Chapter XXIII (2)

On the 1st of November, 1641, it was suddenly learned that an immense insurrection had broken out in Ireland, threatening the most imminent danger to the Protestant religion and the Protestants of the country. The Catholics had everywhere risen, chiefs and people, claiming the liberty of their faith, vaunting the name of the queen and even of the king, setting up a commission signed, it was said, by the latter, and announcing the design of delivering Ireland and the throne from the tyranny of the English Puritans. On the very eve of the day on which the conspiracy was to break out it was accidentally discovered and quelled in Dublin. Throughout the country it had met with no obstacle. Murders, fires, horrible and nameless crimes, it is said, were rife throughout Ireland. Everywhere Protestants were massacred without resistance. The Government, disarmed by Strafford and the crown, was powerless before a half-savage people eager to avenge in one day centuries of outrage and misfortune. The Earl of Leicester, nominated viceroy in place of Strafford, had not yet arrived. To oppose so terrible a storm the English Government had in Ireland only two judges of no ability, of no credit, whose Presbyterian zeal alone had caused them to be invested with that difficult employment.

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England uttered a prolonged cry of terror and rage; every Protestant considered himself attacked in common with his brothers of Ireland. The king, who was a stranger to the insurrection, hastened to communicate to Parliament the news which had reached him in Scotland, placing the affair in the hands of the Commons and entrusting them with the repression, partly to rid himself of all complicity, partly to avoid in the eyes of his Catholic subjects, whom he had not encouraged, but whom he was in no hurry to restrain, the responsibility for the severities to which they might be compelled to submit.

The leaders of the Commons were not much more eager than the king to stamp out the Irish insurrection. It furnished them with the popular agitation and general uneasiness of which they stood in need in order to continue their work. They eagerly took possession of the power which the king offered them; but their efforts against the Irish insurgents were more ostentatious than sincere, and more noisy than efficacious. The Protestants of Ireland were left in the hands of their enemies. All speeches and acts were directed towards England; the moment for striking the great blow had come.

Shortly after the opening of Parliament, in the month of November, 1640, a committee was chosen to prepare, with an exposition of grievances, a solemn remonstrance to the king; but political reforms had been so rapid, and the king had so completely given way before the growing power of Parliament, that the majority of the grievances had in reality disappeared, when, on the morrow of the insurrection of Ireland, amidst the popular excitement, the committee received orders to resume and complete its work without delay. {75} The remonstrance but lately intended for the king became a sombre exposition addressed to the people, retracing all the past evils, and all those which yet subsisted, the wrong-doings of the king, the virtues of Parliament, and the dangers which faith and liberty incurred as long as the nation should not be unreservedly devoted to the House of Commons, which was alone capable of saving them from Popery, the bishops, and the king.

So much violence, without fresh pretexts, or any direct or apparent aim, raised numerous murmurs. The ever-growing pretensions of Parliament began to create, even in its midst, a party of resistance, favorable, in a certain measure, to the threatened royal power. The popular chiefs endeavored to quiet the distrust and exasperation, asserting that they only wished to intimidate the court and to thwart its intrigues, and that the remonstrance being once adopted it would not be promulgated. They asked for the vote towards the end of a sitting, at the moment when the House, being fatigued, was thinking of separating. Lord Falkland, Hyde, Colepepper--the friends of the king, as they were called--demanded that there should be a postponement until the morrow. "Why," said Cromwell to Falkland, "do you so greatly desire this delay?" "Because it is too late to-day, and because there will certainly be a debate." "A light debate," replied Cromwell impassively. The discussion began on the morrow; sides were taken. For the first time two national parties were at contention. It was no longer the court and the country; the good citizens were divided; both sides found support in public interests and opinions. There were discussions; there was vehement speaking. Hour after hour passed by; the sitting had opened at three o'clock; it was midnight. {76} The delicate or ailing members, and the old men had all retired. "This," said Sir Benjamin Rudyard, "will be the verdict of a famished jury." When the vote was taken, a hundred and fifty-nine members adopted the remonstrance, against a hundred and forty-eight who voted against it.

