Constitutional History of England Volume I Part 29

[632] _Parl. Hist._ vol. ii. p. 6.

[633] _Id._ 33.

[634] The language of Lord-Keeper Coventry in opening the session was very ill calculated for the spirit of the Commons: "If we consider aright, and think of that incomparable distance between the supreme height and majesty of a mighty monarch and the submissive awe and lowliness of loyal subjects, we cannot but receive exceeding comfort and contentment in the frame and const.i.tution of this highest court, wherein not only the prelates, n.o.bles, and grandees, but the commons of all degrees, have their part; and wherein that high majesty doth descend to admit, or rather to invite, the humblest of his subjects to conference and counsel with him," etc. He gave them a distinct hint afterwards that they must not expect to sit long. _Parl. Hist._ 39.

[635] _Parl. Hist._ 60. I know of nothing under the Tudors of greater arrogance than this language. Sir Dudley Carleton, accustomed more to foreign negotiations than to an English House of Commons, gave very just offence by descanting on the misery of the people in other countries.

"He cautioned them not to make the king out of love with parliaments by incroaching on his prerogative; for in his messages he had told them that he must then use new councils. In all Christian kingdoms there were parliaments anciently, till the monarchs seeing their turbulent spirits, stood upon their prerogatives, and overthrew them all, except with us.

In foreign countries the people look not like ours, with store of flesh on their backs; but like ghosts, being nothing but skin and bones, with some thin cover to their nakedness, and wearing wooden shoes on their feet; a misery beyond expression, and that we are yet free from; and let us not lose the repute of a free-born nation by our turbulency in parliament." Rushworth.

This was a hint, in the usual arrogant style of courts, that the liberties of the people depended on favour, and not on their own determination to maintain them.

[636] _Parl. Hist._ 119; Hatsell, i. 147; Lords' Journals. A few peers refused to join in this.

Dr. Lingard has observed that the opposition in the House of Lords was headed by the Earl of Pembroke, who had been rather conspicuous in the late reign, and whose character is drawn by Clarendon in the first book of history. He held ten proxies in the king's first parliament, as Buckingham did thirteen. Lingard, ix. 328. In the second Pembroke had had only five, but the duke still came with thirteen. Lords' Journals, p. 491. This enormous acc.u.mulation of suffrages in one person led to an order of the house, which is now its established regulation, that no peer can hold more than two proxies. Lords' Journals, p. 507.

[637] _Parl. Hist._ 125; Hatsell, 141.

[638] Mr. Brodie has commented rather too severely on Bristol's conduct.

Vol. ii. p. 109. That he was "actuated merely by motives of self-aggrandis.e.m.e.nt," is surely not apparent; though he might be more partial to Spain than we may think right, or even though he might have some bias towards the religion of Rome. The last, however, is by no means proved; for the king's word is no proof in my eyes.

[639] See the proceedings on the mutual charges of Buckingham and Bristol in Rushworth, or the _Parliamentary History_. Charles's behaviour is worth noticing. He sent a message to the house, desiring that they would not comply with the earl's request of being allowed counsel; and yielded ungraciously, when the Lords remonstrated against the prohibition. _Parl. Hist._ 97, 132. The attorney-general exhibited articles against Bristol as to facts depending in great measure on the king's sole testimony. Bristol pet.i.tioned the house "to take in consideration of what consequence such a precedent might be; and thereon most humbly to move his majesty for the declining, at least, of his majesty's accusation and testimony." _Id._ 98. The house ordered two questions on this to be put to the judges: 1. Whether, in case of treason or felony, the king's testimony was to be admitted or not? 2.

Whether words spoken to the prince, who is after king, make any alteration in the case? They were ordered to deliver their opinions three days afterwards. But when the time came, the chief justice informed the house that the attorney-general had communicated to the judges his majesty's pleasure that they should forbear to give an answer. _Id._ 103, 106.

Hume says, "Charles himself was certainly deceived by Buckingham, when he corroborated his favourite's narrative by his testimony." But no a.s.sertion can be more gratuitous; the supposition indeed is impossible.

