CHAPTER XIX.

REIGN OF CHARLES I.

Accession of Charles--His Marriage--Meeting of Parliament--Loan

of Ships to Richelieu--Dissolution of Parliament--Failure of

the Spanish Expedition--Persecution of the Catholics--The

Second Parliament--It appoints three Committees--Impeachment

of Buckingham--Parliament dissolved to save him--Illegal

Government--High Church Doctrines--Rupture with France--Disastrous

Expedition to Rhé--The Third Parliament--The Petition of

Right--Resistance and Final Surrender of Charles--Parliament

Prorogued--Assassination of Buckingham--Fall of La

Rochelle--Parliament Reassembles and is dissolved--Imprisonment

of Offending Members--Government without Parliament--Peace

with France and Spain--Gustavus Adolphus in Germany--Despotic

Proceedings of Charles and Laud.

Within a quarter of an hour after the decease of James, Charles was

proclaimed by the Knight-Marshal, Sir Edward Zouch, at the court-gate

at Theobalds. He was in his twenty-fifth year, and so far as the

admission of his title and the substantial prosperity of the kingdom were

concerned, few monarchs have mounted the throne with more favourable

auspices. But though there was entire submission to his right to reign,

and the state of parties was such that no immediate change of executive

was needed, yet there were at work feelings and principles which required

the nicest wisdom to estimate their nature and their force, and the

most able policy to deal with them. The battle between prerogative and

popular rights had to be fought out, and it depended on the capacity of

the monarch to perceive what was capable of modulation, and what was

immovable, whether the result should be success or ruin. Charles was

equally prepared by his father's maxims, his father's practice, and his

habit of favouritism, to convert one of the grandest opportunities in

history into one of the most terrible of its catastrophes. The first

thing which augured ill for him was his continuing in the post of chief

favourite and chief counsellor, the vain, incapable, and licentious

Buckingham. The next matter to which Charles turned his attention was

his marriage with the Princess Henrietta Maria, sister of Louis XIII.

of France, the contract for which was already signed. The third day

after his accession, he ratified the treaty as king which he had signed

as prince. The Pope Urban, as we have stated, seeing that he could not

prevail on the royal family of France to give up the marriage with the

heretic prince of England, at length had, through his nuncio, delivered

the breve of dispensation.

Louis of France, the queen-mother, the bride, Gaston Duke of Orleans,

and the Duke of Chevreuse, Charles's proxy, signed the document with the

English ambassadors, on the 8th of May, 1625, and the marriage took

place on a platform in front of the ancient cathedral of Notre Dame on

the 11th. The Duke of Buckingham arrived to conduct the young queen to

England, attended by a numerous and splendid retinue of English nobility.

The showy and extravagant upstart appeared at the French Court in a style

which threw even the monarch into the shade. He wore "a rich white satin

uncut velvet suit, set all over, suit and cloak, with diamonds, the value

whereof," say the Hardwicke Papers, "is thought to be worth fourscore

thousand pounds; besides a feather made with great diamonds, with sword,

girdle, hatband, and spurs with diamonds, and he had twenty-seven other

suits, all rich as invention could frame or art fashion." His conduct was

as devoid of modesty as his dress, and threw discredit on the king who

could entrust his honour and his counsels to such a man.

The king, queen, and queen-mother, accompanied by the whole Court,

set out to conduct the young _fiancée_ to the port where she should

embark for England. The procession was made as gorgeous and imposing as

possible, and at each halting place the Court was amused by a variety of

pageants and entertainments drawn from a past age. One alone of these

deserves remark, being afterwards deemed ominous--a representation of all

the French princesses who had become queens of England. They presented

a group distinguished by their misfortunes, the only one necessary

to complete the number being herself yet a spectator, the girlish

Henrietta, little more than fifteen years of age, who was destined to

exceed them all in calamity. The king was, however, seized with an

illness, which compelled him to discontinue the journey, and at Compiègne

the queen-mother was also taken so ill as to detain the procession a

fortnight at Amiens. There the queen and queen-mother took leave of

Henrietta. Charles, during the delay at Amiens, had been awaiting his

Buckingham. No sooner did that most impudent of libertines reach the

French Court than he had the audacity to fall in love with the Queen

of France, the beautiful Anne of Austria. He lost no opportunity of

pressing his insolent suit on the way in the absence of the king, and

had the presumption to imagine that his daring passion was returned. No

sooner did he reach Boulogne, than pretending that he had received some

despatches of the utmost importance, he hurried back to Amiens, where

the French procession yet remained, and rushing into the bed-chamber of

the queen, threw himself on his knees before her, and, regardless of the

presence of two maids of honour, poured out the infamous protestations of

his polluted passion. The queen repulsed him with an air of deep anger,

and bade him begone in a tone of cutting severity, the reality of which,

however, was doubted by Madame de Motteville, who recorded the occurrence.

[Illustration: GREAT SEAL OF CHARLES I.]

The sensation excited by this unparalleled circumstance in the French

Court was intense. The king ordered the arrest of a number of the queen's

attendants, and dismissed several of them. Yet Buckingham, on reaching

England, does not appear to have received any serious censure from his

infatuated master, for this breach of all ambassadorial decency and

etiquette; and in spite of the resentment of the French king and Court,

continued to maintain all the character of a devoted lover of the French

queen.

On the 23rd of June the report of ordnance wafted over from Boulogne

announced the embarkation; and on Sunday evening the queen landed

at Dover, after a stormy passage. Mr. Tyrwhitt, a gentleman of the

household, rode post haste to Canterbury to inform Charles, who was

at Dover Castle by ten o'clock the next morning to greet his bride.

Henrietta Maria was at breakfast when the king was announced, and

instantly rose, and hastened downstairs to meet him. On seeing him,

she attempted to kneel and kiss his hand, but he prevented her, by

folding her in his arms and kissing her. She had studied a little set

speech to address him with, but could only get out so much of it as,

"_Sire, je suis venue en ce pays de votre majesté, pour être commandée

de vous_"--"Sire, I am come into your majesty's country to be at your

command"--but at that point she burst into tears.

Charles was delighted with the beauty and vivacity of the young queen.

They set out for Canterbury, and on their way thither were met on Barham

Downs by the English nobility; pavilions being pitched there for the

purpose of the refreshment of the royal pair, and the introduction of the

queen to her court. After the wedding, at which the celebrated English

composer, Orlando Gibbons, performed on the organ, the royal cavalcade

took its way to Gravesend, and thence ascended the Thames, so as to avoid

the city, in which the plague was then raging.

On the 28th of June, the day after the arrival of the queen in London,

Charles met his first Parliament. The king had not yet been crowned,

but he appeared on the throne with his crown on his head. He ordered

one of the bishops to read prayers before proceeding to business, and

this was done so adroitly, that the Catholic members were compelled to

remain during the heretical service. They betrayed great uneasiness, some

kneeling, some standing upright, and one unhappy individual continuing to

cross himself the whole time.

Charles was not an eloquent speaker, and, moreover, was afflicted with

stammering; but he plunged boldly into a statement which it was very

easy for the two Houses to understand. He informed them that his father

had left debts to the amount of seven hundred thousand pounds; that the

money voted for the war against Spain and Austria was expended, and

he therefore called upon them for liberal supplies. He declared his

resolution to prosecute the wars which they had so loudly called for with

vigour, but it was for them to furnish the means.

As he was beginning his reign, and had not plunged himself into

very heavy debt, or preached up, like his father, the claims of the

prerogative, he had a right to expect a more generous treatment than

James. But, notwithstanding the _éclat_ of a new reign, and the usual

desire on such occasions to stand well with the throne, the Commons

displayed no enthusiasm in voting their money. There were many causes,

even under a new king, to produce this coolness. Charles had won their

popularity by abandoning the Spanish match, but he had now neutralised

that merit by taking a Catholic queen from France. To please the

Commons and the public generally, he should have selected a wife from

one of the Protestant houses of Germany or the Netherlands; but for

this he had displayed no desire. In the second place, he had retained

the hated Buckingham in all his former eminence, both as a minister of

the Crown, and as his own associate. Besides, they had no faith in his

abilities, either as a commander or a statesman, and beheld with disgust

his reckless extravagance and the unconcealed infamy of his life at

home. No talent whatever had been shown in the war in Germany for the

restoration of the Palatinate; and, therefore, the Commons, instead of

voting money to defray the late king's debts and to carry on the war

efficiently, restricted their advances to two subsidies, amounting to

about one hundred and forty thousand pounds, and to the grant of tonnage

and poundage, not for life as aforetime, but merely for the space of one

year.