The result had scarcely been announced when Hampden rose and demanded that the remonstrance should be printed. "We said so," it was exclaimed on the other side, "you wish to take from the Lords their legitimate share of authority; you desire to walk alone and arouse the people to insurrection." "I protest, I protest," exclaimed Mr. Palmer, and his friends followed his example. Protests were usual in the House of Lords; they were not in the Commons. Indignation was felt at this new proceeding, and the disturbance increased; several members had already placed their hands upon their swords. Hampden addressed the House, deploring the sad disorder, and proposing to adjourn the discussion to the morrow. This was agreed to. "Well," said Lord Falkland to Cromwell, on leaving, "has it been debated?" "I will take your word another time," replied Cromwell, and he added in a lower tone: "If the remonstrance had been rejected, I would have sold all I have the next morning, and never would have seen England more, and I know there are many honest men of the same resolution." The printing of the remonstrance was voted on the morrow without any disturbance, almost without discussion, by a majority of twenty-three. The return of the king, to whom it was first to be presented, was the only event waited for in order to publish it.

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He arrived, and was magnificently received by the city of London, the new lord mayor, Richard Gourney, being devoted to him. Already confident in the movement which manifested itself in his favor, he allowed his new hopes to be revealed at the first moment, by withdrawing from the Commons the guard which the Earl of Essex had given to them for their safety in his absence.

The remonstrance was immediately presented to Charles; he listened patiently to the reading of it. "Does the House intend to publish this declaration?" he asked. "We are not authorized to answer the questions of your Majesty." "Well, I suppose you do not either expect my reply at once; I will send it to you as soon as the importance of the affair will allow." The leaders of the Commons did not wait for the royal reply before proposing to the Houses what were no longer reforms, but innovations. A bill relating to the pressing of soldiers, another to the militia, a third excluding the clergy, of whatever grade they might be, from all civil offices, were presented and adopted in a few days by the Lower House. The remonstrance was published on the 14th of December. Popular ardor, from day to day more impassioned, corresponded with the new attitude of the leaders of the opposition. The aspect of affairs was undergoing a change; to the unanimous movement of the nation succeeded the strife of parties; to reform, revolution. Parliament asked to have its guard back again; but the multitude which thronged around Westminster, the committees formed in all places for the defence of liberty and the faith, represented a militia more formidable than all the soldiers, all busy in proclaiming with loud voice the common danger.

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The king did not stand alone before this bold and persevering effort of the popular reformers. Among the most esteemed members of the House of Commons who had fought against tyranny, a certain number, and these of the best, were brought back to the crown by the dread of innovations and excesses. Charles resolved to secure the attachment of the chiefs of this growing royalist party--Mr. Hyde, Sir John Colepepper, and Lord Falkland. The latter did not please him; he had little esteem for the king, and a great effort of his friends was necessary in order to induce him to enter publicly into his service. He allowed himself to be overcome by the solicitations of Charles himself, constrained by necessity; but when he accepted the office of secretary of state, it was with a profound sense of discouragement and as a victim to a devotion without affection and without hope. These three friends undertook the difficult task of directing the affairs of the king in the House, and the former promised to attempt nothing without their advice.

Charles could no more keep his word with his friends than with his enemies. He drew courage from the adhesion of the gentlemen attached by tradition to the throne, who arrived with clamor from their counties to offer to the king their service. Every day struggles took place in the streets, and particularly around Westminster, between the partisans of the king--the "cavaliers" as they were called, and the "roundheads," a name which the cavaliers themselves gave to the citizens, on account of the contrast which the short hair of the Puritans presented to the long ringlets of the gentlemen. The bill for the exclusion of the bishops, still in suspension in the Upper House, was the special cause of outbreaks. {79} The bishops every day ran the risk of their lives in going and taking their seats, and they were obliged in order to leave Westminster, to hide themselves in the carriages of some popular noblemen. The House of Commons did not reply to the complaints of the Lords against the disturbance excited at its doors: "We need all our friends," said the leaders; "God forbid that we should prevent the people obtaining thereby that which they are right in desiring." At the same time the Commons decreed that as the king persisted in refusing their guard, each of the members was entitled to bring an armed servant and to keep him at the door. Blood was shed incessantly around Westminster Palace.

