CHARLES’ FIRST PARLIAMENTS.--IMPEACHMENT OF BUCKINGHAM.--PETITION OF
RIGHT.--(1625-1629).
How shall we do for money for these wars?
RICHARD II.
Little was known of the new king, who was only twenty-four years old
when he came to the throne, and had seldom appeared in public. His
manners were grave and cold; he loved order and propriety. “I will have
no drunkards in my bedchamber,” he said, and turned out of office one
of Buckingham’s own brothers. The courtiers followed the lead of their
master, and led outwardly decorous lives.[19]
♦Certainty of quarrel between King and Parliament.♦ But all hopes
that were entertained of good agreement between king and people were
doomed to a speedy end. Charles, who from his earliest years had heard
taught at his father’s court the doctrine of the Divine Right of kings,
regarded it as the duty of Parliament submissively to vote supplies and
carry out the wishes of the monarch, without questioning his government
or bargaining for redress of grievances. His subjects, on the other
hand, still smarting at James’ disregard of the laws of the land and
the privilege of Parliament, were determined to make the new king
acknowledge the limits which the laws set to the prerogative of the
Crown.
An immediate cause of quarrel between Charles and the nation lay in the
ascendancy of Buckingham, whose popularity had faded almost as soon as
born. For if he had broken off the Spanish match on the grounds alleged
by himself, he had since brought about the king’s marriage with another
Catholic, Henrietta Maria, sister of Louis XIII. It is rare for a
favourite to remain supreme during the life of one master; still more
rare for him to gain the affection of a second.
♦Buckingham hated; his character.♦ Disappointment that Buckingham
had not been ruined on the death of James now intensified the hatred
felt by all classes towards him. Almost every officer employed by
the Government was his creature, and at his command. “He on whom the
duke smiled, was advanced; he on whom he frowned, cast down.”[20] The
highest nobles in the land found that, to stand well in the eyes of the
king, they must court the favour of this haughty minion--this upstart
country squire. Buckingham himself was ill-fitted to exercise power.
Handsome, of fascinating manners, courageous and not implacable, he was
yet vain withal, insolent, reckless, no genius, and utterly selfish; a
man who would embroil his country in war to salve a wound of vanity,
and then, after pledging his country’s word, break it again to satisfy
a change of whim. Such was the adviser with whom Charles met his first
Parliament--a Parliament he soon summoned, as he was preparing a fleet
for an expedition carefully kept secret from the country, and found
himself in urgent need of money to fit this out. (18th June.)
%TONNAGE AND POUNDAGE.%
♦Charles’ first Parliament.♦ A dreadful plague was raging in London,
of which the people were dying by thousands a week, so that the Houses
were anxious to finish their business quickly and end the session. A
bill for two subsidies,[21] amounting to something short of £200,000,
was brought into the Lower House, and the members understanding from a
message sent by the king that he was satisfied with the amount, and
would allow them to re-assemble at some more convenient season, began
to disperse in large numbers to their homes. The House was already
emptied of two-thirds of its members, when the Bill of Tonnage and
Poundage, granting the king the custom duties, came before it.
♦Commons limit to a year the Bill of Tonnage and Poundage.♦ Although
the usual practice since the reign of Henry V. had been to grant the
customs for life, the Commons, owing to the thinness of their House,
and their wish for time to regulate the scale of duties, only granted
them to Charles for a year, delaying to make him a life grant until
the next session of Parliament. The bill reached the Upper House;[22]
but Charles taking the contents as an insult, did not care to get
it passed. The Parliament, however, might have adjourned without
greater causes of discontent than the favour shown to Catholics and
the rejection of the Tonnage and Poundage Bill, had not Buckingham
deliberately fomented a quarrel.
%ADJOURNMENT TO OXFORD--DISCONTENT.%
♦First Parliament adjourned to Oxford.♦ At the calling of James’ last
Parliament, when the match with Spain was broken off, the duke had
allied himself with the popular leaders. Now, wishing to be entirely
free of their control, especially in the conduct of the fleet, he
determined to bring about a rupture with the Parliament and so effect a
dissolution. Accordingly, on the day when the two Houses adjourned, and
the king’s assent was given to the bill for two subsidies, the members
heard, to their dismay, that they were required, within a fortnight’s
time, to meet again at Oxford, a town where the plague had not yet
appeared. (10th July.)
♦Causes of discontent.♦ Short as the interval was between the two
sessions, events were not wanting to breed suspicion and distrust. Dr.
Montague, a clergyman, censured by the Commons for publishing books
upholding the Divine Right of kings, and teaching confession, the use
of images, and other Roman doctrines, had been appointed chaplain to
the king. Charles had agreed in the French Marriage Treaty not to put
the laws against Catholics into force; and these conditions, kept
secret at the time, were now beginning to be divulged. The customs
were still levied, though the king had no legal claim to them, having
failed to carry the Bill for Tonnage and Poundage. The national fleet
was not allowed to defend the nation; reserved for the king’s high
purposes, which were still unrevealed, it might not move to clear the
channel of the Turkish pirates, now ravaging the coasts, plundering
merchant vessels, and carrying off captives by hundreds. There was an
ugly story abroad, that eight ships had been actually lent the French
king to assist him in blocking up the Huguenots, brother Protestants,
in Rochelle. And now, as a crowning cause of discontent, the Parliament
was re-assembled at an unusual place, at the hottest time of a
plague-smitten season (Aug 1st), and asked for sums that the king’s
ministers should have shown were necessary before. Long journeys were
no light matter in those days, when roads were so bad that a coach and
four could often go little more than four miles an hour. The members
regarded the demand now made upon them almost as an insult, and felt
convinced that Charles and Buckingham preferred this patent disregard
of their convenience to revealing their whole policy at first. Thus,
instead of granting a second supply, the House began to debate upon the
abuses of the administration, and to point at the duke as the cause of
them.