[640] _Parl. Hist._ 193. If the following letter is accurate, the privy-council themselves were against this dissolution: "Yesterday the Lords sitting in council at Whitehall to argue whether the parliament should be dissolved or not, were all with one voice against the dissolution of it; and to-day, when the lord keeper drew out the commission to have read it, they sent four of their own body to his majesty to let him know how dangerous this abruption would be to the state, and beseech him the parliament might sit but two days--he answered not a minute."--15 June, 1626. Mede's Letters, _ubi supra_. The author expresses great alarm at what might be the consequence of this step. Mede ascribes this to the council; but others, perhaps more probably, to the house of peers. The king's expression "not a minute" is mentioned by several writers.

[641] Rushworth, Kennet.

[642] Mede's Letters--"On Monday the judges sat in Westminster-hall to persuade the people to pay subsidies; but there arose a great tumultuous shout amongst them: 'A parliament! a parliament! else no subsidies!' The levying of the subsidies, verbally granted in parliament, being propounded to the subsidy men in Westminster, all of them, saving some thirty among five thousand (and they all the king's servants), cried 'A parliament! a parliament!' etc. The same was done in Middles.e.x on Monday also, in five or six places, but far more are said to have refused the grant. At Hicks's hall the men of Middles.e.x a.s.sembled there, when they had heard a speech for the purpose, made their obeisance; and so went out without any answer affirmative or negative. In Kent the whole county denied, saying that subsidies were matters of too high a nature for them to meddle withal, and that they durst not deal therewith, lest, hereafter they might be called in question." July 22, _et post_. In Harleian MSS. x.x.xvii. fol. 192, we find a letter from the king to the deputy lieutenant and justices of every county, informing them that he had dissolved the last parliament because the disordered pa.s.sion of some members of that house, contrary to the good inclination of the greater and wiser sort of them, had frustrated the grant of four subsidies, and three-fifteenths, where they had promised; he therefore enjoins the deputy lieutenants to cause all the troops and bands of the county to be mustered, trained, and ready to march, as he is threatened with invasion; that the justices do divide the county into districts, and appoint in each able persons to collect and receive moneys, promising the parties to employ them in the common defence; to send a list of those who contribute and those who refuse, "that we may hereby be informed who are well affected to our service, and who are otherwise."

July 7, 1626. It is evident that the pretext of invasion, which was utterly improbable, was made use of in order to shelter the king's illegal proceedings.

[643] Rushworth's Abr. i. 270.

[644] The 321st volume of Hargrave MSS. p. 300, contains minutes of a debate at the council-table during the interval between the second and third parliaments of Charles, taken by a counsellor. It was proposed to lay an excise on beer; others suggested that it should be on malt, on account of what was brewed in private houses. It was then debated "how to overcome difficulties, whether by persuasion or force. Persuasion, it was thought, would not gain it; and for judicial courses, it would not hold against the subject that would stand upon the right of his own property, and against the fundamental const.i.tutions of the kingdom. The last resort was to a proclamation; for in star-chamber it might be punishable, and thereupon it rested." There follows much more; it seemed to be agreed that there was such a necessity as might justify the imposition; yet a sort of reluctance is visible even among these timid counsellors. The king pressed it forward much. In the same volume (p.

393) we find other proceedings at the council-table, whereof the subject was, the censuring or punis.h.i.+ng of some one who had refused to contribute to the loan of 1626 on the ground of its illegality. The highest language is held by some of the conclave in this debate.

Mr. D'Israeli has collected from the same copious reservoir, the ma.n.u.scripts of the British Museum, several more ill.u.s.trations, both of the arbitrary proceedings of the council, and of the bold spirit with which they were resisted. _Curiosities of Literature_, New Series, iii.

381. But this ingenious author is too much imbued with "the monstrous faith of many made for one," and sets the private feelings of Charles for an unworthy and dangerous minion, above the liberties and interests of the nation.

[645] Rushworth, Kennet.

[646] See above, in chap. v. c.o.ke himself, while chief justice, had held that one committed by the privy-council was not bailable by any court in England. _Parl. Hist._ 310. He had nothing to say when pressed with this in the next parliament, but that he had misgrounded his opinion upon a certain precedent, which being nothing to the purpose, he was now a.s.sured his opinion was as little to the purpose. _Id._ 325; _State Trials_, iii. 81.

