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1. In the original printed edition of this work the chapters are not
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3. Illustrations, in the form of maps and genealogical tables, are
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4. To enable readability on electronic devices, the complex diagram
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KING AND COMMONWEALTH
KING AND COMMONWEALTH
A HISTORY
OF
CHARLES I. AND THE GREAT REBELLION
BY
B. MERITON CORDERY
AND
J. SURTEES PHILLPOTTS
HEAD MASTER OF BEDFORD SCHOOL
FORMERLY FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD
Nothing extenuate
Nor set down aught in malice
PHILADELPHIA
JOS. H. COATES AND CO.
1876
PREFACE.
The aim in writing this short history has been to give within a
moderate compass a lively idea of the feelings and motives at work in
what was perhaps the most important epoch of our national history. With
this aim it seemed best to treat the main events with all that fulness
of detail, which assists the imagination in realizing the past, and to
omit such minor actions as seemed not essential to the understanding
of the main facts. The same rule has been followed in dealing with
the military history. For this, personal visits have been made to the
battle-fields, and some rough sketches of the ground have been added.
No constitutional question has been touched without a preliminary
attempt to put the growth and forms of the Constitution before the
reader in such a manner as to encourage him to form a judgment for
himself.
In a joint work it is difficult to define exactly the part taken by
each writer, but my own share in the book may be described rather as
that of editor than author; it has, in fact, been mainly confined
to matters of style and arrangement, with criticisms on events and
on constitutional questions. My coadjutor, who kindly undertook the
subject at my suggestion, wrote the first draft of the whole book, and
is not only responsible for the accuracy of the facts, but deserves all
the credit of research into original documents at the British Museum
and Bodleian libraries.
While for facts our endeavour has always been to go to contemporary
records, yet it is impossible that any one can write on this period
without feeling more obligation to the labours of Mr. Forster than can
be adequately expressed in foot-notes. Acknowledgement is also due for
many suggestive ideas not only to Hallam and other writers on the time,
but to Mr. Freeman for the light he has thrown on the early history of
the English constitution, and to Mr. Bagehot for his vivid description
of its practical working at the present time.
I cannot conclude without expressing our thanks to Mr. R. W. Taylor for
some corrections in the proof, to the Rev. C. E. Moberly for revising
the earlier chapters, and above all to the Bishop of Exeter, whose
occasional hints have given the kind of help that can only be given by
one who has not only an accurate knowledge of the facts, but a thorough
grasp of the constitutional questions at issue.
J. SURTEES PHILLPOTTS.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. CONSTITUTIONAL INTRODUCTION.--GOVERNMENTS
OF ELIZABETH AND JAMES I. 1
II. CHARLES’ FIRST PARLIAMENTS.--IMPEACHMENT OF
BUCKINGHAM.--PETITION OF RIGHT (1625-1629) 29
III. ELEVEN YEARS OF ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT (1629-1640) 51
IV. MEETING OF LONG PARLIAMENT AND TRIAL OF
STRAFFORD (1640-1641) 82
V. GRAND REMONSTRANCE.--IMPEACHMENT OF FIVE
MEMBERS (1641-1642) 99
VI. FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR.--BATTLES OF EDGEHILL
AND NEWBURY (1642-1643) 123
VII. RISE OF INDEPENDENTS.--BATTLE OF MARSTON
MOOR.--SELF-DENYING ORDINANCE (1643-1645) 148
VIII. NASEBY.--END OF WAR (1645-1646) 179
IX. PRESBYTERIANS, INDEPENDENTS, ERASTIANS, AND
THEIR THEORIES 199
X. TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY OVER PARLIAMENT.--DEATH
OF THE KING (1647-1649) 212
XI. SOCIAL STATE OF ENGLAND 248
XII. TRIUMPHS OF THE COMMONWEALTH BY LAND AND
SEA (1649-1652) 277
XIII. FALL OF REPUBLICANS, AND BAREBONE’S PARLIAMENT
(1651-1653) 303
XIV. THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF THE PROTECTORATE
(1654-1656) 328
XV. THE LAST TWO YEARS OF THE PROTECTORATE
(1656-1658) 347
XVI. RICHARD CROMWELL.--ANARCHY.--THE RESTORATION
(1658-1660) 367
APPENDIX 386
INDEX 394
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Governmental structure x
Genealogy, monarchs of England and Scotland Chapter I.,
Footnote 9.
Genealogy, monarchs of Europe Chapter I.,
Footnote 14.
Map of Rochelle area 46
Battle of Edgehill, 23^{rd} Oct. 1642 126
Battles of Newbury, 20^{th} Sept. 1643 & 27^{th} Oct. 1644 145
Battle of Marston Moor, 2^{nd} July 1644 164
Map of Lostwithiel area 169
Battle of Naseby, 14^{th} June 1645 185
Map of Lancashire 229
Battle of Dunbar, 3^{rd} Sept. 1650 289
Battle of Worcester, 3^{rd} Sept. 1651 294
GOVERNMENT.
|
+--------------------+-------------------------+
| | |
Legislative, Executive, Judicial, deciding what
framing laws executing laws law is, and whether it
| | is broken or not.
| | |
| | +-------+-------+
| | | |
| | Civil Ecclesiastical
| | Courts Courts
| | | |
+-----+---+ +-----+---+ +---+----+ +--+----+
| | | | | | | |
Legal Arbitrary Legal Arbitrary Legal Arbitrary Legal Arbitrary
Legislative,
framing laws
|
+-------------------+-----------------------------------+
| |
Legal Arbitrary
| |
+-------+-----------+---------+------------+-----------+ |
| | | | | | |
| | | freeholders freeholders inhabitants |
| | | holding by holding by of certain |
| | | free socage, feudal towns |
| | | who elect service, elect |
| | | | who elect | |
| | | | | | |
| | | +-----+-----+ | |
| | about 120 | | |
| 26 bishops peers about 100 about |
| and sitting by knights of 400 |
| archbishops hereditary shires burgesses |
| | right | | |
| | | | | |
| +---------+-+ +----+-------------+ |
| | | |
King House of Lords House of Commons King who
\ | / by prerogative
\ | / |
+--------------+-------------------+ |
| +------+
Parliament |
| |
+----------+----------+ +---------+-------+
| | | |
makes grants makes raises loans,
laws subsidies and proclamations ship-money,
customs in council grants
monopolies
Executive,
executing laws
|
+-------------------+----------------------+
| |
Legal Arbitrary
| |
King who in King who by
the eye of prerogative
the law can |
‘do no wrong’ |
| |
makes treaties, declares war, arrests by personal mandate,
but has no standing army, and imprisons without habeas
has no money without Parliament; corpus, billets soldiers
|
|
+-------+------------------+----------------+
| | |
secretaries and appoints sheriffs
councillors appointed lords-lieutenant, enforce
and removed by king, but and officers of decisions
in the eye of the law militia by sea of judges
‘responsible;’ carrying and land
out laws and collecting
revenue through their
agents
Judicial, deciding what
law is, and whether it
is broken or not.
|
+------------+-------------------------+
| |
| Ecclesiastical
Civil Courts Courts. No
| trial by jury
| |
+---------------------+ +-----+-----+
| | | |
Legal Arbitrary Legal Arbitrary
| No trial | |
| by jury | |
| | | |
+-----------+------+ | | |
| | | | |
Equity Common law. | | |
| Trial by jury | | |
| | | | |
| +-----+ +---+ | |
| | | | |
Court of +--King’s +--Council Courts of High
Chancery; | Bench | Board bishops Commission;
lord chancellor | (Note A) | (Note B) who were judges
appointed | | appointed appointed
by king +--Common +--Star by king by king
| Pleas | Chamber
| (Note A) | (Note C)
| |
+--Exchequer +--Council
(Note A) of North
(Note D)
Notes
(A) Judges appointed and removed by king, but by their oaths bound to
give judgment according to the laws, and to do equal law and execution
of right, without having regard to any person
(B) Councillors appointed and removed by king; use of torture
(C) Judges, councillors, and others appointed by king
(D) President appointed by king
KING AND COMMONWEALTH.
CHAPTER I.
CONSTITUTIONAL INTRODUCTION.--GOVERNMENTS OF ELIZABETH AND JAMES I.