“Strange, the adjournment for only a few days, and that meeting
there in Oxford! As it could not be that the king should have
such mutability in himself, was not the real cause manifest to
them? To have the whole kingdom hurried in such haste for the
will and pleasure of _one subject_! All this was beyond example
and comparison.”[23]
%FIRST PARLIAMENT DISSOLVED.%
♦Parliament dissolved.♦ On this, Charles carried out Buckingham’s
intention, and dissolved the Parliament at once (12th Aug.) There had
been good cause for the caution displayed by the Commons in granting
supplies.
♦Charles lends Louis ships to use against Rochelle.♦ In the
spring, Charles and Buckingham, keeping their purpose concealed even
from the Privy Council, pressed seven merchant vessels, and sent them
with a ship of war under Captain Pennington’s command, to be employed
by Louis XIII. in blocking up the Huguenots in Rochelle. The sailors,
however, showed their spirit. Learning at Dieppe their destined
service, masters and men persisted in sailing back to the Downs,
swearing that they would be hanged or thrown overboard before they
would fight; while Pennington, who fully shared the feelings of the
crews, wrote to the king, asking to be removed from command. In reply,
however, he was only peremptorily ordered back to the French coast, and
received a royal warrant authorizing him to compel obedience, “even
unto the sinking of the ships.” The men, being now told that the civil
war in France was at an end, and that they were to be employed against
Genoa, an ally of Spain, were with difficulty a second time persuaded
to sail. At Dieppe, however, the truth could no longer be concealed.
♦Sailors desert the vessels.♦ One vessel sailed back to the Downs,
and the rest of the crews deserted their ships, leaving them to be
manned by Frenchmen. A gunner--the only Englishman who took part in the
service--was killed by a shot before Rochelle.
%WAR WITH SPAIN--FAILURE.%
This story was the common talk of the nation at the time of the
dissolution of Parliament. An expedition so unpopular was especially
unfortunate when the king was bent on going to war with Spain. No
English king could hope to carry on war without obtaining large
parliamentary grants, unless he was prepared to resort to illegal means
of raising money. James had disliked Parliaments, and therefore, with
good reason, clung to peace. Peace was still open to Charles, for war
had not been declared; but he preferred breaking the law to breaking
his resolution. Money was raised in the form of loans.
♦Fleet sails against Spain.♦ By these means, a fleet of ninety vessels
was collected. It sailed in the autumn (4th Oct.). Buckingham, though
lord-admiral, was too wise to command in person. Sir Edward Cecil,
created Viscount Wimbledon for the occasion, was sent as deputy, to
take the blame in case of failure. Success those who knew the state of
the fleet hardly ventured to hope for. The agents the duke employed
in manning, provisioning, and furnishing the vessels, had shamefully
embezzled the funds, so that victuals were bad, men sick, and ships
leaky, even at starting. Wimbledon received secret instructions to
seize shipping and stores in the Spanish harbours, and to capture a
fleet of richly laden merchantmen, returning home from the West Indies.
Charles had great hopes that his exchequer would be replenished with
Spanish bullion.
♦Returns home disgraced.♦ Wimbledon, however, after entering the
harbour of Cadiz and surprising a fort, found his troops disorderly,
and finally returned to England without having fought an enemy or made
a prize (Nov., Dec.). Disease broke out on the voyage home; hundreds
perished at sea; hundreds were landed in a dying condition, solely,
as it was said, through the bad food supplied for both soldiers and
sailors. Upon the success of this expedition Buckingham’s reputation
was staked. It had been planned by him, by his advice its destination
had been kept secret from Parliament, and he was justly regarded as the
real author of the disgrace.
♦Charles summons a Second Parliament.♦ Meantime the loans had fallen
short; the seamen came up to London clamouring for their pay; the royal
exchequer was empty. There was no escape, and Charles had to summon a
second Parliament, which met only some six months after the dissolution
of the first (6th Feb., 1626).
%IMPEACHMENT OF BUCKINGHAM.%
The illegal methods of raising money, the employment of English ships
for crushing French Protestants, the fiasco of the fleet, were all set
down to Buckingham.
♦Buckingham advised to conciliate the country.♦ The duke received hints
of what was coming. “The office of high-admiral,” wrote a friendly
counsellor, “requires one whole man to execute it. Your grace hath
another sea of business to wade through, and the voluntary resigning
of this office would fill all men, yea, even your enemies, with
affection.” Buckingham, Lord High-Admiral of England and Ireland,
Governor-General of seas and navy, Master of the Horse, Warden of the
Cinque Ports, refused to resign one of these or his other titles to
popular clamour.
But while Charles asked for a subsidy, the Commons appointed a
committee to search into grievances. The committee soon satisfied
themselves that all evils found their head and source in Buckingham.
On this the king tried threats. “I must let you know,” he wrote in a
letter to the House, “that I will not allow any of my servants to be
questioned amongst you, much less such as are of eminent place and near
unto me. The old question was, What shall be done to the man whom the
king will honour? But now it hath been the labour of some to seek what
may be done against him whom the king thinks fit to honour.... I wish
you would hasten my supply, or else it will be worse for yourselves,
for if any ill happen, I think I shall be the last that shall feel it.”
%PRACTICE OF IMPEACHMENT.%
♦Buckingham impeached.♦ The Commons, undaunted, impeached the duke for
high crimes and misdemeanours (22nd April). In cases of parliamentary
impeachment, the House of Commons is accuser, the House of Lords judge.