But still more apprehensive were they on the subject of religion.

The breach with Spain had naturally removed any delicacy on the part

of the Spaniards to conceal the treacherous concessions, in perfect

contradiction to the public professions of both the late and the present

king, which had been made on that head. It was now freely whispered

that the like had been made to France, and the sight of the crowd of

priests and Catholic courtiers who had flocked over with the queen, and

the performance of the Mass in the king's own house, led the zealous

Reformers to believe that there was a tacit intention on the part of the

king to restore the Catholic religion.

What rendered the Commons more sensitive on this point were the writings

of Dr. Montague, one of the king's chaplains and editor of his father's

works. In a controversy with a Catholic missionary, he had disowned

the Calvinistic doctrines of the Puritans with which his church was

charged, and declared for the Arminian tenets of which Laud was the great

champion. This gave much offence; he was accused of being a concealed

Papist, and two Puritan ministers, Yates and Ward, prepared a charge

against him and laid it before Parliament. Montague denied that he was

amenable to Parliament and "appealed unto Cæsar." Charles informed the

Commons that the cognisance of his chaplains belonged to him, and not

to them. But they asserted their right to deal with all such cases, and

summoned him to appear at the bar of the House, where they bound him in

a bond of two thousand pounds to appear when called for.

Charles endeavoured to direct their attention to the state of the

finances, showing them the inadequacy of their votes, the fitting out of

the navy amounting alone to three hundred thousand pounds. He was beyond

all indignant at the grant of tonnage and poundage for only one year,

seeing that his predecessors from the time of Henry VI. had enjoyed it

for life; and the Lords threw out that part of the vote for this reason,

so that he had no Parliamentary right to collect it at all. To make

matters worse, instead of attending to the pleading of Lord Conway, the

Chief Secretary, for further grants, they presented to the king, after

listening to four sermons one day and taking the Sacrament the next,

a "pious petition" praying him--as he valued the maintenance of true

religion and would discourage superstition and idolatry--to put in force

the penal Statutes against Catholics.

To this demand Charles could only return an evasive answer. He had

recently bound himself by the most solemn oaths to do nothing of the

kind; and under the sanction of the marriage treaty with France, the

Mass was every day celebrated under his own roof, and his palace and its

immediate vicinity swarmed with Catholics and their priests. Nay, he had,

just before summoning Parliament, been called on by France to send a

fleet in virtue of this treaty to assist in putting down the Huguenots.

Soubise, the General of the Huguenots, still retained possession of La

Rochelle and the island of Rhé, and their fleet scoured the coasts in

such force that the French fleet dared not attempt to cope with it.

Richelieu, therefore, requested Charles to give Louis assistance. Charles

delayed until he received news, which proved to be premature, that peace

had been concluded with the Huguenots. Thereupon he concluded that the

ships might be sent without danger. Accordingly, though the affairs of

the English fleet had been wofully misconducted ever since Buckingham had

been Lord Admiral, he mustered seven merchant vessels, and sent them with

the _Vanguard_, the only ship of the line that was fit for sea, under the

command of Admiral Pennington, to La Rochelle. The destination of the

fleet was declared to be Genoa, but on reaching Dieppe, the officers and

crew were astonished to receive orders to take on board French soldiers

and sailors, and proceed to La Rochelle to fight against the Protestants.

They refused to a man, and notwithstanding the imperative commands of the

Duke of Montmorency the Lord Admiral of France, they compelled their own

admiral to put back to the Downs.

On this ignominious return, Pennington requested to be permitted

to decline this service, and his desire was much favoured by the

remonstrances of the Huguenots, who sent over an envoy, entreating

the king not to give such a triumph to Popery as to fight against the

Protestants. Charles, with that fatal duplicity which he had learned so

early under his father, sent fair words to Soubise, the Duke of Rohan,

and the other leaders of the Huguenots; but Buckingham, by speaking

out more plainly, exposed the hollowness of his master. He assured the

navy that they were bound by treaty, and fight they must for the king

of France. Both officers and owners of the ships declared that as they

were chartered for the service of the king of England, they should not

be handed over to the French without an order from the king himself.

Thereupon Buckingham hastened down to Rochester, accompanied by the

French ambassador, who offered to charter the vessels for his Government.

Men, owners, and officers, refused positively any such service.

Disappointed by this display of true English spirit, Charles ordered

Secretary Conway to write to Vice-Admiral Pennington in his name,

commanding him that he should proceed to Dieppe and take on board as

many men as the French Government desired, for which this letter was

his warrant. At the same time Pennington received an autographic letter

from Charles, commanding him to make over the _Vanguard_ to the French

admiral at Dieppe, and to order the commanders of the seven merchant

ships to do the same, and in case of refusal to compel them by force. All

this appears to have been imposed on Pennington as a matter of strict

secrecy; and that officer had not the virtue to refuse so degrading a

service. The fleet again sailed to Dieppe: the men must have more than

suspected the object; and when Pennington made over the _Vanguard_,

and delivered the royal order to the captains of the seven merchant

vessels, they declined to obey, and weighed anchor to return home. On

this Pennington, who proved himself the fitting tool of such a king,

fired into them, and overawed all of them except Sir Ferdinand Gore, in

the _Neptune_, who kept on his way, disdaining to disgrace himself by

such a deed. The French were taken on board and conveyed to La Rochelle.

But that was all that was accomplished; for the English seamen instantly

deserted on reaching land, and many of them hastened to join the ranks of

the Huguenots, the rest returning home overflowing with indignation and

spreading everywhere the disgrace of the royal conduct.

In the whole of this transaction the headstrong fatality of Charles was

conspicuous, and foreboded the miseries that were to follow. In the midst

of the public excitement from this cause, the Parliament met at Oxford

on the 1st of August. The result was as might have been expected. On

the king demanding the restoration of the vote of tonnage and poundage,

negatived by the Lords, or that other subsidies should be granted in lieu

of it, the Commons refused both. In reply to the king's inquiry how the

war was to be carried on, they replied that they must first be satisfied

against whom the war was really to be directed. They complained that the

penal statutes against the Papists were not enforced as promised, and

proceeded to their favourite avocation of attacking public grievances.

On this topic Coke came forward with an eloquence and a boldness which

astonished the Court. With an unsparing vigour worthy of his earlier

years--but in a much better cause than that in which his abilities

were then often exercised--he denounced the new offices created, the

monopolies granted, and the lavish waste of the public money, all for the

benefit of Buckingham and his relations. He insisted that the useless

pensions which had been recently granted should be stopped till the late

king's debts were paid, and that a system of strict economy should be

substituted for the now extravagant expenditure of the royal household.

Others followed in the same strain, denouncing the odious practice of

selling offices, of which Buckingham and his mother were the chief

vendors.

[Illustration: CHARLES WELCOMING HIS QUEEN TO ENGLAND. (_See p._ 509.)]

A third party showed that they were armed with dangerous matter by the

still disgraced and restrained Earl of Bristol. They charged Buckingham

with his mal-administration of affairs, with his incompetency as Lord

High Admiral, and with having involved this country in an unnecessary

war with Spain, merely in revenge of a private quarrel with the Spanish

minister, Olivarez. They demanded an inquiry into that affair. One of the

members of the House venturing to defend the Government, and condemning

the licence of speech against the Crown, was speedily brought upon his

knees and compelled to implore pardon at the Bar. Sir Robert Cotton, the

founder of the Cottonian Library, applauded the wisdom and spirit of the

House in thus summarily dealing with this unworthy member; and after

giving a description of the conduct of the late favourite, Somerset,

and of the follies and crimes of favourites of former reigns, as the

Spencers, the Gavestons, the Poles, and others, pronounced Buckingham as

far more insolent, mischievous, and incompetent than any of them.

The favourite, thus rudely handled, was quietly enjoying himself at

Woodstock; but the king made him aware of the necessity of defending

himself. He hastened to town, and delivered in his place in the Peers, a

statement of the accounts of the navy, and a stout denial of any personal

motives in the quarrel with Spain. He clearly showed that he felt whence

the danger came, and alluding to the Earl of Bristol, said, "I am minded

to leave that business asleep, but if it should awake, it will prove a

lion to devour him who co-operated with Olivarez."

[Illustration:

_From the Froissart MS. in the British Museum._

_Reproduced by André & Sleigh, Ld., Bushey, Herts._

ILLUMINATED PAGE, WITH BORDERING.

