LXX. yers in parliament, instancing Sir Edward Coke, with whom CHAP. he himself had had the honour to co-operate in the beginning of the late reign, and who had carried "the Petition of Right,' and the exertions of St. John, Wilde, and others in the recent struggles. He likewise pointed out the oppressive laws passed at the Parliamentum Indoctum, from which lawyers were excluded. "As to the sarcasms on the lawyers for not fighting, he deemed that the gown did neither abate a man's courage or his wisdom, nor render him less capable of using a sword when the laws were silent. Witness the great services performed by Lieutenant General Jones, and Commissary Ireton, and many other lawyers, who putting off their gowns when the parliament required it, had served stoutly and successfully as soldiers, and had undergone almost as many and as great hardships and dangers as the honourable gentleman who so much undervalued them.* With respect to the proposal for compelling lawyers to suspend their practice while they sat in parliament, he only insisted that in the act for that purpose, it be provided that merchants should forbear their trading, physicians from visiting their patients, and country gentlemen from selling their corn or wool while they were members of that House." He was loudly applauded, and the motion was withdrawn. ‡ • Whitelock himself served with great distinction. † Life of Whitelock, 109–120. Although on the rare occasions when it was my duty to speak while a member of the House of Commons I had the good fortune to experience a favourable hearing, I must observe that there has subsisted in this assembly down to our own times, an envious antipathy to lawyers, with a determined re solution to believe that no one can be eminent there who has succeeded at the bar. The prejudice on the subject is well illustrated by a case within my own knowledge. A barrister of the Oxford circuit taking a large estate under the will of a distant relation, left the bar, changed his name under a royal licence, was returned for a Welsh county, and made his maiden speech in top-boots and leather breeches, holding a hunting-whip in his hand. He was most rapturously applauded, till he unluckily alluded to some cause in which he had been engaged while at the bar, and when it was discovered that he was a lawyer in disguise, he was coughed down in three minutes. It is certainly true, that success in one of these fields of exertion by no means proves a qualification to succeed in the other; for while some parliamentary orators, like Sir Robert Peel and Lord Stanley, would have been sure to have risen to the first practice in Westminster Hall, I could name others who have deservedly acquired a high reputation in the House of Commons, who, if they had continued in Westminster Hall, would never have been intrusted with a brief. In the other House of parliament there is no such prejudice against the law. CHAP. Law re form supported by Whitelock. A. D. 1650. April 20. 1653. assumption Whitelock was a most zealous man and enlightened law reformer. The long vacation of 1649 he devoted, with the assistance of Lenthal, the Master of the Rolls, Keeble, his brother Commissioner, and two or three public-spirited barristers, to a review of the practice of the Court of Chancery; and in the following term came out a most valuable set of "Orders" for correcting the abuses which had multiplied there during the late troubles, and for simplifying and expediting the conduct of suits in Equity.* These were the basis of the subsequent orders of Lord Clarendon, which are still of authority. In the following year, on Whitelock's suggestion a committee was appointed, over which he presided, to consider generally the improvements which might be introduced in the body of the law and the administration of justice. In 1652 Whitelock prevailed on the parliament to appoint Commissioners, not members of the House, "to take into consideration what inconveniences there are in the law, and how the mischiefs that grow from the delays, the chargeableness, and the irregularities in the proceedings in the law may be prevented, and the speediest way to reform the same.” At the head of this commission was placed that most learned and virtuous lawyer Sir MATTHew Hale. They proceeded with great vigour, meeting several times Whitelock every week in the Chamber in which the Peers had formerly discourages sat, ordering returns from the Judges and the officers in the Cromwell's different Courts, with their fees and duties, examining the most experienced practitioners as to defects and remedies in legal process, and entering scientifically into the whole field of English jurisprudence. They made several valuable reports, but their labours were suddenly interrupted by the violent dissolution of the Long Parliament. of the Crown. There had for some time been a great coolness between Whitelock and Cromwell, in consequence of a conversation which had passed between them respecting the future plan of government to be adopted. The elated General, after the victories of Dunbar and Worcester, and the subjugation of * See Appendix to Beames's Collection of Chancery Orders. LXX. Ireland, sounded the Lord Commissioner as to the expediency CHAP. of actually putting the Crown upon his own head; when he was told frankly that the nation would greatly prefer the Stuarts to the Cromwells, and he was advised to send for Prince Charles and to make him King, on such terms as he might prescribe, whereby he might promote the good of the nation, and for ever secure the greatness of his own family.