hands of the common hangman,' and almost cut the Scotch
Chancellor Loudon's head off, and being again resolute to
chastise the rebel Scots with an Army, decides on summoning a
Parliament for that end, there being no money attainable
otherwise. To the great and glad astonishment of England;
which, at one time, thought never to have seen another
Parliament! Oliver Cromwell sat in this Parliament for
Cambridge; recommended by Hampden, say some; not needing any
recommendation in those Fen-countries, think others. Oliver's
Colleague was a Thomas Meautys, Esq. This Parliament met, 13th
April, 1640: it was by no means prompt enough with supplies
against the rebel Scots; the king dismissed it in a huff, 5th
May; after a Session of three weeks: Historians call it the
Short Parliament. His Majesty decides on raising money and an
Army 'by other methods': to which end Wentworth, now Earl
Strafford and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, who had advised that
course in the Council, did himself subscribe £20,000.
Archbishop Laud had long ago seen 'a cloud rising' against the
Four surplices at Allhallowtide; and now it is covering the
whole sky in a most dismal and really thundery-looking manner.
His Majesty by 'other methods,' commission of array, benevolence,
forced loan, or how he could, got a kind of Army on foot, and
set it marching out of the several Counties in the South
towards the Scotch Border; but it was a most hopeless Army.
The soldiers called the affair a Bishops' War; they mutinied
against their officers, shot some of their officers: in
various Towns on their march, if the Clergyman were reputed
Puritan, they went and gave him three cheers; if of
Surplice-tendency, they sometimes threw his furniture out of
the window.
{853}
No fighting against poor Scotch Gospellers was to be hoped for
from these men. Meanwhile the Scots, not to be behindhand, had
raised a good Army of their own; and decided on going into
England with it, this time, 'to present their grievances to
the King's Majesty.' On the 20th of August, 1640, they cross
the Tweed at Coldstream; Montrose wading in the van of them
all. They wore uniform of hodden gray, with blue caps; and
each man had a moderate haversack of oatmeal on his back.
August 28th, the Scots force their way across the Tyne, at
Newburn, some miles above Newcastle; the King's Army making
small fight, most of them no fight; hurrying from Newcastle,
and all town and country quarters, towards York again, where
his Majesty and Strafford were. The Bishops' War was at an
end. The Scots, striving to be gentle as doves in their
behaviour, and publishing boundless brotherly Declarations to
all the brethren that loved Christ's Gospel and God's Justice
in England,--took possession of Newcastle next day; took
possession gradually of all Northumberland and Durham,--and
stayed there, in various towns and villages, about a year. The
whole body of English Puritans looked upon them as their
saviours. ... His Majesty and Strafford, in a fine frenzy at
the turn of affairs, found no refuge, except to summon a
'Council of Peers,' to enter upon a 'Treaty' with the Scots;
and alas, at last, summon a New Parliament. Not to be helped
in any way. ... A Parliament was appointed for the 3d of
November next;--whereupon London cheerfully lent £200,000; and
the Treaty with the Scots at Ripon, 1st October, 1640, by and
by transferred to London, went peaceably on at a very
leisurely pace. The Scotch Army lay quartered at Newcastle,
and over Northumberland and Durham, on an allowance of £850 a
day; an Army indispensable for Puritan objects; no haste in
finishing its Treaty. The English army lay across in
Yorkshire; without allowance except from the casualties of the
King's Exchequer; in a dissatisfied manner, and occasionally
getting into 'Army-Plots.' This Parliament, which met on the
3d of November; 1640, has become very celebrated in History by
the name of the 'Long Parliament.'"
_T. Carlyle,
Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,
part 1: 1640._
ALSO IN:
_J. Forster,
Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Strafford._
_S. R. Gardiner,
History of England, 1603-1642,
chapter 91-94._
_J. H. Burton,
History of Scotland,
chapter 72-73 (volume 7)._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1640.
Acquisition and settlement of Madras.
See INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1640-1641.
The Long Parliament and the beginning of its work.
Impeachment and Execution of Strafford.
"The game of tyranny was now up. Charles had risked and lost
his last stake. It is impossible to trace the mortifications
and humiliations which this bad man now had to endure without
a feeling of vindictive pleasure. His army was mutinous; his
treasury was empty; his people clamoured for a Parliament;
addresses and petitions against the government were presented.
