The Visions of England Part 24

Freedom of England! from thy sacred source Where Alfred arm'd in Athelney, welling pure, With hero-blood dyed in thy widening course, --What loyaler hand than her's to guide thy force Down ancient channels sure?

Honour of England! in what bosom stirs Thy soul more quick than her's?

Yet in her days . . . O greater grief, than when In years of woe, the years of happiness Flash o'er us,--to behold,--and no redress,-- Some deed of shame we cannot cure nor stay!

Our best, our man of men, Martyr'd inch-meal by dull delay!

Ah, sacred, hidden grave!

Ah gallant comrade feet, love-wing'd to save, Too late, too late!--But Thou, Whose counsels work unseen, Spare us henceforth such pangs, spare England's Queen

O much enduring, much revered! To thee Bring sun-dyed millions love more sweet than fame, And happy isles that star the purple sea Homage;--and children at the mother's knee With her's unite thy name; And faithful hearts, that throb 'neath palm and pine, From East to West, are thine.

For as some pillar-star o'er sea and storm Whole fleets to haven guides, so from that height One great example points the path of Right, And purifies the home; with gracious aid Lifting the fallen form.

See Death by finer skill delay'd; Kind hearts to wait on woe, And feet of Love that in Christ's footsteps go; Wild wastes of life reclaim'd by Woman's hand unseen: All England bless'd with England's Empress Queen.

And now, as one who through some fruitful field Has urged the fifty furrows of the grain,-- Look round with joy, and know thy care will yield A thousandfold in its due day reveal'd, The harvest laugh again:-- E'en now thy great crown'd ancestors on high Watch with exultant eye Thy hundred Englands o'er the broad earth sown, And Arthur lives anew to hail his heir!

--O then for her and us we chant the prayer,-- Keep Thou this sea-girt citadel of the free Safe 'neath her ancient throne, Love-link'd in loyal unity; Let eve's calm after-glow Arch all the heaven with Hope's wide roseate bow: Till in Time's fulness Thou, Almighty Lord unseen, With glory and life immortal crown the Queen.

Published (June, 1887) under sanction of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, Oxford; and intended as an humble offering of loyalty and hearty good-wishes on the part of the University.

ENGLAND ONCE MORE

Old if this England be The Ship at heart is sound, And the fairest she and gallantest That ever sail'd earth round!

And children's children in the years Far off will live to see Her silver wings fly round the world, Free heralds of the free!

While now on Him who long has bless'd To bless her as of yore, Once more we cry for England, England once more!

They are firm and fine, the masts; And the keel is straight and true; Her ancient cross of glory Rides burning through the blue:-- And that red sign o'er all the seas The nations fear and know, And the strong and stubborn hero-souls That underneath it go:-- While now on Him who long has bless'd To bless her as of yore, Once more we cry for England, England once more!

Prophets of dread and shame, There is no place for you, Weak-kneed and craven-breasted, Amongst this English crew!

Bluff hearts that cannot learn to yield, But as the waves run high, And they can almost touch the night, Behind it see the sky.

While now on Him who long has bless'd To bless her as of yore, Once more we cry for England, England once more!

As Past in Present hid, As old transfused to new, Through change she lives unchanging, To self and glory true; From Alfred's and from Edward's day Who still has kept the seas, To him who on his death-morn spoke Her watchword on the breeze!

While now on Him who long has bless'd To bless her as of yore, Once more we cry for England, England once more!

What blasts from East and North, What storms that swept the land Have borne her from her bearings Since Caesar seized the strand!

Yet that strong loyal heart through all Has steer'd her sage and free, --Hope's armour'd Ark in glooming years, And whole world's sanctuary!

While now on Him who long has bless'd To bless her as of yore, Once more we cry for England, England once more!

Old keel, old heart of oak, Though round thee roar and chafe All storms of life, thy helmsman Shall make the haven safe!

Then with Honour at the head, and Faith, And Peace along the wake, Law blazon'd fair on Freedom's flag, Thy stately voyage take:-- While now on Him who long has bless'd To bless Thee as of yore, Once more we cry for England, England once more!

