The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) π
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/> chance of ever attaining high professional honours, that the
professional spirit was strongest. Among those divines who were
the boast of the Universities and the delight of the capital, and
who had attained, or might reasonably expect to attain, opulence
and lordly rank, a party, respectable in numbers, and more
respectable in character, leaned towards constitutional
principles of government, lived on friendly terms with
Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, would gladly have seen
a full toleration granted to all Protestant sects, and would even
have consented to make alterations in the Liturgy, for the
purpose of conciliating honest and candid Nonconformists. But
such latitudinarianism was held in horror by the country parson.
He took, indeed, more pride in his ragged gown than his superiors
in their lawn and their scarlet hoods. The very consciousness
that there was little in his worldly circumstances to distinguish
him from the villagers to whom he preached led him to hold
immoderately high the dignity of that sacerdotal office which was
his single title to reverence. Having lived in seclusion, and
having had little opportunity of correcting his opinions by
reading or conversation, he held and taught the doctrines of
indefeasible hereditary right, of passive obedience, and of
nonresistance, in all their crude absurdity. Having been long
engaged in a petty war against the neighbouring dissenters, he
too often hated them for the wrong which he had done them, and
found no fault with the Five Mile Act and the Conventicle Act,
except that those odious laws had not a sharper edge. Whatever
influence his office gave him was exerted with passionate zeal on
the Tory side; and that influence was immense. It would be a
great error to imagine, because the country rector was in general
not regarded as a gentleman, because he could not dare to aspire
to the hand of one of the young ladies at the manor house,
because he was not asked into the parlours of the great, but was
left to drink and smoke with grooms and butlers, that the power
of the clerical body was smaller than at present. The influence
of a class is by no means proportioned to the consideration which
the members of that class enjoy in their individual capacity. A
Cardinal is a much more exalted personage than a begging friar:
but it would he a grievous mistake to suppose that the College of
Cardinals has exercised greater dominion over the public mind of
Europe than the Order of Saint Francis. In Ireland, at present, a
peer holds a far higher station in society than a Roman Catholic
priest: yet there are in Munster and Connaught few counties where
a combination of priests would not carry an election against a
combination of peers. In the seventeenth century the pulpit was
to a large portion of the population what the periodical press
now is. Scarce any of the clowns who came to the parish church
ever saw a Gazette or a political pamphlet. Ill informed as their
spiritual pastor might be, he was yet better informed than
themselves: he had every week an opportunity of haranguing them;
and his harangues were never answered. At every important
conjuncture, invectives against the Whigs and exhortations to
obey the Lord's anointed resounded at once from many thousands of
pulpits; and the effect was formidable indeed. Of all the causes
which, after the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, produced
the violent reaction against the Exclusionists, the most potent
seems to have been the oratory of the country clergy.
The power which the country gentleman and the country clergyman
exercised in the rural districts was in some measure
counterbalanced by the power of the yeomanry, an eminently manly
and truehearted race. The petty proprietors who cultivated their
own fields with their own hands, and enjoyed a modest competence,
without affecting to have scutcheons and crests, or aspiring to
sit on the bench of justice, then formed a much more important
part of the nation than at present. If we may trust the best
statistical writers of that age, not less than a hundred and
sixty thousand proprietors, who with their families must have
made up more than a seventh of the whole population, derived
their subsistence from little freehold estates. The average
income of these small landholders, an income mace up of rent,
profit, and wages, was estimated at between sixty and seventy
pounds a year. It was computed that the number of persons who
tilled their own land was greater than the number of those who
farmed the land of others.89 A large portion of the yeomanry had,
from the time of the Reformation, leaned towards Puritanism, had,
in the civil war, taken the side of the Parliament, had, after
the Restoration, persisted in hearing Presbyterian and
Independent preachers, had, at elections, strenuously supported
the Exclusionists and had continued even after the discovery of
the Rye House plot and the proscription of the Whig leaders, to
regard Popery and arbitrary power with unmitigated hostility.
Great as has been the change in the rural life of England since
the Revolution, the change which has come to pass in the cities
is still more amazing. At present above a sixth part of the
nation is crowded into provincial towns of more than thirty
thousand inhabitants. In the reign of Charles the second no
provincial town in the kingdom contained thirty thousand
inhabitants; and only four provincial towns contained so many as
ten thousand inhabitants.
