Blind homage is no honour. To acknowledge the defects of Puritanism gives all the more force to an exhibition of its excellencies. There clung around it the imperfections of humanity, but it had in it a germ of lasting life, a divine element of grace and power.

WE

CHAPTER I.

E meet with statements, on the authority of Lord Clarendon, to the effect that the members of the Long Parliament "were almost to a man for episcopal government," and "had no mind to make any considerable alteration in Church or State."1 On the other hand, we are told that at the beginning, "the party in favour of presbyterian government was very strong in the House of Commons, and that they were disposed to be contented with no less than the extirpation of bishops." " Neither statement conveys a correct

idea of this remarkable assembly.

Let us enter St. Stephen's chapel after the ceremony described in our Introduction, and see for ourselves.

Dressed mostly in short cloaks, and wearing highcrowned hats, grave-looking men were seated on either side the speaker's chair, which was occupied by William Lenthall, a person of dignified aspect, arrayed in official robes, as represented by the picture in the National Portrait Gallery. Behind the chair were the Royal arms, and above it was the grand Gothic window, rendered familiar to us by old quaint woodcuts. The mace lay on the

table by which the clerks of the House sat, busy with 'books and papers; and it may be stated, once for all, that the forms of the House were rigidly observed, during -the memorable war of words through which this history will conduct the reader.

Denzil Holles, younger son of John, first Earl of Clare, sat for Dorchester. Foremost amongst those afterwards known as Presbyterian leaders, his influence in part was owing to his rank, and early court associations for he had been on terms of intimacy with the King--but still more his power proceeded from the firm and somewhat fiery decision of his views, as well as from a reputation for integrity and honour, which raised him above the suspicion of self-interest or of factious animosity. Even in the days of James, he had resisted the encroachments of prerogative; and, in the reign of Charles, he had, through his adherence to the same course, been not only mulcted in a large fine, but imprisoned during the Royal pleasure. 1

Glynne, Recorder of London, and a Member for the City, was also ultimately a decided Presbyterian; and the same may be said of Maynard, who represented the borough of Totness. In the same class may be included Sir Benjamin Rudyard, member for Wilton, and Surveyor of His Majesty's Court of Wards and Liveries, an accomplished gentleman, "an elegant scholar," and a frequent speaker. In earlier parliaments he had hotly debated religious questions, though he was conspicuous for loyal protestations as sincere as they were fervid. At first he advocated some qualified form of episcopal superintendence, but, from the opening of the Long Parliament, he

Tanner MS., quoted by Sanford.-Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion, p. 159.

condemned existing prelacy, and thus prepared himself for adopting presbyterian tenets.

All these, and others less known, were from the first not only doctrinal but ecclesiastical Puritans, and were inspired by an intense detestation of Popery, and of everything which they believed paved the way to it. Beyond them, we find another group of men further advanced in the path of Church politics.

Few have been more unfairly represented than Sir Harry Vane the younger, member for Hull. Though son of the Comptroller of His Majesty's household, and brought up at Court, he was, when a youth, reported to the King as "grown into dislike of the discipline and ceremonies of the Church of England." Not long after this, it was stated in a letter, that he had left his father, (old Sir Harry Vane,) his mother, and his country, and that fortune which his father would have left him, and for conscience' sake was gone to New England.1 There he became Governor of Massachusetts, and, in that capacity, carried out the principles of religious toleration with a consistency and an equity so unique, as to offend many of the colonists, who, while advocates of religious freedom, persecuted, through mistaken fears, a sincerely

1 Strafford's Letters, Vol. i. 463, quoted in Forster's Life of Vane, p. 7, as written to the Lord Deputy. The letter is in the State Paper Office, calendared as if written to Lord Conway. See Calendar of Colonial Papers, 1574-1660, p. 214. In the same Calendar, p. 211, there is notice of a letter by Vane to his father, in which he "requests his father to believe, though as the case stands he is judged a most unworthy son, that however jealous his father may be of circumventions and plots enter

tained and practised by him, yet he will never do anything that he may not justify or be content to suffer for. Is sure, as there is trust in God, that his innocence and integrity will be cleared to his father before he dies. Protests his father's jealousy of him would break his heart, but as he submits all other things to his good God, so does he his honesty. The intention of his heart is sincere, and hence flows the sweet peace he enjoys amidst his many heavy trials."

religious woman, only because she was obstinate and fanatical. Returned to England, young Vane became not only member of the Short Parliament, but received knighthood from Charles I., and joined Sir W. Russel in the Treasurership of the Navy-a proceeding which indicated at the time something of a conciliatory disposition on both sides. With a philosophical temperament of the imaginative cast, and with strong religious tendencies in a mystical direction; smitten also with the charms of Plato's republic, and longing for the realization of his ideal within the shores of England, Vane seemed to many of his sober-minded contemporaries an enthusiast and a visionary; yet it would be difficult to disprove the testimony of Ludlow, that "he was capable of managing great affairs-possessing, in the highest perfection, a quick and ready apprehension, a strong and tenacious memory, a profound and penetrating judgment, a just and noble eloquence, with an easy and graceful manner of speaking. To these were added a singular zeal and affection for the good of the Commonwealth, and a resolution and courage not to be shaken or diverted from the public service."1 Probably no man, at the beginning of the Long Parliament, so thoroughly grasped or could so well advocate the principles of religious liberty as Sir Harry Vane. There he sat in old St. Stephen's, with a refined expression of countenance, most pleasant and prepossessing; a person, says Clarendon, "of unusual aspect, which made men think there was somewhat in him of extraordinary."2

Nathaniel Fiennes, Lord Say and Sele's son, who

1 Forster's Statesmen of the Commonwealth, Vol. iii. 49.

2 Clarendon (Hist. 75) says of Vane's father and mother, "they

were neither of them beautiful,”—a statement fully borne out by their portraits.