No people ever was and remained free, but because it was determined
to be so; because neither its rulers nor any other party in the
nation could compel it to be otherwise. If a people--especially
one whose freedom has not yet become prescriptive--does not value
it sufficiently to fight for it and maintain it against any force
which can be mustered within the country, it is only a question
in how few years or months that people will be enslaved.--MILL,
DISSERTATIONS AND DISCUSSIONS.
♦Three functions of government, I. Legislative, II. Executive, III.
Judicial.♦ A people, to be free, must take part in, or possess control
over, the three powers of government, Legislative, Executive, Judicial.
As to the first, if they are to be masters of their persons and
properties, neither laws must be made nor taxes imposed without their
consent; secondly, ministers of the executive, whether councillors of
state, tax-collectors, military or police officers, must be personally
responsible to the law courts, or they may infringe with impunity the
laws the people have secured; lastly, though persons and properties be
protected by laws, and though ministers be liable to prosecution, this
protection is nominal only, unless the judges who interpret the laws,
are sufficiently independent of the executive.
%CONSTITUTION--I. LEGISLATURE.%
♦I. Legislative. Liberties of Englishmen in 16th and 17th centuries.♦
I. Englishmen of the seventeenth century shared in the legislative
power with the sovereign, who could make no laws without consent of
the two Houses of Parliament. Their properties were protected from
arbitrary seizure, their persons from arbitrary imprisonment, by
two statutes, the Magna Charta, first granted by King John, and the
Confirmatio Chartarum, first granted by Edward I. These together
provide, first, that no person shall be put in prison without legal
warrant, or kept there without being brought to trial according to the
laws of the land; that is, that the question of law shall be decided
by the established judge of the law; secondly, that the question of
fact, whether a man accused at the suit of the crown, has, or has not,
committed the crime laid to his charge, shall be decided by a jury of
twelve of his countrymen; and lastly, that no taxes of any sort shall
be imposed without consent of Parliament.
%REPRESENTATION IN PARLIAMENT.%
♦Classes represented in Parliament.♦ Several classes of the nation
shared indirectly in the government by being represented in Parliament.
In the Upper House sat the temporal and spiritual lords of the realm
in their own right. To the Lower House all the fifty-two counties of
England and Wales, with the exception of Durham, returned two members
each, elected by freeholders possessed of lands or tenements to the
annual value of 40s.[1]
♦Freeholders including feudal tenants and yeomen.♦ The term freeholder
included two classes, holders of land by knight’s service, and holders
of land by free socage.[2] The first class was composed of feudal
tenants, gentlemen by birth, who had originally held land in return for
military service, and whose tenure was still subject to several irksome
burdens. The second class was composed of yeomen, men of ignoble blood,
but with a tenure dating from feudal times. The Normans of the conquest
would have thought it beneath them to hold land by any other than a
military tenure. But in many cases they permitted the despised Saxons
to remain in possession of their lands, sometimes on condition of
performing agricultural services which soon took the form of a fixed
annual rent; sometimes on condition merely of taking an oath of fealty
and paying occasional fines. Thus in England there sprang up in quite
early times an independent class who were owners of the soil, and
though not of gentle birth, sat on juries, voted at county elections,
and attended the courts in which freeholders met together to transact
the business of their county.
♦Burgesses.♦ Besides county representatives, the House of Commons
contained over four hundred members, returned according to usage by
certain privileged towns. These were the classes possessed of political
rights. Below these were the whole mass of the unenfranchised--hired
labourers, tenants at will, and copyholders.[3]
♦Copyholders and hired labourers unrepresented.♦ These were the
descendants of those Saxons whom the Normans had reduced to a state of
serfdom; and, unlike freeholders, were incapable either of sitting on
juries or voting at elections. For the last hundred years, however,
they had nearly all been free, and were protected in person and
property by the same laws as freeholders.
All classes being thus possessed of the same liberties, their common
freedom gave them common interests, and caused them to unite in spite
of social distinctions, and oppose the establishment of arbitrary
government.
♦No privileged class.♦ In France the political condition of the people
was inferior to that of the English, and this mainly from want of
union and fellow-feeling between the different ranks into which French
society was divided. There was no class answering to the English
yeomanry; the feudal tenants were a noble and privileged class, and
were divided by this barrier of privilege from their unfortunate
inferiors in rank, on whom the main burden of direct taxation fell; as
the inequalities of taxation increased, the different classes became
more and more isolated, and thus the kings, never meeting with combined
resistance from the whole body of their subjects, came by degrees to
usurp absolute power, to impose taxes at will, and to govern without
the aid of any national assembly.
%CONSTITUTION--II. EXECUTIVE.%
♦II. Executive Power now exercised by a committee of the legislature.♦
II. A people are little benefited by the possession of good laws,
unless those laws are respected and obeyed by those who are entrusted
with the execution of them. The executive power was then, as now,
exercised by ministers of the crown. But in the course of two centuries
the position of these ministers has been totally changed. The queen’s
ministers are now in such close harmony with the Parliament, that they
have been defined as a committee of the legislature.[4] Chosen out of
the predominant party in Parliament, they conduct the government only
so long as they can command a majority of votes in the Lower House. If
their measures are outvoted, they have no choice but to resign office,
or by obtaining a dissolution, to appeal to a new Parliament for
renewal of the support which is their only claim to power.
%SAFEGUARDS--DANGER OF ABUSE.%
♦Executive in 16th century exercised by the crown.♦ In the sixteenth
century, on the contrary, the executive power lay entirely in the hands
of the king, who settled all questions of administration, made peace
and war, appointed and dismissed officers of state, and expended the
revenue, uncontrolled by the representatives of the people. Yet, great
as was the power thus exercised by the crown, two safeguards were
provided against its abuse.
♦Two safeguards. (1) No army in England.♦ The first was negative,
the absence of a standing army in England. In France absolute
power was upheld by an army, recruited in part by foreigners, and
officered solely by nobles; this army the king found no difficulty in
maintaining, as he imposed taxes at pleasure. No such right, however,
belonged to English monarchs, who were without the funds necessary
for the support of a standing army; and it was only by means of a
standing army, possessed with an ‘esprit de corps’ of its own, and
divided in interest from the people, that arbitrary government could be
permanently established. The House of Commons always originated money
bills; they held, therefore, the purse-strings of the nation, and were
careful only to grant supplies sufficient for the ordinary purposes of
government.
♦(2) Responsibility of king’s ministers.♦ The principles of the
constitution contained a second and positive safeguard against the
abuse of the regal power. Great lawyers had long since declared that
the king, his subjects, was bound to respect the laws. “The king,”
Bracton wrote as early as the thirteenth century, “also hath a
superior, namely God, and also the law, by which he was made a king.”
It was not likely, however, that the subject would have either the
power or the desire to arraign sovereigns themselves before courts of
law. A fiction of the lawyers intervened and gave a better means of
securing the same end. This fiction was that the “king could do no
wrong.” From this it followed that if wrong was done, the ministers,
and not the king, must have advised and executed the wrong; ministers
could not screen themselves behind the king’s name; if they broke the
laws in the performance of their functions, though it was at the king’s
bidding, they were still liable to be sued by the injured parties in a
court of justice.
♦Liberties not secure. (1) Illegal powers exercised by crown.♦ Still
these safeguards had not been found sufficient to prevent the executive
from violating the law. In the first place, several powers, sometimes
simply oppressive, sometimes actually illegal, were regarded as
belonging to the crown in right of the royal prerogative. By these
both the subject’s property and liberty were endangered. Thus the
king, though he dared not tax without consent of Parliament, used to
borrow large sums under the name of loans, which were seldom repaid.
Both the king and his council imprisoned without showing legal cause.
Proclamations were made by the King in Council, which, though regarded
as temporary measures only, were in matter of fact laws, and sometimes
had penalties attached to them for disobedience. So again, though
the use of torture was not lawful by the common law, and contrary to
several statutes, State prisoners were constantly put to the rack on
the strength of warrants signed by the king.
In the second place, though the law allowed the subject to seek
redress, the redress was rarely attainable. Few dared to incur the
king’s displeasure by attacking the conduct of his servants, and
if they did, juries were often intimidated,[5] judges were often
corrupt.
♦(2) Judges dependent upon crown.♦ The strength of the chain is
the strength of its weakest point. The weak point of the English
constitution lay in the dependence of the judges upon the crown; unless
the interpreters of the laws were independent, no law could ever
effectually secure the liberties of the people.
♦(3) Arbitrary courts.♦ And in the third place, besides the common
law courts, other courts of justice existed, in which the accused was
neither tried by jury nor sentenced according to known laws.