[647] _State Trials_, iii. 1-234; _Parl. Hist._ 246, 259, etc.; Rushworth.

[648] At the council-table, some proposing a parliament, the king said, he did abominate the name. Mede's Letters, 30th Sept. 1626.

[649] Rushworth; Mede's Letters in Harl. MSS. _pa.s.sim_.

[650] Rushworth's Abr. i. 304; Cabala, part ii. 217. See what is said of this by Mr. Brodie, ii. 158.

[651] A commission addressed to Lord Wimbledon, 28th Dec. 1625, empowers him to proceed against soldiers or dissolute persons joining with them, who should commit any robberies, etc., which by martial law ought to be punished with death, by such summary course as is agreeable to martial law, etc. Rymer, xviii. 254. Another, in 1626, may be found. P. 763. It is unnecessary to point out how unlike these commissions are to our present mutiny-bills.

[652] Bishop Williams, as we are informed by his biographer, though he promoted the pet.i.tion of right, stickled for the additional clause adopted by the Lords, reserving the king's sovereign power; which very justly exposed him to suspicion of being corrupted. For that he was so is most evident by what follows; where we are told that he had an interview with the Duke of Buckingham, when they were reconciled; and "his grace had the bishop's consent with a little asking, that he would be his grace's faithful servant in the next session of parliament, and was allowed to hold up a seeming enmity, and his own popular estimation, that he might the sooner do the work." Hacket's _Life of Williams_, pp.

77, 80. With such instances of baseness and treachery in the public men of this age, surely the distrust of the Commons was not so extravagant as the school of Hume pretend.

[653] The debates and conferences on this momentous subject, especially on the article of the habeas corpus, occupy near two hundred columns in the _New Parliamentary History_, to which I refer the reader.

In one of these conferences, the Lords, observing what a prodigious weight of legal ability was arrayed on the side of the pet.i.tion, very fairly determined to hear counsel for the Crown. One of these, Serjeant Ashley, having argued in behalf of the prerogative in a high tone, such as had been usual in the late reign, was ordered into custody; and the Lords a.s.sured the other house, that he had no authority from them for what he had said. _Id._ 327. A remarkable proof of the rapid growth of popular principles!

[654] Hargrave MSS. x.x.xii. 97.

[655] _Parl. Hist._ 436.

[656] Stat. 3 Car. I. c. 1. Hume has printed in a note the whole statute with the preamble, which I omit for the sake of brevity, and because it may be found in so common a book.

[657] _Parl. Hist._ 431.

[658] Rushworth Abr. i. 409.

[659] _Parl. Hist._ 441, etc.

[660] Cawdrey's Case, 5 Reports; Cro. Jac. 37; Neal, p. 432. The latter says, above three hundred were deprived; but Collier reduces them to forty-nine. P. 687. The former writer states the nonconformist ministers at this time in twenty-four counties to have been 754; of course the whole number was much greater. P. 434. This minority was considerable; but it is chiefly to be noticed, that it contained the more exemplary portion of the clergy; no scandalous or absolutely illiterate inc.u.mbent, of whom there was a very large number, being a nonconformist. This general enforcement of conformity, however it might compel the majority's obedience, rendered the separation of the incompliant more decided. Neal, 446. Many retired to Holland, especially of the Brownist, or Independent denomination. _Id._ 436. And Bancroft, like his successor Laud, interfered to stop some who were setting out for Virginia. _Id._ 454.

[661] Lord Bacon, in his advertis.e.m.e.nt respecting the _Controversies of the Church of England_, written under Elizabeth, speaks of this notion as newly broached. "Yea and some indiscreet persons have been bold in open preaching to use dishonourable and derogatory speech and censure of the churches abroad; and that so far, as some of our men ordained in foreign parts have been p.r.o.nounced to be no lawful ministers."--Vol. i.

p. 382. It is evident, by some pa.s.sages in Strype, attentively considered, that natives regularly ordained abroad in the presbyterian churches were admitted to hold preferment in England; the first bishop who objected to them seems to have been Aylmer. Instances, however, of foreigners holding preferment without any re-ordination, may be found down to the civil wars. _Annals of Reformation_, ii. 522, and Appendix, 116; _Life of Grindal_, 271; Collier, ii. 594; Neal, i. 258.