THE ILLUMINATION SHOWS THE EMPEROR OF GERMANY, WENCESLAUS, AND CHARLES

VI OF FRANCE SITTING IN COUNCIL (PROBABLY IN THE CATHEDRAL OF RHEIMS)

TO DEVISE MEANS FOR TERMINATING THE SCHISM IN THE ROMAN CHURCH IN THE

FOURTEENTH CENTURY.]

[Illustration: CHARLES I.]

To cut short these awkward debates, the king sent word to the Commons

that as the plague was already in Oxford, it was necessary to make quick

work, and that they should finish the grant of supplies. He offered to

accept for the present forty thousand pounds; but the House refused even

this, saying that if that was all that was necessary, it might readily be

raised by a loan to the Crown. This put the king beyond his patience, and

he menaced them with a speedy dissolution; adding if they were not afraid

of their health, he would take care of it for them, by releasing them

from the plague-invaded city, and find some means of helping himself.

The Commons were not in a temper to be intimidated; on the contrary,

they went into a most warm and spirited debate on the king's message,

and appointed a committee to prepare a reply. In this they thanked him

for his care of their health, and of the religion of the nation, and

promised supplies when the abuses of the Government were redressed; and

they called upon him not to suffer himself to be prejudiced against the

greatest safeguard that a king could have--the faithful and dutiful

Commons--by interested persons. Before they had time, however, to present

this address, Charles dissolved the Parliament, which had only sat in

this Oxford Session twelve days.

Thus deprived of all the necessary funds for a war, none but so

infatuated a monarch as Charles would have persisted in plunging into it.

War had not yet been proclaimed against Spain; it was neither necessary

nor expedient; on the contrary, every motive of political wisdom warned

him to peace in that quarter, if he really wished to be at liberty to

prosecute the interests of the Elector and the Protestant cause. But led

by the splenetic imbecility of Buckingham, so far was he from seeing

the folly of a war with Spain, that he was soon pushed into one with

France. In fact, he took every step which would have been avoided by a

wise prince, and speedily involved himself in a labyrinth of inextricable

difficulties. Spain quieted and even soothed; France cultivated with

the object of obtaining its influence and aid in the recovery of the

Palatinate; and the Protestants of Germany sympathised with, if not aided

substantially in their severe struggle against Austrian bigotry, Charles

might have eventually restored his sister and her husband to their old

estate, and have won a place in the European world superior to any king

of his time. Instead of this, he took the surest means to exasperate his

own people and his most powerful neighbour that his worst enemies could

have suggested.

To raise money for the prosecution of the war against Spain, he ordered

the duties of tonnage and poundage to be levied, notwithstanding they

were not voted by the Peers. He issued writs of Privy Seal to the

nobility, gentry, and clergy, for loans of money, and menaced vengeance

if they were not complied with. All salaries and fees were suspended,

and to such a strait was he reduced by his efforts to man and supply

the fleet, that he was obliged to borrow three thousand pounds from the

corporations of Southampton and Salisbury to enable him to meet the

expenses of his own table.

At length the fleet was ready to sail with a force of ten thousand

men; the English fleet consisted of eighty sail, and the Dutch sent an

addition of sixteen sail. In weight and armament of ships such a force

had scarcely ever before left an English port. But formidable as was

this naval power, it was rendered perfectly inert by the same utter want

of judgment and genius which marked all the measures of Buckingham. Its

destination was to have been kept secret, so that it might take the

Spaniards by surprise; but it was well known, not only to that nation,

but to the whole Continent. In spite of this, such a force, in the hands

of a Drake or a Nottingham, might have struck a ruinous blow at the

Spanish navy and seaports; but Buckingham, for his own selfish purposes,

appointed to the command Sir Edward Cecil, now created Viscount

Wimbledon, a man who had, indeed, grown grey in the service of the States

of Holland, but only to make himself known as most incompetent to such

an enterprise. He was, moreover, a land officer, whilst the admiral to

whom the command regularly fell, in case the Lord High Admiral himself

did not take it--Sir Robert Mansell, Vice-Admiral of England--had a high

reputation and the confidence of the men as an experienced officer.

On the 3rd of October this noble but ill-used fleet sailed from Plymouth,

and took its way across the Bay of Biscay, where it encountered one of

its storms, and received considerable damage, one vessel foundering with

a hundred and seventy men. The admiral had instructions to intercept the

treasure ships from America, to scour the coasts of Spain, and destroy

the shipping in its harbours. But instead of doing that first which

must be done then if at all--attack the ships in the ports--he called

a council, and was completely bewildered by the conflicting opinions

given. The conclusion was to make for Cadiz and seize its ships, but

the Spaniards were already aware of and prepared for them. Instead of

keeping, moreover, a sharp watch for the Plate ships, Wimbledon let

several of them escape into port, which of themselves were thought, says

Howell, rich enough to have paid all the expenses of the expedition.

There was still nothing to prevent a brave admiral from attacking the

vessels in harbour; but more accustomed to land service, the commander

landed his forces, and took the Fort of Puntal. Making next a rapid march

towards the bridge of Suazzo, in order to cut off the communication

between the Isle de Leon and the mainland, his soldiers discovered

some wine cellars by the way and became intoxicated and incapable of

preserving order. Alarmed at this circumstance, their incapable leader

conducted them back to the ships. Not daring to attack the port, he

determined to look out for the treasure ships. But while cruising for

this purpose, a fever broke out on board the vessel of Lord Delaware; and

as if it were his intention to diffuse the contagion through the whole

fleet, the admiral had the sick men distributed among the healthy ships.

A dreadful mortality accordingly raged through the whole fleet. No Plate

ships could be seen, for they appear to have been aware of their enemies

and held away towards the Barbary coast; and after waiting fruitlessly

for eighteen days, Wimbledon made sail again for England. No sooner did

this imbecile quit the coast than fifty richly laden vessels entered the

port of Lisbon. On landing at Plymouth, with the loss of a thousand men

in this most ignominious voyage, the people received the admiral with

hisses and execrations.

Meanwhile Charles, who was in straits with his Parliament and subjects,

was compelled to try again the more than dubious resort to Parliament

for money. To prepare the way for any success with the Commons, he was

obliged to do that which must certainly embroil him with his French

allies, and add fresh fuel to the fire of domestic discord which consumed

him. Certainly never had any man a more arduous part to play, and the

king had rendered his position all the harder by the imprudence of

his measures; for nothing is easier than for men, by their folly or

absurd resentments, to knit themselves up into a web of difficulties.

He now resolved to break his marriage oath to France, and persecute the

Catholics to conciliate the Protestants. Orders were accordingly issued

to all magistrates to put the penal laws in force, and a commission

was appointed to levy the fines on the recusants. All Catholic priests

and missionaries were warned to quit the kingdom immediately, and all

parents and guardians to recall their children from Catholic schools,

and young men from Catholic colleges on the Continent. But worse than

all, because personally insulting and irritating to the higher classes,

who constituted the House of Peers, and who hitherto had exhibited much

forbearance, he accepted the advice of his Council that the Catholic

aristocracy should be disarmed.

Certainly no proceedings could indispose the House of Peers to the king

more than such as these; but meanwhile Charles was active in endeavouring

by other measures to win a party there. The Earl of Pembroke had for some

time made himself head of the Opposition, and on great occasions brought

with him on a vote no less than ten proxies, Buckingham himself being

only able to command thirteen. He prevailed on Pembroke to be reconciled

to the favourite; and at the same time in order to punish the Lord Keeper

Williams who had quarrelled with Buckingham and had told him that he

should go over to Pembroke, and labour for the redress of the grievances

of the people--he dismissed him and gave the Great Seal to Sir Thomas

Coventry, the Attorney-General.

To manage the Commons, and to prevent the threatened impeachment of

Buckingham, when the judges presented to him the lists of sheriffs

Charles struck out seven names and wrote in their places seven of the

most able and active of the leaders of Opposition in the Commons, the

most determined enemies of the favourite:--Sir Edward Coke, Sir Thomas

Wentworth, Sir Francis Seymour, Sir Robert Philips, Sir Grey Palmer, Sir

William Fleetwood, and Edward Alford. As this office disqualified them

from sitting in Parliament, the king thus got rid of them for that year;

but Coke contended that though a sheriff could not sit for his own county

he could for another, and got himself elected for the county of Norfolk,

but did not venture to take his seat.

