only the corruption, waste, and extravagance of the king’s servants which kept Charles on the brink of bankruptcy. Danby hoped that a strict retrenchment in the royal finances and the efficient collection of the revenues would enable the king to “live of his own” until the cooperation of the Parliament was assured. The emphasis on fiscal responsibility was crucial because it was intended both to placate the critics of corruption and waste and to provide the requisite funds for increasing the number of reliable government supporters in Parliament. After examining the government’s accounts, Danby discussed with the king the methods by which the monarchy could free itself from depen-

260

courting the moderates

dence on the bounty of the House of Commons. He reminded Charles that, despite orders for retrenchments in both 1667 and 1669, the king’s expenses exceeded £1,700,000. Furthermore, Danby warned that his enemies at the court relied upon the king’s munificence to defeat the planned retrenchments, and “itt is with confidence depended upon that againe itt will bee in words but not in deeds, and this will certainely bee the last triall.”26 In order to avoid the monarchy’s subjection to Parliament, Danby made a pitch for the king’s unswerving allegiance in reducing the drain on his revenues: Consider that all the miscarriages have been wrong measures in your revenue, and by which all your undertakings have still fallen for want of money . . . [because] your officers have been under the dilemma that if they did not lett you undoe yourselfe they were to be undone by makeing themselves uneasy to you, whereas truly nothing under heaven can ever make your life easy but undergoing at any rate the being beforehand in your revenue. Such a number of pensions is established . . . that itt amounts to much more than the revenue can beare, so that of course you walke into an inevitable ruine though nothing extraordinary should happen, and out of the power of a Lord Treasurer to helpe without your steddy and unalterable resolutions to assist him in itt.27

Alongside the plea for the king’s resolution and support in controlling the flow of the revenue, Danby painted a bleak picture of the consequences of staying the course. The additional duties granted the crown during the Dutch War would lapse soon, and the king’s dependence on Parliament would be increased proportionally. In order to avoid even greater financial embarrassment, Charles would be obliged to make further concessions to those wishing to lessen the royal prerogative. For all these reasons, the Lord Treasurer was adamant about the need to deal with the legislature from a position of strength: att the end of three yeares betwixt £3 and 400,000 [sic] of the revenue ceases, which may be lengthened by a Parliament if you can live without needing them and by no other meanes, so that the sinewes of the monarchy are to bee recovered in these three yeares or niver; and whereas by good husbandry the revenue is to bee improved considerably beyond what itt is, itt will bee impossible to do anything of that kind under necessity.28

It was clear that as the Lord Treasurer distanced the king from France and mended fences with the Anglican hierarchy, he also hoped to bring new efficiency to the administration of the royal finances. The ability to survive without parliamentary grants would allow the king to meet Parliament at his own convenience and to ignore their criticisms and demands without fearing complete insolvency. The interludes between parliamen-

9: a court party?

261

tary Sessions could also be used to improve the government’s standing in the nation by the publication of pamphlets crafted to allay popular fears and criticisms. More importantly, the trinity of sound finance, Anglicanism, and a Protestant foreign policy was sure to appeal to the moderate Cavaliers who had provided Clarendon with the strength and support to shape the Restoration settlement in church and state. The government’s preparations for the April 1675 meeting of Parliament was a preview of the methods Danby would rely on in the years to come. Immediately after the prorogation in February 1674, Secretary Coventry began to take notice of developments which were undoubtedly products of the new Treasurer’s influence. In his opinion, the success of the sudden dismissal of Parliament would “depend upon his Majesty’s Resolution which he saith is fixed to give all Satisfaction in point of Religion, and live within the Bounds of his Revenue.”29 So great was the king’s confidence in his new man of business that he granted Danby increasing power throughout 1674. As the scheduled November Session approached, many feared that the retrenchments at court would place the favorers of arbitrary government in a dominant position in the king’s counsels. William Harbord wrote in September that the “Duke, Tre[asurer]: Laud[erdale]: govern all. . . . The publique Expense is far short of ye Revenue, by ye last Computation above £10,000 weekly, so yt the king will quickly have money in his purse; And it is feared that ye Parlimt will not Sitt, though they meet.”30 In fact the Parliament did not sit in November, but was prorogued again until April so that Danby could improve the king’s chances of receiving Supply by collecting proxies and insisting his supporters attend. Having staked out a position of moderation, Anglicanism, and diplomatic independence for the king, Danby worked to solidify the bloc of government votes in the two Houses. His plans in this area were twofold: first, he concentrated on insuring the attendance of all government officers, pensioners, and known supporters of the government. Next, with their support he hoped to pass a Test which would make quiescent loyalty and passive obedience the qualifications for sitting in Parliament. Professor Browning has claimed that this Non-resisting Test was “intended much more as a declaration of a new Government policy than as a blow at an opposition which as yet scarcely existed.”31 It is hard to accept the claim that the opposition scarcely existed when the proposed Bill led to heated debates and eventually to the prorogation occasioned by the controversy over privileges connected to the case of Shirley v. Fagg. In the Lords, “a great and warm debate happened . . . [over the Bill] proposed by the e of Danby, and suffered by the court and episcopal party, by which no peer was to sit or vote in the house that did not take the oaths or test, not to endeavour any alteration in church or state.”32 Again we see the Duke’s

262

courting the moderates

perception of parties in the House as well as the fierce opposition the Test inspired. While this Test was unquestionably a demonstration of the Anglican and Cavalier beliefs of the new ministers, Danby’s recognition of, and wish to limit, the number of his parliamentary opponents is hard to ignore. The failed legislation to exclude all those not of the cavalier or the church party was one more aspect of the party machine Danby aimed to build. In conjunction with the official ideology and the management of his supporters in both Houses, it would have taken him very close to the executive control of the legislature which made Walpole’s career so important. Throughout February 1675, warrants were issued for the discovery of “seditious, scandalous or unlicensed” materials.33 Simultaneously, the powers of the Surveyor of the Press were renewed in the hope of silencing the opposition as the Session approached, and the Judges were summoned before the Privy Council to determine “the legality of several meetings of Parliament men in the several counties.”34 These moves to preempt public opposition were matched by the activities of the Treasurer to guarantee government voting superiority in both Houses. In addition, Danby’s willingness to punish his enemies and reward his friends meant that his supporters in Parliament were generally characterized by their ideological unity. Even the duke of York, no comrade of Danby, recognized that “the treasurer’s friends, in the house of commons, consisted of zealous church of England men and old cavaliers, who were influenced by the bishops and clergy.”35 This uniformity was to begin paying dividends after 1675. In one of the earliest examples of a government whip, the Secretaries of State each sent a great number of letters to MPs recommending their early and steady attendance at the impending Session. The letters included the “request of his Majesty” that the Member “be here at the very beginning to joyn your endeavours to other honest men for the settling a good and lasting Confidence betwixt his Majesty and his people.”36 With its most trusted adherents enjoined to attend the April Session, the government embarked upon a voyage which it hoped would end in a vote of Supply. From this, it seems clear that Danby was confident in the increase of his strength, yet still uncertain if he could prevent the uncommitted moderates from being swayed by his adversaries. If, however, the government’s influence and propaganda proved sufficient to carry a vote requiring passive obedience, then the Treasurer would have little to fear in the future from a unified parliamentary opposition. The government moved quickly to demonstrate publicly its Anglican Royalist sympathies: in addition to the preparation of an equestrian statue of Charles I at Charing Cross and the rebuilding of St. Paul’s cathedral (a casualty of the Great Fire), a magnificent reinternment of the martyr king was pushed forward in Parliament. It was in this context that the government introduced the Bill to Prevent the Dangers which may Arise from

9: a court party?

263

Persons Disaffected to the Government.37 While the Test was being hotly debated in the House of Lords, the Lord Treasurer’s impeachment was easily squelched in the Commons. The rejection of the attacks on Danby was an ominous sign of his success in persuading the king and Duke, who “were resolved to keep up parliament to raise the old Cavaliers and the Church party and to sacrifice the Papists and Presbyterians.”38 Still, the king’s request for money for ships—a request aimed directly at the Cavaliers’ attachment to the navy—was reduced to a motion for appropriating revenue from the customs leading to comments that “the King wonders that [the] Treasurer should gett so many voices for himself and none for the King.”39 As the Test maintained its glacial pace through the Lords, the existence and effectiveness of the government’s supporters in the Commons became worthy of notice and subject to attack. The king’s regular attendance in the Lords’ during the debates and the traditional court influence in the upper House came as little surprise,40 but MPs remarked how the “Treasurer hath by some means or other, though one may easily guess how, gott so many friends in our House that right or wrong they will bring things of[f ]. . . . For my part I see so much of this House, and how many more poore creatures there are in’t that I dread what they will doe.”41 Others lamented that the advances in the king’s fortunes resulted in it “being notoriously suspected that some members of that Hous did receive rewards from the Court to give their voats as was desired on that side.”42 So common was the belief in MPs being “taken off ” by the court, that Sir William Coventry countered with a Test Bill of his own. If the Lord Treasurer insisted on limiting a place in Parliament to those subscribing to passive obedience, then the country interest was determined to exclude all members who would not forswear government office and influence. In spite of the opposition’s wide variety of tactics in both Houses, the Test passed in the House of Lords and appeared destined for a similar success in the Commons when Shirley v. Fagg intervened to bring all business to a halt. Some thought . . . that some Lords of the country interest had persuaded Sherley [sic] to it, whereby soe to blowe up the difference . . . between the two Houses, that the King should be obliged either to prorogue, adjourn, or dessolve them, they fearing that if this Parliament should sit much longer the greater part might be soe gained by mony or places as to doe whatever the Court desired of them; and my Lord Halifax (then in the interest of my Lord Shaftesbury . . . ) tould me [this] was his opinion.43

If contemporary opinion is to be credited, then Reresby’s conversation with Shaftesbury’s confidant Halifax is a good indication that leading

264

courting the moderates

opponents of the government were justifiably concerned about the growth of courtly influence in the Cavalier Parliament. Not only were they painfully aware of how many parliamentarians were being “gained by mony or places,” they were already facing the reality that if this long Parliament of Charles II sat much longer it would become another of the king’s lapdogs. For contemporary opponents of the government, a dissolution was seen as their only hope for salvation. Danby tried to avoid this obstacle by championing the cause of the Commons, but a flurry of unproductive conferences, insulting messages, and arrests in the lobbies ended the hopes for a settlement. As a result, the king was forced to prorogue Parliament, the procedural coup proving a blow to the plans of the Treasurer and the government. Still, many assumed that without a dissolution this opposition victory was only a temporary postponement in the inevitable march toward executive control of the legislature.
During the intercession of 1675 the government did everything in its power to improve its strength at the next meeting of Parliament. The equestrian statues, the burning of foreign manufactures, the attacks on Catholicism, and the many pamphlets glorifying the virtues of loyalty and obedience were intended to justify the recent Test Bill as well as to entice the uncommitted members in each House. A Proclamation had been issued in May ordering a return of soldiers serving abroad, although little had been done to bring these men home. While it is true that the issue of soldiers in the French service had raised suspicions about the government’s foreign policy, until the storm broke over Shirley v. Fagg, the parliamentary Session was a triumphant vindication of the Treasurer’s domestic policy. As early as February, Danby, Finch, and Lauderdale refused to give their opinion in Council concerning Parliament if Arlington were present. The official newsletter for 16 April 1675 provided the first hint that the days of Arlington and Ormonde were numbered. Muddiman remarked on their odd conduct following the king’s Speech, noting that “Ye Ld Arlington and Duke of Ormonde were for qualifying ye thankes to ye King, and not to thank his Majesty for his generous speech but for ye gracious expressions. . . . [I]t has caused great wonder yt two such officers as they, with 2 principal white staves should act at yt rate.”44 Yet again the divisions within the court were undermining the king’s government. By the summer of 1675, Charles had wearied of opposition to Danby from within the court’s inner circle, so Arlington and Ormonde were deprived of any real influence in the king’s counsels. It was apparent that Danby’s star was ascendant when even the duke of York was considered to have a taken a

9: a court party?

265

back seat to the Treasurer. The fractured nature of power now meant that Danby must vie with the king’s individual policies, while many feared that James would now take the long proffered bait of an alliance between the nonconformists and the Catholics against the bishops and the Treasurer. The contacts between Danby’s enemies and James are another instance of the “anti-Treasurists” or the “country interest” organizing and dispersing money in response the government’s organization tactics.45 Since Danby’s High Church policy also necessitated a complete severing of the ties with France, Charles’ agreement to follow the Lord Treasurer’s advice might lead to the Cavalier majority in the Commons, which the Catholics, nonconformists, and French dreaded most. The successful combination of a Cavalier House of Commons with the bishops and the Royalists in the Lords caused considerable consternation for both the duke of York and the ministers in Paris. The primacy of the earl of Danby meant first of all that the church would be allowed to persecute all those not subscribing to a strict Anglican settlement. As for the Treasurer’s foreign policy, when the Gazette reported the death of the invincible Turenne, the success of the Austrians under Montecuculi in Alsace, and the defeat of France’s only real ally (the Swedes) during the summer of 1675, England seemed poised to join the Confederate Allies in dictating peace to Louis XIV, thereby displaying the government’s complete unity with the “humours of the people.”46 The Lord Treasurer did not confine his efforts exclusively to extraparliamentary activity. Before the October meeting of Parliament, Danby heightened his organization of supporters, officers, and dependents of the government in order to create a vanguard of the king’s friends in both Houses. Every advance made by the Treasurer in this area disheartened the opposition, for even though cooperation in Parliament was the method by which the legislature became pre-eminent in British politics, in 1675 unity and organization were acknowledged as the only peaceful way to subject the Parliament to the will of the king. Indeed, ever since the outrage at the activities of the “Undertakers” for James I in 1614, most of the political nation realized that only Parliament itself could render the legislature superfluous; Danby’s attempt to organize a majority in the House of Commons was intended to create a situation in which “the greater part might be soe gained . . . as to doe whatever the Court desired of them.”47 To begin with, Danby relied on the time-honored method of organizing all the MPs who fell within the court’s various spheres of regional influence.48 Although none of the shires was monolithic in its support for any one politician, there were certain areas to which Danby could look for support. Obviously, the first place the Treasurer would look was his own county of Yorkshire. In the 1660s, Danby had served as the duke of Buckingham’s organizer in the north, and “as Buckingham’s right-hand

266

courting the moderates

man, [Danby] fell heir to much of Buckingham’s authority, and added to it the influence he derived from the extensive connections of his own family among the northern gentry.”49 In addition to his sway in the north, the Lord Treasurer could look to the support of his many relatives in the House of Commons: by 1678 he had found seats for a brother, three brothers-in-law, two sons, and a myriad of distant relatives. Relatives and regional acquaintances were not the sole basis of Danby’s territorial support in the Commons. The four southwestern counties elected one-fourth (124) Members to Parliament, while the five southeastern counties and the Cinque Ports sent a further twenty percent (95) of the MPs to the Commons.50 Clearly, if Danby could match his influence in the north with any comparable influence in the south, then his voting strength would be formidable. Much to the chagrin of his opponents, one of the Treasurer’s oldest friends and political allies was the Speaker, Edward Seymour, who had extensive connections in the west.51 In the east, the position of the Crown was even stronger. These were the counties of Windsor and Hampton Court, of the country residences of most significant government officials, of the dockyards, and Admiralty influence. Furthermore, while Charles II and his brother’s love for the sea was undoubtedly genuine, “it is remarkable how often the breezes he encountered thereon wafted him into ports well represented in Parliament.” Finally, the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports—the duke of York until the mid1670s—was entitled to nominate one member in each Port.52 With all these advantages in the key electoral area, the south, and Danby’s many connections in the north, the government was in an excellent position to organize an impressive voting bloc in the House of Commons. The earl of Danby did not restrict his efforts at extending his electoral influence. The Treasurer realized that such influence could not be immediately reflected in parliamentary divisions since his plan was to receive a vote of Supply from the present Parliament. For this reason, Danby did his best throughout his career as Lord Treasurer to increase the number of MPs over whom he might exercise some influence. One important point of contact with the localities involved the Lord Lieutenants; through their social prestige and contact with the court, these men possessed a good deal of that intangible power so often brought to bear in early modern politics: Like the King in national affairs, the lord-lieutenant in local affairs was the fountain of honour. His authority was neither independent nor despotic; but so long as he retained the favour of his sovereign, and maintained reasonably good relations with the gentry, he practically had at his disposal all deputy-lieutenancies, commissions in the militia, positions on the local bench and other distinctions on the enjoyment of which the credit of local dignitaries was apt to depend. Thus his influence, though indefinite and indirect, was immense.53

9: a court party?

267

The extent of their importance meant that the pool of men from whom they might be chosen was extremely confined. Tradition and family ties dictated that certain peers had to be included, and also that any dismissal of a Lord Lieutenant was considered a blow to the prestige of the office itself.54 Similarly, the earl of Lindsey’s letter to Danby shows how carefully influence was monitored in the localities. Gloating over a rival’s failure to receive a coveted post, Lindsey wrote, “indeed, the whole county hath taken notice of it, that those who stick to me are preferred, which is a powerful and enjoyning argument for persons to adhere to our party, for the world will be governed by interest.”55 Building from a foundation laid at the Restoration by Clarendon, Danby “brought together a coalition of local potentates reminiscent almost of the Middle Ages.” By 1677 his relatives—by blood or marriage—controlled eight lieutenancies. His close associates in politics assured him of another fourteen counties. According to Danby’s own lists, only eight Lords Lieutenant were openly hostile to the government, and these could influence only eighty-two elections compared to the 350 seats in the counties of Lords Lieutenant considered loyal to the government.56 In 1675, Danby began to use his interest to rally these potential supporters behind the flag of church and king. The steps taken towards the organization of a “party” can be seen quite clearly through the documents printed in the Appendix to Browning’s biography of Danby. Here one finds many of the tactics which would eventually lead not only to Walpole’s control of the House of Commons, but also to a single party hegemony lasting over thirty years.57 The Treasurer, working with the two Secretaries and his amanuensis, Richard Wiseman, drew up list after list of potential supporters. In September, the Secretaries sent a letter similar to the whip in February to one hundred five MPs: The King being firmly resolved that parliament shall meet 13 October, that you may not be surprised with any contrary reports . . . has commanded me to give you this notice, and to desire you will not fail to be here at or before the time appointed, and I desire you will let me know as soon as you come to town, that I may acquaint the King how his commands to me have been executed.58

Courtiers were well aware of how much the king appreciated men with influence in the Commons who could deliver votes “when things of importance shall lie at stake.”59 At this time, the number of Excise Pensioners was gradually increased, although the actual numbers receiving payments from this source is difficult to determine. It does seem certain from Danby’s papers of 1675–76 that the number doubled in this short period.60 One historian has pointed out that the Excise Pensioners were particularly

268

courting the moderates

important because their pensions were paid out of Secret Service money. Thus they were impossible to identify and “they could act on behalf of the Government with much greater readiness and much more effect.”61 In order to have some idea of the government’s voting strength, in 1675 Williamson, Wiseman, and Danby each drew up a list of the king’s servants, dependents or officers in the House of Commons. While many with life patents were practically immune from dismissal, one hundred thirtyseven names of MPs were collected whom the court considered reliable.62 In addition, Secretary Williamson and the Treasurer collaborated once more in preparation for the October Session of 1675 on a “working list” of MPs “whose support for the Court party it was considered worthwhile to solicit.” While much of the outright corruption for which Danby was later assailed had not yet begun, it was clear that he would now dissociate himself from the Restoration policy of buying off one’s enemies. No longer were opponents of the government to receive royal favor; thus, the names collected by the Treasurer were gathered with a mind to the advice of a great Senatour of Venice, speaking to me of L. Chancellor Clarendon’s maxime, That the King should buy and reward his enemies, and do little for his friends because they are his already, he sayd it was contrary to all pollicy to enrich their enemies who could never be made friends, and to make their old friends first despayr of all good, and then turne to be new enemies.63

From now on the rewards and favors of the court were to be restricted to those considered to be likely and willing recruits to the king’s party and those who deserved some recognition for their loyalty to the king’s interests. It is possible that this sudden termination of favors to the king’s critics contributed to their growing denunciations of the Treasurer and his purchasing of votes. The remarkable collection of parliamentary lists was only part of the organization underway for the autumn Session of 1675. For if the House of Lords was not as baldly mercenary as the Commons, there still remained plenty of means by which to ensure their support for the king and his government. It should come as no surprise that the Non-resisting Test had been introduced in the Lords in April 1675. Based on numbers from the end of this Parliament, the government was assured of a sizeable majority in the Lords. Of 153 peers in 1680, seventy-four had been created since the outbreak of the Civil War, half of these granted between 1642 and 1661— almost all of them rewards for loyalty to the Stuarts in their darkest hour. Charles II had created twenty-seven peers himself, and promoted seventeen more—meaning that 77% of the Upper House owed its title to the Stuarts.64

9: a court party?

269

The significance of the numbers and heritages above pales in comparison to the importance of the memory of recent history in the House of Lords. On the whole, date of creation had not been a mitigating factor in the wholesale elimination of the Upper House. This was just the sort of audience that the poems and plays sponsored by the government were most likely to influence. They had little desire to follow the lead of the House of Commons again and proved their worth repeatedly from 1668–88 by supporting the policies of the government.65 Accordingly, when the government issued many peers a similar whip to the one sent to MPs, they responded willingly: “I am by the King commanded to let you know that he will take it kindly if you would take the pains to be here the first day of the session of Parliament. I must also tell you . . . the King hoped your father [the duke of Newcastle] would place his proxy in some good hand.”66 Unfortunately for the Lord Treasurer, a majority in the House of Lords was essential, but not sufficient, to manage Parliament. Relations with the House of Commons remained the sticking point in parliamentary politics. In the Commons, Danby had improved the actual numbers of the king’s friends he could look to, but suspicions about the foreign policy of the royal brothers still hindered many of the moderate Anglican Royalists from giving their unqualified support to the government. Still, if we are to rely on the views of contemporaries, then the Treasurer’s opponents were extremely concerned about the efficacy of Danby’s tactics. Before the opening of one Parliament, “lord Russell and other considerable men in the party, sent to the duke of York to let him know, that if he would join with them, in what they should propose for the good of the King and nation . . . [he would be restored to his offices, but] they expected his concurrence with them, in prosecuting the treasurer.”67 The party of Russell and others was an unlikely home for James, but it is clear they understood just how formidable Danby’s position was by 1678. Again, the Lord Treasurer was confident that a complete break with France would give his incipient party the added strength necessary to vote the Crown the money required to prevent future attacks on the prerogative by means of the purse. Danby was certain that joining the alliance against Louis XIV would lead to a substantial vote of Supply. More importantly, Danby assumed that the loss in customs revenue which would result from a prohibition of French goods would be made good by additional duties and an increase in the Excise.68 Danby was not the only European diplomat to see the many advantages in dividing England from France, because the stalemated war on the continent led to diplomats from both sides angling for an English alliance. Fully cognizant of Danby’s success in organizing support in Parliament, foreign Ambassadors adopted similar tactics in an attempt to build up a group of their own. Each had the sense to solicit English politicians working to

270

courting the moderates

create a party in the Commons, a party that would challenge the Lord Treasurer’s. On one side, the Confederates, led by William of Orange and the Spanish Ambassador in London, dispersed hefty sums to parliamentarians in the hope of driving Charles from the arms of his cousin Louis or—in the best of all possible worlds—forcing the English to join in the fight against France.69 Alternatively, the recent reverses suffered by the French convinced Louis and his ministers that if Danby or the Parliament were allowed to bring England into the war alongside the Confederates, then France might be forced to sue for peace on unfavorable terms. Accordingly, the French Ambassador to London was authorized to offer Charles considerable subsidies in exchange for an agreement to govern without Parliament for the next three years.70 In August, Charles and Louis agreed that if Parliament proved obstinate in refusing Supply during the October Session, then it would be dissolved in exchange for a subsidy of £100,000 a year. Not surprisingly, Danby was carefully excluded from these negotiations.71 As a consequence of these contingency plans arranged by the king, Danby was faced with the problem of defending two separate foreign policies: he hoped to gain the support of the Commons—and the tangible financial rewards represented by such support—for his avowed policy of strict Anglicanism and hostility to the French interest. All the while, he was aware that his master had agreed to accept French money for every year in which the Parliament did not meet.72 Whatever gains he had made in organizing a primitive political party with a coherent ideology to defend, the ability of the king to pursue an independent—and contradictory— foreign policy would eventually destroy the edifice so painstakingly built by his Treasurer. If the Lord Treasurer could not manage the present Parliament in October, then he would be held accountable when the king agreed to live off the bounty of Louis XIV. Worse still, the Lord Treasurer was now recognized in France as the greatest threat to the English neutrality that was necessary for Louis XIV’s continued success. Not surprisingly, Charles II’s benefactor was unlikely to accept the continuance of Danby at the head of a government which was supported by French money. The earl of Lindsey lamented his brother-in-law’s inability to hold the king to the Anglican interest: “The aim you have to settle the Church and State: to defend the one against the schismatics, and papists, and the other against Commonwealths men and rebels. These are indeed things that would make a man’s head ache and his heart too especially when one in the world that your Lordship knows will be so wanting to himself as not to be concurring in this design to his own advantage.”73 It was becoming clear that the king himself was the greatest threat to Danby’s efforts to organize a groups of supporters around the moderate policies and ideology. To survive, Danby must demonstrate the efficacy of his policies in October. From

9: a court party?

271

a financial point of view, the Lord Treasurer would no doubt have welcomed a French subsidy if the Parliament withheld funds again. However, to return to an association with France and the concomitant pro-French foreign policy would seriously damage any chance of winning over moderate support in future Sessions of Parliament. The many benefits reaped from the production of an official propaganda that reached the widest possible audience were suddenly being turned upside down. The public’s familiarity with the government’s views meant that Danby—or some member of the government other than the king—would be held accountable for forsaking the policies so long promoted in the public sphere. In the event, all Danby’s policies and organization and efforts to publicize his moderate ideology came to nought. The revelations of Ralph Montagu exposed his moderation and devotion to the Protestant religion as a sham. The “Loyal party” and the “King’s friends” were instantaneously transformed into bribed magistrates and court pensioners. Danby would be held accountable for both the deceptions of the official ideology and the growth of popery and arbitrary government. The Popish Plot was now the hottest scandal in town. The end of 1678 showed that Danby’s organization of supporters was nothing more than a corruption of parliamentary independence, the obvious first step down the road to arbitrary power. However, the fact that Danby’s system collapsed, condemned by its own ideology of moderation, does not mean it never existed. Shaftesbury and others spent considerable energy (and fifteen months in the Tower) trying to destroy Danby’s power. Relying on tactics usually associated with a later century, Danby’s opponents responded to his Test of 1675 by introducing a succession of Tests of their own, Tests which looked remarkably like the Place Bills of the eighteenth-century Tories. In response to the official ideology of moderation, they published a series of pamphlets which aimed to expose the huge numbers of “Pensioners” in Parliament. Marvell’s famous tracts on the Growth of Popery and the List of the Principal Labourers in the Grand Design of Popery and Arbitrary Power were joined by Vox Lachrymae and other accounts of improper court “influence.” Just as Danby, Wiseman, and others made list after list of supporters in the Commons, Shaftesbury’s own list of “worthy men” was an attempt to imitate the Treasurer, to tally his own numbers, and to oppose the daunting strength of the Treasurists in Parliament. Certainly, Danby’s rivals had every reason to fear his growing influence and power in both Houses. In the end, the king was at the root of Danby’s demise, not a Restoration immunity from political parties. It was the Lord Treasurer’s inability to convince Charles II to follow his advice that landed him in the Tower by 1679; as in 1688, a foreign threat was necessary to destroy the growth of popery and arbitrary government. It is important to remember that no one

272

courting the moderates

suspected Danby of popery: it was his arbitrary actions and secret dealings which laid him low. Similar threats would destroy Shaftesbury’s popularity by the end of 1681. The shared hostility to arbitrary government never changed, but events altered public opinion of where the threat was most likely to originate.

10 Collective Actions in Parliament The earl of Danby worked relentlessly to organize the “cavaleers and church of England men” into a unified party in both Houses of Parliament. By the parliamentary meetings of 1677 and 1678 he could rely on close to 150 members of the Commons and a sturdy majority in the Lords. Moreover, his Protestant policies in church and state, at home and abroad, had earned him the grudging support of a significant number of MPs who longed to promote the king’s interests so long as he defended the Established Church and the ancient constitution. Beyond the doors of Westminister, the official ideology had steadily increased the public support for the government while undermining the criticism offered by the king’s opponents. Danby’s management of a well-organized group, a group which shared a publicly articulated ideology of moderation and enjoyed the support of a significant section of public opinion, was beginning to look a lot like a political party. One last way to evaluate their cohesion as a party is to examine their activities during parliamentary Sessions. To begin with, the extent of their organizational structure is seen in the meetings arranged before Parliament met, in the proxies collected in the House of Lords, and in the oratorical defenses of the government’s policies on the floor of the Houses. Additionally, their ability to marshal the ideology propagated in the official political culture to justify and to defend the actions taken by the government in Parliament is evidence of their collaboration. The frequent cooperation of the members of this party in anticipation of Parliament, the coordinated presentation of pamphlets, spectacles, and royal weddings, and the comparable discourse found in parliamentary speeches are all indications of an incipient political party emerging from a chrysalis in the late 1670s. Unfortunately for Danby, his initial efforts in 1674 to organize his supporters in Parliament proved inadequate. Before the opening of Parliament, a newsletter alerted its readers “yt several letters are sent to parlement men to desire them to make hast up, yt they may not be missing at ye first opening of ye sessions.”1 The request for Supply, based on the huge anticipations of the revenue (estimated at £1,000,000), was rejected after 273

274

courting the moderates

Sir Thomas Meres asserted that such a vote was tantamount to approving the Declaration of Indulgence, the breaking of the Triple Alliance, and the Stop of the Exchequer. He reminded the House how “after Christmas 1671, such desperate Councils followed giving money . . . [as the] repeal of no less than thirty laws by the Declaration, a standing army, the Exchequer stopped up, and a war without advice of Parliament, and the Triple League broken, and a league with France made.”2 Danby was made to suffer for the sins of his predecessors, but the criticism was soon followed by a demand that the Parliament represent to the king the “present state of the nation.” Sacheverell’s insistence on such a remonstrance led to a stern rebuke from the Speaker, which anticipated the warnings about appeals to the people and the return to 1641 which characterized the propaganda of 1675: there’s no necessity of a remonstrance, which is in the nature of an appeal to the people. Whoever will tell the people they are not well governed, he fears that people will give them too favorable an audience—The reformed, meek, humble men were the disturbers of the nation, in the last age, and he fears are so now. How low, how humbly, how dutifully are they represented! ’Twas they that acted all the villainies of the former age, and [he] fears they are active for the disturbance of this. . . . There is a strict conjunction between the Fanatic and Papist to dissolve this Parliament. . . . But when this Parliament shall be dissolved, he fears the shaking both of church and state.3

From the moment Danby became the leading advisor to the king, opposition was denounced as part of a conspiracy to use the “meek, humble men” to disturb the peace. Following the spring Session of 1675—and the failure to pass the Non-resisting Test—the official propaganda concentrated on placing the tactics of the opposition in a historical context and warning that “1641 was come again.” The policy of enlisting all moderate Anglicans and Cavaliers to support the king and church meant that the vast majority of the government’s followers were men who had (or at least pretended to have) suffered for the monarchy and episcopacy in the late rebellion. The uniformity of recent experience made the comparison of the opposition’s actions—both in and out of Parliament—with the events of 1641 that much more persuasive. The growing dependence on the specter of 1641 by the government was largely a product of the highly receptive audience which Danby was trying to create. When Sir Harbottle Grimstone wished that the king would set a date for the dissolution of this Parliament, “a standing Parliament [being] as inconvenient as a standing army,” Sir John Berkenhead followed with a typical defense: “When I see sons and brothers of those, who were undone by the Rebellion, and paid so dearly for loyalty, put and thrust out to have a

10: collective actions in parliament

275

new set, I declare I am afraid of a dissolution. . . . I cannot but think that the end of this Parliament will be the beginning of Confusion.”4 Berkenhead’s reference to those “undone by the Rebellion” was enough to remind most auditors of Grimstone’s association with various Interregnum regimes. Danby’s appeal to the centrists in 1674 and 1675 was one reason why a further request for £500,000 for the Navy was received more graciously by the House of Commons than the previous request for Supply. The example of the Civil War served to reinforce the preference for a strong Navy over any land forces. The blue water strategy and the limited taxation it required (the Customs being considered the true source of naval finance) made this appeal more palatable to those moderates inclined to support the king but wary of arbitrary government. In particular, such a strategy obviated the need for raising an army in England. Aside from the arguments over the actual costs of building the ships, this Bill of Supply moved steadily through the Commons. More significantly, Danby’s followers were able to defeat a motion for lodging the funds in the City rather than the Exchequer. The parliamentary defenses of the government echoed the lines of argument advanced in the political culture beyond Westminister. In defeating this motion, speakers for the government pointed to comparable developments in 1641. The ability to tarnish opponents by revealing the similarities between their tactics and those of 1641 would emerge as a principal theme in official propaganda under Danby. Sir George Downing remembered that “Money was paid into London at the beginning of the rebellion, and [he] dreads everything that may have its likeness. . . . With it you destroy property. The Exchequer is one of the pillars of monarchy, the easiest and cheapest. . . . Some are hot enough that the Exchequer is not to be trusted; when that trust is gone, the government is gone.”5 After a poignant, but incomprehensible, comment by Nicholas Carew, Secretary Coventry closed the debate by warning, “as to the Chamber of London, the placing of Money there imports a Treasurer. [He] hopes never to see that day, for the Parliament to have one Treasurer, and the king another. He knows what will follow.”6 The narrow victory for the “Treasurists” was an ominous sign for opponents of the government, and many reflections were made on the methods by which the court’s voting strength had been acquired. Danby was identified as the villain of the piece, for “we will divide the House for decencys sake into Treasurists and Ante Treasurists, for we will never suppose the King to have any enemies there, or be of, or have any party.”7 Calling the party “Treasurists” rather than the king’s party was acknowledged as part of the convention in which the king could do no wrong, but the recognition of a “party” in the House is clear. Muddiman’s newsletter reported that one angry section of the House of Commons

276

courting the moderates

who were outvoted yesterday, being very much disturbed yt they loss’d ye question, and fearing yt everything would be carried agst ym by ye Treasurists, were forc’d to try new inventions to obstruct money. One was . . . [the suggestion] yt severall of their members were ‘taken off.’. . . [N. Carew added that he] saw severall members who had expressed ym selves formerly very warmly as to ye present management of matters give their votes (as they had reason to believe) agst their owne judgements, without shewing any cause to warrant their change and therefore [he] suspected that they had been dealt withall underhand. . . . From thence they fell upon severall letters written by ye Secretarys to diverse members before ye sessions to hasten them up.8

Carew’s complaints about members contacted prior to the Session, about members dealt with in an underhand manner, and about many voting “agst their owne judgements,” is evidence of the contemporary fears about the growth of party. They may also explain increasing coherence in the votes and speeches supporting and defending government policies.9 The government’s claim that the tactics of 1641 were being revived for the same rebellious ends was now answered by warnings of management, corruption, and the rise of arbitrary government. The ideological campaign of the government was met with a response which also relied on the commonplace fears of tyranny and arbitrary rule. Both sides were defending the same assumptions about the ancient constitution and the true church. It was this ideological conflict which informed and explains the “Restoration crisis” throughout this period. Determining whether the king or the Parliament was a more reliable guardian of the ancient constitution and the Protestant religion was the issue which led to the ideological divisions during the Restoration, and it was the ideological divisions which eventually generated two distinct parties vying for the support of the nation. Ideology was the agent which set the process in motion. After 1675 the question of party organization emerged as the staple of opposition tactics. The cooperation of a group of MPs was still frowned upon and resented in 1675—this being viewed as the surest means to impair parliamentary liberty. The imputation that a member was selling his vote was extremely damaging and was loathed by moderate, uncommitted MPs. Some joined the anti-Treasurists in supporting an early version of a Place Bill. Although the Bill was defeated, the call for a debate threatened Danby’s ability to appeal to the uncommitted members of the House. Even among those who might have been willing to acknowledge the king’s right to rally his servants in the two Houses, there was widespread hostility to the extensive organization which the opposition insisted was taking place. Worst of all, the many unattached moderates who were so crucial to Danby’s success now felt excluded by the government. Sir Henry Goderick complained that he “thinks his family has served the King faithfully, and wonders that he has not received a letter, as well as his neighbours. He

10: collective actions in parliament

277

thinks himself slighted in not being thought so well worthy.”10 The king’s servants jumped to their feet to insist that the letters were not meant to undermine the unity so precious to the king and nation. Secretary Coventry declared that “these letters are not guilty of the inconvenience mentioned, of making faction.” He was followed, significantly, by Secretary Williamson who reiterated that the letters “came from no ill intention nor distinguishing end.”11 The conventional resentment of some men towards organization, combined with their exclusion, convinced them that the “Treasurist” faction was being constructed for some sort of parliamentary subterfuge. A significant number of MPs still wished to be persuaded by an ideology matched with actions, not inducements from the court. Official propaganda had made moderation into narrow ground, which was proving to be a two-edged sword: evidence of arbitrary government was hotly denounced, no matter its origin. These fears were increased when an MP was appointed as Sheriff. Sir William Coventry worried that “if one be made, fifty may be made, and so fifty settled in the Country, and [I] need not tell you how fifty Votes would have carried things as they are not now carried. This pricking of Member Sheriffs, and the letter sent to gentlemen, may tend all to the same end. So it concerns the Parliament, that you leave not the gap open, to root up all your Privileges.”12 In the same way that appeals to the people were associated with 1641, the king’s actions were compared to some of the more distasteful strategies of his father and grandfather. In the end, the Tests proposed in the Bill would have disqualified a majority of the Lower House. This Test neatly foreshadows the criticism of parties and management under Walpole and the Place Bills so familiar to eighteenth-century Parliaments. The Bill quietly lapsed, yet the hostility to encouraging certain Members to attend was enshrined in a Resolution that the king summon Members by Proclamation only.13 Another unfortunate consequence of Danby’s organization in the House of Commons first appeared in this Session, although it was to prove more harmful in later years. While the Lord Treasurer’s concentration on increasing his supporters improved his position with each meeting of the Cavalier Parliament, it was apparent in 1675 that the Treasurists were at a decided disadvantage in the debates. The policies, propaganda, and public displays sponsored by the government all contributed to the growing support of uncommitted Members, but much of this was undermined during the meeting of Parliament. The undeniable superiority of the speakers for the opposition—among them Sir Henry Capel, Sir Thomas Meres, William Powle, Colonel Birch, Sir John Coventry and Sir William Coventry, Michael Malet, and William Sacheverell—prevented the government from maintaining whatever political initiative it might have gained by alterations of policy, Proclamations, pamphlets, or speeches at the opening of Parliament.

278

courting the moderates

The strength of the government was concentrated in the Lords where the Treasurer, the Chancellor, and the Bishops provided some real oratorical firepower. In the House of Commons, officers like Sir John Duncombe or Samuel Pepys could ably represent the government on issues of money or the Navy, but the Secretaries too often found themselves alone on other crucial issues. It is remarkable how many times the government’s position was defended in the Commons by successive speeches from Williamson and Coventry, the remainder of the government supporters speaking briefly and adding little or nothing to the arguments of the Secretaries. Very often it was only the dexterity of the Speaker that saved the government from being routed in the debates in the Commons. It was this weakness in debate that regularly drew the uncommitted centrists away from the parliamentary majority imagined by Danby. Such was the case in the fall of 1675. The advantages gained by the opposition from the letters to selected Members and the issue of alleged bribery were pressed home. The debate over English soldiers serving in Louis’ army was raised again, with some hinting that the government had done nothing to enforce the Proclamation demanding the soldiers’ immediate return. The allegation of persistent francophile attitudes at court was used as a justification for limiting the amount of money to be voted for ships. If revenue was needed to protect English shipping (primarily from the French) and the Customs were insufficient for the purpose, then this was a direct result of French protectionist policy. Sir Thomas Littleton made the connection between French commercial success and the blighted Garden of Plenty during one parliamentary debate: There is a great complaint of the poverty of the nation. He imports it much to the trade we have with the French nation, which outbalances us. By the scheme given in, there is a million per. ann. difference, and ’tis one reason, among others, that was given, why the £300,000 would be so hardly collected [sic]. . . . [He moves] the neglect of a due treaty about regulating the French trade, one of the great reasons of the poverty of the nation.14

The continuing imbalance in trade was rooted in the unwillingness to retaliate for France’s protectionist trade policies. Littleton was holding the government accountable for its promises to take a hard line with France and to deliver commercial prosperity. The commonplace values of the official ideology were once more being used against the government. Again, the importance of accountability shows the extent to which the public sphere and the availability of political culture was making ideology familiar to the public. More importantly, the development made it imperative that Danby bring government policies and actions into line with the values of his government’s propaganda.

10: collective actions in parliament

279

The ability to link French sympathies to the poverty of the nation successfully raised the suspicions of many uncommitted Members and effectively poisoned the waters against a Bill of Supply. The Lord Treasurer’s eleventh-hour attempt to increase the amount of the Supply Bill was defeated and even followed by a motion “that no other charge be laid on the subject this session of Parliament.”15 When a Bill appropriating the Customs to the Navy was annexed to the Bill of Supply, Danby’s hopes for anything of use from this Session were lost. The Treasurer’s primary concern at this point was to escape from the Session without further damage. Fortunately, Danby was able to take advantage of his strong position in the House of Lords to halt his opponents’ momentum and to eliminate their gains. Following Shaftesbury’s example, Danby fanned the flames of the dispute between the Houses. The opposition’s success in this Session prompted them to ignore the issue of privilege. The Commons suddenly saw no need to renew its insulting votes of the spring and requested a Conference “for avoiding the occasions of reviving the differences between the two Houses.”16 But Danby rallied his troops: the House of Lords refused to respond, and confirmed the order to hear Dr. Shirley’s appeal as scheduled. The outraged Commons unanimously agreed that anyone appealing to the House of Lords against an MP was a “betrayer of the rights and liberties of the Commons.”17 This had the desired effect of bringing business to a halt, benefitting Danby in the same way that the original contretemps had aided his adversaries in June. The ability to use the conflict between the Houses was a hollow victory for the Treasurer. He had to take advantage of every weapon in his arsenal, with only the careful collection of proxies in the Lords allowing Danby to defeat a motion for the dissolution of Parliament. For example, the motion, entered by lord Mohun and seconded by the earl of Shaftesbury, came dangerously close to passing. Ominously, the motion also showed Danby that his opponents were able to coordinate their efforts in both Houses as well. A month before, Sir Harbottle Grimstone had requested the “King to set a period to this Parliament, and to allow us some time to pass Bills now on the anvil. . . . There is as great mischief in the length of this Parliament, as if there were no Parliament. A standing Parliament is as inconvenient as a standing army.”18 In one sense, however, the motion for a dissolution was a stroke of good fortune for Danby,19 because Charles II had accepted French money with the understanding that he would dissolve Parliament if the House continued to refuse all attempts at reconciliation. To have fulfilled that promise in November 1675 would have given the appearance that Parliament could use its control of the purse to infringe the king’s prerogative right to call and dismiss Parliaments. Charles chose instead to prorogue Parliament for fifteen months, ensuring England’s neutrality until late 1677. Charles hoped this compromise would placate Louis, and

280

courting the moderates

convince him to pay Charles the agreed pension. Thus the certain end to Danby’s hopes of reconciling king and Parliament was averted thanks to the unrelated efforts of Louis and the English opposition to force a dissolution upon the king. Not only did the lengthy recess serve to increase the concerns over French expansion in Europe, but it also gave Danby over a year in which to increase his support in Parliament. The April Session had shown the potential of the program to combine propaganda and policy. Though Danby was a long way from managing the House of Commons, his Anglican policies nearly gained him the support necessary to pass a Test designed to exclude many of his opponents. In fact, his Anglican Royalist policies were enough to frighten the duke of York into joining the ranks of the opposition. Furthermore, only the tactical maneuvering of Shaftesbury and others had prevented further successes for Danby. For this reason, during the prorogation, the Treasurer looked to improve his position in Parliament in two ways: first, he hoped to construct a more effective group of adherents (in both numbers and abilities) in the Commons; second, Danby realized that the widespread fears of popery and arbitrary power made it imperative that the break with France be apparent to all the nation. Significantly, Danby never wavered in his belief that a vast majority of the nation would rally around his Anglican policy if all fears of popish counsels were laid to rest.
The Lord Treasurer had a number of problems facing him after the prorogation in November 1675. In the long run, Danby had to improve his position in Parliament to the point where he could be certain of passing a vote of Supply and, in the same period, convince the king to sever all ties with France. Of more immediate concern was surviving the many attempts to supplant him at court. If he were able to accomplish this, Danby then had to find the money necessary to provide for the king’s wants as well as those of the court party he was trying to develop. He showed considerable skill in reaching nearly all his goals—the sole exception being his inability to detach the king from the French.20 Charles II had the good sense to recognize that it was the policies and abilities of Danby that had curtailed the Commons ability to limit his power as in 1673 and 1674. At the same time, the king was well aware of the Treasurer’s remarkable ability to keep him solvent without the aid of parliamentary Supply.21 Similarly, Danby realized that his political platform had not delivered the promised renewal of harmony between king and Parliament, or even the requisite goodwill needed for a vote of Supply. Worse still, Danby knew that much of the financial legerdemain which had allowed him to survive until 1676 would no longer work. The branches of

10: collective actions in parliament

281

the ordinary revenue which he relied upon were entering the final year of their farm, meaning that income would be reduced as the advances were paid off. The king remained resolute in his support for the Treasurer, assuming that Danby could mend fences in England, but Danby was well aware that his only chance of success lay in altering the nation’s foreign policy.22 Unfortunately, foreign affairs was one area in which Charles II refused to be guided by his minister. The seemingly insoluble divisions between the king and the Treasurists over foreign policy remained the time bomb that would eventually destroy the Treasurer in 1679. Danby was convinced that the only means of securing an adequate vote of Supply was to break all ties with France and to enter an alliance with the enemies of Louis XIV. The coupling of an Anglican domestic policy with a Protestant foreign policy was a development which Danby was confident would capture the hearts of the moderates. Because Danby’s awareness of the war-weariness on the continent made him fear the consequences of a peace settlement, he warned the king of the dangers of a Franco–Dutch rapprochement which excluded England. Danby made every effort to separate Charles from the French interest by representing to the king the increasing likelihood of Holland signing a separate peace with France. At that point, the combined maritime forces of France and Holland would not only be far superior to England’s, but the commercial prosperity which had resulted from English neutrality would be seriously jeopardized. The Lord Treasurer knew better than anyone that the king had been able to survive without the aid of Parliament only because of the rise in the Customs revenue since the peace of January 1674.23 Characteristically, the king chose not to follow Danby’s advice. Instead of driving a wedge between France and the United Provinces and taking the leading voice in determining the terms of peace, Charles preempted an agreement between England’s greatest commercial competitors by allying with Louis himself.24 The mine under Danby’s feet was under construction. The French attempted to renege on the promised subsidies to Charles because he had not dissolved the Parliament. The king took the sound arguments of his Lord Treasurer, repeated them to the French Ambassador, and demanded that Louis XIV deliver the money as the price for England’s continued neutrality. Once the first payment arrived, Charles suggested that he and Louis enter an agreement not to assist each other’s enemies or rebellious subjects or to enter any treaty without prior approval. Despite Danby’s obstruction, delays, and outright refusal to sign such a treaty, Charles chose to write, sign, and seal the treaty with his own hand.25 While Danby was no doubt displeased at this agreement, he must have known that the one thing he could depend on in his master was inconstancy. In fact, the Treasurer may have been “pleased at heart that the engagement did not take a more objectionable form or involve him more

282

courting the moderates

deeply.” If Danby could manage to increase the voting strength of his government in the House of Commons, then he felt confident he could bring Charles to adopt the foreign policy which would gain the popular support necessary to insure a vote of Supply.26 It was in the hope of surviving until the next meeting of Parliament that Danby decided upon an extensive reduction in expenditure during the long prorogation: if the King can live upon his Revenue and pay off the Anticipations on itt by ye help of his intended Retrenchment and his new designed Method of frugality . . . [and] by his good Husbandry, and by lessening his expenses all that he can, [he] may without being Supplyed by his Parliament, both Subsist, and pay off by Degrees the Anticipations upon his Revenue . . . [yet] to compass this, wee must take it for granted that all will continue quiet both at home and abroade; for any storms of either sort, will in consequence too probably breake all these measures.27

Indeed, the maintenance of these retrenchments was of the first importance. The end of a number of farms by 1677 meant a serious diminution of the net income of the Crown.28 While the Customs farm had years to go before the repayment of advances, Danby’s craving for a break with France was sure to result in an immediate and precipitous fall in this revenue. Even without open hostilities, the moderates whose allegiance Danby coveted most were increasingly swayed by the opposition’s call for a prohibition of French trade. Because of this, it is clear that Danby was willing to promote the prohibition once he had convinced the king to break with France. In this scenario, the Treasurer was confident that a majority in the Commons would agree to replace the Customs loss with some form of direct taxation.29 All things considered, Danby felt confident that the king could subsist until February 1677, but at that time the need for ready cash would be great. It was in this context that Danby set out to improve the government’s standing in the House of Commons. He had done his best before the last Session to secure the support of the court’s dependents and officers as well as the attendance of those known to agree with his policies. Realizing that there was little more to be done in these areas, Danby turned his attentions to gaining new recruits. Although the state of the government finances precluded anything in the way of outright bribery, “every conceivable ‘gratification’ was dangled before the eyes of those whose votes the Government desired to gain.”30 The policy of “gratifying” as many acolytes as possible was so extensive that the opposition once again raised the specter of a packed Parliament. Indeed, there was good reason to be anxious: by the summer of 1676, the lists of the Treasurer and Sir Richard Wiseman showed a gain of 150 votes since the November prorogation.31

