Andrew Marvell Part 9

On the 29th of November Marvell's letter contains the following pa.s.sage:--

"Yesterday the Bill of the King's Declaration in religious matters was read for the first time; but upon the question for a second reading 'twas carried 183 against 157 in the negative, so there is an end of that Bill and for those excellent things therein. We must henceforth rely only upon his Majesty's goodness, who, I must needs say, hath hitherto been more ready to give than we to receive."

It is a noticeable feature of this correspondence that Marvell seldom mentions which way he voted himself.

The letter of the 4th of December contains some interesting matter:--

"GENTLEMEN,--Since my last, upon Thursday, the Bill for Vicarages hath been carryed up to the Lords; and a Message to them from our House that they would expedite the Bill for confirmation of Magna Charta, that for confirmation of marriages, and other bills of publick concernment, which haue laid by them euer since our last sitting, not returned to us. We had then the Bill for six moneths a.s.sesment in consideration, and read the Bill for taking away Court of Wards and Purveyance, and establishing the moiety of the Excise of Beere and ale in perpetuum, about which we sit euery afternoon in a Grand Committee. Upon Sunday last were consecrated in the Abby at Westminster, Doctor Cossins, Bishop of Durham, Sterne of Carlile, Gauden of Exeter, Ironside of Bristow, Loyd of Landaffe, Lucy of St.

Dauids, Lany, the seuenth, whose diocese I remember not at present, and to-day they keep their feast in Haberdasher's hall, in London.

Dr. Reinolds was not of the number, who is intended for Norwich. A Congedelire is gone down to Hereford for Dr. Monk, the Generall's brother, at present Provost of Eaton. 'Tis thought that since our throwing out the Bill of the King's Declaration, Mr. Calamy, and other moderate men, will be resolute in refusing of Bishop.r.i.c.ks....

To-day our House was upon the Bill of Attainder of those that haue been executed, those that are fled, and of Cromwell, Bradshaw, Ireton, and Pride, and 'tis ordered that the carka.s.ses and coffins of the four last named, shall be drawn with what expedition possible, upon an hurdle to Tyburn, there (to) be hanged up for a while, and then buryed under the gallows....

"WESTMINSTER, _Dec. 4, 1660_."

Marvell's cool reporting of the hideous indignity inflicted upon his old master, and allowing it to pa.s.s _sub silentio_, is one of the many occasions that stirred Mr. Grosart's wonder. Nerves were tough in those days. Pepys tells us unconcernedly enough how, after seeing Lord Southampton sworn in at the Court of Exchequer as Lord Treasurer, he noticed "the heads of Cromwell, Bradshaw, and Ireton set up at the further end of Westminster Hall." It is quite possible Lady Fauconberg may have seen the same sight.[95:1]

The Convention Parliament was dissolved on the 29th of December 1660.

On 1st April 1661 Marvell was returned for the third and last time for Hull, for Charles the Second's first Parliament was of unconscionable long duration, not being dissolved till January 1679, after Marvell's death. It is known in history as the Pensionary or Long Parliament. The election figures were as below:--

Colonel Gilbey, 294 Mr. Andrew Marvell, 240 Mr. Edward Barnard, 195 Mr. John Ramsden, 122

Marvell was not present at or before the election, for on the 6th of April he writes:--

"I perceive by Mr. Mayor that you have again (as if it were grown a thing of course) made choice of me now, the third time, to serve for you in Parliament, which as I cannot attribute to anything but your constancy, so shall I, G.o.d willing, as in grat.i.tude obliged, with no less constancy and vigour continue to execute your commands and study your service."

A word may here be said about payment of borough members. The members'

fee was 6s. 8d. for every day the Parliament lasted. The wages were paid by the corporation out of the borough funds. It was never a popular charge. Burgesses in many places cared as little for M.P.'s as do some of their successors for free libraries. Prynne, perhaps the greatest parliamentary lawyer that ever lived, told Pepys one day, as they were driving to the Temple, that the number of burgesses to be returned to Parliament for any particular borough was not, for aught Prynne could find, fixed by law, but was at first left to the discretion of the sheriff, and that several boroughs had complained of the sheriff's putting them to the charge of sending up burgesses.

In August 1661 the corporation paid Marvell 28 for his fee as one of their burgesses, being 6s. 8d. a day for eighty-four days, the length of the Convention Parliament. Marvell continued to take his wages until the end of his days; but it is perhaps a mistake to suppose he was the very last member to do so. It was, however, unusual in Marvell's time.[96:1]

This Pensionary Parliament, though of a very decided "Church and King"

complexion, was not in its original composition a body lacking character or independence, but it steadily deteriorated in both respects.