The earliest case occurred towards the end of Edward the Third’s
reign (1376). From the time of Henry VI. there was no impeachment for
nearly two centuries (1449-1621), till the practice was revived in
the reign of James I., when two of the king’s ministers were impeached
for bribery and corruption--Bacon, lord chancellor, in 1621; the Earl
of Middlesex, lord treasurer, in 1624. In times when the Parliament
and the crown, the law and the prerogative, were struggling for
mastery, and when the crown dismissed and appointed at pleasure both
judges and ministers of State, such a power was a most useful weapon
in the hands of the Commons. Now, since the trials of Warren Hastings
(1791) and Lord Melville (1805), the right of impeachment has ceased
to be exercised, because the relation of all parties has changed. The
law has gained the victory over the prerogative. Courts of justice
are independent, and ministers of the crown only hold office at the
pleasure of the Commons.
♦True charge against Buckingham.♦ The reverse of all this might have
been affirmed at the time when Buckingham was impeached. The special
allegations against him were his holding many offices at the same
time, selling places of judicature, lending ships to Louis to be used
against Rochelle, with various other offences, in all thirteen. But the
Commons did not, in fact, impeach Buckingham for any particular crime.
Their quarrel with him was that he alone possessed the royal ear, and
that he counselled Charles to commit illegal acts at home, and pursue
a wavering course of foreign policy, detrimental to the interests of
the Protestants. The English nation has always been intolerant of
tyranny at second hand. It seemed to them now monstrous that the wishes
of people and Parliament should be over-ruled by the fancies of one
unworthy favourite. They determined, therefore, to impeach the duke, as
the only constitutional means then possessed of securing the change of
ministry they desired.
♦Speech of Sir John Eliot♦
“What vast treasures he has gotten,” said Sir John Eliot,
conducting the impeachment before the Lords, “what infinite sums
of money, and what a mass of lands! If your lordships please to
calculate, you will find it all amounting to little less than the
whole of the subsidies which the king has had within that time. A
lamentable example of the subjects’ bounties so to be employed!
His profuse expenses, his superfluous feasts, his magnificent
buildings, his riots, his excesses, what are they but the visible
evidences of an express exhausting of the State, a chronicle
of the immensity of his waste of the revenues of the crown? No
wonder, then, our king is now in want, this man abounding so. And
as long as he abounds, the king must still be wanting....
“Of all the precedents I can find, none so near resembles him
as doth Sejanus, and him Tacitus describes thus: that he was
_audax, sui obtegens, in alios criminator: juxta adulatio et
superbia_.[24] If your lordships please to measure him by this,
pray see in what they vary. He is _bold_, and of such a boldness,
I dare be bold to say, as is seldom heard of. He is _secret_
in his purposes, and more, that we have showed already. Is he
a _slanderer_? Is he an _accuser_? I wish this Parliament had
not felt it, nor that which was before. As for his _pride and
flattery_, what man can judge the greater?... And now, my lords,
I will conclude with a particular censure given on the Bishop
of Ely in the time of Richard I. That prelate had the king’s
treasures at his command, and had luxuriously abused them. His
obscure kindred were married to earls, barons, and others of
great rank and place. No man’s business could be done without
his help. He would not suffer the king’s council to advise in
the highest affairs of state. He gave _ignotis personis et
obscuris_ the custody of castles and great trusts. He ascended
to such a height of insolence and pride, that he ceased to be
fit for characters of mercy. And therefore, says the record,
of which I now hold the original, _per totam insulam publicè
proclametur_;--PEREAT QUI PERDERE CUNCTA FESTINAT; OPPRIMATUR NE
OMNES OPPRIMAT”[25] (10th May).
♦Charles visits the House of Lords,♦ When Charles heard that Eliot had
compared the duke to Sejanus, he exclaimed, “He must intend me for
Tiberius!” and with the defendant by his side, went to the Upper House,
and tried to overawe the duke’s judges by informing the Lords that he
had given orders for punishment of some insolent speeches spoken to
them yesterday, and that he could himself be a witness to clear the
duke of every charge brought against him (11th May).
♦and imprisons two members of the Commons.♦ He was as good as his word,
and the same day committed to the Tower two of the managers of the
impeachment, Sir Dudley Digges and Sir John Eliot. The Lords, of whom
many were concealed enemies of the favourite, let the king speak and
depart in silence. The Commons agreed to do no business until their
members were restored to the House.
♦Charles angrily dissolves the Parliament.♦ Charles might have ended
the struggle by a dissolution, but as he still hoped to obtain a
supply, he preferred to release the two members. Finding, however,
that the Commons would not grant money, unless the duke was first
removed from office, he determined to put a stop to the impeachment, by
dissolving the Parliament. “No, not a minute!” he said to the Lords,
who came in person to petition him to stay the dissolution, and the
next day he carried out his purpose (15th June).
♦Fear entertained in the country.♦ The people had been anxiously
watching the course of events within the House. “This is the king’s
last Parliament,” they said, aware of Charles’ indignation at the
impeachment of his minister. “And now that the Parliament is dissolved,
and the duke still in power, what will follow next?” “Is it not time to
pray? Unless God show us the way out, we are but in an ill case.”[26]
Charles did not keep his subjects long in doubt of his intentions. In
fact, a series of measures followed, attacking more classes and more
interests within a shorter period than had been ever known in English
history.
%WAR WITH FRANCE.%
Although Charles was already engaged in war with Spain, and had not
received a penny from his last Parliament, he had still the temerity to
enter into war with France. Several causes of quarrel existed between
himself and his brother-in-law, Louis XIII.
♦Coalition of Protestant powers against Spain and Austria.♦ Shortly
before the death of James, Cardinal Richelieu, Louis’ chief minister,
had effected a league between France and the Protestant powers (1624).