The bishops adopted their course, a strange and frivolous one in so grave a situation; they resolved to absent themselves, while protesting by anticipation against all bills which might be adopted during their retirement, as not being invested with the necessary assent of all the members of Parliament. This declaration, signed by twelve bishops, being communicated to the king, was approved by him; he seized it as a pretext which might one day permit him to annul the acts of the indomitable Parliament against which he was struggling without success. He did not speak of the matter to his new councillors; but, on the same day, the keeper of the great seal carried, by his orders, the protest of the bishops to the Upper House, who sent it immediately to the Commons.

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The surprise of the Lords and the anger of the Commons were great, and the popular leaders immediately contrived to find therein a new weapon. The impeachment of the bishops was suddenly proposed and resolved upon; they had designed to determine the fate of Parliament itself, and to destroy it by separating themselves from its debates; they were conducted to the Tower, upon the vote of the Upper House, which received the indictment of the Commons. The point was urged further. The king had taken the government of the Tower from Sir William Balfour, to entrust it to a cavalier. Sir Thomas Lunsford, a man little esteemed and very violent. The nomination of a new governor was demanded. Lord Digby, formerly animated with a patriotic zeal but now become the most intimate confidant of the king, was denounced for having said that Parliament was not free. The Commons again claimed their right to have a guard.

Charles did not lose his temper at so many proofs of growing distrust; he nominated as governor of the Tower, Sir John Byron, a man esteemed by all, and he replied to the inquiries of the House: "We do engage to you solemnly on the word of a king, that the security of all and every one of you from violence is and ever shall be with as much our care as the preservation of ourselves and our children," but he refused the guard. The House caused the militia of London to be mustered, and bodies of troops were placed in different parts of the city.

The instinct of the popular leaders had not deceived them concerning the apparent moderation of the king. On the same day, the 3rd of January, 1642, Sir Edward Herbert, the attorney-general of the crown, appeared in the House of Lords, and there, in the name of the king, charged with high treason, Lord Kimbolton and Messrs. Hampden, Pym, Hollis, Strode, and Haslerig, all five members of the House of Commons, for having attempted to destroy the fundamental laws of the kingdom, to deprive the king of his legal power, and to provoke war against him. Such was the substance of the accusations unfolded at length. Sir Edward Herbert demanded at the same time that the House should secure the accused.

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Lord Kimbolton rose. "I am ready," he said, "to obey all the orders of the House; but, since my accusation is public, I demand that my justification may be public also." Silence reigned in the Hall, nobody spoke. Lord Digby leaned towards Lord Kimbolton. "How deplorably," he said, "the king is advised. I shall be very unfortunate if I do not learn whence this comes." He left as if to hasten after news. The advice had emanated from him.

A message from the Lords immediately warned the Commons. The servants of the five accused members hastened at the same time to give notice that the king's men were affixing seals to the locks at their residences. While the Lower House was asking for conference with the Lords, a herald at arms entered the Hall. "In the name of the king, my master," he said, "I come to request the speaker to consign into my hands the five gentlemen, members of the House, whom his Majesty has commanded me to arrest for high treason." None stirred, the accused members remained in their places. The speaker enjoined the herald to withdraw, and a committee nominated without opposition repaired to the palace of the king to say that to so grave a message the House could only reply after mature examination. Two ministers. Lord Falkland and Sir John Colepepper, formed part of the deputation. They had known nothing of the projects of the king. The Lords joined with the Commons in demanding a guard for Parliament. "I will reply to-morrow," the king said in his turn.