Vacancies, as they occurred, and they occurred very frequently in those days of short lives, were filled up by courtiers and pensioners.

In the small tract, ent.i.tled _Flagellum Parliamentum_, which is a highly libellous "Dod," often attributed to Marvell, a record is preserved of more than two hundred members of this Parliament in 1675. Despite some humorous touches, this _Flagellum Parliamentum_ is still disagreeable to read. But the most graphic picture we have of this Parliament is to be found in one of Lord Shaftesbury's political tracts ent.i.tled "A letter from a Parliament man to his Friend" (1675):--

"SIR,--I see you are greatly scandalized at our slow and confused Proceedings. I confess you have cause enough; but were you but within these walls for one half day, and saw the strange make and complexion that this house is of, you would wonder as much that ever you wondered at it; for we are such a pied Parliament, that none can say of what colour we are; for we consist of Old Cavaliers, Old Round-Heads, Indigent-Courtiers, and true Country Gentlemen: the two latter are most numerous, and would in probability bring things to some issue were they not clogged with the numerous uncertainties of the former. For the Old Cavalier, grown aged, and almost past his vice, is d.a.m.nable G.o.dly and makes his doting piety more a plague to the world than his debauchery was, for he is so much a by-got to the B(ishop) that he forces his Loyalty to strike sail to his Religion, and could be content to pare the nails a little of the Civil Government, so you would but let him sharpen the Ecclesiastical Talons: which behaviour of his so exasperates the Round-Head, that he on the other hand cares not what increases the Interest of the Crown receives, so he can but diminish that of the miter: so that the Round-Head had rather enslave the Man than the Conscience: the Cavalier rather the Conscience than the Man; there being a sufficient stock of animosity as proper matter to work upon. Upon these, therefore, the Courtier mutually plays, for if any Ante-court motion be made he gains the Round-Head either to oppose or absent by telling them, If they will join him now he will join them for Liberty of Conscience. And when any affair is started on behalf of the Country he a.s.sures the Cavaliers, If they will then stand by him he will then join with them in promoting a Bill against the fanatics. Thus play they on both hands.... Wherefore it were happy that he had neither Round-Head nor Cavalier in the House, for they are each of them so prejudicate against the other that their sitting here signifies nothing but their fostering their old venom and lying at catch to stop every advantage to bear down each other, though it be in the destruction of their country. For if the Round-Heads bring in a good bill the Old Cavalier opposes it, for no other reason but because they brought it in."[98:1]

Such was the theatre of Marvell's public actions for the rest of his days, and if at times he may need forgiveness for the savagery of his satire, it ought to be found easy to forgive him.

The two members for Hull were soon immersed in matters of much local importance. They began by quarrelling with one another, Marvell writing "the bond of civility betwixt Col. Gilby and myself being unhappily snappt in pieces, and in such manner that I cannot see how it is possible ever to knit them again." House of Commons quarrels are usually soon made up, and so was this one. The custom was for _both_ members to sign these letters, though they are all written in Marvell's hand--but if this was for any reason inconvenient, Marvell signed alone. No letters, unless in Marvell's writing, are preserved at Hull, which is a curious fact.

One of these bits of local business related to a patent alleged to have been granted by the Crown to certain persons, authorising them to erect and maintain _ballast wharfs_ in the various ports, and to make charges in respect of them. This was resented by the members for the ports, and on Marvell's motion the matter was referred to the Committee of Grievances, before whom the patentees were summoned. When they came it appeared that the patent warranted none of the exactions that had been demanded, and also that the warrant sent down to Hull naming these charges was nothing more than a draft framed by the patentees themselves, and not authorised in any way. The patent was at once suspended. Marvell, like a true member of Parliament, wishes to get any little local credit that may be due for such prompt action, and writes:--

"In this thing (although I count all things I can do for your service to be mere trifles, and not worth taking notice of in respect of what I owe you) I must do myself that right to let you know that I, and I alone, have had the happiness to do that little which hitherto is effected."

The matter required delicate handling, for a reason Marvell gives: "Because, if the King's right in placing such impositions should be weakened, neither should he have power to make a grant of them to you."