The French were to fight the armies of Austria and Spain, while the
King of Denmark, Christian IV., assisted by men from England, and money
from France, was to lead the Protestant forces of Germany for the
recovery of the Palatinate. The fleets of England and Holland were to
attack Spain, while the Turks were engaged to fall upon Hungary. But
as soon as Louis had reduced the Huguenots in Rochelle by the aid of
the ships borrowed from Charles, he deserted his allies, and made peace
with Spain (March, 1626). The reason of this sudden change in French
policy was that the Huguenots, regardless of the interests of their
co-religionists, seized the moment when France was about to engage
in foreign war, to rise in arms against the government. The English
contingent had already been fitted out with the money granted in James’
last Parliament. But Louis now refused permission for these troops to
pass through France on their way to join the German army, so that they
were obliged to take a long sea passage to Zealand. Disease broke out,
and 5000 men out of the 14,000 men perished before they saw the face of
the foe.[27]
Christian IV., thus left unsupported, was defeated at Lutter (27th
August, 1626), and the armies of the emperor, Ferdinand II., were soon
overrunning the north of Germany (1627-8). Charles, who had agreed in
his marriage treaty not to put the laws against Catholics into force,
and had afterwards lent Louis ships, expecting, in return, to receive
aid for the recovery of the Palatinate, naturally felt aggrieved at
the conduct of the French government. Moreover, Buckingham had some
personal disagreement with Richelieu, which was believed to be his only
motive for breaking the peace between the two nations.
%FORCED LOANS.%
♦War with France.♦ The war was unpopular in England, because the
French, through their well-known jealousy of Spain and Austria,
were regarded as the natural allies of the German Protestants. But
Charles and Buckingham were ill advised enough to hope that, by merely
declaring themselves friends of the Huguenots, they would be carried
along on a flood-tide of popularity, and thus be able to raise money
enough by illegal means for the support of two wars at once.
♦Money raised by illegal means.♦ A general loan was demanded; every
man, rich or poor, was required to give in the same proportion as
he had been rated in the last subsidy granted by Parliament. This
so-called loan was in fact nothing less than a tax laid on land and
property, without consent of Parliament. Henry VIII., the most absolute
of the Tudor sovereigns, once endeavoured to raise money by means of
a general loan; but even in his time the attempt produced widespread
discontent; a serious insurrection broke out in Suffolk, and the
imposition was withdrawn (1525). Since that time a steady increase in
wealth and knowledge had for more than a century been strengthening the
middle classes, and confirming their attachment to their liberties.
Leaders were now to be found in the House of Commons, ready boldly to
point the attention of the nation to acts of arbitrary power, and to
brave the consequences of the royal displeasure. It was hardly likely,
therefore, that an act from which Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey had
shrunk, should fail to rouse indignation when attempted by Charles and
his detested favourite.
♦Opposition to loan offered by all classes.♦ Opposition arose on all
sides from rich and poor. The prisons were full of gentlemen who
refused to lend. Lincolnshire “almost rebelled;” Shropshire “utterly
denied.” Several gentlemen, on being brought before the Council
Chamber, refused to kneel, for fear of seeming to acknowledge that they
were in any way responsible for a legitimate refusal of an illegitimate
demand. In London, only two or three in a parish would pay, and that
though goods were seized, and the duke threatened, saying, “Sirrah,
take heed what you do; did not you speak treason at such a time?”
Charles himself was reported to be so inflamed against refusers,
that he was “vowing a perpetual remembrance, as well as a present
punishment.”[28]
Five gentlemen, imprisoned for refusing the loan, applied to the Court
of King’s Bench for a writ of _habeas corpus_.[29] The judge sent a
writ to the gaoler, commanding him to produce his prisoners before
the court, with the warrant on which they had been imprisoned. The
gaoler replied that they were committed by a warrant from the king’s
council, by the special command of his Majesty, but that no special
cause of imprisonment was mentioned.
♦Judgment of Court of King’s Bench concerning personal liberty of
subject.♦ Accordingly, the question was pleaded before the judges of
the King’s Bench, whether or not the king had power to commit his
subjects to prison without alleging any crime against them. The court
was crowded, and shouts of applause were raised at the arguments of the
prisoners’ counsel. The judges, however, gave judgment in favour of the
king, and the five gentlemen were remanded to prison.
The poor, who refused the loans, were pressed into the service of the
army and navy. On some districts an extra imposition was laid, called
“coat and conduct money,” for fitting out the soldiers. The rich had
soldiers quartered on them, who acted as though the king’s soldiers
were as much above the law as their master.
♦Disorderly conduct of soldiers.♦ Not content with killing and carrying
off oxen and sheep from the owners’ grounds, they murdered and robbed
upon the highways, “nay, in fairs and markets, for to meet a poor man
coming from the market with a pair of shoes, and take them from him,
was but a sport and merriment.”
♦Commissions issued for execution of martial law.♦ The highways became
so insecure, that, to suppress disorders, Charles issued commissions
to execute martial law. The ordinary course of justice was then set
aside, and the commissioners tried and sentenced the soldiers under
forms more summary than those of the common law. In spite, however,
of the crimes committed, the remedy seemed to the nation worse than
the disease. Standing armies and courts-martial being alike unknown
to English statute or common law, Charles had no more legal power to
issue commissions to try soldiers by martial law than he had to try
civilians.[30]
♦Clergy preach duty of passive obedience.♦ To increase the general
indignation, the clergy received orders to preach up the duty of
passive obedience and the divine right of kings. Those who looked
out for promotion complied, but the preachers were regarded as mere
lacqueys of the court. It was adding insult to injury, first to
take the people’s properties illegally, and then to tell them that
submission was a duty, pleasing to God.
