Chapter XXIII.

Charles I. And His Government (1625-1642).

King James I. had wearied his people, who had learned to despise

him. King Charles I. ascended the throne amidst the hopes of his

people. He was already respected, and his subjects were disposed

to have confidence in him. He immediately convoked a Parliament.

When, on the 18th of June, 1625, the two Houses assembled at

Westminster, Parliament, as well as the king, was as yet ignorant

of the profound hostility which separated a sovereign imbued with

all the notions of absolute power which had been developed half a

century previously upon the Continent, and a people who, on their

part, had made progress and who now claimed to take part in the

affairs of the country and in their own government.

The struggle was not long in beginning. It was to the king that

all the petitions and remonstrances of the House of Commons were

addressed, but Parliament looked to everything and claimed to

reform all abuses. The supplies necessary for sustaining the war

against Spain were withheld during the examination of grievances.

They had only been partially voted when the king, young and

impatient, wearied by delays and complaints, pronounced the

dissolution of Parliament, and had recourse to a loan to procure

money.

{43}

The loan succeeded ill, and the enterprise against Cadiz, which

had rendered it necessary, having miscarried, the king found

himself compelled to convoke another Parliament, which it was

hoped would be found more docile; but at the court of Charles,

and in his closest intimacy, lived a man, the favorite of the son

as well as of the father, to whom the English people attributed

the dissensions which separated them from their sovereign. The

Commons arrived in London, resolved to overthrow Buckingham. The

king protected him and angrily rejected the accusations which

were presented. Two of the commissioners entrusted with the

impeachment--Sir John Eliot and Sir Dudley Digges--were placed in

the Tower for insolent words. On the 15th of June, 1626, the

second Parliament of the reign of Charles I. was dissolved like

the first, and the monarch felt himself king.

He was resolved to govern alone, but he had no money. The war

with Spain and Austria weighed heavily upon his finances.

Buckingham, animated by personal spite against Cardinal

Richelieu, involved his master in a struggle with France, in the

interests of threatened Protestantism. It was thought that the

heart of the English people would be regained, and its purse

everywhere opened by announcing an expedition for the deliverance

of La Rochelle, which was besieged. Buckingham himself was to

command it.

Distrust was felt towards the favorite and his zeal for the

Protestant cause. The new loan supplied little money; the tax

called ship-money, imposed for the first time upon the ports and

seaside districts, produced fewer vessels, armed and equipped,

than had been hoped for, and the expedition sent to the

assistance of La Rochelle failed miserably. Buckingham, who had

effected a descent upon the island of Ré, was unable to take

possession of it.

{44}

He lost many men, and returned to England after this sanguinary

blow, more hated and despised than ever. "All the known or

possible resources of tyranny were exhausted." The king and the

favorite, haughty as they were, felt the necessity of becoming

reconciled with the people. A fresh Parliament was convoked, on

the advice of Buckingham, as was everywhere announced.

Parliament assembled on the 17th of March, 1628. It numbered in

its midst nearly all the men who, in their counties, had resisted

the royal tyranny or exactions. The language of the king, on

opening the session, was haughty and threatening. He had wavered,

but he desired to raise himself in his own eyes as well as those

of the world by an especially regal attitude. The Houses did not

trouble themselves about threats. They too were animated by a

passionate and haughty resolve. Their purpose was to proclaim

aloud their liberties and cause them to be recognized by the

Government. The aged Coke, young Wentworth, destined shortly to

serve the interests of absolute power under the name of Lord

Strafford, Denzil Hollis, Pym, and many others, of different

manners and sentiments, but united in the same patriotic desire,

were at the head of the Parliamentary coalition. Less than two

months after its assembling, on the 8th of May, 1628, the House

of Commons had voted the famous political declaration known under

the name of the _Petition of Right_. After some hesitation,

the Upper House accepted it also. The petition was immediately

presented to the king, who, after struggling in vain for several

weeks, ultimately promised his assent.

[Image]

Assassination Of Buckingham.

{45}

It was one of the misfortunes, perhaps the greatest misfortune of

King Charles I., never to admit that a monarch owed his subjects,

however refractory, truth and fidelity. He evaded replying to the

Petition of Right, contenting himself with protesting his

attachment to the Great Charter, and he forbade the House to

meddle in future with state affairs.

The exasperation was great. Charles and Buckingham took alarm;

they yielded. This Parliament which had but lately been thought

of no use but to vote subsidies, was already treated with upon a

footing of equality; the Petition of Right was again presented to

the king, and he replied with the usual formula, always uttered

in French: _Soit droit fait comme il est désiré_. But the

abuses were not reformed; it was a question of applying the

principles. The king collected the customs dues without the

authority of Parliament. The conflict recommenced; the king

wished to gain some respite without dissolving Parliament. He

prorogued the Houses until the month of January, 1629. Before

that period, on the 23rd of August, 1628, the Duke of Buckingham

was assassinated by a disaffected officer, named Felton, and in

the hat of the latter was found some writing which recalled to

mind the recent remonstrance of the House. The king, indignant

and disconsolate, returned noiselessly into the path of despotism

which he had, for a moment, apparently forsaken. He lost a

favorite odious to Parliament; he detached from the coalition of

the Commons one of its boldest and most esteemed chiefs. Sir

Thomas Wentworth, soon afterwards Lord Strafford, entered the

council of the king, notwithstanding the entreaties of his

friends. When the House again assembled, on the 20th of January,

1629, it learned that the evasive reply of the king to the

Petition of Right had been affixed at the bottom of the petition.

{46}

The printer had received orders to modify the legal text in this

manner. The commissioners of the Commons, entrusted to verify the

matter, did not mention it, as though blushing to disclose such a

breach of faith; but their silence did not promise oblivion.

All the attacks against the abuses still subsisting recommenced.

The king, on his part, endeavored to obtain the concession of the

customs dues, which he claimed in advance and for all the

duration of his reign, like the majority of his predecessors. The

Commons remained immovable; the voting of the supplies was the

sole efficacious arm which remained to them wherewith to fight

against absolute power. The king spoke of proroguing the Houses

again. The Commons caused their doors to be closed in order to

deliberate without restraint. As preparations were being made for

breaking them open, the Council were apprised that the members

had retired, after having voted that the collecting of the

customs duties was illegal, and that those who should raise them,

or who should merely consent to pay them, were traitors to the

country. On the 16th of March, 1629, Parliament was dissolved. A

few days afterwards the king published a declaration, which ended

in these terms: "It is spread abroad, with evil design, that a

Parliament will soon be assembled. His Majesty has well proved

that he had no aversion to Parliaments, but their last excesses

have determined him against his wish to change his conduct. He

will in future account it presumption for any to prescribe a time

for convoking a new Parliament."

The king was about to endeavor to govern alone, after having

attempted in vain to govern with his Parliament.

{47}

The English people did not rise in revolt. They were exasperated

and distrustful, preoccupied with the political trials which

everywhere awaited the leaders of the parliamentary resistance;

but nowhere did they disregard the laws. At the beginning of his

exercise of absolute power, Charles I. met no obstacle on the

part of his subjects. It was his friends who soon caused

embarrassment to his government. The capricious frivolity of

Queen Henrietta Maria, her attachment to her favorites, ambitious

and frivolous like herself, the court intrigues, and the division

which was becoming greater and greater between these persons

absorbed in pleasures and the serious part of the nation, which

was passionately devoted to the affairs of this world and those

of eternal life; such were the first obstacles which King Charles

encountered. He had to assist him, however, the two ministers to

whom he had given his confidence, Lord Wentworth and Bishop Laud.

In forsaking the national party, to which he belonged, for hatred

to Buckingham rather than from personal or fixed principles,

Wentworth had embraced the royal cause with all his heart. "With

an intellect too great to confine itself to domestic intrigues,

and a pride too passionate to bow to the proprieties of the

palace, he gave himself up enthusiastically to business, braving

all rivalries as he shattered all resistance, ardent in extending

and strengthening the royal authority, which had become his own,

but assiduous at the same time in re-establishing order, in

repressing abuses, in subjugating private interests which he

deemed illegitimate, in serving the general interests which he

did not fear." A friend of Wentworth, Laud, who was soon

nominated Archbishop of Canterbury, had, with less worldly

passions and with sincere piety, carried to the Council the same

dispositions and the same designs.

{48}

He had less understanding than his colleague, and "pursued

incessantly with an activity, indefatigable but narrow, violent,

and harsh, whatever fixed idea dominated him, with all the

transport of passion and the authority of duty."