%CONSTITUTION--III. JUDICATURE.%
♦III. Judicial.♦ Omitting the Court of Chancery, which had no
jurisdiction in political cases, there were then, as now, three
chief courts of justice, the King’s Bench, the Common Pleas, and
the Exchequer, all of which sat at Westminster; four or five judges
belonged to each, who in all cases were bound to give judgment, not
according to their own pleasure, or the will of the king, but according
to the law of the realm, whether statute or common law.[6]
Since the Act of Settlement in 1702 the common law judges hold office
for life, receive salaries fixed by law, and can only be dismissed from
office if convicted of some offence, or in consequence of an address of
the two Houses of Parliament. But in the seventeenth century they only
held office at the pleasure of the king, and being dependent in part
upon his bounty for their salaries, were regarded as the servants of
the court.[7]
%STAR CHAMBER--HIGH COMMISSION.%
But these courts at any rate acknowledged the known laws, and tried
prisoners by jury. Of a very different character was the Court of Star
Chamber, so called because its sittings were held in a room leading
out of Westminster Hall, of which the walls were decorated with stars.
The germ of this court lay in a jurisdiction exercised from the time
of Edward III. by the king’s Common Council, which was accustomed to
call to account offenders too powerful to be brought to submit to the
ordinary courts of law. Then came a second stage. An Act of Parliament
was passed in the reign of Henry VII. (1491), forming a court of
justice, composed of certain members of the council, and entrusted
with powers of judging cases of riots, the bribing of juries, and other
specified offences. This second stage gave a parliamentary sanction to
the court, but limited its powers and specified its persons. It was
out of this chrysalis that the Court of Star Chamber emerged. By the
end of Henry the Eighth’s reign, it had reached its third, or final
stage, in which it boasted parliamentary sanction, at the same time
that it repudiated the conditions under which that sanction had been
given. The limits of persons and of offences had both disappeared.
The powers formerly vested only in the members of the court of Henry
VII. had silently passed into the hands of the whole body of the
Common Council,[8] while its jurisdiction had been extended beyond the
offences specified by the statute to cases of breach of trust, fraud,
and libel.
Besides the Court of Star Chamber, there was a second court, the Court
of High Commission, which deprived the subject of the protection
granted him by the common law, and of trial by jury. After Henry VIII.
quarrelled with Pope Clement VII. about a divorce from Catherine of
Arragon, Parliament passed an Act of Supremacy, declaring the king the
supreme head of the Church. This was re-enacted when Elizabeth came to
the throne (1558), and an addition made to it, granting the queen power
to appoint persons to exercise jurisdiction in ecclesiastical affairs,
as, for instance, in the reformation of heresies and abuses. Elizabeth,
therefore, was acting within her powers when, in 1583, she erected a
permanent commission, consisting of twelve bishops, privy councillors,
and others; but she undoubtedly was straining her power when she
gave this court an authority--not granted her by the statute--to try
suspected persons by juries, _or by any other means they could devise_,
and to punish by fine and imprisonment. Thus, while the Court of Star
Chamber, by judging cases of libel, deprived the subject of liberty
of speech, the Court of High Commission deprived him of liberty of
conscience. Both alike, therefore, soon came to be hated by the people;
both were distinctly contrary to Magna Charta, for in neither was the
accused tried by jury or by the laws of the land; both were contrary to
the first axioms of justice, the separation of accuser and judge, for
in these courts the ministers of the crown first prosecuted a man in
their capacity of councillors, and then themselves passed sentence upon
him as judges.
Queen Elizabeth was not disposed to yield up any powers, legal or
illegal, that had been exercised by her predecessors on the throne.
♦Caution with which Elizabeth exercised her power.♦ She, however, was
careful not to strain them beyond what the temper of the nation would
bear. Though she often violated the rights of individuals, she never
attacked those of large numbers at once, and always kept on good terms
with her parliaments, by making concessions at times when a refusal
would have caused ill-feeling. But notwithstanding the tact with which
her government was conducted, as the people increased in knowledge and
wealth, they grew more and more sensitive to infringements of their
rights, and gave signs that through their representative, the House of
Commons, they would soon call upon the crown to resign the powers it
had usurped to the great detriment of the subject’s liberty.
%RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES--REFORMATION.%
That the legislature should make laws, and the executive break them,
was a sufficient cause in itself to produce a rupture between the
two powers. The probability, however, of such a rupture was greatly
increased by the fact that a second cause of quarrel existed between
the crown and the Parliament--religious differences.
♦The Reformation directed by the English kings.♦ In England, the
Reformation had been, no doubt, a popular movement, as it had been
abroad; but it was controlled and directed by a monarchy which had but
a partial sympathy with its aims. The consequence was an exceeding
moderation. The king was made head of the Church in place of the pope;
the monasteries were dissolved; the clergy were allowed to marry; the
doctrine of purgatory was denied, as was that of a physical change
in the elements at the sacrament; images and crosses were removed
from churches; the people were allowed to read the Bible in their own
tongue; an English liturgy was composed; and the English sovereigns,
heads of the Church, said, as it were, to the people, ‘Thus far shall
ye go, and no farther.’ But no sooner had the princes finished their
work, than a new set of reformers arose, preaching another, fuller,
more popular reformation.
♦Popular reformers attack popish ceremonies.♦ The main principle of
the reformers was to get rid of those superstitious observances which
marred the freedom of the worshipper’s communicating with his Maker;
they did not believe in the necessity of priestly intervention, nor in
the special sanctity of prayers in a foreign tongue. On the continent,
this principle had been carried much further than in England; and when
exiles, who had fled the country during the persecutions of Mary’s
reign, returned home from Flanders, Strasburg, or Geneva, they regarded
the English Church as hardly deserving the name of reformed. ‘How many
signs of Romish superstition,’ they said, ‘are left in the prayer-book,
and the services! What abuses yet remain in administration! Look at
the plurality of benefices. How can one man be in a dozen places at a
time? Are the clergy still to flaunt the priestly surplice and gaudy
popish vestments, foolish and abominable apparel, in which the Catholic
priests pretend to make mere water holy, to achieve a miraculous
transformation of bread and wine, or to conjure the devil out of
persons and places possessed? Is the communion-table not to stand,
table-like, in the body of the church, but to be set up in the chancel
like the altar of the papists? Shall the sign of the cross in baptism,
the bowing at the name of Jesus, the ring in marriage, the keeping of
saints’ days, all these remains of popish superstitions, be observed in
a church that calls itself reformed! Surely the snake is only scotched,
not killed.’
%NO TOLERATION.%
Elizabeth, on the contrary, while she regarded the authority of
her bishops as a support to the power of the crown, also hoped,
by disallowing further change in church ceremonies, to conciliate
Catholics. Her ecclesiastical power was absolute.
♦No toleration allowed by Elizabeth.♦ She, therefore, refused to give
the Puritans satisfaction even in matters of form. If the Puritan
minister would officiate at the services of the Church, he must wear
vestments he abhorred; if he would baptize a child, he must make the
sign of the cross; if he would join two people in marriage, he must use
the ring; in all points, he must conform exactly to the minutiæ of the
rubric.
♦Act of Supremacy.♦ The Act of Supremacy was a double-edged sword,
cruel to Puritans and Catholics alike. All clergymen holding benefices,
all laymen holding office in the State, who refused to take an oath,
when tendered, recognizing the queen as head of the Church, were to be
deprived of their benefices or offices (1558).
♦Act of Uniformity.♦ The Act of Uniformity forbade ministers, beneficed
or not, to use any other than the established liturgy; for the first
offence, they forfeited all their goods and chattels; for the second,
they suffered a year’s imprisonment; for the third, imprisonment for
life; while fines were imposed upon laymen who stayed away from their
parish church on Sundays or holidays (1559).
%RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES--PRESBYTERIANS.%
But persecution, instead of suppressing the reformers, only increased
their numbers and animosity. From attacking ceremonies, they went on to
attack the authority of the bishops.
♦Reformers desire establishment of Presbyterian Church.♦ If the Holy
Scriptures, they said, contain all things necessary for salvation,
then where in them is to be found mention of that proud hierarchy
of archbishops, bishops, and priests, by which the English Church
is governed? Turning their eyes towards Scotland, they there saw
established a church on a Presbyterian model, governed by assemblies
of ministers and lay elders on less hierarchical principles than the
Episcopal. For this model they claimed the authority of a Divine Right,
as being the original form of church government established by the will
of God in the time of the apostles.
