Chapter XXII: Part 22

Some of "the bold speakers," as the heads of the opposition are frequently designated in the manuscript letters, have now risen into notice. Sir John Eliot, Dr. Turner, Sir Dudley Digges, Mr. Clement Coke, poured themselves forth in a vehement, not to say seditious style, with invectives more daring than had ever before thundered in the House of Commons! The king now told them--"I come to show your errors, and, as I may call it, _unparliamentary proceedings of parliament_." The lord keeper then assured them, that "when the irregular humours of _some particular persons_ were settled, the king would hear and answer all just grievances; but the king would have them also to know that he was equally jealous to the contempt of his royal rights, which his majesty would not suffer to be violated by any pretended course of parliamentary liberty. The king considered the parliament as his council; but there was a difference between councilling and controlling, and between liberty and the abuse of liberty." He finished by noticing their extraordinary proceedings in their impeachment of Buckingham. The king, resuming his speech, remarkably reproached the parliament--

Now that you have all things according to your wishes, and that _I am
so far engaged that you think there is no retreat, now you begin to
set the dice, and make your own game_. But I pray you be not
deceived; it is not a parliamentary way, nor is it a way to deal with
a king. Mr. Clement Coke told you, "It was better to be eaten up by a
foreign enemy than to be destroyed at home!" Indeed, I think it more
honour for a king to be invaded and almost destroyed by a foreign
enemy than to _be despised by his own subjects_.

The king concluded by asserting his privilege to call or to forbid parliaments.

The style of "the bold speakers" appeared at least as early as in April; I trace their spirit in letters of the times, which furnish facts and expressions that do not appear in our printed documents.

Among the earliest of our patriots, and finally the great victim of his exertions, was Sir John Eliot, vice-admiral of Devonshire. He, in a tone which "rolled back to Jove his own bolts," and startled even the writer, who was himself biassed to the popular party, "made a resolute, I doubt whether a timely, speech." He adds Eliot asserted that "They came not thither either to do what the king should command them, nor to abstain when he forbade them; they came to continue constant, and to maintain their privileges. They would not give their posterity a cause to curse them for losing their privileges by restraint, which their forefathers had left them."[287]

On the 8th of May the impeachment of the duke was opened by Sir Dudley Digges, who compared the duke to a meteor exhaled out of putrid matter. He was followed by Glanville, Selden, and others. On this first day the duke sat out-facing his accusers and out-braving their accusations, which the more highly exasperated the house.[288] On the following day the duke was absent, when the epilogue to this mighty piece was elaborately delivered by Sir John Eliot, with a force of declamation and a boldness of personal allusion which have not been surpassed in the invectives of the modern Junius.

Eliot, after expatiating on the favourite's ambition in procuring and getting into his hands the greatest offices of strength and power in the kingdom, and the means by which he had obtained them, drew a picture of "the inward character of the duke's mind." The duke's plurality of offices reminded him "of a chimerical beast called by the ancients _Stellionatus_, so blurred, so spotted, so full of foul lines that they knew not what to make of it! In setting up himself he hath set upon the kingdom's revenues, the fountain of supply, and the nerves of the land. He intercepts, consumes, and exhausts the revenues of the crown; and, by emptying the veins the blood should run in, he hath cast the kingdom into a high consumption." He descends to criminate the duke's magnificent tastes; he who had something of a congenial nature; for Eliot was a man of fine literature. "Infinite sums of money, and mass of land exceeding the value of money, contributions in parliament have been heaped upon him; and how have they been employed? Upon costly furniture, sumptuous feasting, and magnificent building, _the visible evidence of the express exhausting of the state_!"

Eliot eloquently closes--

Your lordships have an _idea_ of the man, what he is in himself, what
in his affections! You have seen his power, and some, I fear, have
felt it. You have known his practice, and have heard the effects.
Being such, what is he in reference to king and state; how compatible
or incompatible with either? In reference to the king, he must be
styled the canker in his treasure; in reference to the state the moth
of all goodness. I can hardly find him a parallel; but none were so
like him as Sejanus, who is described by Tacitus, _Audax; sui
obtegens, in alios criminator; juxta adulatio et superbia_. Sejanus's
pride was so excessive, as Tacitus saith, that he neglected all
councils, mixed his business and service with the prince, seeming to
confound their actions, and was often styled _Imperatoris laborum
socius_. Doth not this man the like? Ask England, Scotland, and
Ireland--and they will tell you! How lately and how often hath this
man commixed his actions in discourses with actions of the king's! My
lords! I have done--you see the man!

The parallel of the duke with Sejanus electrified the house; and, as we shall see, touched Charles on a convulsive nerve.