APPENDIX

A: p. 87

_Till the terrible Day unreveal'd_; Much of course is and will probably remain unknown among the details of that fatal and fascinating drama, Mary's life. But all hitherto ascertained evidence has now, mainly by Mr. Hosack, been sifted so closely and so ably that the main turning points in her career seem to have reached that twilight certainty beyond which History can rarely hope to go, and are placed beyond the reach of reasonable controversy. Such, (not to enter upon the Queen's life as Elizabeth's captive), is the more than Macchiavellian--the almost incredible--perfidy of the leading Scottish politicians, united with a hypocrisy more revolting still, and enabled to do its wicked work, (with regret we must confess), by the shortsighted bigotry of Knox:--The gradual forgery of the letters by which the Queen's death was finally obtained from the too-willing hands of Elizabeth's Cabinet:--The all but legally proved innocence of Mary in regard to Darnley's death, and the Bothwell marriage. Taking her life as a whole, it may be fairly doubted whether any woman has ever been exposed to trials and temptations more severe, or has suffered more shamefully from false witness and fanatical hatred. But the prejudices which have been hence aroused are so strong, such great interests, religious and political, are involved in their maintenance, that they will doubtless prevail in the popular mind until our literature receives,--what an age of research and of the scientific spirit should at last be prepared to give us,--a tolerably truthful history of the Elizabethan period. (1889)

B: p. 102

_Heroes both_;--_Each his side_;--In regard to the main issue at stake in the Civil War, and the view taken of it throughout this book, let me here once for all remark that no competent and impartial student of our history can deny a fair cause to each side, whatever errors may have been committed by Charles and by the Parliament, or however fatal for some fifteen years to liberty and national happiness were the excesses and the tyranny into which the victorious party gradually, and as it were inevitably, drifted. 'No one,' says Ranke (whom I must often quote, because to this distinguished foreigner we owe the single, though too brief, narrative of this period in which history has been hitherto, treated historically, that is, without judging of the events by the light either of their remote results, or of modern political party), 'will make any very heavy political charge against Strafford on the score of his government of Ireland, or of the partisan att.i.tude which he had taken up in the intestine struggle in England in general; for the ideas for which he contended were as much to be found in the past history of England as were those which he attacked:' --and Hampden's conduct may claim a.n.a.logous justification. If the Parliament could appeal to those mediaeval precedents which admitted the right of the people through their representatives, to control taxation and (more or less) direct national policy, Charles, (and Strafford with him), might as lawfully affirm that they too were standing 'on the ancient ways'; on the royal supremacy undeniably exercised by Henry II or Edward I. by Henry VIII and by Elizabeth. Both parties could equally put forward the prosperity of England under these opposed modes of government: Patriotism, honour, conscience, were watchwords which either might use with truth or abuse with profit. If the great struggle be patiently studied, the moral praise and censure so freely given, according to a reader's personal bias, will be found very rarely justified. There was far, very far, less of tyranny or of liberty involved in the contest, up to 1642, than partisans aver. To the actual actors (nor, as retrospectively criticized by us) it is a fair battle on both sides, not a contest 'between light and darkness.'

We, looking back after two centuries, are of course free to recognize, that one effect of the Tudor despotism had been to train Englishmen towards ruling themselves;--we may agree that the time had come for Lords and Commons to take their part in the Kingdom. But no proof, I think it may be said, can be shown that this great idea, in any conscious sense, governed the Parliaments of James and Charles. It is we who,--reviewing our history since the definite establishment of the const.i.tutional balance after 1688, and the many blessings the land has enjoyed,--can perceive what in the seventeenth century was wholly hidden from Commonwealth and from King. And even if in accordance with the common belief, we ascribe English freedom and prosperity and good government to the final triumph of the popular side, yet deeper consideration should suggest that such retrospective judgments are always inevitably made under our human entire ignorance what might have been the result had the opposite party prevailed. Who should say how often, in case of these long and wide extended struggles,--political and dynastic,--the effects which we confidently claim as _propter hoc_, are only _post hoc_ in the last reality?

Waiving however these somewhat remote and what many will judge over-sceptical considerations, this is certain, that unless we can purify our judgment from reading into the history of the past the long results of time;--from ascribing to the men of the seventeenth century prophetic insight into the nineteenth;--unless, in short, we can free ourselves from the chain of present or personal prepossessions;--no approach can be made to a fair or philosophical judgment upon such periods of strife and crisis as our Civil War preeminently offers.

C: p. 108

_With glory he gilt_; Yet to readers, (if such readers there be) who can look with an undazzled eye on military success, or hear the still small voice of truth through the tempest of rhetoric, Cromwell's foreign policy, (excepting the isolated case of his interference with the then comparatively feeble powers of Savoy and the Papacy on behalf of the persecuted Waldenses), will be far from supporting the credit with which politico-theological partisanship has invested it.

Holland was beyond question the natural ally on political and religious grounds of puritan England. But a mischievous war against her in 1652-3 was caused by the arrogant restrictions of the Navigation Act of 1651.