%DEFEAT AT ROCHELLE.%
♦Expedition of Buckingham to Rochelle.♦ At last, at the expense of
so much bitterness between king and commons, a fleet of 100 vessels
was fitted out, and sailed for France (27th June). Buckingham took
the command himself; a landing was effected on the Isle of Rhé, and
the Huguenots in Rochelle were persuaded to trust to the honour of
the English, and try the event of war against Louis XIII. once more.
But, after two months had been spent in an unsuccessful siege of
the fortified town of St. Martin,[31] Buckingham made a disastrous
retreat along a narrow causeway, beset on either side with salt pits
and ditches. So many officers and soldiers were slain, so many taken
prisoners, that not above half the number of those who sailed returned
to their homes. Beside the cries of private mourning were heard those
of public indignation. Buckingham was believed to have gone to Rochelle
in a pet, merely to gratify his spleen against Louis, without caring
either for the Huguenots or his troops; and the people, in whose minds
the remembrance of Elizabeth’s triumphs was still fresh, went back
to King John’s time to find a parallel disgrace, describing it as
“the shamefullest overthrow the English have received since we lost
Normandy.”
%THIRD PARLIAMENT.%
A clamour was raised for a Parliament. The coasts were infested;
pirates entered the harbours, and sailed up the rivers; the very
fishermen were afraid to put out; trade was decaying, for merchants
refused to build vessels only to be pressed into the king’s service;
the sailors came round about the palace at Whitehall, crying out for
pay. Charles had pledged himself to relieve Rochelle, the siege of
which, by Louis, was the only outcome of his intervention; but how
he was to carry on two wars, in the face of all these difficulties,
was a question to puzzle the wisest head.
♦Charles summons a third Parliament.♦ The lords of the council were
afraid to try forced loans again, and Charles, though, as he truly
said, he did “abominate the name,” consented to follow their advice,
and send out the summons for another Parliament.
♦Enemies of court in large majority.♦ The House was filled with
patriots, elected against court candidates by overwhelming majorities.
Eliot, Pym, Coke, Selden, Wentworth, were all there; and Oliver
Cromwell, a young man of twenty-nine, took his seat for the first time
as member for the town of Huntingdon. Charles opened this, his third
Parliament, with threats (17th March). “If you,” he said, “should not
do your duties in contributing what the State at this time needs,
I must, in discharge of my conscience, use those other means which
God hath put into my hands.” The threat only made the Commons more
determined to put an end to the loans, billeting of soldiers, and
imprisonments, “those other means” which had caused such just and
bitter resentment.
%PETITION OF RIGHT.%
Debates on granting the king a supply, and on finding a remedy for
grievances, advanced hand in hand. The decision of the judges,
that the king might not commit a subject to prison, _except at his
pleasure_,[32] was thought a wanton outrage on the intelligence of the
nation. According to this theory, the laws were only binding on the
king so long as he graciously chose not to act in right of his royal
prerogative, so that Acts of Parliament, regarded for centuries as the
bulwarks of public liberty, were rendered absolutely meaningless.
♦Judgment of King’s Bench canvassed in Commons.♦ “To have my body pent
up in a gaol,” exclaimed an indignant patriot, “without remedy of law,
and to be so adjudged.... If this be law, why do we talk of liberties?
Why do we trouble ourselves with a dispute about law, franchises,
property of goods, and the like? What may a man call his own, if not
the liberty of his person? I am weary of treading these ways.”
A security was needed that the old laws should be kept in force, and
the king’s prerogative be prevented from trampling them under foot. “We
must vindicate--what?” said Wentworth, “new things? No! our ancient,
lawful, and vital liberties! We must reinforce the laws made by our
ancestors. We must set such a stamp upon them as no licentious spirit
shall dare hereafter to invade them.”
♦Petition of Right.♦ The Commons, however, still believed the king
would feel bound in conscience to respect a law which he passed
himself; and, under this impression, drew up a bill, in the form of a
Petition of Right, to serve as a new guarantee for the preservation
of liberty. They called their bill the Petition of Right, because it
was but a confirmation of old laws, of rights already possessed. The
Petition demanded:
1st. That no freeman be required to give any gift, loan, benevolence,
or tax without common consent by Act of Parliament.
2nd. That no freeman be imprisoned or detained contrary to the laws of
the land.
3rd. That soldiers and mariners be not billeted in private houses.
4th. That commissions to punish soldiers and sailors by martial law be
revoked, and no more issued.
%ATTEMPTED EVASION.%
♦Saving clause proposed by Lords, rejected by Commons.♦ The Upper
House, which the king had partially packed by the creation of several
new lords, proposed to add to the petition the following saving
clause:--“We humbly present this petition to your Majesty, with due
regard to leave entire that sovereign power wherewith your Majesty is
entrusted for the protection of your people.” The Commons, however,
refused to accept the amendment, which conceded the very point at
issue. “All our petition,” said Pym, “is for the laws of England; this
power seems to be another power distinct from the power of the law. We
cannot leave him a sovereign power, for he was never possessed of it.”
After several conferences between the two Houses, the Lords yielded
and passed the petition in the form desired by the Commons (27th
May).
♦Charles’ first answer to Petition of Right.♦ Charles, being in want of
money, did not venture in any direct manner to refuse his consent, but
when the petition was read before assembled King, Lords, and Commons,
the lord keeper read out, instead of the usual words by which the royal
assent is signified, a new form, “that the king wished that right
should be done, and that he held himself in conscience as much obliged
to maintain their just rights and liberties as his own prerogative”
(2nd June). The Commons were engaged in preparing a remonstrance
against the evil advisers by whose counsel this worthless answer had
been given, when a message came from the king, forbidding the House to
meddle with affairs of State (5th June). There followed a prolonged
silence.