The king's conduct on this speech was the beginning of his troubles, and the first of his more open attempts to crush the popular party. In the House of Lords the king defended the duke, and informed them, "I have thought fit to take order for the _punishing some insolent speeches_ lately spoken." I find a piece of secret history enclosed in a letter, with a solemn injunction that it might be burnt. "The king this morning complained of Sir John Eliot for comparing the duke to _Sejanus_, in which he said implicitly he must intend _me_ for _Tiberius_!" On that day the prologue and the epilogue orators--Sir Dudley Digges, who had opened the impeachment against the duke, and Sir John Eliot, who had closed it--were called out of the house by two messengers, who showed their warrants for committing them to the Tower.[289]

On this memorable day a philosophical politician might have presciently marked the seed-plots of events, which not many years afterwards were apparent to all men. The passions of kings are often expatiated on; but, in the present anti-monarchical period, the passions of parliaments are not imaginable! The democratic party in our constitution, from the meanest of motives, from their egotism, their vanity, and their audacity, hate kings; they would have an abstract being, a chimerical sovereign on the throne--like a statue, the mere ornament of the place it fills,--and insensible, like a statue, to the invectives they would heap on its pedestal!

The commons, with a fierce spirit of reaction for the king's "punishing some insolent speeches," at once sent up to the lords for the commitment of the duke![290] But when they learnt the fate of the patriots, they instantaneously broke up! In the afternoon they assembled in Westminster-hall, to interchange their private sentiments on the fate of the two imprisoned members, in sadness and indignation.[291]

The following day the commons met in their own house. When the speaker reminded them of the usual business, they all cried out, "Sit down! sit down!" They would touch on no business till they were "righted in their liberties!"[292] An open committee of the whole house was formed, and no member suffered to quit the house; but either they were at a loss how to commence this solemn conference, or expressed their indignation by a sullen silence. To soothe and subdue "the bold speakers" was the unfortunate attempt of the vice-chamberlain, Sir Dudley Carleton, who had long been one of our foreign ambassadors; and who, having witnessed the despotic governments on the continent, imagined that there was no deficiency of liberty at home. "I find," said the vice-chamberlain, "by the great silence in this house, that it is a fit time to be heard, if you will grant me the patience." Alluding to one of the king's messages, where it was hinted that, if there was "no correspondency between him and the parliament, he should be forced to _use new counsels_," "I pray you consider what these new counsels are, and may be: I fear to declare those I conceive!" However, Sir Dudley plainly hinted at them, when he went on observing, that "when monarchs began to know their own strength, and saw the turbulent spirit of their _parliaments_, they had overthrown them in all Europe, except here only with us." Our old ambassador drew an amusing picture of the effects of despotic governments, in that of France--"If you knew the subjects in foreign countries as well as myself, to see them look, not like our nation, with store of flesh on their backs, but like so many ghosts and not men, being nothing but skin and bones, with some thin cover to their nakedness, and wearing only wooden shoes on their feet, so that they cannot eat meat, or wear good clothes, but they must pay the king for it; this is a misery beyond expression, and that which we are yet free from!" A long residence abroad had deprived Sir Dudley Carleton of any sympathy with the high tone of freedom, and the proud jealousy of their privileges, which, though yet unascertained, undefined, and still often contested, was breaking forth among the commons of England. It was fated that the celestial spirit of our national freedom should not descend among us in the form of the mystical dove!

Hume observes on this speech, that "these imprudent suggestions rather gave warning than struck terror." It was evident that the event, which implied "new counsels," meant what subsequently was practised--the king governing without a parliament! As for "the ghosts who wore wooden shoes," to which the house was congratulated that they had not _yet_ been reduced, they would infer that it was the more necessary to provide against the possibility of such strange apparitions! Hume truly observes, "The king reaped no further benefit from this attempt than to exasperate the house still further." Some words, which the duke persisted in asserting had dropped from Digges, were explained away, Digges declaring that they had not been used by him; and it seems probable that he was suffered to eat his words. Eliot was made of "sterner stuff;" he abated not a jot of whatever he had spoken of "that man," as he affected to call Buckingham.

The commons, whatever might be their patriotism, seem at first to have been chiefly moved by a personal hatred of the favourite;[293] and their real charges against him amounted to little more than pretences and aggravations. The king, whose personal affections were always strong, considered his friend innocent; and there was a warm, romantic feature in the character of the youthful monarch, which scorned to sacrifice his faithful companion to his own interests, and to immolate the minister to the clamours of the commons. Subsequently, when the king did this in the memorable case of the guiltless Strafford, it was the only circumstance which weighed on his mind at the hour of his own sacrifice! Sir Robert Cotton told a friend, on the day on which the king went down to the house of lords, and committed the two patriots, that "he had of late been often sent for to the king and duke, and that the king's affection towards him was very admirable, and no whit lessened. Certainly," he added, "the king will never yield to the duke's fall, being a young man, resolute, magnanimous, and tenderly and firmly affectionate where he takes."[294] This authentic character of Charles the First, by that intelligent and learned man, to whom the nation owes the treasures of its antiquities, is remarkable. Sir Robert Cotton, though holding no rank at court, and in no respect of the duke's party, was often consulted by the king, and much in his secrets. How the king valued the judgment of this acute and able adviser, acting on it in direct contradiction and to the mortification of the favourite, I shall probably have occasion to show.

