was one from the Committee of Safety to Colonel Thomas Wilks, ordering him to “ use the most effectual, speedy, and secret way to secure the person of General "Monk, and to send him up to London "under a strong guard, in a frigate that lay in Leith Road; and then to take upon him the Command of the Army, "till further order."

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Having taken out this, and what other letters he thought fit, together with his own from the same Committee, full of high compliments, and expressions of trust, he sent away the packet as it was directed. But having communicated the matter to some of his particular friends, he gave orders for a General Review of the Army to be made next morning at Edinburgh, where he arrested Colonel Wilks, and some other Officers he had reason to suspect, and sent them prisoners to the castle, filling up their Commissions with others of his own creatures.

Monk in his march through England, and after he came to London, carried on the thread of dissimulation with wonderful dexterity, till all things were fully ripe for throwing off the mask, and calling home the King. As he was singularly happy in being the chief instrument of that Revolution, he was no less in the sense King Charles continued to express of so great an obligation. And it showed him to be a

man

man of true judgment, That the Duke of Albemarle behaved himself in such a manner to the Prince he had thus obliged, as never to seem to overvalue the services of General Monk.

King Charles the Second proved one of the finest gentlemen of the age, and had abilities to make one of the best of Kings. The first years of his reign were a continued Jubilee. And while we were reaping the fruits of peace at home, after the miseries of a long Civil War, a potent neighbour was laying the foundation of a Power abroad, that has since been the envy and terror of Europe. One might have thought that his Parliament had glutted his ambi tion to the full, by heaping those Prerogatives upon him, which had been contested for with his father, at the expense of so much blood and treasure: but he grasped early after more, and from his first accession to the Crown showed but little inclination to depend upon Parliaments. Of which we have a remarkable instance in an affair that was one of the true causes of the disgrace of that Great Man, Chancellor Clarendon, which happened a few years after.

It looks as if Heaven took a more than ordinary care of England, that we did not throw up our Liberties all at once, upon the Restoration of that King; for though some were for bringing him back upon

termis,

terms, yet after he was once come, he pos sessed so entirely the hearts of his people, that they thought nothing was too much for them to grant, or for him to receive. Among other designs to please hini, there was one formed at Court, to settle such a Revenue upon him by Parliament during life, as should place him beyond the necessity of asking more, except in the case of war, or some such extraordinary occasion. The Earl of Southampton, Lord High Treasurer, came heartily into it, out of a mere principle of honor and affection to the King; but Chancellor Clarendon secretly opposed it. It happened that they two bad a private conference about the matter; and the Chancellor being earnest to bring the Treasurer to his opinion, took the freedom to tell him, That he was better acquainted with the King's temper and inclinations than Southampton could reasonably expect to be, having had long and intimate acquaintance with his Majesty abroad; and that he knew him so well, that if such a Revenue was once settled upon him for life," neither of them two "would be of any further use; and that "they were not in probability to see many "more Sessions of Parliament during that Reign." Southampton was brought over; but this passage could not be kept so secret, but it came to King Charles's ears, which, together with other things

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r

༣་

wherein

wherein Clarendon was misrepresented to him, proved the true reason why he abandoned him to his enemies.

Notwithstanding this disappointment, King Charles made a shift, partly by his obliging carriage, partly by other induce ments, to get more money from his first Parliament towards the expense of his pleasures, than all his predecessors of the Norman Race had obtained before, towards the charges of their wars. This Parliament had like to have been Perpetual; if the vigor wherewith they began to prosecute the Popish Plot, and the resentment they expressed against his Brother, had not obliged him, much against his will, to part with them, after they had sat near Nineteen Years.

*

covery of

the Popish

That there was at that time a Popish The Dis Plot, and that there always has been one since the Reformation, to support, if not Plot. restore the Romish Religion in England, scarce any body calls in question. How far the near prospect of a Popish Successor ripened the hopes, and gave new vigor to the designs of that party, and what methods they were then upon, to bring those designs about, Coleman's Letters alone, without any other concurring evidence, are more than sufficient to put the matter out of doubt. But what Super structures might have been afterwards built upon an unquestionable foundation,

Its Effects.

and how far some of the Witnesses of that plot might come to darken truth by subsequent additions of their own, must be deferred till the Great Account, to be made before a Higher Tribunal: and till then, a great part of the Popish Plot, as it was then sworn to, will in all human probability lie among the darkest scenes of our English History. However, this is certain, the discovery of the Popish Plot had great and various effects upon the nation; and it is from this remarkable period of time we may justly reckon a new era in the English Account.

In the first place, it awakened the Nation out of a deep lethargy they had been in for nineteen years together; and alarmed them with fears and jealousies that have been found to our sad experience but too well grounded. In the next, it gave the rise to, at least settled, that unhappy distinction of Whig and Tory among the People of England, that has since occasioned so many mischiefs. And, lastly, the discovery of the Popish Plot began that open struggle between King Charles and his People, that occasioned him not only to dissolve his first Favourite Parliament, and the Three others that succeeded; but likewise to call no more during the rest of his Reign. All which made way for bringing in question the Charters of London, and other Corporations, with a great many