♦Charles forbids House of Commons to meddle with affairs of State.♦
Not to meddle with affairs of State, meant that they must endure the
ascendancy of the duke, and see the name of England despised abroad
from a policy which was at once meddlesome, feeble, and fickle; while
at home outrages were done to the dearest liberties of their country,
which it was their bounden duty to defend. Some members sat down in
tears, dumb through grief; others mingled their speech with tears; some
hundred wept in all, they felt so much was at stake. “Let us palliate
no longer,” cried the old lawyer, Sir Edward Coke, “if we do, God will
not prosper us. I think the Duke of Buckingham is the cause of all our
miseries--that man is the grievance of grievances; it is not the king
but the duke”--(a great cry of “’Tis he, ’tis he!” “Yea, yea!” “Well
moved, well spoken”)--“that saith, ‘We require you not to meddle with
State government or the ministers thereof’” (5th June).
♦King’s second answer to Petition of Right.♦ Two days later, Charles
yielded, the Petition of Right was read a second time, and the reply
given in the usual form: “_Soit droit fait comme il est désiré_” (7th
June).
The Commons, on their side, passed a bill for five subsidies, after
which Parliament was prorogued (26th June).
While Parliament was sitting, another fleet which was sent to Rochelle,
returned without raising the siege. “What wonder!” said the people;
“was not the commander Buckingham’s brother-in-law?” No allowance
had been made for the shallowness of that sandy coast: Lord Denbigh,
finding his ships drew too much water to approach the city, seemed
only too glad of an excuse for sailing away at once. It was believed
that the expedition had been got up, not to save Rochelle, but merely
to blind the eyes of Parliament. One of the duke’s household, called
Dr. Lamb, was set upon by the rabble in the streets of London, and
so brutally knocked about that he died the same night. The city
magistrates could not, or would not, find the offenders. The people
sang,
“Let Charles and George do what they can,
The duke shall die like Dr. Lamb.”
%MURDER OF BUCKINGHAM.%
♦Felton murders Buckingham.♦ Felton, described as a gentleman of low
stature, few words, and melancholy spirit, after pondering over a
remonstrance of the Commons, declaring Buckingham the cause of all
the evils under which the kingdom suffered, conceived it his duty to
rid his country of an enemy. The duke was at Portsmouth, preparing to
set sail immediately in command of another fleet for the relief of
Rochelle. He was in company with several officers, French and English,
when, in passing through a dark lobby leading from a breakfast-room
into a hall, he was stabbed to the heart. “The villain hath killed me!”
he cried, pulled out the knife, staggered to a table, and fell dead
in the arms of the bystanders (23rd Aug.). No one had seen the blow
struck, and suspicion was falling on the Frenchmen, when Felton stepped
forward out of the crowd and said, “I am the man who did the deed, let
no one suffer who is innocent.” The people could not restrain their
joy; healths were drunk to the murderer, verses written in his honour.
Crowds gathered to see him on his way to London and the Tower, greeting
him as the slayer of the Philistine. “Now, God bless thee, little
David,” “The Lord be merciful unto thee,” “The Lord comfort thee,” were
the cries that reached his ears.
♦Judges declare use of torture against the common law.♦ On being
brought before the council and threatened by Bishop Laud with the
rack, unless he revealed the names of his associates, he replied that
he alone was author of the deed, and that as for the rack, he could
not say whether torture might make him accuse his lordship, or which
of their lordships. The threat was not put into execution. The judges
unanimously declared the use of torture was contrary to the common law
of England, and the king did not think it prudent to override their
decision. Felton was hanged at Tyburn. To the last he felt little
remorse for the murder. Though he confessed he had done wrong in
shedding blood, he could not be brought to doubt but that good would
result to Church and State from his act.
%POLITICAL ASSASSINATION.%
The duke was only thirty-five. Charles called him “his martyr,” and
never forgave those who opposed him during life, or spoke ill of him
after death. His fate shows the truth of the common maxim that those
who are above the law are above the protection of law; but the crime
was the crime of a fanatic.
♦Popular leaders not implicated in the crime.♦ Not a shadow of
suspicion rests on the popular leaders. They were at once too
far-sighted and too honourable. Acts of treachery and violence,
whatever the immediate advantage gained, are sure in the long run to
recoil to the injury of the side that practises them. Sooner or later,
violence is condemned by public opinion, for in a constitutional
struggle, the mass of the nation have really more the feelings of a
jury than of parties to a case. It is only by winning a favourable
judgment from the large and wavering masses, that any party, which has
no armed force behind it, can obtain a sure and final triumph. Violent
partisans are always to be found ready to approve and employ all means
without distinction to advance their ends; but the English leaders knew
that the statue of Wingless Victory can only stand in the shrine of law
and right.
%FALL OF ROCHELLE.%
The fleet, which now sailed under Lord Lindsay, was as unsuccessful
as though Buckingham himself had lived to command it. While Charles
delayed, Richelieu’s genius and energy were at work. The city was
gradually shut in on the land side by a line of circumvallation
extending nine miles, while a vast mole of nearly a mile in length was
raised across the roadstead. After two unsuccessful attempts to force
their way through the mole, the English returned without having placed
a morsel of food within reach of the starving inhabitants. The town
had a strong position between the sea and the marshes on the rocky
promontory from which it got its name of the “little rock.” Originally
a colony of serfs, who had fled from the oppressions of their feudal
lords, it had a tradition of political as well as of religious freedom.
Once a fief of the English kings, and now much dearer as a stronghold
of Protestantism, the English were deeply interested in its heroic
resistance, and regarded themselves and their country as irretrievably
disgraced, when, after 16,000 were said to have died of famine, the
city at last surrendered at discretion (8th Oct., 1628).
