Chapter VI: On the English Constitution Under James I (5)

[568] _State Trials_, ii. 869; Bacon, ii. 483, etc.; Dalrymple's _Memorials of James I._, vol. i. p. 56. Some other very unjustifiable constructions of the law of treason took place in this reign. Thomas Owen was indicted and found guilty, under the statute of Edward III., for saying, that "the king, being excommunicated (_i.e._ if he should be excommunicated) by the pope, might be lawfully deposed and killed by any one, which killing would not be murder, being the execution of the supreme sentence of the pope;" a position very atrocious, but not amounting to treason. _State Trials_, ii. 879. And Williams, another papist, was convicted of treason by a still more violent stretch of law, for writing a book predicting the king's death in the year 1621. _Id._ 1085.

[569] Bacon, ii. 500, 518, 522; Cro. Jac. 335, 343.

[570] Bacon, ii. 517, etc.; Carte, iv. 35; _Biograph. Brit._, art. Coke. The king told the judges, he thought his prerogative as much wounded if it be publicly disputed upon, as if any sentence were given against it.

[571] See D'Israeli, _Character of James I._, p. 125. He was too much affected by his dismissal from office.

[572] Camden's _Annals of James I._ in Kennet, vol. ii.; Wilson, _ibid._, 704, 705; Bacon's Works, ii. 574. The fine imposed was L30,000; Coke voted for L100,000.

[573] Fuller's _Church Hist._ 56; Neal, i. 435; Lodge, iii. 344.

[574] _State Trials_, ii. 765.

[575] Collier, 712, 717; Selden's Life in _Biographia Brit._

[576] Carte, iii. 698.

[577] _State Trials_, ii. 23; Lodge's _Illustrations_, iii. 217.

[578] Winwood, iii. 201, 279.

[579] _Id._ 178. In this collection are one or two letters from Arabella, which show her to have been a lively and accomplished woman. It is said in a manuscript account of circumstances about the king's accession, which seems entitled to some credit, that on its being proposed that she should walk at the queen's funeral, she answered with spirit that, as she had been debarred her majesty's presence while living, she would not be brought on the stage as a public spectacle after her death. Sloane MSS. 827.

Much occurs on the subject of this lady's imprisonment in one of the valuable volumes in Dr. Birch's handwriting, among the same MSS. 4161. Those have already assisted Mr. D'Israeli in his interesting memoir on Arabella Stuart, in the _Curiosities of Literature_, New Series, vol. i. They cannot be read (as I should conceive) without indignation at James and his ministers. One of her letters is addressed to the two chief-justices, begging to be brought before them by habeas corpus, being informed that it is designed to remove her far from those courts of justice where she ought to be tried and condemned, or cleared, to remote parts, whose courts she holds unfitted for her offence. "And if your lordships may not or will not grant unto me the ordinary relief of a distressed subject, then I beseech you become humble intercessors to his majesty that I may receive such benefit of justice, as both his majesty by his oath hath promised, and the laws of this realm afford to all others, those of his blood not excepted. And though, unfortunate woman! I can obtain neither, yet I beseech your lordships retain me in your good opinion, and judge charitably till I be proved to have committed any offence either against God or his majesty deserving so long restraint or separation from my lawful husband."

Arabella did not profess the Roman catholic religion, but that party seem to have relied upon her; and so late as 1610, she incurred some "suspicion of being collapsed." Winwood, ii. 117.

This had been also conjectured in the queen's life-time. _Secret Correspondence of Cecil with James I._, p. 118.

[580] _State Trials_, ii. 769.

[581] Sir Charles Cornwallis's _Memoir of Prince Henry_, reprinted in the Somers Tracts, vol. ii., and of which sufficient extracts may be found in Birch's life, contains a remarkably minute detail of all the symptoms attending the prince's illness, which was an epidemic typhus fever. The report of his physicians after dissection may also be read in many books. Nature might possibly have overcome the disorder, if an empirical doctor had not insisted on continually bleeding him. He had no other murderer. We need not even have recourse to Hume's acute and decisive remark that, if Somerset had been so experienced in this trade, he would not have spent five months in bungling about Overbury's death.