To the queen, this new programme of reform, attacking, as it did,
not only episcopal authority, but her own prerogative as head of the
Church, was still more distasteful than that which had required merely
a reform of ceremonies.
An established church may be either self-governed or governed by the
State.
♦Episcopal Church dependent upon the State.♦ The Episcopal Church was a
State church in the fullest sense of the term; archbishops and bishops,
like ministers of state, were appointed by the sovereign; no laws to
regulate the conduct of the laity in spiritual matters could emanate
from any source but the queen in Parliament; and, in fact, there was no
spiritual authority distinct from the State.
♦Presbyterian Church independent of State control.♦ On the other hand,
the Presbyterian Church prided itself on being self-governed. According
to this system, every parish had its minister, its deacon, and its lay
elder, together forming a little court of justice, or kirk session,
which called parishioners to account for spiritual and moral offences,
such as drunkenness, scolding, or Sabbath-breaking; and punished by
censures, fines, or imprisonment. So many parishes formed a presbytery;
so many presbyteries formed a province, and both presbytery and
province possessed a distinct judicial assembly, composed of lay elders
and ministers. Lastly, there was a general assembly of the church,
composed of all the ministers of parishes, together with a sprinkling
of lay elders, and to this body appeals were made from the judicial
decisions of the lesser assemblies. The orders and regulations made
by the general assembly of the church were binding upon the whole
nation, clergy and laity. This church had been established in Scotland
by rebellion, and its ministers did not hesitate to set up their own
authority in opposition to that of king and State. “Disregard not our
threatening,” they said to James VI., “for there was never yet one in
this realm, in the place where your grace is, who prospered after the
ministers began to threaten him.”
%DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS.%
♦Episcopal Church less tyrannical than the Presbyterian.♦ Of these two
systems, the Episcopal form of church government, though less popular,
was also less tyrannical than the Presbyterian. The powers of English
bishops were far more limited than those of Scottish assemblies. The
Church of Scotland, however, which gave power to the ministers of the
people, instead of to courtly prelates, suited the enthusiasm of the
age, and naturally recommended itself to the more earnest reformers on
this side the border.
♦Bishops support the power of the crown.♦ Rejoiced to find that
Elizabeth regarded the Presbyterians as rebellious fanatics, the
bishops on their side now set up a counter claim of Divine Right in
favour of the Episcopal Church as administered by the queen; and,
in return for the privilege of fining, imprisoning, and ejecting
nonconformists, taught the people that kings rule by Divine Right, as
the viceregents of God upon earth, and that opposition to the commands
of princes is disobedience to the commands of God.
%RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES--SECTARIANS.%
♦Puritans cannot be suppressed.♦ But Puritan ministers, though deprived
of their livings, could not be silenced. They thought the whole state
of society and religion in England needed to be penetrated with a new
spirit. Themselves eager readers of their Bibles, zealous preachers,
active reformers, filled with true missionary zeal, they found that the
court and nobility cared little for serious matters, and that noblemen
and gentlemen spent their time in gaming, in dancing, in attending
grand shows, or in fighting on the continent. They aimed at a social
as well as a religious reform. Printing had largely increased the
numbers of readers and writers, and had at the same time extended the
range not only of serious but also of profane literature. It was an
age of poets. There were two hundred living in the last part of the
century, Spenser and Shakespeare amongst them. The middle classes
followed the same kind of amusements as their superiors, frequenting
the bear-garden, the bowling-green, the gaming-house, and the theatre.
The country people had their wakes and fairs and festivals. Amidst so
much rioting and pleasuring the Puritans saw few ministers competent to
lead the people to more serious paths. The clergy, so far from checking
the freedom of society, were as eager in the pursuit of amusement as
their parishioners: before the Reformation their incapacity had been
the reproach of the Catholic Church; it was now equally the reproach of
the newly established Church. Many Catholics, rather than lose their
livings, had taken the oaths required of them--were they reformed?
While they passed their time in taverns, gaming and drinking, they
were not likely to acquire the new art of preaching. “Dumb dogs,” said
the Puritans, are “left to guard the Church, while we are turned out.”
In many villages no sermon was heard “from year’s end to year’s end.”
Such a church seemed to invite reform; and the Presbyterians were
ready for the task. Persecution not going far enough to extirpate the
reformers, only attracted the minds of others to the consideration of
the questions in dispute, and discussion led to more advanced views on
reform. Episcopacy was generally the religion of the upper classes.
♦Sectarians.♦ Presbyterian opinions prevailed amongst the middle ranks;
and now the very poorest of the nation began also to have their special
ideas on religious questions. Men, women, and children, poor people who
had nothing to support them but their handicrafts and trades, would in
summer-time meet in the fields outside London at five o’clock in the
morning, and in winter in private houses, in order to worship after
their own fashion. Every congregation, they maintained, however small,
ought to be left free to settle its own affairs, without interference
from either bishops or assemblies. Amongst these latest reformers were
several distinct sects, which, without holding the same doctrines,
agreed in their general view of church government; and being taught
by weakness to combine together in spite of minor differences of
opinion, were the first to raise the flag of ‘liberty of conscience.’
More cruelly used than Presbyterians, many of these sectarians fled
the country for Holland, where they established churches on their own
principles. Those who stayed in England ran the risk of imprisonment
for life.
%PROTESTANT FOREIGN POLICY.%
♦Elizabeth supports Protestant cause on continent.♦ In spite, however,
of persecution, the reformers were devotedly loyal to the queen. For
though, through political motives, she persecuted Puritans at home,
abroad she supported the Protestants in the fierce conflict they were
waging with Catholicism. On one side were arrayed the pope, the King of
Spain, the Emperor of Austria, the Catholic princes of Germany; on the
other, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, and the Protestant German princes; and
it was chiefly owing to the support of England that this side was able
to maintain its ground against the Catholics.
The popes had long desired to force back into their fold the country
that was thus recognized as the head of Protestant States. Pius V.
had said he wished he could shed his blood in an expedition against
England; and now Gregory XIII. urged on Philip II. of Spain to attempt
the conquest of the heretic kingdom. He could not have found a prince
or nation more suited for his purpose. The Spaniards and English hated
one another with a national as well as a religious hatred. A love
of enterprise and discovery had spread rapidly amongst all classes
during Elizabeth’s long reign. Adventurers, led often by noblemen and
gentlemen, sailed to America and the West Indies, making fruitless
efforts to discover gold mines, or to found colonies.
♦Enmity between Spain and England.♦ On these expeditions they burnt
the settlements and seized the treasure ships of the Spaniards, who,
being already possessed of Mexico, Peru, and much of the West Indies,
regarded themselves as sole lords of the New World, and were quite
prepared for a war to the knife with the intruders.
It was thus to fight the battle at once of the pope and of the
nation that the Invincible Armada sailed from Spain. It sailed to
take vengeance on a heretic queen, who, while supporting the Dutch
in rebellion, disputed the claims of Philip to the possession of two
continents. It came threatening England with conquest and Protestantism
with destruction. But storms and winds and the courage of English
seamen shattered and destroyed the Armada (1588). The triumph of
England was the salvation of the Protestant cause. The invaded now
becoming the invaders, burned Spanish galleons in the very harbours of
Spain.
♦Her foreign policy a chief cause of Elizabeth’s popularity.♦ With the
people success will go far to justify even a tyrannical government.
Hence it was that, although storms were rising, and the political
atmosphere was charged with electricity, no violent contention ever
arose between Elizabeth and her subjects. The occasional illegal acts
committed by her government, the cruel sentences passed upon Puritans
by the courts of High Commission and Star Chamber, were forgiven
because she pursued a foreign policy that accorded with the wishes of
the nation, and caused England to be feared and respected. The bonds of
loyalty seemed strong because they had not been tried too severely, It
is a principle in mechanics that girders should not be strained beyond
the limits of perfect recovery. An excessive tension may not only cause
danger for the moment, but may be a source of permanent weakness, Such
a tension came when the nation was ruled by monarchs who had neither
the capacity to lead their Parliaments nor the temper to follow them.
%JAMES I.--ACCESSION.%
On the death of Elizabeth the great Tudor line was extinct.[9]
♦James I., his character.♦ James VI. of Scotland, who outwardly united
the two kingdoms, failed to unite his subjects to himself. He was
thought cowardly, conceited, pretentious. It was believed that flattery
was the readiest road to his favour; he certainly suffered himself
to fall under the control of unworthy favourites, so that his court
received the character of being the head-quarters of riot and vice, if
not of far darker crimes.
%ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT.%
The members of the Commons refused to grant the money of the
nation to be lavished on such favourites or wasted in such riot.
James, therefore, did not trouble himself with often meeting the
representatives of the people. Holding the theory that he was possessed
of absolute power, he ventured to try to carry that theory into
practice. A few instances will show the manner in which the liberties
of the subject were violated by his government.
His first Parliament granted him for life duties on exports and
imports, called tonnage and poundage (1604). These duties were fixed
at a certain rate; for instance, there was a duty of 2s. 6d. on
every hundred-weight of currants imported into the country.
♦James imposes illegal taxes.♦ James, of his sole authority, trebled
this duty, and afterwards, without asking the consent of Parliament,
imposed heavy taxes upon almost all merchandise. In principle there
is no distinction between the illegal levying of a direct or an
indirect tax. The ignorant, however, are much more struck by that
which comes plainly before them. Hence, had James attempted to raise
a direct tax, such as the subsidies granted in Parliament, which
were levied on land and articles of personal property, he would have
aroused far more indignation than he did by the imposition of illegal
customs. The subsidy must have been paid directly into the hands of
the tax-gatherer, whereas the illegal duties were paid in the first
instance by the merchants, and the fact that these merchants repaid
themselves out of the profits of the consumer by raising prices, was
not obvious to the vulgar. The people, however, really suffered in
purse as well as in right, and Parliament would have been wanting in
its duty, if it had not protested against this interference with the
property of the subject.
The person of the subject was no safer than his property.
It is contrary to the common law of England to force any man to
criminate himself. The Courts of High Commission and Star Chamber,
however, did not follow the procedure of the common law courts, and
were in the habit of tendering the prisoner an oath, technically called
the oath _ex officio_, to answer truly all questions put to him. Two
Puritans, for refusing to take this oath, were imprisoned by the Court
of High Commission.
♦Illegal commitments.♦ The common law allowed every man committed to
prison upon a criminal charge, to apply to the court of King’s Bench
for a so-called writ of _habeas corpus_, directing the gaoler to
produce his prisoner and the warrant upon which he was committed before
the court on a stated day.[10] The judge, upon view of the warrant,
discharged the prisoner, released him on bail, or sent him back to
prison to await his trial, according as the charge against him was no
offence in the eye of the law, or a bailable offence, or one for which
no bail could be received.
%HIGH COMMISSION--FULLER’S CASE.%
The two Puritans in question were brought before the judges of the
King’s Bench on a writ of _habeas corpus_.
♦Arbitrary procedure of Court of High Commission.♦ Fuller, their
counsel, argued that they ought to be released, because the High
Commissioners had not been empowered _by law_ to imprison, or fine,
or administer the oath _ex officio_. This argument struck at the
root of the authority of the High Commission, and Fuller was himself
summoned before the court, on the ground that he had slandered the
king’s authority. He refused, like his clients, to take the oath,
“to answer truly all questions put to him,” and applied to the Court
of King’s Bench for a prohibition to stay the proceedings. It was by
means of such prohibitions that the common law courts were accustomed
to prevent the ecclesiastical courts from meddling with cases which
properly came under the cognizance of the common law. The judges sent
the prohibition, but at the same time signified that they should not
interfere, if the High Commissioners charged the prisoner with heresy
and schism. The Puritan advocate was accordingly convicted of heresy,
fined £200, and committed to prison. The common law judges would not
interfere in his favour, though he appealed again to them, and he
seems, eventually, to have regained his liberty only by submitting, and
paying the fine.[11]
%ARABELLA STUART.%
The Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, however illegally
their jurisdiction was acquired and conducted, at least brought
definite charges against the accused, and allowed him a form of trial.
♦Arbitrary action of King’s Council.♦ The King’s Council went even
further than this, and constantly committed political opponents of
the government, without bringing any charge against them, or allowing
them the benefit of a trial. The imprisonment extended from weeks, or
months, to years, and the writ of _habeas corpus_, which ought to have
protected any subject from such an outrage, was rarely obtainable. In
the case of Arabella Stuart, the causeless displeasure of the king
formed the ground of a life-long imprisonment. This lady, who was first
cousin to James, married, through pure affection, a distant relation,
William Seymour, a descendant of Mary, the youngest daughter of Henry
VII.
♦Case of Lady Arabella Stuart.♦ James, jealous of the union of
two relations, both of whom had a distant claim to the crown, confined
Seymour in the Tower, and placed Arabella in confinement at Lambeth.
Both made their escape, with the intention of meeting at Leigh, near
Blackwall, on board a French vessel, which was engaged to carry them
across the Channel. Arabella arrived before her husband, and, in spite
of her entreaties, her attendants, in fear of pursuit, forced the
captain to sail. Seymour, on his arrival, finding the French vessel
gone, hired a collier, and was landed in safety at Ostend. Arabella
was not so fortunate. When within sight of Calais, a vessel, sent
from Dover in pursuit, overtook the fugitive, and carried her back
to England. On her arrival, she was immediately committed to the
Tower, whence she wrote to the two chief justices, imploring them to
secure her a trial by the usual writ of _habeas corpus_: “And if your
lordships may not, or will not, grant unto me the ordinary relief of
a distressed subject, then, I beseech you, become humble intercessors
to his Majesty, that I may receive such benefit of justice as both his
Majesty by his oath hath promised, and the laws of this realm afford to
all others, those of his blood not excepted. And though, unfortunate
woman! I can obtain neither, yet, I beseech your lordships, retain me
in your good opinion, and judge charitably, till I be proved to have
committed any offence, either against God or his Majesty, deserving
so long restraint or separation from my lawful husband.” Arabella’s
just demand remained ungranted. Her marriage was no crime at law,
and had she been brought before the judges, they could hardly have
done less than order her release. The idea of attempting to change
the succession would have been ludicrous, if true, but there was no
ground for suspicion of political motive in the marriage to give a
shadow of excuse for her restraint. Separated from her husband, and
broken-hearted, Arabella lost her reason, and, after some four years of
confinement, at last died in the Tower.
The Countess of Shrewsbury, Arabella’s aunt, was brought up before the
council, on the charge of being an accomplice in her niece’s escape.
Refusing to implicate herself, by answering in any way to a charge so
unknown to the law, she bravely replied, that, if the council had a
charge against her, she would be ready to answer before her peers. Such
an appeal to the hated liberties of the subject was not suffered to
pass unpunished, and for several years her name appears in the list of
unhappy inmates of the Tower.
%A PIRATE CASE.%
It was not only the king’s animosity which was to be dreaded, but
the greed of the court. The interests of the nation were bought and
sold by courtiers and ministers. Several of James’ council were in
receipt of salaries from the King of Spain. Others were in a nefarious
league with the pirates who then preyed on our shipping. The story
of Sir John Eliot and Captain Nutt sheds a flood of light on various
judicial and executive anomalies of the reign. In 1623 Eliot was
Vice-admiral of Devon. Amongst his duties were those of boarding pirate
vessels, and deciding upon the lawfulness of prizes. Captain Nutt,
an English pirate, who, at the head of several ships, had for three
years past ranged the seas between the coasts of England and America,
was notorious alike for audacity and cruelty. Sailing to Torbay and
landing in force whenever he came ashore, he dared the vice-admiral to
seize him, and boasted of the pardons he had already obtained. Armed
with a copy of one of these pardons, conditional on the captain’s
surrendering himself within a certain time, Eliot risked his life and
went on board the pirate vessel. There was little doubt that the time
within which the pardon was valid was already past, but Nutt, acting
probably on the supposition that Eliot could only be influenced by
mercenary motives, agreed to surrender himself, and to pay a fine of
£500, together with six packs of calves’ skins. If the pardon were
good, the fine would be shared between the vice-admiral, Eliot, and the
lord-admiral, Buckingham. Directly the man was ashore, Eliot placed
him under arrest, and then wrote an account of the whole transaction
to the council. He took occasion to point out how the pirate, even
while treating, had audaciously seized a Colchester brig, laden with
woods and sugar to the value of some £4000, but left the question of
the validity of the pardon entirely to their lordships’ decision. The
first result of this was, that Eliot received a letter from Conway,
the under-secretary of state, highly commending him for his good
service, and intimating that he should before long receive the honour
of kissing the king’s hand. Within a few days Eliot repaired to London,
not, however, to kiss the king’s hand, but to become a prisoner in the
Marshalsea, and answer in the Court of Admiralty charges preferred
against him by the Council Board. The pirate, Nutt, to give his court
friends an excuse for shielding him, had the audacity to come forward
as the accuser of his captor, alleging that Eliot, both by letter and
message, had urged him to sail to Dartmouth and make prizes of divers
ships that were there, laden with goods and money out of Spain; and
that it was not until thus encouraged that he had ventured on seizing
the Colchester brig. The letter Nutt was unable to produce; the charges
were denied both by Eliot and his officers. The judge of the Admiralty,
in his reports to the council, did not venture to express an opinion
in regard to Eliot, but pointed out how the lord-admiral’s interests
might be neglected, if the vice-admiral were kept long absent from his
post in Devon. But while Buckingham at the time was in Spain, Eliot’s
enemy, and Nutt’s friend, Sir John Calvert, the principal secretary
of state, was in England. It was through his influence that the
council had proceeded against Eliot. The pirate had rendered him some
service in the establishment of a colony in Newfoundland, and if his
word may be believed, this was his sole motive for seeking to blacken
the character of the vice-admiral, and obtain a pardon from the king
for that “unlucky fellow, Captain Nutt.” It was no wonder Eliot felt
angry and used stronger language in writing to Secretary Conway than
he usually employed. “I cannot so much yet undervalue my integrity,
to doubt that the words of a malicious assassin, now standing for
his life, shall have reputation equal to the credit of a gentleman.”