Next to the capital, but next at an immense distance, stood
Bristol, then the first English seaport, and Norwich, then the
first English manufacturing town. Both have since that time been
far outstripped by younger rivals; yet both have made great
positive advances. The population of Bristol has quadrupled. The
population of Norwich has more than doubled.
Pepys, who visited Bristol eight years after the Restoration, was
struck by the splendour of the city. But his standard was not
high; for he noted down as a wonder the circumstance that, in
Bristol, a man might look round him and see nothing but houses.
It seems that, in no other place with which he was acquainted,
except London, did the buildings completely shut out the woods
and fields. Large as Bristol might then appear, it occupied but a
very small portion of the area on which it now stands. A few
churches of eminent beauty rose out of a labyrinth of narrow
lanes built upon vaults of no great solidity. If a coach or a
cart entered those alleys, there was danger that it would be
wedged between the houses, and danger also that it would break in
the cellars. Goods were therefore conveyed about the town almost
exclusively in trucks drawn by dogs; and the richest inhabitants
exhibited their wealth, not by riding in gilded carriages, but by
walking the streets with trains of servants in rich liveries, and
by keeping tables loaded with good cheer. The pomp of the
christenings and burials far exceeded what was seen at any other
place in England. The hospitality of the city was widely
renowned, and especially the collations with which the sugar
refiners regaled their visitors. The repast was dressed in the
furnace, and was accompanied by a rich beverage made of the best
Spanish wine, and celebrated over the whole kingdom as Bristol
milk. This luxury was supported by a thriving trade with the
North American plantations and with the West Indies. The passion
for colonial traffic was so strong that there was scarcely a
small shopkeeper in Bristol who had not a venture on board of
some ship bound for Virginia or the Antilles. Some of these
ventures indeed were not of the most honourable kind. There was,
in the Transatlantic possessions of the crown, a great demand for
labour; and this demand was partly supplied by a system of
crimping and kidnapping at the principal English seaports.
Nowhere was this system in such active and extensive operation as
at Bristol. Even the first magistrates of that city were not
ashamed to enrich themselves by so odious a commerce. The number
of houses appears, from the returns of the hearth money, to have
been in the year 1685, just five thousand three hundred. We can
hardly suppose the number of persons in a house to have been
greater than in the city of London; and in the city of London we
learn from the best authority that there were then fifty-five
persons to ten houses. The population of Bristol must therefore
have been about twenty-nine thousand souls.90
Norwich was the capital of a large and fruitful province. It was
the residence of a Bishop and of a Chapter. It was the chief seat
of the chief manufacture of the realm. Some men distinguished by
learning and science had recently dwelt there and no place in the
kingdom, except the capital and the Universities, had more
attractions for the curious. The library, the museum, the aviary,
and the botanical garden of Sir Thomas Browne, were thought by
Fellows of the Royal Society well worthy of a long pilgrimage.
Norwich had also a court in miniature. In the heart of the city
stood an old palace of the Dukes of Norfolk, said to be the
largest town house in the kingdom out of London. In this mansion,
to which were annexed a tennis court, a bowling green, and a
wilderness stretching along the banks of the Wansum, the noble
family of Howard frequently resided, and kept a state resembling
that of petty sovereigns. Drink was served to guests in goblets
of pure gold. The very tongs and shovels were of silver. Pictures
by Italian masters adorned the walls. The cabinets were filled
with a fine collection of gems purchased by that Earl of Arundel
whose marbles are now among the ornaments of Oxford. Here, in the
year 1671, Charles and his court were sumptuously entertained.
Here, too, all comers were annually welcomed, from Christmas to
Twelfth Night. Ale flowed in oceans for the populace. Three
coaches, one of which had been built at a cost of five hundred
pounds to contain fourteen persons, were sent every afternoon
round the city to bring ladies to the festivities; and the dances
were always followed by a luxurious banquet. When the Duke of
Norfolk came to Norwich, he was greeted like a King returning to
his capital. The bells of the Cathedral and of St. Peter Mancroft
were rung: the guns of the castle were fired; and the Mayor and
Aldermen waited on their illustrious fellow citizen with
complimentary addresses. In the year 1693 the population of
Norwich was found by actual enumeration, to be between
twenty-eight and twenty-nine thousand souls.91
Far below Norwich, but still high in dignity and importance, were
some other ancient capitals of shires. In that age it was seldom
that a country gentleman went up with his family to London. The
professional spirit was strongest. Among those divines who were
the boast of the Universities and the delight of the capital, and
who had attained, or might reasonably expect to attain, opulence
and lordly rank, a party, respectable in numbers, and more
respectable in character, leaned towards constitutional
principles of government, lived on friendly terms with
Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, would gladly have seen
a full toleration granted to all Protestant sects, and would even
have consented to make alterations in the Liturgy, for the
purpose of conciliating honest and candid Nonconformists. But
such latitudinarianism was held in horror by the country parson.
