The History of the Rebellion (1702-04) [excerpt]

The Earl of Clarendon, Extract from his The History of the Rebellion (1702-1704)

[NB this was written between 1646 and 1648, revised in the 1670s and first published in 1702]

And as I may not be thought altogether an incompetent person for this communication, having been present as a member of parliament in those councils before and till the breaking out of the rebellion, and having since had the honour to be near two great kings in some trust, so I shall perform the same with all faithfulness and ingenuity; with an equal observation of the faults and infirmities of both sides, with their defects and oversights in pursuing their own ends; and shall no otherwise mention small and light occurrences, than as they have been introductions to matters of the greatest moment; nor speak of persons other-wise, than as the mention of their virtues or vices is essential to the work in hand: in which as I shall have the fate to be suspected rather for malice to many, than of flattery to any, so I shall, in truth, preserve myself from the least sharpness, that may proceed from private provocation, or a more public indignation, in the whole observing the rules that a man should, who deserves to be believed.

I shall not then lend any man farther back in this journey, for the discovery of the entrance into these dark ways, than the beginning of this king's reign. For I am not so sharp-sighted as those, who have discerned this rebellion contriving from (if not before) the death of queen Elizabeth, and fomented by several princes and great ministers of state in Christendom, to the time that it brake out. Neither do I look so far back as believing the design to be so long since formed; (they who have observed the several accidents, not capable of being contrived, which have contributed to the several successes, and do know the persons who have been the grand instruments towards this change, of whom there have not been any four of familiarity and trust with each other, will easily absolve them from so much industry and foresight in their mischief;) but that, by viewing the temper, disposition, and habit, of that time, of the court and of the country, we may discern the minds of men prepared, of some to do, and of others to suffer, all that hath since happened; the pride of this man, and the popularity of that; the levity of one, and the morosity of another; the excess of the court in the greatest want, and the parsimony and retention of the country in the greatest plenty; the spirit of craft and subtlety in some, and the rude and unpolished integrity of others, too much despising craft or art; like so many atoms contributing jointly to this mass of corifusion now before us.

We are now entering upon a time, the representation and description whereof must be the most unpleasant and ungrateful to the reader, in respect of the subject matter of it; which must consist of no less weakness and folly on the one side, than of malice and wickedness on the other; and as unagrecable and difficult to the writer, in regard that he shall please very few who acted then upon the stage of business, but that he must give as severe characters of the persons, and severely censure the actions of many, who wished very well, and had not the least thought of dis loyalty or infidelity, as well as of those, who, with the most deliberate impiety, prosecuted their design to ruin and destroy the crown; a time, in which the whole stock of affection, loyalty, and courage, which at first alone engaged men in the quarrel, seemed to be quite spent, and to be succeeded by negligence, laziness, inadvertency, and dejection of spirit, contrary to the natural temper, vivacity, and constancy of the nation: and in which they who pretended most public-heartedness, and did really wish the king all the greatness he desired to preserve for himself, did sacrifice the public peace, and the security of their master, to their own passions and appetites, to their ambition and animosities against each other, without the least design of treachery, or damage towards his majesty: a time, in which want of discretion and mere folly produced as much mischief as the most barefaced villainy could have done; and in which the king suffered as much by the irresolution and unsteadiness of his own counsels, and by the ill humour and faction of his counsellors, by their not foreseeing what was evident to most other men, and by their jealousies of what was not like to fall out; sometimes by deliberating too long without resolving, and as often resolving without any deliberation, and most of all, not executing vigorously what was well deliberated and resolved; as by the indefatigable industry, and the irresistible power and strength of his enemies.

All these things must be very particularly enlarged upon, and exposed to the naked view, in relation of what fell out in this year, 1645, in which we are engaged, except we will swerve from that precise rule of ingenuity and integrity we profess to observe; and thereby leave the reader more perplexed, to see the most prodigious causes which produced them; which would lead him into as wrong an estimate of things, and persuade him to believe, that a universal corruption of the hearts of the whole nation had brought forth those lamentable effects; which proceeded only from the folly and the frowardness, from the weakness and the wilfulness, the pride and the passion of particular persons, whose memories ought to be charged with their own evil actions, rather than they should be preserved as the infamy of the age in which they lived; which did produce as many men eminent for their loyalty and incorrupted fidelity to the crown, as any that had preceded it. Nor is it possible to discourse of all these particulars, with that clearness that must subject them to common understandings without opening a door for such reflections upon the king himself, as shall seem to call both his wisdom and his courage into question, as if he had wanted the one to apprehend and discover, and the other to prevent, the mischiefs which threatened him. All which considerations might very well discourage, and even terrify me from prosecuting this part of the work with that freedom and openness, as must call many things to memory which are forgotten, or were never understood; and rather persuade me to satisfy my self with a bare relation of what was done, and with the known event of that miserable year [1645], (which, in truth, produced all that followed in the next,) without prying too strictly into the causes of those effects, which might seem rather to be the production of Providence, and the instances of divine displeasure, than to proceed from the weakness and inadvertency of any men, not totally abandoned by God Almighty to the most unruly lusts of their own appetite and inventions.

But I am too far embarked in this sea already, and have proceeded with too much simplicity and sincerity with reference to things and persons, and in the examinations of the grounds and oversights of counsels, to be now frighted with the prospect of those materials, which must he comprehended within the relation of this year's transactions. I know myself to be very free from any of those passions which naturally transport men with prejudice towards the persons whom they are obliged to mention, and whose actions they are at liberty to censure. There is not a man who acted the worst part, in this ensuing year, with whom I had ever the least difference, or personal unkindness, or towards whom I had not much inclination of kindness, or from whom I did not receive all invitations of farther endearments. There were many who were not free from very great faults, and oversights in the counsels of this year, with whom I had great friendship, and which I did not discontinue upon those unhappy oversights; nor did flatter them when they were past, by excusing what they had done. I knew most of the things myself which I mention, and therefore can answer for the truth of them; and other most important particulars, which were transacted in places very distant from me, were transmitted to me, by the king's immediate direction and order, even after he was in the hands and power of the enemy, out of his own memorials and journals. And as he was always severe to himself, in censuring his own oversights, so he could not but well foresee, that many of the misfortunes of this ensuing year would reflect upon some want of resolution in himself, as well as upon the gross errors and over sights, to call them no worse, of those who were trusted by him. And therefore as I first undertook this difficult work with his approbation and by his encouragement, and for his vindication, so I enter upon this part of it, principally, that the world may see (at least if there be ever a fit season for such a communication; which is not like to be in this present age) how difficult it was for a prince, so unworthily reduced to those straits his majesty was in, to find ministers and instruments equal to the great work that was to be done; and how impossible it was for him to have better success under their conduct, whom it was then very proper for him to trust with it; and then, without my being over solicitous to absolve him from those mistakes and weaknesses to which he was in truth sometimes liable, he will be found not only a prince of admirable virtue and piety, but of great parts of knowledge, wisdom, and judgment; and that the most signal parts of his misfortunes proceeded chiefly from the modesty of his nature, which kept him from trusting himself enough, and made him believe, that others discerned better, who were much inferior to him in those faculties; and so to depart often from his own reason, to follow the opinions of more unskilful men, whose affections he believed to be unquestionable to his service. And so we proceed in our relation of matter of fact...