All these measures, it will be seen, were dictated not by a desire to

conciliate, but to override the Parliament, and therefore could not

promise much good to a mind of any depth of penetration. Parliament was

summoned for the 6th of February, 1626, and the 2nd was appointed for the

coronation. With the knowledge of a discontented people, Charles went to

meet his Parliament, and this consciousness would, in a monarch capable

of taking a solemn warning, have operated to produce conciliation, at

least of tone; but Charles was one of that class of men who illustrated

the striking words of the Latin fatalist "Whom God intends to destroy He

first drives mad." Accordingly, he opened the sitting with a curt speech,

referring them to that of the new Lord Keeper Coventry, which was in

the worst possible taste. He said, "If we consider aright, and think of

the incomparable distance between the supreme height and majesty of a

mighty monarch, and the submissive awe and lowliness of loyal subjects,

we cannot but receive exceeding comfort and contentment in the frame and

constitution of this highest Court, wherein not only prelates, nobles,

and grandees, but the commons of all degrees have their part; and wherein

that high majesty doth descend to admit, or rather to invite, the

humblest of his subjects to conference and council with him."

Of all language this was, in the temper of the Commons, the most adapted

to incense them. Such talk of the condescension of the Crown, at the

moment when they were entering on a desperate conflict against its abuse

of the prerogative, only the more stimulated their resolution to their

task. They immediately formed themselves into three committees: one of

religion, a second of grievances, and a third of evils. They again, by

the Committee of Religion, canvassed the subject of Popery; resolving to

enact still severer laws against it, as the origin of many of the worst

evils that afflicted the nation. They summoned schoolmasters from various

and remote parts of the kingdom, and put searching questions to them, as

to the doctrines which they held and taught to their scholars; and every

member of the House was called upon in turn to denounce all persons in

authority or office, known to them as holding the tenets of the ancient

faith. In fact, in their vehement zeal for religious liberty, the zealots

of the House were on the highway to extinguish every spark of toleration,

and to convert the House of Commons into an inquisition, instead of the

bulwark of popular right.

[Illustration: RECEPTION OF VISCOUNT WIMBLEDON AT PLYMOUTH. (_See p._

515.)]

They again summoned Dr. Montague to redeem his bail, and receive

punishment on account of his book, in which they charged him with

having admitted that the Church of Rome was the true Church, and that

the articles on which the two churches did not agree were of minor

importance. Laud advocated the cause of Montague at Court, for he was of

precisely the same opinions, and urged the king and Buckingham to protect

him. But both Charles and the favourite saw too many difficulties in

their own way to care to interfere in defence of the chaplain. They left

him to his fate, and he would have been no doubt severely dealt with,

had not higher matters seized the attention of the House, and caused the

offending Churchman to be overlooked.

This was the impeachment of Buckingham. The Committee of Grievances had

drawn up, after a tedious investigation, a list of sixteen grievances,

consisting of such as had so often been warmly debated in the last

reign. Of these the most prominent, in their opinion, were the practice

of purveyance, by which the officers of the household still collected

provisions at a fixed price for sixty miles round the Court, and the

illegal conduct of the Lord Treasurer, who went on collecting tonnage and

poundage though unsanctioned by Parliament. They charged the maintenance

of these evils to the advice and influence of a "great delinquent" at

Court; who had, moreover, occasioned all the disgraces to the national

flag, both by land and sea, which had for some years occurred, and who

ought to be punished accordingly.

The time was now actually arriving of which James had warned his son and

Buckingham, when they urged the impeachment of the Earl of Middlesex,

but choosing to forget all that, Charles sent down word to the House

that he did not allow any of his servants to be called in question by

them, especially such as were of eminence and near unto his person. He

remarked that of old the desire of subjects had been to know what they

should do with him whom the king delighted to honour, but their desire

now appeared to be to do what they could against him whom the king

honoured. That they aimed at the Duke of Buckingham, he said, he saw

clearly, and he wondered much what had produced such a change since the

former Parliament; assuring them that the duke had taken no step but by

his order and consent; and he concluded by requesting them to hasten the

question of Supply, "or it would be worse for them."

[Illustration: YORK HOUSE (THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM'S MANSION).]

On the 29th of March he repeated the menace; but the Commons went on

preparing their charges against Buckingham, declaring that it was the

undoubted right of Parliament to inquire into the proceedings of persons

of any estate whatever, who had been found dangerous to the Commonwealth,

and had abused the confidence reposed in them by the Crown.

Seeing them bent on proceeding, Charles sent down to the House the Lord

Keeper to acquaint them with his majesty's express command that they

should cease this inquiry, or that he would dissolve them; and Sir Dudley

Carleton, who had been much employed as ambassador to foreign states,

and had recently returned from France, warned them not to make the king

out of love with parliaments, and then drew a most deplorable picture of

the state of those countries where such had come to be the case. In all

Christian countries, he said, there were formerly parliaments; but the

monarchs, weary of their turbulence, had broken them up, except in this

kingdom; and now he represented the miserable subjects as resembling

spectres rather than men, miserably clad, meagre of body, and wearing

wooden shoes.

This caricature of foreigners, had it been true, was the very thing to

make the Commons cling to their freedom, and keep their affairs in their

own hands; and as such arguments had no effect. Charles summoned the

House to the bar of the Lords, and there addressed to them a most royal

reproof, letting them know that it depended entirely on him whether he

would call and when he would dismiss Parliament, and, therefore, as they

conducted themselves so should he act. Their very existence depended, he

assured them, on his will.

This was language which might have done in the mouth of Henry VIII., who

by the possession of the vast plunder of the Church had made himself

independent of parliaments and trod on them at his pleasure; but the

times and circumstances were entirely changed. The Commons had learned

their power and the king's weakness, and would no longer tolerate the

insolence of despotism. They returned to their own House, and, to show

that they were about to discuss the king's speech in a spirit which

admitted of no interruption or interference, they locked the door and

put the key in the hands of Sir John Finch, their Speaker. This ominous

proceeding struck terror into the king, and a conference with the Upper

House was proposed and accepted. There Buckingham endeavoured to smooth

down the royal speeches and messages into something like a bearable and

constitutional shape, and to defend his own conduct. But by this time the

Committee of Evils, Causes and Remedies, had come to the conclusion that

the only mode of preventing the recurrence of such mal-administration as

Buckingham had been guilty of was to impeach and punish him. The House

accordingly passed a resolution to that effect on the 8th of May.

As if Charles were actually inspired by madness, at this moment, when he

needed all the assistance of the Peers to screen his favourite from the

impeachment of the Commons, he made a direct attack on their privileges.

Lord Arundel, the Earl Marshal, had given some offence to Buckingham,

and was well known to be decidedly hostile to him. As he possessed six

proxies, it was thought a grand stroke of policy to get him out of the

House at the approaching impeachment; and a plea was not long wanting.

Arundel's son, Lord Maltravers, had married a daughter of the Duke of

Lennox without consent of the king, and as Lennox was of blood-royal,

this was deemed offence enough to involve Arundel himself. He was charged

with not having prevented it, but he replied that the match had been made

unknown to him; that it had been secretly planned between the mothers

of the young people. This was not admitted, and Arundel was arrested by

a royal warrant and lodged in the Tower. The real offender, if real

offence there were, was Maltravers, but it was Arundel's absence which

was wanted. The Lords, however, took up the matter as an infringement of

their privileges; they passed a resolution that "no lord of Parliament,

the Parliament sitting, or within the usual times of privilege of

Parliament, is to be imprisoned or restrained, without sentence or order

of the House, unless it be for treason or felony, or for refusing to give

surety for the peace."

They sent an address to Charles demanding Arundel's immediate liberation;

he returned an evasive answer: they sent a second address; Charles

then ordered the Attorney-General to plead the royal prerogative, and

to declare the Earl Marshal as personally offensive to the king and as

dangerous to the State. The Peers would not admit the plea, but passed

a resolution to suspend business till their colleague was set at large;

and after a contest of three months the king was forced to yield, and the

Earl Marshal resumed his seat in the House amid cheers and acclamations.

But this most imprudent conflict with the Peers had another and still

more damaging result. The Earl of Bristol, who had been so unjustly and

ungraciously received, or rather, not received, on his return from his

Spanish embassy, to enable Buckingham and Charles to maintain their

charge against Spain, had remained an exile from Court and Parliament,

but not without keeping a watchful eye on the progress of events. He was

not a man to sit down quietly under misrepresentation and injury; and

now, seeing that the Peers had roused themselves from their subserviency,

and were prepared to take vengeance on the common enemy, he complained

to the House of Peers that, as one of their order and possessed of all

their privileges, his writ of summons to Parliament had been wrongfully

withheld. To have withstood this demand at this moment might have led to

a dangerous excitement. The writ was therefore immediately issued, but

Bristol at the same time received a private letter, charging him on pain

of the king's high displeasure not to attempt to take his place. The

earl at once forwarded the letter to the Peers, requesting their advice

upon it, on the ground that it affected their rights, being a case which

might reach any other of them, and demanding that he might be permitted

to take his seat in order to accuse the man who, to screen his own high

crimes and misdemeanours, had for years deprived a peer of the realm of

his liberty and right.