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On the morrow, the House opened its sitting at one o'clock. The five members arrived among the first; they preserved silence, being fully informed of what was being prepared; they were surrounded; they were questioned. The agitation was at its height when there was a rush to announce that the king, accompanied by a retinue of four hundred cavaliers, all armed, had arrived at the House, and that he was coming in person to arrest the accused. The House at once urged the five members to withdraw. Pym, Hollis, Hampden, Haslerig went out immediately; it was found necessary to thrust Mr. Strode outside by the shoulders. The House was seated and silent. The king approached, accompanied only by his nephew, the Prince Palatine; he entered the hall; all the members rose, bareheaded. The king cast a rapid glance around him; the seats of the five members were empty. "Mr. Speaker," he said, "with your permission, I will borrow your chair for a moment. Gentlemen, I am sorry for this occasion of coming to you. ... I expected from you obedience and not a message. ... I come to see whether any of the accused are here; as long as they shall sit in this house, I cannot hope that it will return into the good path which I sincerely desire it to be in. ... Mr. Speaker, where are they?" The speaker fell upon his knees. "Under the good pleasure of your Majesty, I have not here either eyes to see or tongue to speak except so much as the House, of which I am the servant, chooses to command me; I humbly implore your Majesty to forgive me." "Well, since I see that the birds have flown," said the king, "I expect that you will send them to me as soon as they return. But I assure you, on the word of a king, I never did intend any force, but shall proceed against them in a fair and legal way. {83} I do not wish to disturb you any longer. I repeat to you, I expect you to send them to me as soon as they shall re-enter the Hall, otherwise I will take means to find them." He left. The House had remained motionless. Cries of "Privilege! privilege!" emanated from some corners of the Hall; then an adjournment until the morrow took place. All the members were eager to know what was being done and said without.

The people were as much agitated as the House, and the cavaliers as energetic as their master. The projected political manœuvre had been the object of their most ardent and haughty wishes; the check they experienced was bitter. The king persisted in his design, but without knowing how to accomplish it. The five members had retired to the city, where the citizens had spontaneously taken to arms. Charles resolved to proceed on the morrow to claim the accused men at the hands of the common council.

The mob thronged upon his passage with grave, sombre looks. Some voices resounded with the threatening cry of "Privilege! privilege!" The whole nation adopted as their own grievance the violated privileges of the Commons. The language of the king towards the common council was mild and conciliatory. He promised to act in all things according to the law, but he claimed the five members, and he did not obtain them. The aldermen of the city looked as grave as the multitude which encumbered the streets. The king returned to his palace foiled and angry.

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The House adjourned for six days, declaring that after the attack upon its privileges, it could not sit in safety without a guard. But a committee had been established in the city, close to the house inhabited by the five accused members. The latter were consulted upon all the resolutions, and they even came several times and sat with the committee, which was open to all the members of the House. Popular anger increased from hour to hour, and its alliance with the House became closer. The adjournment of Parliament was about to expire. The king learnt that the five members were to be brought back in triumph to Westminster by the trainbands and the people. He could not endure to see his enemies pass in front of his palace. The queen had for a long time implored him to go away. The nobility of the counties promised aid and security. Away from this city of London, delivered from the roundheads, far from Parliament, the king would be free, and what could Parliament do without the king? It was resolved to go at first to Hampton Court; but orders were given to secure a more remote refuge in case of need. The Earl of Newcastle, faithfully attached to the king, set out for the north, where his influence was predominant, on the 10th of January. On the eve of the reassembling of the Commons, Charles, accompanied only by his wife, his children, and a few servants, quitted London and that palace of Whitehall which he was never to see again, except on his way to the scaffold.

It was time for the king to fly from London if he wished to avoid the triumph of Parliament. On the 11th of January, the Thames was covered with boats armed for war, bringing back to Westminster the five members. A fleet of vessels, adorned with flags, followed them. Along the shore marched the soldiery of London, bearing at the end of their pikes the last declaration of Parliament.

[Image] Queen Henrietta Maria.