The commons did not decline in the subtle spirit with which they had begun; they covertly aimed at once to subjugate the sovereign, and to expel the minister! A remonstrance was prepared against the levying of tonnage and poundage, which constituted half of the crown revenues; and a petition, "equivalent to a command," for removing Buckingham from his majesty's person and councils.[295] The remonstrance is wrought up with a high spirit of invective against "the unbridled ambition of the duke," whom they class "among those vipers and pests to their king and commonwealth, as so expressly styled by your most royal father." They request that "he would be pleased to remove this person from access to his sacred presence, and that he would not balance this one man with all these things, and with the affairs of the Christian world."

The king hastily dissolved this _second_ parliament; and when the lords petitioned for its continuance, he warmly and angrily exclaimed, "Not a moment longer!" It was dissolved in June, 1626.

The patriots abandoned their sovereign to his fate, and retreated home sullen, indignant, and ready to conspire among themselves for the assumption of their disputed or their defrauded liberties. They industriously dispersed their remonstrance, and the king replied by a declaration; but an attack is always more vigorous than a defence. The declaration is spiritless, and evidently composed under suppressed feelings, which, perhaps, knew not how to shape themselves. The "Remonstrance" was commanded everywhere to be burnt; and the effect which it produced on the people we shall shortly witness.

The king was left amidst the most pressing exigencies. At the dissolution of the first parliament he had been compelled to practise a humiliating economy. Hume has alluded to the numerous wants of the young monarch; but he certainly was not acquainted with the king's extreme necessities. His coronation seemed rather a private than a public ceremony. To save the expenses of the procession from the Tower through the city to Whitehall, that customary pomp was omitted; and the reason alleged was "to save the charge for more noble undertakings!" that is, for means to carry on the Spanish war without supplies! But now the most extraordinary changes appeared at court. The king mortgaged his lands in Cornwall to the aldermen and companies of London. A rumour spread that the small pension list must be revoked; and the royal distress was carried so far, that all the tables at court were laid down, and the courtiers put on board-wages! I have seen a letter which gives an account of "the funeral supper at Whitehall, whereat twenty-three tables were buried, being from henceforth converted to board-wages;" and there I learn, that "since this dissolving of house-keeping, his majesty is but slenderly attended." Another writer, who describes himself to be only a looker-on, regrets, that while the men of the law spent ten thousand pounds on a single masque, they did not rather make the king rich; and adds, "I see a rich commonwealth, a rich people, and the crown poor!" This strange poverty of the court of Charles seems to have escaped the notice of our general historians. Charles was now to victual his fleet with the savings of the board-wages! for this "surplusage" was taken into account!

The fatal descent on the Isle of Rhe sent home Buckingham discomfited, and spread dismay through the nation. The best blood had been shed from the wanton bravery of an unskilful and romantic commander, who, forced to retreat, would march, but not fly, and was the very last man to quit the ground which he could not occupy. In the eagerness of his hopes, Buckingham had once dropped, as I learn, that "before Midsummer he should be more honoured and beloved by the commons than ever was the Earl of Essex:" and thus he rocked his own and his master's imagination in cradling fancies. This volatile hero, who had felt the capriciousness of popularity, thought that it was as easily regained as it was easily lost; and that a chivalric adventure would return to him that favour which at this moment might have been denied to all the wisdom, the policy, and the arts of an experienced statesman.

The king was now involved in more intricate and desperate measures; and the nation was thrown into a state of agitation, of which the page of popular history yields but a faint impression.

The spirit of insurrection was stalking forth in the metropolis and in the country. The scenes which I am about to describe occurred at the close of 1626: an inattentive reader might easily mistake them for the revolutionary scenes of 1640. It was an unarmed rebellion.

An army and a navy had returned unpaid, and sore with defeat. The town was scoured by mutinous seamen and soldiers, roving even into the palace of the sovereign. Soldiers without pay form a society without laws. A band of captains rushed into the duke's apartment as he sat at dinner; and when reminded by the duke of a late proclamation, forbidding all soldiers coming to court in troops, on pain of hanging, they replied, that "Whole companies were ready to be hanged with them! that the king might do as he pleased with their lives; for that their reputation was lost, and their honour forfeited, for want of their salary to pay their debts." When a petition was once presented, and it was inquired who was the composer of it, a vast body tremendously shouted "All! all!" A multitude, composed of seamen, met at Tower-hill, and set a lad on a scaffold, who, with an "O yes!" proclaimed that King Charles had promised their pay, or the duke had been on the scaffold himself! These, at least, were grievances more apparent to the sovereign than those vague ones so perpetually repeated by his unfaithful commons. But what remained to be done? It was only a choice of difficulties between the disorder and the remedy. At the moment, the duke got up what he called "The council of the sea;" was punctual at its first meeting, and appointed three days in a week to sit--but broke his appointment the second day--they found him always otherwise engaged; and "the council of the sea" turned out to be one of those shadowy expedients which only lasts while it acts on the imagination. It is said that thirty thousand pounds would have quieted these disorganised troops; but the exchequer could not supply so mean a sum. Buckingham in despair, and profuse of life, was planning a fresh expedition for the siege of Rochelle; a new army was required. He swore, "if there was money in the kingdom it should be had!"