Nutt, however, by means of his powerful friend, obtained his pardon
and, in addition, a grant of £100 out of the ship and goods seized at
Torbay. The duration of Eliot’s imprisonment is uncertain; probably he
remained in the Marshalsea until the following October, at which time
Charles and Buckingham returned from Spain. In the following month he
was canvassing for a seat in the last of James’ parliaments.[12]
%PERSECUTION OF PURITANS.%
While person and property were thus dealt with, it was hardly likely
that there should be any recognition of the later rights of freedom
of speech and freedom of thought. Presbyterians and sectarians were
forced to fly the country, in order to escape imprisonment.
♦Puritans persecuted.♦ Puritan preachers were ejected from their
livings. Puritan writers were prosecuted in the Star Chamber. James
himself made a jest of the fines inflicted on them;--“it were no reason
that those that will refuse the airy sign of the cross after baptism
should have their purses stuffed with any more solid and substantial
crosses.”[13] But persecution that does not go far enough to extirpate
its victims defeats its own ends. Sympathy was felt for the Puritans,
their opinion spread, and the division between the two parties grew
wider and wider. Clergymen who found favour at court adopted doctrines
approaching to those of Rome, and supported the power of the crown by
teaching the duty of passive obedience, and the doctrine of the Divine
Right of kings. Clergymen who found favour with the people taught that
in the plain words of Scripture is to be found all that the Christian
needs for his guidance; and denounced to their hearers, as sinful and
displeasing to God, popish ceremonies and doctrines, and the worldly
court-life, with its drinking, swearing, acting, fine dressing, and
dancing.
Thus, at the end of James’ reign, men of very various opinions were
all alike designated Puritans.
♦Word Puritan designates men of various opinions.♦ There was the
sectarian, who desired that each separate congregation should be
allowed its own special form of worship; the Presbyterian, who desired
to see a church similar to that of Scotland established in England;
the churchman, who objected to popish ceremonies and doctrines; the
patriot, who, from opposing tyranny in the State, came to mistrust a
church that taught the duty of passive obedience to kings’ commands;
and, lastly, the earnest man, who, by merely leading, in his own
person, a pure life, seemed to reprove the manners of the court;
all these became alike objects of the scoffs and jeers of the king’s
friends, and were classed together as factious hypocrites and Puritans.
%THIRTY YEARS’ WAR.%
But neither James’ pretensions to absolute power, nor his actual
infringement of the constitution, nor the persecution of Puritans, nor
the vices of his court, did so much to alienate the affection of his
subjects, as did the conduct of his foreign policy.
♦James’ foreign policy cause of division between himself and his
subjects.♦ The Thirty Years’ War had now begun. Matthias, Emperor of
Germany, ruler of Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia, was childless. To
secure the succession, he caused his cousin Ferdinand, archduke of
Styria, to be crowned as next king of his great kingdoms of Bohemia and
Hungary.[14] This prince had been brought up by the Jesuits, and was
so ardent a Catholic that he said he would sooner beg his bread from
door to door, than that the Catholic Church should suffer injury. He
had long since driven the Protestants out of his own duchy of Styria.
Sooner than accept such a fanatic as their king, the Bohemians, of
whom the majority were Protestants, rose in rebellion, and offered
the crown to one of their own persuasion, Frederick, prince of the
Palatinate,[15] who accepted the dangerous gift, and was crowned King
of Bohemia (August, 1619).
♦Thirty Years’ War.♦ This was the origin of the great religious
struggle between Catholics and Protestants, which is called the Thirty
Years’ War. Frederick, the Protestant champion, had for his enemies,
Ferdinand, elected Emperor of Germany on the death of Matthias (1619);
the Catholic princes of the German empire; and Philip III. of Spain.
The Austrian Emperors of Germany, and the Kings of Spain, Milan, and
the Netherlands, being near relations, always acted in one another’s
interests. Jealousy of the united power of Spain and Austria inclined
France to prefer political to religious considerations, so that
it usually supported the Protestant princes in withstanding the
encroachments of the emperors; but it was useless at the present time
for Frederick to look for help to a country torn by civil dissensions,
and governed by a minor.
From James, his Protestant father-in-law, whose daughter, Elizabeth,
he had married amidst the rejoicings of the English (1613), as well
as from his fellow Protestant princes of the empire, he might, not
without reason, hope for support, in a war nominally undertaken in the
interests of the Protestant cause.
James, however, hating war, had made peace, on his accession, with
the old Catholic enemy, Spain, and declared his intention to the
French ambassador, of “avoiding war as his own damnation.” But, on
the breaking out of the Thirty Years’ War, the king found himself
placed in a dilemma. For he must either give up his theory of
non-intervention, or suffer England to fall from the proud position
to which Elizabeth had raised her, as head of the Protestant States.
Even now, when we recognize the full evil of war, it seems hardly
generous in those themselves possessed of liberty to refuse assistance
to a free people maintaining their freedom against foreign armies. To
English Protestants, in whose minds the remembrance of the Armada was
still fresh, it seemed at once both base and foolish to look on with
indifference, while a Protestant people were deprived of liberty of
conscience by armies composed of foreigners and Catholics. Protestant
Europe was one country; and a blow struck at one Protestant State was
regarded as a blow struck at the interests of all Protestant States.
%WAVERING FOREIGN POLICY.%
♦James’ reasons for refusing to assist his son-in-law♦ James, however,
acting in opposition to the wishes of his subjects, refused to support
his son-in-law. In the first place, he desired to avoid hostilities
with Spain, in the interests of a match that he had been negotiating
for the past six years between the Prince of Wales and Philip the
Third’s daughter, to whose dowry he cannily looked as a means of
paying his debts, without applying to Parliament for aid. He had just
executed England’s greatest captain, Sir Walter Raleigh, to please
Philip. In the second place, he disliked the idea of assisting subjects
in rebellion against their prince. In favour of the first motive,
there was nothing to be said. Who could uphold a King of England in
relying on foreign gold for the support of his government, rather than
on the good-will of his subjects? In favour of the second more might
be urged, though not from James’ point of view. The Bohemian nobles,
the authors of the rebellion, were rapacious and lawless, and without
the moral qualities necessary for the conduct of a revolution and the
establishment of a free government. A state of anarchy in Germany was
foreseen as the probable result of their success, and even several
Protestant princes refused to assist Frederick in weakening the
imperial power, by which alone some sort of law was maintained between
the different States that composed the empire. Accordingly, neither
England nor France took part in the struggle; the Protestant princes
made peace for themselves (July, 1620); and Frederick was defeated
and driven out of Bohemia (Nov., 1620). When the armies of Spain and
Austria proceeded to invade the Palatinate, Frederick’s hereditary
dominions, James summoned a Parliament, with a half-formed resolve of
breaking with Spain, and taking an active part in the war (1620).