This alarming claim of the earl's struck both the king and Buckingham

with terror; and to prevent, if possible, the menaced charge, the

Attorney-General was instantly despatched to the Lords to prefer a plea

of high treason against Bristol. But the Peers were not thus to be

circumvented. They replied that Bristol's accusation was first laid and

must be first heard; and that without the counter-charge being held to

prejudice his testimony. Bristol, thus at liberty to speak out, proceeded

to town and to the House of Peers in triumph, his coach drawn by eight

horses, caparisoned in cloth of gold or tissue; and Buckingham, as if

to present a contrast of modesty, a quality wholly alien to his nature,

drove thither in an old carriage with only three footmen and no retinue.

Bristol charged him with having concerted with Gondomar to inveigle

the Prince of Wales into Spain, in order to procure his conversion to

Popery prior to his marriage with the Infanta; with having complied with

Popish ceremonies himself; with having, whilst at Madrid, disgraced the

king, his country, and himself, by his contempt of all decency and the

vileness of his profligacy. He stated that "As for the scandal given by

his behaviour, as also his employing his power with the King of Spain

for the procuring of favours and offices, which he conferred on base and

unworthy persons, for the recompense and hire of his lust--these things,

as neither fit for the Earl of Bristol to speak, nor, indeed, for the

House to hear, he leaveth to your lordships' wisdoms how far it will

please you to have them examined." He went on to charge him with breaking

off the treaty of marriage solely through resentment, because the Spanish

ministers, disgusted with his conduct, refused any negotiation with so

infamous a person; and declared that, on his return, he had deceived both

king and Parliament by a most false statement. All this the earl pledged

himself to prove by written documents and other most undeniable evidence.

Instead of Buckingham attempting to clear himself as an innocent man

so blackened by terrible charges would, it was sought to deprive the

testimony of Bristol of all value by making him a criminal and a traitor

to the king whilst his representative in Spain. Charles went so far as

to send the Lord Keeper Coventry, a most pliant courtier, to inform the

Lords that he would of his own knowledge clear the duke, the duke himself

reserving his defence till after the impeachment by the Commons. Charles

not only guaranteed to vindicate Buckingham, but accused Bristol of

making a direct charge against himself, inasmuch as he himself had been

with Buckingham all the time in Spain, and had verified his narrative

on his return. The Peers passed this royal charge courageously by; and

Charles then ordered the cause between Bristol and Buckingham to be

removed from the Peers to the court of King's Bench; but the Lords would

not permit such an infringement of their privileges. They put these

questions themselves to the judges--"Whether the king could be a witness

in a case of treason? And whether, in Bristol's case, he could be a

witness at all, admitting the treason done with his privity?" The king

sent the judges an order not to answer these questions, and in the midst

of these proceedings the charges against Bristol were heard, and answered

by him with a spirit and clearness which were perfectly satisfactory

to the House. The charges against him amounted to this:--That he had

falsely assured James of the sincerity of the Spanish Cabinet; had

concurred in a plan for inducing the prince to change his religion; that

he had endeavoured to force the marriage on Charles by delivering the

procuration; and had given the lie to his present sovereign by declaring

false what he had vouched in Buckingham's statement to be true. These

were so palpably untenable positions that the House ordered Bristol's

answer to be entered on the journals, and there left the matter.

But now the impeachment of Buckingham by the Commons was brought up to

the Lords. It consisted of thirteen articles; the principal of which were

that he had not only enriched himself with several of the highest offices

of the State which had never before been held by one and the same person,

but had purchased for money those of High Admiral and Warden of the

Cinque Ports; that he had in those offices neglected the trade and the

security of the coasts of the country; that he had perverted to his own

use the revenues of the Crown; had filled the Court and dignities of the

land with his poor relations; had put a squadron of English ships into

the hands of the French, and on the other hand, by detaining for his own

use a vessel belonging to the King of France, had provoked him to make

reprisals on British merchants; that he had extorted ten thousand pounds

from the East India Company; and even charged him with being accessory to

the late king's death, by administering medicine contrary to the advice

of the royal physicians.

Eight Managers were appointed by the Commons to conduct the

impeachment--Sir Dudley Digges, Sir John Eliot, Serjeant Glanville,

Selden, Whitelock, Pym, Herbert, and Wandsford. Digges opened the case,

and was followed by Glanville, Selden, and Pym. While these gentlemen

were speaking and detailing the main charges against him, Buckingham,

confident in the power and will of the king to protect him, displayed

the most impudent recklessness, laughing and jesting at the orators and

their arguments. Serjeant Glanville, on one occasion, turned brusquely

on him, and exclaimed, "My lord, do you jeer at me? Are these things to

be jeered at? My lord, I can show you when a man of a greater blood than

your lordship, as high in place and power, and as deep in the favour of

the king as you, hath been hanged for as small a crime as the least of

these articles contain."

Sir John Eliot wound up the charge, and compared Buckingham to Sejanus;

as proud, insolent, rapacious, an accuser of others, a base adulator

and tyrant by turns, and one who conferred commands and offices on his

dependants. "Ask England, Scotland, and Ireland," exclaimed Sir John,

"and they will tell you whether this man doth not the like. Sejanus's

pride was so excessive, as Tacitus saith, that he neglected all counsel,

mixed his business and service with the prince, and was often styled

_Imperatoris laborum socius_. My lords," he said, "I have done. You see

the man: by him came all evils; in him we find the cause; on him we

expect the remedies."

The direct inference that if Buckingham was a Sejanus the king was a

Tiberius, and a rumour that Eliot and Digges had hinted that in the

death of the late king there was a greater than Buckingham behind,

transported Charles with rage, and urged him on to another of those acts

of aggression which ultimately brought him to actual battle with his

Parliament. He had the two offending members called out of the House

as if the king required their presence, when they were seized and sent

to the Tower. This outrage on the persons of their fellow members and

delegated prosecutors came like a thunder-clap on the House. There was

instantly a vehement cry of "Rise! rise! rise!" The House was in a state

of the highest ferment.

Charles hurried to the House of Lords to denounce the imputations

cast upon him, and to defend Buckingham; and Buckingham stood by his

side whilst he spoke. He declared that he had punished some insolent

speeches, and that it was high time, for that he had been too lenient.

He would give his evidence to clear Buckingham, he said, in every one of

the articles, and he would suffer no one with impunity to charge himself

with having any concern in the death of his father. But all this bravado

was wasted on the Commons: again with closed doors they discussed the

violation of their privileges, and resolved to proceed with no further

business till their members should be discharged. In a few days this was

done, and the House passed a resolution that the two members had only

fulfilled their bounden duty.

On the 8th of June, Buckingham opened his defence in the House of Lords.

In this he had been assisted by Sir Nicholas Hyde. He divided the charges

against him into three classes: such as were unfounded in fact; such as

might be true, but did not affect _him_; and lastly, those in which he

had merely been the servant of the king or of the Executive. In all the

circumstances which could be proved, he simply acted in obedience to the

late or the present king, with one exception, the purchase of the office

of Warden of the Cinque Ports, which he admitted that he had bought, but

which he thought might be excused on the ground of public utility. As

to the grave charge of the delivery of the king's ships to the French

admiral, he did not mean to go into it, not but that he could prove his

own innocence in the affair, but that he was bound not to reveal the

secrets of the State; and he pleaded a pardon which had been granted by

the king on the 10th of February, that is, four days after the opening of

the present Parliament.

Thus Charles had kept his word: he had allowed the duke to throw the

total responsibility of his deeds on himself, and he had granted him

a pardon by anticipation to forestall the conclusions of Parliament.

This defence by no means satisfied the Commons, and they proceeded to

reply; but in this they were stopped short by the king, who the very

next day sent a message to the Speaker, desiring the House to hasten

and come at once to the subject of Supply, or that he would "take other

resolutions." The Commons set themselves, without loss of time, to

prepare a remonstrance in strong terms, praying for the dismissal of the

favourite; but whilst employed upon it, they were suddenly summoned to

the Upper House, where they found Commissioners appointed to pronounce

the dissolution of Parliament. Anticipating this movement, the Speaker

had carried the resolutions of remonstrance in his hand, and before the

Commissioners could declare Parliament dissolved, the Speaker held up

the paper and declared its contents. The Lords, on this, apprehending

unpleasant consequences, sent to implore Charles to a short delay, but

received the king's energetic answer--"No, not for one minute!"