Carte says (vol. iv. 33) that the queen charged Somerset with designing to poison her, Prince Charles, and the elector palatine, in order to marry the electress to Lord Suffolk's son. But this is too extravagant, whatever Anne might have thrown out in passion against a favourite she hated. On Henry's death the first suspicion fell of course on the papists. Winwood, iii. 410. Burnet doubts whether his aversion to popery did not hasten his death. And there is a remarkable letter from Sir Robert Naunton to Winwood, in the note of the last reference, which shows that suspicions of some such agency were entertained very early. But the positive evidence we have of his disease outweighs all conjecture.

[582] The circumstances to which I allude are well known to the curious in English history, and might furnish materials for a separate dissertation, had I leisure to stray in these by-paths. Hume has treated them as quite unimportant; and Carte, with his usual honesty, has never alluded to them. Those who read carefully the new edition of the _State Trials_, and various passages in Lord Bacon's _Letters_, may form for themselves the best judgment they can. A few conclusions may, perhaps, be laid down as established, 1. That Overbury's death was occasioned, not merely by Lady Somerset's revenge, but by his possession of important secrets, which in his passion he had threatened Somerset to divulge. 2. That Somerset conceived himself to have a hold over the king by the possession of the same or some other secrets, and used indirect threats of revealing them. 3. That the king was in the utmost terror at hearing of these measures; as is proved by a passage in Weldon's _Memoirs_, p. 115, which, after being long ascribed to his libellous spirit, has lately received the most entire confirmation by some letters from More, lieutenant of the Tower, published in the _Archaeologia_, vol. xviii. 4. That Bacon was in the king's confidence, and employed by him so to manage Somerset's trial, as to prevent him from making any imprudent disclosure, or the judges from getting any insight into that which it was not meant to reveal. See particularly a passage in his letter to Coke, vol. ii. 514, beginning, "This crime was second to none but the powder-plot."

Upon the whole, I cannot satisfy myself in any manner as to this mystery. Prince Henry's death, as I have observed, is out of the question; nor does a different solution, hinted by Harris and others, and which may have suggested itself to the reader, appear probable to my judgment on weighing the whole case. Overbury was an ambitious, unprincipled man; and it seems more likely than anything else, that James had listened too much to some criminal suggestion from him and Somerset; but of what nature I cannot pretend even to conjecture; and that through apprehension of this being disclosed, he had pusillanimously acquiesced in the scheme of Overbury's murder.

It is a remarkable fact, mentioned by Burnet, and perhaps little believed, but which, like the former, has lately been confirmed by documents printed in the _Archaeologia_, that James in the last year of his reign, while dissatisfied with Buckingham, privately renewed his correspondence with Somerset, on whom he bestowed at the same time a full pardon, and seems to have given him hopes of being restored to his former favour. A memorial drawn up by Somerset, evidently at the king's command, and most probably after the clandestine interview reported by Burnet, contains strong charges against Buckingham. _Archaeologia_, vol. xvii. 280. But no consequences resulted from this; James was either reconciled to his favourite before his death, or felt himself too old for a struggle. Somerset seems to have tampered a little with the popular party in the beginning of the next reign. A speech of Sir Robert Cotton's in 1625 (_Parl. Hist._ ii. 145) praises him, comparatively at least with his successor in royal favour; and he was one of those against whom informations were brought in the star-chamber for dispersing Sir Robert Dudley's famous proposal for bridling the impertinences of parliament. Kennet, iii. 62. The patriots, however, of that age had too much sense to encumber themselves with an ally equally unserviceable and infamous. There cannot be the slightest doubt of Somerset's guilt as to the murder, though some have thought the evidence insufficient (Carte, iv. 34); he does not deny it in his remarkable letter to James, requesting, or rather demanding, mercy, printed in the Cabala and in Bacon's Works.