10: collective actions in parliament

283

It is these activities, known to foreign Ambassadors as well as to the anti-Treasurists, that laid the foundation for the accusations of corruption and bribery against Danby. While Danby’s efforts are apparent from the lists he and others were constantly compiling, it must also be said that many new recruits needed little inducement to join the government. Sir Robert Holt had no qualms about appealing to Danby for assistance. As a result of his sufferings on behalf of Charles I, he declared that “his financial position had always been bad . . . Many of his creditors were persons of less loyalty than he . . . and on the expiration of privilege of Parliament threatened to take proceedings against him.”32 While the opposition’s tactics in November had made the possibility of a dissolution all too real, many MPs had little to gain from a new election. Because a majority of MPs had won their seats in the euphoria surrounding the Restoration, such an electoral base made their return to a new Parliament highly improbable. For men whose social position and liberty from creditors depended on their place in Parliament, the end of the Cavalier Parliament threatened political ruin. As a result, Danby only had to remind these men that it was imperative for all MPs to act in concert with the government to prevent the opposition from forcing a dissolution on the king.
The exhaustive use of the inducements available to the government had provided Danby with “a total voting strength of about 250.”33 Although the Lord Treasurer was sanguine about his chances in the next Session of the Cavalier Parliament, he could not be sure if such a meeting would ever take place. There were powerful forces at work for a dissolution, and while Danby had eliminated many of his opponents at court, his two greatest adversaries remained dangerously close to the king. The French Ambassador continued to angle for the end to an assembly that increased in hostility to France with each meeting. Likewise, the subsidies that Louis XIV offered Charles II to this end were a temptation which the English King could hardly resist. Even more threatening to Danby’s position was the antagonism of the duke of York. James held little affection for the Treasurer’s strict Anglican policy, and the Duke frequently reminded his brother that Danby’s policy was uniting all the nonconformists in Parliament. Even though the fate of Charles I made his two sons wary about attacks on the prerogative, James could make a convincing case that a coalition of nonconformists, Catholics, and commonwealth-men would lead to irresistible invasions of the royal powers. Alternatively, a new policy that sought to win this disparate group might win widespread support in a new election. Thus, a new Parlia-

284

courting the moderates

ment might put a halt to persecution and demonstrate a harmony and unity which would quickly put the king at ease. To counter this, the Lord Treasurer needed first of all to convince the king that such a dissenting coalition would not be stronger in the House of Commons than the Anglicans who wished to persecute them. Secondly, Danby had to have some proof that a general election would not result in a Parliament anxious to vote for both toleration (or comprehension) and Supply. Accordingly, Danby agreed with the aging Archbishop of Canterbury, Gilbert Sheldon, on the need to undertake a religious census in the nation. Sheldon authorized the Census to disprove the “specious pretences [that] the number of dissenters hath been an argument much insisted upon, as if their party were either too formidable to be suppressed, or that the combination of the several factions being infinite it were but a lost labour to reinforce the censure and execution of the laws provided against them. . . . and the just number of dissenters being known their suppression will be a work very practicable.”34 Danby’s aims in instituting the census can be seen in a letter from June of 1676. Bishop Morley prayed that the proof of the huge Anglican majority would induce the king to stick to Danby’s Anglican policy, for the number is very much more for us than the King was informed it was against us . . . [and] I hope the King . . . [will see there is neither] danger in attempting, nor any great difficulty in effecting, this great work, which is absolutely necessary for the securing of the legally established government of the Church, and consequently as absolutely necessary for the securing of the legally established government in the State also.35

The results of this survey were available in the summer of 1676. It seems certain that many of the figures were skewed by some early examples of occasional conformity and the biased interpretations of “conformity” by the church officials. Nevertheless, the census supplied Danby with hard evidence of the preponderance of conforming Anglicans in the country.36 Armed now with evidence of his strength in Parliament and the country, Danby argued that there was little need for a measure of toleration and that the king had nothing to gain by dissolving the present Parliament. In July, the king acquiesced, insisting that his courtiers reconcile themselves to Danby and his policies—the most important of these being an impending break with France.37 The reconciliation effected by the king between the Treasurer, the duke of York, and the duke of Ormonde was intended to ensure that the court would be speaking with one voice in the next Parliament. To do this, a committee was formed consisting of Danby, Ormonde, Lauderdale, and Finch for the purpose of coordinating the united front. After Williamson complained that in 1675 “an assembly had been formed . . . at which neither of the secretaries was present nor ever

10: collective actions in parliament

285

had a word of it. . . . [And] considering those of the King’s Council of the House of Commons were they that would be first called upon in all matters relating to the King’s service, &c, it would be necessary they were of the meeting, especially the secretaries,” both Secretaries and some Bishops were added.38 To help assess the government’s strength in the Commons, Sir Richard Wiseman drew up another list of MPs—this one containing the name of every member of the House with notes opposite detailing his past behavior as well as what could be expected of him in the upcoming Session.39 In December Danby contacted another of his deputies, Lord Conway, graciously requesting his “company” in London and reminding him that You have a great many friends that, I am sure, would join in this request, and, now that the Parliament draws near, I know the King would take it kindly. I hope you have made some further addition to the number of the King’s friends in the House of Commons, which have already been increased by your means, and I beg you will dispose all such to be here the first day, for we are told that those who would disturb all quiet proceedings . . . have prepared their friends . . . [to] attempt to prove the Parliament dissolved by its being prorogued longer than a year.40

The advance warning of the opposition’s strategy would alleviate the Treasurer’s troubles at a crucial juncture. At this time, the government’s fiscal woes were unexpectedly increased by the need to send forces to Algiers and Virginia, so the need for ready money was a constant difficulty since the Crown’s credit in the City had never recovered from the Stop of the Exchequer. Therefore, Danby had no choice but to anticipate the revenues further in order to send the two fleets overseas. At home, he was determined to resolve the problems of the king’s credit and the government’s opponents.41 To begin with, Danby took the case of the Goldsmiths Company before the king and advised that this debt be settled at once. In the six days before Parliament convened Danby persuaded the king to come to terms with the Goldsmiths; during a meeting at Wallingford House the government agreed to pay all outstanding interest “forthwith out of the Excise.”42 More importantly, having got wind of the opposition’s plans to move for a dissolution, the court sponsored a pamphlet which rebutted most of the arguments devised by hostile pamphleteers and parliamentarians. Prior to the opening of Parliament, a licensed piece answered the critique placed before the public by the government’s critics. As for the ancient tradition of frequent Parliaments, it was acknowledged that from the thirteenth century “down to the time of King James, Parliaments were modest in their station, and easie to the King; so that the Businesss of the Kingdom went on current, without long Speeches and hot Disputes.”43 But

286

courting the moderates

in 1676, men had to realize that there was no reason for the king “to become fond of New Parliaments, till he can have some good ground to believe, that they will return to the like temper and moderation, as they had in the old time, when the ancient Laws and Statutes for frequent calling them were made.”44 By 1676, every meeting of Parliament was preceded by forceful defenses of government policies and actions, regularly accompanied by the careful conflation of the current opposition with their supposed ancestors of 1640– 41. When it came to the issue—raised by the Protesters in the Lords—of excluding worthy men in order to keep the same MPs, the author once again waved the red flag of 1649: (methinks) I see the John Lilburne putting on Robes, and uttering his old Oracles of State. . . . It may be remembered, this brave way of Arguing, did not rest here; it did not only, at that time, trouble and shake the Commons House, but a little time after it was improved to a demolishing of your own. From a Clamouring against Commons contriving long in Power, they preceded to do the like against all Standing Powers whatsoever; so that of course they cast their eyes next at the House of Peers, and the like Argument served to purpose against them, as a Power of long Contrivance, without any respect at all to their Birthright. As for the rest of these Levelling Reasons, I had rather bury than repeat them. For, it is my great grief to live to see any Lords, to whet the weapons of Discourse upon the Anvile of the Levellers.45

The increase in supporters, the arrangement for their presence at the opening of Parliament, and the anticipation of the opposition’s tactics all made Danby confident that his policies would finally bear fruit in the upcoming Session. By answering the attacks on his policies with ominous reminders of the events of the 1640s, Danby looked to keep uncommitted and moderate men from joining his opponents. Danby recognized the need to bring government actions in line with its propaganda. Throughout the 1670s Danby exhorted the king to pursue policies which were in tune with the rhetoric and ideology of the political culture. This was crucial to achieving the one mark of success that would gratify both the king and Treasurer: the elusive vote of Supply.
When Parliament convened once more in February 1677, the king’s Speech, seconded by Lord Chancellor Finch, laid the blame for the long prorogation on the men known to be hatching a plot to force a dissolution as they listened to him. Like the Pacquet of Advices, this speech responded to and anticipated the controversies in Parliament: “And let all men judge who is most for arbitrary government, they that foment such Differences

10: collective actions in parliament

287

[i.e., Shirley v. Fagg] as tend to dissolve all parliaments; or I, that would preserve this and all parliaments from being made useless by such dissentions.”46 This was followed immediately by a request for money for ships, which “all our safeties are concerned in.” After this reminder of the unity of king and people and their mutual interest in maintaining a strong Navy, the Lord Chancellor delivered an exposition on allegiance, duty, loyalty, and the consequences of deserting such ideals. Finch concluded by sounding the theme upon which the government was to rely increasingly until the end of the exclusion crisis. He reemphasized the importance of unity and cautioned men about the ambitious malefactors who placed their own private interest above that of the nation. Finch spoke of a “Unity which flows from an unshaken Trust and Confidence between the King and his People. . . . [and] a perfect Detestation and Abhorrency of all such as are given to change.” The glorification of continuity and tradition was aimed at the moderates who recalled the last time constitutional innovation had had its day. Defenders of the prerogative were as fond of the status quo as those who had no chance of being returned to a new Parliament. In the same way that fear of popery and arbitrary government were used by Danby’s enemies, the propaganda and speeches for the government played upon the very real horrors of the 1640s and 1650s. As always, the memory of the greatest example of arbitrary government ever seen was regularly invoked. Despite the king’s prediction of malcontents who would press for a dissolution, the opposition was determined to pursue this tactic. As soon as the Commons withdrew, the duke of Buckingham moved that the Lords consider the question of the Parliament being dissolved owing to the fifteen-month prorogation.47 The lengthy debate that followed ended with the commitment of Wharton, Salisbury, Shaftesbury, and Buckingham to the Tower. Their confinement was an indication that the official propaganda preceding the Session had succeeded in characterizing their activities as dangerously revolutionary. It was also the first, and most ominous, sign of the parliamentary strength of the earl of Danby. The tactical blunder by Buckingham and Shaftesbury had only served to rid the opposition of its two most prominent leaders and to intimidate the more fainthearted opponents of the government. The stubborn refusal to acknowledge the king’s pursuit of a pro-Protestant and anti-French policy at home and abroad was resented as well. To many moderate and loyal Protestants this attack on the royal prerogative only justified the dire warnings in the official discourse about the private ambitions of the government’s enemies. The public had already been alerted about the plot to hamstring parliamentary business when Charles had stated at the opening that those who wished to prohibit parliamentary business were the real favorers of arbi-

288

courting the moderates

trary government. According to him, the attempt to impose a dissolution on the king was the same assault on the prerogative used in 1641. The government propaganda also noticed the related tactic of withholding Supply until the king was forced to summon a new Parliament and entreated public-spirited men to prevent a recurrence of these attacks on the prerogative: while this Faction reigns upon the face of the Earth, they [kings] take heed of relying too much upon them, in a time of the Crown’s necessity; and of giving them opportunity, by calling a new Parliament, in hope of getting Money; forasmuch as woful experience hath shewn us, they, at such a time, make it their business to ask, not to give; and never leave asking, till they come to be disposers both of the King and Kingdom.48

The debate on the dissolution in the Commons vindicated many portentous prognostications of the official propaganda. The attempt to deprive the king of his prerogative right of summoning and dismissing Parliament was certain to be abhorrent to the true moderates, and the government did its best to point out how the “honest-hearted Gentry” were being used by ambitious fanatics to serve their selfish and rebellious ends. Even before the opening of the Session, the government had forewarned the public how the leaders of the faction employ their Talents to draw in many of the honest-hearted Gentry, though not into the same opinion with them in Religion-matters, yet to side and vote with them in their pretences of redressing publick Grievances, reformation of Abuses, removing or doing justice upon evil Counsellors; and the like: And with these charms they have been wont to hold many publick-spirited Countrey-Gentlemen fast to their side, till they have humbled the King, the Court, and all the Fast-friends of the Government, and brought all to their bow; they give them the slip into further proceedings, they pull off their Visors, show their Faces, and flie higher till they top all that is above, and tumble it down. . . .49

The precision with which the official propaganda anticipated the enemy tactics proved highly effective. The similarities between the tactics of 1641 and the present were accurately predicted in the Pacquet of Advices and Animadversions. The steady erosion of Charles I’s prerogative rights were known to have been the first small steps down the slippery slope to the arbitrary government of Cromwell and the army. Thus the religious and political goals of the government’s opponents were discredited through their association with the outbreak of the Civil War. This pamphlet was the culmination of the government’s efforts to use the public sphere for the civic and political instruction of the nation. Beyond the images and rhetoric of the 1660s, the official culture was now filled with lessons on history

10: collective actions in parliament

289

and duty which were intended to address and to disparage the ideas and tactics of the opposition. The campaign swayed sufficient numbers to give Danby a comfortable majority in both Houses. In the Commons, only the firebrands Sacheverell, Cavendish, Birch, and Grimstone pushed for a motion to dissolve. However, their efforts availed them little; Colonel Birch stated, “one gentleman tells you, ‘of books and pamphlets abroad on this subject.’ It may be he is of courage, as not to heed them, but he [Birch] does,” and he was seconded by Mr Harwood’s comment that “discourse of people abroad is a great thing, and not to be slighted.”50 This led to a rebuke from a supporter of the Treasurer which demonstrates the consistency of the government’s ideology in all the areas of the political culture. Sir Richard Temple was one of the most reliable speakers for the government. He ranks high on a list of government supporters drawn up by Williamson in these years.51 Temple denounced such appeals to the rabble outside Parliament; far from addressing the issues raised in such pamphlets, he would have their authors and publishers discovered: “Because the legality of our meeting is questioned by libels without doors, must we therefore make it a question within doors? . . . [I] would punish those who have dispersed these libels.”52 When the debate was resumed on 17 February, a motion was put to proceed to the Grand Committees. It passed with a majority for the government of over fifty—effectively ending all talk of an illegal meeting. Significantly, the tellers counted an impressive 193 supporters for the government. Danby did not hesitate to press home the advantage. On 21 February, Sir Richard Temple—now Chairman of the Committee of the Whole for Supply—reported that the Committee believed the king should be granted £600,000 for the building of ships. In the same way that this development must have pleased the government, it must have caused an equivalent displeasure to government opponents. Thanks to the pre-emptive writings for the government, and the growing strength of the Treasurists, Sacheverell led an effort to raise disputes between the Houses once again. He did so by defending one of the suspected authors of the libels claiming the long prorogations were effectively dissolutions of Parliament. When Dr. Carey was fined and committed by the Lords for one of the these libels, Sacheverell moved that “some person be appointed to search the Lords Journal,” arguing that the Upper House was exceeding its jurisdiction. Speaking for the government, Secretary Coventry responded by reminding the Speaker of the horrors of the recent rebellion: If this House, and the Lords’ House, can find no way to punish such seditious libellers, you may be pulled out of your chair; and as they brought the late King to the block, at this rate they may do the same to this also. Moves to proceed no farther in this thing, and the lords punishment of Dr. Carey is just.53

290

courting the moderates

The reference to the tumultuous precedents of the 1640s carried the day. The opposition’s attempt to raise a storm between the Houses fell on deaf ears, largely because official propaganda was achieving its goals of preventing uncommitted moderates from abandoning the more reliable body of Treasurists sitting in Parliament. They were convinced—by both words and deeds—that the king’s opponents were similar to those who had brought Charles I to the scaffold. By 1 March Danby’s combination of parliamentary organization and a domestic policy acceptable to the nation finally began to bear some fruit. On 12 March, the Commons passed a Bill extending the additional Excise by three years, ending Danby’s fears about a further reduction in the Crown’s revenues. These were the first monies granted to the king in over four years and undoubtedly delighted both Charles and Danby. However, the Treasurer realized that the king’s alliances were still a major stumbling block in the path of complete reconciliation between king and Parliament. The subject of France was one which Danby knew the opposition could use to undermine his support in Parliament. Much to Danby’s chagrin, the spring campaign on the continent provided a series of lessons on the military power of Louis XIV. Throughout March and April cities on the continent capitulated to the French armies, and Flanders seemed certain to fall. The House of Commons responded with a host of addresses for the preservation of Flanders. To the first of these the king gave a noncommittal response, promising to “do all in his power to preserve Flanders.”54 As would be expected, this answer was considered too lukewarm by the Commons, so, with Danby’s support, the House drew up a second address for the preservation of Flanders, this time promising “from time to time to assist your Majesty with such Aids and Supplies” as proved necessary in the event of war, “All of which we do most humbly offer to your Majesty, as the unanimous sense and desire of the whole Nation.”55 The break with France would not only serve as a source of unity but also lead to expressions of popular and parliamentary support, the latter preferably in the shape of a vote of Supply. It is interesting to see the Lord Treasurer using the theme of national unity to influence both the king and Parliament. Danby unquestionably wished to be seen as the man responsible for the open breach with France. This would answer many of the lingering questions about his aims and immeasurably strengthen the government in Parliament. Danby was confident that Parliament and “the whole Nation” would rally behind an actual declaration of war against France. For this reason, the Treasurer again did everything in his power to persuade the king of the benefits of such a policy. On the day after this address was passed (4 April), Danby prepared another of his memoranda embodying the ideas to be presented to the king. The Treasurer insisted on the advantages—financial and commercial—to

10: collective actions in parliament

291

be gained from joining the Confederates: Spain and Holland would readily grant commercial concessions; Parliament would finally loosen the purse strings; England, and all of Europe, would view the king as their savior from tyranny; and in the end Charles might barter his agreement to disband the army for an agreement to pay off his debts. The popularity of this policy would also assure that “if the nation saw that to disband that force you desired nothing but to bee left free from your debts and in a condition to subsist with a fitting maintenance for the future, the people would helpe you destroy that Parliament which should refuse itt.”56 Danby also reminded Charles of the tangible successes which had resulted from a policy which fell in with the humors of the nation. An Anglican, anti-French posture was certain to produce “the greatest conjunction of honour, wisdome, glory and nationall advantages.” Conversely, the fears of France were so widespread that “neither his Majestie nor any of his ministers shall have any longer creditt if acts do not speedily appeare some way or other to theire satisfaction.”57 With this, the Lord Treasurer made it clear that influence and corruption were incapable of sustaining the reconciliation with Parliament which he had begun: I feare I am in the right when I say that the quietnesse of this session has not proceeded from money only, but a creditt to which I thinke myselfe to have been to a good degree instrumentall, in makeing men beleeve not only your sincerity to the Protestant religion, but that your concernes for France were no other than as they might bee most usefull to the interests of your owne people . . . [and] which might consist with the safety of England.

Danby insisted that government policies were instrumental in gaining parliamentary support. Open hostility to France would benefit the nation, and the political advantage ending accusations of arbitrary government once his cooperation with Parliament made him the man responsible for saving the world from tyranny. Danby also knew it was essential that the king’s interest meet with “the concurrence of all the people of the kingdome” if he wished to benefit from the themes of unity and mutuality of interest.58 The Treasurer’s ideas were apparently persuasive since it is clear the king based his answer on the penultimate paragraph of the memorandum; having considered the address, the king reminded the Commons “that the only way to prevent the danger which may arise to these kingdoms, must be, by putting his Majesty timely in condition to make such fitting preparations, as may enable him to do what may be most for the security of them.”59 With the Easter recess approaching, the Commons declined to vote more money in so thin a House. However, it is an indication of the importance of policy and ideological considerations that Sir William Coventry, a leading opponent of the government since the breaking of the

292

courting the moderates

Triple Alliance, moved that the Parliament provide security for a loan of £200,000 against the Excise during the recess. The addition of this clause to the Bill for Additional Excise was further testimony that Danby’s political platform could capture the support required to ensure parliamentary support for his policies. If the Treasurer could hold Charles to this diplomatic course, then together they might end the situation where the king was forced to “depend rather upon his subjects than they upon him.”60 When Parliament met again in May, it took up the king’s April request for further Supply. His critics once again adopted the government tactic of utilizing the recent past to justify their opposition. Sacheverell insisted that the king enter into alliances before any money was granted, raising the example of the money voted for the Triple Alliance and then used against the Dutch. Men hesitated to trust the government, believing “that the example of Harry the 7th, who got aids for the warr and presently struck up a peace and remained with all those materials at his arbitrement, that for fear of a pickpocket warr they would not name assistance.”61 These fears were not allayed when in May the king refused to make public his alliances before he had money to support them. The calls from the government’s supporters for unity and confidence in the king went for nought: Let us make alliances among ourselves. When we are debating them abroad, let us not quarrel with ourselves. . . . Though we are his [the King’s] great council, we are not his directors. [I have] been at his master’s elbow (the late king) when the hatchet was almost at his head. [I] would leave off these heats, and would have that caution, that the committee may proceed with confidence in the king.62

But the fear of France and the suspicions of the king prevented the bid to defeat an address for an alliance with Holland. For example, Sir Thomas Meres expressed a common conviction that money was desired so the court could continue to govern without consulting Parliament: “ ’Tis money that makes a Parliament considerable and nothing else.”63 After completing a Bill for recalling the king’s subjects out of the French service, the Commons were summoned to the Banqueting Hall and severely dealt with by Charles: he regretted having to recall things so unfit for you to meddle with, as are contained in some part of your Address; wherein you have entrenched upon so undoubted a right of the Crown, that I am confident that it will appear in no age (when the sword was not drawn) . . . as your Address is worded, it is more liable to be understood to be by your leave, than your request, that I make such other alliances. . . . Should I suffer this fundamental power of making peace and war to be so far invaded . . . [no] prince, or state, would any longer believe, that the sovereignty of England rests in the Crown; nor could I . . . [signify any more] than the

10: collective actions in parliament

293

empty sound of a king. . . . [N]o condition shall make me depart from nor lessen so essential a part of the monarchy: and I am willing to believe so well of this House of Commons, that I am confident these ill consequences are not intended by you.64

Danby hoped that this renewed attack on the prerogative would alienate people from the parliamentary opposition. His theory that the people would be affronted by such parliamentary stubbornness was immediately put to the test. For the same reason, the king’s outrage at the conduct of the House of Commons in dictating his foreign policy caused him to publicize and denounce their actions in the public sphere. The day after the sudden adjournment, the king made an appeal to public opinion by having his speech printed as well as published in the Gazette. This rare example of domestic, let alone parliamentary, news in the Gazette testified to the government’s resentment of the Commons’ actions. The government must have felt that by publishing the king’s reasons for the adjournment it could demonstrate to the people how Parliament was again using its control of the purse to infringe the king’s prerogative. This selfish attempt to “entrench upon so undoubted a right of the Crown” was being made at the expense of the nation’s security. One member of the opposition who well understood the effects of propaganda, Andrew Marvell, recognized the damage inflicted on the king’s opponents by this public denunciation of their tactics: “thus were they well-rewarded for their itch of perpetual sitting and acting; the Parliament being grown to that height of contempt, as to be gazetted among run-away servants, lap-dogs, strayed horses, and highway robbers.”65 Marvell, a leading exponent of the public accusations of popery and arbitrary government, was aware of the depths to which the king’s critics had been reduced. The government’s success in dominating the political discourse at this time was clearly understood by the later Whig historian, James Ralph, who complained that his political ancestors “also [had] the additional mortification to see this chiding speech of the King’s made public in the Gazette of the next day, being the first which had ever appeared in that paper, to point them out, both to their own, and all other Nations, as refractory, disobedient, subjects, who had lost all respect to majesty; Care being at the same time taken to suppress even the written copies of the proceedings of the House.”66 There is no doubt that the competition for the hearts and minds of the nation was an important part of English politics by now. The government decision to publish its version of events and the ability to control the information available to the public was decried because of the clear advantage it provided to influence the popular perception of politics. Marvell and others would do their best to respond to the government tactics and to win back the support of public opinion, but their efforts were largely ineffec-

294

courting the moderates

tive until Danby was brought down and the official propaganda revealed to be nothing more than deception and hypocrisy.
Although the failure to secure any further vote of Supply was a disappointment for the government, Danby could still point to one of the largest peace-time grants ever voted. If he could devise a means to give Parliament satisfaction regarding foreign policy, then he would have accomplished his goal of uniting a majority around his political platform. Once again events on the continent were to combine with elements of official propaganda to bring Danby within an eyelash of success. But as so often before, the machinations of both Louis and Charles were to intervene and destroy his hopes, because the ideological implications of foreign policy were again to undermine popular and parliamentary support for the government. Unfortunately, despite Danby’s efforts to bring the king’s policies into line with the rhetorical claims of government propaganda, his inability to do so was used to fuel suspicions of the king. The reverses of 1677 created such disenchantment among the Confederates that William of Orange decided to throw all his weight into bringing England into the alliance. In June 1677 he sent his most trusted confidante, William Bentinck, to London to consult with Danby. As a result of Bentinck’s representations, Danby tried once more to cajole the king into a war with France, insisting that such a policy was the surest way to financial independence. However, Charles needed to give proof of his willingness to adhere to Danby’s policies. To these ends, “nothing [was] more necessary than to lett the world see he [Charles] will reward and punish. . . . [This must begin at once] for the people begin already to think he will do neither.”67 Most importantly, Danby wrote a note to himself to make clear how adamant he was that the king show a greater resolution in the Anglican Royalist policies “he has begun . . . [and the] vigor to discountenance those who pretend to others. . . . Till he can fall into ye humor of ye people he can never bee great nor rich and whilst differences continue the Prerogative must suffer unless he can live without Parliament.”68 The insistence that the king fall into “ye humor of ye people” shows the extent of Danby’s sensitivity to public opinion and his recognition of its relationship to public support for the government both in and out of Parliament. Furthermore, there were hints of favorable terms from the Dutch and a request that William be allowed to visit England in the fall. In the hope of being either great or rich, Charles acceded to these recommendations, and agreed with Danby in dispatching Sir William Temple to the Netherlands. Unfortunately for the Lord Treasurer, the king was simultaneously negotiating with the French for further subsidies in exchange for English neutrality.69

10: collective actions in parliament

295

To obstruct this French alliance, Danby haggled over the amount the French would pay in return for a prorogation until May 1678, prolonging the negotiations until 4 October.70 Before Louis could make another offer, William of Orange had sailed for England and was soon betrothed to the Princess Mary.71 The domestic political reasons for the marriage were explained by Charles to the French ambassador: This alliance will quiet the suspicions which my subjects have, that the alliance and preserve [sic] with France, hath no other foundation than a change of religion. It is my brother the D. of York’s conduct, that has given rise to all these suspicions. All the jealousy and passion which people have in this country against the prosperities of France, comes from the duke’s declaring his religion.72

The marriage of William and Mary—who stood next in line to the throne after James—gained many supporters for the government. Naturally, the prospects of a Protestant succession and the anticipated alliance with the Dutch assuaged many fears in England. When Danby appeared in Parliament sporting this new feather in his cap, he was confident that the suspicions about English foreign policy would be tangibly diminished. If the Treasurer could follow up the marriage by consummating an alliance against the French, then a crucial aspect of his ideology would finally be realized. These two alliances—marital and martial—would provide the irrefutable proof of the king’s having fallen into “ye humor of ye people.” Danby’s high hopes were somewhat shaken in December when Charles adjourned the Parliament until April, thereby casting new doubts on the king’s diplomatic aims. However, the attempt to placate Louis XIV—and retain the French subsidy—was not entirely fruitless. The lengthy adjournment kept the money trickling in, although Louis began to listen to offers from the parliamentary opposition to obstruct the king’s business in exchange for cash.73 Still, Louis XIV knew his man, and persisted in offering huge sums to Charles if he would refuse to allow Parliament to draw him into war with France. While the king continued to waver, Danby completed the confused arrangements for an alliance with the Dutch.74 Trusting in his Treasurer’s assertion of the benefits to be accrued from this alliance, Charles agreed to let the Treasurer try his hand with Parliament again, shortening the adjournment to 15 January—an announcement which caused substantial dismay in Paris. The king’s Speech on 28 January was designed to retrieve the momentum gained by the marriage of William and Mary. The king reminded the Parliament of his promise to give them satisfaction in foreign affairs, telling both Houses how he had “accordingly made such Alliances with Holland, as are for the preservation of Flanders; and which cannot fail of that end, unless prevented either by want of due assistances to support

296

courting the moderates

those Alliances.” Charles enumerated the forces necessary to maintain the alliance, and recounted the recent actions of his government. He insisted he had done all I could to remove all sorts of jealousies, I have married my niece to the prince of Orange, by which I hope I have given full satisfaction that I shall never suffer his interest to be ruined, if I can be assisted as I ought to be to preserve them. Having done all this I expect a plentiful Supply, suitable to great occasions; whereon depends not only the honour, but (for ought I know) the being of an English nation.75

In other words, it would have been foolhardy for the opposition to quibble over Supply, having promised to support the king once he entered into an alliance. The king’s opponents raised as many obstacles as possible before agreeing to a Committee of Supply, but in every substantive issue they were outvoted by his supporters. The best example of this was the opposition’s failure to reduce the Committee’s recommendation for a supply of £1,000,000. The debate on this reduction was concluded by the poet Waller, who appealed for the unity which the official propaganda insisted was necessary to ward off a return to 1649: “I look upon the Union betwixt the King and the People to be of as much consequence, as the sum to be given; therefore, for God’s sake, let us lay aside all distrust of the King. . . . I hope that Tomb we have voted to be erected for the late King will bury all the jealousies betwixt the King and us.”76 Waller’s moderate stance linked a desire to restore the “Union betwixt the King and People” to the reburial of Charles I. But the implications about the consequences of not burying the past were only thinly disguised. Continued jealousies were certain to lead to the same divisions which ripped England apart thirty years before. While the House of Commons debated the best method for raising the Supply, two events transpired which eventually led to the fall of Danby. The first was the investment and rapid occupation of Ghent by Louis XIV. The invasion of Flanders led to recriminations about the government’s dilatory diplomacy under Danby, attacks on evil counselors, and an address for a declaration of war against France. Secondly, in the period between the attack on Ghent and the address for war—Danby’s efforts notwithstanding—the earl of Shaftesbury secured his release and reappeared in the Lords.77 While the vote in the House of Lords to free Shaftesbury did not mean that the government had lost control of the Upper House, it provided a much needed transfusion of skill and leadership for Danby’s opponents. The Commons’ address for an “actual war against France” was ready on 15 March, but government supporters managed to pass a resolution desiring the concurrence of the Lords. Fortunately, in the Upper House Danby could rely on his superior voting strength as well as his unmatched famil-

10: collective actions in parliament

297

iarity with the details of finance and diplomacy.78 The Lord Treasurer convinced the peers to amend the address so the word “immediately” was removed from the call for war.79 The Commons’ refusal to accept this change led to a deadlock, and all parties concerned agreed that an adjournment was the best solution. Danby’s Protestant policies had finally resulted in a Poll Bill designed to raise roughly one-half of the Supply recommended by the Committee. Conversely, the attached Bill for prohibiting the importation of French goods limited the expected gains for the Exchequer. Without a declaration of war, the Treasurer could not bring about the reconciliation with Parliament he so desperately needed. Nonetheless, as the leading finance minister, he was no more anxious than the king to enter a conflict without the necessary supplies. Danby’s only hope for success lay in convincing Parliament of the king’s hostility to France, but at this critical juncture the revelation of the king’s dealings with Louis XIV ensured that this would never happen. Throughout the adjournment from 26 March to 11 April, Charles attempted to finalize an agreement for a subsidy from France.80 The renewed problems with the House of Commons meant that Charles had little to offer, and his terms were rejected by Louis. Accordingly, Charles readopted his bellicose attitude in the pursuit of money. Danby welcomed this opportunity to forestall a return to the French interest, and once again looked to his lists of parliamentary supporters. While the lists indicated that he could still rely upon 219 MPs, it was obvious that Sir John Ernly was the only member besides the Secretaries who had much to offer in the Commons’ debates.81 This weakness was to prove a glaring one until the dissolution. On 29 April the Lord Chancellor greeted the Houses with a lengthy speech on the king’s earnest desire for an alliance with the Confederates. The allies’ concern that Parliament would not supply the king, along with the delays and war-weariness of the Dutch—who “are making haste to get out of the war”82 —were all that stood in the way of a wider alliance. With an offer to allow Parliament to peruse the League with the Estates General, the king demanded the advice of the Houses on how best to proceed.83 Charles’ bid to win back the uncommitted MPs was markedly unsuccessful. The Commons desired war, but the Chancellor’s speech had been about the impending peace. At this point, the opposition played on the fears that the government was involved in a diplomatic deception for the sake of money, and reopened the debate on the growth of popery. The ominous direction of the parliamentary debates threatened to alienate moderate support for the government. By raising the grievances of evil councillors (particularly the earl of Lauderdale) and arbitrary power, the opposition sabotaged the claims of moderation. In May, the government lost six consecutive divisions, including one for a resolution to remove those

298

courting the moderates

who had advised the answers to the addresses of 26 May 1677 and 31 January 1678. With the attacks centering on arbitrary government and the king’s finances, the hopes for additional Supply for a war with the French were dashed. Thus it came as no surprise when on 13 May, the king prorogued the Parliament. Despite years of organization and management, the outpourings of official propaganda meant that the number of Danby’s supporters in Parliament remained subject to his ability to pursue policies in line with his oft-trumpeted moderation and devotion to the Anglican Church. The efficacy of the official propaganda made him accountable for the government’s pronouncements saturating the public sphere. At this point, Danby knew that the machinations of Charles, James, and Louis had deprived his policies of the ideological roots he had nurtured since 1673. Danby’s inability to sever the ties between the two monarchs meant that he would be unable to get the money from Parliament to put the government’s finances on a sound footing. Rather than fall on his sword and abandon the king, he joined in the maneuvers to acquire a French subsidy in exchange for a promise of English neutrality.84 On 17 May, another secret treaty was signed by Charles and Barillon, and Danby wrote to William advising him to make peace at once. On 23 May, the Parliament met and was told that circumstances pointed to a peace on the continent. Danby’s control of the Lords remained intact—the Peers requesting that the speeches of the king and Chancellor be printed. But in the Commons, the argument that the peace could only be maintained by keeping up the forces was barely acknowledged. On the 25th, the Commons addressed the king for a declaration of war. On the 27th, they resolved that without such a declaration they would proceed to consider disbanding the forces. On the 28th, after an equivocal answer from the king, they resolved that all forces raised since September be disbanded.85 At this point, the fears of a “pickpocket warr” now seemed justified to many in the House of Commons. Fears of the army stationed at Blackheath along with the complaints about bribery within Parliament lent weight to the charges that the government was plotting to subvert individual liberties and introduce arbitrary power into England. Shaftesbury, Sacheverell, and An Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Power helped to drive the point home. Danby’s object of reconciling a majority of MPs to a government that pursued policies founded on an ideology of moderation and Protestantism was lost. The propaganda campaign which had done so much to benefit Danby until 1678 was now turned against him with great effect. The accusations of a plan to deceive Parliament into granting sums to be used for an army, arbitrary power, and absolute rule suddenly rang true. Many members who previously appeared on Danby’s lists, as well as the uncommitted moderates, flocked to the opposition. The insistence that men be held account-

10: collective actions in parliament

299

able for their actions in the past was suddenly a weapon in the hands of the Treasurer’s opponents. By now, his affinity for the Protestant religion and the ancient constitution was considered a cynical and hypocritical attempt to disguise his devotion to arbitrary government and the interests of France. The alacrity with which his supporters deserted him is proof of the extent to which ideology influenced people’s political loyalty in these years. No doubt political culture was an effective tool in gaining popular support, but the fear of deception and plots made it a double-edged sword easily turned on those who wielded it.
Danby’s fall and incarceration were followed by a dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament. The evaporation of the court party in the House of Commons led to the first Exclusion Bill, and that made it senseless for the king to keep the Parliament in Session. The lapsing of the Licensing Act in 1679 caused a torrent of critical pamphlets and propaganda to pour from the opposition presses. For example, one damaging pamphlet even provided the names of MPs bought off by Danby, offering positive proof of the plot to pack Parliament and introduce arbitrary government.86 The harsh criticism of the government and the demand for Exclusion isolated the king and his ministers. The revelations about negotiations with Louis XIV proved conclusively that the designs to manipulate and deceive the people described in the official propaganda did indeed exist. Alarmingly, this conspiracy originated from the highest levels of government. Any goodwill inspired by Danby’s Protestant policies was transformed into bitter hostility. An attempt to defend Danby appeared in a pamphlet entitled An Impartial State of ye Case of ye E of Danby in a Letter to a Member of the House of Commons in 1679. While this piece is anything but impartial, it shows how Danby and his supporters continued to rely on a disguised moderation to defend the most attractive elements of the political program instituted by the former Lord Treasurer. The pamphlet emphasized the “good Husbandry” of Danby, his overriding concern with the public—rather than his own—interest, and his real intentions to root out the French influence at court. The pamphleteer began by pointing to Danby’s ability to limit the people’s taxes by limiting extraordinary demands on the country: He [Danby] supported for neare 6 years that Condition of his Master, which it was not then thought could have been made to subsist so many Months, and without any Supplies or Burthens laid upon the People in all that time: Whereas it is well known, that no Years passed before his Administration in the Treasury that did not cost the People 5, 10, or 12 Hundred thousand pounds.87

300

courting the moderates

According to this writer, the lack of money in the government was a constant strain on the Lord Treasurer, but Danby refused to rely on the nation to supply the government. The elevation of the public interest over that of either the king or court was straight from the values outlined by Dryden in the early 1660s: “His Lordship, not having wherewithal to satisfie all things, did chuse to let it fall short in Pensions, and lessen Payments to private persons, rather than that the Publick should want.”88 Such misinformation and false news was typical of the attempt to transform all the government’s good actions into a plot to subvert the country’s liberty: “I will appeal for another sort of evidence to Coffee houses themselves, whether this good Husbandry of this Lord for His Majesty hath not been . . . as much complained of . . . even to the making that a Crime of State, and laying it to his charge at that time as a Design, by good Husbandry to keep off the use of Parliaments.”89 The most important criticism which had to be answered in 1679 concerned the dealings with France. Here the writer cleverly used the propaganda of the French court to the advantage of Danby. What better place to look for proof of the hostility between France and Danby than the Gazette de Paris?: “What sort of friend the French ever have taken him for to this day, their Gazetteer having constantly declared their ill wills to him . . . [and] it was a maxim amongst [the French Court], that He must be Ruined before they could hope to do any Good in England.”90 Most importantly, this example of official propaganda still relied heavily on the public demonstrations of the government to prove the sincerity of Danby and the king for the Protestant religion. Not only was Danby horrified at the government’s policies when he became Lord Treasurer, he did all in his power to alter those policies while in power. Clearly, no one else of influence at court was inclined to end the pro-French policies: “But above all, it is notoriously known, that he [Danby] was the Chief Instrument of procuring the Marriage of the Lady Mary to the Prince of Orange, by which he hoped a Future Security for the Protestant Religion would be provided, and his present Hope was, that the French Interest in the Court would threby be rooted out.”91 Danby’s champion was right to emphasize the “good Husbandry” and anti-French policies of the 1670s. To counter Montagu’s evidence of Danby’s complicity in the popish plot, the author wondered who else but Danby could have drawn the king away from his French inclinations: Having always showed himself averse to these Councills wherein He found his Majesty engaged at his entrance: viz, The Triple League Broken, which I have often heard this Lord say . . . was a Bulwark to this Nation and all Christendome, and that the Break of it would Be Fatal to Us. . . . I desire [to see] if his action tended to the diminishing of the French interest . . . and if it have

10: collective actions in parliament

301

diminished . . . whoe else there was besides himself near his Majesty, who had the Power, and Inclination to do it.92

This program had proved attractive to the Anglicans, the Cavaliers, and the moderates in the nation. In Parliament, this triple alliance nearly allowed Danby to earn the support of the legislature for his policies. But as we have seen before, one of the drawbacks of monarchy was Charles II’s ability to pursue policies independent of his government. Worse still, when Parliament or the public rejected these policies, the one person who could not be held accountable was the king himself. In a period with an exploding public sphere, and a public thirsting for political news, one of the most important results was the emergence of accountability, both for one’s actions but also for the ideology one claimed to represent. In this light, it is unfortunate that the growing need to couple policy and ideology meant that the tales of Titus Oates and Ralph Montagu would destroy the political and rhetorical edifice erected by Danby. The same ideological considerations which had won Danby support now justified the demands for his impeachment. Danby’s commitment to an ideology of moderation brought him to the threshold of success. In the end, Danby’s accountability to that ideology nearly brought him to the block.

11 Conclusion The Restoration of Charles II marked the apex of popularity for the monarchy in seventeenth-century England. The pageantry at the coronation illustrated the advantages that would undoubtedly accompany the return of the king. The royal virtues portrayed on the coronation arches represented the blessings people expected would attend Charles II’s reign. In addition, the cheering crowds, the Restoration settlement, and the elections to the Cavalier Parliament were testimony of the nation’s support for the restitution of the ancient constitution. The desire to obliterate the injuries inflicted on the monarchy and the prerogative was evidenced by the royalist tone of the reconciliation between king and people. The Act of Indemnity and Oblivion meant that individual royalists had little chance of compensation for their losses since 1641, but Charles II returned to the throne with all his powers intact.1 The sweeping electoral victory in 1661 was in part a result of the phenomenal propaganda value of events such as the king’s progress from Dover and his Coronation. Contrasted with the dreary years of puritanism and army rule, this pageantry contributed to the wholesale rejection of commonwealth ideology. Political events confirmed the depth of the Parliament’s commitment to a powerful, Anglican, monarchical government. The generous settlement of the king’s revenue, the abandonment of the Presbyterians for an Episcopal Church, and the exclusion of nonconformists from the government of church and state proved that Parliament was determined to link the destinies of the king, the Church, and the Cavaliers.2 The panegyrics praising the restoration of monarchy in the years following the king’s return anticipated a garden of plenty, civic harmony, and maritime supremacy—all adding up to a new golden age in which England would again be marching in step with Providence. Unfortunately, the morality and extravagance of the king and court did little to reinforce the images crafted by the panegyrists. Moreover, the cooperation between court and Parliament which characterized the years from 1661–65 came crashing down in the annus mirabilis which included the Fire, the Plague, and the Dutch burning of the fleet in the Medway. The fiscal ineptitude of 302

11: conclusion

303

Clarendon and Southampton in these years also gave the impression that a corrupt, irreligious, and immoral court was squandering the nation’s treasure in the pursuit of pleasure. Clarendon’s fall was a consequence of his direction of the Second Dutch War, of his supposed profits from office (and the sale of Dunkirk), and of the enormous popular hostility unleashed following the attack in the Medway. When some of the king’s confidantes promised improved parliamentary relations under their leadership, Charles did nothing to protect the old Chancellor who now represented nothing more than a dreary sermon on the king’s immorality and neglect of business. However, while the Cabal may have used their combined territorial influence and conspired with the duchess of Cleveland in order to bring down Clarendon, the fact remains that the parliamentary majority which had passed the Clarendon Code remained substantially intact.3 In light of this, it seems clear that ideological considerations played a principal role in determining a Member’s loyalty to either the government or the opposition. The party organization of Clarendon depended largely on the homogeneity of interests among Anglicans and Cavaliers. Once this ideological unity was shattered in the Second Dutch War, Clarendon was unable to rally a body of supporters which could withstand the onslaught of parliamentary antagonism. For the very same reasons, the party assembled by the Cabal evaporated in 1673. Initially, the Cabal’s sympathy for toleration and the signing of the Triple Alliance made them immensely popular. These Protestant policies, combined with the organizational skills of Clifford and Williamson, led to the largest vote of Supply in peacetime in the seventeenth century.4 But the unpredictable courses steered by the Cabal soon caused the disintegration of their support in Parliament. The forsaking of the Triple Alliance shocked the uncommitted MPs who had thrown their weight behind a Protestant foreign policy. When the Treaty of Dover was followed by the publication of the Declaration of Indulgence, many believed that Charles was using his prerogative power to override parliamentary statute for the sake of the Catholics. The blend of royal power and pro-Catholic policies caused the defection of many MPs who had supported the Cabal for ideological reasons. The Third Dutch War demonstrated even more clearly the importance of the government’s political platform. Parliament proved willing to defend the nation’s honor and commerce once the king revoked the Declaration of Indulgence. But the efficacy of Dutch propaganda in revealing the war’s disadvantages for England generated further dissatisfaction with the Cabal’s policies. Anxiety over French expansion swelled markedly in 1673, and the commercial benefits to England from the war were becoming increasingly obscure. When the fear of French naval power was

304

courting the moderates

aroused, the Cabal’s alliance with Louis XIV became untenable.5 Once the Cabal was regarded as pro-French and pro-Catholic, the support engendered by toleration and the Triple Alliance vanished. It was in this situation that the earl of Danby was appointed Lord Treasurer. Danby realized that the Cabal’s inability to manage Parliament was a result of abandoning the Protestant policies which had won them so much support. He was also aware of the damage done to the court’s position in 1673 by Dutch propaganda. As Lord Treasurer, he insisted that the king “fall into the humour of the people” and “promote the Protestant interest both att home and abroad.”6 It was apparent to Danby that ideological considerations were at the forefront of the uncommitted MPs decision to support or to oppose the policies and legislation introduced by the government in Parliament. For this reason, the Lord Treasurer looked for support to the Anglican Royalist majority he knew to exist in both Parliament and the nation. With this in mind, Danby pressed the king to make “men beleeve not only your sincerity to the Protestant religion, but that your concernes for France were no other then as they might be most usefull to the interest of your owne people.”7 In order to exhibit this “sincerity” and “concerne”, a flood of pamphlets, plays, poetry, and pageantry was issued, promoted and inspired by the government. The propaganda proved so convincing that the opposition was forced to decry Danby’s arbitrary methods in the hope of alienating the MPs who supported the court solely for ideological reasons. However, the Cavaliers upon whom Danby depended had little sympathy for attacks on the king’s prerogative; indeed, the attempt to force a dissolution on the king in 1677 led to a vote for substantial extraordinary revenues for the king. The vote was clearly a response to the arbitrary actions of those who would infringe upon the king’s rights, and an indication of the benefits to be had from falling into “ye humor of ye people.”8 In April 1677 Danby stood on the verge of success. He had publicly detached the king from the French interest and laid to rest many fears over the succession and over Catholicism through his compact with the Anglican hierarchy. At the same time, the attacks and criticisms of the opposition were anticipated and neatly parried by the propaganda of the court. Furthermore, the eminence gris of the opposition, the earl of Shaftesbury, was safely locked away in the Tower. Also, the association of government critics with the rebels of 1641 also contributed to the loss of credibility for Danby’s opponents. Despite their willingness to recognize and to respond to the official ideology, government control of the public sphere and the making of policy served to undermine their criticisms. As long as the court’s policies continued to conform with its propaganda, Danby’s position in Parliament appeared impregnable.

11: conclusion

305

It was the inability to hold the king to the Protestant policies which finally destroyed the earl of Danby. In fact, Charles’s affection for French money and his unwillingness to join the war against Louis XIV damaged the court’s standing in the nation and Parliament. The opposition’s insinuations of the government’s design to introduce popery and arbitrary government were now given increasing credit. Talk of French money to silence Parliament helped to portray the royal prerogative as an instrument of arbitrary power: repeated attempts at Indulgence, Shaftesbury’s (!) arbitrary actions in issuing 36 election writs in 1672, the regular adjournments, the lengthy prorogations, the refusal to dissolve the Cavalier Parliament, and the distribution of “inducements” were easy to characterize as elements of a grand conspiracy. Worse still, as Danby’s reconciliation between court and Parliament began to unravel, his parliamentary organization proved to be a broken sword. Whereas men in possession of life pensions were dependent only on the king and had nothing to fear from the demise of a single minister, those in receipt of temporary “gratifications” from the court were entirely undependable since bribery and “inducements” were as likely under a new regime as they had been under Danby. Worse still, the more readily one abandoned a sinking ministerial ship, the more likely one would be to find a place in the new ship of state. Despite his efforts to organize a reliable court party, in 1678 Danby was still required to sponsor a political platform which could secure the support of the uncommitted MPs in the House of Commons. Party organization alone was insufficient if unaccompanied by an ideology designed to “fall into ye humor of ye people” and to win popular support. The unexpected peace on the continent in May 1678 awakened the suspicions about the king’s ultimate goals in raising an army. Once again, the English began to doubt the court’s freedom from French and popish counsels. When Montagu provided evidence of the Lord Treasurer’s clandestine negotiations with Louis XIV, Danby was ruined. The carefully crafted positions in the official propaganda no longer stood up to scrutiny. Danby’s claims to have broken with France and to have protected the Anglican Church were exposed as a fraud intended to facilitate the introduction of absolutism and popery into England. When the growth of popery and arbitrary government which filled the opposition responses to the official propaganda proved true, the earl of Danby (in lieu of the king) was held accountable. The rise of the public sphere and the role of ideology in the process of party formation is most apparent in the implosion of Danby’s organization, but ideology and organization would return with a vengeance after 1681, and would become the preferred weapons of political parties soon thereafter.

