INTRODUCTORY. BEFORE going further with the history of the literature and literary men of the seventeenth century, I want to touch upon a political struggle which came to an issue in the reign of Charles I—the contests between the Puritans and the Royalists. The Puritans, who were a small body in Elizabeth's reign, had been constantly growing stronger. They were the party of extreme Protestants, who, not satisfied that the English Church had separated from that of Rome, wanted many other reforms. They clamored for a change in manners, in politics and in the church. Their leaders believed in plain meeting-houses and simple forms of worship, and opposed the ceremonies retained in the English Church, because they reminded them of the Church of Rome, which was so odious to them. In politics, their ideas were as revolutionary as their ideas in religion. The greater part of them belonged to the people of the middle class, who had done more than any other for the prosperity of England, but had not shared the privileges of the nobles, and began to feel they were shut out from many rights which they ought to claim. There was among them a strong spirit of revolt and many republican ideas. In the time of James I, a good deal had been said about the “divine right of kings" in the court circles and among the nobility, which was especially hateful to the Puritans, who believed only in the divine right of the Deity, and that this right was not bestowed on either Pope or kings. True, not all the nobles held these extreme ideas of monarchy. Walter Raleigh opposed them, and in some of his latest letters, written to the young Prince Henry, the eldest son of James I, while he was in the Tower, he urged him not to accept the extreme ideas of a monarch's power over his people. "Preserve to your future subjects," Raleigh writes in one of these letters, "the divine right of being free agents, and to your own royal house the divine right of being their benefactors." But King and court were not so wise as Raleigh, and, unfortunately, the young Prince Henry, who listened to and admired his counsels, died, and left the throne to his narrow-minded brother, Charles I. If he had lived, we should probably have had a different chapter in English history, in which Oliver Cromwell would have been left out. In manners and modes of living, also, the Puritans favored a reform. They were inclined to wear clothes of plain cut and sober colors; they cropped their hair and shaved their faces, and so got the name of Roundheads from their opponents. Their speech was serious and full of . Bible quotations, and it was claimed that their constant psalm-singing had given their voices a nasal twang. They took up for their guidance many of the laws of the Hebrews under Moses, and gave their children Hebrew names, taken from the Old Testament. They were austere in conduct, discouraged games and amusements, and were especially hostile to the theater. You can imagine, without my telling you, what an influence all these ideas would have on literature. The Royalists, who were also called Cavaliers, were in broadest contrast to the Puritans. The Cavalier loved mirth and revelry. He kept merry Christmas each year, and went to see a play when in London. He wore brightcolored silks and velvets, and his hair and beard were long and flowing. He had not been so long weaned from the Church of Rome that he could feel as if he were in church when he sat on a bench inside the four bare walls of a Puritan "meeting" house, and heard a preacher without a robe. He wanted cathedral and altar, fine singing in his choir, and the all-imposing ceremonies of worship. Above all, like every true-born Englishman, he loved his sovereign, whether he or she happened at the time to be English, like Elizabeth, or Scotch, like James I, or German, as a century later was George of Brunswick. The Puritans, as well as the Cavaliers, were loyal Englishmen, and if Charles I had been a wise, far-seeing ruler, he might have guided his kingdom through the storm without shipwreck. Instead of this, he was bigoted, narrow-minded, and blind to the best interests of his people. He had an absurd idea of the divine right of a king, and by his persistance in unjust authority he lost his cause, when a little yielding would have gained it. At length he so alienated this Puritan party that they broke out in open rebellion. Their leader was Oliver Cromwell, a man of great power, ambition and military ability. Under his leadership, the Puritans were so successful that they carried everything before them, and, seizing the King, they tried him for treason against the liberties of the people, be- 1649. headed him, and took the government into their own hands. From the time the rebellion began, until his death in 1658, Oliver Cromwell was really the ruler of England. He was not called so, however, till five years before his death, when he received the title of Lord Protector. He ruled England severely, like the autocrat he was, but with ability and wisdom. When he died an attempt was made to create his son Richard Lord Protector after him; but by this time the English people, who loved the royal line in spite of its faults, would have no more of Cromwellian rule. They had yearned after the son of their dead king, who had been since youth exiled |