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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A63120 A short history of standing armies in England Trenchard, John, 1662-1723. 1698 (1698) Wing T2115; ESTC R39727 36,748 56

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the King's Concessions a ground for a future Settlement they resolved to put him to Death and in order therto purged the House as they called it that is placed Guards upon them and excluded all Members that were for agreeing with the King and then they cut off his Head After this they let the Parliament govern for five years who made their Name famous thro the whole Earth conquered their Enemies in England Scotland and Ireland reduced the Kingdom of Portugal to their own Terms recovered our Reputation at Sea overcame the Dutch in several famous Battels secured our Trade and managed the public Expences with so much frugality that no Estates were gained by privat Men upon the public Miseries and at last were passing an Act for their own Dissolution and settling the Nation in a free and impartial Common-wealth of which the Army being afraid thought it necessary to dissolve them and accordingly Cromwel next day called two Files of Musqueteers into the House and pulled the Speaker out of the Chair behaving himself like a Madman vilifying the Members and calling one a Whoremaster another a Drunkard bidding the Soldiers take away that fools bauble the Mace and so good night to the Parliament When they had don this Act of violence the Council of Officers set up a new form of Government and chose a certain number of Persons out of every County and City of England Scotland and Ireland and these they invested with the Supreme Power but soon after expelled them and then Cromwel set up himself and framed a new Instrument of Government by a Protector and a House of Commons in pursuance of which he called a Parliament But they not answering his Expectations he excluded all that would not subscribe his Instrument and those that remained not proving for his purpose neither he dissolved them with a great deal of opprobrious Language He then divided England into several Districts or Divisions and placed Major Generals or Intendents over them who governed like so many Bashaws decimating the Cavaliers and raising Taxes at their pleasure Then forsooth he had a mind to make himself King and called another Parliament to that purpose after his usual manner secluding such Members as he did not like To this Assembly he offered another Instrument of Government which was by a Representative of the People a 2d House composed of 70 Members in the nature of a House of Lords and a single Person and left a Blank for what name he should be called which this worthy Assembly filled up with that of King addressed to Cromwel that he would be pleased to accept it and gave him power to nominat the Members of the Other House This the great Officers of the Army resented for it destroyed all their hopes of being Tyrants in their turn and therefore addressed the Parliament against the Power and Government of a King which made Cromwel decline that Title and content himself with a greater Power under the name of Protector Afterwards he nam'd the Other House as it was called for the most part out of the Officers of the Army but even this Parliament not pleasing him he dissolved them in a fury and govern'd the Nation without any Parliament at all till he died After his death the Army set up his Son Richard who called a new Parliament but their procedings being not agreable to the humor of the Soldiery they forced the Protector to dissolve them then they deposed him and took the power into their own hands but being unable to weild it they restored the Commonwealth and soon after expelled them again because they would not settle the Military Sword independent of the Civil then they governed the Nation by a Council of War at Willingford-House and those a Committee of Safety for the executive part of the Government but that Whim lasted but a little time before they chose Conservators of Liberty and that not doing neither they agreed that every Regiment should choose two Representatives and this worthy Council should settle the Nation when they met somtimes they were for calling a new Parliament somtimes for restoring the old which was at last don By this means all things fell into Confusion which gave Monk an opportunity of marching into England where he acted his part so dexterously that he restor'd the King with part of that Army which had cut off his Father's Head This is a true and lively Example of a Government with an Army an Army that was raised in the cause and for the sake of Liberty composed for the most part of Men of Religion and Sobriety If this Army could commit such violences upon a Parliament always successful that had acquired so much Reputation both at home and abroad at a time when the whole People were trained in Arms and the Pulse of the Nation beat high for Liberty what are we to expect if in a future Age an ambitious Prince should arise with a dissolute and debauched Army a flattering Clergy a prostitute Ministry a Bankrupt House of L ds a Pensioner House of C ns and a slavish and corrupted Nation By this means came in Charles the Second a luxurious effeminat Prince a deep Dissembler and if not a Papist himself yet a great favorer of them but the People had suffered so much from the Army that he was received with the utmost Joy and Transport The Parliament in the Honymoon passed what Laws he pleased gave a vast Revenue for life being three times as much as any of his Predecessors ever enjoyed and several Millions besides to be spent in his Pleasures This made him conceive vaster hopes of Arbitrary Power than any that went before him and in order to it he debauched and enervated the whole Kingdom His Court was a scene of Adulteries Drunkenness and Irreligion appearing more like Stews or the Feasts of Bacchus than the Family of a Chief Magistrate and in a little time the Contagion spread thro the whole Nation that it was out of the fashion not to be leud and scandalous not to be a public Enemy which has bin the occasion of all the Miseries that have since happened and I am afraid will not be extinguished but by our ruin He was no sooner warm in his Seat but he rejected an advantageous Treaty of Commerce which Oliver made with France as don by a Usurper suffer'd the French to lay Impositions upon all our Goods which amounted to a Prohibition insomuch that they got a Million a year from us in the overbalance of Trade He sold that important Fortress of Dunkirk let the French seize St. Christophers and other places in North America He began a foolish and unjust War with the Dutch and tho the Parliament gave him vast Sums to maintain it yet he spent so much upon his Vices that they got great advantages of us and burnt our Fleet at Chatham At last he made as dishonorable a Peace with them as he had don a War a perpetual