306

courting the moderates

The whiggish opposition to the arbitrary and popish tendencies of Charles II and his brother was not the spark that lit the fire in which parties were later forged. This book has tried to show the importance of ideology in creating political parties. In addition, from the earliest years of the Restoration the tactics of the government forced its opponents to respond and very often to reproduce official actions. Ideological responses to the persecuting state, ideological defenses of liberty, and ideological attacks on the growth of popery and arbitrary government were all developed to counteract official claims of moderation. The public sphere was hotly contested through satires of official poems on the duke of York’s naval strategy, in coffeehouse libels, by Dutch propaganda during parliamentary Sessions, in ridicule of the royal statues, and in the outpouring of criticisms associated with the earl of Shaftesbury. By the late 1670s, Shaftesbury and others were organizing supporters in both Houses, holding meetings in London Clubs and taverns, and even negotiating for money from the king of France to be used against Louis XIV’s enemy, the earl of Danby. In all of this they were adopting tactics originated at court. So while Danby surely drew from the experience of his predecessors, his methods were essential for the emergence of political parties. The earl of Danby’s five years in the Tower were another indication of the prominence of ideological considerations and political programs in the 1670s. In the same way that Danby’s cognizance of the “humour of ye people” brought him close to managing Parliament, his apostasy in bargaining with Louis XIV created a national scandal and solicited demands for his impeachment. In employing ideology and propaganda to gain support, Danby unwittingly made himself a captive of his own principles. In championing the ideals of the official propaganda, he increased his accountability to those following his ideological lead. When the revelations were made about his “designs” in 1678, the many official reminders of the events of 1641 were turned against the Lord Treasurer. The French subsidies may have been the brainchild of Charles and James, but as the minister in charge of the government’s pro-Protestant policies, the earl of Danby was the man held accountable by Parliament. The Lord Treasurer’s failure to live up to the promises of court propaganda horrified the majority of MPs; by selling English liberties to Louis XIV after years of homilies on virtue and loyalty, Danby betrayed all those who had supported him. So grave was this offense that much of his organized party joined the uncommitted members in deserting him to join his opponents. In the end, ideological considerations weighed more heavily with many of these men than the monetary inducements of the court. In fact, for the moderates in the nation, disclosures which uncovered the court’s deceit drove them into opposition. The substantiation of the repeated warnings

11: conclusion

307

about the court’s designs and machinations helped verify the threat exposed by Titus Oates. The ideological vindication of the opposition’s propaganda brought about the dissolution of Parliament desired by Shaftesbury and his followers. Nonetheless, the extremism associated with the Oxford Parliament in 1681 allowed the king to regain the ideological initiative by pointing to the prudence and moderation of the court. The “Tory reaction” which followed added many powerful weapons to the court’s political arsenal, but the folly of James II made these into paper tigers. Before William landed his printing press at Torbay on 6 November, the propaganda war was won. Even James II’s army proved useless in the face of ideological considerations.

This page intentionally left blank

Appendix I Dates of Parliaments Year

Date for which summoned

Dates of sessions

1660

25 Apr. 1660

1661

8 May 1661

25 Apr. 1660–29 Dec. 1660 (13 Sept. 1660–6 Nov. 1660) 8 May 1661–19 May 1662 (30 July 1661–20 Nov. 1661) 18 Feb. 1663–27 July 1663 16 Mar. 1664 –17 May 1664 20 Aug. 1664 24 Nov. 1664 –2 Mar. 1665 21 June 1665 1 Aug. 1665 9 Oct. 1665–31 Oct. 1665 20 Feb. 1666 23 Apr. 1666 18 Sept. 1666–8 Feb. 1667 25 July 1667–29 July 1667 10 Oct. 1667–1 Mar. 1669 (19 Dec. 1667–6 Feb. 1668) (9 May 1668–11 Aug. 1668) (11 Aug. 1668–10 Nov. 1668) (10 Nov. 1668–1 Mar. 1669) 19 Oct. 1669–11 Dec. 1669) 14 Feb. 1670–22 Apr. 1671) (11 Apr. 1670–24 Oct. 1670) 309

Date of dissolution

29 Dec 1660

310

appendix i 16 Apr. 1672 30 Oct. 1672 4 Feb. 1673–20 Oct. 1673 (29 Mar. 1673–4 Nov. 1673) 27 Oct. 1673–4 Nov. 1673 7 Jan. 1674 –24 Feb. 1674 10 Nov. 1674 13 Apr. 1675–9 June 1675 13 Oct. 1675–22 Nov. 1675 15 Feb. 1677–13 May 1678 (16 Apr. 1677–21 May 1677) (28 May 1677–16 July 1677) (16 July 1677–3 Dec. 1677) 3 Dec. 1677–15 Jan. 1678) 23 May 1678–15 July 1678 1 Aug. 1678 29 Aug. 1678 1 Oct. 1678 21 Oct. 1678–30 Dec. 1678 24 Jan. 1679

In the above list, meetings in which no legislative business was transacted are shown in italics, and adjournments lasting over a month are shown in brackets, after the session during which they occurred. The dates are taken from Commons Journals and from Basil Hennings work on the House of Commons.

Appendix II

On the Statue Erected by Sir Robert Viner 1. As cities that to fierce conquerors yield Do at their own charges their citadels build, So Sir Robert Viner advanc’d the King’s statue in token Of bankers defeated and Lombard Street broken. 2. Some thought it a knightly and generous deed, Obliging the City with a king and a steed, Where with honour he might from his word have gone back: He that vows in a calm is absolv’d in a wrack. 3. But now it appears from the first to the last To be all revenge and malice forecast, Upon the King’s birthday to set up a thing That shows him a monster more like than a king. 4. When each one that passes finds fault with the horse, Yet all do affirm that the King is much worse, And some by the likeness Sir Robert suspect That he did for the King his own statue erect. 311

312

appendix ii 5.

To see him so disguis’d the herbwomen chide, Who upon their panniers more decently ride, And so loose is his seat that all men agree That Sir William Peake sits much firmer than he. 6. But a market, they say, does suit the King well, Who the Parliament buys and revenues does sell, And others, to make the similitude hold, Say his Majesty himself is bought and sold. 7. This statue is sure more scandalous far Than all the Dutch pictures that caused the war, And what the Exchequer for that took on trust May be henceforth confiscate for reason more just. 8. But Sir Robert, to take the scandal away, Does the fault upon the artificer lay, And allegeth the workmanship was not his own, For he counterfeits only in gold, not in stone. 9. But, Sir Knight of the Vine, how came’t in your thought That when to the scaffold your liege you had brought, With canvas and deal you e’er since do him cloud, As if you it meant for his coffin and shroud? 10. Has Blood him away, as his crown once, convey’d, Or is he to Clayton’s gone in masquerade, Or is in cabal in this cabinet set, Or have you to the Counter remov’d him for debt?

appendix ii 11. Methinks by the equipage of this vile scene To change him into a jack-pudding you mean, Or else to expose him to popular flouts, As if we’d as good have a king made of clouts. 12. Or do you his beams out of modesty veil With three shatter’d planks and the rag of a sail, To express how his navy was tatter’d and torn, The day that he was both restored and born? [sole bay] 13. Sure the King will ne’er think of repaying the bankers, Whose loyalties all expire with their spankers; Now the Indies and Smyrna do not him enrich, They will scarce afford him a rag for his breech. 14. But Sir Robert affirms that they do him much wrong, For the graver’s at work to reform him thus long; But alas! he will never arrive at his end, For ’tis such a king as a chisel can’t mend. 15. But with all his faults pray restores us our King, If ever you hope in December for spring; For though the whole world can’t show such another, Yet we’d better by far have him than his brother.

The Statue at Charing Cross 1. What can be the mystery why Charing Cross This five months continues still blinded with board? Dear Wheeler, impart, for we’re all at a loss Unless Punchinello is to be restor’d.

313

314

appendix ii 2.

’Twere to Scaramuchio too great disrespect To limit his troupe to this theater small, Besides the injustice it were to eject The mimic so legally seiz’d of Whitehall. 3. For a dial the place is too unsecure, Since the privy garden could not it defend, And so near the Court they will never endure Any monument how their time they misspend. 4. Were these deals kept in store for sheathing our fleet, When the King in armado to Portsmouth should sail, Or the bishops and Treasurer, did they agree’t, To repair with such riffraff our Church’s old pale? 5. No, to comfort the hearts of the poor Cavalier, The late King on horseback is here to be shown. What ado with the kings and the statues is here! Have we not had enough already of one? 6. Does the Treasurer think men so loyally tame, When their pensions are stopp’d, to be fool’d with a sight? And ’tis forty to one, if he play the old game, He’ll reduce us ere long to forty and eight. 7. The Trojan Horse, though not of brass but of wood, Had within it an army that burn’d up the town. ’However, ’tis ominous if understood, For the old King on horseback is but an half-crown.

appendix ii 8. But his brother-in-law’s horse had gained such repute That the Treasurer thought prudent to try it again, And instead of that market of herbs and of fruit, He will here keep a market of Parliament men. 9. But why is the work so long at a stand? Such things you should never, or suddenly do. As the Parliament twice was prorogu’d by your hand, Will you venture so far to prorogue the King too? 10. Let’s have a King then, be he new, be he old, Not Viner delay’d us so, though he was broken, Though the King be of copper and Danby of gold, Shall a Treasurer of guineas a prince grudge of token? 11. The housewifely Treasuress sure is grown nice, That so liberally treated the members at supper. She thinks not convenient to go to the price, And we’ve lost both our King, our horse, and our crupper; 12. Where so many Berties there are to provide, To buy a king is not so wise as to sell, And however she said, it could not be deni’d That a monarch of gingerbread would do as well; 13. But the Treasurer told her he thought she was mad And his Parliament-list withal did produce, Where he show’d her that so many voters he had As would the next tax reimburse them with use.

315

316

appendix ii 14.

So the statue will up after all this delay, But to turn the face to Whitehall you must shun; Though of brass, yet with grief it would melt him away, To behold ev’ry day such a court, such a son.

A Dialogue Between the Two Horses The Introduction We read in profane and sacred records Of beasts that have utter’d articulate words; When magpies and parrots cry, “Walk, knave, walk,” It is clear proof that birds, too, can talk. Nay, statues without either windpipe or lungs Have spoken as plainly as men do with tongues. Livy tells a strange story can hardly be fellow’d, That a sacrific’d ox, when his guts were out, bellow’d. Phalaris had a bull which, grave authors tell ye, Would roar like a devil with a man in his belly. Friar Bacon had a head that spake, made of brass, And Balaam the prophet was reprov’d by his ass. At Delphos and Rome stocks and stones now and then, sirs, Have to questions return’d oracular answers. All Popish believers think something divine, When images speak, possesses the shrine; But they that faith Catholic ne’er understood, When shrines give answers, say a knave’s i’the rood. These idols ne’er spoke, but the miracle’s done By the Devil, a priest, a friar, or nun. If the Roman Church, good Christians, oblige ye To believe man and beast have spake in effigie, Why should we not credit the public discourses Of a dialogue lately between the two horses? The horses, I mean, of Woolchurch and Charing, Who have told many truths well worth a man’s hearing, Since Viner and Osborne did buy and provide ’em For the two mighty monarchs that now do bestride ’em. The stately brass stallion and the white marble steed One night came together, by all is agreed, When both the kings, weary of sitting all day,

appendix ii

317

Were stol’n off incognito, each his own way; And the two jades, after mutual salutes, Not only discours’d, but fell to disputes. The Dialogue W. Quoth the marble white horse, “ ’Twould make a stone speak To see a Lord Mayor and Lombard Street break: Thy founder and mine to cheat one another, When both knaves agreed to be each other’s brother.” C. Here Charing broke silence, and thus he went on: “My brass is provok’d as much as thy stone To see Church and State bow down to a whore, And the King’s chief minister holding the door; W. To see Dei Gratia writ on the Throne, And the King’s wicked life say, God there is none; C. That he should be styl’d Defender o’the’Faith, Who believes not a word the word of God saith; W. That the Duke should turn Papist and that Church defy For which his own father a martyr did die. C. Though he hath chang’d his religion, I hope he’s so civil Not to think his own father is gone to the Devil. W. That bondage and beggary should be brought on a nation By a curs’d House of Commons and a bless’d Restoration; C. To see a white staff make a beggar a lord, And scarce a wise man at a long council board; W. That the bank should be seiz’d, yet the Chequer so poor Lord have mercy and a cross may be set on the door; C. That a million and half should be the revenue, Yet the King of his debts pay no man a penny; W. That a King should consume three kingdoms’ estates, And yet all his court be as poor as church rats; C. That of the four seas’ dominion and guarding No token should appear but a poor copper farthing. W. Our worm-eaten navy may be laid up at Chatham, Not trade to secure, but for foes to come at ’em. C. And our few ships abroad to become Tripoli’s scorn By pawning for victuals their guns at Leghorn; W. That making us slaves by Horse and Foot Guards For restoring the King should be our rewards— C. The basest ingratitude ever was heard, But tyrants ungrateful are always afear’d. W. On seventh Harry’s head he that placed the crown

318

appendix ii

Was after rewarded with losing his own. C. That Parliament-men should rail at the Court And get good preferment immediately for’t; W. To the bold-talking members if the bastards you add, What a rabble of rascally Lords have been made! C. That traitors to their country in a brib’d House of Commons Should give away millions at every summons; W. Yet some of those givers such beggarly villains As not to be trusted for twice fifty shillin’s; C. No wonder that beggars should still be for giving Who out of what’s given do get a good living. W. Four knights and a knave, who were publicans made, For selling their conscience were lib’rally paid. C. Then baser the souls of the low-priz’d sinners, Who vote with the Court for drink and for dinners! W. “Tis they had brought on us this scandalous yoke Of excising our cups and taxing our smoke. C. But, thanks to the whores who have made the King dogged, For giving no more the rogues are prorogued. W. That a King should endeavour to make a war cease, Which augments and secures his own profit and peace; C. And plenipotentiaries send into France With an addle-headed knight and a lord without brains. W. That the King should send another French whore, When one already has made him so poor. C. Enough, dear brother! Although we have reason, Yet, truth many times being punish’d for treason, We ought to be wary and bridle our tongue: Bold speaking hath done both man and beast wrong. When the ass too boldly rebuked the prophet, Thou knowest what danger was like to come of it: Though the beast gave his master ne’er an ill word, Instead of a cudgel Balaam wish’d for a sword. W. Truth’s as bold as a lion. I am not afraid. I’ll prove ev’ry tittle of what I have said. Our riders are absent; who then need we fear? Where is thy King gone? C. To see Bishop Laud. W. To cuckold a scriv’ner mine’s in masquerade. On such occasion he oft steals away, And returns to remount about break of day. In ev’ry dark night you are sure to find him With a harlot got up on my crupper behind him. C. Peace, brother, a while, and calmly consider,

appendix ii

319

What hast thou to say against my royal rider? W. Thy priest-ridden King turn’d desperate fighter For the surplice, lawn sleeves, the cross, and the mitre, Till at last on a scaffold he was left in the lurch By knaves that cri’d up themselves for the Church, Archbishops and bishops, archdeacons and deans— C. Thy King will ne’er fight unless’t be for queans! W. He that dies for ceremonies dies like a fool! C. The King on thy back’s a lamentable tool! W. The goat and the lion I equally hate, And free men alike value life and estate. Though the father and son be different rods, Between the two scourges we find little odds. Both infamous stand in three kingdom’s votes: This for pricking our pockets, that for cutting our throats. C. More tolerable are lion king’s slaughters Than the goat’s making whores of our wives and our daughters. The debauch’d and the cruel, sith they equally gall us, I had rather bear Nero than Sardanapalus. W. One of the two tyrants must still be our case Under all that shall reign of the false Scottish race. C. De Witt and Cromwell had each a brave soul: W. I freely declare, I am for old Noll. Though his government did a tyrant’s resemble, He made England great and its enemies tremble. C. Thy rider puts no man to death in his wrath, W. But he’s buri’d alive in lust and in sloth. C. What is thy opinion of James Duke of York? W. The same that frogs had of Jupiter’s stork: With the Turk in his head and the Pope in his heart. Father Patrick’s disciple will make England smart. If e’er he be King, I know Britain’s doom: We must all to the stake, or be converts to Rome. A Tudor! A Tudor! We’ve had Stuarts enough. None ever reign’d like old Bess in her ruff. C. Her Walsingham could dark counsels unriddle, W. And our Sir Joseph write newsbooks and fiddle. C. Troth brother, well said, but that’s somewhat bitter. W. His perfum’d predecessor was never much fitter; C. Yet we have one Secret’ry honest and wise, W. For that very reason he’s never to rise. C. But can’st thou divine when things will be mended? W. When the reign of the line of Stuarts is ended.

320

appendix ii

C. Then England rejoice, thy redemption draws nigh: Thy oppression together with kingship shall die! Chorus. A commonwealth! a commonwealth! we proclaim to the nation, For the gods have repented the King’s Restoration. Conclusion If speech of brute animals in Rome’s first age Prodigious events did surely presage, Then shall come to pass, all mankind may swear, What two intimate horses declare. But I should have told you, before the jades parted, Both gallop’d to Whitehall and there horribly farted, Which monarchy’s downfall portendeth much more Than all that the beasts had spoken before. If the Delphic Sibyls’ oracular speeches (As learned men say) came out of their breeches, Why might not the horses, since words are but wind, Have the spirit of prophecy likewise behind? Though tyrants make laws which they strictly proclaim, To conceal their own crimes and cover their shame, Yet the beasts in the field or the stones in the wall Will publish their faults and proph’sy their fall. When they take from the people the freedom of words, They teach them the sooner to fall to their swords. Let the City drink coffee and quietly groan; They that conquer’d the father won’t be slaves to the son. It is wine and strong drink make tumults increase; Choc’late, tea, and coffee are liquors of peace: No quarrels nor oaths amongst those that drink ’em; ’Tis Bacchus and brewers swear, damn ’em, and sink ’em! Then, Charles, thy edicts against coffee recall: There’s ten times more treason in brandy and ale.

Appendix III A Satire on the Earl of Shaftesbury’s Career1 Once upon a time (as I remember) the Old King had a Dorsetshire-Eel by the Tail; which then slipt into the hands of our Party; And when we thought our selves sure of him, whip, he was gone, and in a Trice, Commences a Brother-Independent: which was a wise part, and no trick of a Changeling, to shift Principles like shirts; and quit an unlucky side, in a fright, at the noise of a New Prevailing Party; with whom he stayd, till he grew up to the size of a Great Common-wealths-man and Hay in the Sunshine until the Common-wealth and Cromwell were brought to bed of a strange new kind of Monarchy in the House of Commons, a three or four hundred-Headed Monarch, called, The Fifth Monarchy: & in those days it was also called, Cromwell’s Little Parliament; in which his little Lordship became one of the Princes among a drove of Changelings. But there, having spied out Cromwell’s purposes of Marching to another sort of Monarchy of his own, his little Lordship then resolved, like a constant steady man to his own main Point, to Trepan them, and to strike in with him; and lent him a helping hand towards the confounding of FifthMonarchy, to make way for a New One under the Name Protector. Then, in this Scene of Affairs, he being made Protectorian Privy Counsellor; and after a while, he aspiring also to become the Protectors son-in-law; Cromwell (who well enough understood him) either disdaining, or not daring to take him so near into his bosome, took occasion also to be quit of him out of his Council: So that now it was high time indeed, of necessity, to turn back to the OLD HONEST POINT of the COMPASS, and get in again, to be thought a New Man of His Majesties Party. This was no hard matter, to be done by a man of his dapper Conscience, and dexterity, that can Dance through a Hoop; or that can be a Tumbler through Parties, or a small Teazer of Religions, and tonzer of Factions; a Pettifogger of Politicks, the very Windmill and Weathercock of every GODLY PARTY: He, even he, turned again to the Tents of the Wicked. For, to go on with my Story, (quoth the Presbyter) no sooner had Cromwell done his do with him, and sented him; and, like a true Intrigue-Master, 321

322

appendix iii

out-done him, and spued him out; but being thrown o’er board out of Two New-Monarchies, he immediately tackt and got ashore again on the skirts of the King’s old Monarchy; that is, he ran in as near as he could at that time; and, for his own sake, resolved to be as true as could for it, he embarking in a New Kindred of the Royal Party, seeing he could not catch the Cromwellian. To make short my Tale, Sir, he matcht himself then into a Noble Family, (one of those that in the late Troubles has best deserved of His Majesty) with a Lady that was Niece to a late Noble Lord, who (as he well knew) had Merit-Royal enough to answer for all the past faults of a small wandring Politico, and make him pass for Royalist, if Royalty come in play again. In the mean time, being put out of all Publick Councils, he was at leasure to make Court to all private Malecontents against Oliver: and wheresoever he found a sore, there he rub’d hardest, till the end the reign of Richard, and of the Wallingfordian Party, for by this time the Rump was got in again; and then he got in again with the Rump, not into the House, but into the Hearts of some of its principal Members and Actors, and became a busie man to decoy them into the reach of their own destiny. And now you have him thus far on his way, you may be so charitable, if you please, as to imagine, that all this variety of changes was meant by him, on purpose, to bring about His Majesties Happy Restauration. Indeed, one would think so, considering the bounties he immediately after received from the hand of a most gracious King: Honours, Offices, Profits, and Preferments; and thus in tract of time, advanced to the utmost magnitude, with many private Favours; so that if he was never bought out of his publick Principles, yet he was soundly paid for his private, though never satisfied, till at the old game of shifting Person and Parties also at Court, he at length play’d himself quite out of Play: and ever since, in the Summertime, you have him a Fox-hunting not far from Shaftesbury; in Winter about London-City, to strike in with the Hel[?] of all Opinions for hunting out old Principles in this Forest of Chimneys. And because we Presbyters are ready to start them, we pray he may have grace to pursue the chace, and never leave us in the lurch any more: And, that our Brother-Independents may be brought to forget, how he helpt to train some of them to the Gallows. May they leave off barking when he comes into the City, and not do as dogs do at a Pellmonger, when he passes through a Country-Town: For, even those poor Animals are more prudent, then to be at peace with any whose Trade it hath been to hang and slay them. But let their mouths be stopt; and may he never serve us as he served them. And may this Tale of mine never be told again to the rest of our Brethren: Nor this Eel be rotten as the Rump was in the streets of London: For, truly it had never been told at all, if I thought any man could be so

appendix iii

323

foolish and malicious, as to think my good Lord Shaftesbury is meant in any part of the story. But, ’tis brought in here, only to shew how curiously contraries do illustrate each other; and, what Eels and Serpents some men in the World appear to be, if their qualities and conditions be compared with the Excellencies of that noble Lord; who was never bought, nor frighted out of his Publcik Principles.

Appendix IV James Hickes’s Letter to Muddiman’s Subscribers 13 February 16651 Sr, You have seene (untill of late) my Name upon Mr. Muddiman’s letters, by which they have come franck to your hands. Now please to give me leave to acquaint you that Mr. Muddiman is dismissed from the Management of that correspondence hee formerly was intrusted with By the Right Honble the Lord Arlington his Majesties principall secretarie of State. And the honour’d Joseph Williamson Esqr his honrs Secrety, for that hee hath contrived and managed that correspondence to his owne particular advantage. And not for the service of his Majestie and those persons of honr as hee ought and they expected hee should have done. And being dismissed from that trust, and from the sight of any of their letters of correspondence much cannot be expected to be communicated by him unto you. And for as much as formerly I was by Order Commanded to take care of the Conveyance of his letter & franck them to whom directed, I am by the same person [this was untrue] commanded the contrary. Which I thought fit to make known unto you and assure you that respect upon your commands soe farr as in the power of him that is &c.

Muddiman’s Response to Hickes’ Letter 24 February 1665 In answer to a little letter from Hickes, a little fellow of the Post Office, which I suppose among other my correspondence may be come to yr hands, I shall justly inform you, that upon a misunderstanding betwixt Mr. Williamson and myself about the Gazette, which I wrote at Oxon and till the last weeke at London, I thought it most advisable to quit that office wholly, and turne my correspondents to Sir William Morice, his Majesties first principal Secretary of State. I shall write as fully and constantly as formerly and with the same priviledge and post free. Which if you find not, 324

appendix iv

325

pray signifie. That which chiefly thrust Hickes upon that device is that upon detecting him of some practices I have not of late entrusted him with putting his name to my letters. Which you may perceive by comparing those of some late weekes. Nor given him, as formerly, a coppy of my letters to write after. But as he is disowned in it any those he pretends orders from, soe I shall make him sensible of the forgery.

Appendix V A Caution for ye Country Man’s Choice1 Faction in all ages hath been sly and ever had her tricks and played them generally on ye fear of God . . . but had ye ill luck in ’48 to loose her mask . . . and cannot again so soone appear . . . in her religious dresse. . . . Therefore ye godly Brethren begin now a new game . . . and not as before in nomine Domine but Populi and name ye Interest of ye People their Stake now as they did Religion and ye fear of God before. . . . [They went from a Puritan to a Godly and sober party] but because true sobriety and godlinesse began to be as scarce commodities amongst ye Brethren as amongst ye wicked those distinctions . . . [were] laid by, and now they have a new Shiboleth, though but ye same cause, and now ’tis Countrymen and Courtiers, and in at this Countrymen’s door all mischief is like to creep. . . . [For though the word means honest and plain], in ye Saint’s Dictionary it now is a word like ye Trojan Horse full up of all wild fire and mischief, . . . for let a man be the bitterest enemy of King and Church, yet if he can but obtain the title of a good Country man . . . [who] will stand up for ye good of ye Country in opposition to ye Court Interest and his business is effectually done, he will most certainly be chosen for any place he stands for. . . . The Plot it seems, was thus to get this Parlt by any arts whatsoever dissolved. . . . Soe yt now the word begins to have Phanaticisme and Rebellion in ye Belly of it, and as well fitted for ye fanatick design . . . taking not only with ye credulous Populacy, but even some of ye Old Cavaliers and ye King’s best friends . . . in very little time it is likely to come to this yt none must be accounted lovers of ye King. . . . Beware and believe this to be a truth, yt a house of Commons made up of such Countrymen as ye pretended godly party cry up would be a most Antimonarchicall seditious and fanatical Assembly in ye Christian world from which good Lord deliver us.

326

Appendix VI An Association of Lords to defend the just rights of the Crowne and of the Church of England.1 In order to which they desire: 1st. That inquiry bee made into the due execution of the Act of Corporations made [13] Car.II, to the end that all who have not been admitted according to the qualifications of the said Act may bee excluded and others put in theire places according to law. 2nd. That inquiry bee also made into the execution of the Act 17th Car.II concerning the nonconformist ministers resideing in corporations &c. 3rd. That his Majestie be addresst to that hee would bee pleased to consider and review his commissions of lieutenancy, deputy lieutenancy, and justices of the peace, to the end that none ill affected may be continued in any of the said imployments, and that preference in all counties may bee given to those within the said counties who have actually been in armes or sufferers for your Majestie or royall father, and to the sons of such, and that in the choice of justices of the peace the Lords Lieutenants of each county may bee informed and required to give theire opinion of such person to his Majestie and Lord Keeper before he bee admitted into the commission of the peace. 4th. That none may bee continued judges in any of his Majesties courts of Westminster who have either been judges under any of the late powers or acted as standing councell to any of the said powers. 5th. That for defraying the charges of sheriffs, justices of the peace and officers of the militia, by which they may bee made offices of benefit as well as trust, consideration may bee had of some way out of the moneys which shall arise by the forfeiture of recusants, and for makeing itt the more easy that some expedient might be found of a certaine tax upon such in every county instead of the rigid penalties now in being.

327

Notes Introduction 1. A representative sample might be Allen Andrews, The Royal Whore, Barbara Castlemaine (Philadelphia, 1970); J. H. Wilson, Nell Gwynn, Royal Mistress (New York, 1952); Frank Kitson, Prince Rupert: Portrait of a Solider (London, 1994); Clifford Bax, Pretty, Witty Nell; An Account of Nell Gwynn and Her Environment (New York, 1969). Some more scholarly biographies include K. H. D. Haley, The First Earl Of Shaftesbury (Oxford, 1968); Andrew Browning, Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby, 3 vols. (Glasgow, 1931); Violet Barbour, Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington, Secretary of State to Charles II (Washington, 1914); Arthur Bryant, Charles II (London, 1931); Robert Kitchin, Sir Roger L’Estrange (London, 1913); J. P. Kenyon, Robert Spencer First Earl of Sunderland (Cambridge, 1958), and the biographies of Charles II by John Miller, J. R. Jones, and Ronald Hutton discussed below. 2. J. R. Jones, The First Whigs: the Politics of the Exclusion Crisis, 1678–1683 (London, 1961) and Keith Feiling, A History of the Tory Party 1640–1714 (London, 1924). 3. By “official” I mean materials licensed by the government, preached from Anglican pulpits, sponsored by the court, or performed before the king and his ministers. 4. The best account of political culture and the crowd is in Tim Harris, London Crowds in the Reign of Charles II: Propaganda and Politics from the Restoration until the Exclusion Crisis (Cambridge, 1987), especially chaps. 1–2. 5. Jonathan Scott, Algernon Sidney and the Restoration Crisis, 1677–1683 (Cambridge, 1991); Jane H. Ohlmeyer, Civil War and Restoration in the Three Stuart Kingdoms: The Career of Randal MacDonnell, First Earl of Antrim, 1609–1683 (New York, 1993); Steven C. A. Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism: Ideologies and the Making of English Foreign Policy, 1650–1668 (Cambridge, 1996); Conrad Russell, The Fall of the Three British Monarchies, 1637–1642 (New York, 1991); Stephen Saunders Webb, 1676: The End of American Independence (Cambridge, MA, 1985), David Harris Sacks, The Widening Gate: Bristol and the Atlantic Economy, 1450–1700 (Los Angeles, 1991). 6. Scott, Restoration Crisis, p. 44. 7. Andrew Marvell, An Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government (London, 1678), and A Seasonable Argument to Perswade all the Grand Juries in England to Petition for a New Parliament, or A List of the Principal Labourers in the Grand Design of Popery and Arbitrary Power (London, 1677).

Chapter 1: Historiography 1. Feiling, Tory Party, pp. 15–23. 2. Jones, First Whigs, p. 9.

328

notes

329

3. The most ardent supporters of the importance of this middle group have been Clayton Roberts, The Growth of Responsible Government (Cambridge, 1966), idem., “The Impeachment of the Earl of Clarendon,” CHJ 13 (1957); Valerie Pearl, “Oliver St. John and the Middle Group in the Long Parliament,” EHR 81 (1966); and D. T. Witcombe, Charles II and the Cavalier House of Commons, 1661–74 (Manchester, 1966). 4. This pace Clayton Roberts who insists that factions at court and the ambitions of younger politicians brought down the Lord Chancellor. This follows Clarendon’s own views a bit too blindly; besides, there had been ambitious young courtiers and the duchess of Cleveland pushing for his dismissal for years. It is important to note that Charles deserted Clarendon after the earl’s supporters in Parliament abandoned him. For the role of foreign policy see Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, pp. 343–78; 407–40. 5. For session dates see Appendix I. 6. See Statutes of the Realm, 5, 1660–1680. Even in the first decade of Charles II’s reign, parliamentary Sessions averaged nearly twenty-seven public Acts passed. In the Tenth Session in 1672 ten Bills were passed, including a huge Supply of £1,238,750 for the Dutch War. In the next seven Sessions until Danby’s fall—excluding an Act for rebuilding Northampton—the only Public Acts of real significance were a Supply for building thirty ships and an Additional Excise upon Beer and Ale (29 Car. c.1 & 2), a Poll Bill “to enable his Majesty to enter into an actual war against the French King and for prohibiting severall French commodities” (29 & 30 Car. II c.1), and a Supply for the disbanding of the Army along with Additional Duties on Imported wines (30 Car. II c. 1 & 2). 7. Peter Lake, “Anti-popery: The Structure of a Prejudice,” in Richard Cust and Ann Hughes, eds., Conflict in Early Stuart England: Studies in Religion and Politics 1603–1642 (New York, 1989), pp. 73–78; Robin Clifton, “Fear of Popery,” in Conrad Russell, ed., The Origins of the English Civil War (London, 1981), pp. 144–67; John Miller, Popery and Politics in England (Cambridge, 1978); K. H. D. Haley, “ ‘No Popery’ in the Reign of Charles II,” in J. S. Bromley and E. H. Kossman, eds., Britain and the Netherlands, 5, pp. 102–19. 8. For the sharpest criticism of this trend see Scott, Restoration Crisis, chap. 1; J. C. D. Clark, The Language of Liberty, 1669–1832: Political Discourse and Social Dynamics in the Anglo-American World (Cambridge, 1994), introduction. 9. John P. Kenyon The Popish Plot (New York, 1972); Jones, First Whigs; Scott, Restoration Crisis, and Mark Knights, Politics and Opinion in Crisis, 1678–81 (Cambridge, 1994) are the best examples of this trend. 10. Jonathan Scott’s work has questioned the validity of seeing the years 1679–81 as an “exclusion” crisis, arguing that other issues were involved, and that the crisis was not confined to these three years. See his Restoration Crisis, pp. 26–78. 11. Ronald Hutton, The Restoration: A Political and Religious History of England and Wales 1658–1667 (Oxford, 1985), pp. 3–77; Godfrey Davies, The Restoration of Charles II, 1658–1660 (San Marino, CA, 1955), chaps. 1–3. 12. Harris, London Crowds, p. 98. For more on this see chaps. 5–7 of Harris, London Crowds. 13. Mark Kishlansky, “The Emergence of Adversary Politics in the Long Parliament,” JMH 49 (1977): 638; Kishlansky, Parliamentary Selection: Social and Political Choice in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1986), chap. 1 and pp. 105–34. The desire for unity and composition can be seen in the military coups in April and October 1659, both of which were decided by regimental acclamations. The same might be said of the Rump Parliament’s return. 14. For opposition to Lambert see HMC 5th Report, p. 193. The political and religious unrest under Richard Cromwell meant that any enthusiasm men still held for an “ill-defined good old cause gave them no common ground for settling the constitution of a nation which heartily disliked them,” A. H. Woolrych, “Yorkshire and the Restoration,” Yorkshire Achaeological Journal 39 (1956–7): 483.

330

notes

15. Paul Seaward, The Cavalier Parliament and the Reconstruction of the Old Regime, 1661–1667 (Cambridge, 1988), chaps. 1–2; p. 53. 16. Ibid., p. 71. 17. Tim Harris, “Party Turns? Or, Whigs and Tories Get Off Scott Free,” Albion 25 (Winter 1993): 582. The quotation refers to the Tories of the Exclusion Crisis, but I hope to demonstrate its validity for the 1660s and after. 18. Hutton, Restoration, p. 105; J. R. Jones, “Booth’s Rising of 1659,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 39 (1956): 416–38; Woolrych, “Yorkshire,” 484, 506. 19. Woolrych, “Yorkshire,” 484, n. 1. 20. Hutton, Restoration, 90–105; C. H. Firth, ed., The Clarke Papers, Camden Society, vol. 4 (1899–1901), 269–60; Richard Baker, A Chronicle of the Kings of England from the time of the Roman’s government until the death of King James (London, 1670), p. 706, 6 February 1660. 21. David Scott, “Politics and Government in York, 1640–1662,” in R. C. Richardson, ed., Town and Countryside in the English Revolution, (Manchester, 1992), pp. 46–67; see also J. W. Kirby, “Restoration Leeds and the Aldermen of the Corporation,” Northern History 22 (1986): 123–72; Roger Howell, Newcastle upon Tyne and the Puritan Revolution: a Study of the Civil War in Northern England (Oxford, 1967). 22. Woolrych, “Yorkshire,” 506. 23. Hutton, Restoration; Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism and idem., “ ‘Coffee Politicians Does Create’: Coffeehouses and Restoration Political Culture,” JMH 67 (December 1995): 807–34; John Miller, “Public Opinion in Charles II’s England,” History 80 (1995): 359–81; Buchanan Sharp, “Popular Political Opinion in England 1660–1685,” History of European Ideas 10 (1989): 13–29; Seaward, Cavalier Parliament; Harris, London Crowds; Tim Harris, Politics Under the Later Stuarts: Party Conflict in a Divided Society 1660–1715 (New York, 1993); Gary S. De Krey, “The First Restoration Crisis: Conscience and Coercion in London, 1667–73,” Albion 25 (Winter 1993): 565–80 and idem., “Rethinking the Restoration: Dissenting Cases for Conscience, 1667–1672,” HJ 38, 1 (1995): 55–83; Richard L. Greaves, “Great Scott! The Restoration in Turmoil, or, Restoration Crises and the Emergence of Party,” Albion 25 (Winter 1993): 605–18; Scott, Restoration Crisis. 24. Greaves argues that whigs “affirmed the people’s right to hold their rulers accountable,” while the tories insisted the monarch was accountable only to God. While agreeing with this position, I believe that moderates from both sides were willing to hold the king’s ministers and councillors accountable for their policies, especially when these violated the shared hostility to tyranny and arbitrary government. 25. For the emergence of a Restoration public sphere, see Pincus, “Coffee Does Politicians.” 26. An excellent summary of this controversy is provided in the exchange between Tim Harris, Jonathan Scott, Richard L. Greaves, Gary S. De Krey, and James Rosenheim in Albion 25 (Winter 1993). Since that time Mark Knights, Politics and Opinion in Crisis, 1678–81 (Cambridge, 1994), Andrew Swatland, The House of Lords in the Reign of Charles II (Cambridge, 1996), and Paul Halliday, Dismembering the Body Politic: Partisan Politics in England’s Towns, 1650–1730 (Cambridge, 1998) have made significant contributions to the debate. 27. Scott, Restoration Crisis, chaps. 1 and 4. 28. Ibid., pp. 9–24; 41–49. My differences with this part of Scott’s argument are presented in the last part of this introduction and in Part II of this book. 29. Ibid., pp. xiii–iv; 3–49. 30. These arguments were made initially in Scott, “Radicalism and Restoration,” HJ 31 (1988): 455–58 and more extensively in his Restoration Crisis.

notes

331

31. Scott, “England’s Troubles: Exhuming the Popish Plot,” in Tim Harris, Paul Seaward, and Mark Goldie, eds., Politics of Religion in Restoration England, (Oxford, 1990), p. 126. 32. Knights, Politics and Opinion, pp. 12, 144; Scott, Restoration Crisis, p. 24. 33. Harris, Politics Under the Later Stuarts, pp. 5, 82. 34. Richard Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics and Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (Princeton, 1986); Roger North, Examen, (London, 1740), 501–9; David Ogg, England in the Reign of Charles II (Oxford, 1963), vol. 2, pp. 606–14; Jones, First Whigs, p. 9. Jones here relies on organization as the signifier of party, arguing the Whigs had no ideological program. 35. Knights, Politics and Opinion, p. 5. 36. De Krey, “First Restoration Crisis,” and “Rethinking the Restoration.” 37. The phrase is from Greaves, “Great Scott,” 609. The best account of this challenge is in De Krey, “Rethinking the Restoration.” 38. In a later article, he says this crisis initiated a “well defined, enduring, and extensive ideological polarization” and that by 1678 dissenters were accustomed “to acting, organizing, and exerting themselves in behalf of conscience,” Gary S. De Krey, “Party Lines: A Reply,” Albion 25 (Winter 1993): 642. 39. Greaves, “Great Scott,” 605. 40. Ibid. 41. James M. Rosenheim, “Documenting Authority: Texts and Magistracy in Restoration Society,” Albion 25 (Winter 1993): 591. 42. Greaves, “Great Scott,” 608. 43. Ibid., 609, 613, 618. 44. Clayton Roberts, ed., “Sir Richard Temple’s Discourse on the Parliament of 1667– 8,” HLQ 20 (1956–57): 143. 45. James R. Sutherland, The Restoration Newspaper and Its Development (Cambridge, 1986); Peter Fraser, The Intelligence of the Secretaries of State and their Monopoly of Licensed News, 1660–88 (Cambridge, 1956); Joseph Frank, Cromwell’s Press Agent: a Critical Biography of Marchamont Nedham, 1620–1678, (Maryland, 1980); Lois Schwoerer, “Liberty of the Press and Public Opinion, 1660–95,” in J. R. Jones, ed., Liberty Secured? Britain Before and After 1688, (Stanford, 1992). 46. Halliday, Dismembering the Body, p. 3–28. Halliday sees the Court of King’s Bench as the scene of much partisan conflict. 47. Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, chaps. 16, 18, 19, 23; Pincus, “Coffee Does Politicians;” Knights, Politics and Opinion, p. 11, shows how Scott’s emphasis on “public memory” ignores the ways in which the past was being “deliberately manipulated for partisan reasons.” 48. In addition to Pincus, see De Krey, “First Restoration Crisis,” and Greaves, “Great Scott” on challenges to the Restoration regime. 49. Miller, “Public Opinion,” 359–81. 50. Ibid., 359, 360, 364. 51. Miller cites 1662, 1670, 1672, and 1677 as examples. Pincus sees the changing foreign policy after the Second Anglo-Dutch War as influenced by public opinion, Protestantism and Patriotism, Part 4; Scott, Restoration Crisis, pp. 104–54, sees the 1677–78 preparations for a war with France being directed at public opinion and Louis XIV. 52. Miller, “Public Opinion,” 375, 380, 381; Harris, London Crowds, chap. 6; Knights, Politics and Opinion, Part 2; De Krey, “First Restoration Crisis,” 576–79. 53. Miller, “Public Opinion,” 366. 54. Ibid., 379. 55. On the need for “binary opposition, inversion or the argument from contraries which

332

notes

. . . played so central a part in both the learned and popular culture of early modern Europe,” see Lake, “Anti-popery,” 83. Lake notes that all Protestants were inherently English, since all papists were inherently foreign. 56. See the excellent study by Caroline Hibbard, Charles I and The Popish Plot (Chapel Hill, 1983); Clifton, “Fear of Popery,” 159. Clifton recounts the hostility aimed at the Queen, at Catholic worshipers at foreign embassies, as well as riots directed at Henrietta Maria and the Queen Mother in May 1641. 57. Richard L. Greaves, Deliver Us from Evil; The Radical Underground in Britain, 1660–1663 (New York, 1986); Greaves, Enemies Under his Feet: Radicals and Nonconformists in Britain, 1664–1677 (Stanford, 1990); Greaves, Secrets of the Kingdom: British Radicals from the Popish Plot to the Revolution of 1688–1689 (London, 1992); Hutton, Restoration, pp. 125–57; Rosenheim, “Documenting Authority,” 592–95. The State Papers of the 1660s are obsessed with rebels, fanatics and ex-soldiers much more than they are with papists: see Public Record Office, SP 29/82–93/ passim. 58. The discussion of this “conceptual necessity” follows the discussion in Lake, “Antipopery,” 86–89. It was used to attack and to impeach the Duke of Buckingham and to destroy the earls of Somerset (Robert Kerr), St. Albans, Northampton, Strafford, and Danby. It was also used to explain the Great Rebellion in the opening lines of Clarendon’s History. 59. Scott, Restoration Crisis, pp. 26–27, admits that fanaticism and military rule were worse “than anything contemporaries had imagined possible from government” but goes on to argue that the Restoration crisis only occurred “in the face of the return of popery and arbitrary government.” This seems to ignore the fact that by 1682 the fear of fanaticism and arbitrary government clearly outweighed the fear of popery and arbitrary government, and this at a time when the Catholic successor’s right to the throne had just been preserved. To use the events of 1688–89 to demonstrate the fear of popery in the Restoration is to fall prey to the dreaded preoccupation with the future. 60. Harris, Politics Under the Later Stuarts, p. 9. 61. For the “theatrical” clashes between written authority and symbolic gesture, see Greaves, “Great Scott,” 606–8. 62. The best accounts of the challenges to the arbitrary powers exercised by the Anglican Church and Cavalier Parliament are by De Krey, “Rethinking the Restoration” and “First Restoration Crisis.” 63. Harris, “Party Turns,” 581–86; Harris, Politics Under the Later Stuarts, chap. 4. 64. Seaward, Cavalier Parliament, p. 67. 65. See John Spurr, “Anglican Apologetic and the Restoration Church,” unpublished D.Phil thesis, Oxford 1985. For the term “Anglican Royalist” see Mark Goldie, “John Locke and Anglican Royalism,” Political Studies 31 (1983): 61–85. 66. Heylyn’s Stumbling Block of Disobedience (London, 1658) was written in 1645; H. Foulis, History of the Wicked Plots and Conspiracies (London, 1662). 67. Goldie, “Anglican Royalism,” 71–73. For Goldie this means that the whigs were not “possessed of a monopoly in charges of Popery against opponents,” 71. While the political theories may have been derived from common Catholic ancestors, no one considered the fanatics to be secret papists—the “popery” they were accused of can be more accurately described as arbitrary government. 68. The Observator, # 176, 24 July 1682. 69. Despite their scholarly conflicts, Harris, “Party Turns” and Politics Under the Later Stuarts; Scott, “Radicalism and Restoration,” “Restoration Process. Or, If This Isn’t a Party, We’re Not Having a Good Time,” Albion 25 (Winter 1993): 619–37, and Restoration Crisis; Knights, Politics and Opinion; De Krey, “First Restoration Crisis” and “Rethinking the Restoration,” and Greaves, “Great Scott” all agree on the ideological nature of the crises.

notes

333

70. The case for a radical rather than republican opposition during the Exclusion Crisis, as well as for the ideological nature of the conflict, is made in Gary S. De Krey, “The London Whigs and the Exclusion Crisis reconsidered,” in A. L. Beier, David Cannadine, James M. Rosenheim, eds., The First Modern Society: Essays in English History in Honour of Lawrence Stone (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 462–85. 71. De Krey, “Rethinking the Restoration,” 80–83. 72. The Parliamentary Diary of Sir Edward Dering, 1670–1673, edited by Basil D. Henning (New Haven, 1940), pp. 128–29, and n. 26. 73. De Krey, “First Restoration Crisis,” 578–79. 74. Greaves, “Great Scott,” 613–17. The meaning of “party” changed significantly in the seventeenth century, but Greaves provides examples of how regularly contemporaries openly acknowledged the difference between the “other Party,” the “loyal Party,” the “moderate Episcopall Party,” the “factious Party,” the “Presbyterian Party,” etc. 75. Ogg, England in the Reign of Charles II, p, 606. 76. Jones, First Whigs, pp. 5–11; Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics, pp. 137–77. 77. E. S. de Beer, “The Development of Parties during the Ministry of Danby,” (London MA Thesis, 1923); Feiling, History of the Tory Party, pp, 161–67. 78. Browning, Danby, 1:151–73, 275; Browning, “Parties and Party Organization in the Reign of Charles II,” TRHS 30 (1948): 21–36. 79. In addition to the books by Browning, Seaward, Swatland, Hutton, and Miller already cited, see J. R. Jones, “Political Groups and the Tactics in the Convention of 1660,” HJ 6 (1963): 159–77; Clarendon, Life, 1: 308, 609–21 (an account of his own organization, ca. 1663); Jones, “Court Dependents in 1664,” BIHR 39 (1961): 81–91; Jones, “Shaftesbury’s Worthy Men,” BIHR 41 (1963): 232–41; Mapperton House, Dorset, “The Earl of Sandwich’s Letter Upon Parties,” in his Journal, vol. 10, ff 85–97; Jones, “Parties and Parliament,” in J. R. Jones, ed., The Restored Monarchy; M. Crissey and G. Davies, “Corruption in Parliament, 1660–77,” HLQ 6 (1942): 106–14; Browning, “Parties and Party Organization;” E. S. de Beer, “Members of the Court Party in the House of Commons, 1670–1678,” BIHR 11 (1933): 1–23; E. I. Carlyle, “Clarendon and the Privy Council, 1660–1667,” EHR 27 (1912): 260–67; Swatland, “The Role of the Privy Councillors in the House of Lords, 1660–1681” in Clive Jones, ed., A Pillar of the Constitution: The House of Lords in British Politics, 1640–1784 (London, 1989), pp. 51–77; Richard Davis, “The Presbyterian Opposition and the Emergence of Party in the House of Lords in the reign of Charles II,” in Clive Jones, ed., Party and Management in Parliament, 1660–1784 (New York, 1984), pp. 2–20; J. C. D. Saint, “Proxy Records of the House of Lords, 1510–1733,” Parliamentary History 1 (1982): 161–65; J. Rosenheim, “Party Organization at the Local Level: The Norfolk Sheriffs Subscription of 1676,” HJ 29 (1986): 713–22. 80. D. T. Witcombe, Charles II and the Cavalier House of Commons 1663–1674 (Manchester, 1966). 81. Seaward, Cavalier Parliament, p. 235. He goes on to say that “Clarendon and Bennet’s parliamentary factions . . . made them indispensable.” 82. Ibid., pp. 98–99. For further details see Seaward, Cavalier Parliament, chaps. 4, 9. 83. See D. T. Witcombe, “The Cavalier House of Commons: the Session of 1663,” BIHR 32 (1959): 181–91; J. R. Jones, “Parties and Parliament,” pp. 49–52. 84. Seaward, Cavalier Parliament, pp. 77–81. For the organized groups of Clarendon, Arlington-Clifford-Williamson, Danby, and Shaftesbury see Browning, “Parties and Party Organization,” 21–36. 85. For Clarendon’s methods see his Life, 1: 608–21; Clarendon to Henry Coventry, Longleat House Library, Coventry MSS 2, and Seaward, Cavalier Parliament, chap. 4. 86. Jones, “Parties and Parliament,” p. 51. 87. Seaward, Cavalier Parliament, pp. 84–89. For Williamson’s extensive correspon-

334

notes

dence as Bennet’s secretary, see Public Record Office, SP 29/81/ passim, SP 29/90/passim, and SP 29/91/passim. 88. Charles may have the reputation as an indolent monarch, but letters to his sister at this time show how much time he devoted to parliamentary preparations. See Hartmann, Charles II and Madame, pp. 70–74, 96–101. 89. Swatland, House of Lords, p. 234. Swatland’s use of the Lords’ committee minutes provides evidence of the ways “ministers and privy councillors endeavored to manage the House,” ibid., p. 4. 90. The Lords’ belief in the relationship between dissenters and sedition, and in their threat to the established clergy and devotion to the Covenant are apparent in the notes taken in the House by Wharton in 1665, Bodleian Library, Carte MSS 80 fos. 757ff. 91. For Wharton’s lists see Bodleian Library, Carte MSS 81, fos. 81, 106, 109–14. On Bridgewater see Swatland, House of Lords, chap. 3. 92. Bodleian Library, Tanner MSS 45, fos. 147, 214v, 278, 288, 295; Tanner MSS 44, fos. 149, 206; Tanner MSS 43, fos. 86–97, 165ff; Tanner MSS 40, f. 51; Tanner MSS 38, fos. 22, 45, 82, 121; 48–49, passim. 93. W. D. Macray, ed., Notes which passed at the meetings of the Privy Council between Charles II and the Earl of Clarendon, 1660–1667, (London, 1896), pp. 55, 89. 94. Bodleian Library, Tanner MSS 45, f. 278. For the contemporary use of “Clarendonians” and “anti-Clarendonians” see Roberts, “Sir Richard Temple’s Discourse.” 95. British Library, Egerton MSS 2539, f. 193. 96. Roberts, “Sir Richard Temple’s Discourse,” 137–44. 97. For the discussions with Sheldon see John Miller, Charles II (London, 1991), pp. 240–47. 98. British Library, Additional MSS 28042, fos. 3, 15, 17; Browning, Danby, 3, Appendix; Andrew Swatland, House of Lords, pp. 234–60. 99. Danby knew that “[Parliament] must be gratified by executing the laws both against popery and nonconformity, and withdrawing apparently from the French interest,” British Library, Additional MSS 28042, f. 17. 100. Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics, p. 175; Swatland, House of Lords, p. 242. Harris, Politics Under the Later Stuarts, p. 53, agrees that the 1670s saw both sides pioneering the techniques of party management. 101. Haley, Shaftesbury, p. 370. 102. Compare the tactics described in Swatland, House of Lords, pp. 227–32 and 242– 58. 103. Swatland, House of Lords, p. 126; E. S. de Beer, “Members of the Court Party in the House of Commons, 1670–1678,” BIHR 11 (1933): 1–23; James M. Rosenheim, “Party Organization at the Local Level: Norfolk Sheriff’s Subscription of 1676,” HJ 29, (1986): 713–22; Browning, Danby, 3: 44–71; 96–120. 104. British Library, Additional MSS 28091, fos. 161, 175–77; British Library, Egerton MSS 3329, f. 6; HMC 13th Report, Appendix, Portland MSS 2, p. 153. 105. Swatland, House of Lords, pp. 252–55; Swatland’s use of the Lords Record Office Proxy Books shows that Danby had over one hundred proxies ready for both the 1675 and 1677 meetings. Compton, Sheldon, and Cosin wrote regularly to fellow bishops about parliamentary affairs, the need to attend, or to demand proxies, Bodleian Library, Tanner MSS 49–40, passim. 106. British Library, Additional MSS 28047, fos. 207–17; Additional MSS 40860, f. 86; CSPD (1675–76), p. 480. 107. Swatland, House of Lords, p. 250 shows that, unlike Clarendon, Danby gave lucrative offices exclusively to Anglican Royalists, and that two-thirds of the Lord Lieutenancies, the best posts at Whitehall, and seats on the Privy Council also went to these men.

notes

335

108. For his opinion that the Paquet of Advices swayed many, see British Library, Additional MSS 28047, f. 119. 109. A similar point, with different conclusions is made by Harris, Politics Under the Later Stuarts, pp. 6–11. 110. The troubles in Scotland, the petitioning campaigns, and the use of the crowds to coerce the king all offended the Anglican Royalists who felt betrayed by Danby. I would agree with Mark Knights’s challenge to Scott’s view of this as a replay of the mid-century constitutional crisis of king v. Parliament. The choice was rooted in the themes of the past twenty years which posed a choice between moderation and rebellion, uniformity and fanaticism, and now, Charles and his rebellious (bastard) son, Politics and Opinion, pp. 243–57; 280–317. 111. An excellent new account of this can be found in Halliday, Dismembering the Body, chap. 6.