Another much longer business related to a lighthouse, which some outsiders were anxious to build in the Humber. The corporation of Hull, acting on Marvell's advice, had pet.i.tioned the Privy Council, and were asked by their business-like member "to send us up a dormant credit for an hundred pound, which we yet indeed have no use of, but if need be must have ready at hand to reward such as will not otherwise befriend your business." Some months later Marvell forwards an account, not of the 100, but of the legal expenses about the lighthouse. He wishes it were less, but hopes that the "vigorous resistance" will discourage the designers from proceeding farther. This it did not do. As a member of the bar, I find two or three of the items in this old-world Bill of Costs interesting:--

To Mr. Scroggs to attend the Council, 3 6 0 " " " again for the same, 3 6 0 Spent on Mr. Scroggs at dinner, 18 0 To Mr. Scroggs again, 3 0 0 Fees of the Council Table, 1 10 0 Fee to Clerk of the Council, 2 0 0 For dinner for Mr. Scroggs and wine after, 1 0 0 To Mr. Cresset (the Solicitor), 20 0 0 To Mr. Scroggs for a dinner, 1 0 0

The barrister who was so frequently "refreshed" by Marvell lived to become "the infamous Lord Chief Justice Scroggs" of all school histories.

A week before the prorogation of Parliament, which happened on the 19th of May 1662, Marvell went to Holland and remained there for nine months, for he did not return until the very end of March 1663, more than a month after the rea.s.sembling of the House.

What took him there n.o.body knows. Writing to the Trinity House about the lighthouse business on the 8th of May 1662, Marvell says:--

"But that which troubles me is that by the interest of some persons too potent for me to refuse, and who have a great direction and influence upon my counsels and fortune, I am obliged to go beyond sea before I have perfected it (_i.e._ the lighthouse business). But first I do thereby make my Lord Carlisle (who is a member of the Privy Council and one of them to whom your business is referred) absolutely yours. And my journey is but into Holland, from whence I shall weekly correspond as if I were at London with all the rest of my friends, towards the affecting your business. Then I leave Col.

Gilbey there, whose ability for business and affection to yours is such that I cannot be wanted though I am missing."

It is plain from this that Lord Carlisle is one of the powerful persons referred to--but beyond this we cannot go.

Whilst in Holland Marvell wrote both to the Trinity House and to the corporation on business matters.

In March 1663 Marvell came back in a hurry, some complaints having been made in Hull about his absence. He begins his first letter after his return as follows:--

"Being newly arrived in town and full of business, yet I could not neglect to give you notice that this day (2nd April 1663) I have been in the House and found my place empty, though it seems, as I now hear, that some persons would have been so courteous as to have filled it for me."

In none of these letters is any reference made to the debates in the House on the unhappy Bill of Uniformity, nor does any record of those discussions anywhere exist. The Savoy Conference proved a failure, and no lay reader of Baxter's account of it can profess wonder. Not a single point in difference was settled. In the meantime the restored Houses of Convocation, from which the Presbyterian members were excluded, had completed their revision of the Book of Common Prayer and presented it to Parliament.

In considering the Bill for Uniformity, the House of Lords, where Presbyterianism was powerfully represented, showed more regard for those "tender consciences" to which the king (by the new Prayer Book called for the first time "our most religious King") had referred in his Breda Declaration than did the House of Commons. "The Book, the whole Book, and nothing but the Book" was, in effect, the cry of the lower House, and on the 19th of May, ten days after Marvell had left for the Continent, the Act of Uniformity became law, and by the 24th of August 1662 all beneficed ministers and schoolmasters had to make the celebrated subscription and profession, or go out into the wilderness.

There has always been a dispute as to the physical possibility of perusing the compilation in question before the day fixed by the Statute. The Book was advertised for sale in London on the 6th of August, but how many copies were actually available on that day is not known.

The Dean and Chapter of Peterborough did not get their copies until the 17th of August. When the new folios reached the lonely parsonages of c.u.mberland and Durham--who would care to say? The Act required a verbal avowal of "unfeigned a.s.sent and consent to all and everything contained and prescribed in and by the Book of Common Prayer, and administrations of the Sacraments and other rites and ceremonies of the Church according to the use of the Church of England, together with the Psalter, and the form of manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating Bishops, Priests, and Deacons" to be made after the service upon "some Lord's day" before the Feast of St. Bartholomew, _i.e._ the 24th of August 1662. The Act also required subscription within the same time-limit to a declaration of (_inter alia_) uniformity to the Liturgy of the Church of England "as it is now by law established."

