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CHAPTER II

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

INQUEST

THE violent political controversies in England during the seventeenth century are particularly significant as evidence bearing on the subject now under consideration. The great intellectual occupation of the age was examination of the source and nature of authority, and if there had been extant any tradition of the primitive Teutonic community, as the original sovereign, it would have been brought into notice, but such a thing was never mentioned.

When the breach with the king had reached such a pass that public opinion turned to the idea of a commonwealth, the position was taken that monarchy was "neither good in itself nor for us." Argument in support of the first part of this proposition was drawn from the Book of Samuel; in support of the second part, from history and reason, but the history was a recital of the grievances of the people at the hands of the king and the appeal to reason invoked the law of nature. There is nothing by way of an

1 G. P. Gooch, English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century, p. 167.

appeal to the history of institutions such as the Teutonic polity theory would inevitably have suggested had it been known. One of the controversialists of the period, John Cook, a lawyer who took a leading part in the trial of Charles I on the side of the prosecution, published a treatise against monarchy in which he appealed to the Bible and scorned "the puddles of history."

It may be urged that the importance of these considerations is diminished by the fact that political motives were then habitually grounded upon religion, and hence in any controversies the customary appeal would be to the Bible; so therefore it does not follow that the tradition was lost or inoperative because it was neglected in the discussion. But even if this be accepted as a sufficient explanation of the general silence on this point, it does not apply to John Milton, the strongest writer of the age. Early in his career he prepared a history of Britain "from the first Traditional Beginning, continued to the Norman Conquest." The work was not published until 1670, but he had been engaged upon it before 1649, when he was called to the Latin Secretaryship for the Commonwealth, and he had it by him during the period in which he wrote his political treatises. But Milton did not see any freedom in Anglo-Saxon institutions but rather a state of "rapine and oppression," and

he described the people of Anglo-Saxon times as "fitted by their own vices for no condition but servile." He gave an account of the origin of parliament which directly antagonizes the theory of Teutonic origin. He described it as originally signifying but the parley of our lords and commons with the Norman king when he pleased to call them."

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It may be said that such facts as these nevertheless leave room for the contention that the spirit of Teutonic freedom was operative, making practical use of the representative assembly, although the historical beginnings of the institution had faded out of mind. But perhaps the strongest impression left by minute examination of the literature of the seventeenth century is that the struggle between king and parliament was not for the freedom of the people but for the possession of authority to rule the people. Of the Presbyterian party it was remarked that if the king would not grant them Presbyterianism, then they were for the people; and when the people resisted their will then they were for the king. An accusation brought by the Presbyterian writers against the Independents was that they gave power to the common herd. "The popular government," declared Robert Baillie, "bringeth in confusion, making the feet above the head." Clement Walker de

clared: "They have cast all the mysteries and secrets of government before the vulgar, and taught the soldiery and the people to look into them and to ravel back all governments to the first principles of nature. They have made the people so curious that they will never find humility enough to submit to a civil rule.”

But the leaders among the Independents showed that they too were opposed to the admission of the mass of the people to political power. When the Levellers, who obtained great influence in the army, demanded manhood suffrage, Oliver Cromwell replied: "The consequences of this rule tend to anarchy; must end in anarchy. For where is there any bound or limit set if men that have but the interest of breathing have voices in elections." The democratic demands were formulated in a paper entitled, "Agreement of the People," which it was proposed to back up with force. Cromwell acted with characteristic energy. His arrangements prevented united action by the adherents of the Agreement in the army, and when two regiments paraded without orders, wearing on their hats copies of the Agreement, Cromwell ordered the removal of the paper and on refusal shot one of the mutineers at the head of his regiment.

Richard Baxter, probably the most famous of

the Independent preachers, in his Holy Commonwealth, argued that "democracy or popular government is ordinarily the worst, because it comes nearer to the utter confounding of the governors and governed: the ranks that God hath separated by his institution."

John Milton was quite in agreement with other Puritan leaders that it is the business of government to curb the sinful nature of man, and it was never any thought of his that the authority taken from the king should be restored to the people. He ardently sustained the autocratic rule of Cromwell, and after Cromwell's death he wrote to General Monk, arguing that the best way to establish a free commonwealth would be to substitute for parliament a grand council of good men with permanent authority. Milton argued that successive parliaments "are much likelier continually to unsettle rather than to settle a free government, to breed commotions, changes, novelties and uncertainties, to bring neglect upon present affairs and opportunities, while all minds are in suspense of a new assembly, and the assembly for a good space taken up with the settling of itself." He went into a long historical argument to show that popular assemblies "either little avail the people, or brought them to such a licentious and unbridled democracy, as in fine ruined them

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