Chapter 2: The Changing Rhetoric of Moderation 1. Halliday, Dismembering the Body, pp. 58–66. 2. Kishlansky, Parliamentary Selection, Part 2. 3. David Underdown, Fire from Heaven (New Haven, 1992), p. 189. 4. Halliday, Dismembering the Body, especially chap. 1. There are accounts of royalist and parliamentary purges in R. C. Richardson, ed., Town and Countryside in the English Revolution (Manchester, 1992), pp. 52–57. 5. Hutton, Restoration, p. 105. For Presbyterian support for a Restoration see J. R. Jones, “Booth’s Rising of 1659,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 39 (1956–7): 416– 38. 6. Halliday, Dismembering the Body, pp. 56–84; Mark Kishlansky, “Consensual Politics and the Structure of the Putney Debates,” JBS 20 (1981): 50–69; Kishlansky, “The Emergence of Adversary Politics.” By consensus I mean an agreement, a common feeling or, in the political sense, “policies undertaken on the basis of an existing body of agreed opinions; . . . a policy of avoiding or evading differences . . . in an attempt to secure the center,” Raymond Williams, Keywords (Oxford, 1985), p. 77. 7. Halliday, Dismembering the Body, p. 92. 8. Winthrop Hudson, “Fast Days and Civil Religion,” (Los Angeles, 1971) pp. 7–13; David Cressy, Bonfires and Bells (Los Angeles, 1989), pp. 156–71; Anthony Fletcher, “Petitions,” in The Outbreak of the English Civil War (New York, 1981), pp. 191–227. In York, fonts, organs and “superstitious pictures” were removed from churches, a Directory and Covenant provided for each parish and “certain ancient customs” like perambulation prohibited, David Scott, “Politics and Government in York, 1640–1662,” 54. 9. Hutton, Restoration, pp. 91–101. On the “symbolic and public destruction of texts” and “the preoccupation with the power . . . of the written word,” see Rosenheim, “Documenting Authority,” 591–604. 10. Hutton, Restoration, p. 93. 11. Thomas Rugge’s Diurnal, 1659–1661, ed. William Sachse, Camden Society, vol. 91 (London, 1961): 67, 9 April 1660; Joseph Frank, Cromwell’s Press Agent: A Critical Biography of Marchamont Nedham, 1620–1678 (Maryland, 1980), 177. 12. Rugge’s Diurnal, p. 75, 18 April 1660. 13. The Autobiography of Henry Newcome, edited by Richard Parkinson, Chetham Society, vol. 26 (Manchester, 1852), p. 121. 14. The Declaration of Breda.

336

notes

15. Ibid. Late in life Clarendon said this Declaration, “by God’s inspiration had been the sole visible motive to that wonderful change,” Life, 2: 562. The conciliatory tone surely managed to appease many. 16. Halliday, Dismembering the Body, pp. 89–92. 17. For an excellent account of these attitudes see Nicholas Jose, Ideas of the Restoration in English Literature, 1660–71 (Cambridge, MA, 1984), chaps. 1–3. The Speaker attributed the deliverance to “a miraculous way of Divine Providence beyond and above the reach and comprehension of our understandings,” The Speech of Sir Harbottle Grimstone . . . to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty . . . 29 May . . . (London, 1660), p. 4. 18. John Evelyn, Diary, ed. E. S. de Beer (Oxford, 1955), 3: 246, 29 May 1660. 19. Sir Peter Leicester offered a similar reading of events in 1660: “Such miscreants God commonly payes home, yea in this world many times: how have we seene the scene of affaires in this nation altered before our eyes by the Greate Wheele of Providence!” Charges to the Grand Jury at Quarter Sessions, 1660–1677 by Sir Peter Leicester, ed. Elizabeth Halcrow, Chetham Society, 3rd series, vol. 5 (Manchester, 1953): 10. Even the imprisoned Fleetwood complained that “God had spit in his face,” Bodleian Library, MS Clarendon 68, f. 11. For an excellent account of such “messages” see J. Sears McGee, The Godly Man in Stuart England: Anglicans, Puritans and the Two Tables, 1620–1670 (New Haven, 1976), pp. 1–53. 20. “The notion that sermons were an indispensable means of buttressing the civil order was already a century old at the time of the Restoration, and accepted as a matter of course by the Anglican clergy,” Phillip Harth, Pen for a Party: Dryden’s Tory Propaganda in its Contexts (Princeton, 1993), p. 6. 21. Richard Baker, A Chronicle of the Kings of England, pp. 695ff; John Price, The Mystery & Method of His Majesty’s Happy Restauration Laid Open to Public View (London, 1680), p. 131. On the many versions of this document see Paul H. Hardacre, “The Genesis of the Declaration of Breda, 1657–1660,” The Journal of Church and State 15 (1973): 65–82. 22. Matthew Griffith, Fear God and the King . . . (London, 1660). 23. Hyde to Barwick, March 1660, Calendar of Clarendon State Papers, ed. F. J. Routledge, 4: 639. 24. Edward Hyde to Gervase Holles, HMC Bath, 4: 144. 25. CSPD, 1659–60, p. 572; HMC Bath, 4: 640. Morley assured Clarendon that “those in authority have punished Dr. Griffith and Mr. Masterton of St. Clement’s [for speaking of avenging Laud and Strafford.]” Morley to Edward Hyde, HMC Bath, 4: 654. 26. Godfrey Davies, “English Political Sermons, 1603–1640,” HLQ 1, (October, 1939): 1–22; Hudson, “Fast Days and Civil Religion,” pp. 3–24. See Thomas Hobbes, Behemoth, or The Long Parliament (London, 1889), pp. 3, 15–23; Thomas P. Slaughter, ed., Ideology and Politics on the Eve of Restoration: Newcastle’s Advice to Charles II (Philadelphia, 1984), pp. 16–22. 27. Charges to the Jury, p. 7. 28. Edward Hyde to John Barwick, 16 April 1660, Peter Barwick, The Life of John Barwick (London, 1678), pp. 519–20. Hyde also suggested that Anglican ministers discreetly “enter into Conversations, and have frequent Conferences with those of the Presbyterian Party; that if it be possible, you may reduce them to such a Temper, as is consistent with the good of the Church,” idem., p. 527. 29. Ibid., p. 270; Edward Walker, A Circumstantial Account of the Preparations for the Coronation of His Majesty King Charles II . . . to which is Prefixed, an Account of the Landing, Reception, and Journey of His Majesty from Dover to London, (London, 1820), p. 17. 30. HMC 5th Report, Sutherland, p. 154. In July Andrew Newport lamented that “we have great complaints of the negligence of the young men of the Commons House who

notes

337

either by the Court or other entertainment of the town suffer themselves so to be called away from attending the House and committees that many votes are lost by that supineness.” 31. Commons Journals (CJ), 8: 144ff; Robert S. Bosher, The Making of the Restoration Settlement: The Influence of the Laudians, 1649–1662 (New York, 1951), pp. 170–77; Thorndike to Sancroft, British Library, Harleian MSS 3784, f. 2. 32. Mercurius Publicus, September 1660, #37, p. 597. 33. For the rest of the official presentation of Juxon’s merits, see Mercurius Publicus, October 1660, #39, pp. 601–2. 34. Hugh Peters’s lack of fortitude before being “turned off” on 14 October represented a turning point of great significance and gratification for royalists. 35. Evelyn, Diary, 3: 253, 17 October, 1660; Harris, Politics of Religion, p. 30. Ten of the nineteen regicides condemned in 1660 were “pardoned as to their lives, but adjudged to perpetual Imprissonmt [sic] & to be drawne once in every yeere upon Hurdles with Halters about their necks from the Tower to the Gallowes att Tyburne, & there to stand six Houres with their hands & faces besmeared with blood,” W— W— to Mr Davenport, 15 March 1662, Mather Papers, Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 4th series, 8 vols. (Boston, MA, 1868) 8: 169. 36. Richard Henchman, A Peace Offering in the Temple, October 14, 1660 (London, 1661). 37. Henchman, Peace Offering, pp. 7, 18. 38. John Sudbury, A Sermon Preached at the Consecration . . . 28 October . . . (London, 1660), p. 5. Weeks before Robert South made the same point at Oxford: “when Religion binds them upon Conscience, Conscience will either perswade or terrify men into their practice,” Ecclesiasticall Policy the Best Policy; or, Religion the Best Reason of State: In a Sermon . . .(Oxford, 1660), p. 7. 39. Sudbury, A Sermon, pp. 20, 25. 40. Harris, The Politics of Religion, p. 79. See also Steven N. Zwicker, Politics and Language in Dryden’s Poetry: The Language of Disguise (Princeton, 1984), pp. 3–33. 41. See Blair Worden, “Milton, Samson Agonistes, and the Restoration,” in Gerald MacLean, ed., Culture and Society in the Stuart Restoration, (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 111– 36, and Worden, “Providence And Politics in Cromwellian England,” P & P 109 (1985): 55–99. 42. William Sancroft, A Sermon Preached at the Consecrations . . . (London, 1660), pp. 31–34. 43. Gilbert Sheldon to Clarendon, Bodleian Library, Carte MSS 45, f. 151. 44. Rugge’s Diurnal, p. 143, 9 January 1661. 45. John Spurr, The Restoration Church of England, 1646–1689 (New Haven, 1991), 29, 37–41. 46. There had been considerable consternation following “the strange election that the City of London made . . . [electing] men that, so far from being episcopal, are thought to be Anabaptists; and chosen with a great deal of zeale, in spite of the other party that thought themselves so strong, calling out in the Hall, ‘No Bishops! no Lord Bishops!’ It do make people to fear it may come to worse, by being an example to the country to do the same,” Samuel Pepys, Diary, 5 vols., edited by Richard Braybrooke (New York, 1924), 1: 184, January 1661. The newly elected MPs were characterized by youth and inexperience. Charles clairvoyantly saw that their age “was no great fault, for he would keep them till they got beards,” G. M. Trevelyan, England Under the Stuarts, (London, 1930), p. 332. 47. Clarendon to Orrery, in Bosher, Restoration Settlement, p. 212. 48. Richard Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae or, Mr. Richard Baxter’s Narrative of the Most Memorable Passages of His Life and Times (London, 1696), p. 333. 49. John Meriton, Curse not the King (London, 1660), p. 3.

338

notes

50. See my article “The Quest for Consensus: The Lord Mayor’s Day Shows in the 1670s,” in Culture and Society, pp. 31–51; Jose, Ideas of Restoration; Harth, Pen for a Party, pp. 3–61. 51. See Mercurius Publicus 1660, #25, p. 412; #28, p. 457; #39, p. 602; #50, p. 804. For weeks this book and the Kingdome’s Intelligencer carried advertisements for recent publications, including Dryden’s Astraea Redux; Panegyricks by Abraham Cowley, William D’Avenant, Robert Howard, and Thomas Higgons; a new edition of Eikon Basilikon; William Walwyn’s God Save the King; The Dignity of Kingship Asserted; The English Episcopacie & Liturgie Asserted, and many, many more. 52. Rugge’s Diurnal, p. 175, 19 April 1661. 53. Clarendon, Life, ii, p. 10. 54. Public Record Office SP 29/34/51; Oxford, MS Ashmole, 819/1–26; 857/256–93; Edward Walker, A Circumstantial Account, p. 76; John Ogilby, His Majesty’s Entertainment Passing through the City of London to His Coronation (London, 1662), p. 134; Eric Halfpenny, “The Citie’s Loyalty Display’d,” Guildhall Miscellany 10 (1959): 19–33; Paula R. Backscheider, Spectacular Politics: Theatrical Power and Mass Culture in Early Modern England (Baltimore, 1993), pp. 1–7; Peter Holman, Four and Twenty Fiddlers: The Violin at the English Court 1540–1690 (Oxford, 1993), pp. 282–97. 55. Glynne Wickham, Early English Stages, 1300–1660, (London, 1980), ii, p. 59; John Ogilby, The Entertainment of His Most Excellent Majesty Charles II in His Passage through the City of London to His Coronation, A Facsimile with an Introduction by Ronald Knowles (New York, 1988); Walker, A Circumstantial Account. 56. John Dryden, Astraea Redux, pp. 145–52. 57. Ogilby, An Account, p. 165. The acceptance of these views was threatening enough that, by the end of 1661, puritan letters to the colonies expressed some relief that, “the Citty [is] greately mistaken in their hopes &c: Multitudes Broke and are undone, &c: noe trading, little or noe money stirring, & corne is very dear. . . . The Citty swarms with beggars,” The Mather Papers, Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 4th series, viii (1868), p. 195. 58. Pepys, Diary, 1: 141, 22 April 1662. 59. Mercurius Publicus 24 April 1661, #16, p. 256. Every poem and account of the ceremonies referred to the weather and its meaning. The Kingdome’s Intelligencer remarked on the events passing “without one drop of Rain, which spared no other day but this and his Coronation,” 29 April 1661, #17, p. 262. 60. Evidence of a more cautious approach is the fact that the trained bands, “Horse & Foot, were in arms in several places to prevent Insurrections & Tumults of seditious fanatics and schismatics, haters of Monarchy and Episcopacy,” The Diary of Henry Townshend, ed. J. W. Willis Bund, Worcestershire Historical Society 2 vols. (Worcester, 1920), 1: 71, 23 April 1661. 61. Walker, A Circumstantial Account, pp. 84; 92–101; 105–7. 62. George Morley, A Sermon Preached at . . . the Coronation (London, 1661), p. 5. 63. Ibid. pp. 13–14. 64. Ibid. p. 30. 65. Ibid. p. 32. 66. Ibid. 67. “Behold the Man, that hath been Preserved by the Divine Power, that is Qualified by the Divine Wisdome and Brought home again to us by the Divine Goodness and Mercy, to settle and prolong the State,” ibid., p. 33. 68. Ibid. 69. Increase Mather to Mr. Davenport, Mather Papers, 8: 188. Mather was reporting news he had received from London. His letter ends with the interesting observation that

notes

339

“last December there were horses seene lighting downe from heaven upon the ground in Wales.” 70. For Clarendon’s speech see William Cobbett, The Parliamentary History of England, 12 vols. (London, 1806–12) 4: 184, 8 May 1662. 71. Ibid. 72. Mercurius Publicus 6 June 1661, #21, p. 320. Henry Townshend recounts the same story in his Diary, pp. 74–75. 73. Mather Papers, 8: 166–210. 74. The Diary of Rev. Henry Newcome, ed. Thomas Heywood, Chetham Society, vol. 18 (Manchester, 1849): xxvii. 75. Evelyn, Diary, 3: 296, 22 May 1661. 76. Ibid., 29 May 1661, “This was the first anniversary appointed by Act of Parliament to be observed as a day of General Thanksgiving for the miraculous restoration of his Majesty.” The Act is 12 Car II c. 14. “Those who know how to build know how to collapse what has been built. Mere literal destruction is not the metaphorical destruction illustrated in ritual,” Victor Turner, Dramas, Fields and Metaphors (Ithaca, 1974), p. 298. 77. Mercurius Publicus May–June 1661, #22–25, pp. 338–47. “The Covt was Burned in severall places of England, and carried in a disgraceful manner (fixed to Horse Tailes) through the streets with effigies of the Protector, Hugh Peters, & others whom they had a mind to villifie. And in London the Rable tooke it out of all the Churches where it used to Hang, & Burnt it with greate shoutes & aclemations,” W—- W—- to Goffe, 18 October 1661, Mather Papers, 8: 166. 78. Mercurius Publicus May 1661, #22, pp. 338–39; June 1661 #23, 352–57; Mather Papers, 8: 166; Townshend’s Diary, 1: 75–76. 79. Greaves, Deliver Us From Evil. The State Papers for these early years (Public Record Office, SP/29/29–38) are filled with the government’s obsession with plotting. See, for example, Public Record Office, SP/9/16, Williamson’s detailed record of the government’s domestic spies. 80. Townshend’s Diary, 1: 76. Huntington Library, Hastings MSS 15026, has a report of the speech opening the Irish Parliament congratulating “the most Reverend fathers of our Church settled in theire former Stations, and remitted to theyre antient and undoubted Right.” 81. CJ, 8: 247, 261, 279; Mercurius Publicus 9 July 1661, #27, p. 432; Seaward, Cavalier Parliament, pp. 164–68; Bosher, Making of the Restoration, pp. 217–39. 82. 13 Car. II, c. 5; Public Record Office, PC/2/52/87; HMC Gawdy, p. 192; Hutton, Restoration, p. 156; George Kitchin, Sir Roger L’Estrange (New York, 1971), pp. 95–137; Townshend’s Diary, 1: 80. 83. In particular the Corporation and Uniformity Acts: 13 Car. II, st.2, c.1 and 14 Car. II, c. 4. 84. Mercurius Publicus December 1661, #48, p. 742. 85. Mr. Hooke to Mr. Davenport, 12 October 1661, Mather Papers, 8: 177; Townshend’s Diary, 1: 68. 86. Townshend’s Diary, 1: 80; On 1 October Sheldon ominously hinted to Archbishop Bramhall in Ireland that he hoped “to do more than you expect towards the Settlement of ye Church & ye suppressing of those turbulent spirits wch have given us so much trouble,” Huntington Library, Hastings MSS, 15778. 87. Mercurius Publicus October 1661, #44, p. 687. 88. Ibid. This development is also recounted in Townshend’s Diary, 1: 81. In eighteen months the phrase which landed Matthew Griffith in Newgate—“Fear God and the King”—had become official government doctrine. 89. Parliamentary History, November 1661, 4: 222.

340

notes

90. On unanimity and the absence of “adversarial” politics, see Kishlansky, Parliamentary Selection, pp. 7–9. 91. The Travels of Peter Mundy in Europe and Asia, 1608–1667, vol. 5, edited by R.C. Temple, The Hakluyt Society, 2nd ser., vol. 78 (London, 1936): 138–39; Townshend’s Diary, 1: 90, includes similar news from Edinburgh concerning the Church of Scotland.

Chapter 3: The Restoration in Verse 1. Jose, Ideas of Restoration, p. 13. 2. See C. John Somerville, The News Revolution in England: Cultural Dynamics of Daily Information (Oxford, 1996), especially chap. 4, “Creating and Dividing the Audience.” 3. It was this uprising (and the three days required to quash a handful of chiliasts) which served as a justification for the king to maintain some troops after the disbanding of the army, leading to the creation of the Coldstream Guards—a compromise which pleased Charles and Monck. 4. J. H. Round, “Charles II and the Corporations,” EHR 15 (1900): 641. See also J. H Sacret, “The Restoration Government and Municipal Corporations,” EHR 45 (1930): 232– 59. For a different interpretation see Halliday, Dismembering the Body. 5. Halliday, Dismembering the Body, pp. 5–23, 56–105. 6. Public Record Office, SP 29/82–93, passim; Greaves, Deliver Us from Evil; Greaves, Enemies Under his Feet; CSPD (1661–62); CSPD (1663–65). 7. CSPD (1660–61), pp. 535–42; CSPD (1661–62), pp. 396–418. This includes 20 March 1661, when Pepys wrote that the “great talk of the towne is the strange election that the City of London made . . . [of] men that, so far from being episcopall, are thought to be Anabaptists; and chosen with a great deal of zeale, in spite of the other party that thought themselves so strong, calling out in the Hall, ‘No Bishops! no Lord Bishops!’ ” Diary, 1: 184. 8. CSPD (1660–1661), pp. 535, 612; CSPD (1661–1662), pp. 396–418; CSPD (1662– 1663), pp. 70, 73–123, 161, 179. W. C. Abbott, “English Conspiracy and Dissent, 1660– 1674,” AHR 45 (1934): 505–6, states that government spies “found their way into public houses to count the men and horses there, into churches and conventicles to note those present and the language used, into jails to worm secrets from prisoners or enlist them as informers. . . . City authorities were . . . urged by the court to suppress sedition, to reform the militia and the night watch, and to ensure the return of churchmen and royalists to city offices in the ensuing elections, and these admonitions were accompanied by arrests and the dispersal of meetings on every hand.” 9. CJ, 8, 29 July 1661. 10. 14 Car. II. c. 33. For the convoluted measures of this Act, see Harold Weber, Paper Bullets: Print and Kingship under Charles II (Kentucky, 1996); J. Walker, “Censorship of the Press during the Reign of Charles II,” History (1950): 224, and Alexander Andrew, The History of British Journalism . . . to the Repeal of the Stamp Act in 1855, 2 vols. (London, 1859), 1, pp. 33–57. Officially entitled the Press and Printing Act, it continued the system of monopolies in licensing for different subjects of books: the Lord Chancellor for law books, the bishop of London or the Archbishop of Canterbury for religious books and a Secretary of State for newspapers and pamphlets. At the time of passage, Sir John Berkenhead had been appointed by Secretary Nicholas as Surveyor of the Press. 11. Roger L’Estrange, Considerations and Proposals in order to the Regulation of the Press together with diverse instances of Treasonous and Seditious Pamphlets proving the necessity thereof (London, [June] 1663), pp. 27–28.

notes

341

12. On this, see below, chap. 7. On the ejection of the ministers in 1662 see Samuel Palmer, ed., Edmund Calamay’s Nonconformist Memorial: Being an Account of the Ministers Ejected or Silenced After the Restoration, 2 vols. (London, 1775); Edmund Calamay, A Continuation of the Account of Ministers Ejected After the Restoration, 2 vols. (London, 1727). This Edmund Calamay [or Calamy] was the grandson of the preacher who spoke in 1649. 13. The Stationers’ Company originated in 1403 and was granted a royal charter in May 1557 by Philip and Mary (William Roberts, Earlier History of English Bookselling [London, 1889]), p. 27). One of the main problems with the Stationer’s Company as a watchdog was the internal strife between the printers and the booksellers. In 1660 the booksellers made up a majority of the Company and resisted any move to restrict the number of master printers. They rightly believed that such restrictions would drive up the prices they were forced to pay for books. 14. L’Estrange, Considerations and Proposals, pp. 24, 26–27. 15. This method was created by Archbishop Laud in 1637. As part of the new Licensing Act the number of printers was limited to twenty, exclusive of the royal printers. See Weber, Paper Bullets, chap. 4; Andrews, History of Journalism, p. 33. 16. This clever pamphlet consisted of two parts: the first was a text of the Covenant, the sermon delivered at Charles II’s coronation in Scotland, and the young king’s acceptance of the Covenant and acknowledgment of his father’s errors. The second part of The Phoenix was Edmund Calamay’s sermon in 1649 on the dangers of covenant-breaking. Those who wished were allowed to find a moral in the two parts. Nearly all of these pamphlets and books were printed by a group known as the “Confederates”: foremost among them were Livewell Chapman, Giles Calvert, Francis “Elephant” Smith, and Thomas Brewster. Nearly all of them had both worked for and run afoul of the Council of State. 17. Details on these ejections can be found in Abbott, “English Conspiracy,” and the works of Edmund Calamay cited in note 11. 18. A good example of the official response to these attacks is John Gadbury, Britain’s Royal Star . . . together with an examination and refutation of that nest of sedition published by Mr H. Jessey (London, 1661). As both royalist and astrologer, Gadbury was wellqualified to address Jessey’s work. 19. Thomas Howell, Cobbett’s Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason, 4: 946. 20. For more on these works and printers, see J. G. Muddiman, The King’s Journalist (London, 1923), pp. 153–54. 21. L’Estrange, Considerations and Proposals, p. 25. The concern for sedition and the danger of the printed word is described in Weber, Paper Bullets, Part II. 22. For the troubles in the north see CSPD (1663), passim; J. Walker, “The Yorkshire Plot, 1663,” The Yorkshire Archeological Society Journal 31 (1947); Howell, State Trials, 6: 521; Abbott, “English Conspiracy,” 517ff; An Exact Narrative of the Trial . . . of John Twyn . . . with the Trials of Thomas Brewster. . . . (London, 1664). 23. CSPD (1670), p. 209. In the week following the passage of the Conventicle Act (17– 23 July 1664) L’Estrange claimed to have seized over 130,000 pamphlets, Kitchin, L’Estrange, p. 124. Although L’Estrange is present in many accounts of the period as well as throughout the memoirs of the time, the only study of his activities is Kitchin’s from 1913. 24. Kitchin, L’Estrange, p. 102; Weber, Paper Bullets, pp. 133–67. A conventional renaissance idea expressed in a typical L’Estrange turn of phrase. At the time of the Popish Plot he remarked that “a citizen’s head is but a thing to try the temper of a soldier’s sword upon,” Weber, Paper Bullets, p. 231. 25. L’Estrange, Considerations and Proposals, p. 1. 26. For others, see Weber, Paper Bullets, chap. 4. The desire to control public information is typical: John Lilburne’s Petition of the Levellers of January 1648/9 is a rare example

342

notes

advocating a free press. Milton’s Areopogitica refused to countenance the possibility of the royalists having the opportunity to express their (cancerous) views openly. 27. For these views see L’Estrange, Considerations and Proposals, pp. 9–11. 28. Ibid., p. 9. 29. The practicality of such an aim is amply demonstrated by the ease with which Samuel Pepys acquired Harrington’s Oceana in 1667 and Hobbes’s Leviathan in 1668, Pepys, Diary, 3: 248 and 4: 164. 30. Abbott, “Conspiracy and Dissent,” 526–27. 31. Jose, Ideas of Restoration, p. 1. 32. W. A. Speck, “Augustan Propaganda in Augustan England,” TRHS, 5th ser. 22 (1972): 19, 22–23. 33. Ibid., 24. 34. Nancy Klein Maguire, Regicide and Restoration: English Tragicomedy, 1660–1671, (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 16–24. 35. This image is captured in Dryden’s use of Astraea in the title of his poem on the king’s return. Astraea was the goddess of Justice who fled the world because of man’s misconduct. Eventually she returned to initiate a period of prosperity and plenty. 36. Jose, Ideas of Restoration, p. 47. 37. Few panegyrists spent any time with constitutional issues. If the king were returned to the throne as God’s agent to redeem or restore a golden age, then his power was unlimited and absolute. If the people had voluntarily yielded power to him in a Hobbesian gesture, then again he was absolute. Only if Parliament had invited him back and the ancient constitution was preserved could his power be considered limited. Most poets skirted the issue entirely. For a fuller discussion of Dryden’s Heroic Drama, see below, chap. 4. 38. “The Heroick Stanzas on Cromwell” was published in 1659; “Astraea Redux” appeared within a month of the king’s return and was first offered for sale on 19 June 1660; “To His Sacred Majesty” was published in 1661. For the best editions and bibliographical materials on Dryden’s works, See The Works of John Dryden, H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., ed., 18 vols. (California, 1978). 39. Anne T. Barbeau, The Intellectual Design of John Dryden’s Heroic Plays (Yale, 1970), p. 178. A fuller account of Heroic Plays in general can be found in Maguire, Regicide and Restoration, chaps. 6–7. 40. The succeeding quotations are taken from the first edition of the poem in 1660. 41. Edward Earl of Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England (Oxford, 1819), pp. 36, 35. 42. Barbeau, Intellectual Design, p. 181. 43. Jose, Ideas of Restoration, p. 120. On pageantry in general see Glynne Wickham, Early English Stages, vol. 2 (London, 1963); L. J. Morrissey, “English Street Theatre: 1655–1708,” Costerus, 4 (1972): 105–38. 44. Leslie Hotson, The Commonwealth and Restoration Stage (Cambridge, MA, 1928). 45. Morrissey, “Street Theater,” 105–7. 46. Wickham, English Stages, vol. 2, p. 59. For more on the themes, pageants and audiences of public theater, see the discussion of the Lord Mayor’s Shows below, chap. 4. 47. “Of all our antic sights and pageantry, / Which English idiots run in crowds to see, / The Polish Medal bears the prize alone,” quoted in Morrissey, “English Theater,” 115. 48. John Ogilby, His Majesty’s Entertainment Passing through the City of London to His Coronation. . . . (London, 1662), p. 1. 49. “Rebellion wore a crown of Fire on her head, held a bloody sword in one hand and a charming rod in the other. Confusion was represented as deformed, wearing ill-matched garments—on the wrong way; on her head were ruined castles, torn crowns and broken sceptres,” ibid., pp. 12–13. The charming rod which gulls the nation is here presented as a weapon equal to the bloody sword wielded by Rebellion.

notes

343

50. Ibid. p. 37. 51. Ibid. pp. 17, 19, 28. Succession time does of its own accord. 52. Ibid. p. 100. They strive the ruins to repair. 53. Ibid. p. 104. 54. Ibid. pp. 114, 115, 117. 55. Ibid. pp. 174, 177. Janus was the guardian deity of gates and doors. If the doors of his Temple in the Roman Forum were open, it was a sign that the city was at war. 56. Ibid. p. 2. 57. Pincus, “Coffee Does Politicians;” Sharp, “Popular Opinion;” Miller, “Public Opinion,” 359–77. 58. John Dryden, “Astraea Redux,” lines 292–323. John Evelyn had proudly presented Charles with a “A Poem upon His Majesties Coronation the 23 of April 1661, being St. George’s Day,” (London, 1661). Lord Mordaunt told Evelyn that the king had nervously asked if the panegyric was in Latin and if it was long. 59. The best accounts of these years are in Hutton, Restoration, Part 3; Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, pp. 214–37; and Seaward, Cavalier Parliament, pp. 35–70, 217– 34. 60. Maguire, Regicide and Restoration, pp. 34–42. 61. See Appendix I. 62. On this tradition see Annabel Patterson, Marvell and the Civic Crown (Princeton, 1978 ), pp. 112–66. “It was Waller’s ‘Instructions’ that laid down the gauntlet of intellectual challenge by adapting to political panegyric the venerable concept of ut pictura poesis,” p. 127. 63. Evelyn, Diary, 2: 140. 64. Ibid., p. 211, October 1666. Evelyn’s piety is evidenced by the constant references to attendance at services and evaluations of sermons throughout his diary. 65. Clarendon’s attempts to curtail the influence and monies given to lady Castlemaine were the source of much of her enmity. Pepys claimed that Castlemaine leaned out her window rejoicing as Clarendon left Whitehall for the last time. Charles himself stated quite clearly that, “whosoever I find to be my Lady Castlemaine’s enemy . . . I do promise on my word to be his enemy as long as I live,” Ogg, England in the Reign of Charles II, p. 187. 66. Pepys, Diary, 2: 118, 9 November 1663. 67. Ibid. 10, 26 February 1663. 68. William Hooke to J. Davenport, 5 March 1663, Mather Papers, 8: 207. 69. Pepys, Diary, 2: 1–2, 19–26 February 1663. It is interesting that by 1663 Pepys was able to read the king’s speech the day after it was given and that there was already suspicion about Charles II’s views on religion. See also, Abbott, “English Conspiracy,” 1:517. 70. George deF. Lord, ed., Poems on Affairs of State, vol. 1, 1660–1678 (Yale, 1963), 20. 71. Keith Feiling, British Foreign Policy, 1660–1672 (London, 1968), pp. 83ff; Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, pp. 237–70. 72. C. D. Chandaman, English Public Revenue 1660–1688, (Oxford, 1975), pp. 146– 53; 22 & 23 Car. II c.3. 73. For the best descriptions of these events, Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, Part 4; Ogg, England in the Reign of Charles II, pp. 290–340; Feiling, British Foreign Policy 1660–1672, pp. 83–202. 74. Evelyn considered “ye late dreadful conflagration, added to the plague and warr, the most dismal judgements that could be inflicted, but which we highly deserv’d for our prodigious ingratitude, burning lusts, dissolute Court, profane and abominable lives, under such dispensations of God’s continu’d favour in restoring Church, Prince, and People from our late intestine calamities, of which we are altogether unmindfull, even to astonishment,” Diary, 2: 209.

344

notes

75. Abbott, “English Conspiracy,” 2: 706; See also Seaward, Cavalier Parliament, pp. 236–323; Greaves, Enemies Under His Feet, pp. 134–41. 76. Diary, 2: 394, 29 May 1666. 77. Greaves, Enemies Under His Feet, pp. 49–84; CSPD, 1666, pp. 272–365; Thomas Carte, The Life of James Duke of Ormond, 5 vols. (Oxford, 1851), 3: 103; HMC Twelfth Report, 7, pp. 42–8; Pepys, Diary, 2, for 24 November, 5 and 19 December 1666. 78. CSPD (1666), pp. 321–22, 330, 349. Also, Pepys, Diary, 2, 19 December 1666. 79. Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, pp.407–28; Abbott, “English Conspiracy,” 2: 710–11. For these maneuverings see also CSPD (1667), pp. 179–294; Lady Burghclere, George Villiers Second Duke of Buckingham (London, 1903), pp. 179–97; H. C. Foxcroft, Life and Letters of Sir George Savile, First Marquis of Halifax 2 vols. (London, 1898), 1: 51. 80. The decline in information in the State Papers for this period is remarkably evident. See Walter Simon, The Restoration Episcopate, for the bishops’ complaints about the failure of justices to cooperate in the persecution of dissent. Twice in this session of 1668 the king refused to sign a renewal of the Conventicle Act, Parliamentary History, 4: 441– 48. For more on the Cabal and nonconformity, see Abbott, “English Conspiracy” 2: 704– 10 and De Krey, “First Restoration Crisis.” 81. Pepys, Diary, 2: 118, 17 January 1668. 82. This is the subject of De Krey, “First Restoration Crisis” and “Rethinking the Restoration.” 83. Kitchin, L’Estrange, pp. 160–69. 84. Public Record Office, PC 2/60 fos. 394, 399; Kitchin, L’Estrange, pp. 169–180; CSPD, 1668, passim. 85. De Krey, “First Restoration Crisis,” has the best account of the ideological challenge. 86. Waller’s “Instructions” appeared first as a broadside in 1665. He drew his inspiration from Giovanni Francesco Busenello’s celebration of a Venetian victory over the Turks off Crete in 1655. According to Lord, Poems on Affairs of State, 1: 21, this poem was translated in 1658 and “introduced into English poetry an ut pictura poesis device in which the poet instructs the painter in detail how he is to depict the victory.” 87. As the Dutch attempted to flee eastward after the battle, orders were given from the duke of York’s flagship to call off pursuit. The reasons for this have never been fully explained, and the missed opportunity to crush Dutch sea power was never so greatly lamented as when many of the same ships showed up in the Medway two years later. 88. These were, not surprisingly, entitled: “The Second Advice to the Painter” (1666); “Third Advice to a Painter” (1666); “The Last Instructions to a Painter” (1667); and “Further Instructions” from the same year. Of these “The Last Instructions” is the longest, sharpest, and most sweeping indictment of the king’s court and government. 89. For another Privy Council Order to L’Estrange “to Suppress Pamphlets and Libells,” see Public Record Office, PC 2/60 f. 95. 90. Michael McKeon, Politics and Poetry in Restoration England (Cambridge, MA, 1975) p. 261. 91. On the fears of universal monarchy, see Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism. The most influential “economist” of the day, Sir William Petty, had written as early as 1662, “the trade of the world is too little for us two, therefore one must down,” The Marquis of Lansdowne, ed., The Petty-Southwell Correspondence, 1676–87 (New York, 1967), p. 77. 92. I am using McKeon’s definition of ideology throughout this book: “[T]hat dimension of an idea which is taken to define and maintain the interests of one social group against the interests of other social groups.” He goes on to say that the “commonplace” dimension of ideas is part of a “shared consciousness”—a cohesive rather than a definitive

notes

345

force. It is the combination of these two which allow for a discourse between author and reader in the political culture of the time, Politics and Poetry, introduction. 93. McKeon, Politics and Poetry and Zwicker, Politics and Language. It is commonly stated that Dryden was made Poet Laureate in 1670 (viz. the article in the DNB) in succession to William Davenant. However, Davenant’s death in 1668, and a Warrant in the State Papers of 13 April 1668 awarding that office to Dryden are the basis of my placing his elevation in the earlier year. 94. McKeon, Politics and Poetry pp. 18–19. Zwicker, Politics and Language, p. 43, goes farther still and calls the preface to Annus Mirabilis the earliest example of “political writing disguised as literary discussion . . . the engagement of the opposition by denying enmity, the pose of historical disinterestedness, the self-conscious and polemically minded choice of literary modes and models, the use of literary criticism for political argument, and the use of digression as a pretense for honesty and plainness.” 95. Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, ll. 44–48. 96. For the uses of hierarchy and the remaining concerns in Annus Mirabilis see the brilliant reading by McKeon in Politics and Poetry, p. 59: “In the rationalization and justification of this hierarchy, which is Dryden’s aim in ‘Annus Mirabilis,’ the family is of primary importance because it provides a conventionally acceptable perspective for understanding civil structures as “natural” unities whose internal organization should command the unquestioning assent not only of nature but of all of their human participants.” 97. Ibid. p. 70, contends that “Annus Mirabilis is a poem of national, not individual, entities; the units of discourse are consistently ‘Us’ versus ‘Them’—English versus Dutch; (later Charles versus Fire will become Charles as general versus foe); the war is between ‘Two Nations’; battles are won by the ‘Braver Nation’; and fought with such noise that they are more like countries fighting than fleets; ‘Lands unfix’d, and Floating Nations.’ ” 98. For this ideological debate see De Krey, “First Restoration Crisis,” “Rethinking the Restoration,” and Goldie, “Anglican Royalism.” 99. Greaves, Enemies Under His Feet, pp. 142–51; De Krey, “First Restoration Crisis,” 565, 568–76; Abbott, “English Conspiracy,” 713; Parliamentary History, 4: 441. 100. Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, pp. 256–68, and De Krey, “Rethinking the Restoration,” 60–63. 101. Barbeau, Intellectual Design, p. 7. I have used Barbeau’s excellent work extensively throughout this book. My only difference with her is in insisting on the polemical purposes of Dryden in his Heroic Dramas. On the politics of the Heroic Play in general see Maguire, Regicide and Restoration: pp. 190–214; Susan Staves, Players’ Sceptres: Fictions of Authority in the Restoration (Nebraska, 1979), chaps. 1–2; John Altieri, The Theater of Praise: Panegyric Tradition in Seventeenth-Century English Drama (Newark, DE, 1986), chap. 1; Laura Brown, English Dramatic Form 1660–1760: An Essay in Generic History (New Haven, 1981), pp. 25ff; J. Douglas Canfield, “The Significance of the Restoration Rhymed Heroic Play,” ECS, 13 (1979). 102. For these years see Maguire, Regicide and Restoration, pp. 43–82. 103. Preface to The Spanish Fryar, 1681. For more on this play see the discussion and references in Susan J. Owen, Restoration Theater and Crisis (Oxford, 1996), chap. 4. 104. Barbeau, Intellectual Design, p. 10, “Far from being in conflict with divine justice, history, for Dryden, is the temporal expression of that Justice.” 105. “To Roger, Earl of Orrery,” Preface to the Rival Ladies, 1664. The best collection of Dryden’s critical writings is George Watson, ed., John Dryden: Of Dramatic Poesy and Other Critical Essays, 2 vols. (London, 1962), 1: 4. The idea of history as an illustration of moral philosophy is discussed fully in Louis Bredvold, “The Tendency Toward Platonism in Neo-Classical Esthetics,” ELH, 1 (1934): 94ff. 106. Watson, Dramatic Poesy, 2: 82–85; 1: 19–34.

346

notes

107. Barbeau, Intellectual Design, pp. 176, 17–19; Staves, Players’ Sceptres, chap. 2. 108. Barbeau, Intellectual Design, p. 15. Dryden differs markedly from Hobbes in that he makes all laws, civil, natural, and religious, immediately binding. “If all three realms of law are not reconcilable—if to obey a civil command means to commit a moral offense— then the virtuous individual must prefer external bonds to the shaking off of inward fetter: ‘for reason conscience into fetters brings,’ ” idem., p. 36. 109. Ibid., p. 64; Staves, Players’ Sceptres, chap. 1; Altieri, Theater of Praise, chap. 1; Canfield, “The Significance of the Heroic Play.”

Chapter 4: Royal Theater and the Street Theater 1. For the public sphere and opinion see Miller, “Public Opinion,” Pincus, “Coffee Does Politicians,” Sharp, “Popular Political Opinion in England 1660–1685,” 13–29. 2. On the make-up of the audience at the Royal Theaters see Maguire, Regicide and Restoration, chap. 1. 3. Preface to All for Love, pp. 36–37. 4. “Attempts to force the pace of history through precipitate action prove misguided: patience brings the reward of a providential solution,” Owen, Restoration Theater, p. 118. 5. On Dryden see the California edition of his Works; Barbeau, Intellectual Design; James Anderson Winn, John Dryden and His World (New Haven, 1987); Harth, Pen for a Party. The early Restoration Theater is described in Maguire, Regicide and Restoration, chap. 2. 6. For the business arrangements, see the article on Dryden in the DNB; Allardyce Nicoll, A History of Restoration Drama, 1660–1700 (Cambridge, 1923), pp. 348–77; J. Q. Adams, ed., Dramatic Records of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels (London, 1917); Winn, Dryden and His World, pp. 185–230. Like so many authors, Dryden rarely delivered the promised number of pages—none in some years—and even caused a scandal by contributing a play to the rival Duke’s Theater despite being a shareholder in the King’s. 7. Maguire, Regicide and Restoration, p. 85. On generic shifts see Maguire, chap. 4. 8. In the plays it is assumed that the audience’s engagement in the theatrical effects will be equivalent to an involvement in external political concerns. The new theater differs from masques in that the king is no longer central, nor is it acceptable to have a king-centered vision portrayed in heroic plays and pageants. The organization of the new Restoration theaters reflected this attitude: rather than remain as the focal point, the king sat among the audience, hierarchically related to the public but not dominant. 9. Maguire, Regicide and Restoration, p. 17. 10. Ibid. Maguire also provides this interesting family tree: “Charlotte-JemimaHenrietta-Maria Boyle, the natural daughter of Charles II by the Viscountess Shannon (Thomas and Sir William Killigrew’s sister and Orrery’s sister-in-law), married the playwright James Howard who was Orrery’s wife’s nephew and Dryden’s cousin by marriage.” 11. A sample of some of their writing for the government is in Maguire, Regicide and Restoration, p. 224, n. 10. 12. For the importance of Dryden in Carolean propaganda, see “John Dryden: Stuart mythographer and masque-maker,” in Maguire, Regicide and Restoration, pp. 190–214. 13. Watson, An Essay On Dramatic Poesy, p. 88. Other defenses can be found in A Defence of An Essay of Dramatic Poesy; Of Heroic Plays; Defence of the Epilogue (to the Conquest of Granada); Prologue and Epilogue (to Aureng-Zebe). Once again, Maguire’s Regicide and Restoration provides an accessible discussion of the origins of the Heroic Drama, chap. 6. 14. For the best explication of this argument, which was used against Charles I, see Ernst Kantorwicz, The King’s Two Bodies (Princeton, 1957), chapter 2, “Political Ideology.”

notes

347

15. Barbeau, Intellectual Design, p. 57; Maguire, Regicide and Restoration, chap. 7, “John Dryden: Stuart mythographer and masque-maker.” 16. Barbeau, Intellectual Design, p. 58. 17. Montezuma answers the Christian Priests’ arguments that the advanced (scientific) minds and martyrs of Christianity offer proof of its superiority: To prove Religion true— If either Wit or Suff’rings would suffice, All Faiths afford the Constant and the Wise: And yet ev’n they, by Education sway’d, In Age defend what Infancy obey’d. [5.2.82–87]

18. For this period see, Miller, Charles II, chaps. 6–8; Hutton, Charles II, pp. 254–77; Maurice Lee, The Cabal, (Urbana, 1965); George MacKenzie, Life and Times of John Maitland, Earl of Lauderdale (London, 1923); C. H. Hartmann, Clifford of the Cabal (London, 1937); Haley, Shaftesbury; Lady Burghclere, Buckingham; Barbour, Arlington. 19. “The disgrace of Sheldon and his brethren can be traced, in part, to their refusal to withdraw their support from Clarendon when he was impeached. It stemmed principally, however, from the royal knowledge that the Sheldonians would oppose the new [religious] policy. The bishops appointed at this time were chosen to suit this policy,” Simon, Restoration Episcopate, p. 47. 20. Ibid. p. 78. 21. Ibid. 22. Preface to Tyrannick Love, pp. 2–11. Tyrannick Love was first performed in 1669 and published in the next year. It is believed that it was as Valeria in this play that Nell Gwynn first captured the heart of Charles II. 23. Tyrannick Love, 4.1. 605. 24. Barbeau, Intellectual Design, p. 80. A similar point is made in both Maguire, Regicide and Restoration, pp. 164–87 and Staves, Players’ Sceptres, pp. 43–110. 25. Tyrannick Love, 5.1. 536–39; 434–35. 26. “Mr. John Dreyden, Poet Laureat, is his [Hobbes] great admirer, and often times makes use of his Doctrine in his Playes—from Mr. Dreyden [sic] himselfe.” Oliver Lawson Dick, ed., John Aubrey’s Brief Lives (London, 1949), p. 153. 27. For more complete details on Danby’s policies and their goals, see below, Part II. 28. Evelyn, Diary, 2: 298, 6 April 1673. 29. Simon, Restoration Episcopate, p. 83, adds that at the beginning of this alliance the king “instructed his bishops, through orders form the Secretary of State, to use the laws gently” against recusants. It is significant that from the beginning of Danby’s ascendancy in 1673 until his fall in 1678 the bishops were extremely active in the House of Lords. 30. Evelyn, Diary, 2: 298, 17 February 1673. 31. Pepys, Diary, 1: 36, 31 December 1662. Lord Roos had secured a divorce from his wife in the ecclesiastical courts in 1666. Because of his great wealth and his ties to the earls of Rutland, there was concern about his legitimate heir. Even the duke of Buckingham laid some claim to the Roos title and lands (having a handful of his hair pulled out while in the Painted Chamber for his insolence), but an Act of Parliament in 1667 illegitimated all the children of Lord Roos. It was this Bill which was watched with such interest by James, et al. A thorough account of this can be found in Antonia Fraser, The Weaker Vessel, (New York, 1985), pp. 298–308. See also the poem on the “Plot to discard Catherine by way of a Roos,” Bodleian Library, MS. Don b.8, f. 185. 32. Give willingly what I can take by force: And know, obedience is your safest course. Aureng-Zebe. I’m taught, by honour’s precepts, to obey:

348

notes Fear to obedience is a slavish way. If aught my want of duty could beget, You take the most prevailing means, to threat. [2.1.517–22]

33. Aureng-Zebe, 5.1. 71–72. 34. “I without guilt would mount the royal seat: But yet ’tis necessary to be great.” [5.1.68–69]

35. Aureng-Zebe, 3.1. 117. 36. “To the Right Honrable John, Earl of Mulgrave,” p. 4. 37. The heroic plays are filled with the same principles stated in Dryden’s “To My Honor’d Kinsman,” pp. 171–77: A Patriot both the King and Country serves; Prerogative, and Privilege preserves: Of Each, our Laws the certain Limit show; One must not ebb, nor t’other overflow: Betwixt the Prince and Parliament we stand; The Barriers of the State on either Hand: May neither overflow, for then they drown the Land.