[583] Raleigh made an attempt to destroy himself on being committed to the Tower; which of course affords a presumption of his consciousness that something could be proved against him. Cayley's _Life of Raleigh_, vol. ii. p. 10. Hume says, it appears from Sully's _Memoirs_ that he had offered his services to the French ambassador. I cannot find this in Sully; whom Raleigh, however, and his party seem to have aimed at deceiving by false information. Nor could there be any treason in making an interest with the minister of a friendly power. Carte quotes the despatches of Beaumont, the French ambassador, to prove the connection of the conspirators with the Spanish plenipotentiary. But it may be questioned whether he knew any more than the government gave out. If Raleigh had ever shown a discretion bearing the least proportion to his genius, we might reject the whole story as improbable. But it is to be remembered that there had long been a catholic faction, who fixed their hopes on Arabella; so that the conspiracy, though extremely injudicious, was not so perfectly unintelligible as it appears to a reader of Hume, who has overlooked the previous circumstances. It is also to be considered, that the king had shown so marked a prejudice against Raleigh on his coming to England, and the hostility of Cecil was so insidious and implacable, as might drive a man of his rash and impetuous courage to desperate courses. See Cayley's _Life of Raleigh_, vol. ii.; a work containing much interesting matter, but unfortunately written too much in the spirit of an advocate, which, with so faulty a client, must tend to an erroneous representation of facts.

[584] This estate was Sherborn Castle, which Raleigh had not very fairly obtained from the see of Salisbury. He settled this before his conviction upon his son; but an accidental flaw in the deed enabled the king to wrest it from him, and bestow it on the Earl of Somerset. Lady Raleigh, it is said, solicited his majesty on her knees to spare it; but he only answered, "I mun have the land, I mun have it for Carr." He gave him, however, L12,000 instead. But the estate was worth L5000 per annum. This ruin of the prospects of a man far too intent on aggrandisement impelled him once more into the labyrinth of fatal and dishonest speculations. Cayley, 89, etc.; _Somers Tracts_, ii. p. 22, etc.; _Curiosities of Literature_, New Series, vol. ii. It has been said that Raleigh's unjust conviction made him in one day the most popular, from having been the most odious, man in England. He was certainly such under Elizabeth. This is a striking, but by no means solitary, instance of the impolicy of political persecution.

[585] Rymer, xvi. 789. He was empowered to name officers, to use martial law, etc.

[586] James made it a merit with the court of Madrid, that he had put to death a man so capable of serving him merely to give them satisfaction. _Somers Tracts_, ii. 437. There is even reason to suspect that he betrayed the secret of Raleigh's voyage to Gondomar, before he sailed. Hardwicke, _State Papers_, i. 398. It is said in Mr. Cayley's _Life of Raleigh_ that his fatal mistake in not securing a pardon under the great seal was on account of the expense. But the king would have made some difficulty at least about granting it.

[587] This project began as early as 1605. Winwood, vol. ii. The king had hopes that the United Provinces would acknowledge the sovereignty of Prince Henry and the infanta on their marriage; and Cornwallis was directed to propose this formally to the court of Madrid. _Id._ p. 201. But Spain would not cede the point of sovereignty; nor was this scheme likely to please either the states-general or the court of France.

In the later negotiation about the marriage of Prince Charles, those of the council who were known or suspected catholics, Arundel, Worcester, Digby, Weston, Calvert, as well as Buckingham, whose connections were such, were in the Spanish party. Those reputed to be jealous protestants were all against it. Wilson, in Kennet, ii. 725. Many of the former were bribed by Gondomar. _Id._ and Rushworth, i. 19.

[588] The proclamation for this parliament contains many of the unconstitutional directions to the electors, contained, as has been seen, in that of 1604, though shorter. Rymer, xvii. 270.

[589] "Deal with me, as I shall desire at your hands," etc. "He knew not," he told them, "the laws and customs of the land when he first came, and was misled by the old counsellors whom the old queen had left;"--he owns that at the last parliament there was "a strange kind of beast called undertaker," etc. _Parl. Hist._ i. 1180. Yet this coaxing language was oddly mingled with sallies of his pride and prerogative notions. It is evidently his own composition, not Bacon's. The latter, in granting the speaker's petitions, took the high tone so usual in this reign, and directed the House of Commons like a schoolmaster. Bacon's Works, i. 701.

[590] Debates of Commons in 1621, vol. i. p. 84. I quote the two volumes published at Oxford in 1766; they are abridged in the new _Parliamentary History_.

[591] _Id._ 103, 109.