Now began that series of contrivances, and artifices, and persecutions to levy money. Forced loans, or pretended free-gifts, kindled a resisting spirit. It was urged by the court party, that the sums required were, in fact, much less in amount than the usual grants of subsidies; but the cry, in return for "a subsidy," was always "a Parliament!" Many were heavily fined for declaring that "they knew no law, besides that of Parliament, to compel men to give away their own goods." The king ordered that those who would not subscribe to the loans should not be forced; but it seems there were orders in council to specify those householders' names who would not subscribe; and it further appears that those who would not pay in purse should in person. Those who were pressed were sent to the _depot_; but either the soldiers would not receive these good citizens, or they found easy means to return. Every mode which the government invented seems to have been easily frustrated, either by the intrepidity of the parties themselves, or by that general understanding which enabled the people to play into one another's hands. When the common council had consented that an imposition should be laid, the citizens called the Guildhall the _Yield-all_! And whenever they levied a distress, in consequence of a refusal to pay it, nothing was to be found but "Old ends, such as nobody cared for." Or if a severer officer seized on commodities, it was in vain to offer pennyworths where no customer was to be had. A wealthy merchant, who had formerly been a cheesemonger, was summoned to appear before the privy council, and required to lend the king two hundred pounds, or else to go himself to the army, and serve it with cheese. It was not supposed that a merchant, so aged and wealthy, would submit to resume his former mean trade; but the old man, in the spirit of the times, preferred the hard alternative, and balked the new project of finance, by shipping himself with his cheese. At Hicks's Hall the duke and the Earl of Dorset sat to receive the loans; but the duke threatened, and the earl affected to treat with levity, men who came before them with all the suppressed feelings of popular indignation. The Earl of Dorset asking a fellow who pleaded inability to lend money, of what trade he was, and being answered "a tailor," said: "Put down your name for such a sum; one snip will make amends for all!" The tailor quoted scripture abundantly, and shook the bench with laughter or with rage by his anathemas, till he was put fast into a messenger's hands. This was one Ball, renowned through the parish of St. Clement's; and not only a tailor, but a prophet. Twenty years after, tailors and prophets employed messengers themselves![296]

These are instances drawn from the inferior classes of society; but the same spirit actuated the country gentlemen: one instance represents many. George Gatesby, of Northamptonshire, being committed to prison as a loan-recusant, alleged, among other reasons for his non-compliance, that "he considered that this loan might become a precedent; and that every precedent, he was told by the lord president, was a flower of the prerogative." The lord president told him that "he lied!" Gatesby shook his head, observing, "I come not here to contend with your lordship, but to suffer!" Lord Suffolk then interposing, entreated the lord president would not too far urge his kinsman, Mr. Gatesby. This country gentleman waived any kindness he might owe to kindred, declaring, that "he would remain master of his own purse." The prisons were crowded with these loan-recusants, as well as with those who had sinned in the freedom of their opinions. The country gentlemen insured their popularity by their committals; and many stout resistors of the loans were returned in the following parliament against their own wishes.[297] The friends of these knights and country gentlemen flocked to their prisons; and when they petitioned for more liberty and air during the summer, it was policy to grant their request. But it was also policy that they should not reside in their own counties: this relaxation was only granted to those who, living in the south, consented to sojourn in the north; while the dwellers in the north were to be lodged in the south!

In the country the disturbed scenes assumed even a more alarming appearance than in London. They not only would not provide money, but when money was offered by government, the men refused to serve; a conscription was not then known: and it became a question, long debated in the privy council, whether those who would not accept press-money should not be tried by martial law. I preserve in the note a curious piece of secret information.[298] The great novelty and symptom of the times was the scattering of letters. Sealed letters, addressed to the leading men of the country, were found hanging on bushes; anonymous letters were dropped in shops and streets, which gave notice that the day was fast approaching when "Such a work was to be wrought in England as never was the like, which will be for our good." Addresses multiplied "To all true-hearted Englishmen!" A groom detected in spreading such seditious papers, and brought into the inexorable Star-chamber, was fined three thousand pounds! The leniency of the punishment was rather regretted by two bishops; if it was ever carried into execution, the unhappy man must have remained a groom who never after crossed a horse!

There is one difficult duty of an historian, which is too often passed over by the party-writer; it is to pause whenever he feels himself warming with the passions of the multitude, or becoming the blind apologist of arbitrary power. An historian must transform himself into the characters which he is representing, and throw himself back into the times which he is opening; possessing himself of their feelings and tracing their actions, he may then at least hope to discover truths which may equally interest the honourable men of all parties.

This reflection has occurred from the very difficulty into which I am now brought. Shall we at once condemn the king for these arbitrary measures? It is, however, very possible that they were never in his contemplation! Involved in inextricable difficulties, according to his feelings, he was betrayed by parliament; and he scorned to barter their favour by that vulgar traffic of treachery--the immolation of the single victim who had long attached his personal affections; a man at least as much envied as hated! that hard lesson had not yet been inculcated on a British sovereign, that his bosom must be a blank for all private affection; and had that lesson been taught, the character of Charles was destitute of all aptitude for it. To reign without a refractory parliament, and to find among the people themselves subjects more loyal than their representatives, was an experiment--and a fatal one! Under Charles, the liberty of the subject, when the necessities of the state pressed on the sovereign, was matter of discussion, disputed as often as assumed; the divines were proclaiming as rebellious those who refused their contributions to aid the government;[299] and the law-sages alleged precedents for raising supplies in the manner which Charles had adopted. Selden, whose learned industry was as vast as the amplitude of his mind, had to seek for the freedom of the subject in the dust of the records of the Tower--and the omnipotence of parliaments, if any human assembly may be invested with such supernatural greatness, had not yet awakened the hoar antiquity of popular liberty.