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The Commons were sitting at Westminster, awaiting their colleagues, and as soon as the five members had entered the Hall, the sheriffs were introduced, the House wishing to address its thanks to the City. The gates of Westminster were besieged by an enthusiastic and triumphant crowd; in its midst were a retinue of four thousand gentlemen or freeholders of Buckinghamshire, all on horseback, bringing a petition to Parliament against the Papist lords and bad advisers of the crown. They bore inscribed upon their hats a vow to live and die with Parliament. The breeze of popular favor favored every sail. The leaders of the Commons contrived to take advantage of it. It was voted, in a few hours, that no member could be arrested without the authorization of the House, that Parliament should be free to sojourn wherever it should think proper. Skippon, the commander of the soldiery of London, was entrusted to watch the approaches to the Tower, still governed by Sir John Byron, whose dismissal was demanded by the House. The governor of Portsmouth was forbidden to receive into his town troops or supplies without the order of Parliament. Sir John Hotham was sent to Hull, an important town and the real key to England in the north. It was declared that the kingdom was threatened and that it should be placed in a state of defence. The Lords refused to consent to this vote, but the Commons had attained their object; the people had been apprised of the danger.

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The king was warned as well as the people, and he knew that his project of waging war would not take his enemies unawares. Away from London, where at every moment he had suffered humiliations and defeats, he no longer came into contact with any but his servants, faithful, and often confident of success. With the influence which they enjoyed in their counties his cavaliers found once more their joyful arrogance and valiant ardor. On all sides Charles was urged to declare war, and small isolated enterprises formed a prelude to hostilities. Two hundred cavaliers, commanded by Lunsford, had already repaired to Kingston, near London, the depot of the warehouses of the county; but Parliament adopted its measures, and Lunsford, with his cavaliers, proceeded towards Windsor, whither the king had transported himself. He did not reckon upon staying there long; the queen was secretly preparing to depart, carrying off the crown jewels, in order to make purchases of arms and supplies in Holland. Under the pretext of conducting to the Prince of Orange, the little Princess Henrietta Maria, whom he had married six months before, she was also to negotiate with the sovereigns of the Continent, from whom assistance might be hoped for. It was at York that the king reckoned upon establishing his quarters while awaiting succor. In order to veil his designs, he invited the Houses to make a summary of their grievances, promising to set them right immediately and thus put an end to their discussions.

The Upper House received the message with joy. Even among the popular lords, many were afraid of the struggle which was only at its beginning, and which they wished to see ended. They immediately proposed for the assent of the Commons some hasty thanks to the king; but the Lower House had no confidence in royal promises; it demanded that the king should first consent to consign the command of the Tower, the strongholds, and the soldiery to men enjoying the confidence of Parliament. {87} The Lords rejected this amendment, but thirty-two votes among them had supported it, and the Commons presented their petition alone. As regards the Tower and the fortresses, the king absolutely refused; as regarded the soldiery, his reply was evasive and vague; he wished to gain time.

The Commons, however, knew that they had no time to lose, and the leaders excited among the people a new and keen emotion. They were easily aroused to insurrection; from all counties, from all classes, merchants, artisans, and even women, came numberless petitions, demanding reform of the Church, the punishment of Papists, the repression of malevolents. The multitude stopped at the gate of Westminster. "The Upper House impedes everything," it was said. "We have never doubted the House of Commons," cried the workmen; "but let them give us the names of those who prevent harmony between the good Lords and Commons, and we will see to it." Fear began to overcome the timid; the popular Lords more and more took up the cause of the Lower House. "Whoever refuses to join the Commons in the matter of the soldiery is an enemy of the state," said the Earl of Northumberland. Some few Lords withdrew, others altered their minds, and the bill regarding the soldiery, as well as that for the exclusion of the bishops, was at length voted by the two Houses. Once more the Commons triumphed.

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Charles now announced to Parliament the approaching departure of the queen, and, to soften the irritation which he dreaded, he officially abandoned the prosecution of the five members, and nominated as governor of the Tower Sir John Conyers, who had been designated by the Commons; but when the bill for the exclusion of the bishops was presented to him, he was agitated and perplexed. His conscience opposed the acceptance. His best advisers, with the exception of Hyde, urged him to consent to it. The ordinance respecting the soldiery, which the leaders held in reserve, was more important in their eyes, for it completely disarmed the king. He could not refuse everything; the bishops were vanquished and in prison. ... The king continued to hesitate; the queen intervened; she did not trouble herself in any way concerning the bishops, and feared that the House might oppose her departure. She supplicated, wept, flew into a passion, and, as usual, the king yielded, sorrowfully, regretfully, but he authorized commissioners to sign in his name, and set out to accompany his wife as far as Dover, where she was to embark.

