Constitutional History of England Volume I Part 23

_Parliament of 1621._--The king's speech on opening the session was, like all he had made on former occasions, full of hopes and promises, taking cheerfully his share of the blame as to past disagreements, and treating them as little likely to recur, though all their causes were still in operation.[589] He displayed, however, more judgment than usual in the commencement of this parliament. Among the methods devised to compensate the want of subsidies, none had been more injurious to the subject than patents of monopoly, including licences for exclusively carrying on certain trades. Though the government was princ.i.p.ally responsible for the exactions they connived at, and from which they reaped a large benefit, the popular odium fell of course on the monopolists. Of these the most obnoxious was Sir Giles Mompesson, who, having obtained a patent for gold and silver thread, sold it of baser metal. This fraud seems neither very extraordinary nor very important; but he had another patent for licensing inns and alehouses, wherein he is said to have used extreme violence and oppression. The House of Commons proceeded to investigate Mompesson's delinquency. Conscious that the Crown had withdrawn its protection, he fled beyond sea. One Mich.e.l.l, a justice of peace, who had been the instrument of his tyranny, fell into the hands of the Commons, who voted him incapable of being in the commission of the peace, and sent him to the Tower.[590] Entertaining, however, upon second thoughts, as we must presume, some doubts about their competence to inflict this punishment, especially the former part of it, they took the more prudent course with respect to Mompesson, of appointing Noy and Hakewill to search for precedents in order to show how far and for what offences their power extended to punish delinquents against the state as well as those who offended against that house. The result appears some days after, in a vote that "they must join with the Lords for punis.h.i.+ng Sir Giles Mompesson; it being no offence against our particular house, nor any member of it, but a general grievance."[591]

The earliest instance of parliamentary impeachment, or of a solemn accusation of any individual by the Commons at the bar of the Lords, was that of Lord Latimer in the year 1376. The latest hitherto was that of the Duke of Suffolk in 1449; for a proceeding against the Bishop of London in 1534, which has sometimes been reckoned an instance of parliamentary impeachment, does not by any means support that privilege of the Commons.[592] It had fallen into disuse, partly from the loss of that control which the Commons had obtained under Richard II. and the Lancastrian kings; and partly from the preference the Tudor princes had given to bills of attainder or of pains and penalties, when they wished to turn the arm of parliament against an obnoxious subject. The revival of this ancient mode of proceeding in the case of Mompesson, though a remarkable event in our const.i.tutional annals, does not appear to have been noticed as an anomaly. It was not indeed conducted according to all the forms of an impeachment. The Commons, requesting a conference with the other house, informed them generally of that person's offence, but did not exhibit any distinct articles at their bar. The Lords took up themselves the inquiry; and having become satisfied of his guilt, sent a message to the Commons, that they were ready to p.r.o.nounce sentence. The speaker accordingly, attended by all the house, demanded judgment at the bar: when the Lords pa.s.sed as heavy a sentence as could be awarded for any misdemeanour; to which the king, by a stretch of prerogative, which no one was then inclined to call in question, was pleased to add perpetual banishment.[593]

The impeachment of Mompesson was followed up by others against Mich.e.l.l, the a.s.sociate in his iniquities; against Sir John Bennet, judge of the prerogative court, for corruption in his office; and against Field, Bishop of Landaff, for being concerned in a matter of bribery.[594] The first of these was punished; but the prosecution of Bennet seems to have dropped in consequence of the adjournment, and that of the bishop ended in a slight censure. But the wrath of the Commons was justly roused against that shameless corruption, which characterises the reign of James beyond every other in our history.

_Proceedings against Lord Bacon._--It is too well known, how deeply the greatest man of that age was tarnished by the prevailing iniquity.

Complaints poured in against the chancellor Bacon for receiving bribes from suitors in his court. Some have vainly endeavoured to discover an excuse which he did not pretend to set up, and even ascribed the prosecution to the malevolence of Sir Edward c.o.ke.[595] But c.o.ke took no prominent share in this business; and though some of the charges against Bacon may not appear very heinous, especially for those times, I know not whether the unanimous conviction of such a man, and the conscious pusillanimity of his defence do not afford a more irresistible presumption of his misconduct than anything specially alleged. He was abandoned by the court, and had previously lost, as I rather suspect, Buckingham's favour; but the king, who had a sense of his transcendent genius, remitted the fine of 40,000 imposed by the Lords, which he was wholly unable to pay.[596]

There was much to commend in the severity practised by the house towards public delinquents; such examples being far more likely to prevent the malversation of men in power than any law they could enact. But in the midst of these laudable proceedings, they were hurried by the pa.s.sions of the moment into an act of most unwarrantable violence. It came to the knowledge of the house that one Floyd, a gentleman confined in the Fleet prison, had used some slighting words about the elector palatine and his wife. It appeared in aggravation, that he was a Roman catholic. Nothing could exceed the fury into which the Commons were thrown by this very insignificant story. A flippant expression, below the cognisance of an ordinary court, grew at once into a portentous offence, which they ransacked their invention to chastise. After sundry novel and monstrous propositions, they fixed upon the most degrading punishment they could devise. Next day, however, the chancellor of the exchequer delivered a message, that the king, thanking them for their zeal, but desiring that it should not transport them to inconveniences, would have them consider whether they could sentence one who did not belong to them, nor had offended against the house or any member of it; and whether they could sentence a denying party, without the oath of witnesses; referring them to an entry on the rolls of parliament in the first year of Henry IV., that the judicial power of parliament does not belong to the Commons. He would have them consider whether it would not be better to leave Floyd to him, who would punish him according to his fault.