Such counsels would necessarily enter before long into contention

with the court. Strafford (we give him the title under which he

is known in history, although he did not yet bear it) went to

Ireland, where he re-established order in the country and in the

finances, so that kingdom, but lately a source of great

expenditure, furnished revenues to the king. Laud was

commissioner of the treasury, and endeavored to apply the same

rules to the resources of the royal treasury in England; but the

prodigality of the queen, the somewhat disdainful generosity of

the king, who easily granted pensions, and the sumptuous life of

the court, exhausted the resources of the arbitrary but regular

government of the two ministers. The central power was weak and

impotent, foreign politics were ill-directed, and the king was

little regarded upon the Continent. Barbary Corsairs ventured

into the British Channel, and as far as St. George's Channel,

landing, pillaging the houses, and making prisoners. The merchant

navy in vain asked for protection; the royal fleet was unarmed

and ill equipped. Everywhere money was wanted; recourse was had

to ever-increasing exactions. Strafford convoked the Irish

Parliament, and contrived to chain it to his feet like a docile

slave. The king forbade him to assemble it again, for both he and

the queen dreaded the mere name of Parliament.

{49}

There, as elsewhere, the able, skillful, and foreseeing minister

suffered under the yoke of feeble incompetence. Monopolies

reappeared, affecting trade in all commodities: justice was sold,

and everything furnished matter for litigation, out of which

there was no escape but by payment of money. Absolute government

continued without power, while its mean tyranny and

administrative abuses weighed upon all classes of the nation. The

country gentlemen especially were incessantly a mark for the

rigors of authority, and saw grow up beside them, in every

village, a new power. Laud enrolled the Anglican Church in the

service of his king. He thus brought him a faithful and numerous

militia. Charles, sincerely pious and Protestant, notwithstanding

the weaknesses charged against him with regard to the Catholics,

ardently confided himself to this army which came to his

assistance. The alliance between the king and the Church soon

became close and irrevocable.

It was the Puritans, as the dissenting sects were then called,

who bore the burden of this alliance. Laud insisted upon

establishing everywhere an absolute conformity in the rites and

ceremonies which he modified without scruple in the Roman

Catholic spirit. Everywhere where the conscience of the Anglican

ministers was opposed to these innovations, they were dismissed

from their livings. The churches which they went forth to found

in France, Holland, and Germany, did not even secure to them the

liberty of their faith. Laud claimed to extend his jurisdiction

upon the Continent, and pursued them with his tyranny upon the

foreign soil on which they sought to establish themselves.

{50}

The numerous refugees who were driven from their country by

religious persecution, and who had obtained charters for the free

exercise of their national worship in England, found these

charters abolished. Absolute conformity with the Anglican rite

was required by the Archbishop, supported by the royal power.

Imprisonment and exile overtook the delinquents on all hands.

The anger and terror of the English people were becoming great.

The Reformation had been, in England, of a double nature.

Interested and worldly on the part of the king and the great

noblemen, it had been earnest, sincere, profound, among the

nation properly so called, and it had always leaned to the side

of the Puritans. The novelties introduced by Laud into the

worship agitated minds and consciences alike. The Catholics

rejoiced, and the Pope thought himself in a position to cause a

Cardinal's hat to be offered to the Archbishop; but the latter

only wished to secure the supremacy of the Anglican Church and of

the bishops in the Anglican Church. When he caused the office of

high treasurer to be given to Juxon, Bishop of London, Laud

exclaimed in excess of his joy, "Now that the Church subsists and

supports itself unassisted, all is consummated; I can no more."

He had done enough, for he had brought the Anglican Church to the

brink of the abyss, and had prepared for it grievous trials.

For some time disaffection had been increased among all classes

of society. The weakness and incapacity of the government in

general, notwithstanding the efforts of Strafford and Laud, the

pecuniary exactions and religious tyranny attacked and

exasperated all citizens; numerous emigrations had begun; men

passionately attached to their faith went to seek upon the

Continent, and even in America, the liberty of worship which was

refused to them in their own country.

{51}

Obscure and unknown sectaries had been the first to adopt the

refuge of exile; by degrees men of greater consideration followed

their example. When an order of the royal council forbade

emigration, a ship anchored in the Thames already bore the future

heroes of the revolution of England, ready to expatriate

themselves in order to escape an odious government. It was the

hand of the king himself which retained in England Pym, Haslerig,

Hampden, and Oliver Cromwell.

The wrath of the people did not yet burst forth, but it began to

be heard in suppressed tones; the assemblages of nonconformists

increased everywhere under different names. The Independents or

Brownists were the most numerous of those who separated

themselves openly from the Anglican Church, and all the vigilance

of Laud did not suffice to disperse the faithful, nor his

severity to punish them. Numerous pamphlets circulated among the

people of an insolent and vigorous kind. They were bought

eagerly, and the rigors of the star chamber did not succeed in

arresting the smugglers who brought them from Holland, and the

pedlars who spread them throughout the country. It was resolved

to make a great example; a lawyer, a theologian, and a physician,

Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick, were arrested at the same time,

and, after an iniquitous trial, were condemned to the pillory, to

lose their ears, and to pay an enormous fine. Their imprisonment

was to be for life.

{52}

The populace of London thronged around the pillory, when the

three condemned men, pale and bleeding, were fixed there. Their

courage did not falter for a moment, and their sufferings served

their cause better than all their writings. A libeller by

profession, John Lilburne, condemned to a punishment of the same

kind, received at the hands of the nation the same impassioned,

albeit still silent sympathy. The whole country was moved, but it

awaited a chief who should give the signal of legal resistance--a

name around which the scattered forces might range themselves. It

was for John Hampden that this honor was reserved.

Grave and irreproachable in conduct, Hampden was also a man of

substance. He lived peacefully in Buckinghamshire, esteemed and

honored by all. He was known to be adverse to the government, but

not violently so, and when, in 1636, the king was desirous of

collecting ship-money, which was illegal without the

authorization of Parliament, Hampden was rated at twenty

shillings only. He refused to pay, being determined to carry the

question personally before the courts. The trial was conducted

with moderation on the part of the accused as well as on that of

the counsel and judges. No insult to the government, no violence

towards Hampden, but justice was deaf to legal argument, and

Hampden was condemned. The court congratulated itself upon the

judgment which gave a sanction to arbitrary power. It did not

foresee that the name of Hampden was about to serve as a

rallying-point to all malcontents and all conspiracies. The party

of resistance now began its existence.

{53}

The outburst came sooner and with more violence in Scotland. King

James had succeeded in founding the episcopate there against the

wish and notwithstanding the traditional habits of the people,

passionately attached to the Presbyterian system; but the new

bishops had been prudent and had attempted nothing, either

against the clergy whom the people loved, or against the worship

to which they were accustomed. Charles I. and Laud were more

bold. By degrees the bishops had raised their heads; secure of

being acknowledged and supported, they had become imbued with the

doctrine of the divine right of the episcopate, and had taken a

place in political councils. The Archbishop of St. Andrew's was

chancellor of Scotland, the Bishop of Ross was about to become

treasurer, nine bishops sat in the privy council. On the 23d of

July, 1637, the Anglican litany was suddenly put in force in the

cathedral at Edinburgh.

When the astonished people heard these accents, which were

strange to their ears and which they regarded as savoring of

Popery, a profound emotion took possession spontaneously of the

whole assembly. An old woman threw her footstool at the head of

the officiating clergyman; sedition sprang up in the streets.

Repression did not calm the agitation. From Edinburgh it spread

into all the counties of Scotland. Every day the privy council

and the municipal council were besieged by a numerous, earnest,

and ardent mob; by gentlemen, farmers, townsmen, artisans,

peasants, who complained of the innovations introduced into their

worship. Upon being ordered to retire, they gave way without

violence, but the petitioners came back in greater numbers on the

morrow. Everywhere resistance was being organized, and when a

royal order was at length promulgated, prohibiting any assemblage

under pain of treason, the Lords Hume and Lindsay, both peers of

the Realm, following in the steps of the herald who read the

royal proclamation, caused to be affixed to the walls a protest

which they had signed in the name of their fellow-citizens.

{54}

The same care was taken in all places in which the king's

proclamation was made public. Six weeks after the imprudent and

arbitrary act of Charles, the whole of Scotland was confederated

under a solemn pledge called the "Covenant," a profession of

religious faith, and a national protest against the new liturgy

which the Government wished to impose upon the public. The king

and Laud had roused the Scottish nation to rebellion against

them.