[592] The Commons in this session complained to the Lords, that the Bishop of London (Stokesley) had imprisoned one Philips on suspicion of heresy. Some time afterwards, they called upon him to answer their complaint. The bishop laid the matter before the Lords, who all declared that it was unbecoming for any lord of parliament to make answer to any one in that place; "quod non consentaneum fuit aliquem procerum praedictorum alicui in eo loco responsorum." Lords' Journals, i. 71. The lords, however, in 1701 (_State Trials_, xiv. 275), seem to have recognised this as a case of impeachment.

[593] Debates in 1621, p. 114, 228, 229.

[594] _Id. passim._

[595] Carte.

[596] Clarendon speaks of this impeachment as an unhappy precedent, made to gratify a private displeasure. This expression seems rather to point to Buckingham than to Coke; and some letters of Bacon to the favourite at the time of his fall display a consciousness of having offended him. Yet Buckingham had much more reason to thank Bacon as his wisest counsellor, than to assist in crushing him. In his works (vol. i. p. 712) is a tract, entitled "Advice to the Duke of Buckingham," containing instructions for his governance as minister. These are marked by the deep sagacity and extensive observation of the writer. One passage should be quoted in justice to Bacon. "As far as it may lie in you, let no arbitrary power be intruded; the people of this kingdom love the laws thereof, and nothing will oblige them more than a confidence of the free enjoying of them: what the nobles upon an occasion once said in parliament, 'Nolumus leges Angliae mutari,' is imprinted in the hearts of all the people." I may add that with all Bacon's pliancy, there are fewer over-strained expressions about the prerogative in his political writings than we should expect. His practice was servile, but his principles were not unconstitutional. We have seen how strongly he urged the calling of parliament in 1614: and he did the same, unhappily for himself, in 1621. Vol. ii. p. 580. He refused also to set the great seal to an office intended to be erected for enrolling prentices, a speculation apparently of some monopolists; writing a very proper letter to Buckingham, that there was no ground of law for it. P. 555.

I am very loth to call Bacon, for the sake of Pope's antithesis, "the meanest of mankind." Who would not wish to believe the feeling language of his letter to the king, after the attack on him had already begun? "I hope I shall not be found to have the troubled fountain of a corrupt heart, in a depraved habit of taking rewards to pervert justice; howsoever I may be frail, and partake of the abuses of the times."--P. 589. Yet the general disesteem of his contemporaries speaks forcibly against him. Sir Simon d'Ewes and Weldon, both indeed bitter men, give him the worst of characters. "Surely," says the latter, "never so many parts and so base and abject a spirit tenanted together in any one earthen cottage as in this man." It is a striking proof of the splendour of Bacon's genius, that it was unanimously acknowledged in his own age amidst so much that should excite contempt. He had indeed ingratiated himself with every preceding parliament through his incomparable ductility; having take an active part in their complaints of grievances in 1604, before he became attorney-general, and even on many occasions afterwards while he held that office, having been intrusted with the management of conferences on the most delicate subjects. In 1614, the Commons, after voting that the attorney-general ought not to be elected to parliament, made an exception in favour of Bacon. Journals, p. 460. "I have been always gracious in the lower house," he writes to James in 1616, begging for the post of chancellor; "I have interest in the gentlemen of England, and shall be able to do some good effect in rectifying that body of parliament-men, which is cardo rerum." Vol. ii. p. 496.

I shall conclude this note by observing, that, if all Lord Bacon's philosophy had never existed, there would be enough in his political writings to place him among the greatest men this country has produced.

[597] Debates in 1621, vol. ii. p. 7.

[598] Debates, p. 14.

[599] In a former parliament of this reign, the Commons having sent up a message, wherein they entitled themselves the knights, citizens, burgesses, and barons of the commons' court of parliament, the Lords sent them word that they would never acknowledge any man that sitteth in the lower house to have the right or title of a baron of parliament; nor could admit the term of the commons' court of parliament; "because all your house together, without theirs, doth make no court of parliament." 4th March, 1606. Lords' Journals. Nevertheless the Lords did not scruple almost immediately afterwards, to denominate their own house a court, as appears by memoranda of 27th and 28th May; they even issued a habeas corpus as from a court, to bring a servant of the Earl of Bedford before them. So also in 1609, 16th and 17th of February. And on April 14th and 18th, 1614; and probably later, if search were made.