38. Barbeau, Intellectual Design, pp. 122–23. McKeon, Poetry and Politics, pp. 151– 90, argues that Dryden was coopting a common belief for his views. Zwicker, Politics and Language, p. 8, agrees that plots and conspiracies were an essential handmaiden to providential visions of history: “As God spun out the great web of human history, the devil supplied a counterset of plots, alarms, and treasons. Such was Milton’s vision of foreknowledge, history, sin; such was Marvell’s strategy in linking prophecy and conspiracy.” 39. “In all of Dryden’s heroic plays the central agent seems to be fate, providence or heaven, to which all the characters refer in their conversations. But what indicates the importance of an unseen, shaping force behind the events in these plays is the fact that none of the heroes accomplish much that is productive,” Barbeau, Intellectual Design, p. 61. 40. “Dedication” to All for Love, ll. 9–13. He goes on to say that “ ’Tis indeed their interest, who endeavour the subversion of governments, to discourage poets and historians; for the best which can happen to them is to be forgotten.” 41. Ibid., ll. 70–74. 42. Ibid., ll. 82–84; 113–36. 43. Ibid., ll. 129–40. 44. Ibid., ll. 146–48. 45. There are examples in the newsletters of information damaging to the government; they invariably met with quick and angry reprimands. On this, see below, chaps. 6–7. 46. This traditional bit of street theater was discontinued for a number of years due to the Fire, but at its resurrection in 1671 the king was present and attended nearly all of the Lord Mayor’s Day pageants until the Exclusion Crisis. For a further discussion of these pageants, see below. 47. Lords Journals (LJ), 12: 181; For the most convenient summary of these issues see Miller, Charles II, pp. 142–69; Hutton, Charles II, pp. 254–77; Ogg, England in the Reign of Charles II, pp. 332–40; Feiling, British Foreign Policy, 1660–1672, pp. 289–345. 48. Burnet is the only writer who insists on the king’s “ordering it.” Secretary Trevor attributed this relaxation to the fear of tumults amid Dissenters in London, CSPD (1670), p. 233. See De Krey’s two articles, “First Restoration Crisis,” and “Rethinking the Restoration.” Another possible explanation is the refusal of the City to lend the king £60,000, which was immediately advanced by certain Dissenters (Abbott, “English Conspiracy,” 2:

notes

349

715, n. 119). In any event, the enforcement of the laws were hindered in these years (Simon, Restoration Episcopate, chap. 5). 49. Charles II’s beloved sister was married to the duc d’Orleans. She died soon after this Treaty was negotiated, not without suspicion of poison. It was on this visit to England that her attendant, Louise-Renee de Keroualle, caught the eye of the ever-amorous king. 50. HMC Le Fleming, p. 87. 51. Evelyn, Diary, 2: 271, 21 October 1671. 52. On the only effective fiscal official before Danby, see Christopher Clay, Public Finance and Private Wealth: the Career of Sir Stephen Fox (Oxford, 1978). 53. Carte, Ormonde, 7: 103–5; Greaves, Enemies Under His Feet, pp. 204–9. 54. Anchitell Grey, Debates, 1: 307ff. 55. “The Haymarket Hectors,” Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. Poet. d. 49. 56. See Greaves, Enemies Under His Feet, pp. 209–14. Some representative and notable libels were, “Upon Blood’s Attempt to Steal the Crown,” “On the Three Dukes Killing the Beadle,” and “Upon the Beadle.” Most of these were conveniently copied into a Collection by Sir Thomas Haward, Bodleian Library, MS. Don b.8, Sir Thomas Haward’s Collections, passim. 57. ———, to Mr. Oxenbridge, n.d. 1670, Mather Papers, 8: 117. 58. His Majesties Declaration against the States Generall (London, 1672), p. 6, complains of Dutch towns “filled with abusive Pictures, and false Historical Medals and Pillars.” 59. Bodleian Library, MS Don b.8, f. 217. It was reputation, after all, which justified the attacks on Coventry and the beadle, the duel between Buckingham and Shrewsbury, and even the Third Dutch War. 60. Kitchin, L’Estrange, pp. 184–85. For a complete copy of the powers granted to L’Estrange over the years, see British Library, Additional MSS 28091, ff. 12–15. In a petition of 1671, he requested that his powers be granted for a “terme of yeares” instead of “during Pleasure,” f. 13. 61. HMC Le Fleming, p. 76. 62. Sir Thomas Haward’s Collections, Bodleian Library, MS. Don b.8, f. 210–11. 63. The pamphlet was published in London in 1670. It is printed in The Harleian Miscellany, vol. 7 (London, 1810), pp. 408–25. 64. The Cloud Opened, pp. 408, 417. 65. The Cloud Opened, p. 421. The safety and security in the patient unfolding of Fate is compared to the example of Fabius: “Here a Fabius, he might have effected by delays, what he could not by fighting, and have seemed a double restorer of this nation, whose rashness might have intitled the demolisher.” Of course, the abandonment of the Fabian policy resulted in the rout at Cannae. 66. Cloud Opened, p. 423. 67. Morrissey, “English Street Theater,” 108ff. See also, Backscheider, Spectacular Politics, Part One, “Charles II’s London as National Theater.” 68. Jose, Ideas of Restoration, p. 120. 69. Morrissey, “English Street Theater,” 109. 70. Wickham, Early English Stages, 1: 59–61. 71. While the king graced a few of the Triumphs with his royal presence, he and members of the court missed only one of the dinners at the Guildhall which followed; it was here that the drolls were performed and toasts proposed. 72. See my “The Quest for Consensus: the Lord Mayor’s Day Shows in the 1670s,” in Gerald Maclean, ed., Culture and Society in the Stuart Restoration (Cambridge, 1995): 31– 51, and Owen, Restoration Theater, chap. 9. Owen offers some important criticism of my work, but she is concerned with the pageants during the Exclusion Crisis, a time when the king and courtiers no longer attended the Shows. Popular support was being actively

350

notes

courted by both sides, and the changing tone of the Shows is a perfect indication of the changing relations between the City and Whitehall in these years. The fact that Thomas Jordan was dismissed as City Poet in favor of Elkanah Settle during the Exclusion Crisis and then restored during the Tory Reaction is evidence of the changes. 73. Thomas Jordan’s [1612?-85?] early works are indicative of his political views: they include, A Medicine for the Times, or an Antidote against Faction (London, 1641); A Cure for him that is troubled with an Ovall-pate (London, 1641); Rules to know a Royall King from a Disloyall Subject (London, 1642). 74. Jordan, London’s Royal Triumph (London, 1684), p. 9. 75. “Perhaps it was Royal interference in this folk Pageantry, or perhaps it was just the stamp given it by a new playwright but simple blunt speakers play a decreasing role in the Lord Mayor’s Pageant after 1671. The simple folk are often, in fact, relegated to drolls,” Morrissey, “English Street Theater,” 113. NB the simple folk were traditionally the figures who came closest to criticizing the government. 76. Jordan, London’s Resurrection to Joy and Triumph . . . [for] Sir George Waterman . . . of worshipful Company of Skinners . . . (London, 1671), pp. 4, 5. 77. Ibid., p. 9. On fears over fifth-column activity in these years see Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, Part 3. 78. Jordan, Resurrection, 1671, p. 17. 79. Jordan, London Triumphant, or the City in Jollity and Splendour. . . . (London, 1672). 80. Ibid., p. 10. 81. Both the Test Act, which forced the Duke to resign his offices, and his recent marriage were sources of controversy in Parliament. Editions of this Triumph are extremely rare, and I have relied on Frederick W. Fairholt, Lord Mayors’ Pageants, Part 1 (London, 1843), pp. 75ff. 82. Zwicker, Politics and Language, p. 10. 83. Jordan, The Triumph of London . . . [for] the Right Honorable and truly Noble Pattern of Prudence and Loyalty, Sir Joseph Sheldon . . . [of] the Worshipfull Company of Drapers (London, 1675), p. 11. 84. Ibid., p. 21. A reference to the legalistic squabble surrounding the case of Shirley v. Fagg in the first Session of 1675. If there were a Knave in the pack, Shaftesbury was likely the culprit. 85. Ibid., pp. 22–24. On the coffeehouses see Pincus, “Coffee Does Politicians.” 86. Jordan, London’s Triumphs . . . [for] Sir Thomas Davies Kt . . . [of the] Right Worshipful Society of Drapers. Being the Second Year Without Intermission (London, 1676), p. 7. 87. Ibid., pp. 10, 13. The use of Tamberlaine was an obvious reference to Davies’ beginnings as a farmer. Tamberlaine was born a shepherd and then rose to be Emperor. The Great Turk mentioned in line 4 was Bejazet, who after promising to use Tamberlaine as a footstool to mount his horse, was fittingly made to serve the same function. Here one finds a clear historical example which was a pattern for Davies’s rise, as well as for those who would challenge monarchy. The juxtaposition of this pageant with one featuring Fortune is an example of the influence of the Royal Theaters. 88. Jordan, London’s Triumphs, 1676, p. 14. 89. Jordan, The Triumphs of London . . . [for the] Rt Honorable and truly Noble Pattern of Prudence and Loyalty, Sir James Edwards . . . of the Worshipful Company of Grocers (London, 1678). 90. Ibid., p. 4. The last motto is taken from Ezekiel 45:9, Let it suffice you, O Princes of Israel: Remove violence and spoil and execute Justice. 91. Absalom and Achitophel, ll. 1000–1111: Why am I forc’d, like Heav’n, against my mind,

notes

351

To make Examples of another Kind? Must I at length the Sword of Justice draw? Oh curst Effects of necessary Law! How ill my Fear they by my Mercy scan, Beware the Fury of a Patient Man. Law they require, let Law then shew her Face;


By their own Arts ’tis Righteously decreed, Those dire Artificers of Death Shall bleed.

92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97.

Jordan, The Triumphs, 1678, p. 6. Ibid., pp. 6–7. Ibid., pp. 18ff. Owen, Theater in Crisis, especially chap. 9. Fairholt, Lord Mayor’s Pageants, p. 75. For example, see the “Preface” to Secret Love & Tyrannick Love.

Chapter 5: Pulpits and Sermons 1. Some notable exceptions are Helen Randall, “The Rise and Fall of a Martyrology: Sermons on Charles I,” HLQ 10, no. 2 (1947): 135–67; Godfrey Davies, “English Political Sermons, 1603–1640,” HLQ 3, no.1 (1939): 1–22. 2. Speck, “Political Propaganda,” 17. 3. G. R. Elton, “Tudor Government: The Points of Contact, 3, The Court,” TRHS 5th ser., 26 (1976): 211–28. 4. Kevin Sharpe, “Religion, Rhetoric, and Revolution in Seventeenth-Century England,” HLQ 57 no. 3 (1994) 265. 5. T. B. Macaulay, The History of England to the Death of William III, vol. 1 (London, 1967), p. 261. 6. Lori Anne Ferrell, Government by Polemic: James I, the King’s Preachers, and the Rhetoric of Conformity, 1603–1625 (Stanford, 1998), p. 11. 7. Ibid., p. 10. 8. Peter E. McCullough, Sermons at Court: Politics and Religion in Elizabethan and Jacobean Preaching (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 3, 125. 9. Ibid., p. 2. 10. Hudson, “Fast Days and Civil Religion.” 11. McCullough, Sermons at Court, pp. 54–56. For a detailed discussion of the architectural setting for court sermons, see chap. 1 of the same work. 12. Ibid., pp. 59–61. The note by Cecil is dated 17 November, and the royal injunction is from 27 December 1558. 13. Peter Heylyn, Cyprianus Anglicus, (London, 1671), p. 153. 14. Clarendon, History, 1: 35–36. 15. Hobbes, Behemoth, p. 2. 16. Newcastle’s Advice to Charles II, p. 17. Newcastle went on to recommend the policy of the Russian Emperor, who decreed that “none should preach any sermons, but what was Delivered by the Bishops, to the ministers, & printed, & [thereby] Braught a great quiett & Setlement to his kingdome. . . . [Suggests] all to preach nothing but the printed Sermons, wherein your Majestie & your People will finde great Ease & quiett.” 17. Sudbury, A Sermon Preached at the Consecration, 28 October 1660, p. 5.

352

notes

18. Hyde (Clarendon) to Gervase Holles, HMC Bath, 4: 144. For the reaction to Griffith’s sermon see supra, pp. 56–59. 19. Ferrell, Government by Polemic, p.19. By 1660 and after there was a primitive Habermasian public sphere, but sermons remained the single most effective method of bringing official views and ideology before the people. Sermons were preached to a live audience, some ordered printed by authority, some distributed through diocesan circulars, and many of these subjected to local pulpit interpretation. 20. Ibid., p. 5. For Ferrell, the via media was a “powerful propagandistic strategy aimed at silencing the moderate Puritan voice within the Church, not the extreme sectarian voices outside it,” p. 7. The same point can be made about the moderation which led to the reestablishment of the church in 1662. 21. Ibid., p. 173. 22. Thomas Pierce, England’s Season of Reformation of Life. A Sermon Preached in St. Paul’s . . . on Sunday . . . [after] the Restauration (London, 1660), pp. 16–17. 23. His Majestie’s Declaration . . . concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs (London, 1660), p. 1. 24. Ibid., pp. 9–10. 25. Ibid., p. 1. 26. Seaward, Cavalier Parliament, pp. 30–36. See also Bosher, Making the Restoration; I. M Green, The Re-Establishment of the Church of England, 1660–1663 (Oxford, 1978); Spurr, Restoration Church. 27. Thomas Pierce, A Sermon Preached at St. Margaret’s in Westminister before the House of Commons . . . 29 May 1661 . . . (London, 1661). Ordered Printed by the House of Commons. 28. Ferrell, Government by Polemic, p. 11. According to McCullough, Sermons at Court, p. 73, the Lord Chamberlain was responsible for servants above stairs, and hence was in charge of royal chaplains, who were responsible for keeping the pulpit full in the Chapel Royal.” 29. Seth Ward, Against Resistance to the Lawful Powers. A Sermon Preached before the King at Whitehall, 5 November 1661 (London, 1661), p. 1. 30. Ibid., p. 5. 31. This “was the first solemn fast and day of humiliation to deplore the sins which had so long provoked God against this afflicted church and people, ordered by Parliament to be annually celebrated to expiate the guilt of the execrable murder of the late King,” Evelyn, Diary, 3: 158, 30 January 1661. 32. Randall, “Rise and Fall of Martyrology Sermons,” p. 137. This discussion is heavily indebted to Randall’s informative article. I wish to thank Professor Lois Potter for directing me to this helpful source. 33. Ibid., p. 144. 34. Francis Turner, A Sermon Preached the 30th of January, p. 26, quoted in ibid., p. 136. 35. For a full discussion of these analogies and other tropes see Randall, “Rise and Fall of Martyrology Sermons,” pp. 138–44. 36. Nathaniel Hardy, A Sermon Preached on 30 January (London, 1661), p. 17. 37. Benjamin Laney, bishop of Peterborough, A Sermon Preached before His Majesty at Whitehall, March 9, 1662. Published by His Majesty’s Special Command (London, 1662), p. 16. 38. Ibid., p. 29. 39. Ibid., pp. 29–30. 40. Ibid., p. 31. Laney went on to characterize those who rejected the benefit of the pastoral charge as one who says, “I am blind and therefore I will not be led. I am weak and sickly, and therefore I will not be rul’d by the Physitian,” p. 32. 41. Ibid., p. 32.

notes

353

42. Ibid., p. 39. Despite being a much longer sermon than Charles liked, the force of the arguments convinced the king to have it reissued in 1668 as The Sheperd, or the Pastoral Charge and Obedience due to it. 43. While it is true that the king attempted to introduce an Indulgence or toleration in 1662, Anglican churchmen continued to preach sermons in support of uniformity. It is important that Charles pursued this policy on his own, and made no effort to offer an ideological justification for it. For an example of a sermon against indulgence, see Richard Allestrey [sic], Chaplain to His Majesty, A Sermon Preached at Hampton Court on 29th May 1662 (London, 1662). 44. By the King, A Proclamation for the Re-Printing, Publishing and Using of a Book, Intituled, God and the King (London, 1662). 45. Maurice Lee, Jr., Government By Pen: Scotland under James VI and I (Urbana, 1980). 46. Ferrell, Government by Polemic, pp. 7–8. 47. King Charles’ directions concerning preachers (London, 1662), p. 1. 48. Ibid., p. 2. 49. The details of the ejections can be found in Calamay, Farewell Sermons; Arnold. G. Mathews, ed., Calamay Revised; being a Revision of Edmund Calamay’s Account of the Ministers and Others Ejected and Silenced, 1660–62. (Oxford: 1934); Green, Reestablishment of the Church. 50. Ward to Sheldon, 20 September 1662, Bodleian Library, Tanner MSS 48, f. 45. This “wonder” cannot have been a complete surprise since plans for filling the pulpits vacated by the Act and lists of potential ministers were being discussed for months in advance. See Thomas Turner to John Barwick, Dean at Canterbury, 25 July and 18 August 1662, ibid., ff. 23 and 26v. 51. William Haywood, A Sermon Dissuading from Obloquie against Governours . . . December 7 1662, in a Solemne Audience . . . (London, 1663), p. 1. While this sermon was not published by command, it was preached before the king and printed by Robert Royston, Bookseller to his most Sacred Majesty, a fair indication of official approval. 52. Ibid. 53. Ibid., pp. 14–15. The consequences were well-known: “the plucking the Sword out of the Prince’s hand, and sheathing it in one another’s bowels. All through the mischief of virulent tongues,” p. 42. 54. In a statement evocative of Clarendon’s History, a preacher admitted that “the most of all sides (who have done amiss) have done so, not out of Malice, but mis-information and misunderstanding of things.” Richard Lee, Chaplain to the duke of Albemarle, A Sermon Preached at St. Paul’s . . . November 29, 1663 . . . (London, 1663), p. 38. 55. Benjamin Laney, bishop of Lincoln, A Sermon Preached before the King at Whitehall, 18 March 1666. Published by His Majesty’s Special Command (London, 1666), p. 27. 56. Haywood, A Sermon, 1662, p. 40. 57. Ibid., p. 35. 58. Benjamin Laney, bishop of Lincoln, A Sermon Preach’t before His Majesty at Whitehall, March 12, 1664. Published by His Majesty’s Special Command (London, 1665), p. 8–9. 59. See the references in chap. 2, n. 23 & 65. 60. “Schismatical disobedience, though but in matters of Form and Ceremony, is pursued with more care and strictness, because it destroys the very end for which power is given the Church to punish, which is, the preservation of peace and unity,” Laney, A Sermon, 1664, p. 19. 61. Robert South, Chaplain to the Lord High Chancellor, A Sermon Preached at Lambeth . . . 25 November Upon the Consecration of . . . John Dolben Lord Bishop of Rochester (Savoy, 1666), p. 10.

354

notes

62. Ibid., p. 14. 63. Ibid., p. 20. South went on to discuss the importance of Reputation, a theme later used to justify the Third Dutch War: “Reputation is Power: and consequently to Despise is to weaken. . . . He that makes his Prince despised and undervalued, blows a Trumpet against him in mens Breasts, [and] beats him out of their Affections . . . ,” ibid., p. 29. 64. For this change see Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, chap. 25. 65. De Krey, “First Restoration Crisis” and “Re-thinking the Restoration.” 66. William Lloyd, The Late Apology on behalf of the Papist (London, 1667). 67. Robert Porry to Sheldon, 15 September 1668, Bodleian Library, Tanner MSS 44, f. 37. 68. Randall, “Rise and Fall of Martyrology Sermons,” p. 146. 69. Ibid., p. 148. While I would emphasize a broader audience for such lessons than “the electorate,” the point I wish to make is substantively the same. 70. Edward Stillingfleet, A Sermon Preached before the King, January 30, 1669 . . . (London, 1669), pp. 2–3. 71. Ibid., p. 14. Not surprisingly, this straight talk was not ordered printed by the king. 72. Hackett to Sheldon, 15 February 1688, Bodleian Library, Tanner MSS 45, f. 288. Hackett was convinced that Sheldon’s work was second only to “to the holie providence of God.” 73. For Sheldon’s preparations see Bodleian Library, Tanner MSS 45, ff. 210, 278. 74. H. Henchman, bishop of London to W. Sancroft, 5 April 1669, ibid., 44, f. 101. 75. Cosin to Myles Stapleton, 4 January 1670, The Correspondence of John Cosin, 2 vols., The Surtees Society (Durham, 1872), 1: 226. 76. William Durham, A Sermon Preached before the Artillery Company . . . August 30, 1670, And at their Earnest Request Published (London, 1671), p. 17. 77. Hackett to Sheldon, 23 April 1670, Bodleian Library, Tanner MSS 44, f. 196. 78. Hackett to Sheldon, 25 September 1669, Bodleian Library, Tanner MSS 44, f. 149. 79. William Fuller, bishop of Lincoln to Sheldon, 29 August 1672, Bodleian Library, Tanner MSS 43, f. 25. 80. Margaret Mary Verney, ed., Memoirs of the Verney Family from the Restoration to the Revolution (London, 1899), p. 200, Sir Ralph Verney to his son, 12 June 1670. 81. George Morley bishop of Winchester to Sheldon, 7 April 1673, Bodleian Library, Tanner MSS 42, f. 7. 82. Richard Meggott, A Sermon Preached before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen . . . January 30 1673. Ordered Printed (London, 1674), pp. i–ii. 83. Ibid., pp. 24–25. 84. Owen, Restoration Theatre, chap. 9. 85. John Tillotson, A Sermon Lately Preached on I Corinthians 3:15. By a Reverend Divine of the Church of England (London, 1673), pp. 33–34. 86. The Religion of the Church of England, the Surest Establishment of the Royal Throne . . . (London, 1673), p. 15. 87. Ibid., p. 33. 88. John Prince, A Sermon Preached at Exon . . . [before] the Bishop of Exon (London, 1674), p. 17. 89. A Representation of the State of Christianity in England and of its Decay and Danger from Sectaries as well as Papists, p. 17. 90. Ibid., p. 22. 91. John Higham, A Looking-Glass for Loyalty: or the Subjects Duty to his Soveraign. . . . Being the substance of several Sermons preached by a person who always looked upon his Allegiance as incorporated into his Religion (London, 1675), p. 97. 92. Ibid., p. 108. 93. Ibid., p. 120.

notes

355

94. For a fuller discussion of this issue see chap. 7. 95. An example of this can be seen in the book proposal sent to Sancroft in January 1677 in the Bodleian Library, Tanner MSS 40, ff. 48–49. Seth Ward, now bishop of Sarum, was grateful to have received and “read that excellent Sermon wch you were pleased to order to be sent to me. Sr I have allwayes found myself obliged to you not only. . . [for] the Public Service wch you have done to the Church, but in that particular Interest wch you are pleased to give me in your many excellent Compositions,” Seth Ward bishop of Sarum to Symon Patrick, 22 January 1676, ibid., 42, f. 216. 96. John Fell, The Character of the last Daies. A Sermon Preached before the King. Printed By Command (Oxford, 1675), p. 22. 97. George Stradling, Chaplain in Ordinary, A Sermon Preached before the King at Whitehall, January 30, 1675 . . . (London, 1675), pp. 25–26. 98. Miles Barnes, Chaplain in Ordinary, A Sermon Preached before the King at Whitehall, October 17, 1675. Printed by His Majesty’s Special Command (London, 1675), p. 10. 99. Thomas Cartwright, Dean of Ripon, A Sermon Preached July 17, 1676 in [York, Before] . . . His Majesties Judges of Assize . . . (London, 1676), p. 34. The title page noted that the Judges demanded publication. 100. De Krey, “First Restoration Crisis.” 101. Edward Stillingfleet, Chaplain in Ordinary, A Sermon Preached before the King, February 24, 1675. Published by His Majesty’s Special Command (London, 1675), pp. 25– 26. 102. Barnes, A Sermon, October 17, 1675, p. 41. 103. William Cave, A Sermon Preached before the King at Whitehall, January 23, 1676. Printed by His Majesty’s Special Command (London, 1676), pp. 13–14. 104. Ibid., p. 14. 105. Cartwright, A Sermon at York Assizes, pp. 16–17. 106. Thomas Pittis, Chaplain in Ordinary, A Sermon Preached to the Artillery Company . . . September 11, 1677 (London, 1677), p. 9. 107. Richard Standfast, A Sermon Preached at Bristol before [Francis North] . . . at the Assize, August 7, 1675 (London, 1676), pp. 7–8. This sermon was dedicated to the bishop of Bristol. 108. Ibid., p. 10. 109. Cave, A Sermon, January 23, 1676, p. 13. 110. Scott, Restoration Crisis, makes a forceful case for Algernon Sidney as the most important opposition figure in England and on the continent. However, it is clear that contemporaries considered Shaftesbury to be the greatest threat throughout the 1670s. 111. Henry Byam, The Design of Ignorance: A Sermon Preached before His Majesty on the Isle of Scilly . . . in his Exile . . . (London, 1675), p. 36. Hidden “under the cloak and vizard of Religion. A Cloak, and a short one too. . . . A cloven Foot will be seen under it, and too much of the Devil will appear. The Cloak is Religion, but such a Cloak, such a Religion as is pernicious and destructive to Church and Monarchy.” This sermon was part of a collection from the 1650s ordered printed because of their topical significance in 1675. 112. Thomas Sprat, A Sermon Preached before the King at Whitehall, December 22, 1678. Published by His Majesty’s Special Command (London, 1678), p. 11.

Chapter 6: Propaganda in Prose 1. De Krey analyzes this debate in his “First Restoration Crisis.” For the rise of the pamphlet as a medium see Speck, “Political Propaganda,” pp. 19–24. 2. Public Record Office, PC 2/60 f.394. For more on the issue of suppression of criticism and the control of news, see below, chap. 7.

356

notes

3. Public Record Office, PC 2/60 f. 394. 4. William Hooke to Colonel Goffe, 2 August 1672, Mather Papers, 8: 146. 5. Evelyn, Diary, 2: 252; 3 Kalendarium, p. 559, 28 August 1670. This year also saw official English “complaints of offensive Dutch medals and pamphlets referring to the Medway disaster of 1667 and abusing Charles II,” K. H. D. Haley, William of Orange and the English Opposition, 1672–4 (Oxford, 1953), p. 31. 6. This Introduction can be found in William Upcott, ed., The Miscellaneous Writings of John Evelyn (London, 1825), pp. 628–90. The quotation comes from p. 675. 7. By Henry Stubbe, London, 1672. This pamphlet is printed in the Harleian Miscellany, vol. 7, (London, 1810), pp. 546–602. For another example of similar propaganda, see W. de Britaine, The Dutch Usurpation, or a brief view of the behaviour of the States General (London, 1672). In June the Gazette, numbers 688 and 690, also advertised the earl of Castlemaine’s A Short and True Account of the Material Passages in the first war between the English and Dutch since His Majesties Restauration. Some other pamphlets licensed in 1672 include The Humble Thanks for His Majesties Declaration for Liberty of Conscience; Poor Robin’s Character of a Dutchman; The Dutch Usurpation, or a view of the behavior of the Dutch towards the English King. 8. L’Estrange, Considerations and Proposals In Order to the Regulation of the Press (London, 1663), p. 33. A concern for reputation was also behind the attack on Sir John Coventry. 9. Stubbe, A Justification, pp. 547–48. 10. Ibid., pp. 573–74. 11. Ibid., p. 550. 12. Ibid., p. 593. 13. His Majesties Declaration against the States Generall (London, 1672), p. 6. 14. The efficacy of this aspect of the Declaration can be seen in a letter from the Pensionary Fagel’s papers in October 1672 quoted in Haley, William and the Opposition, p. 68: “And the [English] people have not those clamours about the war as beyond sea is thought. The fanatics, your best friends, rest quiet from the sweetness of their enjoyed toleration, and do not so much as mutter publicly.” For the Declaration see the Gazette, # 660, 15 March 1672; Frank Bate, The Declaration of Indulgence (London, 1908). 15. Haley has clearly delineated the activities of Pierre du Moulin during the Third Dutch War as well as his group of supporters in England; this group included such politicians as Williams, Ayloffe, Fanshaw, and Marvell. Haley, William and the Opposition, pp. 56–60. 16. Arlington to Will Thompson, 21 May 1672, CSPD (1672), p. 30. 17. Haley, William and the Opposition, p. 48; The English attempt to counterbalance such efforts can be seen in the Gazette, 14 June, # 690: this includes one of many examples of the riots in Holland led by people objecting to the war. So great was the hostility to the Dutch government that the English Plenipotentiaries arriving in Holland were cheered by men, women and children, proclaiming “God bless the King of England, God bless the Prince of Orange, and the Devil take the States!” 18. Quoted in Haley, William and the Opposition, p. 80, Du Moulin to an anonymous correspondent, November, 1672. Furthermore, Haley notes that in January of 1673 an English spy “had definitely asserted that the Appeal was a part of official Dutch policy, and not merely a pamphlet written by an anonymous author. . . . It is significant also that when various unauthorized pamphlets purporting to be continuations of the Appeal appeared in Holland, they were immediately and effectively suppressed by William’s order as being too extreme, but no such action was ever taken against the Appeal, which was still being distributed by Dutch agents in London in January 1674,” ibid., p. 110. 19. Haley, William and the Opposition, pp. 82ff.

notes

357

20. Anchitell Grey, Debates in the House of Commons, 10 vols. (London, 1780), 2: 8, Secretary Coventry. 21. Public Record Office, PC 2/62 fos. 139, 257, 233. 22. For the organization, collective action, City lending, and ideological campaign of dissenters, see De Krey, “First Restoration Crisis.” 23. CSPD (1672), pp. 284; 319; 323. Along with Stubbe’s Justification of the present war; this pamphlet provides an example of the close relations between the government and its polemicists. Some of Stubbe’s other proposals were entitled Address to the King’s Subjects and Enquiry into the spiritual supremacy of the kings of England. 24. CSPD (1672), p. 319. In a later letter from Francis Benson at Whitehall, Williamson was told, “Mr Stubbe has almost finished a second part of what he intends to write to vindicate the honor of H. Majesty and the kingdom. . . . To complete it, he wants some of the most scandalous medals against the English, therby to raise a due passion and resentment . . . and to show how disobliging the demeanour of Holland has been, since the English made them proud and ungrateful by restoring their liberty,” ibid., p. 323, 9 July 1672. 25. The importance of ideology and the fears of universal monarchy in the earlier Dutch Wars are the subject of Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, Parts 2–4. 26. CSPD (1672), p. 323. 27. “On the last occasion Parliament had met, in 1670–71, the House of Commons had been called upon to vote money in support of the Triple Alliance against France; it was impossible to tell what its attitude would be to the new French alliance, and still less to the Declaration of Indulgence which was planned; and of recent years it had shown itself increasingly critical of the government and reluctant to vote taxes,” Haley, William and the Opposition, p. 30. 28. Just as the tolerant policies of the Lord Chancellor and Buckingham might be considered a dangerous step towards anarchy or rebellion, the combination of persecution and indulgence was viewed as a move toward tyranny and absolutism. For articulations of the ideology opposed to the “persecuting state” see De Krey, “First Restoration Crisis,” and “Rethinking the Restoration.” 29. J. M. Wallace, Destiny His Choice: The Loyalism of Andrew Marvell (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 186–87. 30. Ibid., pp. 185–206. For more on the polemics surrounding the Declaration, see The Rehearsal Transpros’d and the Anglican attack in Samuel Parker, A Discourse of Ecclesiastical Politie, 3rd ed. (London, 1672). The king, appalled by the attack on his policy of Indulgence by Parker, had initially insisted that the Surveyor license Marvell’s response. Soon he would welcome Parker’s rejoinder. 31. There is some debate as to the actual effects of the Stop; some historians interpret it as a typically selfish move by the king, others argue that since the interest on loans was still paid throughout the Stop, the criticisms were excessive. On this see Christopher Clay, Stephen Fox, pp. 75–97. For more popular criticism of the Stop see the two satires from Lord, Poems on Affairs of State, “On the Statue Erected by Sir Robert Viner” and “A Dialogue Between the Two Horses.” These are reprinted in Appendix 2. 32. LJ, 12: 525–27. Another example of this secular nationalism can be found in the prologue to Dryden’s Amboyna: What injuries so’er upon us fall Yet still, the same religion answers all; Religion wheedled you to civil war, Drew English blood, and Dutchmen’s now would spare; Be gulled no longer, for you’ll find it true, They have no more religion, faith, than you.

358

notes

33. Grey, Debates, 2: 106ff. Secretary Henry Coventry noted his having seen “the Seale taken off,” British Library, Stowe MSS, 182, f. 13v. This took place on 8 March 1673, fiftyone weeks after the Declaration was issued. Despite the lengthy debates over the Declaration at the opening of Parliament, it was made clear to the king in the first week that his foreign policy was not the sticking point. The government newssheet gleefully reported, “after the Reading of His Majesty’s and the Lord Chancellor’s speeches . . . [the House by] an unanimous Vote . . . Resolved Nemine contradicente, that a Supply be given . . . of 18 months Assessment . . . not exceeding £70,000. per Mensem,” Gazette # 754, 9 February 1673. 34. The Grand Concern of England Explained (London, 1673), p. 25. 35. Philip Whalley to Williamson, 15 March 1673, CSPD (1673), p. 49. The Gazette, # 764, 16 March 1674 printed a Proclamation the previous day ordering all Priests out of England by April, owing to Parliament’s fears of the growth of popery. 36. Haley, William and the Opposition, p. 97. 37. England’s Appeal, quoted in Haley, William and the Opposition, p. 80. 38. Robert Yard to Williamson, 23 May 1673, W. D. Christie, ed., Letters to Sir Joseph Williamson, 2 vols., Camden Society, (1874), 1: 4; Henry Ball to Williamson, 23 May 1673, ibid., p. 6. 39. HMC Le Fleming, p. 90. Besides the duke of York’s close association with his Jesuit confessor, he had refused in both 1671 and 1672 to take the sacrament with his brother. 40. CSPD (1673), pp. 377–78. 41. Robert Southwell to Williamson, 20 June 1673, Letters to Williamson, 1: 55 (emphasis added). 42. Henry Ball to Williamson, 1 September 1673, ibid., 2: 1. While Prince Rupert engaged de Ruyter and Tromp, the French Admiral refused to acknowledge the signal to engage. D’Estrees pleaded ignorance of the meaning of the “blue flagg,” but Rupert complained bitterly that “there was no instruction playner to be understood or more necessary amongst the general instructions for fighting which he had layd before him; and besides it wanted neither signal nor instruction to tell him what he should then have done; the case was so plaine to every man’s eye in the whole fleet,” CSPD (1673), p. 521. Worse still, a French Captain, M. Martell, sailed in to assist the English and sent a relation of the battle to Rupert denouncing the actions of the French admiral, ibid., pp. 529–30, A Relation of the French Squadron, sent to P. Rupert by Monsr. Martell. 43. Robert Yard to Williamson, 1 September 1673, Public Record Office, SP 29/337 f. 3. 44. Henry Ball to Williamson, Letters to Williamson, 2: 165. 45. Newsletter for 23 September 1673, HMC Le Fleming, p. 104. Apparently the Princess was rushed over in less than a month in order to “solemnize” the marriage before Parliament could raise too many objections. 46. Henry Ball to Williamson, 9 June 1673, Letters to Williamson, 2: 28; and the same to the same, 26 June 1673, 2: 67, The pamphlet licensed by Samuel Parker insinuated Baxter was involved in the murder or Anabaptists. 47. CJ 9; Abbott, “The Long Parliament of Charles II,” AHR 21 (1906): 262. 48. Henry Ball to Williamson, 11 July 1673, Letters to Williamson, 2: 67. 49. British Library, Additional MSS 28042, f. 15. A number of Danby’s papers have been printed in Browning, Danby 2: 62–80. 50. CSPD (1673), p. 36. 51. Henry Ball to Williamson, 24 June 1673, Letters to Williamson, 1: 61. Ormonde was, of course, an Irishman. 52. Parliamentary Diary of Sir Edward Dering, p. 150, 20 October 1673. Colonel Birch seconded the motion with the observation that “from the first intention of the Spanish Match, to this day, all our troubles had their rise from these popish alliances.”

notes

359

53. Haley, William and the Opposition, p. 128. The letter sent by the States General . . . to His Majesty together with His Majesty’s Answer to said letter. . . . (London, 1673). 54. The importance of popular opinion and the fear of universal monarchy on English diplomacy is the subject of Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, especially chaps. 4, 18– 19, 22–23. 55. Henry Ball to Williamson, 1 September 1673, Letters to Williamson, 2: 1. John Monson complained in the Commons that “the last fight was as if the English and Dutch had been Gladiators for the French spectators!” Grey, Debates, 2: 199. 56. Grey, Debates, 2: 204. 57. Haley, William and the Opposition, p. 59. When the government requested Supply, Russell complained that “the business today is money . . . let us consider what we give this money for, and consider what we give is destructive to the nation and the Protestant religion—The French King calls this war a ‘Catholic War’,” Grey, Debates, 2: 198. 58. Grey, Debates, 2: 213; CJ, 9: 285. 59. On the issue of public opinion see Sharp, “Popular Political Opinion in England 1660–1685,” 19. 60. Henry Coventry wrote to Leoline Jenkins that the “Solemnity” of the Gunpowder treason was never kept more universally in the City than this last, bonfires as large and frequent as at the burning of the Rump,” British Library, Additional MSS 25122, f. 165. 61. The Session began with an attack upon the ministers who had advised the alliance with France and the exclusion of Protestants from the Council. The only minister not included in the assault was Shaftesbury, and he was to be dismissed within a week of the prorogation [9 November] because of his management of the House of Lords on 20 October. 62. Robert Wiseman to Williamson, 17 November 1673, Letters to Williamson, 2: 78. 63. British Library, Additional MSS 28042, f. 17. 64. Haley, William and the Opposition, p. 187. 65. John Richards to Williamson, 24 November 1673, Letters to Williamson, 2: 85. 66. Henry Coventry to Leoline Jenkins, British Library, Additional MSS 25122, f. 177. 67. Haley, William and the Opposition, p. 159. 68. Colonel Roger Whitley [MP] to Williamson, 22 December 1673, Letters to Williamson, 2: 94. 69. LJ, 12: 600 ff; CJ, 9: 285–90. 70. Henry Coventry to the earl of Essex, 27 December 1673, British Library, Additional MSS. 25122, f. 189. 71. This letter to Du Moulin is quoted in Haley, William and the Opposition, pp. 166– 67. The second pamphlet referred to is the Relation of the most material matters handled in Parliament, relating to religion, property, and the liberty of the subject (1673). 72. Gilbert Talbot to Williamson, 28 February, 1674, Letters to Williamson, 2: 156–57. 73. Lord Conway to the Earl of Essex, 28 February and 31 March 1674, Osmund Airy, ed., The Essex Papers, 2 vols., Camden Society (1890), 1:181, 199. The odd grammar results from the use of code numbers which correspond to words and names. 74. Thomas Durham to Williamson, 5 December 1673, CSPD (1673–75), p. 44. 75. Haley, William and the Opposition, p. 193. Williamson was promoted to Secretary when Arlington was made Lord Chamberlain. 76. See supra, note 47. 77. Memorandum to the King, British Library, Additional MSS 28042, f. 17. Danby was aware of the need to make these changes as public and as apparent as possible. 78. 1673 saw another Proclamation against printing unlicensed books, and a new Committee established to resolve the problem “of scandalous pamphlets, Libells and suppressing Printing Presses,” Public Record Office, PC 2/64 fos. 43, 77, 87.

360

notes

79. British Library, Stowe MSS 207, f. 98; Miller, Charles II, p. 241; Harris, Politics Under the Starts, pp.70–71; Swatland, House of Lords, pp. 242–44. 80. Public Record Office, PC 2/64 fos. 132, 229, 193, 188. 81. 1675 saw another Declaration for “Suppressing Popery and Conventicles,” Public Record Office, PC 2/64 fos. 372, 475. 82. Charles wrote in August to the Stationers from Hampton Court ordering Evelyn’s Navigation and Commerce suppressed because it was now “derogatory to the amity and good understanding between us and some of our allies,” The King to the Master & Wardens of the Stationers Company, 12 August 1674, CSPD (1673–75), p. 332. 83. Public Record Office, PC 2/64 f. 193. 84. Frank, Marchamont Nedham, p. 153–61. 85. Thomas Turner to the Earl of Arlington, 2 April 1674, CSPD (1673–75), p. 220. 86. Ibid. 87. Danby to Williamson, 31 October 1674, CSPD (1673–75), p. 390. Williamson had replaced the earl of Arlington as Secretary of State in September. 88. The King’s Paper to the Bishops, (n.d. [January ?], 1675), CSPD (1673–75), p. 548. 89. The King’s Paper to the Bishops, CSPD (1673–75), p. 549. On Danby’s desire for a alliance with Cavaliers and Anglicans, see Harris, Politics Under the Starts, p. 71. Harris rejects the notion of Danby organizing a court party because his policies often thwarted the king’s wishes. I would argue that Danby pursued policies which were necessary to restore the king’s finances and to exercise power. Charles did have the power to dismiss his Lord Treasurer at any time. 90. Ibid., The Bishops’ advice about Roman Catholics, 26[?] January 1675. Of course, the chapels of the queen and foreign ministers were excepted from this. The signatories of the letter were the Archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops of Durham, Winchester, Salisbury, Peterborough, Rochester, Chester, and Chichester. For a detailed analysis of the activities of the episcopacy, see Simon, Restoration Episcopate, pp. 59ff. The king’s orders were published in the Gazette, # 866, 6 March, and # 894, 6 July. 91. The Treaty Marine was signed on 5 December. Throughout the spring and summer, the Gazette was filled with comments and expectations concerning this agreement, see numbers 874–944, April–October 1675. 92. Coventry to the Attorney General, CSPD (1675–76), p. 122; Gazette, # 892; Proclamation, 17 May 1675. 93. Gazette, numbers 983, 991, 998, 1046. Some further examples include, Burnt Child Dreads the Fire, or the Examination of the Merits of Papists, # 998; Mystery of iniquity unfolded, or, the false Apostles and the Authors of Popery compared in their secular Designe and Means of accomplishing it, by corrupting the Christian Religion under Pretence of promoting it, by W. Kentilby # 1011; History of Popish Transubstantiations, by John, late B. of Durham, # 1046. The advertising of books is relatively scarce in the Gazette, and there is certainly a marked increase in this practice in 1675–77. 94. Robert Brady to Williamson, 5 April 1675, CSPD (1675–76), p. 53 (emphasis added). On Robert Brady, see J. G. A. Pocock, “Robert Brady, 1627–1700. A Cambridge Historian of the Restoration,” CHJ 10 (1951). Brady’s work did not appear until the 1680s, but it did yeoman’s service in the attack upon the charters under Charles and James. 95. Williamson’s obsession with dissent and sedition is evident throughout his papers. See Public Record Office, SP 29/16; SP/29/231; SP 29/235; SP 29/271; SP 44/17 SP 29/87. 96. A dispute involving an MP was appealed to the Lords; the Commons felt a Member called to answer in the Lords was a breach of privilege. The Lords objected in kind. The issue was reduced to farce when the Sergeant of the Commons was sent to arrest lawyers pleading in the Lords; the Black Rod accordingly arrested the Sergeant. Eventually Charles prorogued the warring Houses. The consequent demise of the Test Bill was one reason Shaftesbury was accused of directing the entire struggle.

notes

361

97. For a convenient summary of parliamentary events see the newsletters for 16, 23, 26, 30 April; 10, 17, 21 May, and 7 June. Each of these is printed in The Bulstrode Papers (Private Collection, 1897), in the British Library; the newsletters sent to Ormonde in the Bodleian Library, Carte MSS 24–36, 46–48, or Thomas St. Serge’s Newsletters in the Library of Congress, 18124. An attempt to impeach Danby had been defeated after the Committee stages, Grey, Debates, 3: 28–116; Robert Ball to Francis Parry, 28 April 1675, British Library, Additional MSS 41568. 98. British Library, Bulstrode Papers, pp. 283–86. 99. Letter to a Person of Quality. . . . (London, 1675), p. 13. This pamphlet is often ascribed to Shaftesbury, but no conclusive proof of his authorship exists. 100. The Character of an Honest & Worthy Parliament-Man (London, n.d. 1675?), p. 3. This pamphlet bears no date of publication, but in light of the so-called “Bishop’s Bill” of 1675 and the controversy over non-resistance, I have treated it as a product of that year. 101. Ibid. 102. Ibid., p. 7. 103. The Character of a Fanatick. By a Person of Quality (London, 1675). Printed in the Harleian Miscellany, 8: 80–81. A similar pamphlet is John Warly, The Natural Fanatick, or Reason consider’d in its Extravagancy in Religion . . . (London, 1675); advertised in the Gazette, # 1084, 24 March 1675/6. 104. Character of a Fanatick, p. 80. 105. Ibid., pp. 80–81. 106. Memorandum from the King at Hampton Court, 14 July 1675, CSPD (1675–76), p. 211. 107. Newsletter for 23 July 1675, British Library, Bulstrode Papers, p. 306. Any time Charles refused something to the duchess of Portsmouth, it was deemed newsworthy. 108. Lord, Poems on Affairs of State, 1: 266, has speculated that shoddy workmanship had required the statue to be shrouded for an extended period of time while improvements were made. It seems that the turban on “Cromwell’s” head had been hard to disguise. 109. Quoted in ibid., p. 266. 110. Examples of this can be found in ibid., pp. 26–71. The brass statue of Charles I by le Sueur (cast in 1633) still remains near Trafalgar Square. 111. On the Statue Erected by Sir Robert Viner (London, 1676). 112. The Statue at Charing Cross (London, 1676). 113. For the three satires on the statues, see Appendix 2. Lord has attributed these two satires to Marvell in his edition of Poems on Affairs of State. The basis for his argument is their presence in the Bodleian Library’s Marvell Manuscript (MS. Eng. Poet. d. 49). John Wallace has taken issue with these poems being included in Marvell’s oeuvre, but this point is unimportant to the aims of this work. For the attributions controversy see, Wallace, Destiny His Choice, pp. 146–57. 114. Newsletter, 10 May 1675, British Library, Bulstrode Papers, p. 291; newsletter to Francis Radcliffe 24[?] November 1675, CSPD (1675–76), pp. 413–14. 115. For a fuller discussion on the closing of the coffeehouses and the control of information, see Pincus, “Coffee Does Politicians,” and chap. 7 below. 116. Letter from a Person of Quality to a Friend in the Country, (London, 1675), p. 1. 117. Gazette, numbers 1007–1013, June and July 1675. For example see Dryden’s Tyrannick Love and The Indian Emperor. 118. For Aureng-Zebe see supra, pp. 114 –18. The advertisement appears in the Gazette, # 1070, along with Shadwell’s Libertine. Two weeks later the Gazette advertised Animadversions upon a late Pamphlet, Intitled the Naked Truth. The pamphlet under attack was published (anonymously) by the bishop of Hereford and was an indirect ambuscade against the Test of 1675. It advocated a comprehensive religious settlement which included all Protestants. The Naked Truth (London, 1675) was instantly assaulted in a sermon to the

362

notes

king by the bishop of Ely, Evelyn, Diary, 2: 417. Such a direct riposte by the government was saved for the most damaging pamphlets of its opponents. We have seen it used against the Dutch in 1673 in The King’s Answer, later in the Paquet of Advices, and we will see it once again in response to Marvell’s Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government in 1677. 119. The Earl of Shaftesbury’s Speech in the Lords: 20 November 1675 (London, 1675). Printed in the Somers Tracts, 8, pp. 43–49. This speech was given in the session following the bid for Danby’s Test Bill, but this fall Session featured a return to the divisions over the parliamentary privileges of the two Houses. Many felt that Shaftesbury wished to use these squabbles to force a dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament. Note the similarity of these arguments to those expressed in the Letter to a Person of Quality from a Friend in the Country, p. 32. 120. Recent debates about the origins of a Whig party have fixed 1675 as a possible date. See Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics, pp. 141, 175; Harris, Politics Under the Starts, p. 63; Swatland, House of Lords, p. 216, 231–35. 121. This was aided by the unexpected, but welcome, rise in customs revenue and Danby’s fifteen-month suspension of “sallaryes, Board Wages, &c,” Public Record Office, PC 2/65 fos. 111–12. 122. Parliamentary Diary of Sir Edward Dering, pp. 128–29, 22 February 1673.