This message put them into some embarra.s.sment. They had come to a vote in Mompesson's case, in the very words employed in the king's message, confessing themselves to have no jurisdiction, except over offences against themselves. The warm speakers now controverted this proposition with such arguments as they could muster; c.o.ke, though from the reported debates he seems not to have gone the whole length, contending that the house was a court of record, and that it consequently had power to administer an oath.[597] They returned a message by the speaker, excepting to the record in 1 H. 4, because it was not an act of parliament to bind them, and persisting, though with humility, in their first votes.[598] The king replied mildly; urging them to show precedents, which they were manifestly incapable of doing. The Lords requested a conference, which they managed with more temper, and notwithstanding the solicitude displayed by the Commons to maintain their pretended right, succeeded in withdrawing the matter to their own jurisdiction.[599] This conflict of privileges was by no means of service to the unfortunate culprit; the Lords perceived that they could not mitigate the sentence of the lower house without reviving their dispute, and vindicated themselves from all suspicion of indifference towards the cause of the Palatinate by augmenting its severity. Floyd was adjudged to be degraded from his gentility, and to be held an infamous person; his testimony not to be received; to ride from the Fleet to Cheapside on horseback without a saddle, with his face to the horse's tail, and the tail in his hand, and there to stand two hours in the pillory, and to be branded in the forehead with the letter K; to ride four days afterwards in the same manner to Westminster, and there to stand two hours more in the pillory, with words in a paper in his hat showing his offence; to be whipped at the cart's tail from the Fleet to Westminster Hall; to pay a fine of 5000, and to be a prisoner in Newgate during his life. The whipping was a few days after remitted on Prince Charles's motion; but he seems to have undergone the rest of the sentence. There is surely no instance in the annals of our own, and hardly of any civilised country, where a trifling offence, if it were one, has been visited with such outrageous cruelty. The cold-blooded deliberate policy of the Lords is still more disgusting than the wild fury of the lower house.[600]

This case of Floyd is an unhappy proof of the disregard that popular a.s.semblies, when inflamed by pa.s.sion, are ever apt to show for those principles of equity and moderation, by which, however the sophistry of contemporary factions may set them aside, a calm judging posterity will never fail to measure their proceedings. It has contributed at least, along with several others of the same kind, to inspire me with a jealous distrust of that indefinable, uncontrollable privilege of parliament, which has sometimes been a.s.serted, and perhaps with rather too much encouragement from those whose function it is to restrain all exorbitant power. I speak only of the extent to which theoretical principles have been carried, without insinuating that the privileges of the House of Commons have been practically stretched in late times beyond their const.i.tutional bounds. Time and the course of opinion have softened down those high pretensions, which the dangers of liberty under James the First, as well as the natural character of a popular a.s.sembly, then taught the Commons to a.s.sume; and the greater humanity of modern ages has made us revolt from such disproportionate punishments as were inflicted on Floyd.[601]

Everything had hitherto proceeded with harmony between the king and parliament. His ready concurrence in their animadversion on Mompesson and Mich.e.l.l, delinquents who had acted at least with the connivance of government, and in the abolition of monopolies, seemed to remove all discontent. The Commons granted two subsidies early in the session without alloying their bounty with a single complaint of grievances. One might suppose that the subject of impositions had been entirely forgotten, not an allusion to them occurring in any debate.[602] It was voted indeed, in the first days of the session, to pet.i.tion the king about the breach of their privilege of free speech, by the imprisonment of Sir Edwin Sandys, in 1614, for words spoken in the last parliament; but the house did not prosecute this matter, contenting itself with some explanation by the secretary of state.[603] They were going on with some bills for reformation of abuses, to which the king was willing to accede, when they received an intimation that he expected them to adjourn over the summer. It produced a good deal of dissatisfaction to see their labour so hastily interrupted; especially as they ascribed it to a want of sufficient sympathy on the court's part with their enthusiastic zeal for the elector palatine.[604] They were adjourned by the king's commission, after an unanimous declaration ("sounded forth,"

says one present, "with the voices of them all, withal lifting up their hats in their hands so high as they could hold them, as a visible testimony of their unanimous consent, in such sort, that the like had scarce ever been seen in parliament") of their resolution to spend their lives and fortunes for the defence of their own religion and of the Palatinate. This solemn protestation and pledge was entered on record in the journals.[605]