I need hardly mention, that the barons mentioned above, as part of the Commons, were the members for the cinque ports, whose denomination is recognised in several statutes.

[600] Debates in 1621, vol. i. p. 355, etc.; vol. ii. p. 5, etc. Mede writes to his correspondent on May 11, that the execution had not taken place; "but I hope it will." The king was plainly averse to it.

[601] The following observation on Floyd's case, written by Mr. Harley, in a manuscript account of the proceedings (Harl. MSS. 6274), is well worthy to be inserted. I copy from the appendix to the above-mentioned debates of 1621. "The following collection," he has written at the top, "is an instance how far a zeal against popery and for one branch of the royal family, which was supposed to be neglected by King James, and consequently in opposition to him, will carry people against common justice and humanity." And again at the bottom: "For the honour of Englishmen, and indeed of human nature, it were to be hoped these debates were not truly taken, there being so many motions contrary to the laws of the land, the laws of parliament, and common justice. Robert Harley, July 14, 1702." It is remarkable that this date is very near the time when the writer of these just observations, and the party which he led, had been straining in more than one instance the privileges of the House of Commons, not certainly with such violence as in the case of Floyd, but much beyond what can be deemed their legitimate extent.

[602] In a much later period of the session, when the Commons had lost their good humour, some heat was very justly excited by a petition from some brewers, complaining of an imposition of four-pence on the quarter of malt. The courtiers defended this as a composition in lieu of purveyance. But it was answered that it was compulsory, for several of the principal brewers had been committed and lay long in prison for not yielding to it. One said that impositions of this nature overthrew the liberty of all the subjects of this kingdom; and if the king may impose such taxes, then are we but villains, and lose all our liberties. It produced an order that the matter be examined before the house, the petitioners to be heard by council, and all the lawyers of the house to be present. Debates of 1621, vol. ii. 252; Journals, p. 652. But nothing further seems to have taken place, whether on account of the magnitude of the business which occupied them during the short remainder of the session, or because a bill which passed their house to prevent illegal imprisonment, or restraint on the lawful occupation of the subject, was supposed to meet this case. It is a remarkable instance of arbitrary taxation, and preparatory to an excise.

[603] Debates of 1621, p. 14; Hatsell's _Precedents_, i. 133.

[604] Debates, p. 114, _et alibi, passim_.

[605] Vol. ii. 170, 172.

[606] _Id._ p. 186.

[607] P. 189. Lord Cranfield told the Commons there were three reasons why they should give liberally. 1. That lands were now a third better than when the king came to the crown. 2. That wools, which were then 20_s._ were now 30_s._ 3. That corn had risen from 26_s._ to 36_s._ the quarter. _Ibid._ There had certainly been a very great increase of wealth under James, especially to the country gentlemen; of which their style of building is an evident proof. Yet in this very session complaints had been made of the want of money, and fall in the price of lands (vol. i. p. 16); and an act was proposed against the importation of corn (vol. ii. p. 87). In fact, rents had been enormously enhanced in this reign, which the country gentlemen of course endeavoured to keep up. But corn, probably through good seasons, was rather lower in 1621 than it had been--about 30_s._ a quarter.

[608] P. 242, etc.

[609] _Id._ 174, 200. Compare also p. 151. Sir Thomas Wentworth appears to have discountenanced the resenting this as a breach of privilege. Doubtless the house showed great and even excessive moderation in it; for we can hardly doubt that Sandys was really committed for no other cause than his behaviour in parliament. It was taken up again afterwards. P. 259.

[610] P. 261, etc.

[611] P. 284.

[612] P. 289.

[613] P. 317.

[614] P. 330.

[615] P. 339.

[616] P. 359.

[617] Rymer, xvii. 344; _Parl. Hist._ Carte, 93; Wilson.

[618] Besides the historians, see Cabala, part ii. p. 155 (4to edit.); D'Israeli's _Character of James I._, p. 125; and Mede's Letters, Harl. MSS. 389.

