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not consent, so jealous were they of new titles, bringing new unknown powers. Much depends upon a title ! The Long Parliament once thought of changing its Title to Representative of the People; but durst not. Hum-m-m! • Nolumus Leges Angliæ mutari.' Drum-m--m! 'Vox populi: it is the voice of the Three Nations that offers your Highness this Title.' Drum-m

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Such, in abbreviated shape, is the substance of Lenthall's Speech for us.* At the ending of it a pause.

THE LORD PROTECTOR. I cannot deny but the things that have been spoken have been spoken with a great deal of weight. And it is not fit for me to ask any of you if you have a mind to speak farther of this. But if such had been your pleasure, truly then I think it would have put me into a way of more preparedness, according to the method and way I had conceived for myself, to return some answer. And if it had not been to you a trouble-Surely the business requires, from any man in the world in any case, and much more from me, that there be given to it serious and true answers! I mean such answers as are not feigned in my own thoughts; but such wherein I express the truth and honesty of my heart. [Seems a tautology, and almost an impertinence, and ground of suspicion, your Highness;—but has perhaps a kind of meaning struggling half-developed in it. Many answers which call and even THINK themselves "true" are but “feigned in one's own thoughts" after all; from that to "the truth and honesty of heart" is still a great way;—witness many men in most times; witness almost all men in such times as ours.) That is what I mean by true answers.

I did hope that when I had heard you, so far as it might be your pleasure to speak on this head, I should then, having taken some short note of it as I do [Glancing at his Note-paper], have been in a condition, this afternoon [Would still fain be off!],—if it had not been a trouble to you, -to return my answer, upon a little advisement with myself. But seeing you have not thought it convenient to proceed that way, truly 1 think I may very well say, I shall need to have a little thought about the thing before returning answer to it: lest our Debate should end on my part with a very vain discourse, and with lightness; as it is very like to do. [A Drama COMPOSING itself as it gets ACTED, this ; very different from the blank-verse Dramas.]

I say therefore, if you had found good to proceed farther in speaking of these things, I should have made my own short animadversions on the

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whole, this afternoon, and have made some short reply. And this would nave ushered me in not only to give the best answer I could, but to make my own objections 'too." [An interrogative look: evidently some of us must speak! Glyn steps forward.]

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE GLYN steps forward, speaks largely; then SIR CHARLES WOLSELEY steps forward; and NATHANIEL FIENNES steps forward; and LORD BROGHIL (Earl of Orrery that is to be) steps forward; and all speak largely whom, not to treat with the indignity poor Lenthall got from us, we shall abridge down to absolute nothing. Good speaking too; but without interest for us. In fact it is but repetition, under new forms, of the old considerations offered by heavy Bulstrode and the Master of the Rolls. The only idea of the slightest novelty is this brought forward by Lord Broghil in the rear of all :*

LORD BROGHIL. "By an Act already existing (the 11th of Henry VII.), all persons that obey a 'King de facto' are to be held guiltless; not so if they serve a Protector de facto. Think of this. And then 'in the 7th and last place,' I observe: The Imperial Crown of this country and the Pretended King are indeed divorced ;-nevertheless persons divorced may come together again; but if the person divorced be married to another, there is no chance left of that!".

Having listened attentively to perhaps some three hours of this, his Highness, giving up the present afternoon as now hopeless, makes brief answer.

THE LORD PROTECTOR. I have very little to say to you at this time. I confess I shall never be willing to deny or defer those things that come from the Parliament to the Supreme Magistrate [He accepts then?], if they come in the bare and naked authority of such an Assembly as is known by that name, and is the representative of so many people as a Parliament of England, Scotland and Ireland is. I say this ought to have its weight; and it hath so, and ever will have with me.

In all things a man is free to grant desires coming from Parliament. I may say, inasmuch as the Parliament hath condescended so far as to do me this honor (a very great one added to the rest) of giving me the

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privilege of counsel from so many members of theirs, so able, so intelligent of the grounds of things-[Sentence breaks down]-This is, I say, a very singular honor and favor to me; and I wish I may do, and I hope I shall do, what becomes an honest man in giving an answer to these things, according to such insight* either as have, or as God shall give me, or as I may be helped into by reasoning with you. But indeed I did not in vain allege conscience in the first answer I gave you. [Well!] For I must say, I should be a person very unworthy of such favor if I should prevaricate in saying things did stick upon my conscience. Which I must still say they do! Only, I must also' say, I am in the best way I could be 'in' for information; and I shall gladly receive it.