Strafford was for shooting those who presented them by martial
law, but the king could not trust the soldiers. A great
council of Peers was called at York, but the king would not
trust even the Peers. He struggled, he evaded, he hesitated,
he tried every shift rather than again face the
representatives of his injured people. At length no shift was
left. He made a truce with the Scots, and summoned a
Parliament. ... On the 3d of November, 1640--a day to be long
remembered--met that great Parliament, destined to every
extreme of fortune--to empire and to servitude, to glory and
to contempt;--at one time the sovereign of its sovereign, at
another time the servant of its servants, and the tool of its
tools. From the first day of its meeting the attendance was
great, and the aspect of the members was that of men not
disposed to do the work negligently. The dissolution of the
late Parliament had convinced most of them that half measures
would no longer suffice. Clarendon tells us that 'the same men
who, six months before, were observed to be of very moderate
tempers, and to wish that gentle remedies might be applied,
talked now in another dialect both of kings and persons; and
said that they must now be of another temper than they were
the last Parliament.' The debt of vengeance was swollen by all
the usury which had been accumulating during many years; and
payment was made to the full. This memorable crisis called
forth parliamentary abilities, such as England had never
before seen. Among the most distinguished members of the House
of Commons were Falkland, Hyde, Digby, Young, Harry Vane, Oliver
St. John, Denzil Hollis, Nathaniel Fiennes. But two men
exercised a paramount influence over the legislature and the
country--Pym and Hampden; and, by the universal consent of
friends and enemies, the first place belonged to Hampden."
_Lord Macaulay,
Nugent's Memorials of Hampden
(Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, volume 2)._
"The resolute looks of the members as they gathered at
Westminster contrasted with the hesitating words of the king,
and each brought from borough or county a petition of
grievances. Fresh petitions were brought every day by bands of
citizens or farmers. Forty committees were appointed to
examine and report on them, and their reports formed the
grounds on which the Commons acted. One by one the illegal
acts of the Tyranny were annulled. Prynne and his fellow
'martyrs' recalled from their prisons, entered London in
triumph, amid the shouts of a great multitude who strewed
laurel in their path. The civil and criminal jurisdiction of
the Privy Council, the Star Chamber, the Court of High
Commission, the irregular jurisdictions of the Council of the
North, of the Duchy of Lancaster, the County of Chester, and a
crowd of lesser tribunals, were summarily abolished.
Ship-money was declared illegal, and the judgment in Hampden's
case annulled. A statute declaring 'the ancient right of the
subjects of this kingdom that no subsidy, custom, impost, or
any charge whatsoever, ought or may be laid or imposed upon
any merchandize exported or imported by subjects, denizens or
allies, without common consent of Parliament,' put an end
forever to all pretensions to a right of arbitrary taxation on
the part of the crown. A Triennial Bill enforced the Assembly
of the Houses every three years, and bound the sheriff and
citizens to proceed to election if the Royal writ failed to
summon them. Charles protested, but gave way. He was forced to
look helplessly on at the wreck of his Tyranny, for the Scotch
army was still encamped in the north. ... Meanwhile the
Commons were dealing roughly with the agents of the Royal
system. ...
{854}
Windebank, the Secretary of State, with the Chancellor, Finch,
fled in terror over sea. Laud himself was flung into prison.
... But even Laud, hateful as he was to all but the poor
neighbours whose prayers his alms had won, was not the centre
of so great and universal a hatred as the Earl of Strafford.
Strafford's guilt was more than the guilt of a servile
instrument of tyranny--it was the guilt of 'that grand
apostate to the Commonwealth who,' in the terrible words which
closed Lord Digby's invective, 'must not expect to be pardoned
in this world till he be dispatched to the other.' He was
conscious of his danger, but Charles forced him to attend the
Court.' He came to London with the solemn assurance of his
master that, "while there was a king in England, not a hair of
Strafford's head should be touched by the Parliament."