They met again after five months, without any change in their views of policy. At a conference of the two houses, Lord Digby, by the king's command, explained all that had occurred in his emba.s.sy to Germany for the rest.i.tution of the Palatinate; which, though absolutely ineffective, was as much as James could reasonably expect without a war.[606] He had in fact, though, according to the laxity of those times, without declaring war on any one, sent a body of troops under Sir Horace Vere, who still defended the Lower Palatinate. It was necessary to vote more money, lest these should mutiny for want of pay. And it was stated to the Commons in this conference, that to maintain a sufficient army in that country for one year would require 900,000; which was left to their consideration.[607] But now it was seen that men's promises to spend their fortunes in a cause not essentially their own are written in the sand. The Commons had no reason perhaps to suspect that the charge of keeping 30,000 men in the heart of Germany would fall much short of the estimate. Yet after long haggling they voted only one subsidy, amounting to 70,000; a sum manifestly insufficient for the first equipment of such a force.[608] This parsimony could hardly be excused by their suspicion of the king's unwillingness to undertake the war, for which it afforded the best justification.

_Disagreement between the king and Commons._--James was probably not much displeased at finding so good a pretext for evading a compliance with their martial humour; nor had there been much appearance of dissatisfaction on either side (if we except some murmurs at the commitment of one of their most active members, Sir Edwin Sandys, to the Tower, which were tolerably appeased by the secretary Calvert's declaration that he had not been committed for any parliamentary matter),[609] till the Commons drew up a pet.i.tion and remonstrance against the growth of popery; suggesting, among other remedies for this grievance, that the prince should marry one of our own religion, and that the king would direct his efforts against the power (meaning Spain) which first maintained the war in the Palatinate. This pet.i.tion was proposed by Sir Edward c.o.ke. The courtiers opposed it as without precedent; the chancellor of the duchy observing that it was of so high and transcendent a nature, he had never known the like within those walls. Even the mover defended it rather weakly, according to our notions, as intended only to remind the king, but requiring no answer.

The scruples affected by the courtiers, and the real novelty of the proposition, had so great an effect, that some words were inserted, declaring that the house "did not mean to press on the king's most undoubted and royal prerogative."[610] The pet.i.tion, however, had not been presented, when the king, having obtained a copy of it, sent a peremptory letter to the speaker, that he had heard how some fiery and popular spirits had been imboldened to debate and argue on matters far beyond their reach or capacity, and directing him to acquaint the house with his pleasure that none therein should presume to meddle with anything concerning his government or mysteries of state; namely, not to speak of his son's match with the princess of Spain, nor to touch the honour of that king, or any other of his friends and confederates.

Sandys's commitment, he bade them be informed, was not for any misdemeanour in parliament. But to put them out of doubt of any question of that nature that may arise among them hereafter, he let them know that he thought himself very free and able to punish any man's misdemeanours in parliament, as well during their sitting as after, which he meant not to spare upon occasion of any man's insolent behaviour in that place. He a.s.sured them that he would not deign to hear their pet.i.tion, if it touched on any of those points which he had forbidden.[611]

The house received this message with unanimous firmness, but without any undue warmth. A committee was appointed to draw up a pet.i.tion, which, in the most decorous language, and with strong professions of regret at his majesty's displeasure, contained a defence of their former proceedings, and hinted very gently, that they could not conceive his honour and safety, or the state of the kingdom, to be matters at any time unfit for their deepest consideration in time of parliament. They adverted more pointedly to that part of the king's message which threatened them for liberty of speech, calling it their ancient and undoubted right, and an inheritance received from their ancestors, which they again prayed him to confirm.[612] His answer, though considerably milder than what he had designed, gave indications of a resentment not yet subdued. He dwelt at length on their unfitness for entering on matters of government, and commented with some asperity even on their present apologetical pet.i.tion. In the conclusion he observed that "although he could not allow of the style, calling their privileges an undoubted right and inheritance, but could rather have wished that they had said that their privileges were derived from the grace and permission of his ancestors and himself (for most of them had grown from precedent which rather shows a toleration than inheritance); yet he gave them his royal a.s.surance, that as long as they contained themselves within the limits of their duty, he would be as careful to maintain their lawful liberties and privileges as he would his own prerogative; so that their house did not touch on that prerogative which would enforce him or any just king to retrench their privileges."[613]