A general spirit of insurrection, rather than insurrection itself, had suddenly raised some strange appearances through the kingdom. "The remonstrance" of parliament had unquestionably quickened the feelings of the people; but yet the lovers of peace and the reverencers of royalty were not a few; money and men were procured to send out the army and the fleet. More concealed causes may be suspected to have been at work. Many of the heads of the opposition were pursuing some secret machinations; about this time I find many mysterious stories--indications of secret societies--and other evidences of the intrigues of the popular party.

Little matters, sometimes more important than they appear, are suitable to our minute sort of history. In November, 1626, a rumour spread that the king was to be visited by an ambassador from "the President of the Society of the Rosycross." He was indeed an heteroclite ambassador, for he is described "as a youth with never a hair on his face;" in fact, a child who was to conceal the mysterious personage which he was for a moment to represent. He appointed Sunday afternoon to come to court, attended by thirteen coaches. He was to proffer to his majesty, provided the king accepted his advice, three millions to put into his coffers; and by his secret councils he was to unfold matters of moment and secrecy. A Latin letter was delivered to "David Ramsey of the clock," to hand over to the king: a copy of it has been preserved in a letter of the times; but it is so unmeaning, that it could have had no effect on the king, who, however, declared that he would not admit him to an audience, and that if he could tell where "the President of the Rosycross" was to be found, unless he made good his offer, he would hang him at the court-gates. This served the town and country for talk till the appointed Sunday had passed over, and no ambassador was visible! Some considered this as the plotting of crazy brains, but others imagined it to be an attempt to speak with the king in private, on matters respecting the duke.

There was also discovered, by letters received from Rome, "a whole parliament of Jesuits sitting" in "a fair-hanged vault" in Clerkenwell.[300] Sir John Cooke would have alarmed the parliament, that on St. Joseph's day these were to have occupied their places; ministers are supposed sometimes to have conspirators for "the nonce;" Sir Dudley Digges, in the opposition, as usual, would not believe in any such political necromancers; but such a party were discovered; Cooke would have insinuated that the French ambassador had persuaded Louis that the divisions between Charles and his people had been raised by his ingenuity, and was rewarded for the intelligence; this is not unlikely. After all, the parliament of Jesuits might have been a secret college of the order; for, among other things seized on, was a considerable library.

When the parliament was sitting, a sealed letter was thrown under the door, with this superscription, _Cursed be the man that finds this letter, and delivers it not to the House of Commons_. The Serjeant-at-Arms delivered it to the Speaker, who would not open it till the house had chosen a committee of twelve members to inform them whether it was fit to be read. Sir Edward Coke, after having read two or three lines, stopped, and according to my authority, "durst read no further, but immediately sealing it, the committee thought fit to send it to the king, who they say, on reading it through, cast it into the fire, and sent the House of Commons thanks for their wisdom in not publishing it, and for the discretion of the committee in so far tendering his honour, as not to read it out, when they once perceived that it touched his majesty."[301]

Others, besides the freedom of speech, introduced another form, "A speech without doors," which was distributed to the members of the house. It is in all respects a remarkable one, occupying ten folio pages in the first volume of Rushworth.

Some in office appear to have employed extraordinary proceedings of a similar nature. An intercepted letter written from the archduchess to the King of Spain, was delivered by Sir H. Martyn at the council-board on New Year's-day, who found in it some papers relating to the navy. The duke immediately said he would show it to the king; and, accompanied by several lords, went into his majesty's closet. The letter was written in French; it advised the Spanish court to make a sudden war with England, for several reasons; his majesty's want of skill to govern of himself; the weakness of his council in not daring to acquaint him with the truth; want of money; disunion of the subjects' hearts from their prince, &c. The king only observed, that the writer forgot that the archduchess writes to the King of Spain in Spanish, and sends her letters overland.

I have to add an important fact. I find certain evidence that the heads of the opposition were busily active in thwarting the measures of government. Dr. Samuel Turner, the member for Shrewsbury, called on Sir John Cage, and desired to speak to him privately; his errand was to entreat him to resist the loan, and to use his power with others to obtain this purpose. The following information comes from Sir John Cage himself. Dr. Turner "being desired to stay, he would not a minute, but instantly took horse, saying he had more places to go to, and time pressed; _that there was a company of them had divided themselves into all parts, every one having had a quarter assigned to him, to perform this service for the commonwealth_." This was written in November, 1626. This unquestionably amounts to a secret confederacy watching out of parliament as well as in; and those strange appearances of popular defection exhibited in the country, which I have described, were in great part the consequences of the machinations and active intrigues of the popular party.[302]

The king was not disposed to try a _third_ parliament. The favourite, perhaps to regain that popular favour which his greatness had lost him, is said in private letters to have been twice on his knees to intercede for a new one. The elections, however, foreboded no good; and a letter-writer connected with the court, in giving an account of them, prophetically declared, "we are without question undone!"