The Commons were of the same opinion as Colepepper, and made a stand at the question of the soldiery even more than at that of the bishops. They followed the king with their messages as far as Dover, and on his return, having insisted upon a prompt sanction of the ordinance which they sent him, the king replied vaguely, but ill-humoredly, being exasperated by the persistent distrust of the Commons, as though his concessions had been sincere. On arriving at Greenwich, he there found his son, the Prince of Wales, whom the Marquis of Hertford, his tutor, had brought, notwithstanding the prohibition of the House. Being reassured as to the fate of his wife and children, he at length replied to Parliament, consenting to entrust the soldiery to the commanders who were designated, except in large towns, but preserving the right of dismissing them. He thereupon set out for York.

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The Houses received the reply of the king as a formal refusal. At Theobalds, and at Newark, fresh messages reached him, haughty at first, then marked by a certain emotion, betraying itself in spite of the firmness of the language. The king was implored to return to London, and to come to an understanding with his people. Upon the brink of an unknown future, dark and troublous, all hesitated and reciprocally endeavored each to influence the other. The negotiations came to no issue, and they were carried on without hope of arriving at any result. Negotiations, however, continued. It was on behalf of the public, of the whole nation, rather than of an immediate and present adversary that the opposition contended. It was in the name of the liberties of old England, of the traditional rights of the people, invaded by royal tyranny, that the resistance of Parliament had begun; it was now in the name of the traditional rights of the crown, attacked by the innovations of Parliament, that the royalist party, every day stronger and more ardent, defended their cause. The ardor of men's minds was immense; the movement universal, strange, irregular. In London, in York, in all the great towns of the kingdom, pamphlets, periodicals, irregular journals increased in numbers, and were circulated in all directions. Amidst this outburst of views of all parties, and in the face of an appeal of so novel a kind, to the opinion of the people--even while the principle of national sovereignty in opposition to the divine right of kings had taken possession of all minds and was the foundation of all proceedings--the statutes, traditions, customs, were incessantly invoked as the only legitimate tests of the discussion. Revolution was everywhere in progress, though no one dared to say so, or even avow it to himself.

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The situation became day by day more violent and more strained. A great number of members of Parliament had left London, many had joined the king at York. The Houses in their turn entered upon the path of tyranny. Lord Herbert and Sir Ralph Hopton, having raised their voices in favor of the king, one was placed in the Tower, the other censured and threatened; the royalist petitions were suppressed. Cromwell, as yet not very conspicuous in the House, but more involved than any other in the plots of the revolution, brought special ability to bear upon tracing out and denouncing the royalist conspiracies.

An unexpected incident widened irreparably the abyss which was opening up between the two parties: the king, on the 23d of April, asked Sir John Hotham, governor of Hull, to resign the town to him. Already the Duke of York and the Prince Palatine had entered it under the pretext of spending a day there. Already the mayor and some citizens were marching towards the gates, to open them to his Majesty, who was arriving at the foot of the ramparts. Hotham ordered them to return to their homes, and he appeared upon the wall, surrounded by his officers. The king summoned him to open the gates. Sir John fell upon his knees, apologizing for his resistance. He had, he said, taken an oath to Parliament. "Kill him! kill the traitor!" exclaimed the cavaliers who surrounded the king; "cast him down!" But the officers of Sir John were more resolute than he. The king was compelled to withdraw, and on the same day he addressed a message to Parliament, asking justice for such an offense.

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Parliament approved of the act of its governor in all respects, saying that the strongholds and arsenals had been formerly confided to the king for the safety of the kingdom, and that the same reason might now command the Houses to seize them. This was a declaration of war. Thirty-two Lords and sixty-five members of the Commons, Mr. Hyde among others, set out for York. The Chancellor caused the great seal to be given over to the king, and made his escape on the morrow. Each party was about to make the last effort for sustaining the struggle. None foresaw how far it was to go, nor what misfortunes and crimes were to signalize the civil war which was now about to commence.

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