This explicit a.s.sertion that the privileges of the Commons existed only by sufferance, and conditionally upon good behaviour, exasperated the house far more than the denial of their right to enter on matters of state. In the one, they were conscious of having somewhat transgressed the boundaries of ordinary precedents; in the other, their individual security, and their very existence as a deliberative a.s.sembly, were at stake. Calvert, the secretary, and the other ministers, admitted the king's expressions to be incapable of defence, and called them a slip of the pen at the close of a long answer.[614] The Commons were not to be diverted by any such excuses from their necessary duty of placing on record a solemn claim of right. Nor had a letter from the king, addressed to Calvert, much influence; wherein, while he reiterated his a.s.surances of respecting their privileges, and tacitly withdrew the menace that rendered them precarious, he said that he could not with patience endure his subjects to use such anti-monarchical words to him concerning their liberties, as "ancient and undoubted right and inheritance," without subjoining that they were granted by the grace and favour of his predecessors.[615] After a long and warm debate, they entered on record in the Journals their famous protestation of December 18th, 1621, in the following words:--

"The Commons now a.s.sembled in parliament, being justly occasioned thereunto, concerning sundry liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of parliament, amongst others not herein mentioned, do make this protestation following:--That the liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of parliament are the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England; and that the arduous and urgent affairs concerning the king, state, and the defence of the realm, and of the church of England, and the making and maintenance of laws, and redress of mischiefs and grievances which daily happen within this realm, are proper subjects and matter of counsel and debate in parliament; and that in the handling and proceeding of those businesses, every member of the house hath, and of right ought to have, freedom of speech to propound, treat, reason, and bring to conclusion, the same: that the Commons in parliament have like liberty and freedom to treat of those matters in such order as in their judgments shall seem fittest: and that every such member of the said house hath like freedom from all impeachment, imprisonment, and molestation (other than by the censure of the house itself) for or concerning any bill, speaking, reasoning, or declaring of any matter or matters touching the parliament or parliament business; and that, if any of the said members be complained of, and questioned for anything said or done in parliament, the same is to be showed to the king by the advice and a.s.sent of all the Commons a.s.sembled in parliament, before the king give credence to any private information."[616]

_Dissolution of the Commons, after a strong remonstrance._--This protestation was not likely to pacify the king's anger. He had already pressed the Commons to make an end of the business before them, under pretence of wis.h.i.+ng to adjourn them before Christmas, but probably looking to a dissolution. They were not in a temper to regard any business, least of all to grant a subsidy, till this attack on their privileges should be fully retracted. The king therefore adjourned, and in about a fortnight after dissolved them. But in the interval, having sent for the journal book, he erased their last protestation with his own hand; and published a declaration of the causes which had provoked him to this unusual measure, alleging the unfitness of such a protest, after his ample a.s.surance of maintaining their privileges, the irregular manner in which, according to him, it was voted, and its ambiguous and general wording, which might serve in future times to invade most of the prerogatives annexed to the imperial Crown. In his proclamation for dissolving the parliament, James recapitulated all his grounds of offences; but finally required his subjects to take notice that it was his intention to govern them as his progenitors and predecessors had done, and to call a parliament again on the first convenient occasion.[617] He immediately followed up this dissolution of parliament by dealing his vengeance on its most conspicuous leaders: Sir Edward c.o.ke and Sir Robert Philips were committed to the Tower; Mr. Pym, and one or two more, to other prisons; Sir Dudley Digges, and several who were somewhat less obnoxious than the former, were sent on a commission to Ireland, as a sort of honourable banishment.[618] The Earls of Oxford and Southampton underwent an examination before the council; and the former was committed to the Tower on pretence of having spoken words against the king. It is worthy of observation that, in this session, a portion of the upper house had united in opposing the court. Nothing of this kind is noticed in former parliaments, except perhaps a little on the establishment of the reformation. In this minority were considerable names; Ess.e.x, Southampton, Warwick, Oxford, Say, Spencer. Whether a sense of public wrongs, or their particular resentments, influenced these n.o.blemen, their opposition must be reckoned an evident sign of the change that was at work in the spirit of the nation, and by which no rank could be wholly unaffected.[619]

_Marriage treaty with Spain._--James, with all his reputed pusillanimity, never showed any signs of fearing popular opinion. His obstinate adherence to the marriage treaty with Spain was the height of political rashness in so critical a state of the public mind. But what with elevated notions of his prerogative and of his skill in government on the one hand, what with a confidence in the submissive loyalty of the English on the other, he seems constantly to have fancied that all opposition proceeded from a small troublesome faction, whom if he could any way silence, the rest of his people would at once repose in a dutiful reliance on his wisdom. Hence he met every succeeding parliament with as sanguine hopes as if he had suffered no disappointment in the last. The nation was however wrought up at this time to an alarming pitch of discontent. Libels were in circulation about 1621, so bitterly malignant in their censures of his person and administration, than two hundred years might seem, as we read them, to have been mistaken in their date.[620] Heedless, however, of this growing odium, James continued to solicit the affected coyness of the court of Madrid. The circ.u.mstances of that negotiation belong to general history.[621] It is only necessary to remind the reader that the king was induced, during the residence of Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham in Spain, to swear to certain private articles, some of which he had already promised before their departure, by which he bound himself to suspend all penal laws affecting the catholics, to permit the exercise of their religion in private houses, and to procure from parliament, if possible, a legal toleration. This toleration, as preliminary to the entire re-establishment of popery, had been the first great object of Spain in the treaty. But that court, having protracted the treaty for years, in order to extort more favourable terms, and interposed a thousand pretences, became the dupe of its own artifices; the resentment of a haughty minion overthrowing with ease the painful fabric of this tedious negotiation.