It was impracticable for England to maintain a large army in the
Palatinate, and even the attempt would have required supplies far
larger than the country was disposed to grant. James was aware of
these facts, and therefore the slower to enter upon hostilities. It
must be allowed that the Commons acted unreasonably. The country
gentlemen, who came up to Westminster once in five or six years,
were not enlightened by newspapers, and had no means of acquainting
themselves with the intricate course of foreign politics, or of
forming any correct estimate of the probable cost of a war. Now, while
knowledge of their own incapacity prevented them from pretending to
direct operations, their Protestant zeal caused them to press James to
assist his son-in-law, and their ignorance to suppose that this could
be done at comparatively a small expense to the country. Elizabeth had
always had the skill so to direct the blow that it should inflict the
greatest injury to her adversary at the least possible cost to herself.
She would have seen that the sea was England’s field of fame, and
would never have marched an army to Heidelberg. Had she still sat on
the throne, perhaps a dash upon some Spanish port might have rendered
the Protestants a material assistance, by drawing Philip’s armies
off from Germany.
♦Commons press James to enter on spirited policy, but slow to grant
necessary funds.♦ But her foreign policy, when not marred by misplaced
parsimony or favouritism, had been marked by her exceptional genius,
and it was unreasonable to expect her commonplace successor to strike
out a line of action at once spirited, effective, and economical. It
was probably fortunate for England that he never heartily made the
attempt.
The Parliament was asked for money sufficient to maintain for the
winter some regiments of English volunteers, engaged in defending
Heidelberg, the capital of the Palatinate.
♦Commons petition James to marry his son to a Protestant princess.♦
But the Commons, before voting money, desired to see the king commit
himself to a decided policy, and prepared a petition, begging him to
marry his son to a Protestant princess, and to make war on Spain.
James, hearing beforehand of the contents of the petition, wrote a
letter, forbidding the House to meddle with his son’s match; and
adding, as a warning to those who should disregard the royal command,
that, “as for liberty of speech, he was free to punish any man’s
misdemeanours in Parliament, both during and after their sitting.” In
meddling with matters of peace and war, the Commons were not so sure
of their ground, but liberty of speech[16] they regarded as a precious
inheritance from their earliest ancestors. A second petition was at
once prepared, begging his Majesty, “such a wise and just king, to
recognise liberty of speech, their ancient and undoubted right.” James
replied by saying “he would not infringe their privileges, only he did
not like their style of speaking--how could any privileges be their
undoubted right and inheritance, when these were all derived from the
grace and permission of his ancestors and himself?”
%PARLIAMENT OVERRIDDEN.%
♦Commons enter in their journals declaration of their privileges.♦
The Commons, too wise to let such doctrine as this pass unchallenged,
entered a protest in their journals (18 Dec., 1621), to the effect
that, ‘Their liberties and privileges were the undoubted birthright
of the subjects of England; the State, the defence of the realm, the
Church, the laws and grievances were proper matters for them to debate;
members have liberty of speech, and freedom from all imprisonment for
speaking on any matters touching Parliament business.’ James, in the
full assembly of his council, and in presence of the judges, caused the
journal-book to be brought before him, and, with his own hand, erased
this protestation, declaring it to be invalid, void, and of none effect.
The dissatisfaction of the nation at the king, and his Spanish Catholic
match, was greatly increased after the dissolution of this Parliament
(6 Jan., 1622).
♦Protestants defeated.♦ Abroad, the Protestants were being defeated,
persecuted, crushed. Frederick was driven, not only out of Bohemia, but
out of his hereditary dominions, the Palatinate, and forced, with his
family, to take refuge in Holland, and live on the alms of the Prince
of Orange. Protestants were banished from Austria Proper. In Bohemia,
the Protestant faith and civil liberty disappeared together. In the
Palatinate, the Protestant worship was suppressed. In France, the
government was in arms against the Huguenots, and succeeded in wresting
one stronghold from them after another. Spain seized the hopeful
opportunity to renew the war with Holland.
%TOM TELL-TRUTH.%
♦Spanish marriage spoken, written, preached against.♦ The Puritan
pulpits “rang against the Spanish marriage.” In vain James told the
bishops to prevent the clergy from preaching on such topics; in vain he
issued proclamations, forbidding the people to talk; their voices could
no more be restrained than a “mountain torrent.” Pamphlets were written
and published which risked the ears, if not the lives of their authors.
♦Tom Tell-Truth.♦ Most malignant of all, “Tom Tell-Truth” attacked the
king and his government on every side.
“I, a poor unknown subject,” says the pamphleteer, “who hear the
people talk, will undertake that discontinued but noble office of
telling your Majesty the truth. Some there are that find fault
with your government, even to wishing Elizabeth were alive again,
for we have lost by change of sex. Great Britain, say they, is a
great deal less than little England was wont to be. The excess of
peace hath long since turned virtue into vice, and health into
sickness.
“The Spaniards and the Duke of Bavaria play with your Majesty
as men do with little children, at handy-dandy, which hand will
you have? and give them nothing. The very losers at cards fall
a cursing and swearing at the loss of the Palatinate; and, when
told of your Majesty’s proclamation not to talk about State
affairs, answer in a chafe, ‘You must give losers leave to speak.’
“You sent my Lord of Doncaster into France to mediate peace. It
would have been better had the money spent on that embassage been
given to the poor Huguenots; they may well call England the ‘Land
of Promise.’ The princes that serve the Pope send arms; you--that
should fight the battles of the Lord--ambassadors.
“No need for your Majesty to fear the Puritan religion; if a king
will be absolute and dissolute, it is a wonder he will suffer any
other; for it may be observed in some parts of Christendom[17]
that let a king ruling over a Protestant people be never so
wicked in his person, nor so enormous in his government, let him
stamp vice with his example, let him remove the ancient bounds
of sovereignty, and make every day new yokes and new scourges
for his poor people, let him take rewards and punishments out
of the hand of justice, and distribute them without regard to
right or wrong; in short, let him so excel in mischief, ruin, and
oppression, as Nero compared with him may be held a very father
of the people. Yet, when he hath done all that can be imagined
to procure hate and contempt, he may go boldly in and out to his
sports, clothed in his quilted garments, stiletto-proof, he shall
not need to take either the less drink when he goes to bed, or
the more thought when he riseth.
“His minions, a pack of ravenous curs, think all other subjects
beasts, and only made for them to prey upon; they may revel and
laugh, when all the kingdom mourns. His poor Protestant subjects
shall only think he is given them of God for the punishment of
their sins, for the preachers shall praise him and make the
pulpit a stage of flattery. He ought to be obeyed, not because
he is good but because he is their king. The subject is tied to
such wonderful patience and obedience as doth almost verify that
bold speech of Machiavel, when he said, ‘Christianity made men
cowards.’”[18]
%BREACH WITH SPAIN.%
♦Charles and Buckingham go to Spain.♦ James, after quarrelling with
his Parliament, eagerly renewed the Marriage Treaty with Spain. He
hankered more than ever after the Infanta’s dower, and hoped, by means
of Philip’s interest with the Emperor, to secure the restoration of the
Palatinate to Frederick. The Spaniards, on their side, were ready for a
treaty which would secure them from a war with England while fighting
in Germany. Following the suggestion of the Spanish ambassador, Charles
undertook a secret journey to Spain, intending to conclude the treaty
in person, and return home with his bride by his side (Feb., 1623).
He was accompanied only by his father’s favourite, George Villiers,
Marquis (afterwards Duke) of Buckingham.
Philip IV. took advantage of this foolish act to raise his demands, and
obtained the consent of both James and Charles to secret articles, in
which they engaged never to put the laws against Catholics into force,
and to obtain the consent of Parliament to their repeal within three
years. The promise was worthless; for James well knew the Parliament
would never consent.
♦Marriage Treaty with Spain broken off.♦ Wearied by the delays caused
by the Spaniards, Charles returned home (Oct., 1623) before the time
agreed on for the performance of the marriage ceremony, and afterwards
wrote to the Earl of Bristol, with whom he had left his proxy, that
there was to be neither marriage nor friendship, unless Philip
consented to restore the Palatinate to Frederick by force of arms. This
demand broke off the treaty; for whatever delusive hopes Philip had
held out to James, he had never undertaken to do more than endeavour
by his interest with the Emperor, to effect a peace favourable to
Frederick. “We have a maxim of State,” said a Spanish minister, for
once speaking the truth, “that the King of Spain must never fight the
Emperor.”