Charles was both astonished and indignant. Imbued with all the

principles which flourished on the Continent respecting the royal

dignity and authority, he looked upon resistance as a crime of

the lower classes, and marvelled to see noblemen and gentlemen

united in the same feeling and serving the same cause. He

immediately resolved to have recourse to force in order to

chastise the rebels, but he required time to raise an army. The

Marquis of Hamilton, despatched into Scotland to negotiate with

the Covenanters, promised all that was desired, and authorized

the assembling of a general synod, wherein all the controverted

questions might be discussed. The assembly met at Glasgow; but

the Scots, distrusting with good cause so much condescension,

soon perceived that Hamilton was merely endeavoring to delay

matters. At the moment when the synod was preparing to accuse the

bishops, the marquis suddenly declared its dissolution. At the

same time it learned that war was imminent, and that a body of

troops raised in Ireland by Strafford was about to land in

Scotland. The king was preparing to chastise his rebellious

subjects, and Hamilton returned precipitately to London, while

the synod, without troubling itself about its dissolution,

continued its deliberations and abolished the episcopate.

{55}

The Scottish Covenanters did not confine themselves to mere words

or even to serious and impassioned utterances. They raised

troops. The Scots who were serving upon the Continent and one of

their best officers, Alexander Lesley, formerly in the service of

Gustavus Adolphus, were induced to come over and defend their

country. The Scottish people addressed to the English, their

brothers, a declaration intended to expound their grievances.

Before the common beliefs and opinions which now united the two

peoples the old national hatred disappeared. When the king

arrived at York with all his court, and his general, the Earl of

Essex, entered Scotland, the two armies communicated with each

other fraternally. The soldiers were more disposed to embrace

than to fight. The royal troops did not begin the struggle. Lord

Holland, who commanded the first corps, fell back without a

struggle. Negotiations were soon resorted to, and peace was

concluded at Berwick on the 18th of June, 1639, without a musket

having been fired. The disbanding of the two armies was resolved

upon, as well as the convocation of a synod and a Scottish

Parliament; but the treaty did not affect the root of the

difficulties, and the situation remained the same. It was a

suspension of arms, not a peace.

Both parties felt this. The Scots disbanded their troops, but

maintained the staff officers. Charles summoned Lord Strafford

from Ireland to his assistance; this was announcing a

predetermination to abandon a conciliatory policy. "It is

necessary," said the earl, "to bring back all these people to

their senses with the lash."

{56}

The conditions of peace with the Scots, ill-defined and scarcely

reduced to writing, gave occasion to interminable discussions.

Parliament and the synod assembled at Edinburgh, raised every day

fresh pretensions. War was resolved upon in the royal council,

but a pretext was necessary. A letter, addressed by the Scottish

chiefs to Louis XIII., with the simple title, _To the King_,

fell into the hands of Strafford. The support of the foreign

monarch was being invoked. Charles I., indignant himself, thought

that his indignation would be shared by all his people. He needed

money wherewith to fight the Scots; his coffers were empty, and

he had exhausted every means, legal and otherwise, of obtaining

resources. He determined upon his course, and convoked a

Parliament.

Great was the astonishment in England. Time had calmed public

excitement. The king, in his own person, had governed ill, but

people remembered the impediments which the last Parliament had

placed in the way of the royal administration; they desired more

prudence and moderation in the newly-elected members. The former

leaders of the liberal party re-entered the House; but they found

themselves surrounded by a sensible and moderate knot of men,

resolved to abolish abuses without violence and without insult.

They desired neither to alienate the king nor to trouble the

repose of the country. Charles himself was animated by the same

spirit towards Parliament.

{57}

The power of circumstances easily triumphs over good intentions.

Upon the reading of the letter of the Scots to the King of France

the House remained cold; and thus the arm upon which the king had

reckoned failed him when within his grasp. Charles had decided

for war, and demanded supplies, but the House was resolved to

cause the redress of grievances to be passed before voting the

taxes. Parleyings were again of no avail; the king began to grow

angry; Parliament was still calm, hurrying on its discussion, but

without departing from its pacific resolutions. At length the

king caused the House to be informed that if they would vote

twelve subsidies, payable in three years, he would abandon the

system of demanding ship-money without the approbation of

Parliament. The sum was enormous, they became alarmed and angry,

but the House would not sever their connection with the king.

They were about to proceed to the voting of some subsidies

without fixing the amounts, when Sir Henry Vane, a favorite of

Queen Henrietta Maria, who had been raised against the wish of

Strafford to the post of secretary of state, rose from his seat,

and announced that, without adopting the entire message, the vote

was useless; for the king would not accept a reduction of his

demands. The anger and amazement of the Commons were at their

height, when, on the morrow, at the moment of opening the

sitting, the king caused them to be summoned to the Upper House,

and announced the dissolution of Parliament; it was on the 5th of

May, 1640; the Houses had assembled on the 13th of April.

Strafford had succeeded better than his master; he had obtained

from the Irish Parliament all that he had demanded, and the

voluntary subscriptions which he instigated, brought to the royal

treasury nearly three hundred thousand pounds sterling. Vexations

of all kinds resumed their course; the policy was to get money at

all costs.

{58}

Strafford impelled the king towards despotism; it was necessary

either to conquer or die. Twice the earl fell seriously ill; but

he raised himself from his bed when scarcely recovered, and set

out with the king for the army of Scotland, which he was to

command.

The Scots did not wait for his arrival. They entered England, and

defeated at Newburne the first English army which they

encountered. It was an easy matter; the war was still less

popular among the English people than it was with Parliament, and

the secret negotiations between the Scottish generals and the

chiefs of the malcontents in England were re-echoed among the

soldiers. When Strafford assumed the command of the army, he

found it undisciplined and disaffected. The two camps confronting

each other were really animated by the same feelings as well as

the same beliefs. An action took place upon the banks of the

Tyne, insignificant in itself, but the Scots crossed the river,

and Strafford was compelled to fall back upon York, leaving the

enemy masters of the north of England. The anger of the king was

powerless in presence of the popular passion. All the authority

and ardor of the general could not make the soldiers fight

against those whom they called their brothers, and Charles felt a

dread of the energy of Strafford's policy. The negotiations

between the two armies continued without regard to the king and

notwithstanding the protestations of loyalty of the Scots. The

cry of _peace_ began to be associated with the word

_Parliament_.

{59}

The king dreaded Parliaments. He endeavored to escape from the

dilemma by convoking at York the great council of the peers of

the realm, a feudal assembly, fallen into disuse for four

centuries past. The peers had not yet assembled when two

petitions, one from the City of London and the other signed by

twelve of the most powerful noblemen, formally demanded the

convocation of a real Parliament. The king no longer resisted.

The great council of the peers nominated a commission entrusted

to negotiate with the Scots. As a preliminary, it was decided

that the two armies should remain on foot, both to be paid by the

king. It was found necessary to provide for this expense by a

loan, and the signatures of the sixteen commissioners were added

to that of the king to guarantee the objects for which it was to

be raised. Charles departed for London, weary and sad. The whole

of England was ardently engaged in the elections, of which the

importance was felt. Everywhere the candidates of the court were

rejected. The assembling of the new Parliament was fixed for the

3d of November, a fatal date, it was said, for Laud. The

Parliament assembled upon the same day under Henry VIII. had

begun by overthrowing Wolsey, and had ended with the destruction

of the abbeys. Laud refused to alter the date of the convocation.

He was, like his master, weary of the struggle, and he abandoned

himself, without further resistance, to the chances of a future

as yet veiled in obscurity.

Parliament was opened, and scarcely had the king quitted

Westminster when his friends--small in number among the

Commons--were enabled to assure themselves that the public wrath

was greater still than had been foreseen. The dissolution of the

last Parliament had caused the cup to overflow. Charles, imbued

with haughty ideas of absolute power, had desired to govern

alone. In principle Parliament did not claim sovereignty, but it

felt its strength, and was resolved to exert it. The monarch was

foredoomed to defeat.

{60}

The session began with a long and complete enumeration of

grievances. The abuses of tyranny were numerous, and all were

brought to light. Monopolies, ship-money, arbitrary arrests,

venality of justice, exactions of the bishops, the proceedings of

the courts of exception--nothing was spared. Before considering

the redress of wrongs, it was voted that the complaints were

legitimate; they rained down from all quarters, and more than

forty committees spent many days in receiving the petitions which

came from the counties. Everywhere lists were drawn up of

"delinquents," a name which was given to the agents of the crown

who had taken part in the execution of the measures complained

of. Before any resolution was made against these numerous guilty

persons, they found themselves suddenly in danger of being

summoned before the House, and condemned to a fine, imprisonment,

or confiscation. All the servants of the king were thus placed at

the mercy of their enemies. Once inscribed upon the list of

"delinquents," no man could enjoy an instant's repose.