_Parliament of 1624._--Buckingham obtained a transient and unmerited popularity by thus averting a great public mischief, which rendered the next parliament unexpectedly peaceable. The Commons voted three subsidies and three-fifteenths, in value about 300,000;[622] but with a condition, proposed by the king himself, that, in order to ensure its application to naval and military armaments, it should be paid into the hands of treasurers appointed by themselves, who should issue money only on the warrant of the council of war. He seemed anxious to tread back the steps made in the former session, not only referring the highest matters of state to their consideration, but promising not to treat for peace without their advice. They, on the other hand, acknowledged themselves most bound to his majesty for having been pleased to require their humble advice in a case so important, not meaning, we may be sure, by these courteous and loyal expressions, to recede from what they had claimed in the last parliament as their undoubted right.[623]

_Impeachment of Middles.e.x._--The most remarkable affair in this session was the impeachment of the Earl of Middles.e.x, actually lord treasurer of England, for bribery and other misdemeanours. It is well known that the Prince of Wales and Duke of Buckingham inst.i.tuted this prosecution to gratify the latter's private pique against the wishes of the king, who warned them they would live to have their fill of parliamentary impeachment. It was conducted by managers on the part of the Commons in a very regular form, except that the depositions of witnesses were merely read by the clerk; that fundamental rule of English law which insists on the _viva voce_ examination, being as yet unknown, or dispensed with in political trials. Nothing is more worthy of notice in the proceedings upon this impeachment than what dropped from Sir Edwin Sandys, in speaking upon one of the charges. Middles.e.x had laid an imposition of 3 per ton on French wines, for taking off which he received a gratuity. Sandys, commenting on this offence, protested in the name of the Commons, that they intended not to question the power of imposing claimed by the king's prerogative: this they touched not upon now; they continued only their claim, and when they should have occasion to dispute it, would do so with all due regard to his majesty's state and revenue.[624] Such cautious and temperate language, far from indicating any disposition to recede from their pretensions, is rather a proof of such united steadiness and discretion as must ensure their success. Middles.e.x was unanimously convicted by the peers.[625] His impeachment was of the highest moment to the Commons; as it restored for ever that salutary const.i.tutional right which the single precedent of Lord Bacon might have been insufficient to establish against the ministers of the Crown.

The two last parliaments had been dissolved without pa.s.sing a single act, except the subsidy bill of 1621. An interval of legislation for thirteen years was too long for any civilised country. Several statutes were enacted in the present session, but none so material as that for abolis.h.i.+ng monopolies for the sale of merchandise, or for using any trade.[626] This is of a declaratory nature, and recites that they are already contrary to the ancient and fundamental laws of the realm.

Scarce any difference arose between the Crown and the Commons. This singular calm might probably have been interrupted, had not the king put an end to the session. They expressed some little dissatisfaction at this step,[627] and presented a list of grievances, one only of which is sufficiently considerable to deserve notice; namely, the proclamations already mentioned in restraint of building about London, whereof they complain in very gentle terms, considering their obvious illegality and violation of private right.[628]

The Commons had now been engaged, for more than twenty years, in a struggle to restore and to fortify their own and their fellow subjects'

liberties. They had obtained in this period but one legislative measure of importance, the late declaratory act against monopolies. But they had rescued from disuse their ancient right of impeachment. They had placed on record a protestation of their claim to debate all matters of public concern. They had remonstrated against the usurped prerogatives of binding the subject by proclamation, and of levying customs at the out-ports. They had secured beyond controversy their exclusive privilege of determining contested elections of their members. They had maintained, and carried indeed to an unwarrantable extent, their power of judging and inflicting punishment, even for offences not committed against their house. Of these advantages some were evidently incomplete; and it would require the most vigorous exertions of future parliaments to realise them. But such exertions the increased energy of the nation gave abundant cause to antic.i.p.ate. A deep and lasting love of freedom had taken hold of every cla.s.s except perhaps the clergy; from which, when viewed together with the rash pride of the court, and the uncertainty of const.i.tutional principles and precedents, collected through our long and various history, a calm by-stander might presage that the ensuing reign would not pa.s.s without disturbance, nor perhaps end without confusion.

FOOTNOTES:

[464] Father Persons, a subtle and lying Jesuit, published in 1594, under the name of Doleman, a treatise ent.i.tled _Conference about the next Succession to the Crown of England_. This book is dedicated to Lord Ess.e.x, whether from any hopes entertained of him, or as was then supposed, in order to injure his fame and his credit with the queen.