[Illustration: TRIAL OF BUCKINGHAM. (_See p._ 520.)]

Charles was left by his own wild devices to try how his fancied right

divine would furnish him funds to discharge his debts at home and his

obligations abroad. That he was not insensible to his danger, or to

the price which he had paid for the support of his favourite, is made

plain to us by Meade, the careful chronicler of the time. "The duke,"

he says, "being in the bed-chamber private with the king, his majesty

was overheard, as they say, to use these words: 'What can I do more? I

have engaged mine honour to mine uncle of Denmark and other princes. I

have, in a manner, lost the love of my subjects, and what wouldst thou

have me do?' Whence some think the duke meant the king to dissolve the

Parliament." But however he might feel this, he was in no disposition

to take warning; the spirit and the inculcations of his father worked

in him victorious over any better instincts. No sooner had he dismissed

Parliament, than he seized the Earl of Bristol, and Arundel, the Earl

Marshal, and thrust Bristol into the Tower. This bit of petty spite

enacted, he set about boldly to do everything that the Commons had been

striving against. The Commons had published their remonstrance; he

published a counter-declaration, and commanded all persons having that

of the Commons to burn it, or expect his resentment. He then issued a

warrant, levying duties on all exports and imports; ordered the fines

from the Catholics to be rigorously enforced, but offering to compound

with rich recusants for an annual sum, so as to procure a fixed income

from that source. A Commission was issued to inquire into the proceeds of

the Crown lands, and to grant leases, remit feudal services, and convert

copyholds into freeholds, on certain charges. Privy seals were again

issued to noblemen, gentlemen, and merchants, for the advance of loans,

and London was called on to furnish one hundred and twenty thousand

pounds; and as if the king already feared that his arbitrary acts might

produce disturbance, he ordered the different seaports, under the plea

of protecting the coasts, to provide and maintain during three months a

certain number of armed vessels, and the lord-lieutenants of counties to

muster the people, and train troops to arms to prevent internal riot or

foreign invasion.

At the moment that the king was thus daringly setting both Parliament and

the country at defiance, came the news that a terrible battle had been

fought at Lutter between the Austrians under Tilly, and the Protestant

allies under Charles's uncle, the King of Denmark; that the allies were

defeated and driven across the Elbe; all their baggage and ammunition

lost, and the whole circle of Lower Saxony left exposed to the soldiers

of Ferdinand. This was the death-blow to the cause of the Elector

Palatine. But Charles seized the occasion to raise money by a fresh

forced loan on a large scale, on pretence of the necessity of aiding

Protestantism, and as if to make the lawless demand the more intolerable,

the Commissioners were armed with the most arbitrary powers. All who

refused to comply with this illegal demand, this body was authorised to

interrogate on oath, as to their reasons, and who were their advisers,

and they were bound by oath never to divulge what passed between them and

the Commissioners.

Charles issued a proclamation, excusing his conduct by alleging that the

necessities of the State did not admit of waiting for the reassembling

of Parliament, and assuring his loving subjects that whatever was now

paid would be remitted in the collection of the next subsidy. He also

addressed a letter to the clergy, calling on them to exhort their

parishioners from the pulpit to obedience and liberality. But such were

the relative positions of king and Parliament, that people were not

very confident of any speedy grant from that body, and the good faith

of both Charles and his favourite had become so dubious, that many

refused to pay. The names of these were transmitted to the Council,

and the vengeance of the Court was let loose upon them. The rich were

fined and imprisoned, the poor were forcibly enrolled in the army or

navy, that "they might serve with their bodies, since they refused to

serve with their purses." In vain were appeals made to the king against

this intolerable tyranny; he would listen to no one. Amongst the names

of those who suffered on this occasion, stand those of Sir John Eliot

and John Hampden, as well as of Wentworth, soon to become the staunch

upholder of Absolutism.

In towns the people did not conceal their indignation at these

proceedings. "Six poor tradesmen at Chelmsford stood out stiffly,

notwithstanding the many threats and promises made them;" and the

Londoners loudly shouted, "A Parliament! a Parliament! No Parliament no

money!" Still Charles went on in his mad course; no voice, mortal or

immortal, could even for a moment break the spell of his delusion. Those

judges and magistrates who were averse from enforcing the detestable

orders were summarily dismissed. Sir Randolph Carew, the Chief Justice

of the King's Bench, must give way to the more pliant Sir Nicholas

Hyde, the adviser of Buckingham. But the lawyers in general were ready

enough to break the laws by order of the Court, and the clergy were

still more so. Laud was now advanced, for his Absolutist and Popish

predilections, to the see of Bath and Wells, and sent forth a circular

to the clergy enjoining them to preach up zealously the advance of

money to the Crown, as a work meriting salvation. He openly advocated

a strict league and confederacy between the Church and State, by which

they might trample upon all schism, heresy, and disloyalty. There was

no lack of time-servers to second his efforts. Roger Mainwaring, one

of the king's chaplains, a true high-priest to the golden calf, with

the most shameless prostitution of the pulpit, declared before the king

and Court at Whitehall, that the power of the king was above all courts

and parliaments; that parliament was but an inferior kind of council,

entirely at the king's will; that the king's order was sufficient

authority for the raising of money, and that all who refused it were

guilty of unutterable sin and liable to damnation. He insulted the

Scriptures by dragging them in to prove all this, and would have sold,

not his own soul only, but the souls of the whole nation to obtain

a bishopric. He had his desire; and the success of such religious

toadyism inflamed the clergy in the country with a like abjectness.

One Robert Sibthorpe, vicar of Brackley, in an assize sermon preached

at Northampton, declared that even if the king commanded people to

resist the Law of God, they were to obey him, to show no resistance, no

railing, no reviling, to be all passive obedience. To demonstrate the

Scriptural soundness of his doctrine, he quoted this verse of the Book of

Ecclesiastes (viii. 4.): "Where the word of a king is, there is power:

and who may say unto him, What doest thou?"

Abbot, the Archbishop, was applied to, to license the printing of this

sermon; but the old man, who had always had a Puritan leaning, which his

high post alone prevented him from more fully demonstrating, declined

to do it. In vain the king insisted: the archbishop was suspended

and sent to his country house; and Laud, who was hankering earnestly

after the Primacy, licensed the sermon. Sibthorpe did not fail of his

reward; he was appointed chaplain in ordinary, and received a prebend in

Peterborough, and the goodly living of Burton Latimer. Andrew Marvell

designated these model Churchmen as "exceedingly pragmatical, intolerably

ambitious, and so desperately proud that scarcely any gentleman might

come near the tails of their mules." The subserviency of the clergy was

not one of the least evils which a tyrannic court fostered. The people

saw more clearly than ever that the Church under such circumstances would

become the staunch ally of despotism; and many even of its own honourable

members, in the higher walks of life, shrank away from it and joined the

ranks of the Puritans, for no other reason than that they were resolute

for the liberty of the subject.

The state of feeling on both sides of the Channel meanwhile hastened

an open rupture. The French were highly incensed at the treatment of

the queen's retinue, who, having become an intense nuisance, were

packed off to Paris. Thereupon the most sinister reports were spread

among the people, who eagerly imbibed the idea that their princess was

a victim in the hands of her heretic husband; and they were ready to

avenge themselves on England or on the Protestants of their own country.

On the other hand, Charles ascribed his disasters, the defeat of his

brother-in-law's allies in Germany, and his consequent unpopularity

at home, to the failure of Louis of France in giving the aid which he

had promised. Through this default Charles considered that he had sunk

a million of money, ten thousand soldiers, and lost the favour of his

people. In these ideas he was strengthened by the emissaries of the

French Protestants; and very soon Devic and Montague were despatched by

Charles to concert measures with the Huguenots, and Soubise and Brancard

were received at London as their envoys. It was finally determined that

Charles should send a fleet and army to La Rochelle, which the Duke de

Rohan should join with four thousand men. It was rumoured that it was

planned for a Protestant state to be established between the Loire and

Garonne, at the head of which Buckingham should be placed. That there

was some great scheme of the kind is certain, for Charles, in dismissing

ambassadors from his uncle the King of Denmark, said that he kept his

full design from them; "for," he remarked, "I think it needless, or

rather hurtful, to discover my main intent in this business, because

divulging it, in my mind, must needs hazard it."

