as this danger was believed to exist, every effort would be made to keep dissent from spreading. Hence the Conventicle Act (1664) imposed penalties on those taking part in religious meetings in private houses, and the Five Mile Act (1665) forbade an expelled clergyman to come within five miles of a corporate borough, the very place where he was most likely to secure adherence, unless he would swear his adhesion to the doctrine of non-resistance.
The doctrine of non-resistance was evidently that by which,
at this time, the loyal subject was distinguished from those
whom he stigmatized as disloyal. Yet even the most
loyal found that, if it was wrong to take up arms
against the king, it might be right to oppose him in
Doctrine
of non-resistance.
other ways. Even the Cavaliers did not wish to see
Charles II. an absolute sovereign. They wished to reconstruct
the system which had been violently interrupted by the events
of the autumn of 1641, and to found government on the co-operation
between king and parliament, without defining to
themselves what was to be done if the king’s conduct became
insufferable. Openly, indeed, Charles II. did not force them
to reconsider their position. He did not thrust members of the
Commons into prison, or issue writs for ship-money. He laid no
claim to taxation which had not been granted by parliament.
But he was extravagant and self-indulgent, and he wanted
more money than they were willing to supply. A war with the
The first Dutch war.
Dutch broke out, and there were strong suspicions that
Charles applied money voted for the fleet to the maintenance
of a vicious and luxurious court. Against the
vice and luxury, indeed, little objection was likely to
be brought. The over-haste of the Puritans to drill England
into ways of morality and virtue had thrown at least the upper
classes into a slough of revelry and baseness. But if the vice did
not appear objectionable the expense did, and a new chapter in
the financial history of the government was opened when the
Commons, having previously gained control over taxation, proceeded
to vindicate their right to control expenditure.
As far, indeed, as taxation was concerned, the Long Parliament had not left its successor much to do. The abolition of feudal tenures and purveyance had long been demanded, and the conclusion of an arrangement which had been mooted in the reign of James I. is only notable The Commons aim at control over expenditure. as affording one instance out of many of the tendency of a single class to shift burdens off its own shoulders. The predominant landowners preferred the grant of an excise, which would be taken out of all pockets, to a land-tax which would exclusively be felt by those who were relieved by the abolition of the tenures. The question of expenditure was constantly telling on the relations between the king and the House of Commons. After the Puritan army had been disbanded, the king resolved to keep on foot a petty force of 5000 men, and he had much difficulty in providing for it out of a revenue which had not been intended by those who voted it to be used for such a purpose. Then came the Dutch war, bringing with it a suspicion that some at least of the money given for paying sailors and fitting out ships was employed by Charles on very different objects. The Commons accordingly, in 1665, succeeded in enforcing, on precedents derived from the reigns of Richard II. and Henry IV., the right of appropriating the supplies granted to special objects; and with more difficulty they obtained, in 1666, the appointment of a commission empowered to investigate irregularities in the issue of moneys. Such measures were the complement of the control over taxation which they had previously gained, and as far as their power of supervision went, it constituted them and not the king the directors of the course of government. If this result was not immediately felt, it was because the king had a large certain revenue voted to him for life, so that, for the present at least, it was only his extraordinary expenses which could be brought under parliamentary control. Nor did even the renewal of parliamentary impeachment, which ended in the banishment of Lord Chancellor Clarendon (1667), bring on any direct collision with the king. If the Commons wished to be rid of him because he upheld the prerogative, the king was equally desirous to be rid of him because he looked coldly on the looseness of the royal morals.
The great motive power of the later politics of the reign was
to be found beyond the Channel. To the men of the days of
Charles II., Louis XIV. of France was what Philip II.
of Spain had been to the men of the days of Elizabeth.
Gradually, in foreign policy, the commercial emulation
Charles II. and
Louis XIV.
with the Dutch, which found vent in one war in the
time of the Commonwealth, and in two wars in the time of
Charles II., gave way to a dread, rising into hatred, of the arrogant
potentate who, at the head of the mightiest army in Europe,
treated with contempt all rights which came into collision with
his own wishes. Louis XIV., moreover, though prepared to
quarrel with the pope in the matter of his own authority over
the Gallican Church, was a bigoted upholder of Catholic orthodoxy,
and Protestants saw in his political ambitions a menace
to their religion. In the case of England there seemed a special
danger to Protestantism; for whatever religious sympathies
Charles II. possessed were with the Roman Catholic faith, and
in his annoyance at the interference of the Commons with his
expenditure he was not ashamed to stoop to become the pensioner
of the French king. In 1670 the secret treaty of Dover
was signed. Charles was to receive from Louis £200,000 a year
and the aid of 6000 French troops to enable him to declare himself
a convert, and to obtain special advantages for his religion,
whilst he was also to place the forces of England at Louis’s disposal
for his purposes of aggression on the continent of Europe.
Charles had no difficulty in stirring up the commercial jealousy of England so as to bring about a second Dutch war (1672). The next year, unwilling to face the dangers of his larger plan, he issued a declaration of indulgence, which, by a single act of the prerogative, suspended Second Dutch war, and declara-tion of indulgence. all penal laws against Roman Catholics and dissenters alike. To the country gentlemen who constituted the cavalier parliament, and who had long been drifting into opposition to the crown, this was intolerable. The predominance of the Church of England was the prime article of their political creed; they dreaded the Roman Catholics; they hated and despised the dissenters. Under any circumstances an indulgence would have been most distasteful to them. But the growing belief that the whole scheme was merely intended to serve the purposes of the Roman Catholics converted their dislike into deadly opposition. Yet the parliament resolved to base its opposition upon constitutional grounds. The right claimed by the king to suspend the laws was questioned, and his claim to special authority in ecclesiastical matters was treated with contempt. The king gave way and withdrew his declaration. But no solemn act of parliament declared it to be illegal, and in due course of time it would be heard of again.
The Commons followed up their blow by passing the Test Act, making the reception of the sacrament according to the forms of the Church of England, and the renunciation of the doctrine of transubstantiation, a necessary qualification for office. At once it appeared The Test Act.what a hold the members of the obnoxious church had had upon the administration of the state. The lord high admiral, the lord treasurer, and a secretary of state refused to take the test. The lord high admiral was the heir to the throne, the king’s brother, the duke of York.
Charles, as usual, bent before the storm. In Danby (see Leeds, 1st Duke of) he found a minister whose views answered precisely to the views of the existing House of Commons. Like the Commons, Danby wished to silence both Roman Catholics and dissenters. Like the Commons, Danby’s ministry. too, he wished to embark on a foreign policy hostile to France. But he served a master who regarded Louis less as a possible adversary than as a possible paymaster. Sometimes Danby was allowed to do as he liked, and the marriage of the duke of York’s eldest daughter Mary to her cousin the prince of Orange was the most lasting result of his administration. More often he was obliged to follow where Charles led, and Charles was constantly ready to sell the neutrality of England for large sums