The explosion of the new power was sudden and terrible. Strafford

had foreseen it. He begged the king to absolve him from appearing

before Parliament. "I cannot," Charles answered him, "do without

your counsels here. As truly as I am king of England, you incur

no danger; they shall not touch a hair of your head." Strafford

was not reassured. He set out, however, still bold and resolved

to strike the first blow. He was not allowed time to do so: on

the 9th of November he arrived in London ill; on the 11th, upon

the motion of Pym, the House of Commons charged him with high

treason.

{61}

"The least delay may ruin all," the latter said. "If the earl has

communication but once with the king, Parliament will be

dissolved; besides, the House only impeaches, and will not

judge." Strafford arrived at this moment in the House of Lords,

but his impeachment had preceded him there. The door was closed;

the earl caused it to be opened, and he was entering the House

when his colleagues called out to him to withdraw. He stopped,

looked around him, and obeyed after a few seconds' hesitation.

Being recalled an hour afterwards, he was enjoined to kneel at

the bar. There he learned that the House had admitted the

impeachment of the Commons. On the same evening he was conducted

to the Tower, whither Laud was conveyed not many days afterwards.

Some other important personages were accused with Strafford; but

it was upon the latter that there was concentrated the vengeance

of the triumphant party. Scotland and Ireland united themselves

with England to overwhelm him with the proofs of his arbitrary

rule. For nothing less than this league of three nations against

the imprisoned minister could satisfy the feeling of hatred and

apprehension among the people.

The House of Commons was henceforth master of the Government;

commissioners taken from its midst alone had the right of

administering the supplies which it voted, and the loans which it

decreed in its own name. Political reforms, important and

radical, succeeded each other almost without discussion, upon a

simple exposition of grievances. The courts of exception were all

abolished, and triennial Parliaments were voted. If the king

failed in this duty, twelve peers of the kingdom assembled at

Westminster were empowered to summon the Houses without his

concurrence.

{62}

Parliament could not be dissolved or adjourned without the

approbation of the two Houses, at least for fifty years after its

assembling. The king accepted the bill with ill-humor; but he

attempted no resistance. He hoped, and he had some reason for

hoping, for divisions among his enemies.

There was agreement upon political questions. Hampden, Pym,

Hollis, Stapleton, moderate leaders of the Commons, were followed

by Cromwell and Henry Martin, more violent, but as yet obscure.

The divergences of feeling were made manifest when religious

ground was touched. The question of the episcopacy, passionately

attacked by the numerous Presbyterians in the House, was not yet

resolved upon, and among the nation opinions were as various and

conflicting as in the House. The friends of the king advised him

to attach himself to the more moderate of the political chiefs,

and to take advantage of the religious discussions which occupied

the party. Secret negotiations were opened up; but, at the same

time, through the intercession of the queen, Charles received

proposals from a number of officers of the army, dissatisfied

with the favor which Parliament manifested towards the Scots.

Various advices, all menacing for the House, were discussed

without any great effect and without any efficacious remedy. The

king listened to all and often accorded his approbation. He even

consented to affix the initial of his name to the petition which

the army was to deposit upon the table of the Houses. The

petition was not presented; but the chiefs of the popular party

were apprised of it. Silently and without breaking off their

negotiations with the king, they resolutely adopted a

determination to unite themselves with the fanatical

Presbyterians, and to ruin Strafford. The trial of the earl

began.

{63}

The Commons of England were the prosecutors, supported by the

commissioners of Scotland and Ireland. Eighty peers were present

as judges. The bishops, yielding to the desire of the Commons,

excused themselves against their wish. The king and queen were

there, "in a closed gallery, eager to see all, but concealing,

the one his anguish, the other her curiosity." The crowd of

spectators was immense.

The accused arrived without suffering any insult from the

multitude. "As he passed, his frame prematurely bent slightly by

sickness, but with the proud and brilliant look that had

distinguished his youth, all raised their hats, and he bowed

courteously, looking upon this attitude of the people as of good

augury." He was full of hope and did not doubt the happy issue of

his trial. He was soon undeceived.

For seventeen days he sustained his cause without aid against

thirteen accusers. The most odious impediments embarrassed his

defense; but the earl manifested neither bitterness nor anger. He

simply claimed his right, thanking his judges if they consented

to recognize it, forbearing from complaining of their refusal,

and replying to his enemies that they were provoked to anger by

the delay arising from his skillful resistance. "It is as much my

business, I think, to defend my life, as for any other to attack

it." The Commons trembled with rage, for Strafford was gaining

the ascendancy. The examination into the facts cleared the earl

of the charge of high treason. The text of the law, and the

steadfast ability of the accused had triumphed over all the

obstacles opposed to the defense.

{64}

Sir Arthur Haslerig proposed to declare Strafford guilty by an

act of Parliament, and to condemn him by a bill of attainder.

This proceeding was more violent and arbitrary than the greater

number of the acts with which Strafford was so loudly reproached;

but passion easily blinds even the most sincere. The bill,

resting upon certain notes of Strafford delivered by the son of

Sir Henry Vane, at once obtained a first reading. This time,

Strafford was accused of having advised the king to make use of

the army of Ireland to subjugate England. "Some thought they

sacrificed law to justice, others, justice to necessity."

The regular trial meanwhile continued. Before his counsel began

to speak to the question of right, Strafford summed up his

defense himself with admirable eloquence. "My Lords," he said in

conclusion, "your ancestors have carefully bound with the chains

of our statute law, these terrible accusations of high treason;

do not be ambitious of being more learned in the art of killing

than our fore-fathers. Let us not awaken those sleeping lions to

our destruction, by raking up a few musty records that have lain

by the walls so many ages forgotten or neglected. I have troubled

you, my Lords, longer than I should have done; were it not for

the interest of those pledges that a saint in heaven left me ...

(at these words he stopped, burst into tears, and immediately

raising his head, continued) I would not give myself so much

trouble to defend this body already falling into decay, and

burdened with so many infirmities, that of a truth I have little

pleasure in bearing the burden of it any longer ... (he stopped,

as if in search of an idea): My Lords (he resumed), you will

pardon my infirmity of weeping, I should have added, but am not

able, therefore let it pass. And so, my Lords, even so, with all

tranquillity of mind, I freely submit myself to your judgment,

and whether that judgment be of life or death, _Te Deum

laudamus_."

{65}

Compassion and admiration moved the most implacable enemies of

the earl. Pym, in agitation, sought in vain for the paper upon

which he had written his reply. None gave ear to him, and the

accuser hastened to conclude his speech, vexed and confused by

his involuntary emotion.

It was necessary at all cost to come to an end with an enemy so

able and powerful, even when a prisoner--such was the force of

his courage and eloquence. The second reading of the bill of

attainder was hastened on; the most able and distinguished

lawyers contended against it; the infuriated Commons desired to

prevent the Lords from listening to the advocates of Strafford.

The Lords resisted, and heard the pleadings, but the Lower House

did not present itself, but four days subsequently, on the 21st

of April, 1641, the bill was definitively passed. Fifty-nine

members alone voted against it.

The king was disconsolate and profoundly anxious. He had himself

exposed Strafford to this danger. "Be assured," he wrote to him,

"upon my word as a king, that you shall suffer nothing, either in

your life, or your fortune, or your honor." Negotiations and

conspiracies were tried alternately, or at one and the same time.

Attempts were on foot to pacify the chiefs of the Commons, or to

obtain in the House of Lords a majority in favor of the earl.

Enormous offers were made to the Governor of the Tower, Sir

William Balfour, to allow the prisoner's escape. All collapsed in

the face of official fidelity and popular passion.

{66}

The king at length caused the two Houses to be summoned, and

admitting the faults of the earl, promised that he would never

employ him, even in the humblest office. He declared, however,

that never would any reason, or any threat, make him consent to

his death.

Charles presumed too much upon his courage. He did not yet know

how completely the hatred of the Commons against Strafford was

under the control of courage and ability. Popular violence was

added to Parliamentary prosecutions. The Upper House, to which

the bill of attainder had been carried, was besieged every day by

a furious multitude, crying, "Justice! justice!" The Lords were

insulted and summoned to declare themselves. Pym had for a long

while held in reserve what he knew of the manœuvres of the court

and the officers, to excite the army against Parliament; he

published an account of this matter. Some of the accused persons

fled, and terror spread in the House as well as among the people.