♦Fall of Rochelle.♦ The fall was a fatal blow to the cause of the
Huguenots. Liberty of conscience was still left them, but their
fortresses were destroyed, their assemblies, their privileges, their
organization by churches abolished. Instead of being a power within the
state, they became a sect.[33]
[Illustration: Map of Rochelle area]
The English, after this defeat of their religion, could not console
themselves for long with the victory they had obtained over the
government in the Petition of Right. At first the people in London
rung bells and made bonfires, believing their liberties to be now
secured; but their mistake was soon proved. Notwithstanding the king’s
distinct promise to respect the rights enumerated in the Petition, the
customs were still levied.
♦Petition of Right broken by ministers.♦ A merchant, a member of the
Commons, who refused to pay £200 duty, had his goods seized to the
value of £5000. “If all the Parliament were in you, we would take your
goods,” said the custom-house officers. Men who ventured on speaking or
writing against the introduction of Catholic ceremonies and doctrines
into a Protestant church, were brought before the Star Chamber on
charges of libel, fined, cast into prison, and, in some cases,
mutilated. Bishop Laud, a cruel persecutor of Puritans, was translated
to the see of London (July). Clergymen, tried and censured by the last
Parliament for publishing books and sermons maintaining the right of
the king to take his subjects’ goods without their own consent, were
now rewarded with bishoprics or rich livings, Charles did not seem
to realize the alteration he had made in his position by giving his
consent to the Petition of Right. Previously, no special tie bound
him to act by law. No special charge of deceit, therefore, could be
brought against him if, like his father, he tried to exalt his position
into that of a French king, free arbitrarily to tax and imprison his
subjects. But now a victory had been fairly won by patriots armed only
with the legal weapons of the constitution, and by confirming the old
charters by a new statute, he had pledged his word to their observance;
by infringement now, he would lose the confidence as well as the
affection of his subjects.
%WENTWORTH THE MINISTER.%
♦Sir Thomas Wentworth fills Buckingham’s place in council.♦ Meantime
the place of Buckingham was filled. The name of Sir Thomas Wentworth
had hitherto been counted among the chief leaders of the opposition.
But his subsequent conduct seemed to show that his actions had been
dictated by pride rather than by patriotism. Haughty and ambitious,
scorning to hold a second place, he had chosen to rise to influence
as an enemy of the court, rather than lower himself and sue for
favour to Buckingham. Promotion, however, is sure to be offered to a
dangerous opponent, who will sacrifice principles to place. A month
before Buckingham’s death, Wentworth was raised to a barony. Thus
when Felton made the first place vacant, Charles had already enlisted
in his service a man, whose great abilities and commanding nature
rendered him far more competent to be his adviser in the exercise of
arbitrary government than the vain and frivolous favourite he had
lost. Wentworth made no conditions as to the policy to be pursued; thus
he left his party, not to forward their views in office, but simply to
gratify his inordinate ambition. He appointed a meeting with his old
friend and companion, Pym, at Greenwich, and there discoursed to him
“of the dangers they were like to run by the courses they were in, and
what advantages they might have, if they would listen to some offers
which would probably be made to them from court.” “You need not use all
this art,” replied Pym, “to tell me that you have a mind to leave us.
But remember what I tell you. You are going to be undone. And remember
also, that though you leave us now, I will never leave you, while your
head is upon your shoulders.”
♦Second session of Charles’ Third Parliament.♦ Thus Wentworth, now
Viscount Wentworth, and a member of the Privy Council, at the next
session of Parliament sat amongst the king’s ministers in the Upper
House, ready to throw all the weight of his abilities and eloquence
upon the side of arbitrary power (20th Jan).
The Commons immediately began to debate upon their grievances. ‘The
goods of merchants had been seized for refusing to pay illegal customs.
Further, though no man ought to lose life or limb but by the law,
the Star Chamber sentenced men to lose their ears.’ “Next it will be
our arms, and then our legs, and so our lives.” Charles, not content
with thus breaking his royal promise, had descended to subterfuge.
Though by the king’s own orders the Petition of Right, with the proper
answer, had been entered in the journals of the House, yet copies had
subsequently been dispersed over the country, with the first evasive
answer annexed, as well as the second. It was found that the printer
had received royal orders to suppress the true copies, and make a
new impression. ‘Noblesse oblige,’ but such doubtful dealing could
only bring obloquy on the sovereign. The strength of loyalty lies in
sentiment, and this was a fatal omen of the future for king and commons.
%ELIOT’S DECLARATION.%
♦Commons inquire into illegal acts of ministers and officers of
executive.♦ Meantime Charles sent message after message bidding the
House pass a bill, granting him the customs, for this was in fact
the only purpose for which he had called the Parliament. “Let the
merchants have their goods restored,” said the Commons, “before the
bill is passed.” “Kings,” said one, “ought not, by the law of God,
thus to oppress their subjects. I know we have a good king, and this is
the advice of his wicked ministers, but there is nothing can be more
dishonourable unto him.” They proceeded to question those ministers;
they demanded of the king’s attorney-general by whose warrant he
had discharged Catholic priests; they demanded of the farmers of
the customs on what warrants they had seized the goods of merchants
who refused to pay illegal duties; they demanded of the judges on
what grounds they had refused to let the merchants have their cause
tried at law. No acts could have given more dire offence to Charles.
Other Houses of Commons had attacked some single minister of state,
but none had ever ventured on questioning the conduct of the king’s
servants at large. An immediate dissolution being fully expected, the
popular leaders determined not to separate, without first passing a
vote against the illegal levying of the customs. On the 2nd of March
Eliot rose to address the House.
♦The Speaker refuses to put Eliot’s declaration to the vote.♦ The
Speaker, Finch, a thorough courtier, rose also, and saying that he
had the king’s orders for an immediate adjournment, left his chair.