Immediately impeached of high treason by the Commons, and sent
to the Tower, he received from the king a second and more
solemn pledge, by letter, that, "upon the word of a king, you
shall not suffer in life, honour or fortune." But the "word of
a king" like Charles Stuart, had neither honor nor gratitude, nor
a decent self respect behind it. He could be false to a friend
as easily as to an enemy. When the Commons, fearing failure on
the trial of their impeachment, resorted to a bill of
attainder, Charles signed it with a little resistance, and
Strafford went bravely and manfully to the block. "As the axe
fell, the silence of the great multitude was broken by a
universal shout of joy. The streets blazed with bonfires. The
bells clashed out from every steeple."
_J. R. Green,
Short History of England,
chapter 8, section 6._
The king "was as deeply pledged to Strafford as one man could
be to another; he was as vitally concerned in saving the life
and prolonging the service of incomparably his ablest servant
as was ever any sovereign in the case of any minister; yet it
is clear that for some days past, probably ever since the
first signs of popular tumult began to manifest themselves, he
had been wavering. Four days before the Bill passed the Lords,
Strafford as is well known, entreated the king to assent to
it. There is no reason to doubt the absolute sincerity with
which, at the moment of its conception, the prisoner penned
his famous letter from the Tower. That passionate chivalry of
loyalty, which has never animated any human heart in equal
intensity since Strafford's ceased to beat, inspires every
line. ... Charles turned distractedly from one adviser to
another, not so much for counsel as for excuse. He did not
want his judgment guided, but his conscience quieted; and his
counsellors knew it. They had other reasons, too, for urging
him to his dishonour. Panic seems to have seized upon them
all. The only man who would not have quailed before the fury
of the populace was the man himself whose life was trembling
in the balance. The judges were summoned to declare their
opinion, and replied, with an admirable choice of
non-committing terms, that 'upon all that which their
Lordships have voted to be proved the Earl of Strafford doth
deserve to undergo the pains and forfeitures of high treason.'
Charles sent for the bishops, and the bishops, with the
honourable exception of Juxon, informed him that he had two
consciences,--a public and a private conscience,--and that
'his public conscience as a king might not only dispense with,
but oblige him to do, that which was against his conscience as
a man.' What passed between these two tenants in common of the
royal breast during the whole of Sunday, May 9th, 1641, is
within no earthly knowledge; but at some time on that day
Charles's public conscience got the better of its private
rival. He signed a commission for giving the royal assent to
the Bill, and on Monday, May 10th, in the presence of a House
scarcely able to credit the act of betrayal which was taking
place before them, the Commissioners pronounced the fatal Le
roi le veult over the enactment which condemned his Minister
to the block. Charles, of course, might still have reprieved
him by an exercise of the prerogative, but the fears which
made him acquiesce in the sentence availed to prevent him from
arresting its execution."
_H. D. Traill,
Lord Stafford,
pages 195-198._
"It is a sorry office to plant the foot on a worm so crushed
and writhing as the wretched king ... [who abandoned
Strafford] for it was one of the few crimes of which he was in
the event thoroughly sensible, and friend has for once
cooperated with foe in the steady application to it of the
branding iron. There is in truth hardly any way of relieving
the 'damned spot' of its intensity of hue even by distributing
the concentrated infamy over other portions of Charles's
character. ... When we have convinced ourselves that this
'unthankful king' never really loved Strafford; that, as much
as in him lay, he kept the dead Buckingham in his old
privilege of mischief, by adopting his aversions and abiding
by his spleenful purposes; that, in his refusals to award
those increased honours for which his minister was a
petitioner, on the avowed ground of the royal interest, may be
discerned the petty triumph of one who dares not dispense with
the services thrust upon him, but revenges himself by
withholding their well-earned reward;--still does the
blackness accumulate to baffle our efforts. The paltry tears
he is said to have shed only burn that blackness in. If his
after conduct indeed had been different, he might have availed
himself of one excuse,--but that the man, who, in a few short
months, proved that he could make so resolute a stand
somewhere, should have judged this event no occasion for
attempting it, is either a crowning infamy or an infinite
consolation, according as we may judge wickedness or weakness
to have preponderated in the constitution of Charles I. ... As
to Strafford's death, the remark that the people had no
alternative, includes all that it is necessary to urge. The
king's assurances of his intention to afford him no further
opportunity of crime, could surely weigh nothing with men who
had observed how an infinitely more disgusting minister of his
will had only seemed to rise the higher in his master's
estimation for the accumulated curses of the nation. Nothing
but the knife of Felton could sever in that case the weak head
and the wicked instrument, and it is to the honour of the
adversaries of Strafford that they were earnest that their
cause should vindicate itself completely, and look for no
adventitious redress. Strafford had outraged the people--this
was not denied. He was defended on the ground of those
outrages not amounting to a treason against the king. For my
own part, this defence appears to me decisive, looking at it
in a technical view, and with our present settlement of
evidence and treason.