The successful English demand in 1653 that the Orange family, as connected closely with that of Stuart, should be excluded from the Stadtholdership, was in a high degree to the prejudice of the United Provinces.

In 1654 Cromwell was negotiating with France and Spain. From the latter he arrogantly asked wholly unreasonable terms, whilst Mazarin, on the part of France, offered Dunkirk as a bribe. News opportunely arriving that certain Spanish possessions in America were feebly armed, Cromwell at once declared war: and now, supplementing unscrupulous policy by false theology, announced 'the Spaniards to be the natural and ordained enemies of England, whom to fight was a duty both to country and to religion:'

(Ranke: xii. 6).

The piratical war which followed, in many ways similar to that which the 'wise Walpole' tried to avert in 1739, was hardly less impolitic than immoral. It alienated Holland, it sanctioned French aggression on Flanders (xii. 7), it ended by giving Mazarin and Lewis XIV that supremacy in Western Europe for which England had to pay in the wars of William III and Anne; whilst, as soon as it was over, France naturally allied herself with Spain, on a basis which might have caused the union of the two crowns (xii. 8) and which allowed Spain at once to support Charles II. As the result of the Protector's 'spirited policy' England thus figured as the catspaw of France, and the enemy of European liberty.

It is satisfactory, however, to find that, in Ranke's judgment, the common modern opinion that Cromwell's despotism was favourably regarded in England because of his foreign enterprize, is exaggerated. Even against the conquest of Jamaica,--his single signal gain,--unanswerable arguments were popularly urged at the time: (xii. 4, 8)--But the Protectorate, in the light of modern research,--like the reign of Elizabeth,--still awaits its historian.

D: p. 127

_The sky by a veil_; 'A spiritual world,' says a critic of deep insight, 'over and above this invisible one, is a most important addition to our idea of the universe; but it does not of itself touch our moral nature. . . .

Its moral effect depends entirely upon what we make that world to be.'--Cromwell's religion, which may be profitably studied in his letters and speeches, (much better known of, than read) reveals itself there as the simple reflex of his personal views: it had great power to animate, little or none to regulate or control his impulses. He had, indeed, a most real and pervading 'natural turn for the invisible; he thought of the invisible till he died; but the cloudy arch only canopied a field of human aim and will.'

_The horrible sacrament_; The summary of Cromwell's conduct at Drogheda by a writer of so much research, impartiality, and philosophic liberality as Mr. Lecky deserves to be well considered.

'The sieges of Drogheda and Wexford, and the ma.s.sacres that accompanied them, deserve to rank in horror with the most atrocious exploits of Tilly and Wallenstein, and they made the name of Cromwell eternally hated in Ireland. It even now acts as a spell upon the Irish mind, and has a powerful and living influence in sustaining the hatred both of England and Protestantism. The ma.s.sacre of Drogheda acquired a deeper horror and a special significance from the saintly professions and the religious phraseology of its perpetrators, and the town where it took place is, to the present day, distinguished in Ireland for the vehemence of its Catholicism:' (_Hist. of Eighteenth Cent_. ch. vi).

_Mortal failure_; The ever-increasing unsuccess of Cromwell's career is forcibly set forth by Ranke (xii. 8). He had 'crushed every enemy,--the Scottish and the Presbyterian system, the peers and the king, the Long Parliament and the Cavalier insurgents,--but to create . . . an organization consistent with the authority which had fallen to his own lot, was beyond his power. Even among his old' Anabaptist and Independent 'friends, his comrades in the field, his colleagues in the establishment of the Commonwealth, he encountered the most obstinate resistance. . . . At no time were the prisons fuller; the number of political prisoners was estimated at 12,000 . . . The failure of his plans soured and distracted him.' It was, in fact, wholly 'beyond his power to consolidate a tolerably durable political const.i.tution.'--To the disquiet caused by constant attempts against Cromwell's life, Ranke adds the death of his favourite daughter, Lady Claypole, whose last words of agony 'were of the right of the king, the blood that had been shed, the revenge to come.'

E: p. 146

_Unheirlike heir_; Richard Cromwell has received double measure of that censure which the world's judgment too readily gives to unsuccess, finding favour neither from Royalists nor Cromwellians. Macaulay, with more justice, remarks, 'That he was a good man he evinced by proofs more satisfactory than deep groans or long sermons, by humility and suavity when he was at the height of human greatness, and by cheerful resignation under cruel wrongs and misfortunes.' . . . 'He did nothing amiss during his short administration.'