_Sidney Papers_, i. 357; Birch's _Memoirs_, i. 313. It is written with much art, to show the extreme uncertainty of the succession, and to perplex men's minds by multiplying the number of compet.i.tors. This, however, is but the second part of his _Conference_, the aim of the first being to prove the right of commonwealths to depose sovereigns, much more to exclude the right heir, especially for want of true religion. "I affirm and hold," he says, "that for any man to give his help, consent, or a.s.sistance towards the making of a king whom he judgeth or believeth to be faulty in religion, and consequently would advance either no religion, or the wrong, if he were in authority, is a most grievous and d.a.m.nable sin to him that doth it, of what side soever the truth be, or how good or bad soever the party be that is preferred."--P. 216. He pretends to have found very few who favour the King of Scots' t.i.tle; an a.s.sertion by which we may appreciate his veracity. The protestant party, he tells us, was wont to favour the house of Hertford, but of late have gone more towards Arabella, whose claim the Lord Burleigh is supposed to countenance. P. 241. The drift of the whole is to recommend the infanta, by means of perverted history and bad law, yet ingeniously contrived to ensnare ignorant persons. In his former and more celebrated treatise, _Leicester's Commonwealth_, though he harps much on the embarra.s.sments attending the succession, Persons argues with all his power in favour of the Scottish t.i.tle, Mary being still alive, and James's return to the faith not desperate. Both these works are full of the mendacity generally and justly ascribed to his order; yet they are worthy to be read by any one who is curious about the secret politics of the queen's reign.

Philip II. held out a.s.surances, that if the English would aid him in dethroning Elizabeth, a free parliament should elect any catholic sovereign at their pleasure, not doubting that their choice would fall on the infanta. He promised also to enlarge the privileges of the people, to give the merchants a free trade to the Indies, with many other flattering inducements. Birch's _Memoirs_, ii. 308. But most of the catholic gentry, it is just to observe, would never concur in the invasion of the kingdom by foreigners, preferring the elevation of Arabella, according to the pope's project. This difference of opinion gave rise, among other causes, to the violent dissensions of that party in the latter years of Elizabeth's reign; dissensions that began soon after the death of Mary, in favour of whom they were all united, though they could never afterwards agree on any project for the succession.

Winwood's _Memorials_, i. 57; _Lettres du Cardinal d'Ossat_, ii. 501.

For the life and character of the famous Father Persons, or Parsons, above mentioned, see Dodd's _Church History_, the _Biographia Britannica_, or Miss Aikin's _James I._, i. 360. Mr. Butler is too favourably inclined towards a man without patriotism or veracity. Dodd plainly thinks worse of him than he dares speak.

[465] D'Ossat, _ubi supra_. Clement had, some years before, indulged the idle hope that France and Spain might unite to conquer England, and either bestow the kingdom on some catholic prince or divide it between themselves, as Louis XII. and Ferdinand had done with Naples in 1501; an example not very inviting to the French. D'Ossat, Henry's minister at Rome, pointed out the difficulties of such an enterprise, England being the greatest naval power in the world, and the people warlike. The pope only replied, that the kingdom had been once conquered, and might be so again; and especially being governed by an old woman, whom he was ignorant enough to compare with Joanna II. of Naples. Vol. i. 399. Henry IV. would not even encourage the project of setting up Arabella, which he declared to be both unjust and chimerical. _Mem. de Sully_, l. 15. A knot of protestants were also busy about the interests of Arabella, or suspected of being so; Raleigh, Cobham, Northumberland, though perhaps the last was catholic. Their intrigues occupy a great part of the letters of other intriguers, Cecil and Lord Henry Howard, in the _Secret Correspondence with King James_, published by Sir David Dalrymple, vol.

i. _pa.s.sim_.

[466] The explicit declaration on her death-bed ascribed to her by Hume and most other writers, that her kingsman the King of Scots should succeed her, is not confirmed by Carey, who was there at the time. "She was speechless when the council proposed the King of Scots to succeed her, but put her hand to her head as if in token of approbation." E. of Monmouth's _Memoirs_, p. 176. But her uniform conduct shows her intentions. See, however, D'Israeli's _Curiosities of Literature_, iii.

107.

It is impossible to justify Elizabeth's conduct towards James in his own kingdom. What is best to be said for it is, that his indiscretion, his suspicious intrigues at Rome and Madrid, the dangerous influence of his favourites, and the evident purpose of the court of Spain to make him its tool, rendered it necessary to keep a very strict watch over his proceedings. If she excited the peers and presbyters of Scotland against their king, he was not behind her in some of the last years of her reign. It appears by a letter from the Earl of Mar, in Dalrymple's _Secret Correspondence_, p. 2, that James had hopes of a rebellion in England in 1601, which he would have had no scruple in abetting. And a letter from him to Tyrone, in the Lansdowne MSS. lx.x.xiv. 36, dated 22nd Dec. 1597, when the latter was at least preparing for rebellion, though rather cautious, is full of expressions of favour, and of promises to receive his a.s.sistance thankfully at the queen's death. This letter being found in the collection once belonging to Sir Michael Hicks, must have been in Lord Burleigh's, and probably in Elizabeth's hands; it would not make her less inclined to instigate conspiracies across the Tweed. The letter is not an original, and may have been communicated by some one about the King of Scots in the pay of England.