Chapter 7: Controlling the Printed Word 1. Miller, “Public Opinion,” 366. 2. For this satire, which showed wit enough to prove amusing to Charles, see (Andrew Marvell?), “A Pretended Libellous Speech prepared for Charles II in February 1674/5 for the Opening of Parliament,” Bodleian Library, MS Don. b. 8, fos. 499–500. 3. Stubbe, Justification of the Present War, pp. 551–52. Note how carefully Stubbe’s “jealousy of court designs” lists the issues which Du Moulin had advised the Dutch to raise in an attempt to foster English opposition. 4. Ibid., p. 552. 5. Coffeehouses and their role in the emergence of a Habermasian public sphere is the subject of Pincus, “Coffee Does Politicians.” 6. The Licensing Act granted these officials wide-ranging powers to control printed materials. Oxford was allowed to publish without prior consent and the church to license materials relating to religion: in this way both The Naked Truth and Paradise Lost were able to circumvent the restrictions. 7. Frank, Marchamont Nedham, pp. 119–27. “Several reasons combined to bring Nedham into disgrace with the Rump in 1659. The ostensible cause was his disreputable private life, but the secret fear that his powerful and venal pen might be sold to the enemies of the Commonwealth had the greatest weight,” J. B. Williams, “Newsbooks and Letters of News at the Restoration”, EHR 32 (1908): 253. This discussion of “news” is based primarily on Williams, “Newsbooks,” Miller, “Public Opinion,” Hutton, Restoration, pp. 155–57, Muddiman, King’s Journalist, pp. 99–187; Kitchin, L’Estrange, pp. 32–125; J. Walker, “The Censorship of the Press During the Reign of Charles II,” History, n.s. vols. 35–36 (1950), and Weber, Paper Bullets, pp. 151–67. 8. Williams, “Newsbooks,” p. 254. Some other transitory products of 1659 included Mercurius Politicus; Mercurius Democritus, or, the Smoaking Nocturnal; Mercurius Democritus: A Perfect Nocturnal; Mercurius Pragmaticus; The Weekly Account; Mercurius Democritus in Querpo [in the nude]. The topic of news and newsbooks is ably summarized in Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, pp. 276–80. 9. Muddiman, King’s Journalist, pp. 198–202; Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, pp. 276–82.

notes

363

10. A complete set of newsletters is in the Library of Congress, 18124; details of Oldenburg’s efforts can be traced in A. Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall, eds., The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, (Madison, 1966–67), vols. 2–3. 11. The Gazette was widely read until the Fire of London, Public Record Office, SP 29/134 f. 117. 12. Quoted in Williams, “Newsbooks,” pp. 255–56. The restored government’s obsession with controlling news and printing is evident from the moment of the king’s arrival in London, Public Record Office, PC 2/54 f. 33v. A Proclamation about the dangers of Milton’s work was issued on 7 June 1660, Public Record Office, PC 2/54 f. 46r-v. 13. The newsbooks of each side appeared on Mondays and Thursdays; the Intelligencer on Monday, the Mercurius on Thursdays. 14. Williams, “Newsbooks,” pp. 258–59; J. G. Muddiman, King’s Journalist, p. 111. Williams argues that Muddiman’s authorship of the Remonstrance and Address of the Army was responsible for the king’s eventual recognition of his monopoly on newsbooks. At this time the Privy Council ordered that all orders and books of the old government be seized, Public Record Office, PC 2/55 f. 418. 15. Williams, “Newsbooks,” pp. 130–31. In January 1661 the Parliamentary Intelligencer was changed to the Kingdome’s Intelligencer. In that year Muddiman’s book was also published in French translation as the Nouvelles Ordinaires de Londres, and distributed in Holland and France. 16. Weber, Paper Bullets, chap. 4. 17. Muddiman, King’s Journalist, pp. 123–30; Williams, “Newsbooks,” pp. 260–63; Kitchin, L’Estrange, pp. 74–102. 18. Among the more popular “dying speeches” published was that of the regicide and Fifth Monarchy Man, Thomas Harrison, who promised to return in three days time at the right hand of God; Pepys noted that “His wife do now expect him,” Diary, 1: 67, 17 October 1660. 19. Weber, Paper Bullets, p. 153. 20. Public Record Office, PC/2/56, f. 225. 21. The Momento to all who love the Memory of King Charles the Martyr was printed in 1662; the Minute can be read in the CSPD (1663–64), p. 240, 15 August 1663; this was also the month in which the Considerations and Proposals was published. 22. Roger L’Estrange, Considerations and Proposal in Order to the Regulation of the Press (London, 1663); Weber, Paper Bullets, p. 153. 23. The Confederates were the group of seditious printers who had run afoul of every government since 1649 by insisting on the right to publish whatever they pleased. 24. Kitchin, L’Estrange, pp. 141–49; Muddiman, King’s Journalist, pp. 159–63. It may well have been L’Estrange’s pathetic coverage of the war—and the duke of York’s naval victories—which finally turned the Secretary against him. 25. Kitchin, L’Estrange, p. 149; Muddiman, King’s Journalist, pp. 173–79. L’Estrange’s monopoly on printed news did not apply to Oxford, where the University Press had privileges outside the Surveyor’s control. It was soon apparent that the public longed for news, not simply running accounts of the iniquities of dissenters and seditious printers. L’Estrange’s continual browbeating of dissenters was considered divisive by some; when Pepys saw the new Gazette, he was pleased that it was “pretty full of newes and no folly in it,” Diary, 3: 117, 22 November 1665. 26. Muddiman, King’s Journalist, p. 179. L’Estrange was forced to alter the look of his newsbook to imitate the Gazette, but its marked inferiority and the lack of an accompanying newsletter condemned it to the dustbin of history. 27. Original letter quoted in ibid., p. 179. See also Downing’s comments to Williamson, Public Record Office, SP 29/137 f. 99. 28. HMC Ormonde, n. s., 3: 351–52. As a result of the Gazette, pamphlets of news

364

notes

disappeared and the novel term “news-paper” replaced the newsbook. For L’Estrange’s demise see Kitchin, L’Estrange, pp. 148–57 and Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, p. 278. 29. J. H. to Thomas Le Gros, 6 June 1666, HMC Tenth Report, Part 4, p. 449. 30. Every printing house in the City was destroyed in the Great Fire, as well as the Letter Office. The Gazette returned after one week, being printed in the Savoy churchyard amid the pestiferous stench of rotting plague victims. For Williamson’s attempt to ingratiate himself with Muddiman’s subscribers, see Appendix 4. 31. Parliamentary Intelligencer, # 1, 31 August 1663. 32. “L’Estrange’s Declaration of taking up the Newsbook,” # 1 of the Intelligencer, 31 August 1663. Each of the Restoration newsbooks discussed can be found in its entirety in the Burney Collection in the British Library. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid. 35. This period of L’Estrange’s career is discussed in chap. 3. 36. Newsletter, 31 December 1667, British Library, Additional MSS 36916, f. 50; newsletter, 18 November, 1668, ibid., f. 119, 37. For L’Estrange’s brooding and neglect see Kitchin, L’Estrange, pp. 164–74; for demands that he return to work, Public Record Office, PC 2/60 f. 95. 38. Newsletter, 15 February 1668, British Library, Additional MSS 36916, f. 77. The actions of courtiers were notorious: Buckingham had just killed the earl of Shrewsbury in a duel—reportedly while the countess (disguised as a page) held the duke’s horse; soon Rochester would commit another of the murders attributed to him, and Monmouth would lead the assault on Coventry. 39. Newsletters, 6 June and 3 December 1668, ibid., fos. 103, 120, Earlier, “one of the L. Chamberlain’s . . . footmen was committed to prison being discovered in the night to have attempted to bugger one of the Cowes that the Queen uses to milke herself, and from which she used to have the butter and creame for her own eating,” f. 101, 23 May 1668. 40. See supra, chap. 3. 41. CSPD (1667–68), p. 282, 290. 42. L’Estrange to Arlington, 22 April 1668, Public Record Office, SP 29/238 f. 179. 43. HMC 9th Report, Part 2, p. 69; HMC 7th Report, p. 512. CSPD (1670), p. 451. The attempt to do without the Surveyor from 1668–70 was ended by the rash of sedition associated with the Conventicle Act of 1670. 44. Newsletter, 21 March 1671, HMC Le Fleming, p. 76. The newsletters in this Calendar are from Williamson’s office. Other references to newsletters are those written by Muddiman, who wrote of the same pamphlet and ended with Palmer “in the pillory in all the accustomed places about London . . . [and he is] to suffer all the other punishments for the offenses of that nature,” 17 March 1671, British Library,Bulstrode Papers, p. 177. 45. Weber, Paper Bullets, p. 9. 46. Newsletter, 20 February 1672, British Library, Bulstrode Papers, pp. 221–22; HMC Le Fleming, p. 88. 47. A Letter to Mr S. a Romish Priest concerning the Impossibility of the Publick Establishment of Poppery [sic] in England, dated 19 May 1672, British Library, Stowe MSS 182, State Papers 1618–79, fos. 99v–107v. 48. For the increasingly common tactic of equating the 1640s and the 1670s, see British Library, Additional MSS 28092, fos. 49–51 and Appendix 5. 49. Secretary Arlington to William Thompson, An Order to Officers of the Ports, 21 May 1672, CSPD (1672), p. 30. 50. Warrant from Secretary Arlington to Roger L’Estrange Surveyor of the Presses, 30 September 1672, CSPD (1672), p. 673. 51. Thomas Blood to [?], attached to a Warrant to search at the Saracen’s Head, Aldgate,

notes

365

and “there to watch the arrival of carriages, coaches, and wagons from towns on the Harwich Road and search for and seize all seditious books &c. Printed in Holland and brought to England,” 21 February 1673, CSPD (1672–73), p. 595. Proclamation against the spreading of false news, 12 June 1672. 52. L’Estrange, Considerations and Proposals, p. 1. 53. A Letter to Mr S. a Romish Priest, British Library, Stowe MSS 182, f. 103v. 54. Ibid. 55. Sir Thomas Player to Williamson, 29 July 1673, Letters to Williamson, 1: 133. 56. Sir Thomas Player to Williamson, 10 November 1673, Letters to Williamson, 2: 68. 57. A Proclamation to Restrain the Spreading of False News, and Licentious Talking of Matters of State and Government, 2 May 1674. “Du Moulin would have had a formidable adversary to contend with if Sir Joseph Williamson had not left England in May 1673 as English Ambassador to the Peace Congress. . . . In his absence the counter-espionage of the English government was decidedly inferior, but after his return in the spring of 1674 he soon broke up the remainder of Du Moulin’s organization,” Haley, William and the Opposition, p. 66. 58. Williamson to M. de Wicquefort in Holland, 26 May 1674, CSPD (1673–75), p. 264; for the warrants issued see ibid., pp. 68, 321, 347, 571. 59. Robert Yard to Williamson, Letters to Williamson, 2: 73–74. Yard was the “editor” and writer of the Gazette. 60. Reflections Upon the League with France, the Danger of Popery and Arbitrary Power &c. In a Letter written by an Ignoto to an Ignoto before the late peace concluded with Holland, 7 December 1673, British Library, Egerton MSS 3382, fos. 61–105. 61. Reflections Upon the League, 1673, ibid., fos. 62, 78v, 79. 62. A Proclamation to Restrain the Spreading of False News, and Licentious Talking of Matters of State and Government, 2 May 1674. 63. Reflections Upon the League, 1673, British Library, Egerton MSS 3382, f. 104. 64. Reflections Upon the League, 1673, ibid., f. 103. The criticism of Muddiman’s written news in this pamphlet is an example of the rivalries between various newsletters. 65. Before the meeting of Parliament, L’Estrange was rattling his saber against the Stationers again. At the end of March, he forced them to compile a list of printing houses in the City for the purposes of improved control, 29 March 1675, CSPD (1675–76), p. 43. 66. T. B. to ———, 2 May 1675, CSPD (1675–76), p. 96 67. Richard Watts to Secretary Williamson, 17 April 1675, CSPD, (1675–76), p. 73. 68. 27 October, CSPD (1675–76), p. 405; 5 November, idem. p. 389; 25 November, ibid., pp. 413–14. The appearance of A Letter to a Person of Quality on 5 November was typical of the elan demonstrated by both sides in the manipulation of popular culture. 69. Richard Bower [in Yarmouth] to Williamson, 22 December 1675, CSPD (1675–76), p. 456. 70. British Library, Additional MSS 28047, f. 17; Swatland, House of Lords, p. 247. 71. Newsletter, 9 November, British Library, Bulstrode Papers, p. 322. 72. CSPD (1675–76), p. 393; LJ, 13: 13–34, 60. Warrant to L’Estrange or his messengers, 8 November 1675; newsletter, 9 November, British Library, Bulstrode Papers, p. 322. 73. Public Record Office, PC 2/65 fos. 85–86. 74. Newsletter for 12 November 1675, British Library, Bulstrode Papers, p. 323. 75. [Marchamont Nedham?], A Pacquet of Advices and Animadversions (London, 1676), p. 2. An official response to the Letter to a Person of Quality, sponsored by Danby, British Library, Additional MSS 28047, f. 119. 76. Public Record Office, PC 2/65 f. 79; Proclamation 29 December 1675; CSPD (1675–76), p. 465; Gazette, # 1055, 31 December 1675. 77. A Proclamation announced the “temporary” re-opening of the coffeehouses, 8 Janu-

366

notes

ary 1676. For the debate in Council over the legality of the revocation of licenses, see Public Record Office, PC 2/65 f. 87; CSPD (1675–76), p. 497, 7 & 8 January; Gazette, # 1059; 13 January 1676, Pincus, “Coffee Does Politicians,” 827. 78. “A SATYR AGAINST COFFEE,” (London, 1674). First printed in 1674, this poem reappeared in 1676; see Pincus, “Coffee Does Politicians,” 822–33. 79. Notes by Williamson of information from Lord O’Brien on Shaftesbury’s actions, 17 and 18 February 1676, CSPD (1675–76), pp. 562–63; idem., pp. 559–60. 80. A Pacquet of Advices and Animadversions, pp. 6–7. 81. Examples from 19 March, 21 April, 10 May, 9 and 31 July, 9 and 11 August, and 20 December can be found in CSPD (1676–77). There was also renewed efforts demanded in the Privy Council, see Public Record Office, PC 2/65 fos. 79, 300, 336, 385, 394, 501; Public Record Office, PC 2/66 f. 54 is an account of Henry Burgess, a printer arrested by L’Estrange, and converted into a spy to discover others. This led to an order that Starkey’s books were “to be burnt to ashes.” 82. Public Record Office, PC 2/65 f. 227. In the previous December a reward of £50 was offered for information leading to the discovery of any seditious libel, idem. fos. 85–86. For an Order to the Stationers to be more careful about checking for licenses, see Public Record Office, PC 2/66 f. 163. 83. A Pacquet of Advices and Animadversions, p. 7. 84. Charles Hatton to his brother, 29 June 1676, Hatton Correspondence, p. 133. Mr Jenks, his Case (London 1676). An account of the Privy Council’s actions and an abstract of this speech are in CSPD (1676–77), pp. 253–56; an Order in Council to arrest Jenks for his “presumptuous and arrogant manner” before the Council was sent to the Keeper of the Gatehouse in June 1676, Public Record Office, PC 2/65 f. 269. 85. Public Record Office, SP 29/391 f. 96; Public Record Office, PC 2/65 fos. 301v, 336, 385, 394; PC 2/66 f. 163; Kitchin, L’Estrange, pp. 213ff. 86. Kitchin, L’Estrange, p. 208. The three “prorogation pamphlets” were Some Considerations upon the Question whether the Parliament is dissolved by its Prorogation for fifteen months; The Grand Question Concerning the Prorogation of Parliament; and The Long Parliament Dissolved. All of these appeared near the [modern] New Year and are commonly dated 1676, old style. They were clearly intended to wreck the February 1676/7 meeting of Parliament. 87. Public Record Office, PC 2/66 f. 232. 88. Public Record Office, PC 2/66 f. 247; LJ, 13: 54; Warrant to search Alfred’s coffeehouse, 1 March; Report from the Lords libel committee; Warrant to search Cooper’s Hall “for unlicensed books and pamphlets, and seditious and dangerous papers, and to break open any study, closet, or desk where they may be suspected to be kept,” CSPD (1677–78), pp. 2–22. 89. Public Record Office, PC 2/66 fos. 234v, 238, 248. 90. Three of the Peers made their submission and were released before the end of the session; Shaftesbury refused and remained in the Tower for over a year. For examples of the warrants issued to the Surveyor on January, 1, 3 and 4 March, 11, 18 and 31 May, 22 June, 3 September; 19 and 25 October, see CSPD (1676–77), pp. 445–517. 91. G. Copley to Danby, 1677, British Library, Additional MSS 28053, f. 106. The many Bills against petty chapmen, hawkers, and so on never reached the Commons, but the harsh attitude to these dealers of sedition is apparent in Public Record Office, PC 2/60 f. 394. 92. T. Barnes to ——— (unnamed spy), 3 July 1677, CSPD (1677–78), p. 226; Frank, Marchamont Nedham, pp. 155–57. 93. British Library, Additional MSS 28053, f. 114. This letter is obviously written before the Popish Plot, and is signed by the L. Chief Justice—Scroggs was appointed to this office at the end of May 1677.

notes

367

94. Ibid. 95. A Pacquet of Advices and Animadversions, p. 29. 96. Scroggs to Danby, n.d., British Library, Additional MSS 28053, f. 114. 97. Roger L’Estrange, The Growth of Knavery (London, 1678), p. 2. This pamphlet was written before 25 March, so the author’s many references to ’77 are sometimes misleading. 98. Ibid., p. 1. 99. Ibid., p. 8. 100. Ibid., p. 4. 101. Ibid., p. 18. 102. Ibid., p. 23. 103. Ibid., p. 13. The reference to physical laws was a neat scoring point for the Surveyor. The apposition of mercury and poison was also very clever: mercuries being a common appellation for newspapers. 104. In September 1677 Muddiman was again summoned before the Council to answer for statements in his newsletter to which the king objected. John Rushworth wrote that “Muddiman is in Custody for writing soe confidently that the Spanyard intends warre agt us yt the merchants will not credit the contrary.” In both these cases Muddiman was exonerated by his own Journal, which clearly showed that the offending newsletters were bowdlerized versions of his own emanating from Williamson’s Office, British Library, Additional MSS 32095, f. 36 and British Library, Additional MSS 25124, f. 94. The Journal which Muddiman used to clear himself is now part of the Bath MSS at Longleat House, and forms the only complete collection of his newsletters.

Chapter 8: The Speeches from the Throne 1. Abbott, “Long Parliament of Charles II,” 22; Greaves, Deliver Us From Evil; Hutton, Restoration, pp. 126–80. 2. “[T]hose who had not gone the full length of the Revolution, nor were yet reconciled to the full measure of the Restoration, the so-called Presbyterians, might, by their recognized strength in the boroughs, return to the new parliament, as they had to the old, a large representation unfavorable to unlimited monarchy and still more to unlimited episcopacy. But the court was not alone in its forebodings. The actions and especially the threats of many returned cavaliers augured ill for their old opponents in the probable event of an Anglican and royalist success,” Abbott, “Long Parliament of Charles II,” 22; see also Halliday, Dismembering the Body, pp. 73–85. 3. See chap. 2, Abbott, “Long Parliament of Charles II,” 24–25; Parliamentary History, 4: 166–77; Henning, House of Commons, 1660–89, pp. 1–82. The elections for this Parliament were scheduled so that the Coronation pageants would take place during the polling; already the government was giving proof of its ability to use public displays for political purposes. Henning, House of Commons, p. 32, estimates that in 1662 there were 142 MPs who had borne arms for the king; of these, sixteen were supported by sons. 4. Charles made it known that “whosoever I find to be my Lady Castlemaine’s enemy . . . I do promise on my word to be his enemy as long as I live,” Ogg, England in the Reign of Charles II, p. 187. 5. His Majesties Gracious Speech to Lords and Commons together with the Lord Chancellors, at the Opening of Parliament, on 8 May, 1661 (London, 1661), p. 15. 6. Ibid., pp. 17–18. 7. In addition to the initial victim—The Solemn League and Covenant—which, in the words of Parliament, “had caused so much mischief,” a fiery end was prescribed for the documents “erecting the high court of justice to try Charles I, for subscribing to the

368

notes

engagement against the king and the house of lords, for renouncing the title of Charles Stuart, for establishing a Commonwealth, and for the security of the Protector’s person.” 8. The Speech of Sr Edward Turnor . . . to the King . . . 30 July 1661, at the Adjournment of the Parliament, (London, 1661), p. 6. 9. Statutes of the Realm, vol. 4, 13 Car. II, c. 28, 30, 33; Parliamentary History, 4: 210– 13, 215–18. The concern for public opinion in these Acts can be seen in Turnor’s description of the laws to the king: [if anyone] “shall express or declare such his wicked intention by printing, writing, preaching, or malicious and advised speaking, being therof legally convicted, shall be adjudged a Traitor. And because much of our late Misery took its rise from seditious Pamphlets, and Speeches from the Pulpits, it is provided, That if any man shall maliciously and advisedly publish or affirm Your Majesty to be an Heretick, or a Papist or that You endeavour to introduce Popery, or shall stir up the People to hatred or dislike of your Royal Person or Govt, then every such Person shall be made incapable of any Office or Imployment, either in Church or State.” [Turnor, Speech to the King, 30 July 1661, p. 3].

10. For examples of this type of revenge, see chap. 2 and the resolutions in CJ, 9: 24ff and Parliamentary History, 4: 222. 11. His Majesties Speech Together with the Lord Chancellor’s . . . at their Prorogation, 19 May 1662 (London, 1662), p. 15. 12. His Majesties Speech to Both Houses of Parliament, 21 March 1663/4 (London, 1664), p. 4. 13. Clarendon, Life, 1: 361. This refers to the Chancellor’s activities in the Convention, but similar evidence exists to indicate such planning in the Cavalier Parliament. Clarendon later wrote that he had daily meetings with Members “who had always served the King . . . and those they consulted in what method to proceed in disposing the House . . . to what should be most necessary for the public,” idem., 2: 197. 14. 16 and 17 Car. II c.1 granted the king the unprecedented Supply of £2,477,500 over three years. 17 Car. II c.1 added £1,250,000 and 18 & 19 Car. II c.1 was a Poll Act for another £1,256,347. When one includes the Additional Excises and Duties granted to the king, it is no surprise that complaints about corruption and waste dominated the Cabal’s initial contact with Parliament. 15. Evelyn, Diary, 2: 209, 10 Ocotber 1666. 16. A later incident is typical: on 29 January 1670 a newsletter told how Rochester killed a man who called him handsome. The earl demanded, “who made you a judge of Beauty?” and boxed the man on the ear. Unaware of contemporary social graces, the waterman “seeming unwilling to take it, the E. draws and runs him through,” British Library, Additional MSS 36916, f. 163. 17. Newsletter, 11 February, British Library, Additional MSS 36916, f. 66; LJ, 12: 254ff, 10 February 1668; Parliamentary History, 4: 404. 18. De Krey, “First Restoration Crisis;” Parliamentary History, 4: 366–427; History of Parliament, p. 85. The Conventicle Bill lapsed with the prorogation. 19. On universal monarchy and the emergence of francophobia at this time see Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, pp. 343–439. 20. LJ, 12: 287. 21. Charles refused to abandon Catherine, but the assumption that he would is seen in a satire called, “The Plott to discard Catherine by way of Roos,” Bodleian Library, MS Don b.8, f. 185. 22. Abbott, “Long Parliament of Charles II,” 55; Miller, Charles II, pp. 142–75; Hutton, Charles II, pp. 254–87. 23. Ronald Hutton, “The Making of the Secret treaty of Dover, 1668–1670,” HJ 29 (1986): 297–318.

notes

369

24. CJ, 9: 246; LJ, 12: 524–25. For the same values and defenses see, Stubbe, Justification of the Present Warr; Dryden, The Conquest of Granada and Tyrannick Love; L’Estrange, Growth of Knavery. 25. CJ, 9: 246–48; LJ, 12: 525–27. As well as the pieces cited in n. 17, see Dryden, Annus Mirabilis and The Indian Emperor. Many historians, including W. C. Abbott, write of Shaftesbury “concluding with his fiery phrase, Delenda est Carthago!” This is not the case; the reference to Virgil comes in the first half of the speech. 26. LJ, 12: 527. 27. Abbott, “Long Parliament of Charles II,” 254. See also HMC Le Fleming, p. 87; Sir William Temple’s Memoirs. 28. CJ, 9: 256; LJ, 12: 539–49. 29. For Danby’s Memorandum and views see British Library, Additional MSS 28042; Browning, Danby, 2: 62–102. 30. LJ, 12: 595; Gazette, numbers 834, 836, 842, 852, 866, 14 November 1673–74, March 1674. 31. Sir Heneage Finch had received the Seals taken from Shaftesbury on 9 November, five days after the prorogation. His speech is in LJ, 12: 595–98. 32. This form of arbitrary power caused considerable fear among the government’s opponents. I agree with Jonathan Scott’s call to heed the perceptions of contemporaries, many of whom would have agreed that “in the purchase of votes, the wholesale bribery of constituencies, the pressure on corporations, the use of court and ministerial influence, of government servants, even of soldiers, the corruption of election officers, the suborning of sheriffs, and various methods of family and financial pressure on electors, we observe a skill and resource generally ascribed only to a much later and more sophisticated age of political corruption,” Abbott, “Long Parliament of Charles II,” 257. The question remains why such organizational methods and so many contemporary fears of “party” should not be considered early evidence of party structure today? 33. LJ, 12: 596–97. 34. Ibid. 35. Ten Peers, led by Shaftesbury, entered their protest when the Lords voted to thank the king for his speech, rather than for the “gracious expressions in his speech,” J. E. Thorold Rogers, Protests of the Lords, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1875), # 38, p. 43. 36. LJ, 12: 653; CJ, 9: 314. 37. Ibid. This image of plenty was particularly pleasing to the government, for the rapid rise in the customs revenues following the Third Dutch War was an essential part of Danby’s ability to survive long prorogations and to organize and to fund a court party. 38. LJ, 12: 654–55; CJ, 9: 315–18. Compare this speech to any one of Dryden’s Heroic Dramas. 39. The Committee of the Whole House [of Lords] debating the Test was interrupted by lord Mohun, who informed the Lords of the attempt to arrest Shirley in their Lobby. Mohun had taken the Warrant from the Sergeant, which the Commons voted unparliamentary. The Lords answered that Mohun had only done his duty. After the Test was passed in the Lords, they voted “That this House will proceed upon no other business . . . till they have received full Satisfaction, and Vindicated themselves.” Five days later, Charles prorogued Parliament, and the Test was dead, LJ, 12: 677–729. 40. Ibid., p. 725, 5 June 1675. 41. LJ, 13: 4. 42. See below, chap. 9. 43. LJ, 13: 37. 44. LJ 13: 38. 45. LJ, 13: 39. 46. 29/30 Car. II c.3. This Bill was approved by the king on 20 March 1678, LJ, 13: 189.

370

notes

47. LJ, 13: 222. 48. For the French attempts to influence MPs see Scott, Restoration Crisis, pp. 104–25; M. Mignet, Negociations (Paris, 1842), 4: 364–66; Dalrymple, History, p. 191. 49. LJ, 13: 222.

Chapter 9: A Court Party? 1. Jones, Charles II, pp. 137–61; Miller, Charles II, pp. 218–40; Hutton, Charles II, pp. 391–403. 2. Scott, Restoration Crisis, p. 22. 3. Harris, Politics Under the Later Stuarts, pp. 4–6, 224; Harris, “Party Turns.” 4. Swatland, House of Lords, pp. 234, 216, 232. He goes on to say that the whig group “used a range of organizational strategies to maximize votes in the chamber. It also resorted to printed publicity to ensure its views were circulated beyond Westminster,” p. 232. I believe Whig organization was also a response to tactics established by Danby and others. The government’s use of printed publicity to circulate its views beyond Westminster is discussed in Part I. 5. Ibid., pp. 232–33. 6. Clarendon, Life, 1: 309. He held daily conferences with “the members of both Houses being very willing to receive advice and direction and to pursue what they were directed.” See also the Continuation of the Life, p. 395. 7. Clarendon, Continuation, p. 400. 8. Seaward, Cavalier Parliament, pp. 77–91. 9. James MacPherson, Original Papers (London, 1775), The Life of James the Second, Written by Himself, edited by T. Carte and J. MacPherson, p. 37. 10. Mapperton House, Dorset, Sandwich MSS, Journal, 10, f. 89. Sandwich recognized that the country gentlemen and Presbyterians only joined Buckingham “in point of accounts, liberty of conscience, or Trade.” 11. Ibid., f. 90. 12. Ibid., f. 97. 13. Sir Thomas Haward’s Collections, Bodleian Library, MS. Don b.8, fos. 210–11. 14. Swatland, House of Lords, p. 32. See note 4 above. 15. Of course, the strictures placed on Catholics were overlooked in the case of the duchess of Portsmouth. Her continuing proximity to the king was one reason why the fear of French and papist influence at court was never fully laid to rest. 16. Memorandum for the King, June 1677, British Library, Additional MSS 28042, f. 13. 17. Memorandum for the King, June 1677, British Library, Additional MSS 28042, f. 13. Many, though by no means all, of Danby’s papers have been printed in Browning, Danby, vol. 2, Letters; ibid., vol. 3, Appendix; Campana de Cavelli, Les Dernier Stuarts; Sir John Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, (London, 1771), Appendix. 18. Life of James the Second, p. 79. 19. W. C. MacKenzie, Life and Times of John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale 1616–82, (New York, 1923). 20. 17 August 1675, “The Issue of Elections to the City of Edinburgh,” British Library, Additional MSS 4106, f. 263v. 21. Witcombe, Cavalier House of Commons; Browning, “Parties and Party Organization;” Browning, Danby; Abbott, “Long Parliament of Charles II.” 22. Clarendon, Life, 2: 344–45. 23. Browning, “Parties and Party Organization,” 23; Witcombe, Cavalier House of Commons, pp. 100–106.

notes

371

24. Lee, The Cabal; Browning, “Parties and Party Organization,” 23–27; newsletters, 19 and 22 February 1670, British Library, Additional MSS 36916, ff. 166–67. 25. Memorandum for the King, October 1673, British Library, Additional MSS 28042, f. 15. 26. Memorandum for the King, 17 March 1674, British Library, Additional MSS 28042, f. 3. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid. It should be noted that Danby’s objections to pensions was not absolute; after 1675 he was to use more and more of such incentives to reward the loyalty of his parliamentary supporters. 29. Henry Coventry to Gabriel Silvius, 24 February 1674, British Library, Additional MSS 25123, f. 26. On the 28th, Lord Conway wrote in similar terms to the earl of Essex: “The Court seemes to have no other Interest but in contracting of expenses . . . [and will] call a new Parliament when the King hath not immediate want,” Essex Papers, 1: 181. 30. William Harbord to Essex, 15 September 1674, Essex Papers, 1: 258–59. 31. Browning, “Parties and Party Organization,” 28. Danby’s desire to exclude as much of the opposition from politics as possible in 1675 is apparent from the “Association of Lords” he drew up at the time. For this see Appendix VI. 32. Life of James the Second, p. 80. 33. PRO, PC 2/64 & PC 2/65. 34. Warrant to Master and Wardens of the Stationers Company, 1 February; see similar Warrants to T. Newcombe, H. Hills, S. Mearne, J. Leigh, H. Garett, J. Tredwen, 13 February, and the renewed powers of Surveyor of Press, 7 February, CSPD (1673–75), pp. 567–604. 35. Life of James the Second, p. 81, May 1675. 36. Secretary Coventry to various MPs, British Library, Additional MSS 25124, fos. 25–30. There is also an undated series of lists of MPs in the State Papers headed with the names of the Lord Keeper, the Secretaries of State, the Speaker, and the Treasurer, “meaning probably that the members in each list could be influenced by the person heading it,” CSPD (1675–76), p. 478ff. 37. Andrew Marvell, The Poems and Letters of Andrew Marvell, 2 vols., edited by H. M. Margoliouth, 2nd ed.(Oxford, 1952). 2: 319. The Bill was brought in by the earl of Lindsey on the 15th and committed on the 26th of April, LJ, 12: 659, 669; newsletter,17 April 1675, British Library, Bulstrode Papers, p. 285. The most extensive material on the progress of this bill is in HMC 9th Report, Appendix, pp. 51–65. 38. Conway to Essex, 27 April 1675, Essex Papers, 2: 1; Grey, Debates, 3: 41–69. 39. William Harbord to Essex, 4 May 1675, ibid., p. 7, It should be noted that Harbord’s hostility to Danby requires that his comments be viewed circumspectly. 40. Swatland, House of Lords, pp. 242–55; Swatland, “The Role of the Privy Councillors in the House of Lords,” 51–77; E. S. de Beer, “The House of Lords in the Parliament of 1680,” BIHR 20, no. 59 (1943) 26. 41. Harbord to Essex, 1 May 1675, Essex Papers, 2: 4. 42. Sir John Reresby, Memoirs p. 100. For contemporary fascination with the progress of the Test, see Essex Papers, 2: 8; newsletter, British Library, Bulstrode Papers, p. 286. 43. Sir John Reresby, Memoirs pp. 102–3. 44. Newsletter, British Library, Bulstrode Papers, p. 283. 45. The French Ambassador, Ruvigny, presented the duke of York £100,000 to assist him in “building bridges” to certain members of Parliament. These bridges were to make MPs more amenable to halting Danby’s reconciliation of the king and his Parliament, Mignet, Negociations, 4: 364–66. 46. Francis Godolphin to Essex, 22 August 1675, Essex Papers, 2: 32; newsletter, 17

372

notes

August 1675, British Library, Bulstrode Papers, p. 302; Gazette, numbers 992–1045, JuneOctober. 47. Reresby, Memoirs, p. 103. 48. Browning, “Parties and Party Organization,” 29. “Like the Civil War of the reign of Charles I the party struggle of the reign of Charles II was a series of struggles within individual shires, in the course of which the national leaders endeavoured to secure the support of the appropriate faction in each shire and then to foster that faction at the expense of its rival.” See also, Halliday, Dismembering the Body, Part Two. 49. Browning, “Parties and Party Organization,” 31. Thanks to both James I and Charles I, the dukes of Buckingham presided over an impressive landed interest which was augmented substantially when the second duke married Fairfax’s daughter. 50. E. Porritt, The Unreformed House of Commons (Cambridge, 1903), vol. 1; Henning, House of Commons, 1660–89. The four western counties referred to are Cornwall, Dorset, Devon, and Wiltshire; those in the east are Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Hampshire, and Berkshire. 51. The Seymours were a Devon family, and the Speaker was allied by marriage to the earl of Bath—a leading figure in Cornish politics. With the help of these two families alone, Danby could hope for a sturdy contingent of votes from the west. While the extent to which “influence” was directly translated into “parliamentary support” is never really quantifiable, it is of interest that Danby’s unofficial whip, Sir Richard Wiseman, found it lamentable in 1676 that as many as twelve of Cornwall’s forty-four members were “Presbiterians . . . and I hope for little good from them,” Browning, Danby, 3: 101–2. 52. Browning, “Parties and Party Organization,” 30. 53. Ibid., p. 32. 54. Swatland, House of Lords, p. 121; HMC Twelfth Report, Rutland, 2: 35 has an order from one Lord Lieutenant demanding that “all and every of you who have a commission . . . or any other dependence upon [me] . . . give your votes for Mr. Grey.” 55. Earl of Lindsey to Danby, June 1677, HMC Lindsey MSS, p. 384; Swatland, House of Lords, pp. 120–22. 56. Browning, “Parties and Party Organization,” 33. For a list of the Lord Lieutenants whom Danby considered loyal to his government, see British Library, Additional MSS 28088, f. 3. 57. Jones, Charles II, p. 110. 58. Circular written by Williamson, 21 September 1675, CSPD (1675–76), p. 302. 59. Bodleian Library, Carte MSS 38, f. 678. 60. British Library, Additional MSS 28078; 28080; Browning, Danby, 1: 168–71; 3: 44–56. It appears that seventeen people were added to the list of Excise Pensioners alone after midsummer 1675, British Library, Additional MSS 28078, f. 18. 61. Browning, Danby, 1: 171. Browning also notes that in the opposition pamphlet denouncing jobbery, A Seasonable Argument, many of these pensioners were not even recognized as supporters of the government. 62. Browning, Danby, 3: 63–71. The lists of Wiseman and Danby can be found in Danby’s papers in the British Library, Additional MSS 28091, fos. 169–70, 144. I have accepted Professor Browning’s computation of 137 different names to be found in the three lists. 63. The earl of Winchilsea to Danby [from Florence], 1676, HMC Leeds MSS, p. 11, The lists may be found in the British Library, Additional MSS 28091, f. 183. Some are printed in Andrew Browning, Danby, 3: 72–73. 64. De Beer, “House of Lords in 1680;” A. S. Turberville, “The House of Lords under Charles II,” EHR 44 (1929) and 45 (1930); LJ, 12, 13. See also the useful appendices and tables in Swatland, House of Lords. Some good examples of Stuart creations neglecting their duty are lord Holles and the earl of Shaftesbury. On the other side lord Lindsey, who introduced the Test in 1675, came from a famously loyal family: his grandfather had fought

notes

373

with Drake and Essex at the age of fifteen and led the expedition against La Rochelle after Buckingham’s assassination. During the Civil War, when Prince Rupert attacked without consulting him, he cried that “if he were not fit to be a general he would at least die at the head of his regiment!”—a pledge he promptly proceeded to redeem. Lord Lindsey’s father had fought at Edgehill and Newbury, been wounded at Naseby, and was one of the three men to accompany the corpse of Charles I to Windsor in 1649. 65. From 1668–70, they held up the passage of the second Conventicle Act until the king acquiesced, always hoping to grant the king the right to dispense with ecclesiastical statutes; in the 1670s they repeatedly refused to pass a Bill against the growth of popery (until 1678); the Lords also passed the Non-resisting Test and rejected Exclusion on the first reading. 66. British Library, Egerton MSS 3329, f. 6; Stowe MSS 217, f. 2, Additional MSS 25125, f 118; Danby to the earl of Ogle, 1 April 1675, HMC Twelfth Report, Rutland MSS, 2: 150. A similar request can be found in the HMC, Hastings MSS, ii, p. 169. The court’s control of fifteen proxies, combined with Archbishop Sheldon’s demands for episcopal attendance and his assiduous collection of proxies, was to prove essential in defeating the motion for a dissolution in November 1675. 67. Life of James the Second, p. 86, April 1678. 68. Browning, Danby, 1: 169–75; Chandaman, Public Revenue, p. 267. 69. The activities of Ronquillo, the Spanish Ambassador, in pushing for an alliance against France were well known. The newsletter for 30 July reported that Ronquillo had convinced many statesmen in London that such an alliance was essential to England’s interests, and that “it is ye onely expedient we have left to gett mony by a Parliament, besides a mighty summe ye Spaniard talk of giveing us (wch will be a good fish when it is catch’d),” British Library, Bulstrode Papers, pp. 307–8. The best account of the these confused relations is in Scott, Restoration Crisis, pp. 104–25. 70. Scott, Restoration Crisis, pp. 107–19. 71. Dalrymple, Memoirs, p. 191; Mignet, Negociations, 4: 367–70; Browning, Danby, 1: 161–66. 72. J. R. Jones argues that Charles was more than a mere opportunist in these actions. “Charles felt dishonoured by his enforced abandonment of France in 1674. . . . [and he] faced a real danger that William would exploit his English connections to drag the kingdom into war against France, whereas an agreement with Louis left him free to remain neutral and act as mediator,” Charles II, Royal Politician, p. 119. 73. The earl of Lindsey to Danby, 25 August 1675, HMC Lindsey MSS, p. 377.

Chapter 10: Collective Actions in Parliament 1. Newsletter, 23 April 1675, British Library, Bulstrode Papers, p. 314. 2. Grey, Debates, 3: 290–97; idem., Sir Thomas Meres, p. 307; newsletter, 2 May 1675, British Library, Bulstrode Papers, pp. 315–17. 3. Grey, Debates, 3: 345, Speaker Seymour. 4. Ibid., p. 341, Sir John Berkenhead. 5. Grey, Debates, 3: 360, Sir George Downing. 6. Ibid., p. 361, Secretary Coventry. Carew said he “would have it known that he was no gainer by the wars. He is the poorer, and some others within these walls the richer, but sees we are now all Cavaliers.” The motion was defeated, 171 to 160. 7. Grey, Debates, 3: 354–66; newsletter, 2 May 1675, British Library, Bulstrode Papers, p. 316. 8. Newsletter, 5 June 1675, British Library, Bulstrode Papers, p. 320. 9. See Grey, Debates, 3: 297–425; CJ, 9: 367–91.

374

notes

10. Grey, Debates, 3: 370, Sir Henry Goderick. 11. Ibid., Sir Joseph Williamson. 12. Grey, Debates, 4: 17, Sir William Coventry. 13. Grey, Debates, 3: 368–425. Both these early place bills in 1675 were referred to as Test Bills, tests being the common way of excluding opponents since 1673. 14. Grey, Debates, 3: 459, Sir Thomas Littleton, 10 November 1675. 15. CJ, 9: 376. 16. CJ, 9: 376–79; Grey, Debates, 4: 9–15, 27–40, 42–49. 17. CJ, 9: 380–81. 18. Grey, Debates, 3: 341, Sir Harbottle Grimstone. 19. Browning, Danby, 1: 172–84; LJ, 13: 35. The division was 41 to 33 in favor of dissolution. At this point the eight additional proxies held by Danby left the House equally split. The last minute arrival of the earl of Ailesbury defeated the motion. According to Browning, James sided with the opposition under the assumption that a new Parliament would be favorable to toleration. 20. Chandaman estimates an amount approaching 1.5 million pounds which cannot be traced in the 1670s, and can only be accounted for by the “wasteful expenditure of the king,” Public Revenue, pp. 268–73. Some of this may have been used as inducements for the Treasurists in both Houses. 21. Ibid., pp. 19–33. The last vote of Supply had been passed nearly three years before, in March 1673. The remarkable rise in the Customs—which Danby neither understood nor counted on in the future—was in part a result of English neutrality after 1674. 22. Early in the year 1676 there was talk that Danby was in such favor with the king that he was to be made a duke, British Library, Additional MSS 29555, f. 288. 23. Chandaman, Public Revenue, pp. 21–37. Courtin reported to Louis that Charles said, “that at the bottom England enjoyed a profound tranquility, and enriched herself, while all the neighboring states were drained or ruined by the war; and that the English would one day thank him for . . . [keeping them in] so happy a state, and so advantageous for their commerce,” Dalrymple, Memoirs, Appendix, p. 97. 24. Mignet, Negociations, 4: 375–86; Browning, Danby, 1: 186–92. 25. Browning, Danby, 1: 187; Dalrymple, Memoirs Appendix, pp. 99–107. 26. Browning, Danby, 1: 191. Danby’s abhorrence of French money did not last throughout his career as Treasurer. It was, of course, Danby’s involvement with the king’s later negotiations with Louis XIV which cost him five years in the Tower. 27. Danby’s notes, British Library, Additional MSS 28093, f. 195. Among those “Not to be Retrencht” were “Nelly, York, Rupert, Portsmouth [£6,000] and Cleveland [£15,000],” British Library, Egerton MSS 3351, fos. 166–67. 28. Browning, Danby, 1: 185–90; idem., 3: 22–23; Calendar of the Treasury Books, vol. 4, passim; British Library, Additional MSS 28078, f. 227. By early 1677, over £245,000 was owed to the Excise farmers alone. 29. The Committee of Trade presented figures which substantiated the claims that the French made £1 million p.a. from the imbalance in Anglo–French trade, British Library, Additional MSS 28042, fos. 52–54; 28079, f. 55; Egerton MSS 3359 f. 14; Margaret Priestly, “Anglo-French Trade and the ‘Unfavourable Balance’ Controversy, 1660–85,” EcHR 2nd ser., 4 (1951); D. G. E. Hall, “Anglo-French Trade Relations under Charles II,” History n.s. 7 (1922). 30. Browning, Danby, 1: 192. For the new list of officers and dependents drawn up, see idem., 3: 68–71; examples of the process of “solicitation” is also printed by Browning, Danby, 3: 71–111. 31. Browning, Danby, 1: 193; idem., 3: 86–93. The Ambassador Courtin wrote to Louis on 22 June informing him that Charles had explained his reasons for not dissolving the Parliament: “Les principales sont qu’il pretend avoir gagn´e depuis la derni`ere assembl´ee

notes

375

plus de 150 personnes, et qu’avec ce nombre et les gens qui sont attachez a` ses int´erests il croit se pouvoir faire donner de l’argent,” Mignet, Negociations, 4: 377. 32. Sir Robert Holt [MP] to Danby, Browning, Danby, 1: 192, n. 1. 33. Ibid., p. 193, n. 3. Many of the “recruits” were only hoping to serve themselves and cared little for Danby or his policies. 34. Sheldon to bishop Compton, 1676, in David Wilkins, Concilia, 4, p. 598. 35. Bishop Morley to Danby, 10 June 1676, HMC Leeds MSS, p. 14. 36. The figures furnished by bishop Compton estimated nearly 2,500,000 conformists in England, or twenty-three times the number of nonconformists. Worse still for the duke of York, the census calculated just over 13,000 papists of all ages in the whole of England, Anne Whiteman, ed., The Compton Census of 1676 (London, 1986); CSPD (1676), pp. 448–50; Dalrymple, Memoirs, Appendix, 2: 11–15. 37. William Harbord to Essex, Essex Papers, 2: 49–50; Hatton Correspondence, 1: 128; Gazette, numbers 1098, 1101, 1142, 1144, 1149; CSPD (1676–77), p. 347. The break with France was foretold in a series of anti-French activities which included another Proclamation for the recall of English subjects serving against foreign states in June, the monitoring of attendance at the masses held by Ambassadors and the Queen, and published complaints about the actions of French privateers. 38. Sir Joseph Williamson to the King, CSPD (1676–77), p. 480. 39. This list is part of the British Library’s Leeds MSS and is printed in Browning, Danby, 3: 96–111. 40. Danby to Lord Conway, 20 December 1676, CSPD (1676–77), p. 459. Danby also requested that Conway sound out Lord Brooke and his brother, “and if my Lord do not come up, pray try if you can to secure his proxy.” Danby’s knowledge of the upcoming opposition tactics can also be seen in a letter from Lord Hatton to his brother, British Library, Additional MSS 29556, f. 94. 41. Danby’s memorandum about anticipating revenues is in British Library, Additional MSS 28042, f. 15. See also the Calendar of Treasury Books, 5, Introduction; Grey, Debates, 4: 225; CSPD (1676–77), p. 358; Stephen Saunders Webb, 1676: The End of American Independence (Princeton, 1985); British Library, Additional MSS 28078, f. 282. A good example of Danby’s difficulty in retrenching Household expenses is the £71,240 paid to the duchess of Portsmouth and Nell Gwynn from March 1676 to March 1677—over £55,000 going to the duchess, British Library, Additional MSS 28094, f. 54. 42. British Library, Additional MSS 28078, f. 283. 43. [Marchamont Nedham], A Pacquet of Advices and Animadversions, p. 50. 44. Ibid., p. 51. 45. Ibid., pp. 51–52. 46. LJ, 13: 36; Parliamentary History, 4: 807–8. The Lord Chancellor’s speech is discussed supra, pp. 245– 47. 47. Parliamentary History, 4: 815–40. The basis for this argument were the statutes of 4 Ed. III. and 36 Ed. III. The government’s preparation for this opposition stratagem was demonstrated when Danby’s, cousin, lord Frescheville, followed Buckingham’s motion with one for calling the duke to the bar of the House for his reflections on the Parliament. 48. A Pacquet of Advices and Animadversions, p. 70. 49. Ibid., pp. 70–71. 50. Grey, Debates, 4: 71, Colonel Birch; Parliamentary History, 4: 829–31. 51. PRO, SP 29/240. Browning remarks that “many of those whom Williamson was looking to assist the Government in debate scarcely spoke at all,” though this does not apply to Temple, who spoke fifty-five times in 1675 and 1677, Browning, Danby, 3: 94. 52. Grey, Debates, 4: 71, Sir Richard Temple; Parliamentary History, 4: 830–33. 53. Grey, Debates, 4: 165–67, Secretary Coventry; Parliamentary History, 4: 838. 54. Grey, Debates, 4: 268. CJ, 9: 401, Charles II.

376

notes

55. Petition to the King, Grey, Debates, 4: 331; CJ, 9: 409. 56. Memorandum for the King, British Library, Additional MSS 28042, fos. 9–12; printed in Browning, Danby, 2: 66–69. 57. British Library, Additional MSS 28042, f. 10. 58. Ibid., fos. 9, 11. 59. Parliamentary History, 4: 864; CJ, 9: 418; Browning, Danby, 1: 227, n. 2. 60. British Library, Additional MSS 28042, f. 11. 61. William Harbord to Essex, Essex Papers, 2: 110. 62. Parliamentary History, 4: 874, Sir Philip Warwick. 63. Grey, Debates, 4: 115, Sir Thomas Meres. Chandaman, Public Revenue, p. 278, says that the Commons opposed “undue liberality. . . in 1677, on the significant ground that it would enable the King to dispense with Parliament.” 64. Parliamentary History, 4: 889; Grey, Debates, 4: 388; CJ, 9: 426; Gazette, # 1203. 65. Marvell, Poems and Letters, 2: 317. 66. Grey, Debates, p. 391, note. 67. Memorandum for the King, British Library, Additional MSS 28042, fos.13–4. 68. Ibid. 69. The correspondence between Danby, Bentinck and William of Orange is printed extensively in Browning, Danby, 2: 388–489. Negotiations with the French are in Mignet, Negociations, 4: 476ff; Dalrymple, Memoirs Appendix, pp. 110–21; and thoroughly analyzed in Scott, Restoration Crisis, pp. 104–25. 70. Dalrymple, Memoirs, p. 115. On this date Barillon complained that Danby was intentionally confusing £200,000 with 2,000,000 livres in order to break the deal. 71. William sailed on 9 October and the marriage was celebrated on 4 November, his birthday. 72. Barillon to Louis XIV, Dalrymple, Memoirs, pp. 126–27. 73. Browning, Danby, 1: 256–60; idem., 2: 236; Dalrymple, Memoirs, pp. 129–30; Mignet, Negociations, 4: 521, 528. 74. The best account of these confusing negotiations can be found in Clyde L. Grose, “The Anglo-Dutch Alliance of 1678,” EHR 39 (1924), and Scott, Restoration Crisis, pp. 104–25. 75. LJ, 13: 130; CJ, 9: 427–28; Parliamentary History, 4: 897–98. 76. Some of the delaying tactics included complaints over recent methods of adjournment and the Speaker’s conduct therein, an address that France be reduced to the terms of the Peace of the Pyrenees, and a motion for a more decent internment of Charles I, Grey, Debates, 5: 1–165. 77. Grey, Debates, 5: 202–47; Parliamentary History, 4: 951–56; HMC Ormonde MSS, n.s., 4: 407–8. Ghent was besieged on 22 February and surrendered 27 February. The same day, Shaftesbury took his seat in the Lords. 78. For an account of this strength see Swatland, House of Lords, chap. 12. 79. HMC Ormonde MSS, n.s., 4: 416–21. 80. British Library, Additional MSS 28040, fos. 50–52; Mignet, Negociations, 4: 536, 571; Browning, Danby, 2: 345–46. Scott, Restoration Crisis, pp. 113–14, argues that Louis was now funding the parliamentary opposition to Danby and the king. 81. Browning, Danby, 3: 111–20; HMC Ormonde MSS, n.s., 4: 399. 82. LJ, 13: 206. 83. LJ, 13: 206–7; Parliamentary History, 4: 961–64. 84. Dalrymple, Memoir Appendix, pp. 146–76; British Library, Morrison Collection; Mignet, Negociations, 4: 572–82, Scott, Restoration Crisis, pp. 133–42. 85. LJ, 13: 221; CJ, 9: 481–95; Parliamentary History, 4: 977–84. 86. [Anonymous], A List of one Unanimous Club of Voters in his Majesties Long Parliament, dissolved in 78 (London, 1679).

notes

377

87. British Library, Additional MS. 38849, f. 251; An Impartial State of ye Case of ye E of Danby in a Letter to a Member of the House of Commons, p. 3. 88. Ibid., p. 6. 89. Ibid., p. 7. 90. Ibid., p. 10. 91. Ibid., p. 18. 92. Ibid.