Two members, Denzil Hollis and Valentine, standing on either side,
forced him back to his seat, and held him down, whilst Eliot made a
short speech, in which he declared it to be the duty of the House to
maintain religion and the rights of the subject, and brought forward a
declaration to that effect, which he desired the Speaker to put to the
vote. But Finch, with tears, refused to receive it or put it to the
vote, declaring that he had the king’s command to the contrary. Again
he tried to rise from his chair, and again was forced down by Hollis
and Valentine. “God’s wounds,” said Hollis, “he should sit there until
it pleased them to rise.” “You are the disgrace of your country, and
the blot of a noble family,” cried one of his own kinsmen.
♦Tumult in the House. King’s messenger refused admittance.♦ The king’s
councillors, coming forward to rescue the Speaker, were forcibly driven
back to their seats. Blows were given, and sword hilts handled. “Let
all,” said Strode, “who desire the declaration read and put to the
vote, stand up.” Whereupon the majority of the House started to their
feet, and Eliot flung down the paper before them. At this moment a
messenger from the king came to the door, with orders to the sergeant
to withdraw with the mace, which, by custom always lies on the
Commons’ table while the House is proceeding with business. No sooner,
however, had the sergeant laid his hand upon the mace, than a cry was
raised to lock the door, and Sir Miles Hobert turned the lock, and put
the key in his pocket. Eliot then read a protest against any who should
levy or pay customs. “And for myself,” he said, “I protest further,
as I am a gentleman, if my fortune be ever again to meet in this
honourable assembly, where I now leave, I will begin again.” While he
was speaking, the gentleman usher of the black rod, sent by Charles to
pronounce a dissolution, vainly knocked at the door for admittance. And
now Hollis, standing by the Speaker’s chair, with a paper containing
three resolutions in his hand, called out, that he put the question,
“that they were traitors who should introduce Popery; that they were
traitors who should levy the customs, ungranted by Parliament; that
they were traitors who should voluntarily pay them.” “Ay, ay,” was
shouted on all sides. The door was unlocked, and the members rushed
out, carrying away in the stream a third messenger waiting outside from
the king (2nd March).
%ANGRY DISSOLUTION.%
The next day Charles signed a proclamation for a dissolution. The
Commons “had,” he said, “tried to erect an universal overwhelming power
to themselves, which belongs only to us, and not to them.” They had in
fact tried to gain control over the executive power. So far the charge
was true. The nation was weary of entering upon wars without its own
approval or consent; of giving money for one object, and seeing it
spent on another; of seeing good laws not only violated by ministers
of the crown, but rendered nugatory by the quibbles of time-serving
judges. The Petition of Right was already a dead letter. Judges,
ministers, custom-house officers, all acted as though the king’s
consent to such a law had never been given. The Commons saw that it
was but a vain guarantee against tyranny to ‘have a king’s word to the
contrary.’ They were on the right track when they sought to make the
officers of the executive personally responsible, as according to the
principles of the constitution they had always been. Charles, on his
side, published a proclamation against Parliament, threatening “certain
vipers of the Commonwealth” with condign punishment, and declaring it
“presumption for any one to prescribe to him any time for the calling
of that assembly.”
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Birch, I. 12;--Hutch. Mem.
[20] Strafford, Letters and Despatches, I. 28.
[21] A subsidy was an income tax of 4s. in the pound upon the annual
value of lands, and a property-tax of 2s. 8d. in the pound upon
the actual value of goods. Those whose lands were not worth 20s. a
year, or whose personal property was less than £3 in value, were not
taxed. These subsidies were levied by commissioners, appointed by the
Chancellor of the Exchequer from amongst the inhabitants of the county
or borough. The assessment was made with great laxity; owing to this
fact and to a constant rise in the money-value of lands, and goods (the
price of wheat for instance, doubling in Elizabeth’s reign), the real
state of the subsidy was very much less than the nominal. A tenth or a
fifteenth was generally voted in addition to the subsidy. These were
originally the real tenth or fifteenth of all the movables or personal
property of the subject. Each county or borough was responsible for
a certain sum, which was levied by commissioners, appointed by its
representatives in the Commons. Since the last valuation had been made
in the reign of Edward III., in that of Charles I., when the purchasing
power of money had decreased five times, the tenths and fifteenths
instead of being taxes of 2s., and of 1s. 4d., were more like taxes of
5d. and 3d., in the £ respectively.
[22] This has been proved by Forster’s Life of Sir John Eliot, i. v. 6.
[23] See Forster’s Life of Sir John Eliot. i. vi. 4.
[24] Tac. Ann. iv. 1.
[25] Forster’s Life of Sir J. Eliot, i. vii. 6.
[26] Ellis. 3rd Series, 227, 228.
[27] Vessels were not then required, as they happily are now, to have
on board a sufficient supply of lime juice, or other preventives
against consequences of a salt diet. Hence the fatal ravages of
scurvy in those times. The symptoms of this disease are described
as--discoloured spots, swelled legs, extraordinary lassitude and
dejection, sudden death resulting on the least motion or exertion of
strength. See G. Anson’s Voyage, I. x.
[28] Straff. Letters, I. 38; Birch. 190, 154, 157, 164.
[29] See p. 16.
[30] Kings of England had indeed always exercised the right of issuing
ordinances of war for the regulation of their armies. But this military
law had been confined to military offences committed on actual service,
while these ‘soldiers, mariners, and other dissolute persons,’ were
(1) not on actual service, and (2) had committed offences which were
cognizable at the courts of common law; hence fears were naturally
entertained that so tempting a method of procedure would be extended
to civilians. Since England has had a standing army, a Mutiny Act is
annually passed, allowing courts-martial for punishment of military
offences, and reserving the crown power to frame further articles in
case of actual war.
[31] For map, see p. 46.
[32] Forster’s Life of Sir J. Eliot, ii. ix. 2.
[33] Lavallée, Hist. de France.