The king's speech opens with the spirit which he himself felt, but which he could not communicate:--

"The times are for action: wherefore, for example's sake, I mean not
to spend much time in words! If you, which God forbid, should not do
your duties in contributing what the state at this time needs, I
must, in discharge of my conscience, _use those other means_ which
God hath put into my hands, to save that, which the follies of some
particular men may otherwise hazard to lose." He added, with the
loftiness of ideal majesty--"Take not this as a threatening, for I
scorn to threaten any but my equals; but as an admonition from him,
that, both out of nature and duty, hath most care of your
preservations and prosperities:" and in a more friendly tone he
requested them "To remember a thing to the end that we may forget it.
You may imagine that I come here with a doubt of success, remembering
the distractions of the last meeting; but I assure you that I shall
very easily forget and forgive what is past."

A most crowded house now met, composed of the wealthiest men; for a lord, who probably considered that property was the true balance of power, estimated that they were able to buy the upper-house, his majesty only excepted! The aristocracy of wealth had already begun to be felt. Some ill omens of the parliament appeared. Sir Robert Philips moved for a general fast: "we had one for the plague which it pleased God to deliver us from, and we have now so many plagues of the commonwealth about his majesty's person, that we have need of such, an act of humiliation." Sir Edward Coke held it most necessary, "because there are, I fear, some devils that will not be cast out but by fasting and prayer."

Many of the speeches in "this great council of the kingdom" are as admirable pieces of composition as exist in the language. Even the court-party were moderate, extenuating rather than pleading for the late necessities. But the evil spirit of party, however veiled, was walking amidst them all: a letter-writer represents the natural state of feelings: "Some of the parliament talk desperately; while others, of as high a course to enforce money if they yield not!" Such is the perpetual action and reaction of public opinion; when one side will give too little, the other is sure to desire too much!

The parliament granted subsidies.--Sir John Cooke having brought up the report to the king, Charles expressed great satisfaction, and declared that he felt now more happy than any of his predecessors. Inquiring of Sir John by how many voices he had carried it? Cooke replied, "But by one!"--at which his majesty seemed appalled, and asked how many were against him? Cooke answered, "None! the unanimity of the House made all but _one voice_!" at which his majesty wept![303] If Charles shed tears, or as Cooke himself expresses it, in his report to the House, "was much affected," the emotion was profound: for on all sudden emergencies Charles displayed an almost unparalleled command over the exterior violence of his feelings.

The favourite himself sympathised with the tender joy of his royal master; and, before the king, voluntarily offered himself as a peace-sacrifice. In his speech at the council-table, he entreats the king that he, who had the honour to be his majesty's favourite, might now give up that title to them.--A warm genuine feeling probably prompted these words:--

"To open my heart, please to pardon me a word more; I must confess I
have long lived in pain, sleep hath given me no rest, favours and
fortune no content; such have been my secret sorrows, to be thought
the man of separation, and that divided the king from his people, and
them from him; but I hope it shall appear they were some mistaken
minds that would have made me the evil spirit that walketh between a
good master and a loyal people."[304]

Buckingham added, that for the good of his country he was willing to sacrifice his honours; and since his plurality of offices had been so strongly excepted against,[305] that he was content to give up the Master of the Horse to Marquess Hamilton, and the Warden of the Cinque Ports to the Earl of Carlisle; and was willing that the parliament should appoint another admiral for all services at sea.

It is as certain as human evidence can authenticate, that on the king's side all was grateful affection; and that on Buckingham's there was a most earnest desire to win the favours of parliament; and what are stronger than all human evidence, those unerring principles in human nature itself, which are the secret springs of the heart, were working in the breasts of the king and his minister; for neither were tyrannical. The king undoubtedly sighed to meet parliament with the love which he had at first professed; he declared that "he should now rejoice to meet with his people often." Charles had no innate tyranny in his constitutional character; and Buckingham at times was susceptible of misery amidst his greatness, as I have elsewhere shown.[306] It could not have been imagined that the luckless favourite, on the present occasion, should have served as a pretext to set again in motion the chaos of evil! Can any candid mind suppose that the king or the duke meditated the slightest insult on the patriotic party, or would in the least have disturbed the apparent reconciliation! Yet it so happened! Secretary Cooke, at the close of his report of the king's acceptance of the subsidies, mentioned that the duke had fervently beseeched the king to grant the house all their desires! Perhaps the mention of the duke's name was designed to ingratiate him into their toleration.

Sir John Eliot caught fire at the very name of the duke, and vehemently checked the secretary for having dared to introduce it; declaring, that "they knew of no other distinction but of king and subjects. By intermingling a subject's speech with the king's message, he seemed to derogate from the honour and majesty of a king. Nor would it become any subject to bear himself in such a fashion, as if no grace ought to descend from the king to the people, nor any loyalty ascend from the people to the king, but through him only."