It was decreed that all the ports should be closed, and that all

letters coming from abroad should be opened. In remembrance of

the conspiracy of Guy Fawkes, a rumor was circulated that the

House was undermined, and the people hastened to Parliament to

ascertain or to share its dangers. Meanwhile the two Houses

united themselves by a vow for the defence of the Protestant

religion and the public liberties. It was even attempted to

impose the same pledge upon all citizens. In vain the Lords

struggled against the rising tide; they endeavored to modify the

bill of attainder. This the Commons refused; they were determined

to obtain their complete vengeance. The Upper House yielded.

Thirty-four of the Lords who had been present at the trial

absented themselves; twenty-six voted for the bill, fourteen

against; nothing was now wanting but the acquiescence of the

king.

{67}

Charles still resisted. His affection and his honor were equally

shocked. Hollis, brother-in-law of Strafford, advised the king to

go himself and present to the Houses the petition of the earl,

demanding a respite. He promised to induce his friends in the

House to content themselves with banishment; but the queen beset

him with her apprehensions. She did not like Strafford; she was

terrified by the riots; she wished to fly, to embark, and return

to France. The king listened, troubled and undecided. He convoked

the privy council, then the bishops. Juxon alone advised him to

follow his conscience; all the others persisted that Charles

should sacrifice an individual to a throne; his conscience as a

man to his conscience as a king. The Earl of Essex had said

shortly before, "The king is obliged to conform both in regard to

his person and his conscience to the advice and conscience of

Parliament." His servants were repeating to him under another

form this harsh truth, when Charles received a letter from

Strafford himself. "Sire," wrote the Earl, "after a long and hard

struggle, I have taken the only resolution which becomes me.

Every private interest should give way to the prosperity of your

sacred person and of the commonwealth. In passing this bill I

beseech you to remove the obstacle to a blessed agreement between

you and your subjects. Sir, my consent shall more acquit you

herein to God than all the world can do besides. To a willing man

there is no injury done, and as by God's grace I forgive all the

world with a calmness and meekness of infinite contentment to my

dislodging soul, that in your goodness you would vouchsafe to

cast your gracious regard upon my poor son and his three sisters

less or more, and no otherwise than as their (in present)

unfortunate father may hereafter appear more or less guilty of

this death."

{68}

On the morrow Strafford learnt in his prison that the king had

given his assent to the fatal bill. He did not reply, but raising

his hands toward heaven muttered this passage of the Psalm: "Put

not your trust in princes nor in the sons of men, for in them

there is no salvation."

It was on the 10th of May. On the morrow, the 11th, the Prince of

Wales presented himself before Parliament with a letter from the

king ending with these words: "If he must die it were charity to

reprieve him till Saturday." Without taking heed of this last and

miserable effort of Charles in favor of his great servant, the

House appointed the morrow for the execution.

Strafford issued forth on foot from his prison, outstripping the

guards as though he were marching at the head of his army: He

declined the coach which the Governor of the Tower offered him,

being afraid of the violence of the people. "No, Master

Lieutenant," he said, "I dare look death in the face, and I hope

the people too. I care not how I die, whether by the hand of the

executioner or by the madness and fury of the people. If that may

give them better content it is all one to me." Having arrived

before the window of Laud's prison, he stopped. The old

archbishop, informed on the previous evening of what was about to

happen, stretched out his arms to bless the condemned man; but,

agitated and enfeebled, he swooned and fell. "Farewell, my lord,"

said Strafford, as he went away, "God protect your innocence."

{69}

He knelt upon the scaffold; then, raising himself, he addressed

the immense crowd which surrounded him. "I wish," he said, "to

this kingdom all the prosperity on earth; alive, I have always

done so; dying, it is my only wish. But I implore each of those

who listen to me to consider earnestly, with his hand upon his

heart, whether the beginning of the reformation of a kingdom

should be written in characters of blood. Think of it in

returning to your homes. God forbid that the least drop of my

blood fall upon any of you! But I fear that you are in a bad

way." He knelt again, then shook hands with the friends who

accompanied him. "I have nigh done," he said, "one stroke will

make my wife husbandless, my dear children fatherless, and my

poor servants masterless. But let God be to them all in all." He

prepared himself to receive the fatal blow. "I thank God," he

continued, "I am no more afraid of death, nor daunted with any

discouragement arising from any fears, but do as cheerfully put

off my doublet at this time as ever I did when I went to bed." He

called to the executioner and gave the signal. "God save the

king," exclaimed the executioner, showing the head to the people.

Shouts of triumph answered him; but some were silent, and many

people returned to their houses sad, uneasy, and almost doubting

the justice of the act which they had so ardently desired.

The feeble policy of the king had missed its mark, as a policy of

that kind always does. The death of Strafford had not removed the

obstacle in the way of a reconciliation between the king and his

subjects. In accepting the bill which struck down the most

illustrious of his servants, Charles had at the same time, and

almost without taking heed of the step he was taking, sanctioned

a bill which prohibited any dissolution of Parliament without the

approbation of the two Houses.

{70}

But a mutual understanding, far from being re-established, became

every day less possible between the king and the people. The

power which the Commons had wrested piece by piece from the

sovereign appeared to impel them more and more towards tyranny.

Political reform was accomplished, but religious reform remained

to be effected. Notwithstanding the moral enfeeblement of the

Anglican Church, it retained its position. It was henceforth

against this object that the confused and often antagonistic

efforts of a great number of the chiefs of the Commons and the

people were directed; but on the religious question their union

was not so complete as when they stood on purely political

ground, and the bold innovators were uneasy in the very midst of

their success.

Charles suddenly announced an intention of setting out for

Scotland, where his presence had, he said, become necessary for

the execution of the treaty of peace. At the same time the queen

prepared to make a journey to the Continent. The House took

alarm; they dreaded the passing of the king through the army,

which was being disbanded and was known to be disaffected; they

feared the secret manœuvres of the queen among the absolute

sovereigns. They asked Charles to delay his departure; they

implored the queen to remain in England: both consented. The

disbanding of the army was in vain hurried on by promising the

soldiers the arrears of their pay. Money was borrowed, plate was

melted down to meet this enormous expenditure.

{71}

The operation was not completed when the king at length departed

on the 10th of August. The House adjourned on the 27th. A

committee, at the head of which was Hampden, was sent to Scotland

to remain with the king, in order to watch over the interests of

Parliament.

This measure was prudent and effective. Charles passed through

the English and Scottish armies without daring to stay long; but

his attempts to influence the officers meanwhile engaged the

attention of Lord Holland, who was entrusted with the

disbandment. He wrote on this matter with uneasiness to the Earl

of Essex in London. On arriving in Edinburgh the king accorded to

the Parliament and Church of Scotland all the religious and

political concessions which they demanded. He attended the

Presbyterian worship with a pious gravity which touched the

Scots. He appeared to have regained in favor and confidence that

ancient kingdom of his fathers, which had formerly risen in its

entirety against the tyranny which attempted to interfere with

its faith. The chiefs of the Covenanters themselves were received

with eager good grace. Distrustful people in Scotland, anxious

lookers-on in England, in vain endeavored to penetrate the

mystery of this conduct.

Suddenly it became known that the two most influential of the

great lords in the Scottish Parliament, Hamilton and Argyll, had

left Edinburgh with their friends, and retired into the country

to escape the danger of arrest. The king loudly complained of the

conjectures which were in circulation; Parliament ordered an

inquiry. The proceedings were in secret; the committee declared,

without any particulars, that there was no claim on the side of

the king for any reparation nor ground for any alarm on the part

of the fugitives. The latter resumed their seats in Parliament,

and the public knew nothing of what had happened.

{72}

Nothing was known, but the object of the journey of Charles to

Scotland had failed. He had thought of collecting upon the spot

such proofs of the correspondence of the English malcontents with

the Covenanter chiefs of Scotland that the judges could not help

declaring guilty of high treason those leaders of the Commons who

had caused, by their intrigues, the invasion of their country. He

intended to hurl against them the accusation which Strafford had

not had time to prepare. The hopes of the king were sustained by

his correspondence with a young and impetuous nobleman, the Earl

of Montrose, formerly attached to the Covenant, but who had now

given himself up body and soul to the royal cause. In Scotland

the king had found Montrose in prison, suspected by Argyll; but

the prison bolts were drawn now and then. Montrose had come by

night to see Charles; he had inspired him with some uneasiness

concerning Hamilton and Argyll, asserting that their papers would

furnish the proofs which the king sought. The arrest of the two

noblemen was agreed upon, when the latter frustrated the scheme

by publicly quitting Parliament and the city. Far from ridding

himself of them, Charles was compelled to load his enemies with

favors: Hamilton was made a duke, Argyll a marquis, Lesley, the

general of the Scottish troops, became Earl of Leven. But these

indications did not deceive Hampden; he knew all, and informed

his London friends of the fact. The period of adjournment of the

Houses was drawing to an end.