* before dis Parlia ment. Although Cromwell's carriage to Whitelock was thence- Conference forth greatly altered, he summoned him to attend the meeting solution of of officers of the army and leaders of the independent party, the Long held at his lodgings in Whitehall, the night before he ordered the "bauble" to be removed from the table of the House of Commons. It was here proposed that the parliament, which had sat above twelve years, should be peremptorily required to pass an act to put an end to its existence, ostensibly, that the nation might express its will by new representatives, but in reality, that the military men might get possession of the civil offices, which they considered the just reward of the perils they had undergone. Whitelock, assisted by Sir Thomas Widdrington, his late colleague, strenuously combated this project, — pointing out the glory and prosperity enjoyed under the existing system, and the danger of the attempt to set up a new government, which must lead to tyranny or anarchy, and strongly asserting that to plot against that authority which they had sworn to respect, was neither consonant to prudence nor justifiable in conscience. The officers of the army, however, inveighed bitterly against the parliament, and declared violently for a change. Cromwell reproved them for these expressions of opinion, from which those who knew him best conjectured that he had prompted their project, and that he was resolved at all risks to support it. The conference lasted till late at night, when my Lord Commissioner Whitelock went home weary and much troubled in his mind to see the ingratitude and indiscretion of these men. The meeting was resumed before daylight next morning, and Cromwell himself proposed that the present parliament should forthwith be dissolved by its own act, and that a joint council * Mem. 548. CHAP. Dissolution of the Long Parliament. New "Council of State." of officers of the army and those who had served in the House of Commons, should be appointed to rule the affairs of the republic till a new parliament could be assembled. Whitelock again earnestly protested against the formation of such a body, although it was proposed that he should belong to it, and he declared his resolution to stand by the parliament which had conferred such benefits on the country. They separated without coming to any agreement. Historians profess themselves wholly at a loss to account for the open, imperious, and frantic manner in which Cromwell a few hours after expelled the members from the House, - which they consider as inconsistent with his general character, not attending to the fact that to gain his object he had previously exhausted all the arts of intrigue, deceit, and hypocrisy. The proposed Council was formed merely as the organ of Cromwell's pleasure, and he published a royal proclamation called "a Declaration by the Council," explaining the reasons of dissolving the late parliament, and requiring all persons to proceed as formerly in the execution of their offices. "The Lord Commissioner Whitelock and his colleagues were in a great quandary what to do till this declaration came out, and did not then proceed in the business of Great Seal; but in a little time, considering that they had their authority from the parliament, they went on as usual.” * The truth is, that the Lord Commissioner, having given good advice, was generally of a most pliant and conforming temper when his advice had been overruled, and though free from the fumes of fanaticism, was "a waiter upon Providence." He accepted a place in the "Council of State," and though there was no cordiality between him and the President, he abstained from any active opposition to the usurped government. It would be difficult to say where in law or theory the sovereign power was supposed to rest between the dissolution of the Long Parliament and the "PROTECTORATE,"-but, de facto, under the title of "Lord General," Cromwell exercised unlimited sway. He now resorted to the most absurd and fantastical attempt to constitute a legislative assembly recorded in the annals of Life of Whitelock, 162. Whit. Mem. 555. LXX. Barebones' any nation, by calling "Barebones' Parliament." Having CHAP. succeeded in his late enterprise by means of the violent fanatics, they naturally expected to enjoy power, and his conduct can only be explained by supposing that he was re- Parliasolved to give them a taste of it, and to demonstrate to them and the world that the government could not be permanently conducted on their absurd principles. ment. 1653. By his own fiat he named one hundred and fifty-six repre- July 4. sentatives for Great Britain and Ireland*, whose qualification was supposed to be that they were "faithful, fearing God, and hating covetousness." One hundred and twenty of these actually attended on the appointed time, and after being inflamed by "a grave, Christian, and seasonable speech" from Cromwell, — in what capacity no one could tell, except that it was believed by his admirers that, on this occasion, “the Spirit of God spoke in him and by him," and after they had spent several days in "seeking the Lord," praying in turn without the assistance of any chaplain, and affirming that they had never before enjoyed so much of the presence and spirit of Christ, they at last worked themselves up to the belief that they were divinely inspired, and that the reign of the saints on earth had begun. In this notable assembly were some persons of the rank of gentlemen; but the far greater part were low mechanics, fifth monarchy men, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Independents—the very dregs of the fanatics. Aug. 5. Resolution and imme the Court Having given but an indifferent specimen of their regard to liberty, by prosecuting Lilburne for questioning their au- for total thority, and when he had been acquitted by a jury, confining diate abo him in the Tower, with an injunction that no obedience lition of should be paid to any writ of habeas corpus in his behalf, of Chanthey set about reforming the law. Petitions having been cery. presented complaining of undue delays, vexations, and expences in the conduct of Equity suits, they disdained to apply palliatives and correctives to such an evil, and resolved" that the High Court of Chancery of England shall be forthwith taken away, and that a bill be brought in for that purpose, * 139 for England, 6 for Wales, 6 for Ireland, 5 for Scotland. |