♦Money voted by Parliament to carry on war with Spain.♦ Buckingham, who
had quarrelled with the Spaniards, was now eager for war. James found
his favourite would leave him no peace till he summoned a Parliament,
which he did sorely against his will, and then Buckingham, with Charles
by his side to confirm his story, gave the two Houses a false account
of what had taken place in Spain, declaring that the Spaniards broke
off the match because the prince would not become a Catholic. James’
court was not a good school for training a young prince in the duties
of veracity; and it was certainly unfortunate for Charles’ character
that the circumstance of his first introduction to Parliament should
have been of so ambiguous a nature. However, the story thus supported
was believed for the time, and the question of peace and war with Spain
being submitted to the Commons’ consideration, they voted a subsidy
of £300,000 to defend the coasts and help Holland. The same year four
regiments crossed the Channel to assist the Dutch in fighting the
Spaniards in the Netherlands (1624).
%DEATH OF JAMES.%
♦French Marriage Treaty.♦ While the nation desired a Protestant
alliance, the king only thought of a dowry. James now proposed to marry
his son to another Catholic princess, Henrietta, sister of Louis XIII.,
King of France. He died, however, before the marriage took place, after
a reign of twenty-three years (25th March, 1625). Though a French
marriage was hailed as a deliverance after the Spanish project, yet
the history of the next twenty years will perhaps seem to justify the
Commons’ antipathy to any Catholic marriage.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Money was about four times its present value, that is, one shilling
then could purchase as much food or other necessaries of life as four
shillings now; so this would now represent land which would bring in £8
a year as rent and cost say £250 to buy.
[2] Socage is probably derived from Saxon _soc_, “liberty,”
“privilege,” “franchise.” _Socagers_ were bound to attend the court of
the lord to whose _soc_ or “right” of justice they belonged.
[3] The _copyholder_ held land of the lord of the manor, subject to
certain restrictions and agricultural services enumerated in the _copy_
of the roll of the estate. So long as he performed those services he
might not be dispossessed.
[4] Though this is substantially true as a contrast to the position
of the ministry in the 16th century, it would be a great mistake to
disregard the influence of the _forms_ under which the constitution
works. (I.) Even now the control of the Commons is not so great as it
seems. The ministers are not mere delegates, for Parliament controls
rather than directs; it has no right to tell the Queen’s ministers
what to do, though it can veto their proposals, and censure them for
their acts when done; the initiative remains with the cabinet. (II.)
The influence of the crown is more than it seems. (i.) It has a voice
in discussing despatches which settle foreign policy. (ii.) Though it
cannot exclude from office a man who has made himself indispensable to
the nation, it has, no doubt, a negative voice in the selection of the
less conspicuous members of the cabinet, and thus exercises a real,
though imperceptible, influence on the attitude of rising politicians.
The _form_ is always of vast importance in constitutional questions.
The popular influence, which seems to be the substantial power, is the
wind that fills the sails and gives the motion; but the exact direction
of the motion must still depend in a large measure on the helmsman.
The shipwreck of the 17th century came from an attempt to sail in the
teeth of the wind. A skilful helmsman may do much by gaining and losing
tacks, but the Stuarts were not skilful.
[5] Under the Tudors, juries had been fined and imprisoned for deciding
against the crown. If they decided for the crown, though unjustly, they
could not be punished, because they could not have been tampered with
by the sovereign!
[6] The common law consists of customs handed down from Norman times,
and of the judgments of judges founded upon those customs; statute law
of acts of Parliament.
[7] Thus in James’ time the Admiralty judge acknowledges the receipt
of instructions, “by which I understand his Majesty’s resolution to
continue Sir John Eliot in prison. I am glad I did forbear to deliver
my opinion of the state of his cause, lest perhaps it might have
differed somewhat.”--Forster’s Eliot, i. ii. 4.
[8] The king had two councils: his Privy Council, which advised with
him in all State matters, and his Common Council. In the Common Council
sat, not only all members of the Privy Council, but also some of the
common law judges, and others added at the pleasure of the king.
[9]
Henry VII., 1492-1509.
|
+---------+--------+
| |
Henry VIII., 1509-1548. Margaret = James IV. of Scotland.
| |
+----+------+------------+ +-----+
| | | |
Edward VI. Mary. Elizabeth. James V. of Scotland.
1548-1553. 1553-1558. 1558-1603. |
|
Mary, Queen = Lord Darnley,
of Scots. | H. Stuart
+---------------+
|
James VI. of Scotland and I. of England, 1603-1625.
|
+-----------------+-----------+
| |
Charles I., 1625-1649. Elizabeth = Frederick.
| |
+--------+-------+ +------------+----------+
| | | | | |
Charles II. Mary. James II. Chas. Louis. Rupert. Sophia.
[10] _Habeas corpus ad subjiciendum_ are the first words of the writ to
the gaoler, meaning that he is to _have the person_ (of the prisoner)
to produce before the court (so _habeas corpus ad testificandum_ are
the first words of a writ for producing a prisoner to give evidence).
The writ was anciently called _corpus cum causâ_, because it required
the return of the _cause_ of detention, as well as of the _body_
imprisoned. The principle of the writ was contained in the Magna Charta
of King John, which enacted that “no freeman should be imprisoned but
by lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.” It was
used between subject and subject in the time of Henry VI., and against
the crown in that of Henry VII., so that it was fully recognized as
law long before the re-enactments in the reign of Charles I., and the
_Habeas Corpus Act_ of Charles II., 1679.
[11] Gardiner, Hist. of Eng. (1603-1616), i. 445.
[12] Forster: Life of Sir J. Eliot, i. 2.
[13] Ellis Orig. Letters, iii. 450: Coins were called crosses from the
stamp of the cross on the reverse, as sovereigns from the king’s head
on the obverse.
[14]
Ferdinand = Isabella MAXIMILIAN I., Emperor
of | Spain. of Germany,
| Archduke of Austria.
| |
| +---------+
| |
Joanna = Philip the Fair.
| Archdukes of Austria,
Kings of |Spain, Kings of Bohemia, Hungary,
Milan, |Naples, and Emperors of
and Nether-|lands. Germany.
|
+-------+------------------------------+
| |
CHARLES V., Emperor of FERDINAND I. (emperor
Germany, 1519-1556. after resignation of
| his brother Charles V.),
| 1556-1564.
Philip II., |
1555-1598. +---------+-------+
| | |
| MAXIMILIAN II., Charles, Archduke
Philip III., 1564-1574. of Styria.
1598-1621. | |
| +-----------------+ |
| | | |
Philip IV., RODOLPH II., MATTHIAS, FERDINAND II.,
1621-1667. 1574-1612. 1612-1619. 1619-1637.
[15] The Count _Palatine_ represented, in theory, the king or emperor
as judge in his own _palace_. Barons, especially those of frontier
provinces, had similar royal judicial privileges delegated to them.
Such provinces were called palatine. In Germany there was an upper and
lower Palatinate; the lower _Palatinate_ comprised the upper part of
the rich Rhine valley, with Heidelberg for its capital, and conferred a
vote at the election of the emperors of Germany.
[16] Even in Edward the Third’s time, the Commons seem to have been
allowed to debate on many things concerning the king’s prerogative;
and Henry IV. promised to take no notice of any reports made to him
of their proceedings before such matters were brought before him
by the advice and assent of _all_ the Commons. A Parliament, or
“speaking-house,” would be a poor guardian of liberties without itself
having liberty of utterance. The principle was well stated nearly half
a century after this (1667): “No man can doubt but whatever is once
enacted is lawful; but nothing can come into an Act of Parliament but
it must be first affirmed or propounded by somebody; so that if the
Act can wrong nobody, no more can the first propounding. The members
must be as free as the Houses; an Act of Parliament cannot disturb
the State; therefore the debate that tends to it cannot; for it must
be propounded and debated before it can be enacted.”--May’s Parl.
Practice, 102.
Besides freedom of speech on subjects of Parliamentary debate, the
principal privileges of Parliament were:
The right of both Houses of judging and punishing their own members for
any misdemeanour committed in Parliament.
The right of the Commons of determining any disputed election.
The right of members of both Houses to enjoy freedom from arrest, and
exemption from all legal process, while Parliament was sitting, except
on charges of treason, felony, and breach of the peace.
[17] _I.e._, in England.
[18] Somers’ Tracts, II. 487-9.