[619] Wilson's _Hist. of James I._ in Kennet, ii. 247, 749. Thirty-three peers, Mr. Joseph Mede tells us in a letter of Feb. 24, 1621 (Harl. MSS. 389), "signed a petition to the king which they refused to deliver to the council, as he desired, nor even to the prince, unless he would say he did not receive it as a counsellor; whereupon the king sent for Lord Oxford, and asked him for it; he, according to previous agreement, said he had it not; then he sent for another, who made the same answer: at last they told him they had resolved not to deliver it, unless they were admitted all together. Whereupon his majesty, wonderfully incensed, sent them all away, _re infecta_, and said that he would come into parliament himself, and bring them all to the bar." This petition, I believe, did not relate to any general grievances, but to a question of their own privileges, as to their precedence of Scots peers. Wilson, _ubi supra_. But several of this large number were inspired by more generous sentiments; and the commencement of an aristocratic opposition deserves to be noticed. In another letter, written in March, Mede speaks of the good understanding between the king and parliament; he promised they should sit as long as they like, and hereafter he would have a parliament every three years. "Is not this good if it be true?... But certain it is that the Lords stick wonderful fast to the Commons and all take great pains."

The entertaining and sensible biographer of James has sketched the characters of these Whig peers. Aikin's _James I._, ii. 238.

[620] One of these may be found in the _Somers Tracts_, ii. 470, entitled Tom Tell-truth, a most malignant ebullition of disloyalty, which the author must have risked his neck as well as ears in publishing. Some outrageous reflections on the personal character of the king could hardly be excelled by modern licentiousness. Proclamations about this time against excess of lavish speech in matters of state (Rymer, xvii. 275, 514), and against printing or uttering seditious and scandalous pamphlets (_Id._ 522, 616) show the tone and temper of the nation.

[621] The letters on this subject, published by Lord Hardwicke (_State Papers_, vol. i.) are highly important; and being unknown to Carte and Hume, render their narratives less satisfactory. Some pamphlets of the time, in the second volume of the _Somers Tracts_, may be read with interest; and Howell's _Letters_, being written from Madrid during the Prince of Wales's residence, deserve notice. See also Wilson in Kennet, p. 750, _et post_. Dr. Lingard has illustrated the subject lately (ix. 271).

[622] Hume, and many other writers on the side of the Crown, assert the value of a subsidy to have fallen from L70,000, at which it had been under the Tudors, to L55,000, or a less sum. But though I will not assert a negative too boldly, I have no recollection of having found any good authority for this; and it is surely too improbable to be lightly credited. For admit that no change was made in each man's rate according to the increase of wealth and diminution of the value of money, the amount must at least have been equal to what it had been; and to suppose the contributors to have prevailed on the assessors to underrate them, is rather contrary to common fiscal usage. In one of Mede's letters, which of course I do not quote as decisive, it is said that the value of a subsidy was _not above_ L80,000; and that the assessors were directed (this was in 1621) not to follow former books, but value every man's estate according to their knowledge, and not his own confession.

[623] _Parl. Hist._ 1383, 1388, 1390; Carte, 119. The king seems to have acted pretty fairly in this parliament, bating a gross falsehood in denying the intended toleration of papists. He wished to get further pledges of support from parliament before he plunged into a war, and was very right in doing so. On the other hand, the prince and Duke of Buckingham behaved in public towards him with great rudeness. _Parl. Hist._ 1396.

[624] _Parl. Hist._ 1421.

[625] Clarendon blames the impeachment of Middlesex for the very reason which makes me deem it a fortunate event for the constitution, and seems to consider him as a sacrifice to Buckingham's resentment. Hacket also, the biographer of Williams, takes his part. Carte, however, thought him guilty (p. 116); and the unanimous vote of the peers is much against him, since that house was not wholly governed by Buckingham. See too the "Life of Nicholas Farrar" in Wordsworth's _Ecclesiastical Biography_, vol. iv.; where it appears that that pious and conscientious man was one of the treasurer's most forward accusers, having been deeply injured by him. It is difficult to determine the question from the printed trial.

[626] 21 Jac. 1, c. 3. See what Lord Coke says on this act, and on the general subject of monopolies. 3 Inst. 181.

[627] _P. H._ 1483.

[628] _Id._ 1488.