Here have been divers things spoken by you to-day, with a great deal of judgment and ability and knowledge. I think the arguments and reasonings that have been used were upon these three heads:† First, Speaking to the thing simply, to the abstract notion of the Title, and to the positive reasons upon which it stands. Then 'secondly, Speaking' comparatively of it, and of the foundation of it: in order to show the goodness of it comparatively, 'in comparison with our present title and foundation.' It is alleged to be so much better than what we now have; and that it will do the work which this other fails in. And thirdly, Some things have been said by way of precaution; which are not arguments from the thing itself, but are considerations drawn from the temper of the English People, what will gratify them, and so on;'-which is surely considerable. As also some things were said' by way of anticipation of me in my answer; speaking to some objections which others have made against this proposal. These are things, in themselves each of them considerable. [The "objections?" or the "Three heads" in general? Uncertain; nay it is perhaps uncertain to Oliver himself! He mainly means the objections, but the other also is hovering in his head, -as is sometimes the way with him.]

To answer objections, I know, is a very weighty business; and to make objections is very easy; and that will fall to my part. And I am sure I shall make them to men who know somewhat how to answer them,— 'to whom they are not strange,' having already in part been suggested to them by the Debates already had.

But upon the whole matter, I having as well as I could taken those things [Looking at his Notes] that have been spoken,—which truly are to be acknowledged as very learnedly spoken,-I hope you will give me a

* Desire' in orig.: but there is no sense in that. t' accounts' in orig

ittle time to consider of them. As to when it may be the best time for me to return hither and meet you again, I shall leave that to your consideration.

LORD WHITLOCKE. "Your Highness will be pleased to appoint your own time.'

THE LORD PROTECTOR. On Monday at nine of the clock I will be i ready to wait upon you.*

And so, with many bows, exeunt.—Thus they, doing their epic feat, not in the hexameter measure, on that old Saturday fore. noon, 11 April, 1657; old London, old England, sounding manifoldly round them ;-the Fifth-Monarchy just locked in the Tower.

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Our learned friend Bulstrode says: The Protector often advised about this' of the Kingship and other great businesses ⚫ with the Lord Broghil, Pierrepoint' (Earl of Kingston's Brother, an old Long-Parliament man), with Whitlocke, Sir Charles Wolseley, and Thurloe; and would be shut up three or four hours together in private discourse, and none were admitted to come in to him. He would sometimes be very cheerful with them ; and laying aside his greatness, he would be exceeding familiar; and by way of diversion would make verses,' play at crambo, with them, and every one must try his fancy. He commonly called for tobacco, pipes and a candle, and would now and then take tobacco himself;' which was a very high attempt. 'Then he would fall again to his serious and great business' of the Kingship; and advise with them in those affairs. And this he did often with them; and their counsel was accepted and' in part followed by him in most of the greatest affairs,—as it deserved to be.t

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SPEECH X.

On Monday, April 13th, at Whitehall, at nine in the morning,‡ according to agreement on Saturday last, the Committee of

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Ninety-nine attend his Highness, and his Highness there speaks addressing Whitlocke as reporter of the said Committee:

MY LORD, I think I have a very hard task on my hand. Thouga it be but to give an account of myself, yet I see I am beset on all hands here. I say but to give an account of "myself:" yet that is a business very comprehensive of others :-'comprehending' us all in some sense, and, as the Parliament have been pleased to shape it, comprehending all the interests of these Three Nations !

I confess I have two things in view. The first is, To return some answer to what was so well and ably said the other day on behalf of the Parliament's putting that Title in the Instrument of Settlement. [This is the First thing; what the Second is, does not yet for a long while appear.] I hope it will not be expected I should answer everything that was then said: because I suppose the main things that were spoken were arguments from ancient Constitutions and Settlements by the Laws; in which I am sure I could never be well skilled,-and therefore must the more ask pardon for what I have already transgressed 'in speaking of such matters,' or shall now transgress, through my ignorance of them, in my 'present' answer to you.

Your arguments, which I say were chiefly upon the Law, seem to carry with them a great deal of necessary conclusiveness, to inforce that one thing of Kingship. And if your arguments come upon me to inforce upon me the ground of Necessity,-why, then, I have no room to answer: for what must be must be! And therefore I did reckon it much of my business to consider whether there were such a necessity, or would arise such a necessity, from those arguments.-It was said: "Kingship is not a Title, but an Office, so interwoven with the fundamental Laws of this Nation, that they cannot, or cannot well be executed and exercised without it,'-partly, if I may say so, upon a sup posed ignorance which the Law hath of any other Title. It knows no other neither doth any know another. And, by reciprocation,this said Title, or Name, or Office, you were farther pleased to say, is understood; in the dimensions of it, in the power and prerogatives of it: which are by the Law made certain; and the Law can tell when it [Kingship] keeps within compass, and when it exceeds its limits. And the Law knowing this, the People can know it also. And the People do love what they know. And it will neither be pro salute populi, nor for our safety, to obtrude upon the People what they do not nor cannot understand."

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