Meanwhile France, on its side, had not been inactive. Richelieu had

listened not only to the discontent of the French at the concessions

made by Bassompierre, the French ambassador, in the matter of the number

of the queen's religious advisers, but to the urgent entreaties of the

Pope's nuncio, who had never ceased, since the expulsion of Henrietta's

priests, to call on Louis to avenge that insult to the Church, and had

concluded a treaty with Spain, for mutual defence and for the punishment

of England. They regarded the fleet preparing in the English ports, on

the pretence of chastising the Algerines and giving aid to the Palsgrave,

as really destined against France and Spain, and they planned not only

a defence of their own coasts but a descent on the shores of England.

It was agreed that Spanish ships should be received in French ports and

French ones in those of Spain.

The English, on their part, swept the ships of all nations from the sea,

on the plea that they might contain Spanish goods. Letters of mark were

issued, and no nations were spared by the cruisers, not even those in

alliance with England. The Hanse Towns, the Dutch States, and even the

King of Denmark, had to make zealous remonstrances. Louis of France had

not confined himself to remonstrances even before signing the treaty with

Spain, but had laid an embargo on all English ships in French harbours.

But now orders were issued by both the French and English Courts for the

suspension of commercial intercourse between the two nations.

On the 27th of June, 1627, the English fleet sailed out of Portsmouth.

It consisted of forty-two ships of war, thirty-four transports, and

carried seven regiments of infantry, of nine hundred men each, a squadron

of cavalry, and a numerous body of French Protestants, altogether about

seven or eight thousand men. That it might this time succeed, the Duke

of Buckingham took command of it, for in his self-conceit he attributed

former failures to his not being on the spot in person, to give the

troops the advantage of his consummate genius and experience; the whole

of his military genius, if he had any, being yet to be discovered, and

the whole of his experience amounting to having seen soldiers on parade.

His plans were kept so secret--even from the friends with whom he was

to co-operate--that arriving on the 11th of July before La Rochelle,

the inhabitants refused to permit him to land. It was in vain that Sir

William Beecher and their own envoy Soubise entreated them to receive

those who were come as their allies and defenders: the people distrusted

Buckingham, and declared that they would make no hostile demonstration

against Louis till they had consulted the other churches and got in their

harvest. This displayed a dreadful want of management on the part of the

English; and Buckingham, thus shut out by those whom he came to support,

turned his attention to the neighbouring isles of Rhé and Oléron, which

the Huguenots had some time ago surrendered to their king. He decided to

invade Rhé, and made his descent the very next day, on the 12th of July.

His sudden diversion in this direction took Toyras, the governor of the

island, by surprise; the small force with which he attempted to prevent

their landing was defeated; but Buckingham, loitering on the shore for

four or five days, in landing the remainder of his troops, allowed Toyras

to convey the provisions, wine, and ammunition on the island into the

strong citadel of the town of St. Martin. A small fort called La Prée

lay in Buckingham's path, but he did not stay to take that, but pushed

on to St. Martin. The castle stood on a rock overlooking the town and

bay, and experienced officers were struck with great misgivings at the

sight of it. Buckingham talked of taking it by a _coup de main_, but

Sir John Burroughs, an officer who had acquired a real knowledge of war

and sieges in the Netherlands, shook his head and pronounced the place

next to impregnable, and that an attempt to storm it would be a useless

waste of lives. It was then determined to invest the place in force; but

Burroughs was equally dissatisfied with the unscientific construction of

the trenches and batteries which were prepared. Buckingham, instead of

benefiting by the counsels of this experienced officer, reprimanded him

with a sternness which silenced more compliant men. In a few days a shot

silenced altogether the honestly officious Burroughs, and the duke went

on with his siege only to find that, as that officer had predicted, the

fort defied all his efforts.

The news of this attack on France spread consternation amongst the allies

of the Palsgrave; the prince himself, the States of Holland, and the King

of Denmark, all hastened to express their astonishment and dismay at

this rupture between the two great powers who should have enabled them

by their united efforts to re-conquer the Palatinate. They would not

admit Charles's representation of his obligation to support the French

Protestants as of sufficient moment to induce him to destroy the hopes of

Protestantism in Germany, and of his own sister and brother-in-law. They

begged to be permitted to mediate between the two crowns: Denmark sent

ambassadors instantly to Paris, to use its influence for that purpose

with the French Court; and the Dutch deprived of their commissions all

English officers in their service, who had joined the expedition to La

Rochelle.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE BANQUETING HOUSE, WHITEHALL.]

But they could not move Charles. He wrote to Buckingham, congratulating

him on the success of his attempt on Rhé, which was yet no success at

all; promising him fresh reinforcements and provisions, and exhorting him

to prosecute the war with vigour and to listen to no proposals of peace.

He applauded a proclamation which Buckingham had prepared, to assure the

French Protestants that the King of England had no intention of conquest,

his sole object being to compel the King of France to fulfil his

engagements towards the French Protestants into which he had entered with

them; that, despite these engagements, he had not dismantled Fort Louis,

in the vicinity of La Rochelle; but, on the contrary, had endeavoured to

surprise the town and reduce it by force to comply with his own religious

demands. Charles, however, ordered Buckingham to make an alteration in

the manifesto, so that instead of the defence of the Protestants being

the sole cause of his coming, it should be the chief cause, and allow

him to put forward other reasons for his hostilities as occasion might

require.

With this proclamation in his hand, the Duke de Rohan made a tour amongst

the Huguenot churches in the south of France, where the people listened

to him with enthusiasm, and all who dissented from the vow to live and

die with the English liberators were denounced as traitors. Rohan was

empowered to raise forces and advance to the support of La Rochelle; but

La Rochelle was in no haste to declare itself, for Richelieu had marched

an army into the neighbourhood, and kept it in check. It was the last to

hoist the flag of revolt, and it was for the last time.

But all this time Buckingham was experiencing the truth of the warnings

of Burroughs: no impression whatever was made on the citadel of St.

Martin. Charles's promised reinforcements did not arrive. He wrote to

explain the causes of the delay--being the difficulty of obtaining

mariners, and the slowness of the Commissioners of the Navy; but he

assured him that the Earl of Holland was preparing to bring out fresh

forces. On the 12th of August there was a rumour of an attempt to

assassinate Buckingham by a Jesuit, with a thick three-edged knife; but a

real wound was inflicted on his reputation by a French flotilla bursting

the boom which he had drawn across the harbour, despite his fleet, and

throwing provisions into Fort St. Martin, in spite of himself. This

disaster produced violent altercations between his ill-managed army and

fleet. The army charged the misfortune to the sheer negligence of the

fleet, and the fleet only answered by loud clamours for pay, having, it

appeared, received nothing the whole time.

Under these circumstances Buckingham displayed all the wavering confusion

of mind which characterises an inefficient commander. One day he was

ready to comply with the written requisition of the officers of the army

to abandon the siege; the next, he determined to stay and assault the

place. This miserable vacillation was ended by the arrival of the Earl

of Holland on the 27th of October, with fifteen hundred men; and the

La Rochelle folk sending eight hundred more, it was resolved to make

a general assault on the place. On the 6th of November this assault

began, but the cannonade produced no effect on the adamantine works

and solid walls of the fort; the slaughter of the troops on all sides

was terrible, and the attempt was abandoned. Buckingham then wished

himself safe on board his fleet; but unfortunately for him and his

army, Marshal Schomberg had now posted himself with a strong force on

the island between him and his vessels. He had occupied and garrisoned

Fort la Prée, which Buckingham had so imprudently left in his rear, and

compelled him now to defile his army along a narrow causeway across the

marshes, connecting the small island of Oie with that of Rhé. Nothing

could demonstrate more forcibly the utter incompetence of Buckingham

for military command than thus suffering the enemy to land and lodge

in the line of his retreat. Schomberg now attacked the defiling troops

in the rear with his ordnance, and the cavalry. The cavalry was thrown

into confusion, and the pressure and disorder on the causeway became

frightful; the artillery played upon them with dreadful effect, and

numbers were pushed off into the bordering bogs and salt pits and

suffocated. The destruction soon amounted to twelve hundred men, and

twenty pairs of colours were taken. There was no want of bravery

exhibited by either Buckingham or his men. Courage, it has been well

said, was the sole qualification for a general which he possessed; he was

the last to leave the beach; and the men once off the causeway, turned

resolutely and offered battle to Schomberg. But that prudent general

was satisfied to let them go away, which they prepared to do, to the

consternation of the people of La Rochelle, who had risen on the strength

of their promises, and were now exposed to a formidable army under the

command of Gaston, Duke of Orleans, and Schomberg.

