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Shortly after the accession of Charles, an Act was passed in Scotland renouncing the Covenant, and Argyle was condemned and executed. Similar Acts to those in force in England against Dissenters were introduced and carried into effect with unsparing rigour. An attempt at an insurrection was speedily quelled by the defeat of the Covenanters at the Pentlunds, when the vengeance taken upon them was so severe that the king himself thought fit to interpose. They, in their turn, defeated Graham of Claverhouse 12 at Drumclog, but were at last completely defeated at Lothwell Bridge,14 upon the Clyde. Long after all

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resistance was over, they were butchered without mercy by the troops of Claverhouse, whose vengeance, even on those who had thrown down their arms, could with difficulty be restrained. This battle ended for a time. the armed resistance of the Covenanters, but under the Duke of York, afterwards James II., the persecution became still more severe.

Naval War with Holland.-While these events were taking place in Scotland, England had become entangled in foreign war.

Charles had received many favours from Holland during his exile, but England was jealous of the commercial enterprise of that country. The Parliament, therefore, passed repeated Navigation Acts against their rival. This soon led to a proclamation of war.15 In the battles that followed, the naval fame won during the rule of Cromwell was almost completely lost.

At the beginning, the Dutch sustained a serious defeat off Lowestoft; 16 but, after increasing the strength of their fleet, they again put out to sea. An encounter took place off the North Foreland 17 which lasted three

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days, and the English were compelled to retreat up the Thames after twenty of their ships had been sunk. third battle at the mouth of the Thames was more disastrous to the Dutch than the previous one had been to the English; but, again taking the English by surprise, they appeared in the Thames, burned several men-of-war at Chatham, and for a time blockaded

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London. For weeks, they sailed along the coasts unmolested and then returned home, having inflicted on England the greatest national humiliation she had suffered since the Norman Conquest. While England was smarting under this disgrace, Charles basely signed a treaty with Holland,19 which left the two powers in much the same position as before the war began.

The Great Plague of London and the Great Fire.— Meanwhile, London had sustained two almost overwhelming disasters, which for a time seriously crippled the trade of the country. The plague had been the terror of the capital for more than three hundred years, and annually devoured a certain number of victims; but in December 1664, it broke suddenly out with a virulence unexampled since the terrible year of 1349.20 In 1665 about 70,000 persons,21 or nearly one-third of all the inhabitants, died. Business was completely stopped, and the streets became green with grass. The houses which the plague had entered were marked with a red cross that the few passers-by might avoid them. Instead of the noise of traffic, almost the only sound heard day or night was the tolling of bells. After sunset, carts went their rounds through the streets--the drivers uttering the dismal cry, "Bring out your dead!"

The pestilence had no sooner ceased its ravages than a fire broke out which laid nearly the whole city in ashes. About one o'clock on a September morning in 1665, flames were seen issuing from a baker's shop in Fish Street.22 The previous summer had been exceptionally dry, and the wooden houses but fed the fury of the flames. Fanned by an east wind the fire spread with alarming rapidity from house to house, and continued raging for four days. When it was at last extinguished, the city was a heap of smoking ruins. About 13,000 houses and 90 churches, including St. Paul's Cathedral,2 were completely destroyed.

It was groundlessly believed that the Catholics had wilfully caused the fire, and a most unjust statement to this effect was inscribed upon the column erected

in London to commemorate the event.

rebuked the false charge:

Dryden boldly

"Where London's column, pointing to the skies,
Like a tall bully, lifts its head, and lies."

The fire had

Much good came out of this disaster. acted as a purifying agent, for by it the seeds of disease were destroyed, and many hovels which had been mere dens of pestilence were burned down. Thus, as the houses were rebuilt of stone, and the new streets made wider, there has never been another great plague in London.

Fall of Clarendon. While the country was suffering from the effects of the plague and fire, it gradually became known that the money raised for the war had not been employed to support the navy but had been wasted on officials and courtiers. The Commons demanded an inquiry into the details of the expenditure, which was rejected by the Lord Chancellor Clarendon. Charles deserted his minister, who, to escape the penalties of impeachment, had to take refuge in France.

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"We must not let the respect we justly feel for Clarendon as a writer blind us to the faults which he committed as a statesman.' His slavish subjection to the king led him to most serious crimes against the honour and liberty of England, although this certainly gave the profligate monarch no excuse for leaving him so ungratefully to his fate.

1 The Act naming those who were to be pun. ished, was mis-called an Act of Indemnity or Pardon.

2. The corpses of Cromwell. Ireton, and Bradshaw (see p. 65) were dragged from their tombs in Westminster Abbey. The bodies of Cromwell's mother and daughter, of Pym, and of the illustrious Blake, were

also thrust promiscuously into a hole in the adjoining graveyard. Blake is now buried in St. Margaret's Church.

3. Tyburn. Tyburn Hill, near Hyde Park, was for a long time the place of public execution in London.

4. See p. 23. The country has now returned to the plan taken with Charles I., of

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16. Lowestoft. This battle was fought in 1665.
17. North Foreland, fought in 1666, sometimes
described as the Battle in the Downs.
All the disasters of this war were due to the
extravagance of Charles II., who seized
every opportunity of diverting the money
voted for the fleet to his own pleasures.
Called the Peace of Breda. See note 7,
page 99.

The Clarendon Code.' They are as fol- 19. lows:

(1) The Corporation Act (1661), requiring all 20.
members of corporations to renounce the
Solemn League and Covenant, and take 21.
the sacrament according to the rites of
the Church of England;
(2) The Act of Uniformity (1662), providing that 22.
every minister should publicly declare his 23.
assent to everything contained in the
Book of Common Prayer, or be deprived 24.
of his benefice. Two thousand clergymen
were turned adrift;

(3.) The Conventicle Act (1664), meant to
prevent the deprived clergymen from

The year of the Black Plague in the time of
Edward III.

In the same proportion this would now mean
a death in London of nearly 1,500,000
people.

Near London Bridge.

That is, Old St. Paul's. The new Cathedral was designed by Sir Christopher Wren. Clarendon's love for the Constitution offended Charles, his pure life seemed a rebuke to the vicious courtiers, and his subserviency to the Crown alienated the people. Thus no one regretted his exile.

forming congregations, and enacting that | 25. Macaulay.

THE RENEWAL OF THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN CROWN AND PARLIAMENT.

HE Ministry of the Cabal.'-The fall of Clarendon

Tindicated that the Royalist reaction had spent its

force. The great English Revolution of the seventeenth century-the transfer of the supreme control of the Executive Administration from the Crown to the House of Commons-was throughout this Long Parliament proceeding rapidly and steadily.

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