He took, indeed, more pride in his ragged gown than his superiors
in their lawn and their scarlet hoods. The very consciousness
that there was little in his worldly circumstances to distinguish
him from the villagers to whom he preached led him to hold
immoderately high the dignity of that sacerdotal office which was
his single title to reverence. Having lived in seclusion, and
having had little opportunity of correcting his opinions by
reading or conversation, he held and taught the doctrines of
indefeasible hereditary right, of passive obedience, and of
nonresistance, in all their crude absurdity. Having been long
engaged in a petty war against the neighbouring dissenters, he
too often hated them for the wrong which he had done them, and
found no fault with the Five Mile Act and the Conventicle Act,
except that those odious laws had not a sharper edge. Whatever
influence his office gave him was exerted with passionate zeal on
the Tory side; and that influence was immense. It would be a
great error to imagine, because the country rector was in general
not regarded as a gentleman, because he could not dare to aspire
to the hand of one of the young ladies at the manor house,
because he was not asked into the parlours of the great, but was
left to drink and smoke with grooms and butlers, that the power
of the clerical body was smaller than at present. The influence
of a class is by no means proportioned to the consideration which
the members of that class enjoy in their individual capacity. A
Cardinal is a much more exalted personage than a begging friar:
but it would he a grievous mistake to suppose that the College of
Cardinals has exercised greater dominion over the public mind of
Europe than the Order of Saint Francis. In Ireland, at present, a
peer holds a far higher station in society than a Roman Catholic
priest: yet there are in Munster and Connaught few counties where
a combination of priests would not carry an election against a
combination of peers. In the seventeenth century the pulpit was
to a large portion of the population what the periodical press
now is. Scarce any of the clowns who came to the parish church
ever saw a Gazette or a political pamphlet. Ill informed as their
spiritual pastor might be, he was yet better informed than
themselves: he had every week an opportunity of haranguing them;
and his harangues were never answered. At every important
conjuncture, invectives against the Whigs and exhortations to
obey the Lord's anointed resounded at once from many thousands of
pulpits; and the effect was formidable indeed. Of all the causes
which, after the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, produced
the violent reaction against the Exclusionists, the most potent
seems to have been the oratory of the country clergy.
The power which the country gentleman and the country clergyman
exercised in the rural districts was in some measure
counterbalanced by the power of the yeomanry, an eminently manly
and truehearted race. The petty proprietors who cultivated their
own fields with their own hands, and enjoyed a modest competence,
without affecting to have scutcheons and crests, or aspiring to
sit on the bench of justice, then formed a much more important
part of the nation than at present. If we may trust the best
statistical writers of that age, not less than a hundred and
sixty thousand proprietors, who with their families must have
made up more than a seventh of the whole population, derived
their subsistence from little freehold estates. The average
income of these small landholders, an income mace up of rent,
profit, and wages, was estimated at between sixty and seventy
pounds a year. It was computed that the number of persons who
tilled their own land was greater than the number of those who
farmed the land of others.89 A large portion of the yeomanry had,
from the time of the Reformation, leaned towards Puritanism, had,
in the civil war, taken the side of the Parliament, had, after
the Restoration, persisted in hearing Presbyterian and
Independent preachers, had, at elections, strenuously supported
the Exclusionists and had continued even after the discovery of
the Rye House plot and the proscription of the Whig leaders, to
regard Popery and arbitrary power with unmitigated hostility.
Great as has been the change in the rural life of England since
the Revolution, the change which has come to pass in the cities
is still more amazing. At present above a sixth part of the
nation is crowded into provincial towns of more than thirty
thousand inhabitants. In the reign of Charles the second no
provincial town in the kingdom contained thirty thousand
inhabitants; and only four provincial towns contained so many as
ten thousand inhabitants.