This speech was received by many with acclamations; some cried out, "Well spoken, Sir John Eliot!"[307] It marks the heated state of the political atmosphere, where even the lightest coruscation of a hated name made it burst into flames!

I have often suspected that Sir John Eliot, by his vehement personality, must have borne a personal antipathy to Buckingham. I have never been enabled to ascertain the fact; but I find that he has left in manuscript a collection of satires, or Verses, being chiefly invectives against the Duke of Buckingham, to whom he bore a bitter and most inveterate enmity. Could we sometimes discover the motives of those who first head political revolutions, we should find how greatly personal hatreds have actuated them in deeds which have come down to us in the form of patriotism, and how often the revolutionary spirit disguises its private passions by its public conduct.[308]

But the supplies, which had raised tears from the fervent gratitude of Charles, though voted, were yet withheld. They resolved that grievances and supplies go hand in hand. The commons entered deeply into constitutional points of the highest magnitude. The curious erudition of Selden and Coke was combined with the ardour of patriots who merit no inferior celebrity, though not having consecrated their names by their laborious literature, we only discover them in the obscure annals of parliament. To our history, composed by writers of different principles, I refer the reader for the arguments of lawyers, and the spirit of the commons. My secret history is only its supplement.

The king's prerogative, and the subject's liberty, were points hard to distinguish, and were established but by contest. Sometimes the king imagined that "the house pressed not upon the abuses of power, but only upon power itself." Sometimes the commons doubted whether they had anything of their own to give; while their property and their persons seemed equally insecure. Despotism seemed to stand on one side, and Faction on the other--Liberty trembled!

The conference of the commons before the lords, on the freedom and person of the subject, was admirably conducted by Selden and by Coke. When the king's attorney affected to slight the learned arguments and precedents, pretending to consider them as mutilated out of the records, and as proving rather against the commons than for them, Sir Edward Coke rose, affirming to the house, upon his skill in the law, that "it lay not under Mr. Attorney's cap to answer any one of their arguments." Selden declared that he had written out all the records from the Tower, the Exchequer, and the King's Bench, with his own hand; and "would engage his head, Mr. Attorney should not find in all these archives a single precedent omitted." Mr. Littleton said, that he had examined every one _syllabatim_, and whoever said they were mutilated spoke false! Of so ambiguous and delicate a nature was then the liberty of the subject, that it seems they considered it to depend on precedents!

A startling message, on the 12th of April, was sent by the king for despatch of business. The house, struck with astonishment, desired to have it repeated. They remained sad and silent. No one cared to open the debate. A whimsical politician, Sir Francis Nethersole,[309] suddenly started up, entreating leave to tell his last night's dream. Some laughing at him, he observed, that "kingdoms had been saved by dreams!" Allowed to proceed, he said, "he saw two good pastures; a flock of sheep was in the one, and a bell-wether alone in the other; a great ditch was between them, and a narrow bridge over the ditch."

He was interrupted by the Speaker, who told him that it stood not with the gravity of the house to listen to dreams; but the house was inclined to hear him out.

"The sheep would sometimes go over to the bell-wether, or the bell-wether to the sheep. Once both met on the narrow bridge, and the question was who should go back, since both could not go on without danger. One sheep gave counsel that the sheep on the bridge should lie on their bellies, and let the bell-wether go over their backs. The application of this dilemma he left to the house."[310] It must be confessed that the bearing of the point was more ambiguous than some of the important ones that formed the matters of their debates. _Davus sum, non Oedipus!_ It is probable that this fantastical politician did not vote with the opposition; for Eliot, Wentworth, and Coke, protested against the interpretation of dreams in the house!

When the attorney-general moved that the liberties of the subject might be moderated, to reconcile the differences between themselves and the sovereign, Sir Edward Coke observed, that "the true mother would never consent to the dividing of her child." On this, Buckingham swore that Coke intimated that the king, his master, was the prostitute of the state. Coke protested against the misinterpretation. The dream of Nethersole, and the metaphor of Coke, were alike dangerous in parliamentary discussion.

In a manuscript letter it is said that the House of Commons sat four days without speaking or doing anything. On the first of May, Secretary Cooke delivered a message, asking whether they would rely upon the _king's word_? This question was followed by a long silence. Several speeches are reported in the letters of the times, which are not in Rushworth. Sir Nathaniel Rich observed that, "confident as he was of the royal word, what did any indefinite word ascertain?" Pym said, "We have his majesty's coronation oath to maintain the laws of England; what need we then take his word?" He proposed to move "Whether we should take the king's word or no." This was resisted by Secretary Cooke; "What would they say in foreign parts, if the people of England would not trust their king?" He desired the house to call Pym to order; on which Pym replied, "Truly, Mr. Speaker, I am just of the same opinion I was; viz., that the king's oath was as powerful as his word." Sir John Eliot moved that it be put to the question, "because they that would have it, do urge us to that point." Sir Edward Coke on this occasion made a memorable speech, of which the following passage is not given in Rushworth:--