{855}
But to concede that point, after the advances they had made,
would have been in that day to concede all. It was to be shown
that another power had claim to the loyalty and the service of
Strafford--and if a claim, then a vengeance to exact for its
neglect. And this was done. ... One momentary emotion ...
escaped ... [Strafford] when he was told to prepare for death.
He asked if the king had indeed assented to the bill.
Secretary Carleton answered in the affirmative; and Strafford,
laying his hand on his heart, and raising his eyes to heaven,
uttered the memorable words,--'Put not your trust in princes,
nor in the sons of men, for in them there is no salvation.'
Charles's conduct was indeed incredibly monstrous."
_R. Browning,
Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford
(Eminent British Statesmen, by John Forster, volume 2,
pages 403-406)._
ALSO IN:
_J. Forster,
Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Strafford; Pym._
_Earl of Clarendon,
History of the Rebellion,
book 3 (volume 1)._
_Lord Nugent,
Memorials of Hampden.
parts 5-6 (volumes 1-2)._
_Lady T. Lewis,
Life of Lord Falkland._
The following are the Articles of Impeachment under which
Strafford was tried and condemned:
"Articles of the Commons, assembled in Parliament, against
Thomas Earl of Strafford, in Maintenance of their Accusation,
whereby he stands charged with High Treason.
I. That he the said Thomas earl of Strafford hath traiterously
endeavoured to subvert the fundamental laws and government of
the realms of England and Ireland, and, instead thereof, to
introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government, against law,
which he hath declared by traiterous words, counsels, and
actions, and by giving his majesty advice, by force of arms,
to compel his loyal subjects to submit thereunto.
II. That he hath traiterously assumed to himself regal power
over the lives, liberties of persons, lands, and goods of his
majesty's subjects, in England and Ireland, and hath exercised
the same tyrannically, to the subversion and undoing of many,
both peers and others, of his majesty's liege people.
III. The better to inrich, and enable himself to go through
with his traiterous designs, he hath detained a great part of
his majesty's revenue, without giving any legal accounts; and
hath taken great sums of money out of the exchequer,
converting them to his own use, when his majesty was
necessitated for his own urgent occasions, and his army had
been a long time unpaid.
IV. That he hath traiterously abused the power and authority
of his government, to the increasing, countenancing, and
encouraging of Papists, that so he might settle a mutual
dependence and confidence betwixt himself and that party, and
by their help prosecute and accomplish his malicious and
tyrannical designs.
V. That he hath maliciously endeavoured to stir up enmity and
hostility between his majesty's subjects of England and those
of Scotland.
VI. That he hath traiterously broken the great trust reposed
in him by his majesty, of lieutenant general of his Army, by
wilfully betraying divers of his majesty's subjects to death,
his majesty's Army to a dishonourable defeat by the Scots at
Newborne, and the town of Newcastle into their hands, to the
end that, by effusion of blood, by dishonour, by so great a
loss as of Newcastle, his majesty's realm of England might be
engaged in a national and irreconcilable quarrel with the
Scots.