[467] See Burnet, vol. i, Appendix 267, for Secretary Lethington's letter to Cecil, where he tells a circ.u.mstantial story so positively, and so open, if false, to a contradiction it never received, that those who lay too much stress on this very equivocal species of presumption would, if the will had perished, have reckoned its forgery beyond question. The king's death approaching, he a.s.serts, "some as well known to you as to me caused William Clarke, sometimes servant to Thomas Heneage, to sign the supposed will with a stamp, for otherwise signed it was never;" for which he appeals to an attestation of the late Lord Paget in parliament, and requests the depositions of several persons now living to be taken. He proceeds to refer him "to the original will surmised to be signed with the king's own hand, that thereby it may most clearly and evidently appear by some differences, how the same was not signed with the king's hand, but stamped as aforesaid. And albeit it is used both as an argument and calumniation against my sovereign by some, that the said original hath been embezzled in Queen Mary's time, I trust G.o.d will and hath reserved the same to be an instrument to relieve [prove] the truth, and to confound false surmises, that thereby the right may take place, notwithstanding the many exemplifications and transcripts, which being sealed with the great seal, do run abroad in England." Lesley, Bishop of Ross, repeats the same story with some additions. Bedford's _Hereditary Right_, p. 197. A treatise of Hales, for which he suffered imprisonment, in defence of the Suffolk t.i.tle under the will, of which there is a ma.n.u.script in the British Museum, Harl. MSS. 537, and which is also printed in the appendix to the book last quoted, leads me to conjecture that the original will had been mislaid or rather concealed at that time. For he certainly argues on the supposition that it was not forthcoming, and had not himself seen it; but "he has been informed that the king's name is evidently written with a pen, though some of the strokes are unseen, as if drawn by a weak and trembling hand." Everyone who has seen the will must bear witness to the correctness of this information. The reappearance of this very remarkable instrument was, as I conceive, after the Revolution; for Collier mentions that he had heard it was in existence; and it is also described in a note to the _Acta Regia_.

[468] It is right to mention, that some difference of opinion exists as to the genuineness of Henry's signature. But as it is attested by many witnesses, and cannot be proved a forgery, the legal presumption turns much in its favour.

[469] Bedford's (Harbin's) _Hereditary Right a.s.serted_, p. 204.

[470] A ma.n.u.script in the Cottonian library, Faustina A. xi., written about 1562 in a very hostile spirit, endeavours to prove from the want of testimony, and from some variances in their depositions (not very material ones), that their allegations of matrimony could not be admitted, and that they had incurred an ecclesiastical censure for fornication. But another, which I have also found in the Museum, Harl.

MSS. 6286, contains the whole proceedings and evidence, from which I have drawn the conclusion in the text. Their ignorance of the clergyman who performed the ceremony is not perhaps very extraordinary; he seems to have been one of those vagabond ecclesiastics, who, till the marriage act of 1752, were always ready to do that service for a fee.

[471] "Hereupon I shall add, what I have heard related from persons of great credit, which is, that the validity of this marriage was afterwards brought to a trial at the common law; when the minister who married them being present, and other circ.u.mstances agreeing, the jury (whereof John Digby of Coles.h.i.+ll, in com. War. esquire, was the foreman) found it a good marriage." _Baronage of England_, part ii. 369. Mr.

Luders doubts the accuracy of Dugdale's story; and I think it not unlikely that it is a confused account of what happened in the court of wards.

[472] I derive this fact from a Cotton MS. Vitellius C. xvi. 412, etc.; but the volume is much burned, and the papers confused with others relative to Lord Ess.e.x's divorce. See as to the same suit, or rather perhaps that mentioned in the next note, Birch's _Negotiations_, p. 219, or Aikin's _James I._ i. 225.

[473] "The same day a great cause between the Lord Beauchamp and Monteagle was heard in the court of wards, the main point whereof was to prove the lawfulness of E. of Hertford's marriage. The court sat until five of the clock in the afternoon, and the jury had a week's respite for the delivery of their verdict." Letter of Sir E. Hoby to Sir T.

Edmonds, Feb. 10, 1606. "For my lord of Hertford's cause, when the verdict was ready to be given up, Mr. Attorney interposed himself for the king, and said that the land that they both strove for was the king's, and until his t.i.tle were decided, the jury ought not to proceed; not doubting but the king will be gracious to both lords. But thereby both land and legitimation remain undecided." The same to the same March 7. Sloane MSS. 4176.

[474] Dugdale's _Baronage_; Luders' _Essay on the Right of Succession to the Crown in the Reign of Elizabeth_. This ingenious author is, I believe, the first who has taken the strong position as to the want of legal t.i.tle to the house of Stuart which I have endeavoured to support.