{73}

Great was the terror among the Parliamentary leaders when the

proof was forthcoming of the vindictive rancor of the king. They

consulted with uneasiness upon the conduct to be observed. The

Scottish Parliament had wisely suppressed the affair. The English

Parliament could not make use of it to agitate the people.

Ireland undertook this task.

On the 1st of November, 1641, it was suddenly learned that an

immense insurrection had broken out in Ireland, threatening the

most imminent danger to the Protestant religion and the

Protestants of the country. The Catholics had everywhere risen,

chiefs and people, claiming the liberty of their faith, vaunting

the name of the queen and even of the king, setting up a

commission signed, it was said, by the latter, and announcing the

design of delivering Ireland and the throne from the tyranny of

the English Puritans. On the very eve of the day on which the

conspiracy was to break out it was accidentally discovered and

quelled in Dublin. Throughout the country it had met with no

obstacle. Murders, fires, horrible and nameless crimes, it is

said, were rife throughout Ireland. Everywhere Protestants were

massacred without resistance. The Government, disarmed by

Strafford and the crown, was powerless before a half-savage

people eager to avenge in one day centuries of outrage and

misfortune. The Earl of Leicester, nominated viceroy in place of

Strafford, had not yet arrived. To oppose so terrible a storm the

English Government had in Ireland only two judges of no ability,

of no credit, whose Presbyterian zeal alone had caused them to be

invested with that difficult employment.

{74}

England uttered a prolonged cry of terror and rage; every

Protestant considered himself attacked in common with his

brothers of Ireland. The king, who was a stranger to the

insurrection, hastened to communicate to Parliament the news

which had reached him in Scotland, placing the affair in the

hands of the Commons and entrusting them with the repression,

partly to rid himself of all complicity, partly to avoid in the

eyes of his Catholic subjects, whom he had not encouraged, but

whom he was in no hurry to restrain, the responsibility for the

severities to which they might be compelled to submit.

The leaders of the Commons were not much more eager than the king

to stamp out the Irish insurrection. It furnished them with the

popular agitation and general uneasiness of which they stood in

need in order to continue their work. They eagerly took

possession of the power which the king offered them; but their

efforts against the Irish insurgents were more ostentatious than

sincere, and more noisy than efficacious. The Protestants of

Ireland were left in the hands of their enemies. All speeches and

acts were directed towards England; the moment for striking the

great blow had come.

Shortly after the opening of Parliament, in the month of

November, 1640, a committee was chosen to prepare, with an

exposition of grievances, a solemn remonstrance to the king; but

political reforms had been so rapid, and the king had so

completely given way before the growing power of Parliament, that

the majority of the grievances had in reality disappeared, when,

on the morrow of the insurrection of Ireland, amidst the popular

excitement, the committee received orders to resume and complete

its work without delay.

{75}

The remonstrance but lately intended for the king became a sombre

exposition addressed to the people, retracing all the past evils,

and all those which yet subsisted, the wrong-doings of the king,

the virtues of Parliament, and the dangers which faith and

liberty incurred as long as the nation should not be unreservedly

devoted to the House of Commons, which was alone capable of

saving them from Popery, the bishops, and the king.

So much violence, without fresh pretexts, or any direct or

apparent aim, raised numerous murmurs. The ever-growing

pretensions of Parliament began to create, even in its midst, a

party of resistance, favorable, in a certain measure, to the

threatened royal power. The popular chiefs endeavored to quiet

the distrust and exasperation, asserting that they only wished to

intimidate the court and to thwart its intrigues, and that the

remonstrance being once adopted it would not be promulgated. They

asked for the vote towards the end of a sitting, at the moment

when the House, being fatigued, was thinking of separating. Lord

Falkland, Hyde, Colepepper--the friends of the king, as they were

called--demanded that there should be a postponement until the

morrow. "Why," said Cromwell to Falkland, "do you so greatly

desire this delay?" "Because it is too late to-day, and because

there will certainly be a debate." "A light debate," replied

Cromwell impassively. The discussion began on the morrow; sides

were taken. For the first time two national parties were at

contention. It was no longer the court and the country; the good

citizens were divided; both sides found support in public

interests and opinions. There were discussions; there was

vehement speaking. Hour after hour passed by; the sitting had

opened at three o'clock; it was midnight.

{76}

The delicate or ailing members, and the old men had all retired.

"This," said Sir Benjamin Rudyard, "will be the verdict of a

famished jury." When the vote was taken, a hundred and fifty-nine

members adopted the remonstrance, against a hundred and

forty-eight who voted against it.

The result had scarcely been announced when Hampden rose and

demanded that the remonstrance should be printed. "We said so,"

it was exclaimed on the other side, "you wish to take from the

Lords their legitimate share of authority; you desire to walk

alone and arouse the people to insurrection." "I protest, I

protest," exclaimed Mr. Palmer, and his friends followed his

example. Protests were usual in the House of Lords; they were not

in the Commons. Indignation was felt at this new proceeding, and

the disturbance increased; several members had already placed

their hands upon their swords. Hampden addressed the House,

deploring the sad disorder, and proposing to adjourn the

discussion to the morrow. This was agreed to. "Well," said Lord

Falkland to Cromwell, on leaving, "has it been debated?" "I will

take your word another time," replied Cromwell, and he added in a

lower tone: "If the remonstrance had been rejected, I would have

sold all I have the next morning, and never would have seen

England more, and I know there are many honest men of the same

resolution." The printing of the remonstrance was voted on the

morrow without any disturbance, almost without discussion, by a

majority of twenty-three. The return of the king, to whom it was

first to be presented, was the only event waited for in order to

publish it.

{77}

He arrived, and was magnificently received by the city of London,

the new lord mayor, Richard Gourney, being devoted to him.

Already confident in the movement which manifested itself in his

favor, he allowed his new hopes to be revealed at the first

moment, by withdrawing from the Commons the guard which the Earl

of Essex had given to them for their safety in his absence.

The remonstrance was immediately presented to Charles; he

listened patiently to the reading of it. "Does the House intend

to publish this declaration?" he asked. "We are not authorized to

answer the questions of your Majesty." "Well, I suppose you do

not either expect my reply at once; I will send it to you as soon

as the importance of the affair will allow." The leaders of the

Commons did not wait for the royal reply before proposing to the

Houses what were no longer reforms, but innovations. A bill

relating to the pressing of soldiers, another to the militia, a

third excluding the clergy, of whatever grade they might be, from

all civil offices, were presented and adopted in a few days by

the Lower House. The remonstrance was published on the 14th of

December. Popular ardor, from day to day more impassioned,

corresponded with the new attitude of the leaders of the

opposition. The aspect of affairs was undergoing a change; to the

unanimous movement of the nation succeeded the strife of parties;

to reform, revolution. Parliament asked to have its guard back

again; but the multitude which thronged around Westminster, the

committees formed in all places for the defence of liberty and

the faith, represented a militia more formidable than all the

soldiers, all busy in proclaiming with loud voice the common

danger.

{78}

The king did not stand alone before this bold and persevering

effort of the popular reformers. Among the most esteemed members

of the House of Commons who had fought against tyranny, a certain

number, and these of the best, were brought back to the crown by

the dread of innovations and excesses. Charles resolved to secure

the attachment of the chiefs of this growing royalist party--Mr.

Hyde, Sir John Colepepper, and Lord Falkland. The latter did not

please him; he had little esteem for the king, and a great effort

of his friends was necessary in order to induce him to enter

publicly into his service. He allowed himself to be overcome by

the solicitations of Charles himself, constrained by necessity;

but when he accepted the office of secretary of state, it was

with a profound sense of discouragement and as a victim to a

devotion without affection and without hope. These three friends

undertook the difficult task of directing the affairs of the king

in the House, and the former promised to attempt nothing without

their advice.

Charles could no more keep his word with his friends than with

his enemies. He drew courage from the adhesion of the gentlemen

attached by tradition to the throne, who arrived with clamor from

their counties to offer to the king their service. Every day

struggles took place in the streets, and particularly around

Westminster, between the partisans of the king--the "cavaliers"

as they were called, and the "roundheads," a name which the

cavaliers themselves gave to the citizens, on account of the

contrast which the short hair of the Puritans presented to the

long ringlets of the gentlemen. The bill for the exclusion of the

bishops, still in suspension in the Upper House, was the special

cause of outbreaks.