Next to the capital, but next at an immense distance, stood
Bristol, then the first English seaport, and Norwich, then the
first English manufacturing town. Both have since that time been
far outstripped by younger rivals; yet both have made great
positive advances. The population of Bristol has quadrupled. The
population of Norwich has more than doubled.
Pepys, who visited Bristol eight years after the Restoration, was
struck by the splendour of the city. But his standard was not
high; for he noted down as a wonder the circumstance that, in
Bristol, a man might look round him and see nothing but houses.
It seems that, in no other place with which he was acquainted,
except London, did the buildings completely shut out the woods
and fields. Large as Bristol might then appear, it occupied but a
very small portion of the area on which it now stands. A few
churches of eminent beauty rose out of a labyrinth of narrow
lanes built upon vaults of no great solidity. If a coach or a
cart entered those alleys, there was danger that it would be
wedged between the houses, and danger also that it would break in
the cellars. Goods were therefore conveyed about the town almost
exclusively in trucks drawn by dogs; and the richest inhabitants
exhibited their wealth, not by riding in gilded carriages, but by
walking the streets with trains of servants in rich liveries, and
by keeping tables loaded with good cheer. The pomp of the
christenings and burials far exceeded what was seen at any other
place in England. The hospitality of the city was widely
renowned, and especially the collations with which the sugar
refiners regaled their visitors. The repast was dressed in the
furnace, and was accompanied by a rich beverage made of the best
Spanish wine, and celebrated over the whole kingdom as Bristol
milk. This luxury was supported by a thriving trade with the
North American plantations and with the West Indies. The passion
for colonial traffic was so strong that there was scarcely a
small shopkeeper in Bristol who had not a venture on board of
some ship bound for Virginia or the Antilles. Some of these
ventures indeed were not of the most honourable kind. There was,
in the Transatlantic possessions of the crown, a great demand for
labour; and this demand was partly supplied by a system of
crimping and kidnapping at the principal English seaports.
Nowhere was this system in such active and extensive operation as
at Bristol. Even the first magistrates of that city were not
ashamed to enrich themselves by so odious a commerce. The number
of houses appears, from the returns of the hearth money, to have
been in the year 1685, just five thousand three hundred. We can
hardly suppose the number of persons in a house to have been
greater than in the city of London; and in the city of London we
learn from the best authority that there were then fifty-five
persons to ten houses. The population of Bristol must therefore
have been about twenty-nine thousand souls.90
Norwich was the capital of a large and fruitful province. It was
the residence of a Bishop and of a Chapter. It was the chief seat
of the chief manufacture of the realm. Some men distinguished by
learning and science had recently dwelt there and no place in the
kingdom, except the capital and the Universities, had more
attractions for the curious. The library, the museum, the aviary,
and the botanical garden of Sir Thomas Browne, were thought by
Fellows of the Royal Society well worthy of a long pilgrimage.
Norwich had also a court in miniature. In the heart of the city
stood an old palace of the Dukes of Norfolk, said to be the
largest town house in the kingdom out of London. In this mansion,
to which were annexed a tennis court, a bowling green, and a
wilderness stretching along the banks of the Wansum, the noble
family of Howard frequently resided, and kept a state resembling
that of petty sovereigns. Drink was served to guests in goblets
of pure gold. The very tongs and shovels were of silver. Pictures
by Italian masters adorned the walls. The cabinets were filled
with a fine collection of gems purchased by that Earl of Arundel
whose marbles are now among the ornaments of Oxford. Here, in the
year 1671, Charles and his court were sumptuously entertained.
Here, too, all comers were annually welcomed, from Christmas to
Twelfth Night. Ale flowed in oceans for the populace. Three
coaches, one of which had been built at a cost of five hundred
pounds to contain fourteen persons, were sent every afternoon
round the city to bring ladies to the festivities; and the dances
were always followed by a luxurious banquet. When the Duke of
Norfolk came to Norwich, he was greeted like a King returning to
his capital. The bells of the Cathedral and of St. Peter Mancroft
were rung: the guns of the castle were fired; and the Mayor and
Aldermen waited on their illustrious fellow citizen with
complimentary addresses. In the year 1693 the population of
Norwich was found by actual enumeration, to be between
twenty-eight and twenty-nine thousand souls.91
Far below Norwich, but still high in dignity and importance, were
some other ancient capitals of shires. In that age it was seldom
that a country gentleman went up with his family to London. The
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