That this haste was indecent no layman is likely to dispute, but that it wrought practical wrong is doubtful. The Vicar of Bray needed no time to read his new Folio to enable him to make whatever avowal concerning it the law demanded; and as for signing the declaration, all he required for that purpose was pen and ink. Neither had the inc.u.mbent, who was a good churchman at heart, any doubts to settle. He rejoiced to know that his side was once more uppermost, and that it would be no longer necessary for him, in order to retain his living, to pretend to tolerate a Presbyterian, or to submit to read in his church the Directory of Public Worship. Convocation had approved the new Prayer Book, which was in substance the old one, and what more did any churchman require? As for the Presbyterians and others who were in possession of livings, the failure of the Savoy Conference must have made it plain to them that the Church of England had not allowed the king to keep his word, that compromise and comprehension had failed, and that if they were to remain where they were, it could only be on terms of completely severing themselves from all other Protestant bodies in the world, and becoming thorough Episcopalians. No Presbyterian of any eminence was prepared to make the statutory avowal. Painful as it always must be to give up any good thing by a fixed date, it is hard to see what advantage would have accrued from delay.

When the day came, some two thousand parsons were turned out of the Church of England. Among them were included many of the most devout and some of the most learned of our divines. Their "coming in" had been irregular, their "going out" was painful.

Save so far as it turned these men out, the Act was a failure. It did not procure that uniformity in the public worship of G.o.d which it declared was so desirable; it prevented no scandal; it arrested no decay; it allayed no distemper, and it certainly did not settle the peace of the Church. Inside the Church the bishops were supine, the parochial clergy indifferent, and the worshippers, if such a name can properly be bestowed upon the congregations, were grossly irreverent.

Nor was any improvement in the conduct of the Church service noticeable until after the Revolution, and when legislation had conceded a somewhat shabby measure of toleration to those who by that time had become rigid, traditional, and hereditary dissenters. Then indeed some attempts began to be made to secure a real uniformity of ritual in the public worship of the Church of England.[104:1] How far success has rewarded these exertions it is not for me to say.

Marvell did not remain long at home after his return from Holland. A strange adventure lay before him. He thus introduces it in a letter dated 20th June 1663:--

"GENTLEMEN, MY VERY WORTHY FRIENDS,--The relation I have to your affairs, and the intimacy of that affection I ow you, do both incline and oblige me to communicate to you, that there is a probability I may very shortly have occasion to go beyond sea; for my Lord of Carlisle being chosen by his Majesty, Emba.s.sadour Extraordinary to Muscovy, Sweden, and Denmarke, hath used his power, which ought to be very great with me, to make me goe along with him Secretary in those emba.s.sages. It is no new thing for Members of our House to be dispens'd with for the service of the King and Nation in forain parts. And you may be sure that I will not stirre without speciall leave of the House; that so you may be freed from any possibility of being importuned or tempted to make any other choice, in my absence. However, I can not but advise also with you, desiring to take your a.s.sent along with me, so much esteeme I have both of your prudence and friendship. The time allotted for the emba.s.sy is not much above a yeare: probably it may not be much less betwixt our adjournment and next meeting; and, however, you have Colonell Gilby, to whom my presence can make litle addition, so that if I cannot decline this voyage, I shall have the comfort to believe, that, all things considered, you cannot thereby receive any disservice. I shall hope to receive herein your speedy answer...."

What was the "power" Lord Carlisle had over Marvell is not now discoverable, but the tie, whatever it may have been, was evidently a close one.

A month after this letter Marvell started on his way.

"GENTLEMEN, MY VERY WORTHY FRIENDS,--Being this day taking barge for Gravesend, there to embark for Archangel, so to Muscow, thence for Sweden, and last of all Denmarke; all of which I hope, by G.o.d's blessing, to finish within twelve moneths time: I do hereby, with my last and seriousest thoughts, salute you, rendring you all hearty thanks for your great kindnesse and friendship to me upon all occasions, and ardently beseeching G.o.d to keep you all in His gracious protection, to your own honour, and the welfare and flourishing of your Corporation, to which I am and shall ever continue a most affectionate and devoted servant. I undertake this voyage with the order and good liking of his Majesty, and by leave given me from the House and enterd in the Journal; and having received moreover your approbation, I go therefore with more ease and satisfaction of mind, and augurate to myselfe the happier successe in all my proceedings...."

It was Marvell's good fortune to be in Lord Carlisle's frigate which made the voyage to Archangel in less than a month, sailing from Gravesend on the 22nd of July and arriving at the bar of Archangel on the 19th of August. The companion frigate took seven weeks to compa.s.s the same distance.

Nothing of any importance attaches to this Russian emba.s.sy. It cost a great deal of money, took up a great deal of time, exposed the amba.s.sador and his suite to much rudeness and discomfort, and failed to effect its main object, which was to secure a renewal of the privileges formerly enjoyed in Muscovy by British merchants.