Chapter 11: Conclusion 1. Charles II’s only losses were the Court of Star Chamber, the Court of Wards, and the rights of purveyance. For the last two, he received monetary compensation and the king’s control of the judiciary insured that the elimination of Star Chamber was not a significant loss. See Alfred Havighurst, “The Judiciary and Politics in the Reign of Charles II,” Law Quarterly Review 66 (1950); John S. Cockburn, A History of English Assizes 1558–1714 (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 59, 160–66, 184–87, 230–50. 2. The £1,200,000 per annum granted the king in 1660 represented “on a consensus of contemporary opinion, a fairly generous estimate of the ordinary expenses of the restored monarchy, making due allowance for the maintenance of the ‘Royal State’,” Chandaman, Public Revenue, p. 265. The Clarendon Code excluded nonconformists from the government of the church as well as most local offices. 3. Basil Henning estimates that of the MPs elected to the Cavalier Parliament at byelections, nearly 70% can be considered supporters of the court. In the 112 by-elections during Clarendon’s administration, 74 were won by MPs who supported the court, History of Parliament, pp. 36, 77. 4. In 1670, Parliament granted the king £1,000,000 in extraordinary revenue, 22 & 23 Car. II c.3. 5. The protectionist policies of Colbert after 1668 led to estimates that the French trade was costing England over £1,000,000 per annum, British Library, Additional MSS 28042, fos. 52–54; Eleanor C. Lodge, Sully, Colbert, and Turgot: A Chapter in French Economic History (London, 1970), p. 151; C. W. Cole, Colbert and a Century of French Mercantilism, vol. 1, passim. The conduct of the French Navy in 1672–73 added suspicions about their ultimate goals in allying with England. Many felt that the French wished to watch the Dutch and English destroy each other, all the while learning the fine points of navigation and shipbuilding from their English allies, British Library, Additional MSS 28079, fos. 55– 83; idem., 28092, fos. 10–13v. 6. Memorandum to the King. British Library, Additional MSS 28042, fos. 15; 13. 7. Ibid., f. 9. 8. Ibid., f. 14. The vote of £584,978 for ships and an Additional Excise for three years was the largest peacetime grant outside the £1,000,000 passed in 1670. 29 Car. II c.1 and c.2; LJ, xiii, p. 120.

Appendix I 1. From LJ, vols. 12, 13, passim. Henning, History of Parliament, pp. 83–84.

378

notes

Appendix III 1. Taken from A Pacquet of Advices and Animadversions . . . to the Men of Shaftesbury (London, 1676), pp. 30–31.

Appendix IV 1. This letter and Muddiman’s response are printed in Muddiman, King’s Journalist, pp. 187–89.

Appendix V 1. British Library, Additional MSS 28092, fos. 49–51.

Appendix VI 1. Undated memorandum in Danby’s handwriting, printed in Andrew Browning, Danby, 2: 65–66.

Bibliography Primary Sources Manuscripts british library Additional MSS. 4106 Additional MSS. 10117 Additional MSS. 23132– 42 Additional MSS. 25122–24 Additional MSS. 27497 Additional MSS. 28042–94 Additional MSS. 29555–59 Additional MSS. 32095 Additional MSS. 36916 Additional MSS. 38849–56 Additional MSS. 41568 Additional MSS. 41805 Burney Collection Egerton MSS. 3351–82 Egerton 2395 Harleian MSS. 3784 Harleian MSS. 7317 Landsdowne MSS. 846 Stowe MSS. 182

Birch Collection of Letters & State Papers 1473– 1677 Thomas Rugge’s Diurnall Lauderdale Papers Extraordinary Corespondence of Henry Coventry, 1672–79 Political Poems Leeds Papers Hatton Papers Malet Collection Newsletters to Willoughby Aston Hodgkins Collection Leeds Papers 1677–91 Newsletters of Robert Parry Middleton Papers Early English Newspapers Leeds Papers Papers Relating to Colonies in America and the Indies Political Poems Miscellaneous Papers State Papers 1618–79

bodleian library Carte MSS. 39, 46– 49, 51 Carte MSS. 80–81 Clarendon MSS. 60–72, 75–85, 92

Ormonde Papers Wharton’s Parliamentary Diary Letters and Papers

379

380

bibliography

MS. Don b. 8 Douce 357 MS. Douce c.1 MS. Eng. Poet. d. 49 MS. Engl. Misc. c. 34 MS. Firth c.15–17 MS. Tanner 39– 49 MS. Tanner 123–52

Sir Thomas Haward’s Collection English Political Poems Le Fleming Newsletters Marvell Collection Unknown Commonplace Book c. 1687 A Choice Collection of Poems Seventeenth Century Ballads Collection of Letters and Papers 1660–1678 Archbishop Sheldon’s Correspondence and Papers Relating to Various Diocese

longleat house wiltshire Coventry MSS. 2, 48–104

Henry Coventry’s Papers, 1660–79 Sir Joseph Williamson’s Journal Newsletters, 1665–79

mapperton house, dorset The Earl of Sandwich’s Journal

public record office State Papers of Charles II SP 9/16 SP 29 SP 44 PC 2/54 –70 31/3

Williamson’s Spy Book Letters and Papers Entry Books Privy Council Registers Baschet Transripts

huntington library Stowe MSS. Hastings MSS. Huntington Library MSS.

houghton library, harvard university Gay Collection

library of congress 18124 vols. 1–9

Newsletters

Printed Primary Sources Adams, J. Q., ed. The Dramatic Records of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels, 1623– 1673. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1917. Arlington, Henry Bennett earl of. The Earl of Arlington’s Letters to Sir W. Temple. Edited

bibliography

381

by Thomas Bebington. London, 1701. Aubrey, John. John Aubrey’s Brief Lives. Edited by Oliver Lawson Dick. London: T. Brun Ltd., 1949. The Bagford Ballads: Illustrating the Last years of the Stuarts. Edited by Joseph Woodfall Ebsworth. Hertford: Ballad Society Publications, 1878. Baker, Richard. A Chronicle of the Kings of England from the Time of the Romans Government until the Death of King James. London, 1670. Barwick, Peter. The Life of the Reverend Dr. John Barwick . . . to which is Appended an Appendix of Letters from King Charles I in His Confinement, and King Charles II and the Earl of Clarendon in Their Exile. London: J. Bettenham, 1678. Baxter, Richard. Reliquiae Baxterianae, or, Mr. Richard Baxter’s Narrative of the Most Memorable Passages of His Life and Times. London: Parkhurst, Robinson, Lawrence, and Dunton, 1696. Behn, Aphra. The Town-fopp, or Sir Timothy Tawdry. London, 1677. ———. Abdelazer, or the Moor’s Revenge. London, 1677. ———. Sir Patient Fancy. London, 1678. ———. The Rover. London, 1677. Buckingham, George Villiers, second duke of. The Rehearsal. Edited by Cedric Gale. New York: Barron’s Educational Series, 1960. Burnet, Gilbert. History of My Own Time. 4 vols. London, 1854. Bulstrode Papers. Private Collection, 1897. Calendar Of State Papers, Domestic, Charles II Preserved in the Public Record Office. 28 vols. Edited by Robert Lemon. London: Longman, 1856–1924. Calendar of Treasury Books and Papers. Campana de Cavelli, Emilia Rowles, Marchesa. Les Dernier Stuarts a Saint Germain en Laye; Documents Inedits et Authentiques Puises aux Archives Publiques et Privees. 2 vols. Paris: Didier &c, 1871. A Collection of Loyal Poems. London, 1687. Clarendon, Edward Hyde, earl of. A History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1819. ———. The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon, in which is included A Continuation of His History of the Grand Rebellion. 3 vols. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1827. ———. Notes Which Passed at Meetings of the Privy Council between Charles II and the Earl of Clarendon, 1660–1667, together with a Few Letters. Edited by W. D. Macray. London: Nichols, 1896. ———. State Papers Collected by Edward, Earl of Clarendon, Commencing from the Year 1621. Containing the Materials from which his History of the Great Rebellion was Composed, and the Authorities on which the Truth of His Relation is Founded. 3 vols. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1767–86. Cobbett, William. The Parliamentary History of England . . . to 1803. 12 vols. London: R. Bagshaw, 1806–1812. The Compton Census of 1676. Edited by Anne Whiteman, with the Assistance of Mary Clapinson. London: Oxford University Press, 1986. Cosin, John. The Correspondence of John Cosin. 2 vols. Edited by George Ornsby. The Surtees Society, vol. 40. Durham, 1872. Crowne, John. Calisto . . . a masque . . . London, 1675.

382

bibliography

———. The Destruction of Jerusalem by Vespasian. London, 1677. ———. The Country Wit. London, 1675. Dalrymple, John Sir. Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, from the Dissolution of the Last Parliament of Charles II, until the Sea-Battle Off La Hogue. 2 vols. London: Strahan, Cadell, 1771. Dering, Edward Sir. The Parliamentary Diary of Sir Edward Dering, 1670–1673. Edited by Basil D. Henning. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940. Dryden, John. John Dryden: Of Dramatic Poesy and Other Critical Essays. 2 vols. Edited by George Watson. London: Dent, Everyman’s, 1962. ———. The Works of John Dryden. 18 vols. Edited by H. T. Swedenberg, Jr. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1961–74. D’Urfey, Thomas. The Siege of Memphis, or the Ambitious Queen. London, 1676. The Essex Papers. 2 vols. Edited by Osmund Airy. The Camden Society. London, 1890. Evelyn, John. The Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn, 4 vols. Edited by William Bray. London: Bell and Daldy, 1879. Foulis, Henry. History of the Wicked Plots and Conspiracies. London, 1662. Grey, Anchitell. Debates in the House of Commons. 10 vols. London, 1780. The Harleian Miscellany, or, A Collection of Scarce, Curious, and Entertaining Pamphlets and Tracts, as Well in Manuscript as in Print. 10 vols. London: R. Dunton, 1808–11. The Hatton Correspondence. Edited by Edward M. Thompson. The Camden Society. London, 1894. Heylyn, Peter. Cyprianus Anglicus, the History of the Life and Death of the Most Reverend and Renowned Prelate William, by Divine Providence, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. London, 1671. ———. The Stumbling Block of Disobedience. London, 1658. The Historical Manuscripts Commission: Bath MSS. Bertie MSS. Hastings MSS. Le Fleming MSS. Leeds MSS. Lindsey MSS. Ormonde MSS. Pepys MSS. Portland MSS. Rutland MSS. Stuart MSS. 5th Report, Sutherland 9th Report, Part II, House of Lords MSS. 10th Report 12th Report Part 2 12th Report Part 7 14th Report, Supplement of the Lindsey MSS. Hobbes, Thomas. Behemoth, or The Long Parliament. Edited by Ferdinand Tonnies. London: Franks Cass, 1889. Jordan, Thomas. The Goldsmith’s Jubilee: or London’s Triumphs . . . [for] Right Honorable and truly Noble Pattern of Prudence and Loyalty Sir Robert Vyner . . . of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths. London, 1677.

bibliography

383

Jordan, Thomas. London’s Resurrection to Joy and Triumph . . . [for] Sir George Waterman . . . of Worshipful Company of Skinners. London, 1671. Jordan, Thomas. London’s Triumphs . . . [for] Sir Thomas Davies Kt . . . [of ] Right Worshipful Society of Drapers. Being the Second Year without Intermission. London, 1676. Jordan, Thomas. London Triumphant, or the City in Jollity and Splendour . . . [for] Sir Robert Howard . . . of Worshipful Company of Grocers. London, 1672. Jordan, Thomas. The Triumph of London . . . [for] the Right Honorable and truly Noble Pattern of Prudence and Loyalty, Sir Joseph Sheldon . . . [of ] the Worshipfull Company of Drapers. London, 1675. Jordan, Thomas. The Triumphs of London . . . [for] Rt Honorable and truly Noble Pattern of Prudence and Loyalty, Sir James Edwards . . . of the Worshipful Company of Grocers. London, 1678. Journals of the House of Commons Journals of the House of Lords Lauderdale Papers. Edited by Osmund Airey. The Camden Society. London, 1885. Lee, Nathaniel. The Tragedy of Nero. London, 1675. Lee, Nathaniel. Sophonisba, or Hannibal Overthrown. London, 1676. Leicster, Peter. Charges to the Grand Jury at Quarter Sessions, 1660–1677 by Sir Peter Leicester, edited by Elizabeth Halcrow. Chetham Society, 3rd series, vol. 5. Manchester, 1953. Lindsey-Crawford, James L. Catalogue of English Broadsides, 1505–1897. New York: Burt Franklin, 1968. London Gazette. MacPherson, James. Original Papers, with The Life of James the Second, Written by Himself. Edited by T. Carte and J. MacPherson. London, 1775. Marvell, Andrew. The Poems and Letters of Andrew Marvell. 2 vols. Edited by H. M. Margoliouth. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952. The Mather Papers, Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 4th series, 8 vols. Boston, 1868. Mignet, Francois-Auguste-Marie-Alexis. Negocations Relatives a la Succession D’Espagne sous Louis XIV. Paris: Impremiere Royale, 1842. Mundy, Peter. The Travels of Peter Mundy in Europe and Asia, 1608–1667, vol. 5. Edited by R. C. Temple. The Hakluyt Society, 2nd ser., 78 (1936). Newcome, Henry. The Autobiography of Henry Newcome. Edited by Richard Parkinson. Chetham Society, vols. 26, 27. Manchester,1852. ———. The Diary of Rev. Henry Newcome. Edited by Thomas Heywood, Chetham Society, vol. 18. Manchester, 1849. Newcastle, William Cavendish duke of. Ideology and Politics on the Eve of Restoration: Newcastle’s Advice to Charles II. Edited by Thomas P. Slaughter. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1984. North, Roger. Examen, or Inquiry into the Credit Pretended Complete History. London, 1740. John Ogilby. The Entertainment of His Most Excellent Majesty Charles II in His Passage through the City of London to His Coronation. London 1662. ———. The Entertainment of His Most Excellent Majesty Charles II in His Passage through the City of London to His Coronation. A Facsimile with an Introduction by Ronald Knowles. New York: Medieval and Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1988. Oldenburg, Henry. The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg. Edited by A. Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall. vols. 2–3. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966–67.

384

bibliography

Otway, Thomas, Don Carlos, Prince of Spain. London, 1676. Parker, Samuel. A Discourse of Ecclesiastical Politie, 3rd ed. London, 1672. ———. Bishop Parker’s History of His Own Time. Translated by Thomas Newlin. London, 1727. The Pepys Ballads. Edited by Hyder Edward Rollins. 8 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1929–32. Pepys, Samuel, Diary and Memoir. 5 vols. Edited by Richard Lord Braybrooke. London: Warne, 1825. Petty, William Sir. The Petty-Southwell Correspondence, 1676–87. Edited from the Bowood Papers by the Marquis of Lansdowne. London: Constable & Co., 1928. Prideaux, Humphrey. Letters of Humphrey Prideaux to John Ellis. Edited by Edward M. Thompson. The Camden Society. London, 1875. Ravenscroft, W. King Edgar and Alfreda. London, 1677. ———. Mamamouchi or, Citizen turn’d Gentleman. London, 1675. Reresby, John. Memoirs of Sir John Reresby. Edited by Andrew Browning. London: Royal Historical Society, 1936. Rogers, James E. Thorold. A Complete Collection of the Protests of the Lords. vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1875. The Roxburghe Ballads. Edited by John Payne Collier. London: Longman, Green, and Longmans, 1847. Rugg, Thomas. The Diurnal of Thomas Rugg, 1659–61. Edited by William Sachse. Camden Society, 3rd ser, vol. 91. London, 1961. Settle, Elkanah. Paster fido, a faithful sheperd. London, 1677. ———. Ibrahim the Illustrious Bassa. London, 1677. ———. The Conquest of China, by the Tartar. London, 1676. ———. Cambyses, King of Persia. London, 1675. Somers Tracts: A Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts . . . of the Late Lord Somers. Edited by Sir Walter Scott. 2nd edition. vol. 8. London: T. Cadell, W. Davies, 1812. State Tracts, being a Collection of Several Treatises Relating to the Government: Privately Printed in the Reign of K. Charles II. London, 1689. State Tracts, being a Farther Collection of Several Choice Treatises Relating to the Government from the Year 1660–1689. London: R. Baldwin, 1692. State Trials. Cobbett’s Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason. Edited by Thomas Howell. Steele, Robert. Bibliography of Royal Proclamations. New York: Longman, 1967. Temple, William Sir. Memoirs of what Past in Christendom, from the War Begun 1672, to the Peace Concluded in 1679. London: Chiswell, 1692. Townshend, Henry. The Diary of Henry Townshend, 2 vols. Edited by J. W. Willis Bund. Worcestershire Historical Society, 1920. Verney, Margaret Maria. Memoirs of the Verney Family from the Restoration to the Revolution, 1660–1696. Edited by Margaret Maria Verney. London: Longmans, Green, 1899. Edward Walker. A Circumstantial Account of the Preparations for the Coronation of His Majesty King Charles II . . . to which is Prefixed, an Account of the Landing, Reception, and Journey of His Majesty from Dover to London. London, 1820. White, Kennett. A Complete History of England: with the Lives of All the Kings and Queens Thereof; from the Earliest Account of Time, to the Death of His Late Majesty King William III. London: B. Aylmer, 1706.

bibliography

385

Wilkins, David. Concilia, 4 vols. London, 1877. Whitelocke, Bulstrode. Memorials of English Affairs. London, 1682. William III, King of England. Original Letters from King William III, then Prince of Orange, to King Charles II, Lord Arlington, &c. London: W. Smith & G. Roydon, 1704. Williamson, Joseph. Letters to Sir Joseph Williamson. Edited by W. D. Christie. The Camden Society. London, 1874.

Sermons Allestrey [sic], Richard, Chaplain to His Majesty. A Sermon Preached at Hampton Court on 29th May 1662. London, 1662. Barnes, Miles, Chaplain in Ordinary. A Sermon Preached before the King at Whitehall, October 17, 1675. Printed by His Majesty’s Special Command. London, 1675. Byam, Henry. The Design of Ignorance: A Sermon Preached before His Majesty on the Isle of Scilly. . . . in his Exile. London, 1675. Calamay, Edmund. The Farewell Sermons of the Late London Ministers Preached August 17th, 1662. London, 1662. Cartwright, Thomas, Dean of Ripon. A Sermon Preached July 17, 1676 in [York, Before] . . . His Majesties Judges of Assize. London, 1676. Craddick, Wiliam. A Sermon Preached to the King. London, 1678. Cave, William. A Sermon Preached before the King at Whitehall, January 23, 1676. Printed by His Majesty’s Special Command. London, 1676. Croft, Herbert, bishop of Hereford. A Sermon to the King, 12 April, 1674. London, 1676. Durham, William. A Sermon Preached before the Artillery Company . . . August 30, 1670, And at their Earnest Request Published. London, 1671. Fell, John. The Character of the last Days. A Sermon Preached before the King. Printed By Command. Oxford, 1675. Haywood, William. A Sermon Dissuading from Obloquie against Governours . . . December 7 1662, in a Solemne Audience. London, 1663. Henchman, Richard. A Peace Offering in the Temple, October 14, 1660. London, 1661. Higham, John. A Looking-Glass for Loyalty: or the Subjects Duty to his Soveraign. . . . Being the substance of several Sermons preached by a person who always looked upon his Allegiance as incorporated into his Religion. London, 1675. Lamplugh, William bishop of Exeter. A Sermon Preached before the King, 5 November. London, 1678. Laney, Benjaimin bishop of Ely. A Sermon Preached before the King. London, 1675. Laney, Benjamin, bishop of Lincoln. A Sermon Preached before the King at Whitehall, 18 March 1666. Published by His Majesty’s Special Command. London, 1666. Laney, Benjamin, bishop of Lincoln. A Sermon Preach’t before His Majesty at Whitehall, March 12, 1664. Published by His Majesty’s Special Command. London, 1665. Laney, Benjamin, bishop of Peterborough. A Sermon Preached before His Majesty at Whitehall, March 9, 1662. Published by His Majesty’s Special Command, London, 1662. Laney, Benjamin, bishop of Peterborough. The Sheperd, or the Pastoral Charge and Obedience due to it. London, 1668. Reissue of Laney’s A Sermon Preached before His Majesty at Whitehall, March 9, 1662. Published by His Majesty’s Special Command, London, 1662.. Lee, Richard. Chaplain to the duke of Albemarle. A Sermon Preached at St. Paul’s . . . November 29, 1663. London, 1663.

386

bibliography

LLoyd, bishop. of Worcester. A Sermon at the Funeral of Edmund Godfrey. London, 1678. Lloyd, William. The Late Apology on behalf of the Papist. London, 1667. Meggott, Richard. A Sermon Preached before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen . . . January 30 1673. Ordered Printed. London, 1674. Morley, George. A Sermon Preached at . . . the Coronation. London, 1661. Pierce, Thomas. A Sermon Preached at St. Margaret’s in Westminister before the House of Commons . . . 29 May 1661. London, 1661. Pierce, Thomas. England’s Season of Reformation of Life. A Sermon Preached in St. Paul’s . . . on Sunday . . . [after] the Restauration. London, 1660. Pittis, Thomas, Chaplain in Ordinary. A Sermon Preached to the Artillery Company . . . September 11, 1677. London, 1677. Prince, John. A Sermon Preached at Exon . . . [before] the Bishop of Exon. London, 1674. Sancroft, William. A Sermon Preached at the Consecrations. London, 1660. South, Robert, Chaplain to the Lord High Chancellor. Ecclesiasticall Policy the Best Policy; or, Religion the Best Reason of State: In a Sermon. Oxford, 1660. ———. A Sermon Preached at Lambeth . . . 25 November Upon the Consecration of . . . John Dolben Lord Bishop of Rochester. Savoy, 1666. Sprat, Thomas. A Sermon Preached to the Commons 30 January 1677. London, 1678. Sprat, Thomas. A Sermon Preached before the King at Whitehall, December 22, 1678. Published by His Majesty’s Special Command. London, 1678. Standfast, Richard. A Sermon Preached at Bristol before [Francis North] . . . at the Assize, August 7, 1675. London, 1676. Stillingfleet, Edward, Chaplain in Ordinary. A Sermon Preached before the King, January 30, 1669. London, 1669. Stillingfleet, Edward, Chaplain in Ordinary. A Sermon Preached before the King, February 24, 1675. Published by His Majesty’s Special Command. London, 1675. Stradling, George, Chaplain in Ordinary. A Sermon Preached before the King at Whitehall, January 30, 1675. London, 1675. Sudbury, John. A Sermon Preached at the Consecration . . . 28 October. London, 1660. Tillotson, John. A Sermon Lately Preached on I Corinthians 3:15. By a Reverend Divine of the Church of England. London, 1673. Tillotson, John. A Sermon to the King, 25 February, 1676. London, 1676. Ward, Seth. Against Resistance to the Lawful Powers. A Sermon Preached before the King at Whitehall, 5 November 1661. London, 1661.

Newspapers and Broadsides A Satyr Against Coffee. London, 1674. A Loyal Litany. London, 1681. Answer to the Geneva Ballad. London, 1674. Babel and Bethel . . . the Church of England’s Plea for Protection from the Pope. London, n.d. Butler, Samuel, The Geneva Ballad. London, 1674. The Case of the Creditors. London, 1676. The Catholic Ballad or, invitation to Popery. . . . London, 1674. The Company of Merchants. London, 1679.

bibliography

387

Defiance to the Dutch. London, 1672. Elegia Poem to Sheldon. London, 1677. Ellegy to Lodowick Muggleton. London, 1677. Four-legged Elder. . . . London, 1677. The Kingdome’s Intelligencer of the Affair now in Agitation, 1660–1663. Published by Henry Muddiman. The London Gazette, 1660–78. Published by Authority. Manner of the Barbarous Murder of the Bishop of St. Andrews. London, 1679. Mercurius Politicus, 1659–1660. Mercurius Publicus, 1660–61. Mirth for Citizens. London, 1673. The Obsevator: In Question and Answer, 1681. By Sir Roger L’Estrange. On the Burning of the Theatre Royal. London, 1672. Poor Robin turn’d Seeker. London, 1674. Reasons . . . Against the Imposition Desir’d by Creditors. London, 1676. Tim Touchstone . . . a vindication of Danby. London, 1679. Wild’s Thanks for His Majesty’s Declaration of Indulgence. London, 1672.

Pamphlets, Poems Advice to a Painter. London, 1666. The Ale-wives Complaint agaisnt Coffee-houses. London, 1675. Anglesey, Arthur Annesley, earl of. Truth Unveiled. London, 1675. Animadversions upon a late Pamphlet, Intitled the Naked Truth. London, 1675. The Answer to His Majesty’s Declaration of War . London, 1673. Burnt Child Dreads the Fire, or the Examination of the Merits of Papists. . . . London, 1674. By the King, A Proclamation for the Re-Printing, Publishing and Using of a Book, Intituled, God and the King. London, 1662. The Case of the Bankers and Creditors. London, 1674. The Case of Joram. London, 1674. Castelmaine, earl of. A Short and True Account of the Material Passages in the first war between the English and Dutch since His Majesties Restauration. London, 1672. The Character of an Honest & Worthy Parliament-Man. London, n.d.[1675?]. The Character of a Fanatick. By a Person of Quality. London, 1675. Croft, William, bishop of Hereford. The Naked Truth. London, 1675. [De Britaine, William]. The Dutch Usurpation, or a brief view of the behaviour of the States General. London, 1672. [Du Moulin, Pierre]. England’s Appeal from the Cabal at Whitehall to the Supreme Council of the Kingdom. . . . London, 1673. Durham, John Cosin, late bishop of. History of Popish Transubstantiations. London, 1675. Dutch Usurpation,or a view of the behavior of the Dutch towards the English King. London, 1672. The Earl of Shaftesbury’s Speech in the Lords: 20 November 1675. London, 1675. An Exact Narrative of the Trial . . . of John Twyn . . . with the Trials of Thomas Brewster. . . . London, 1664.

388

bibliography

Fane, Francis. Love in the Dark, or Man of Business. London, 1675. Felo de se. London, 1668. Further Instructions to a Painter. London, 1667. Gadbury, John. Britain’s Royal Star . . . together with an examination and refutation of that nest of sedition published by Mr H. Jessey. London, 1661. A Serious and Compassionate Inquiry into the Causes of the Present Neglect and Contempt of the Protestant Religion and Church of England. London, 1674. The Grand Question Concerning the Prorogation of Parliament. London, 1676. The Grand Concern of England Explained. London, 1673. Heath, James. A Chronicle of the Late Intestine War in the Three Kingdoms. London, 1676. His Majestie’s Declaration . . . concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs. London, 1660. Howard, John. The English Monsieur—a Satire on the Pretense of French Manners. London, 1674. Humble Thanks for His Majesties Declaration for Liberty of Conscience. London, 1672. An Impartial State of ye Case of ye E of Danby in a Letter to a Member of the House of Commons. London, 1679. Jessey, Henry. The Lord’s Loud Call to England, being a true relation of some late, various and wonderful judgements or handy-works of God, by earthquake, lightening, whirlwind, great multitudes of toads and flyes . . . also of the strange changes and late alterations made in these nations. London, 1660. Jordan, Thomas. A Medicine for the Times, or an Antidote against Faction. London, 1641. Jordan, Thomas. A Cure for him that is troubled with an Ovall-pate. London, 1641. Jordan, Thomas. Rules to know a Royall King from a Disloyall Subject. London, 1642. Jordan, Thomas, London’s Royal Triumph. London, 1684. A Just Vindication of the Officers of the Fleet. London, 1674. Kentilby William. Mystery of iniquity unfolded or, the false Apostles and the Authors of Popery compared in their secular Designe and Means of accomplishing it, by corrupting the Christian Religion under Pretence of promoting it. London, 1674. Last Instructions to a Painter. London, 1667. L’Estrange, Roger. Account of the Growth of Knavery. London, 1678. L’Estrange, Roger. Considerations and Proposals in order to the Regulation of the Press together with diverse instances of Treasonous and Seditious Pamphlets proving the necessity thereof. London, 1663. L’Estrange, Roger. Five Love Letters from a Nun to Cavalier . London, 1678. [L’Estrange, Roger]. Letter to the Chief Ministers of the Non-conformists. London, 1674. L’Estrange, Roger, Minute of a Project for Suppressing Libels. London 1662. L’Estrange, Roger. A Momento to all who love the Memory of King Charles the Martyr. London, 1662. Letter to a Person of Quality to his Friend in the Country. London, 1675. A Letter sent by the States General . . . to His Majesty together with His Majesty’s Answer to said letter. London, 1673. A Letter to Mr S. a Romish Priest concerning the Impossibility of the Publick Establishment of Poppery [sic] in England. London, 1673. Liberty of Conscience. London, 1669. Lloyd, William, bishop of Worcester. Considerations touching . . . popery . . . [and how to] distinguish loyal from disloyal. London, 1677.

bibliography

389

Lloyd, William, bishop of Worcester. Lot’s Apology for the Papists. London, 1675. ———. Ravaillac Revisited. London, 1678. ———. A Reasonable Defence of the Seasonable Discourse Shewing the Necessity of Maintaining the Established Religion in Opposition to Popery, or, A Reply to a Treatise Called A Full Answer and Confutation of a Scandalous Pamphlet &c. London, 1674. The Long Parliament Dissolved. London, 1676. Marvell, Andrew. An Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government. London, 1678. ———. A Seasonable Argument to Perswade all the Grand Juries in England to Petition for a New Parliament, or A List of the Principal Labourers in the Grand Design of Popery and Arbitrary Power. London, 1677. ———. Mr. Smirke or divine in mode. London, 1676. Mirabilis Annus, or The Year of Prodigies and Wonders and Mirabilis Annus Secundus. London, 1665. Mr Jenks, his Case. London 1676. Nalson, John. The Common Interest of King and People. London, 1677. [Nedham, Marchamont]. The Countermine, or . . . the dangerous Principles of Dissent. London, 1677. [Nedham, Marchamont]. Honesty’s Best Policy or, Penitence the Sum of Prudence. London, 1678. [Nedham, Marchamont]. A Pacquet of Advices and Animadversions . . . to the Men of Shaftesbury. London, 1676. [Nedham, Marchamont]. The Second Pacquet of Advices. London, 1677. News of the Exchange or Papist acting Quaker. London, 1674. Omnia Comesta a Belo. London, 1668. Patrick, Symon, bishop of Ely. Advice to a Friend. London, 1677. The Phoenix, or the Solemn League and Covenant. London, 1661. The Poor Whore’s Petition. London, 1670. Poor Robin’s Character of a Dutchman. London, 1672. Queries. London, 1669. A Reasonable Defence of the Established Church. London, 1674. Reflections Upon the League with France, Danger of Popery and Arbitrary Power &c. In a Letter written by an Ignoto to an Ignoto before the late peace concluded with Holland. London, 1673. The Rehearsal Transpros’d. London, 1671. Relation of the most material matters handled in Parliament, relating to religion, property, and the liberty of the subject. London, 1673. The Religion of the Church of England the surest Establishment of the Throne. London, 1673. A Representation of the State of Christianity in England and of its Decay and Danger from Sectaries as well as Papists. London, 1671. Room for a Cobbler. London, 1668. Second Advice to a Painter. London, 1666. Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley earl of. Two Seasonable Discourses Concerning This Parliament. London, 1675. Some Considerations upon the Question whether the Parliament is dissolved by its Prorogation for fifteen months. London, 1676.

390

bibliography

The Speech of Sir Harbottle Grimstone . . . to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty . . . 29 May. . . . London, 1660. Stubbe, Henry. A Justification of the present war. London, 1672. Stubbe, Henry. Address to the King’s Subjects. London, 1673. Stubbe, Henry. An Apology for the King’s Majesty’s Declaration. London, 1673. Subjection for Conscience-sake. London, 1675. The Saint’s Freedom. London, 1671. Third Advice to a Painter. London, 1666. Vox and lachrimae Anglorum. London, 1668. Warly, John. The Natural Fanatick, or Reason consider’d in its Extravagancy in Religion. . . . London, 1676. The Women’s Petition Against Coffee. London, 1674. Worse and Worse, or the case alter’d in some short Reflections upon a late scurrilous and seditious paper intitled Mr Harrington’s case. . . . London, 1677. The Young Men’s Plea, or argument of all Englishmen between ages of 21 and 37 for dissolving the present Parliament, who due to nonage were not able to vote. London, 1676. Wycherly, William, The Plain Dealer. London, 1677.

Secondary Sources Books Aarsleff, Hans, From Locke to Sausurre, Essays on the Study of Language and Intellectual History. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982. Allen, Robert J. Clubs of Augustan London. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1933. Altieri, John. The Theater of Praise: Panegyric Tradition in Seventeenth-Century English Drama. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1986. Andrews, Allen. The Royal Whore, Barbara Castlemaine. Philadelphia: Chilton Book Club, 1952. Andrews, Alexander. History of British Journalism: From the Foundation of the Newspaper Press in England to the Repeal of the Stamp Act in 1885, 2 vols. London: R. Bentley, 1859. Andrews, Charles M. British Committees, Commissions, and Councils of Trade and Plantations, 1622–1675. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1908. Ashcraft, Richard. Revolutionary Politics and Locke’s Two Treatises of Government. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. Backscheider, Paula. Spectacular Politics: Theatrical Power and Mass Culture in Early Modern England. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. Barbeau, Anne T. The Intellectual Design of John Dryden’s Heroic Plays. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970. Barbour, Violet. Henry Bennett, Earl of Arlington, Secretary of State to Charles II. Washington, DC: American Historical Association, 1914. Bate, Frank. The Declaration of Indulgence, 1672: A Study in the Rise of Organized Dissent. London: Published for the University Press of Liverpool by A. Constable, 1908. Bax, Clifford. Pretty, Witty Nell; An Account of Nell Gwynn and Her Environment. New York: B. Bloom, 1969.

bibliography

391

Baxter, Stephen B. The Development of the Treasury, 1660–1702. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957. Beaven, Alford B. The Aldermen of the City of London. Temp. Henry III-1908, 2 vols. London: E. Fisher & Company, 1908–13. Beer, George Louis. The Old Colonial System, 1660–1754, 2 vols. New York: MacMillan, 1912. Beloff, Max. Public Order and Public Disturbances 1660–1714. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938. Bevan, Bryan. Charles the Second’s French Mistress: A Biography of Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth 1649–1734. London: Robert Hale, 1971. Bosher, Robert F. The Making of the Restoration Settlement; The Influence of the Laudians, 1649–1662. Westminster: Dacre Press, 1951. Boswell, Eleanore. The Restoration Court Stage, 1660–1700: With a Particular Account of the Production of Calisto. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1932. Bredvold, Louis, I. The Intellectual Milieu of John Dryden: Studies in Some Aspects of Seventeenth-Century Thought. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1956. Brown, Laura. English Dramatic Form 1660–1760: An Essay in Generic History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981. Brown, Thomas. Miscellanea Aulica, or, A collection of state-treatises, never before publish’d. Faithully collected from their originals. London, 1702. Browning, Andrew. Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby and Duke of Leeds, 1632–1712. 3 vols. Glasgow: Jackson, Son & Co., 1931. Brownley, Martine Watson. Clarendon and the Rhetoric of Historical Form. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985. Bryant, Arthur. King Charles II, rev. ed. London: Collins, 1931. Burghclere, Winifred Anne Henrietta Christina Herbert Gardner, Baroness. George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham, 1628–1687: A Study in the History of the Restoration. New York: Dutton, 1903. Bywaters, David. Dryden in Revolutionary England. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991. Carte, Thomas. The Life of James, Duke of Ormond: Containing an Account of the most Remarkable Affairs of His Time, and particularly of Ireland under His Government with Appendix and a Collection of Letters, Serving to Verify the Most Material Facts in the Said History. 7 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1851. Case, Arthur E. A Bibliography of English Poetical Miscellanies, 1521–1750. Oxford: The Bibliographical Society at the University Press, 1935. Chandaman, C.D. The English Public Revenue 1660–1688. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975. Childs, John. The Army of Charles II. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976. Clay, Charles Roger. Public Finance and Private Wealth: The Career of Stephen Fox 1627–1716. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Clifton, Robin, “Fear of Popery.” In The Origins of the English Civil War,, edited by Conrad Russell. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1973. Cockburn, John S. A History of English Assizes 1558–1714. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972. Cole, Charles Woolsey. Colbert and a Century of French Mercantilism. 2 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969. Coleman, D. C. Sir John Banks. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963.

392

bibliography

Courtenay, Thomas Peregrine. Memoirs of the Life, Works and Correspondence of Sir William Temple, Baronet and Businessman; a Study of Business, Politics, and Society in Later Stuart England. 2 vols. London: Longmans, 1836. Cressy, David. Bonfires and Bells: National Memory and the Protestant Calendar in Elizabethan and Stuart England. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989. Davies, Godfrey. The Restoration of Charles II, 1658–1660. San Marino, CA: The Huntington Library, 1955. De Krey, Gary S. “The London Whigs and the Exclusion Crisis Reconsidered.” In The First Modern Society: Essays in English History in Honour of Lawrence Stone, edited by A. L. Beier, David Cannadine, and James M. Rosenheim. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. D’Oyly, George, Archbishop Sancroft, 2nd ed. London, 1846. Dobree, Bonamy. Restoration Comedy 1660–1720. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1924. ———. Restoration Tragedy 1660–1720. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1929. Ellis, Aytoun. The Penny Universities: A Study of Coffeehouses. London: Secker & Warburg, 1956. Everitt, Alan. Change in the Provinces in the Seventeenth Century. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press, 1969. Fairholt, Frederick W. The Lord Mayors’ Pageants: Being a Collection towards a History of these Annual Celebrations, with Specimens of the Descriptive Pamphlets Published by the City Poets. London: Printed for the Percy Society, 1843. Feiling, Keith. British Foreign Policy 1660–1672. London: Cass, 1968. ———. A History of the Tory Party 1640–1714. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1965. Fergusson, James. Robert Fergusson the Plotter; or The Secret of the Rye-House Conspiracy and the Story of a Strange Career. Edinburgh, UK: D. Douglas, 1887. Ferrell, Lori Anne. Government by Polemic: James I, the King’s Preachers, and the Rhetorics of Conformity, 1603–1625. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998. Fletcher, Anthony. The Outbreak of the Civil War. New York: New York University Press, 1981. Foxcroft, Helen Charlotte. Life and Letters of Sir George Savile, Bart., First Marquis of Halifax. 2 vols. New York: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1898. Frank, Joseph. The Beginnings of the English Newspaper, 1620–1660. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961. ———. Cromwell’s Press Agent: a Critical Biography of Marchamont Nedham, 1620– 1678. Maryland: University Press of America, 1980. Fraser, Antonia. The Weaker Vessel. New York: Knopf, 1985. Fraser, Peter. The Intelligence of the Secretaries of State & Their Monopoly of Licensed News, 1660–1688. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956. Garrison, James D. Dryden and the Tradition of Panegyric. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1975. Geyl, Peter. Orange and Stuart, 1641–1672. New York: Scribner’s, 1969. Glassey, Lionel. Politics and the Appointment of Justices of the Peace, 1675–1720. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. Greaves, Richard L. Deliver Us from Evil: The Radical Underground in Britain 1660– 1663. New York: Oxford Universtiy Press, 1986. ———. Enemies Under his Feet: Radicals and Nonconformists in Britain, 1664 –1677. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990.

bibliography

393

— —. Secrets of the Kingdom: British Radicals from the Popish Plot to the Revolution of 1688–1689. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992. Grego, Joseph. A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering in the Old Days: Showing the State of Political Parties and Party Warfare at the Hustings and in the House of Commons from the Stuarts to Queen Victoria. London: Chatto & Windus, 1886. Green, I. M. The Re-Establishment of the Church of England, 1660–1663. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Gruenfelder, John K. Influence in Early Stuart Elections, 1604 – 40. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1981. Gunn, J. A. W. Politics and Public Interest in the Seventeenth Century. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969. Haley, K. H. D. An English Diplomat in the Low Countries: Sir William Temple and John De Witt, 1665–72. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1986. ———. The First Earl of Shaftesbury. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1968. ———. Politics in the Reign of Charles II. New York: Blackwell, 1985. ———. William of Orange and the English Opposition 1672–74. London: The Clarendon Press, 1953. Haley, K. H. D. “ ‘No Popery’ in the Reign of Charles II.” In Britain and the Netherlands, edited by J. S. Bromley and E. H. Kossman. London: Chatto & Windus, 1960. Halliday, Paul. Dismembering the Body Politic: Partisan Politics in England’s Towns, 1650–1730. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Harbage, Alfred. Cavalier Drama: An Historical and Critical Supplement to the Study of the Elizabethan and Restoration Stage. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1936. Harbage, Alfred. Thomas Killigrew, Cavalier Dramatist, 1612–83. London: Oxford University Press, 1930. Harris, Tim. London Crowds in the Reign of Charles II: Propaganda and Politics from the Restoration until the Exclusion Crisis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. ———. Politics Under the Later Stuarts: Party Conflict in a Divided Society. New York: Longman, 1993. Harris, Tim, Paul Seward, and Mark Goldie, eds. The Politics of Religion in Restoration England. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Harth, Phillip. Pen for a Party: Dryden’s Tory Propaganda in its Contexts. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Hartmann, Cyril Hughes. Charles II and Madame. London: Heinemann, 1934. ———. Clifford of the Cabal: A Life of Thomas Clifford Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, Lord High Treasurer of England, 1630–73. London: Heinemann, 1937. ———. The King My Brother. London: Heinemann, 1954. ———. La Belle Stuart; Memoirs of Court and Society in the Times of Frances Teresa Stuart, Duchess of Richmond and Lennox. London: G. Routledge & Sons Ltd, 1924. Henning, Basil, ed. The House of Commons, 1660–89. London: Published for the History of Parliament Trust by Secker & Warburg, 1993. Hibbard, Caroline. Charles I and The Popish Plot. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983. Hill, Christopher. Some Intellectual Consequences of the English Revolution. Madison: Wisconsin University Press, 1980. Hind, Arthur. Engravings in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries; a Descriptive Catalogue. 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952–64.

394

bibliography

Hirst, Derek. The Representative of the People? Voters and Voting in England under the Early Stuarts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975. Holman, Peter. Four and Twenty Fiddlers: The Violin at the English Court 1540–1690. Oxford, UK: The Clarendon Press, 1993. Hoskins, W. G. Provincial England; Essays in Social and Economic History. London: MacMillan, 1963. Hoskins, W. G. Local History in England. London: Longmans, 1959. Hotson, Leslie. The Commonwealth and Restoration Stage. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1928. Howell, Roger. Newcastle upon Tyne and the Puritan Revolution: a Study of the Civil War in Northern England. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1967. Hughes, Edward. Studies in Administration and Finance, 1558–1825. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1934. Hunter, Michael. Science and Society in Restoration England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Hutton, Ronald. Charles II: King of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1989. ———. The Restoration: A Political and Religious History of England and Wales 1658– 1667. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Jones, James Rees. Anglo–Dutch Wars of the Seventeenth Century. New York: Longman, 1996. ———. Charles II; Royal Politician. London: Allen & Unwin, 1987. ———. The First Whigs; the Politics of the Exclusion Crisis, 1678–1683. London: Oxford University Press, 1961. — —, ed. The Restored Monarchy, 1660–1688. Totowa, NJ: Rowan & Littlefield, 1979. Jose, Nicolas. Ideas of Restoration in English Literature. 1660–71. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984. Jusserand, J. J. A French Ambassador at the Court of Charles the Second: le Comte de Cominges, from His Unpublished Correspondence. London: T. F. Unwin, 1892. Kantorowicz, Ernst. The King’s Two Bodies, A Study in Medieval Political Theology. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957. Karraker, Cyrus H. The Seventeenth Century Sheriff: A Comparative Study of the Sheriff in England and the Chesapeake Colonies, 1607–1689. London, 1930. Kenyon, John Phillips. The Popish Plot. London: Heinemann, 1972. ———. Robert Spencer First Earl of Sunderland, 1641–1702. London: Longmans, Green, 1958. Kishlansky, Mark. Parliamentary Selection: Social and Political Choice in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Kitchin, George. Sir Roger L’Estrange: A Contribution to the History of the Press in the Seventeenth Century. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd., 1913. Kitson, Frank. Prince Rupert: Portrait of a Soldier. London:, Methuen, 1994. Knight, Charles. Shadows of the Old Booksellers. London: Bell & Daldy, 1865. Knights, Mark. Politics and Opinion in Crisis, 1679–81. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Lacey, Douglas. Dissent and Parliamentary Politics in England, 1661–1689; A Study in the Perpetuation and Tempering of Parliamentarianism. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1969.

bibliography

395

Lake, Peter. “Anti-popery: The Structure of a Prejudice.” In Conflict in Early Stuart England: Studies in Religion and Politics 1603–1642. Edited by Richard Cust and Ann Hughes. New York: Longman, 1989. Lee, Maurice. The Cabal. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965. ———. Government By Pen: Scotland under James VI and I. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980. Lingard, John. A History of England, from the First Invasion by the Romans. 10 vols. London, 1849. Lodge, Eleanor C. Sully, Colbert, and Turgot: A Chapter in French Economic History. New York: B. Franklin, 1971. Love, Harold, ed. Restoration Literature: Critical Approaches. London: Methuen, 1972. Macaulay, Thomas Babington. History of England, to the Death of William III. 4 vols. London: Heron Books, 1967. MacKenzie, W. C. Life and Times of John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale 1616–82. New York: Dutton 1923. Maguire, Nancy Klein. Regicide and Restoration: English Tragicomedy, 1660–1671. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Maitland, Frederick W. Constitutional History of England: A Course of Lectures. Cambridge: The University Press, 1913. Marshall, Alan. Intelligence and Espionage in the Reign of Charles II, 1660–1685. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Mathews, Arnold G., ed. Calamay Revised; Being a Revision of Edmund Calamay’s Account of the Ministers and Others Ejected and Silenced, 1660–62. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1934. McCullough, Peter E. Sermons at Court: Politics and Religion in Elizabethan and Jacobean Preaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. McFadden, George. Dryden, the Public Writer, 1660–1685. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978. McGee, J. Sears. The Godly Man is Stuart England: Anglicans, Puritans and the Two Tables. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976. McKeon, Michael. Politics and Poetry in Restoration England: The Case of Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975. Miller, John. Charles II. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991. ———. Popery and Politics in England 1660–1689. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978. Muddiman, J. G. The King’s Journalist 1659–1689: Studies in the Reign of Charles II. London: John Lane The Bodley Head, 1923. Nenner, Howard. By Colour of Law: Legal Culture and Constitutional Politics in England, 1660–1689. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977. Nevo, Ruth. The Dial of Virtue: A Study of Poems on Affairs of State in the Seventeenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963. Newdigate-Newdegate, Anne Emily Lady. Cavalier and Puritan in the Days of the Stuarts; Compiled from the Private Papers and Diary of Sir Richard Newdigate 1675–89. London: Smith, Elder, 1901. Nicoll, Allardyce. A History of Restoration Drama, 1660–1700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1923. Nicolson, Marjorie Hope. The Conway Letters: the Correspondence of Anne, Viscountess Conway, Henry More, and Their Freinds, 1642–1684. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1930.