In the entertaining letters of Joseph Mede on the news of the day (Harl.

MSS. 389), it is said that the king had thoughts of declaring Hertford's issue by Lady Catherine Grey illegitimate in the parliament of 1621, and that Lord Southampton's commitment was for having searched for proofs of their marriage. June 30, 1622.

[475] Luders, _ubi supra_.

[476] The representative of the t.i.tle of Mary Brandon, d.u.c.h.ess of Suffolk, that is, the person on whom the claim has descended, according to the rules which determine the succession of the crown, on the supposition that Hertford was duly married to Catherine Grey, is the present d.u.c.h.ess of Buckingham; upon the contrary supposition, the Marquis of Stafford. This is, of course, if we may take for granted the accuracy of common books of genealogy. I have not adverted to one objection which some urged at the time, as we find by Persons's treatises, _Leicester's Commonwealth_, and the _Conference_, to the legitimacy of the Seymours. Catherine Grey had been betrothed, or perhaps married, to Lord Herbert, son of the Earl of Pembroke, during the brilliant days of her family, at the close of Edward's reign. But on her father's fall Pembroke caused a sentence of divorce to be p.r.o.nounced, the grounds of which do not appear, but which was probably sufficient in law to warrant her subsequent union with Hertford. No advantage is taken of this in the proceedings, which seems to show that there was no legal bond remaining between the parties. Camden says she was divorced from Lord Herbert, "being so far gone with child, as to be very near her time." But from her youth at the time, and the silence of all other writers, I conclude this to be unworthy of credit.

[477] Bolingbroke is of this opinion; considering the act of recognition as "the aera of hereditary right, and of all those exalted notions concerning the power of prerogative of kings and the sacredness of their persons." _Dissertation on Parties_, Letter II.

[478] Stat. 1 Jac. c. 1.

[479] This is confirmed by a curious little tract in the British Museum, Sloane MSS. 827, containing a short history of the queen's death, and new king's accession. It affords a good contemporary ill.u.s.tration of the various feelings which influenced men at this crisis, and is written in a dispa.s.sionate manner. The author ascribes the loss of Elizabeth's popularity to the impoverishment of the realm, and to the abuses which prevailed. Carte says, "foreigners were shocked on James's arrival at the applause of the populace who had professed to adore the late queen, but in fact she had no huzzas after Ess.e.x's execution. She was in four days' time as much forgot as if she had never existed, by all the world, and even by her own servants." Vol. iii. p. 707. This is exaggerated, and what Carte could not know; but there is no doubt that the generality were glad of a change.

[480] Carte, no foe surely to the house of Stuart, says: "By the time he reached London, the admiration of the intelligent world was turned into contempt." On this journey he gave a remarkable proof of his hasty temper and disregard of law, in ordering a pickpocket taken in the fact to be hanged without trial. The historian last quoted thinks fit to say in vindication, that "all felonies committed within the verge of the court are cognizable in the court of the king's household," referring to 33 H. 8, c. i. This act, however, contains no such thing; nor does any court appear to have been held. Though the man's notorious guilt might prevent any open complaint of so illegal a proceeding, it did not fail to excite observation. "I hear our new king," says Sir John Harrington, "has hanged one man before he was tried; it is strangely done: now if the wind bloweth thus, why may not a man be tried before he has offended?" _Nugae Antiquae_, vol. i. p. 180.

Birch and Carte tell us, on the authority of the French amba.s.sador's despatches, that on this journey he expressed a great contempt for women, suffering them to be presented on their knees, and indiscreetly censuring his own wife; that he offended the military men by telling them they might sheathe their swords, since peace was his object; that he showed impatience of the common people who flocked to see him while hunting, driving them away with curses, very unlike the affable manners of the late queen. This is confirmed by Wilson, in Kennet's _Complete History_, vol. ii. p. 667.

[481] Sully, being sent over to compliment James on his accession, persisted in wearing mourning for Elizabeth, though no one had done so in the king's presence, and he was warned that it would be taken ill; "dans une cour ou il sembloit qu'on et si fort affecte de mettre en oubli cette grande reine qu'on n'y faisoit jamais mention d'elle, et qu'on evitoit meme de p.r.o.noncer son nom." _Mem. de Sully_, l. 14. James afterwards spoke slightingly to Sully of his predecessor, and said that he had long ruled England through her ministers.

[482] It was subscribed by 825 ministers from twenty-five counties. It states, that neither as factious men desiring a popular party in the church, nor as schismatics aiming at the dissolution of the state ecclesiastical, they humbly desired the redress of some abuses. Their objections were chiefly to the cap and surplice, the cross in baptism, baptism by women, confirmation, the ring in marriage, the reading of the Apocrypha, bowing at the name of Jesus, etc.; to non-residence and incapable ministers, the commendams held by bishops, unnecessary excommunications, and other usual topics. Neal, p. 408; Fuller, part ii.