"We sit now in parliament, and therefore must take his _majesty's
word no otherwise than in a parliamentary way_; that is, of a matter
agreed on by both houses--his majesty sitting on his throne in his
robes, with his crown on his head, and sceptre in his hand, and in
full parliament; and his royal assent being entered upon record, _in
perpetuam rei memoriam_. This was _the royal word of a king in
parliament_, and not a word delivered in a chamber, and out of the
mouth of a secretary at the second hand; therefore I motion, that the
House of Commons, _more majorum_, should draw up a petition, _de
droict_, to his majesty; which, being confirmed by both houses, and
assented unto by his majesty, will be as firm an act as any. Not that
I distrust the king, but that I cannot take his trust but in a
parliamentary way."[311]

In this speech of Sir Edward Coke we find the first mention, in the legal style, of the ever-memorable "Petition of Right," which two days after was finished. The reader must pursue its history among the writers of opposite parties.

On Tuesday, June 5, a royal message announced that on the 11th the present sessions would close. This utterly disconcerted the commons. Religious men considered it as a judicial visitation for the sins of the people; others raged with suppressed feelings; they counted up all the disasters which had of late occurred, all which were charged to one man: they knew not, at a moment so urgent, when all their liberties seemed at stake, whether the commons should fly to the lords, or to the king. Sir John Eliot said, that as they intended to furnish his majesty with money, it was proper that he should give them time to supply him with counsel: he was renewing his old attacks on the duke, when he was suddenly interrupted by the Speaker, who, starting from the chair, declared that he was commanded not to suffer him to proceed; Eliot sat down in sullen silence. On Wednesday, Sir Edward Coke broke the ice of debate. "That man," said he of the duke, "is the grievance of grievances! As for going to the lords," he added, "that is not _via regia_; our liberties are impeached--it is our concern!"

On Thursday, the vehement cry of Coke against Buckingham was followed up; as, says a letter-writer, when one good hound recovers the scent, the rest come in with a full cry.[312] A sudden message from the king absolutely forbade them to asperse any of his majesty's ministers, otherwise his majesty would instantly dissolve them.

This fell like a thunderbolt; it struck terror and alarm; and at the instant the House of Commons was changed into a scene of tragical melancholy! All the opposite passions of human nature--all the national evils which were one day to burst on the country seemed, on a sudden, concentrated in this single spot! Some were seen weeping, some were expostulating, and some, in awful prophecy, were contemplating the future ruin of the kingdom; while others, of more ardent daring, were reproaching the timid, quieting the terrified, and infusing resolution into the despairing. Many attempted to speak, but were so strongly affected that their very utterance failed them. The venerable Coke, overcome by his feelings when he rose to speak, found his learned eloquence falter on his tongue; he sat down, and tears were seen on his aged cheeks. The name of the public enemy of the kingdom was repeated, till the Speaker, with tears covering his face, declared he could no longer witness such a spectacle of woe in the commons of England, and requested leave of absence for half an hour. The speaker hastened to the king to inform him of the state of the house. They were preparing a vote against the duke, for being an arch-traitor and arch-enemy to king and kingdom, and were busied on their "Remonstrance," when the Speaker, on his return, after an absence of two hours, delivered his majesty's message, that they should adjourn till the next day.

This was an awful interval of time; many trembled for the issue of the next morning: one letter-writer calls it "that black and doleful Thursday!" and another, writing before the house met, observes, "What we shall expect this morning, God of heaven knows; we shall meet timely."[313]

Charles probably had been greatly affected by the report of the Speaker, on the extraordinary state into which the whole house had been thrown; for on Friday the royal message imported that the king had never any intention of "barring them from their right, but only to avoid scandal, that his ministers should not be accused for their counsel to him; and still he hoped that all Christendom might notice a sweet parting between him and his people." This message quieted the house, but did not suspend their preparations for a "Remonstrance," which they had begun on the day they were threatened with a dissolution.

On Saturday, while they were still occupied on the "Remonstrance," unexpectedly, at four o'clock, the king came to parliament, and the commons were called up. Charles spontaneously came to reconcile himself to parliament. The king now gave his second answer to the "Petition of Right." He said--"My maxim is, that the people's liberties strengthen the king's prerogative; and the king's prerogative is to defend the people's liberties. Read your petition, and you shall have an answer that I am sure will please you."[314] They desired to have the ancient form of their ancestors, "Soit droit fait come il est desyre," and not as the king had before given it, with any observation on it. Charles now granted this; declaring that his second answer to the petition in nowise differed from his first; "but you now see how ready I have shown myself to satisfy your demands; I have done my part; wherefore, if this parliament have not a happy conclusion, the sin is yours,--I am free from it!"

Popular gratitude is at least as vociferous as it is sudden. Both houses returned the king acclamations of joy; everyone seemed to exult at the happy change which a few days had effected in the fate of the kingdom. Everywhere the bells rung, bonfires were kindled, an universal holiday was kept through the town, and spread to the country: but an ominous circumstance has been registered by a letter-writer; the common people, who had caught the contagious happiness, imagined that all this public joy was occasioned by the king's consenting to commit the duke to the Tower!