{79}

The bishops every day ran the risk of their lives in going and

taking their seats, and they were obliged in order to leave

Westminster, to hide themselves in the carriages of some popular

noblemen. The House of Commons did not reply to the complaints of

the Lords against the disturbance excited at its doors: "We need

all our friends," said the leaders; "God forbid that we should

prevent the people obtaining thereby that which they are right in

desiring." At the same time the Commons decreed that as the king

persisted in refusing their guard, each of the members was

entitled to bring an armed servant and to keep him at the door.

Blood was shed incessantly around Westminster Palace.

The bishops adopted their course, a strange and frivolous one in

so grave a situation; they resolved to absent themselves, while

protesting by anticipation against all bills which might be

adopted during their retirement, as not being invested with the

necessary assent of all the members of Parliament. This

declaration, signed by twelve bishops, being communicated to the

king, was approved by him; he seized it as a pretext which might

one day permit him to annul the acts of the indomitable

Parliament against which he was struggling without success. He

did not speak of the matter to his new councillors; but, on the

same day, the keeper of the great seal carried, by his orders,

the protest of the bishops to the Upper House, who sent it

immediately to the Commons.

{80}

The surprise of the Lords and the anger of the Commons were

great, and the popular leaders immediately contrived to find

therein a new weapon. The impeachment of the bishops was suddenly

proposed and resolved upon; they had designed to determine the

fate of Parliament itself, and to destroy it by separating

themselves from its debates; they were conducted to the Tower,

upon the vote of the Upper House, which received the indictment

of the Commons. The point was urged further. The king had taken

the government of the Tower from Sir William Balfour, to entrust

it to a cavalier. Sir Thomas Lunsford, a man little esteemed and

very violent. The nomination of a new governor was demanded. Lord

Digby, formerly animated with a patriotic zeal but now become the

most intimate confidant of the king, was denounced for having

said that Parliament was not free. The Commons again claimed

their right to have a guard.

Charles did not lose his temper at so many proofs of growing

distrust; he nominated as governor of the Tower, Sir John Byron,

a man esteemed by all, and he replied to the inquiries of the

House: "We do engage to you solemnly on the word of a king, that

the security of all and every one of you from violence is and

ever shall be with as much our care as the preservation of

ourselves and our children," but he refused the guard. The House

caused the militia of London to be mustered, and bodies of troops

were placed in different parts of the city.

The instinct of the popular leaders had not deceived them

concerning the apparent moderation of the king. On the same day,

the 3rd of January, 1642, Sir Edward Herbert, the

attorney-general of the crown, appeared in the House of Lords,

and there, in the name of the king, charged with high treason,

Lord Kimbolton and Messrs. Hampden, Pym, Hollis, Strode, and

Haslerig, all five members of the House of Commons, for having

attempted to destroy the fundamental laws of the kingdom, to

deprive the king of his legal power, and to provoke war against

him. Such was the substance of the accusations unfolded at

length. Sir Edward Herbert demanded at the same time that the

House should secure the accused.

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Lord Kimbolton rose. "I am ready," he said, "to obey all the

orders of the House; but, since my accusation is public, I demand

that my justification may be public also." Silence reigned in the

Hall, nobody spoke. Lord Digby leaned towards Lord Kimbolton.

"How deplorably," he said, "the king is advised. I shall be very

unfortunate if I do not learn whence this comes." He left as if

to hasten after news. The advice had emanated from him.

A message from the Lords immediately warned the Commons. The

servants of the five accused members hastened at the same time to

give notice that the king's men were affixing seals to the locks

at their residences. While the Lower House was asking for

conference with the Lords, a herald at arms entered the Hall. "In

the name of the king, my master," he said, "I come to request the

speaker to consign into my hands the five gentlemen, members of

the House, whom his Majesty has commanded me to arrest for high

treason." None stirred, the accused members remained in their

places. The speaker enjoined the herald to withdraw, and a

committee nominated without opposition repaired to the palace of

the king to say that to so grave a message the House could only

reply after mature examination. Two ministers. Lord Falkland and

Sir John Colepepper, formed part of the deputation. They had

known nothing of the projects of the king. The Lords joined with

the Commons in demanding a guard for Parliament. "I will reply

to-morrow," the king said in his turn.

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On the morrow, the House opened its sitting at one o'clock. The

five members arrived among the first; they preserved silence,

being fully informed of what was being prepared; they were

surrounded; they were questioned. The agitation was at its height

when there was a rush to announce that the king, accompanied by a

retinue of four hundred cavaliers, all armed, had arrived at the

House, and that he was coming in person to arrest the accused.

The House at once urged the five members to withdraw. Pym,

Hollis, Hampden, Haslerig went out immediately; it was found

necessary to thrust Mr. Strode outside by the shoulders. The

House was seated and silent. The king approached, accompanied

only by his nephew, the Prince Palatine; he entered the hall; all

the members rose, bareheaded. The king cast a rapid glance around

him; the seats of the five members were empty. "Mr. Speaker," he

said, "with your permission, I will borrow your chair for a

moment. Gentlemen, I am sorry for this occasion of coming to you.

... I expected from you obedience and not a message. ... I come

to see whether any of the accused are here; as long as they shall

sit in this house, I cannot hope that it will return into the

good path which I sincerely desire it to be in. ... Mr. Speaker,

where are they?" The speaker fell upon his knees. "Under the good

pleasure of your Majesty, I have not here either eyes to see or

tongue to speak except so much as the House, of which I am the

servant, chooses to command me; I humbly implore your Majesty to

forgive me." "Well, since I see that the birds have flown," said

the king, "I expect that you will send them to me as soon as they

return. But I assure you, on the word of a king, I never did

intend any force, but shall proceed against them in a fair and

legal way.

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I do not wish to disturb you any longer. I repeat to you, I

expect you to send them to me as soon as they shall re-enter the

Hall, otherwise I will take means to find them." He left. The

House had remained motionless. Cries of "Privilege! privilege!"

emanated from some corners of the Hall; then an adjournment until

the morrow took place. All the members were eager to know what

was being done and said without.

The people were as much agitated as the House, and the cavaliers

as energetic as their master. The projected political manœuvre

had been the object of their most ardent and haughty wishes; the

check they experienced was bitter. The king persisted in his

design, but without knowing how to accomplish it. The five

members had retired to the city, where the citizens had

spontaneously taken to arms. Charles resolved to proceed on the

morrow to claim the accused men at the hands of the common

council.

The mob thronged upon his passage with grave, sombre looks. Some

voices resounded with the threatening cry of "Privilege!

privilege!" The whole nation adopted as their own grievance the

violated privileges of the Commons. The language of the king

towards the common council was mild and conciliatory. He promised

to act in all things according to the law, but he claimed the

five members, and he did not obtain them. The aldermen of the

city looked as grave as the multitude which encumbered the

streets. The king returned to his palace foiled and angry.

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The House adjourned for six days, declaring that after the attack

upon its privileges, it could not sit in safety without a guard.

But a committee had been established in the city, close to the

house inhabited by the five accused members. The latter were

consulted upon all the resolutions, and they even came several

times and sat with the committee, which was open to all the

members of the House. Popular anger increased from hour to hour,

and its alliance with the House became closer. The adjournment of

Parliament was about to expire. The king learnt that the five

members were to be brought back in triumph to Westminster by the

trainbands and the people. He could not endure to see his enemies

pass in front of his palace. The queen had for a long time

implored him to go away. The nobility of the counties promised

aid and security. Away from this city of London, delivered from

the roundheads, far from Parliament, the king would be free, and

what could Parliament do without the king? It was resolved to go

at first to Hampton Court; but orders were given to secure a more

remote refuge in case of need. The Earl of Newcastle, faithfully

attached to the king, set out for the north, where his influence

was predominant, on the 10th of January. On the eve of the

reassembling of the Commons, Charles, accompanied only by his

wife, his children, and a few servants, quitted London and that

palace of Whitehall which he was never to see again, except on

his way to the scaffold.

It was time for the king to fly from London if he wished to avoid

the triumph of Parliament. On the 11th of January, the Thames was

covered with boats armed for war, bringing back to Westminster

the five members. A fleet of vessels, adorned with flags,

followed them. Along the shore marched the soldiery of London,

bearing at the end of their pikes the last declaration of

Parliament.

[Image]

Queen Henrietta Maria.