A really good general, though he had suffered serious loss, would still

have thrown himself into La Rochelle and, with the sea kept open by his

fleet for supplies, might have done signal service in defence of the

place. But Buckingham was no such general. He determined to withdraw,

contemplating another enterprise equally impossible to him as the taking

of the citadel of St. Martin. He had an idea of the glory and popularity

of recovering Calais, and communicated this notable project to the king.

Charles was charmed with the project, and as he had assured Buckingham

that he had done wonders, and almost impossibilities on the island of

Rhé, so he anticipated an equally splendid result: this in any other

man, except Charles, would have looked like bitter irony. In the eyes

of the more sensible officers of the fleet and army, the notion of

attempting the surprise of Calais with a reduced and defeated force,

and under such a general, was scouted as madness. Buckingham turned the

prows of his fleet homewards, and arrived towards the end of November.

The fleet and army were indignant at the disgraceful management of the

campaign; the people at home were equally so at the waste of public

money, and the ruin of national honour; but Charles received Buckingham

with undiminished affection, and took to himself the blame of the failure

of the expedition, because he had not been able to send sufficient

reinforcements and provisions. But he speedily received an impressive

reminder of the consequences of this scandalously managed attempt.

The people of La Rochelle sent over envoys to represent to him their

condition, in consequence of listening to his promises; the French were

beleaguering their town, and the most terrible fate awaited them if they

were thus deceived and abandoned. Charles gave them comfortable words,

and entered into a solemn engagement to stand by them so long as their

forts could resist the enemy, and to make no peace without the guarantee

of all their ancient liberties.

But how were these grandiloquent words to be redeemed? He had exhausted

all the resources of his arbitrary exactions, and had incurred an

additional amount of unpopularity by seizing and imprisoning numbers of

those who refused to submit to a forced loan; and when they demanded a

fair hearing through the exercise of the _Habeas corpus_, they were told

that the king's command superseded that. The Crown lawyers, in fact,

vaunted the royal will as the supreme law, whilst Selden, Coke, and the

constitutional lawyers referred them to Magna Charta, which had been

thirty times confirmed by the kings, and thus aroused a wonderful feeling

of popular right in the kingdom.

Whilst such was the state of public feeling, the usual pressure for

money rendered it necessary to adopt some means of raising it. Besides

the requirements of the home government, the proposed aid to the people

of La Rochelle made immediate funds necessary. To attempt extorting

supplies by the modes which had so exasperated the public, was a course

which all reasonable men regarded with repugnance and apprehension.

Charles himself would have braved any danger rather than that of meeting

Parliament, with all its remonstrances and demands of redress of public

grievances; but his Council urged him to make another trial of the

Commons, and he consented. The writs were issued on the 29th of January,

1628, for the assembling of Parliament on the 17th of March. Yet in the

course of that very week the king proceeded to repeat the conduct which

Parliament had so strongly condemned, and which must render its meeting

the more formidable. He required one hundred and seventy-three thousand

four hundred and eleven pounds for the outfit of the expedition to La

Rochelle, and instead of waiting for a grant from Parliament, he ordered

the money to be raised by a Commission from the counties, and that within

three weeks. With that irritating habit which he had inherited from his

father, he added a menace, saying that if they paid this tax cheerfully,

he would meet his Parliament; if not, "he would think of some more speedy

way."

Conduct so restless and insulting on the very eve of the opening of

Parliament raised the wildest ferment in the public: the Commissioners

shrank in terror from their task, and Charles hastened to revoke the

Commission, saying that "he would rely on the love of his people in

Parliament." This was on the 16th of February, but like Pharaoh, Charles

repented himself of his momentary concession, and on the 28th he issued

an order to raise the money which the counties had refused, by a duty

on merchandise. The merchants were, however, not a whit more willing to

submit to an illegal imposition, nor more timid than the counties. The

ministers trembled before the storm, and anticipated certain impeachment;

the judges pronounced the duty illegal, and once more Charles recalled

his order.

What rendered the public more sensitive to these acts of royal licence

was, that a number of foreign troops were about to be brought into the

kingdom, on the plea of employing them against France, but which the

people saw might be turned against themselves or their representatives.

They were, therefore, worked up to a pitch of extreme excitement, and

bestirred themselves to send up to the House of Commons a body of such

men as should not be readily intimidated. Never before had Parliament

assembled under such favourable circumstances. Daring as had been the

king's assaults on the public liberties, this had only served to rouse

the nation to a resolute resolve to withstand his contempt of Magna

Charta at all hazards. Westminster elected one Bradshaw, a brewer, and

Maurice, a grocer. Huntingdon sent up a far more remarkable man, one

Oliver Cromwell, the first time that he had been returned to Parliament

by any place. There was a general enthusiasm to turn out all such members

as had been inert, indifferent, or ready to betray their trusts out of

terror or a leaning towards the Court. When the members assembled the

House was crowded; there were four hundred such men as had rarely sat in

any English Parliament before. Both county and town had selected such

brave, patriotic, and substantial freeholders, merchants, and traders, as

made sycophants and time-servers tremble. They were no longer the timid

Commons who had formerly scarcely dared to look the lords or even the

knights in the face; they were well aware of their power, and in wealth

itself they were said to be three times superior to the House of Peers.

In running his eye over them, a spectator would see such men as Cromwell,

Hampden, Selden, Pym, Hollis, Eliot, Dudley Digges, Coke, Wentworth (soon

to apostatise), and others, with intellects illumined by the study of

the orators, lawgivers, and philosophers of republican Greece, animated

with the great principles of Christianity, and with resolutions like

iron. Many of these men had been attended to London by trains of their

neighbours, sturdy freeholders and substantial shopkeepers, more numerous

than the retinues of any lords, such was the intense expectation of what

might ensue, and the prompt resolve to stand by their representatives.

And they were not deceived, for this third Parliament of Charles I.

marked itself out as one of the grand land-marks of English history.

The king was conscious that if he hoped to gain his chief object from

them--money--he must curb his haughty temper and assume a conciliating

manner. He therefore, just before the opening of the Session, liberated

seventy-eight gentlemen who had been imprisoned for refusing to pay

the forced loan; he let the Earl of Bristol out of the Tower, though

he lay under an impeachment for high treason; accorded the same favour

to Bishop Williams, whom Buckingham had caused to be lodged there;

and restored Archbishop Abbot, who had been suspended for refusing to

license Sibthorpe's base sermon. But when he had made these concessions

to popular opinion, Charles could not command his inveterate habit of

threatening, and so spoilt all. In his opening speech he said:--"I have

called you together, judging a Parliament to be the ancient, speediest,

and best way to give such supply as to secure ourselves and save our

friends from imminent ruin. Every man must now do according to his

conscience; wherefore, if you, which God forbid, should not do your

duties in contributing what this 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 other men may otherwise

hazard to lose. Take not this as threatening--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 preservation and properties."

This was followed by an equally impolitic speech from the Lord Keeper

Coventry, who informed the Commons that the king had come to Parliament,

not because it was at all necessary, not because he was destitute of

other means, but because it was more agreeable to the goodness of his

most gracious disposition. And then he unwisely enough added, "If this be

deferred, necessity and the sword may make way for others. Remember his

majesty's admonition; I say, remember it."

Surely if the veriest novices in government had been set to talk to

Parliament, they could not have done it in a more insane, blundering

style. If the Commons had had as little tact as the king and his

minister, there would have been hard words hurled back again, and

the Parliament would have not been many days ere it ceased to exist.

But the Commons had men as profound as these were shallow. They took

all patiently, and set about quietly to determine on the question of

Supplies. They came to the resolution to offer ample ones--no less than

five subsidies, the whole to be paid within one year--but they tagged

this simple condition to them, that the king should give them a guarantee

against any further invasion of their rights.

As we have already stated, during the past year many gentlemen had been

imprisoned for refusing to pay the demands of the king made without

sanction of Parliament. Five of them had been, at their own request,

brought before the King's Bench by writ of _Habeas corpus_, and their

counsel demanded that, as they were charged with no particular offence,

but merely committed at the particular command of the king, they should

be discharged or admitted to bail; but both were refused. The question

was now discussed by the House, and it was resolved that no subsidy

should pass without a remedy granted against this royal licence. "It

will in us be wrong done to ourselves," said Sir Francis Seymour, "to

our posterity, to our consciences, if we forego this just claim and

pretension."