396

bibliography

Ogg, David. England in the Reign of Charles II. 2 vols. London: Oxford University Press, 1955. Ohlmeyer, Jane H. Civil War and Restoration in the Three Stuart Kingdoms: The Career of Randal MacDonnell, First Earl of Antrim, 1609–1683. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Oldmixion, John. History of England during the Reign of the Royal House of Stuart. London: J. Pemberton, 1730. Orme, William. The Life and Times of Baxter. London: J. Duncan, 1830. Oliver, H. J. Sir Robert Howard, 1626–1698: A Critical Biography. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1963. Owen, Susan J. Restoration Theater and Crisis. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1996. Page, William, et al, eds., Victoria County Histories. London: Constable, 1900–1924. Pape, Thomas. Restoration Government and the Corporation of Newcastle-under-Lyme. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1940. Parkes, Joan. Travel in England in the Seventeenth Century. London: Oxford University Press, 1925. Patterson, Annabel. Censorship and Interpretation: The Conditions of Writing and Reading in Early Modern England. Wisconsin: Wisconsin University Press, 1984. ———. Marvell and the Civic Crown. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978. ———. Marvell: The Writer in Public Life. New York: Longman, 2000. Pincus, Steven, C.A. Protestantism and Patriotism: Ideologies and the Making of English Foreign Policy, 1650–1668. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Plamenantz, John. Ideology. New York: Praeger, 1970. Pocock, J. G. A. The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957. ———. The Machiavellian Moment. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975. ———. Politics, Language, and Time; Essays on Political Thought and History. New York: Atheneum, 1971. Porritt, Edward. The Unreformed House of Commons: Particularly Representation before 1832. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909. Ralph, James. The History of England during the Reigns of King William, Queen Anne, and King George the First. 2 vols. London, 1744 – 46. Reedy, Gerard. The Bible and Reason: Anglicans and Scripture in Late Seventeenth Century England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985. Rivers, Isabel. The Poetry of Conservatism 1600–1745; A Study of Poets and Public Affairs from Jonson to Pope. Cambridge: Rivers Press Ltd., 1973. Robbins, Caroline. The Eighteenth Century Commonwealthman: Studies in the Transmission, Development, and Circumstance of English Liberal Thought from the Restoration of Charles II until the Wars with the Thirteen Colonies. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959. Roberts, Clayton. The Growth of Responsible Government in Stuart England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966. ———. Schemes and Undertakings: A Study of English Politics in the Seventeenth Century. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1985. Roberts, William. Earlier History of English Bookselling London, 1889. Rowen, Herbert. Jan de Witt, Grand Pensionary of Holland 1675–82. Princeton: Gilbert & Rivington, 1978.

bibliography

397

Sacks, David Harris. The Widening Gate: Bristol and the Atlantic Economy, 1450–1700. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991. Scott, David. “Politics and Government in York, 1640–1662.” In Town and Countryside in the English Revolution, edited by R. C. Richardson. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1992. Seaward, Paul. The Cavalier Parliament and the Reconstruction of the Old Regime, 1661– 1667. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Schochet, Gordon. Patriarchalism in Political Thought. New York: Basic Books, 1975. Schwoerer, Lois G. “No Standing Armies!” The Anti-army Ideology in Seventeenth Century England. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974. Scott, Jonathan. Algernon Sidney and the English Republic, 1623–1677. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. ———. Algernon Sidney and the Restoration Crisis, 1677–1683. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. ———. England’s Troubles: Seventeenth-Century English Political Instability in European Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Sergeant, Philip W. My Lady Castlemaine: Being a Life of Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine, afterward Duchess of Cleveland. Boston: Estes, 1911. Shaw, W. A. Beginnings of the National Debt. Owens College Historical Essays, 1902. Siebert, Frederick S. Freedom of the Press in England 1476–1776: The Rise and Decline of Government Control. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965. Simon, Walter. The Restoration Episcopate. New York: Bookman Associates, 1965. Somerville, C. John. The News Revolution in England: Cultural Dynamics of Daily Information. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Spurr, John. The Restoration Church of England, 1646–1689. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Squire, Geoffrey. Dress and Society 1560–1970. New York: Viking, 1974. Staley, Vernon. The Life and Times of Gilbert Sheldon. London: Gardner, Darton & Co., 1913. Staves, Susan. Players’ Sceptres: Fictions of Authority in the Restoration. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979. Summers, Montague. The Restoration Theatre. New York: MacMillan, 1934. Sutch, Victor. Gilbert Sheldon, Architect of Anglican Survival, 1640–1675. The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1973. Sutherland, James R. The Restoration Newspaper and Its Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Swatland, Andrew. The House of Lords in the Reign of Charles II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Swatland, Andrew. “The Role of the Privy Councillors in the House of Lords, 1660–1681.” In A Pillar of the Constitution: The House of Lords in British Politics, 1640–1784, edited by Clive Jones. London:, 1989. Swedenberg, H. T., ed. Essential Articles for the Study of John Dryden. Connecticut: Archon Books, 1966. Sykes, Norman. From Sheldon to Secker: Aspects of English Church History, 1660–1768. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959. Tanner, J. R. Private Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers of Samuel Pepys, 1679– 1703. 2 vols. London: G. Bell & Sons, 1926. Thomas, Peter W. Sir John Berkenhead, 1617–1679: A Royalist Career in Politics and Polemics. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1969.

398

bibliography

Thomas, W. Keith. The Crafting of Absalom and Achitophel: Dryden’s “Pen for a Party.” Waterloo, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1978. Thorp, Willard. Songs from the Restoration Theatre. New York: Da Capo Press, 1970. Tindal, Hart Arthur. Clergy and Society, 1600–1800. London: S.P.C.K. for the Church Historical Society, 1968. ———. The Country Clergy in Elizabethan & Stuart Times, 1558–1660. London: Phoenix House, 1958. ———. William Lloyd, 1672–1717, Bishop, Politician, Author, and Prophet. London: S.P.C.K., 1952. Trevelyan, George M. England Under the Stuarts. 21st ed. London: Methuen, 1965. Turner, Victor. Dramas, Fields and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974. Underdown, David. Fire from Heaven: Life in an English Town in the Seventeenth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. ———. Revel, Riot, and Rebellion: Popular Politics and Culture in England, 1607–1660. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1985. Van Lennep, William, ed. The London Stage, 1660–1800: A Calendar of Plays, Entertainments & AfterPieces, together with Casts, Box-Receipts and Contemporary Comment, Part 1: 1660–1700. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1965. Wallace, John M. Destiny His Choice: The Loyalism of Marvell. London: Oxford University Press, 1968. Wallace, John. “John Dryden’s Plays and the Conception of a Heroic Society.” In Politics and Culture, edited by Perez Zagorin. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980. Webb, Stephen Saunders. The Governors-General: The English Army and the Definition of Empire, 1659–1681. Chapel Hill: North Carolina University Press, 1982. ———. 1676: The End of American Independence. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985. Wedgwood, C. V. Poetry and Politics Under the Stuarts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960. Westergaard, W., ed. First Triple Alliance; The Letters of Christopher Lindenov, Danish Envoy to London, 1668–1672. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1947. Wickham, Glynne. Early English Stages, 1300–1660. 2 vols. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963. Wiley, Autrey Nell. Rare Prologues and Epilogues, 1642–1700. London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1940. Williams, Raymond. Keywords. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. Wilson, John H. Nell Gwynn, Royal Mistress. New York: Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1952. Wilson, Kathleen, The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture, and Imperialism in England, 1715–1785. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Winn, James Anderson. John Dryden and His World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987. Witcombe, Dennis T. Charles II and the Cavalier House of Commons, 1663–1674. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1966. Zwicker, Steven. Dryden’s Political Poetry; The Typology of King and Nation. Providence: Brown University Press, 1972. ———. Politics and Language in Dryden’s Poetry: The Arts of Dusguise. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.

bibliography

399

Articles Aubrey, E. R. “Speed’s History of Southampton.” Southampton Record Society 8 (1909). Abbott, W. C. “English Conspiracy and Dissent, 1660–74.” AHR 45 (1909). ———. “The Long Parliament of Charles II.” EHR 21 (1906). Abernathy, George R. “Clarendon and the Declaration of Indulgence.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 11 (1960). Alexander, J. J. “Dartmouth as a Parliamentary Borough.” Reports and Transactions of the Devonshire Association 43 (1911). Alexander, J. J. “Bere Alston as a Parliamentary Borough.” Reports and Transactions of the Devonshire Association 41 (1909). Allen, David. “Political Clubs in Restoration London.” Historical Journal 19 (1976). ———. “The Political Function of Charles II’s Chiffinch.” HLQ 39 (1976). Andrews, J. H. “Rye Harbour in the Reign of Charles II.” SAC 94 (1956). Avery, Emmet L. “Tentative Calendar of Daily Theatrical Performances , 1660–1700.” Research Studies of the College of Washington 13 (1945). Barnes, T. G. “Somerset Assize Orders.” Somerset Record Society 45 (1959). Beddard, R. A. “Of the Duty of Subjects: A Proposed Fortieth Article of Religion.” Bodleian Library Record 10, no. 4 (1981). Behrens, B. “Whig Theory of the Constitution in the Reign of Charles II.” CHJ 8 (1941). Bellot, H. H. L. “The Rule of Law.” Quarterly Review 246 (1926). Boas, F. S. “The University of Oxford and the Profesional Players.” Times Literary Supplement, 14 March (1929). Bredvold, Louis I. “Dryden, Hobbes, and The Royal Society.” Modern Philology 25 (1928). ———. “Political Aspects of Dryden’s Amboyna and The Spanish Friar.” In Essays and Studies in English and Comparative Literature. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1938. ———. “The Tendency Toward Platonism in Neo-Classical Esthetics.” ELH 1 (1934). Brigg, W., ed. “Yorkshire Fines for the Stuart Period.” Yorkshire Archeological and Social Records Society. 53 (1915); 58 (1917). Brown, Louise F. “Ideas of Representation from Elizabeth to Charles II.” JMH 11 (1939). Browning, Andrew. “Parties and Party Organization in the Reign of Charles II.” TRHS, 4th ser., 30 (1945). Bushfield, T. N. “Church Brief for a London Theatre.” N & Q, 8th ser., 10 (Oct. 10, 1896). Canfield, J. Douglas. “The Significance of the Restoration Rhymed Heroic Play.” Eighteenth Century Studies 13 (1979). Carlyle, E. I. “Clarendon and the Privy Council 1660–7.” EHR 27 (1912). Carroll, Roy. “Yorkshire Parliamentary Boroughs in the Seventeenth Century.” Northern History 3 (1968). Chaudhuri, K. N. “Treasure and Trade Balance: The East India Company’a Export Trade 1660–1720.” EcHR, 2nd ser., 21 (1968). Clapp, S. L. C. “Seventeenth-Century Book Subscription.” Modern Philology 39 (1931); Library, 4th ser., 30 (1932). Clark, Dorothy. “Edward Blackwell as a Royal Agent.” EcHR, 2nd ser., 38 (1985). Clark, Dorothy, “A Restoration Goldsmith-Banking House: The Vine on Lombard Street.” In Essays in Modern English History in Honor of Wilbur Cortez Abbott. Edited by Charles Seymour. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1941.

400

bibliography

Clark Peter. “Migration in England During the Late Seventeenth Century and Eighteenth Century.” P & P 83 (1979). Clay, Christopher. “The Greed of Whig Bishops? Church Landlords and Lessees 1660– 1760.” P & P 87 (1980). Clay, J. W. “The Savile Family.” Yorkshire Archeological Journal 25 (1920). ———. “The Clifford Family.” Yorkshire Archeological Journal 18 (1905). Coleman, D. C. “Sir John Banks, Financier: An Essay on Government Borrowing under the Later Stuarts.” In Essays in the Economic and Social History of Tudor and Stuart England, in Honor of R.H. Tawney. Edited by F. J. Fisher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961. Coolidge, J. S. “Marvell and Horace.” Modern Philology 63 (1965). Cooper, J. H. “A Religious Census of Sussex in 1676.” SAC 45 (1902). Cornwall, J. “Evidence of Population Mobility in the Seventeenth Century.” BIHR 40, no. 101 (1967). Crane, R. S. & Kaye, F. “Census of British Newspapers 1620–1800.” Studies in Philology 24, no. 1 (1927). Curran, M. B., ed. “Dispatches of Will Perwich, English Agent.” TRHS, n.s., 15 (1903). Davies, Godfrey. “Council and Cabinet 1679–88.” EHR 37 (1922). ———. “English Political Sermons, 1603–1640.” HLQ 3 (1939). ———. “Sir Richard Temple’s Political Career.” HLQ 4 (1940). Davies, Godfrey and Michael Crissey. “Corruption in Parliament, 1660–77.” HLQ 6 (1942). Davies, K. G. “Joint Stock Investment in the Later Seventeenth Century.” EcHR, 2nd ser., 4 (1952). Davis, Ralph. “English Foreign Trade, 1660–1700.” EcHR, 2nd ser., 7 (1954). Davis, Richard. “Committee and Other Procedures in the House of Lords, 1660–85.” HLQ 45 (1982). ———. “Recorded Divisions in the House of Lords, 1661–80.” Parliamentary History 1 (1982). Davis, Richard. “The Presbyterian Opposition and the Emergence of Party in the House of Lords in the Reign of Charles II.” In Party and Management in Parliament, 1660–1784. Edited by Clyve Jones. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984. De Beer, E. S. “The House of Lords in the Parliament of 1680.” BIHR 20 (1943). ———. “Robert Howard.” N & Q 187 (4 April, 1944). ———. “Members of the Court Party in the House of Commons, 1670–1678.” BIHR 11 (1933). De Krey, Gary S. “The First Restoration Crisis: Conscience and Coercion in London, 1667–73.” Albion 25 (1993). ———. “Party Lines: A Reply.” Albion 25 (1993). ———. “Rethinking the Restoration: Dissenting Cases for Conscience, 1667–1672.” HJ 38 (1995). De Krey, Gary S. “The London Whigs and the Exclusion Crisis Reconsidered.” In The First Modern Society: Essays in English History in Honour of Lawrence Stone. Edited by A. L. Beier, David Cannadine, and James M. Rosenhem. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Dennett, J., ed. “Beverley Borough Records 1575–1821.” Yorkshire Archeological Society, Record Series 84 (1933).

bibliography

401

Edie, Carolyn. “The Irish Cattle Bills: a Study in Restoration Politics.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 45, pt. 2. (1970). Elton, G. R. “Tudor Government: The Points of Contact. III. The Court.” TRHS 5th ser., 26 (1976). Feiling, Keith. “Clarendon and the Act of Uniformity, 1662–3.” EHR 44 (1929). ———. “Journals of Edmund Warcup.” EHR 40 (1925). Firth, C. H. “Thurloe and the Post Office.” EHR 13 (1898). Fisher, F. J. “London as the Engine for Economic Growth.” In Britain and the Netherlands, vol. 4. Edited by J. S. Bromley and E. H. Kossman. Zutphen: Walburg Instituut, 1971. Fletcher, Anthony. “The Enforcement of the Conventicle Acts, 1664 –1679.” In Persecution and Toleration: Papers Read at the Twenty-second Summer Meeting and Twentythird Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society. Studies in Church History 21. Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1984. Ford, D. M. “Growth of the Freedom of the Press.” EHR 4 (1899). French, A. L. “Dryden, Marvell and Political Poetry.” Studies in English Literature 8 (1968). Furley, O. W. “Pope-Burning Processions of the Late Seventeenth Century.” History, n.s., 44 (1959). ———. “Whig Exclusionists: Pamphlet Literature in the Exclusion Campaign.” CHJ 13 (1957). Gearin-Tosh, Michael. “The Structure of Marvell’s ‘Last Instructions to a Painter’.” Modern Philology 63 (1966). George, R. H. “Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering in 1685.” TRHS, 4th ser., 19 (1936). George, M. Dorothy. “Elections and Electioneering in 1679–81.” EHR 45 (1930). Gill, Doris. “The Relationship Between the Treasury and the Excise and Customs Commissioners 1660–1714.” CHJ 4 (1932). ———. “The Treasury 1660–1714.” EHR 46 (1931). Goldie, Mark. “John Locke and Anglican Royalism.” Political Studies 31 (1983). Gooder, A. “Parliamentary Representation of York 1258–1832.” Yorkshire Archeological and Social Records Society 94 (1937). Grassby, Richard. “English Merchant Capitalism in the Late Seventeenth Century: The Composition of Business Fortunes.” P & P 46 (1970). Greaves, Richard L. “Great Scott! The Restoration in Turmoil, or, Restoration Crises and the Emergence of Party.” Albion 25 (1993). Grose, Clyde L. “The Anglo-Dutch Alliance of 1678.” EHR 39 (1924). ———. “Louis XIV’s Financial Relations with Charles II and the English Parliament.” JMH 1 (1929). ———. “French Ambassadors’ Reports on Financial Dealings with Members of Parliament 1677–78.” EHR 44 (1929). Haley, K. H. D. “Anglo-Dutch Rapprochement of 1677.” EHR 73 (1958). ———. “ ‘No Popery’ in the Reign of Charles II.” In Britain and the Netherlands, vol. 5, edited by J. S. Bromley and E. H. Kossman. Zutphen: Walburg Insituut, 1972. Halfpenny, Eric. “The Citie’s Loyalty Display’d.” Guildhall Miscellany 10 (1959). Hall, D. G. E. “Anglo-French Trade Relations under Charles II.” History, n.s., 7 (1922). Harbage, Alfred. “Elizabethan-Restoration Palimpset.” Modern Language Review 35 (1940).

402

bibliography

Hardacre, Paul H. “The Genesis of the Declaration of Breda, 1657–1660,” The Journal of Church and State 15 (1973). Hargreaves, Henry A. “Mrs. Behn’s Warning of the Dutch Thames Plot.” N & Q, 5th ser., 9 (1962). Harris, Tim. “Party Turns? Or, Whigs and Tories Get Off Scott Free.” Albion 25 (1993), Havighurst, A. F. “Judiciary and Politics in the Reign of Charles II.” Law Quarterly Review 46 (1950). Hodgson, J.C., ed. “Six Northern County Diaries.” The Surtees Society vol. 118. Durham, 1910. Holiday, P. G. “Land Sales and Repurchases in Yorkshire after the Civil Wars 1650–70.” Northern History 5 (1970). Hooker, E. N. “The Purpose of Dryden’s Annus Mirabilus.” HLQ 10 (1946). Hoskins, W. G. “Harvest Fluctuations and English Economic History 1620–1759.” Agricultural History Review 16 (1968). Hudson, Winthrop. “Fast Days and Civil Religion.” Los Angeles: The Clark Library, 1971. Hughes, Edward. “English Stamp Duties 1664 –1764.” EHR 56 (1941). Hughes, Charles, ed. “Nicholas Faunt, Discourse Touching the Office of Principal Secretary of State.” EHR 20 (1905). Hutton, Ronald. “The Making of the Secret Treaty of Dover, 1668–1670.” HJ 29 (1986). Johnston, N. “History of the Family of Foljambe,” Collectiana Topographica et Genealogica 2 (1835). Jones, G. F. T. “The Composition and Leadership of the Presbyterian Party in the Convention.” EHR 79 (1964). Jones, J. R. “Booth’s Rising of 1659.” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 39 (1956–57). ———. “Court Dependents in 1664.” Durham University Journal, n.s., 20 (1958). ———. “First Whig Party in Norfolk.” Durham University Journal, n.s., 15 (1953). ———. “The Green Ribbon Club.” Durham University Journal, n.s., 18 (1956). ———. “James II’s Whig Collaborators.” Historical Journal 3 (1960). ———. “Political Groups and Tactics in the Convention of 1660.” Historical Journal 4 (1963). ———. “Scottish Constitutional Opposition of 1679.” Scottish Historical Review, 17 (1958). ———. “Shaftesbury’s Worthy Men.” BIHR 30 (1957). ———. “Parties and Parliament.” In The Restored Monarchy, 1660–1688. Edited by J. R. Jones. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1979. Jones, Virgil L. “Methods of Satire in the Political Drama of the Restoration.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 21 (1922). Keith, W. G. “The Designs for the First Moveable Scenery on the English Public Stage.” Burlington Magazine 25 (1914). Kenney, R.W. “Parliamentary Influence of Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham, 1536– 1624.” JMH 39 (1967). Kenyon, J. P. “Charles II and William III in 1680.” BIHR, 30 (1957). ———. “The Reign of Charles II.” CHJ 13 (1957). Keuth, W. G. “John Webb and the Court Theatre of Charles II.” Architectural Review 57 (1925). Kirby, Ethyn Williams. “Quakers Efforts to Secure Civil Rights and Religious Liberty 1660–96.” JMH 7 (1955).

bibliography

403

Kirby, J. W. “Restoration Leeds and the Aldermen of the Corporation.” Northern History 22 (1986). Kirsch, Arthur C. “Dryden, Corneille and the Heroic Play.” Modern Philology 59 (1962). Kishlansky, Mark. “Consensual Politics and the Structure of the Putney Debates.” Journal of British Studies 20 (1981). ———. “The Emergence of Adversary Politics in the Long Parliament.” JMH 49 (1977). Lake Peter. “Anti-popery: the Structure of a Prejudice.” In Conflict in Early Stuart England: Studies in Religion and Politics, 1603–1642. Edited by Richard Cust and Ann Hughes. New York: Longman, 1989. Lamson, Roy Jr. “Henry Purcell’s Dramatic Songs and the English Broadside Ballad.” PMLA 53 (1938). Leftwich, B. R. “Later History and Administration of the Customs Revenue, 1671–1814.” TRHS, 4th ser., 13 (1930). Lipson, E. “Elections to the Exclusion Parliaments 1679–81.” EHR 28 (1913). Love, Harold. “State Affairs on the Restoration Stage, 1660–1675.” Restoration and 18th Century Theatre Research 19 (1975). MacDonald, Hugh. “Banter in English Controversial Prose After the Restoration.” Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association 32 (1946). ———. “The Attacks on Dryden.” Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association 21 (1936). Manning, S. B. “The Nobles, the People and the Constitution.” P & P 29 (1965). Marshall, Lydia M. “Levying of the Hearth Tax, 1662–88.” EHR 51 (1936). Maurer, Wallace. “Who Prompted Dryden to Write ‘Absalom and Achitophel’.” Philological Quarterly 40 (1961). Mayo, C. H. “Social Status of the Clergy.” EHR 37 (1922). Milne, Doreen. “The Results of the Rye House Plot.” TRHS, 5th ser., 1 (1951). Monta˜no, John Patrick. “The Quest for Consensus: the Lord Mayor’s Day Shows in the 1670s.” In Culture and Society in the Stuart Restoration: Literature, Drama, History. Edited by Gerald MacLean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Moore, John Robert. “Contemporary Satire in Otway’s Venice Preserv’d.” PMLA 43 (1928). Morrissey, L. J. “English Street Theatre: 1655–1708.” Costerus 4 (1972). Mukerjee, H. N. “Elections for the Convention and Cavalier Parliaments.” N & Q 167 (1934). Mullett, Charles F. “The Legal Position of Protestant Dissenters 1660–89.” Virginia Law Review 22 (1936). Nichols, Glen. “English Government Borrowing 1660–88.” JBS 10 (1971). Nicoll, Allardyce. “Poltical Plays of the Restoration.” MLR 21 (1921). Niemayer, Carl. “Henry Killigrew and the Duke of Buckingham.” Review of English Studies 12 (1936). Noyes, Robert Gale. “Conventions of Song in Restoration Tragedy.” PMLA 53 (1938). Pearl, Valerie. “The Royal Independents in the English Civil War.” TRHS, 5th ser., 18 (1968). ———. “Oliver St. John and the Middle Group in the Long Parliament.” EHR 81 (1966). Pincus, Steven C. A. “ ‘Coffee Politicians Does Create’: Coffeehouses and Restoration Political Culture,” JMH 67 (1995). ———. “From Butterboxes to Wooden Shoes: The Shift in English Popular Sentiment from Anti-Dutch to Anti-French in the 1670s.” HJ 38, number 2 (1995).

404

bibliography

Plumb, J. H. “The Growth of the Electorate.” P & P 11 (1957). Pocock, J. G. A., “Robert Brady 1627–1700, A Cambridge Historian of the Restoration.” CHJ 10 (1951). Priestly, Margaret, “Anglo-French Trade and the ‘Unfavourable Balance’ Controversy 1660–85.” EcHR, 2nd ser., 4 (1951). ———. “London, Merchants and Opposition Politics in Charles II’s Reign.” BIHR, 29 (1956). Rait, Robert, S. “The Scottish Parliament before the Unions of the Crowns.” EHR 15 (1900). Randall, Helen. “The Rise and Fall of a Martyrology: Sermons on Charles I.” HLQ 10 (1947). Rhodes, R. Crompton. “The King’s Players at Oxford, 1661–1712.” Times Literary Supplement 21 Feb. (1929). Richards, Richard. “The ‘Stop of the Exchequer’.” Economic History 2 (1930). Robbins, Caroline. “Oxford Session of 1665.” BIHR 21 (1948). Roberts, Clayton. “The Impeachment of the Earl of Clarendon.” CHJ 13 (1957). ———. “Sir Richard Temple’s Discourse on the Parliament of 1667–68.” HLQ 20 (1956). Rosenfeld, Sybil. “Dramatic Advertisements in the Burney Newspapers, 1660–1700.” PMLA 30 (1936). Rosenfeld, Sybil. “The Restoration Stage in Newspapers and Journal, 1660–1700.” MLR 30 (1935). ———. “Some Notes on the Players in Oxford, 1661–1713.” Review of English Studies 19 (1943). Rosenheim, James M. “Documenting Authority: Texts and Magistracy in Restoration Society.” Albion 25 (1993). Round, J. H. “Charles II and the Corporations.” EHR 15 (1900). ———. “Party Organization at the Local Level: The Norfolk Sheriffs Subscription of 1676.” HJ 29 (1986). Sacret, J. H. “Restoration Government and the Municipal Corporations.” EHR 45 (1930). Sainty, J. C. “A Reform in the Tenure of Offices during the Reign of Charles II.” BIHR 41 (1968). ———. “Proxy Records of the House of Lords, 1510–1733.” Parliamentary History 1 (1982). Schwoerer, Lois. “Propaganda in the Revolution of 1688–9.” AHR 82 (1977). Schwoerer, Lois. “Liberty of the Press and Public Opinion, 1660–95.” In Liberty Secured? Britain Before and After 1688. Edited by J. R. Jones. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992. Scott, David. “ Politics and Government in York, 1640–1662.” In Town and Countryside in the English Revolution. Edited by R. C. Richardson. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1992. Scott, Florence R. “Robert Howard. “ PMLA 53 (1937). ———. “Robert Howard.” Modern Language Notes 40 (1940). Scott, Jonathan. “Radicalism and Restoration.” HJ 31 (1988). ———. “Restoration Process. Or, If This Isn’t a Party, We’re Not Having a Good Time.” Albion 25 (1993). Sharp, Buchanan. “Popular Political Opinion in England 1660–1685.” History of European Ideas 10 (1989).

bibliography

405

Sharpe, Kevin, “Religion, Rhetoric, and Revolution in Seventeenth-Century England,” HLQ 57 (1994). Simon, Walter G. “Comprehension in the Age of Charles II.” Church History 31 (1962). Skinner, Quentin. “Some Problems in the Analysis of Political Thought and Action.” Political Theory 2 (1974). Speck, W. A. “Augustan Propaganda in Augustan England.” TRHS, 5th ser. 22 (1972). Stone, Lawrence. “Electoral Influence of the Earl of Salisbury 1614 –68.” EHR 71 (1956). Swatland, Andrew. “The Role of the Privy Councillors in the House of Lords, 1660–1681.” In A Pillar of the Constitution: The House of Lords in British Politics, 1640–1784. Edited by Clyve Jones. London: Ronceverte, W.V. Hambledon Press, 1989. Swedenberg, H. T. “Dryden’s Obsessive Concern with the Heroic.” SP, extra series (1967). Teeter, Louis. “The Dramatic Use of Hobbes’ Political Ideas.” ELH 3 (1936). Thirsk, Joan. “Restoration Land Settlement.” JMH 26 (1954). ———. “Younger Sons in the Seventeenth Century.” History 54 (1969). Thompson, Charles. “The Origins of the Politics of the Parliamentary Middle Group, 1635–1629.” TRHS, 5th ser., 22 (1972). Tibbutt, H. G., ed. “Life and Letters of Sir Lewis Dyve 1599–1669.” Bedfordshire Historical Record Society 27 (1948). Turberville, A. S. “The House of Lords Under Charles II.” EHR 44 (1929); 45 (1930). Turner, E. R. “Parliament and Foreign Affairs.” EHR 34 (1919). ———. “The Privy Council of 1679.” EHR 30 (1915). Walker, J. “Censorship of the Press during the Reign of Charles II.” History, n.s. 35–36 (1950). ———. “The Yorkshire Plot, 1663.” Yorkshire Archeological Society Journal 31 (1947). Wall, L. N. “Marvell and the Third Dutch War.” N & Q, n.s., 4 (1957). West, M. “Dryden and the Disintegration of Renaissance Heroic Ideals.” Costerus 7 (1973). White, Arthur F. “The Office of Revels and Dramatic Censorship during the Restoration Period.” Western Reserve Bulletin, n.s., 34 (1931). Whiteman, Anne. “Restoration of the Church of England.” In From Uniformity to Unity, 1662–1692. Edited by Owen Chadwick and Geoffrey Nuttall. London: S.P.C.K., 1962. Whiting, C. E. “Sir Patience Ward of Tansheff, Lord Mayor of London.” Yorkshire Archeological and Record Society 34 (1984). Whiting, George, W. “The Condition of the London Theatres, 1679–83.” Modern Philology 25 (1927). ———. “Political Satire in London Stage Plays, 1680–83.” Modern Philology 28 (1930). Williams, Shirley. “Pope-Burning Processions of 1679, 1680, 1681.” Journal of Warburg & Courtauld Institute 21 (1958). Williams, J. B. “Newsbooks and Letters of News of the Restoration.” EHR 23 (1908). Willman, R. “The Origins of ‘Whig’ and ‘Tory’ in English Political Language.” Historical Journal 17 (1974). Worden, Blair. “Providence And Politics in Cromwellian England.” P & P 109 (1985). ———. “Milton, Samson Agonistes, and the Restoration.” In Culture and Society in the Stuart Restoration. Edited by Gerald MacLean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Wrigley, E. A. “A Simple Model of London’s Importance in Changing England’s Society and Economy.” P & P 37 (1967).

406

bibliography

Unpublished Works Crist, T. J. “Francis Smith and the Opposition Press in England, 1660–1688.” Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University, 1977. De Beer, E. S. “The Development of Political Paties during the Ministry of Danby.” London Master’s thesis, University of London, 1923. Johnson, W. G. “Post Restoration Nonconformity and Plotting, 1660–1675.” Master’s thesis, University of Manchester, 1967. Spurr, John. “Anglican Apologetic and the Restoration Church.” D.Phil diss., Oxford University, 1985. Witcombe, Dennis T. “Parliamentary Career of William and Henry Coventry.” B.Litt. diss., Oxford University, 1954.

Index Ambition, 102, 116, 191; clerical warnings against, 145, 149, 151, 156, 158 Anglican Royalists, 42, 85, 87, 89, 262; and foreign policy, 91, 179, 244; and opposition to Charles, 212, 230, 269; and politics, 156, 185, 230–31, 245– 46, 294; and religion, 92, 99, 113, 128, 142, 170 Anglicans, 92, 150, 152–53, 234, 284; and moderation, 121, 238, 241, 274. See also Established Church Arbitrary government, 15–16, 39– 43, 155, 237, 241, 243, 297, 305; fanaticism and, 41– 43, 155, 213, 247, 249, 256, 287, 304; parties and, 197, 257, 263–64, 271, 276–77, 298–99; popery and, 20, 155, 161, 163, 178, 224, 225. See also popery Arlington, Henry Bennett, earl of, 46– 47, 93, 104, 122, 164, 172, 186, 239; and news, 203, 210; and party organization, 254, 258, 264 Audience, 15, 57–58, 62, 67, 73, 94, 103; attention to varieties of, 73–74, 101, 137, 193, 197, 207; elite, 102– 4, 269; popular, 83, 85, 125, 132, 189; for sermons, 138, 140, 154, 245 Ayloff, John, 179 Barnes, Miles, 159 Barwick, John, 56–57, 147 Bemde, Abraham van, 174 Berkenhead, Sir John, 75, 202, 274 –75 Birch, Colonel, 289 Bishops, 150; and the coronation, 64, 141; and need for authority, 144, 145, 150, 159; in Parliament, 56–57, 88, 107, 143, 234, 256; and preachers, 147– 48, 153, 154, 157–58; and the

restoration of the church, 57, 66, 234, 256 Bishop’s Test (1675), 129, 153, 165, 174, 213, 242, (see also Danby); and the Test of 1675 Blood, Thomas, 122, 211 Booth, Sir George, 81, 98 Brady, Robert, 189–90 Buckingham, George Villiers, 2d duke of, 102, 107, 172, 182, 287 Cabal, 86, 91–93, 112–13, 121, 164, 241, 253–55; and foreign policy, 172, 258; and toleration, 96, 107, 150, 165, 230, 303 Capel, Sir Henry, 179 Carew, Nicholas, 275–76 Castlemaine, Barbara, countess of, 88–89 catholicism, 39, 99, 113–14, 165, 179, 242; and Charles II, 106, 163, 165, 176, 211; and James, 112–13, 121, 175, 223, 295 catholics, 40, 51, 178, 188 Cavalier Parliament, 35, 41, 46, 51, 66, 142, 219; and religion, 42, 68, 146, 163 Cave, William, 160 Censorship, 200, 204 –5, 219, 222; clerical support for, 74 –77, 150–52, 157, 158–59; of news, 201, 202– 4, 207, 221–23 Charles I, 38–39, 57–58; and martyrdom, 143– 44, 148, 151, 196, 262 Charles II, 90, 103, 126, 231, 294 –95, 300; coronation of, 64, 143, 302; his Entry, 62–63, 83, 127, 132, 138, 143; and government finance, 179–80, 183, 199, 230, 235, 237–38; and Parliament, 107, 177, 183, 196, 224, 255, 263; and party, 47, 217, 262, 266, 268; in poetry,

407

408

index

80–82, 111, 195; and religion, 88–89, 91, 106, 113, 139, 140, 295; speeches by, 230, 234 –39, 245– 46, 286, 292, 295–96; and Theaters, 103– 4, 108, 114 Clarendon, Edward Hyde, earl of, 44, 146– 47, 208, 232; fall of, 90, 91, 96, 107, 150, 302; and history, 81, 140; and party, 46– 47, 89, 235, 245, 253–54, 257, 268; speeches by, 66, 229, 232– 33, 234 –35 Clarendon Code, 41, 61, 234 Clarges, Thomas, 203 Clifford, Thomas, 1st baron, 122, 174 –75, 239; and party, 253, 258, 303 Coffeehouses, 158, 175, 178, 194, 214, 300; closing of, 197, 202, 210, 216–18 Colbert, Jean Baptiste, 96, 178 Collins, Dr., 162 Compton Census, 284 Confederates, 93, 205 Conway, Lord, 183, 285 Conventicle Acts, (1st) 108, 109; (2nd) 96, 152, 230, 241; as attacks on liberty of conscience, 33, 49, 170, 172 Court, 89, 90; collusion with polemicists, 171, 186, 190, 220–21; criticism of, 93, 112, 122–23, 158, 221; diplomatic conflicts within the, 239, 270; ideological divisions within the, 91, 200; political divisions within the, 255, 264 –65; preachers for the, 138, 143, 144, 147, 151, 154; religious divisions within the, 88–90, 107, 121, 127, 146, 152, 235; writers for the, 53, 94 –95, 103, 136. See also immorality of court and courters Court Party, 43–51, 89, 253–54, 259, 264 –65, 268, 273; contemporary awareness of a, 181, 199, 261, 263 Coventry, Sir Henry, 170, 181; speeches by, 261, 275, 277–78, 289 Coventry, Sir John, 122, 123, 238 Coventry, Sir William, 263, 277, 292 Cromwell, Oliver, 38, 44, 232 Danby, Thomas Osborne, earl of, 17; and his Anglican political program, 129, 154, 256; and the Anglican Royalists, 112–13; and Dryden, 119–20, 136; his advice to Charles II, 176–80, 259–60, 291; his concern for public opinion, 154, 156–57, 183–85, 189, 259–62,

294; and finance, 183, 230–31, 259– 60, 282, 285, 290–92, and foreign policy, 250–51, 280–82, 294; and ideology, 18, 57, 230, 259, 261–62; and party, 18, 46, 181, 231, 265–67, 282, 297–98; and his organization of supporters, 49–51, 214 –15, 257, 263, 268– 69; policies of, 50, 112–14, 186, 230; his policies attacked, 179–80, 183–84, 215; and the Test of 1675, 261–63 Davenant, Sir William, 82, 103 Declaration of Breda, 41, 72, 78 Denham, Sir John, 98 Dover, Secret Treaty of, 121–22, 238–39 Downing, Sir George, 275 Dryden, John, 97–101, 189; and All for Love, 119–21; and “Annus Mirabilis,” 87, 90, 94 –96, 97, 127, 235; and “Astraea Redux,” 78, 82–85, 97–98; and Aureng-Zebe, 114 –18, 198; and Conquest of Granada, 107, 109; early Plays, 97, 102–3; and Essay on Dramatic Poesy, 97–98; and Heroic Drama, 102, 96–100; and Indian Emperour, 104 –6; and moderation, 95–97, 99, 101, 158; as Poet Laureate, 86–87, 96, 121; and Tyrannic Love, 107, 108–11, 112 Duke’s Theater, 103, 122 Du Moulin, Pierre, 164 –65, 169, 177– 78 Dutch War (Second), 86–87, 89–91, 94 – 95, 104, 106, 149 Dutch War (Third), 77, 121, 164; justifications for, 123, 165, 167–68. See also pamphlets Elizabeth I, 139, 202 Equestrian statues, 194 –96, 245, 247, 262, 264 Established Church, 47– 48, 156; and moderation, 144, 155–57, 160, 234, 256; necessity of, 141– 47, 244, 284; and politics, 154 –56, 182, 191, 237, 284; and unity, 140, 149–50, 155, 160– 61, 185 Evelyn, Sir John, 112, 166; and morality, 87, 90, 122, 236; and the Restoration, 55, 58 Exclusion, 52–54, 59–61, 66, 71, 234; and politics, 155, 197, 262, 276; and religion, 65–69, 92, 134, 141, 148, 184, 233

index Extremism, 102, 104, 221; as alternative to moderation, 72, 77, 99–100, 121, 137, 155 Extremists, 142, 149, 158, 180, 185, 234 False news, 202, 213, 222, 300; clerical denunciations of, 159, 161–63; restrictions on, 200, 207, 209, 216–17 Fanaticism, 99, 104, 144, 247 Fanatics, 92, 141, 158, 173, 193, 246 Farewell Sermons, 74 –76, 148, 204 Fifth Monarchists, 142, 204, 233 Filmer, Sir Robert, 99, 111 Finch, Sir Heneage, 181, 230, 245, 284, 286; speeches by, 182, 243– 44, 246– 49, 251–52, 287, 297 Fire of London, 89–91, 95, 102, 126 France, 38, 96, 121, 129, 150, 265; as ally, 172, 175, 184, 281, 304; fear of, 177–80, 230, 237, 250, 291–92 Gazette (Oxford and London), 168, 206, 208, 224; advertisements in, 189, 198; as official mouthpiece, 91, 168, 184, 293 Goderich, Sir Henry, 276 Griffith, Matthew, 56, 140 Grimstone, Sir Harbottle, 274 –75, 279 Halifax, George Savile viscount, 263 Hardy, Nathaniel, 143– 44 Haywood, William, 148– 49 Heylyn, Peter, 139 Hickes, James, 206 Higham, John, 157 Hobbes, Thomas, 111–12, 140, 205 Holt, Sir Robert, 283 House of Lords. See Lords, House of Howard, Sir Robert, 97, 104, 128 Hyde, Anne, 113 Ideological divisions, 17, 18–19, 32–34, 93, 146, 199, 306; and party, 35, 93, 199, 258, 276 Ideology, 13, 27–28, 31–39, 94, 138, 193, 303–5; and accountability, 38–39, 94, 278, 298–300, 304; alternatives to, 33, 199, 233, 256, 306; and moderation, 33–35, 39, 43, 95, 101, 133; official, 101, 148– 49, 152–54, 190, 239; and party, 48, 102, 193, 230, 262, 270; and

409

toleration, 93, 96, 150–51, 160–61. See also moderation, ideology of Immorality of court and courtiers, 87–88, 122–23, 176, 236 Indulgence in 1662, 88, 89, 106, 146, 235 Indulgence, Declaration of, (1672), clerical opposition to, 152–53; in Dryden, 112–14, 131–32, 158; in propaganda war, 167–68, 173, 175, 184; withdrawal of, 107, 165, 173, 241– 42, 255 James I, 139, 141, 147 Jenks, Francis, 218–19 Jessey, Henry, 75 Jesuits, 90 Killigrew, Thomas, 103 King’s Theater, 103, 122, 139 Laney, Benjamin, bishop of Peterborough, 145– 46 Laud, William, archbishop of Canterbury, 139, 196, 198 Lauderdale, John Maitland duke of, 107, 189, 196, and arbitrary power, 250, 252, 257, 297 L’Estrange, Sir Roger, 74 –77, 123, 208; and Considerations and Proposals, 75– 76, 167, 205; and Growth of Knavery, 222; and Momento, 205; and Parliament, 200–201; and news, 204, 206–7, 221–23; and suppression of sedition, 74 –77, 212, 219–20, 262; as Surveyor of the Press, 86, 92–93, 204 –5, 208–10 Liberty, 141, 156; of conscience, 17, 33, 154 –55, 157–58; and disorder, 159–60, 192; and toleration, 33, 92, 152, 164, 200 Licensing Act, 74, 164, 299 Lindsey, earl of, 190, 267, 270 Littleton, Sir Thomas, 278 Lord Mayor’s Day Shows, 82, 121, 125– 29 Lords, House of, 173, 238, 240; evidence of a party in the, 256, 278; organization in the, 48, 253, 268–69, 296–98; the Test of 1675 and the, 190–91, 261–63, 268, 279 Louis XIV, 175, 178, 251, 283; secret dealings with, 122, 224, 270, 279, 294 – 95, 297–99. See also Dover, Secret Treaty of Lowestoft, battle of, 93

410

index

Marvell, Andrew, 93, 172, 201, 224, 271, 293; and Growth of Popery, 222, 250, 271, 298 Mary of Modena, 113, 177 Medway, 91, 94, 236, 302 Meggott, Richard, 154 Meres, Sir Thomas, 199, 254, 274, 296 Milton, John, 98, 117 Moderates, 30, 120, 184 –85; in Parliament, 38, 92–93, 113, 181, 237–39, 258, 306; and party, 231, 242, 245, 275–76 Moderation, 31–35, 72, 101, 106; as an alternative to extremes, 38, 77, 197; and consensus, 43, 52, 60; and exclusion, 58, 141, 143, 157; as a form of disguise, 120, 192, 271, 298–99; ideology of, 14, 20, 31, 34 –35, 54, 86, 105; polemical uses of, 101, 120, 136; rhetoric of, 35, 163; and the settlement of the church, 31, 53–54, 142– 43, 146, 149, 153, 234. See also ideology, and moderation Monck, George, duke of Albemarle, 30, 91, 126, 203, 232 Monmouth, James Scott, duke of, 113, 122, 128, 224 Montagu, Ralph, 133, 163, 224, 271, 301 Morley, George, bishop of Winchester, 64 –66, 143, 154, 284 Muddiman, Henry, 54, 203–6, 210, 214, 224, 264 Nedham, Marchamont, 54, 72, 186, 202– 4, 220 Newsbooks, 202– 4; and L’Estrange, 205– 7 Newsletters, 176, 184, 196, 202, 204 –6, 209, 224, 264, 273 Nonconformists, 126–28, 150, 237–38, 265; and disguise, 149, 151–55, 161, 191; during war, 106, 168, 239; and exclusion, 148, 151, 157, 283; and rebellion, 156–57 Oates, Titus, 133, 224, 301, 306 Ogilby, Sir John, 85 Organization in Parliament, 21, 32, 36– 37, 43–51. See also party, early organization of; Danby, his organization of supporters Orleans, Henrietta duchess of, 238

Ormonde, Thomas Butler, duke of, 177, 255, 264, 284 Pamphlets, 164, 199–200; and government sponsorship, 169, 200–201; and Parliament, 191, 285–88, 286–88; in propaganda war, 178–81, 183–84, 220– 22; responding to opposition, 165–66, 179–80, 191, 220–22, 285–88, 299; as source of disaffection, 167–70, 176, 244 sponsored by Dutch, 182, 200, 229, 241. See also Du Moulin, Pierre Panegyrics, 78–80, 84, 95 Parliament, 28, 88, 171; and Charles II, 89, 91, 173; Convention, 232; efforts to dissolve, 218–20, 256, 279–80, 287– 90; and foreign policy, 175, 181, 250, 251; in 1662, 235; in 1665, 90; in 1668, 236; in 1670, 237; in 1673, 113, 162, 172–74, 179, 239– 40, 242; in 1674, 154, 178, 182, 242, 274; in 1675, 215, 261, 267–68, 279; in 1677, 250, 286, 290–94; in 1678, 134, 220, 250–51, 295, 296–99 Party, 14, 42–53, 136–37, 273, 303; as a sign of arbitrary government, 124, 159, 215, 254, 257; contemporary uses of, 107, 181, 254 –55, 261, 263, 267, 269, 271, 275–76; definition of, 18, 21, 253–54; early organization of, 254, 257, 267–69; an episcopal, 136, 152, 261, 263, 269; the Treasurists, 275–77 Parties, origins of, 18–19, 27–29, 253– 54; hostility to the, 261, 265, 271; ideological, 31–32, 276, 306; and management, 44 – 45, 257 Passive obedience, 81, 97, 119, 131, 187; and Danby, 195, 246, 262; in Dryden, 99–111, 114 –15, 118–19 Pepys, Samuel, 91, 92, 113, 278 Peters, Hugh, 58, 67–68 Pierce, Thomas, 141– 43 Plague, 89–91 Player, Sir Thomas, 212 Political culture, 14 –15, 35–38, 85–86, 94, 101; changes in the, 87, 94, 120; efforts to control the, 69, 73–77, 164, 168, 193, 210–12; new aggressive tone in, 102, 161–62, 171; uses of history in, 155–57, 214, 274 –75 Popery, 238, 271, 297; and arbitrary government, 28–39, 40– 41, 174, 187–88,

index 252; and fanaticism, 155–58, 170–71, 184, 186, 193 Portsmouth, Louise de Keroualle, duchess of, 194, 238, 252 Presbyterians, 254, 255, 263; and Restoration, 30–31, 55–56, 69–70, 302; and the settlement of the church, 57, 61, 68–70, 145, 232, 235; and toleration, 153, 208 Prince, John, 156 Proclamations, 146– 47, 175; against Catholics, 173, 180–82, 186, 213, 243; against false news, 210, 212–14, 217; and France, 185, 186, 189 Propaganda, 29–31, 36, 102–3, 147, 150– 51; in sermons, 138, 140– 41, 143; in the Theaters, 103, 119; and the Third Dutch War, 164, 166–80, 234; official, 52–54, 143, 190, 234, 244, 249–51, 304 Public hangman, 66–67, 123, 219, 233. See also ritualized destruction Public opinion, 36–38, 91, 157, 199; concern for, 53, 62, 101, 159, 175; efforts to influence, 56, 85, 165, 190–93; and the rise of accountability, 21, 40, 94, 250, 271; struggle for, 147, 153–54, 178, 180, 183, 211–13, 285–87, 293. See also pamphlets Public sphere, 36–37; efforts to control the, 165–66, 199, 209, 212, 215–16, 304; government recognition of the, 67, 221; growth of the, 94, official participation in the, 193–94, 196, 209, 249–50, 288 Regulation of printing, 74. See also L’Estrange, Sir Roger Reresby, Sir John, 263 Restoration crisis, 32, 35, 199, 233, 276; First, 34, 45; Second, 17, 33, 45, 200; Third, 199 Restoration settlement, 34, 41, 53, 55, 233, 235, 261; as the source of division, 57, 73, 134, 229, 231, 233, 236 Ritualized destruction, 233; of foreign goods, 209, 215; of texts, 66–69, 153 Roos, Catherine, 107, 112–13, 238 Rupert, Prince, 128, 175, 178 Sandwich, Edward Montagu earl of, 254 Savoy Conference, 233

411

Scroggs, William, 220–21 Sermons, 138–39, 144 –63, 165; changing rhetoric in, 144, 154 –55, 160–61; and Parliament, 139, 142, 144; and public opinion, 56–57, 70. See also Charles I, and martyrdom Seymour, Sir Edward, 181, 266, 274 Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of, 183, 217; his ambition, 220–21, 223, 287; and The Letter to a Person of Quality, 191, 197, 215, 217; his manipulation of the people, 120, 162–63, 192, 222–23, 248; and nonconformists, 153, 162; and Parliament, 162, 169–70, 177, 182, 218, 229, 279, 287, and party, 45– 47, 220, 240, 271 Sheldon, Joseph, archbishop of Canterbury, 60, 128; and political organization, 48– 49, 152; and religion, 153, 170, 185, 284 Shirley v. Fagg, 190–91, 193, 246, 261, 263, 279 Smith, Elephant, 75 South, Robert, 59, 150 Southwell, Robert, 175 Sprat, Thomas, 162–63 Standfast, Richard, 162 Stationers Company, 76, 92–93, 208–9, 212, 217–19 Stop of Exchequer, 164 –65, 172, 241, 274 Stubbe, Henry, 170–72, 201–2 Sudbury, John, 58–59, 140 Temple, Sir Richard, 289 Toleration, 92–93, 109, 110, 146; and Cabal, 91, 108, 150–51, 172 Tories, 70, 136; as first party, 44 – 46, 49– 50, 253, 255, 285, 307 Triple Alliance, 91, 121, 165–66 Turner, Thomas 186–87 Turnor, Edward, 233 Twyn, John, 76 Tyranny, 112, 129, 144; and the 1650s, 117, 142– 43, 156, 160, 223 Unity, quest for, 15–16, 73, 149; and moderation, 149, 151–52; and obedience, 119, 131, 149; rooted in an Established Church, 58, 71, 147, 152 Viner, Sir Robert, 194

412

index

Waller, Sir Edmund, 79, 86, 93, 296 Ward, Seth, 143, 148 Waterman, Sir George, 126 Whigs, 16–18, 34; as the first party, 18, 33, 49–50, 253, 306; and organization, 32–33, 44 – 46, 279 Wilkins, Richard, bishop of Chester, 151 William of Orange, 164, 169, 184, 294, 298 William and Mary, 17, 300; marriage of, 250, 295 Williamson, Sir Joseph, 153, 177, 183, 187, 203, 278; and information, 184,

190, 212, 217; and news, 202, 206; and party, 258, 268, 277, 284, 289, 303; and propaganda, 170–71, 176, 219; and public opinion, 175–76, 180–81, 200 Wiseman, Sir Richard, 267–68, 271, 282, 285 York, James duke of, 88, 92–93; his marriage to Mary of Modena, 153, 165, 175, 177, 242, 255; and Monmouth, 113; opposition to government, 239, 266–67, 280, 283–84, 307; and succession, 113–14, 165, 184, 238, 252