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The Commons were sitting at Westminster, awaiting their

colleagues, and as soon as the five members had entered the Hall,

the sheriffs were introduced, the House wishing to address its

thanks to the City. The gates of Westminster were besieged by an

enthusiastic and triumphant crowd; in its midst were a retinue of

four thousand gentlemen or freeholders of Buckinghamshire, all on

horseback, bringing a petition to Parliament against the Papist

lords and bad advisers of the crown. They bore inscribed upon

their hats a vow to live and die with Parliament. The breeze of

popular favor favored every sail. The leaders of the Commons

contrived to take advantage of it. It was voted, in a few hours,

that no member could be arrested without the authorization of the

House, that Parliament should be free to sojourn wherever it

should think proper. Skippon, the commander of the soldiery of

London, was entrusted to watch the approaches to the Tower, still

governed by Sir John Byron, whose dismissal was demanded by the

House. The governor of Portsmouth was forbidden to receive into

his town troops or supplies without the order of Parliament. Sir

John Hotham was sent to Hull, an important town and the real key

to England in the north. It was declared that the kingdom was

threatened and that it should be placed in a state of defence.

The Lords refused to consent to this vote, but the Commons had

attained their object; the people had been apprised of the

danger.

{86}

The king was warned as well as the people, and he knew that his

project of waging war would not take his enemies unawares. Away

from London, where at every moment he had suffered humiliations

and defeats, he no longer came into contact with any but his

servants, faithful, and often confident of success. With the

influence which they enjoyed in their counties his cavaliers

found once more their joyful arrogance and valiant ardor. On all

sides Charles was urged to declare war, and small isolated

enterprises formed a prelude to hostilities. Two hundred

cavaliers, commanded by Lunsford, had already repaired to

Kingston, near London, the depot of the warehouses of the county;

but Parliament adopted its measures, and Lunsford, with his

cavaliers, proceeded towards Windsor, whither the king had

transported himself. He did not reckon upon staying there long;

the queen was secretly preparing to depart, carrying off the

crown jewels, in order to make purchases of arms and supplies in

Holland. Under the pretext of conducting to the Prince of Orange,

the little Princess Henrietta Maria, whom he had married six

months before, she was also to negotiate with the sovereigns of

the Continent, from whom assistance might be hoped for. It was at

York that the king reckoned upon establishing his quarters while

awaiting succor. In order to veil his designs, he invited the

Houses to make a summary of their grievances, promising to set

them right immediately and thus put an end to their discussions.

The Upper House received the message with joy. Even among the

popular lords, many were afraid of the struggle which was only at

its beginning, and which they wished to see ended. They

immediately proposed for the assent of the Commons some hasty

thanks to the king; but the Lower House had no confidence in

royal promises; it demanded that the king should first consent to

consign the command of the Tower, the strongholds, and the

soldiery to men enjoying the confidence of Parliament.

{87}

The Lords rejected this amendment, but thirty-two votes among

them had supported it, and the Commons presented their petition

alone. As regards the Tower and the fortresses, the king

absolutely refused; as regarded the soldiery, his reply was

evasive and vague; he wished to gain time.

The Commons, however, knew that they had no time to lose, and the

leaders excited among the people a new and keen emotion. They

were easily aroused to insurrection; from all counties, from all

classes, merchants, artisans, and even women, came numberless

petitions, demanding reform of the Church, the punishment of

Papists, the repression of malevolents. The multitude stopped at

the gate of Westminster. "The Upper House impedes everything," it

was said. "We have never doubted the House of Commons," cried the

workmen; "but let them give us the names of those who prevent

harmony between the good Lords and Commons, and we will see to

it." Fear began to overcome the timid; the popular Lords more and

more took up the cause of the Lower House. "Whoever refuses to

join the Commons in the matter of the soldiery is an enemy of the

state," said the Earl of Northumberland. Some few Lords withdrew,

others altered their minds, and the bill regarding the soldiery,

as well as that for the exclusion of the bishops, was at length

voted by the two Houses. Once more the Commons triumphed.

{88}

Charles now announced to Parliament the approaching departure of

the queen, and, to soften the irritation which he dreaded, he

officially abandoned the prosecution of the five members, and

nominated as governor of the Tower Sir John Conyers, who had been

designated by the Commons; but when the bill for the exclusion of

the bishops was presented to him, he was agitated and perplexed.

His conscience opposed the acceptance. His best advisers, with

the exception of Hyde, urged him to consent to it. The ordinance

respecting the soldiery, which the leaders held in reserve, was

more important in their eyes, for it completely disarmed the

king. He could not refuse everything; the bishops were vanquished

and in prison. ... The king continued to hesitate; the queen

intervened; she did not trouble herself in any way concerning the

bishops, and feared that the House might oppose her departure.

She supplicated, wept, flew into a passion, and, as usual, the

king yielded, sorrowfully, regretfully, but he authorized

commissioners to sign in his name, and set out to accompany his

wife as far as Dover, where she was to embark.

The Commons were of the same opinion as Colepepper, and made a

stand at the question of the soldiery even more than at that of

the bishops. They followed the king with their messages as far as

Dover, and on his return, having insisted upon a prompt sanction

of the ordinance which they sent him, the king replied vaguely,

but ill-humoredly, being exasperated by the persistent distrust

of the Commons, as though his concessions had been sincere. On

arriving at Greenwich, he there found his son, the Prince of

Wales, whom the Marquis of Hertford, his tutor, had brought,

notwithstanding the prohibition of the House. Being reassured as

to the fate of his wife and children, he at length replied to

Parliament, consenting to entrust the soldiery to the commanders

who were designated, except in large towns, but preserving the

right of dismissing them. He thereupon set out for York.

{89}

The Houses received the reply of the king as a formal refusal. At

Theobalds, and at Newark, fresh messages reached him, haughty at

first, then marked by a certain emotion, betraying itself in

spite of the firmness of the language. The king was implored to

return to London, and to come to an understanding with his

people. Upon the brink of an unknown future, dark and troublous,

all hesitated and reciprocally endeavored each to influence the

other. The negotiations came to no issue, and they were carried

on without hope of arriving at any result. Negotiations, however,

continued. It was on behalf of the public, of the whole nation,

rather than of an immediate and present adversary that the

opposition contended. It was in the name of the liberties of old

England, of the traditional rights of the people, invaded by

royal tyranny, that the resistance of Parliament had begun; it

was now in the name of the traditional rights of the crown,

attacked by the innovations of Parliament, that the royalist

party, every day stronger and more ardent, defended their cause.

The ardor of men's minds was immense; the movement universal,

strange, irregular. In London, in York, in all the great towns of

the kingdom, pamphlets, periodicals, irregular journals increased

in numbers, and were circulated in all directions. Amidst this

outburst of views of all parties, and in the face of an appeal of

so novel a kind, to the opinion of the people--even while the

principle of national sovereignty in opposition to the divine

right of kings had taken possession of all minds and was the

foundation of all proceedings--the statutes, traditions, customs,

were incessantly invoked as the only legitimate tests of the

discussion. Revolution was everywhere in progress, though no one

dared to say so, or even avow it to himself.

{90}

The situation became day by day more violent and more strained. A

great number of members of Parliament had left London, many had

joined the king at York. The Houses in their turn entered upon

the path of tyranny. Lord Herbert and Sir Ralph Hopton, having

raised their voices in favor of the king, one was placed in the

Tower, the other censured and threatened; the royalist petitions

were suppressed. Cromwell, as yet not very conspicuous in the

House, but more involved than any other in the plots of the

revolution, brought special ability to bear upon tracing out and

denouncing the royalist conspiracies.

An unexpected incident widened irreparably the abyss which was

opening up between the two parties: the king, on the 23d of

April, asked Sir John Hotham, governor of Hull, to resign the

town to him. Already the Duke of York and the Prince Palatine had

entered it under the pretext of spending a day there. Already the

mayor and some citizens were marching towards the gates, to open

them to his Majesty, who was arriving at the foot of the

ramparts. Hotham ordered them to return to their homes, and he

appeared upon the wall, surrounded by his officers. The king

summoned him to open the gates. Sir John fell upon his knees,

apologizing for his resistance. He had, he said, taken an oath to

Parliament. "Kill him! kill the traitor!" exclaimed the cavaliers

who surrounded the king; "cast him down!" But the officers of Sir

John were more resolute than he. The king was compelled to

withdraw, and on the same day he addressed a message to

Parliament, asking justice for such an offense.

{91}

Parliament approved of the act of its governor in all respects,

saying that the strongholds and arsenals had been formerly

confided to the king for the safety of the kingdom, and that the

same reason might now command the Houses to seize them. This was

a declaration of war. Thirty-two Lords and sixty-five members of

the Commons, Mr. Hyde among others, set out for York. The

Chancellor caused the great seal to be given over to the king,

and made his escape on the morrow. Each party was about to make

the last effort for sustaining the struggle. None foresaw how far

it was to go, nor what misfortunes and crimes were to signalize

the civil war which was now about to commence.

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