The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 06 (of 11)
Thomas Hobbes · en
histrionic faculty, preached up the rebellion powerfully.
_B._ To what end?
_A._ To the end that the State becoming popular, the Church might be so
too, and governed by an Assembly; and by consequence, as they thought,
seeing politics are subservient to religion, they might govern, and
thereby satisfy not only their covetous humour with riches, but also
their malice with power to undo all men that admired not their wisdom.
Your calling the people silly things, obliged me by this digression to
show you, that it is not want of wit, but want of the science of
justice, that brought them into these troubles. Persuade, if you can,
that man that has made his fortune, or made it greater, or an eloquent
orator, or a ravishing poet, or a subtle lawyer, or but a good hunter or
a cunning gamester, that he has not a good wit; and yet there were of
all these a great many so silly, as to be deceived by the Rump and
members of the same Rump. They wanted not wit, but the knowledge of the
causes and grounds upon which one person has a right to govern, and the
rest an obligation to obey; which grounds are necessary to be taught the
people, who without them cannot live long in peace amongst themselves.
_B._ Let us return, if you please, to the proceedings of the Rump.
_A._ In the rest of this year they voted a new stamp for the coin of
this nation. They considered also of agents to be sent to foreign
states; and having lately received applause from the army for their work
done by the High Court of Justice, and encouragement to extend the same
further, they perfected the said High Court of Justice, in which were
tried Duke Hamilton, the Earl of Holland, Lord Capel, the Earl of
Norwich, and Sir John Owen; whereof, as I mentioned before, the three
first were beheaded. This affrighted divers of the King’s party out of
the land; for not only they, but all that had borne arms for the King,
were at that time in very great danger of their lives. For it was put to
the question by the army at a council of war, whether they should be all
massacred or no; where the noes carried it but by two voices. Lastly,
March the 24th, they put the Mayor of London out of his office, fined
him 2,000_l._, disfranchised him, and condemned him to two months
imprisonment in the Tower, for refusing to proclaim the act for
abolishing the kingly power. And thus ended the year 1648 and the
monthly fast; God having granted that which they fasted for, the death
of the King and the possession of his inheritance. By these their
proceedings they had already lost the hearts of the generality of the
people, and had nothing to trust to but the army; which was not in their
power, but in Cromwell’s; who never failed, when there was occasion, to
put them upon all exploits that might make them odious to the people, in
order to his future dissolving them whensoever it should conduce to his
ends.