VII. That, to preserve himself from being questioned for these
and other his traiterous courses, he laboured to subvert the
right of parliaments, and the ancient course of parliamentary
proceedings, and, by false and malicious slanders, to incense
his maj. against parliaments.--By which words, counsels, and
actions, he hath traiterously, and contrary to his allegiance,
laboured to alienate the hearts of the king's liege people
from his maj. to set a division between them, and to ruin and
destroy his majesty's kingdoms, for which they do impeach him
of High Treason against our sovereign lord the king, his crown
and dignity. And he the said earl of Strafford was lord deputy
of Ireland, or lord lieutenant of Ireland, and lieutenant
general of the Army there, under his majesty, and a sworn
privy counsellor to his maj. for his kingdoms both of England
and Ireland, and lord president of the North, during the time
that all and every of the crimes and offences before set forth
were done and committed; and he the said earl was lieutenant
general of his majesty's Army in the North parts of England,
during the time that the crimes and offences in the 5th and
6th Articles set forth were done and committed.--And the said
commons, by protestation, saving to themselves the liberty of
exhibiting at any time hereafter any other Accusation or
Impeachment against the said earl, and also of replying to the
Answer that he the said earl shall make unto the said
Articles, or to any of them, and of offering proof also of the
premises, or any of them, or of any other Accusation or
Impeachment that shall be by them exhibited, as the case
shall, according to the course of parliaments, require; and do
pray that the said earl may be put to answer to all and every
the premises; and that such proceedings, examination, trial,
and judgment, may be upon every of them had and used, as is
agreeable to law and justice."
_Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England,
volume 2, pages 737-739._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1641 (March-May).
The Root and Branch Bill.
"A bill was brought in [March, 1641], known as the Restraining
Bill, to deprive Bishops of their rights of voting in the
House of Lords. The opposition it encountered in that House
induced the Commons to follow it up [May 27] with a more
vehement measure, 'for the utter abolition of Archbishops,
Bishops. Deans, Archdeacons, Prebendaries and Canons,' a
measure known by the title of the Root and Branch Bill. By the
skill of the royal partisans, this bill was long delayed in
Committee."
_J. F. Bright,
History of England,
period 2 (volume 2), page 650._
ALSO IN:
_D. Masson,
Life of John Milton,
volume 2, book 2, chapter 3._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1641 (October).
Roundheads and Cavaliers.
The birth of English parties.
"After ten months of assiduous toil, the Houses, in September,
1641, adjourned for a short vacation and the king visited
Scotland. He with difficulty pacified that kingdom, by
consenting not only to relinquish his plans of ecclesiastical
reform, but even to pass, with a very bad grace, an act
declaring that episcopacy was contrary to the word of God. The
recess of the English Parliament lasted six weeks. The day on
which the houses met again is one of the most remarkable
epochs in our history. From that day dates the corporate
existence of the two great parties which have ever since
alternately governed the country. ...
{856}
During the first months of the Long Parliament, the
indignation excited by many years of lawless oppression was so
strong and general that the House of Commons acted as one man.
Abuse after abuse disappeared without a struggle. If a small
minority of the representative body wished to retain the Star
Chamber and the High Commission, that minority, overawed by
the enthusiasm and by the numerical superiority of the
reformers, contented itself with secretly regretting
institutions which could not, with any hope of success, be
openly defended. At a later period the Royalists found it
convenient to antedate the separation between themselves and
their opponents, and to attribute the Act which restrained the
king from dissolving or proroguing the Parliament, the
Triennial Act, the impeachment of the ministers, and the
attainder of Strafford, to the faction which afterwards made
war on the king. But no artifice could be more disingenuous.
Everyone of those strong measures was actively promoted by the
men who were afterwards foremost among the Cavaliers. No
republican spoke of the long misgovernment of Charles more
severely than Colepepper. The most remarkable speech in favour
of the Triennial Bill was made by Digby. The impeachment of
the Lord Keeper was moved by Falkland. The demand that the
Lord Lieutenant should be kept close prisoner was made at the
bar of the Lords by Hyde. Not till the law attainting
Strafford was proposed did the signs of serious disunion
become visible. Even against that law, a law which nothing but
extreme necessity could justify, only about sixty members of
the House of Commons voted. It is certain that Hyde was not in
the minority, and that Falkland not only voted with the
majority, but spoke strongly for the bill. Even the few who
entertained a scruple about inflicting death by a
retrospective enactment thought it necessary to express the
utmost abhorrence of Strafford's character and administration.
But under this apparent concord a great schism was latent; and
when, in October 1641, the Parliament reassembled after a
short recess, two hostile parties, essentially the same with
those which, under different names, have ever since contended,
and are still contending, for the direction of public affairs,
appeared confronting each other. During some years they were
designated as Cavaliers and Roundheads. They were subsequently
called Tories and Whigs; nor does it seem that these
appellations are likely soon to become obsolete."
_Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 1._