The divine right of episcopacy is said to have been laid down by Bancroft, in his famous sermon at Paul's cross, in 1588. But I do not find anything in it to that effect. It is, however, pretty distinctly a.s.serted, if I mistake not the sense, in the canons of 1606. Overall's _Convocation Book_, 179, etc. Yet Laud had been reproved by the university of Oxford in 1604, for maintaining, in his exercise for bachelor of divinity, that there could be no true church without bishops, which was thought to cast a bone of contention between the church of England and the reformed upon the Continent. Heylin's _Life of Laud_, 54.

Cranmer and some of the original founders of the Anglican church, so far from maintaining the divine and indispensable right of episcopal government, held bishops and priests to be the same order.

[662] See the queen's injunctions of 1559 (_Somers Tracts_, i. 65), and compare preamble of 5 and 6 of Edw. VI. c. 3.

[663] The first of these Sabbatarians was a Dr. Bound, whose sermon was suppressed by Whitgift's order. But some years before, one of Martin Mar-prelate's charges against Aylmer was for playing at bowls on Sundays: and the word sabbath as applied to that day may be found occasionally under Elizabeth, though by no means so usual as afterwards.

One of Bound's recommendations was that no feasts should be given on that day, "except by lords, knights, and persons of quality;" for which unlucky reservation his adversaries did not forget to deride him.

Fuller's _Church History_, p. 227. This writer describes in his quaint style the abstinence from sports produced by this new doctrine; and remarks, what a slight acquaintance with human nature would have taught Archbishop Laud, that "the more liberty people were offered, the less they used it; it was sport for them to refrain from sport." See also Collier, 643; Neal, 386; Strype's _Whitgift_, 530; May's _Hist. of Parliament_, 16.

[664] Heylin's _Life of Laud_, 15; Fuller, part ii. p. 76.

The regulations enacted at various times since the Reformation for the observance of abstinence in as strict a manner, though not ostensibly on the same grounds, as it is enjoined in the church of Rome, may deserve some notice. A statute of 1548 (2 and 3 Edward VI. c. 19), after reciting that one day or one kind of meat is not more holy, pure, or clean than another, and much else to the same effect, yet "forasmuch as divers of the king's subjects, turning their knowledge therein to gratify their sensuality, have of late more than in times past broken and contemned such abstinence, which hath been used in this realm upon the Fridays and Sat.u.r.days, the embering days and other days commonly called vigils, and in the time commonly called Lent, and other accustomed times; the king's majesty considering that due and G.o.dly abstinence is a mean to virtue and to subdue men's bodies to their soul and spirit, and considering also especially that fishers and men using the trade of fis.h.i.+ng in the sea may thereby the rather be set on work, and that by eating of fish much flesh shall be saved and increased,"

enacts, after repealing all existing laws on the subject, that such as eat flesh at the forbidden seasons shall incur a penalty of ten s.h.i.+llings, or ten days' imprisonment _without flesh_, and a double penalty for the second offence.

The next statute relating to abstinence is one (5th Eliz. c. 5) entirely for the increase of the fishery. It enacts (-- 15, etc.) that no one, unless having a licence, shall eat flesh on fish-days, or on Wednesdays, now made an additional fish-day, under a penalty of 3, or three months'

imprisonment. Except that every one having three dishes of sea-fish at his table, might have one of flesh also. But "because no manner of person shall misjudge of the intent of this statute," it is enacted that whosoever shall notify that any eating of fish or forbearing of flesh mentioned therein is of any necessity for the saving of the soul of man, or that it is the service of G.o.d, otherwise than as other politic laws are and be; that then such persons shall be punished as spreaders of false news (-- 39 and 40). The act 27th Eliz. c. 11, repeals the prohibition as to Wednesday; and provides that no victuallers shall vend flesh in Lent, nor upon Fridays or Sat.u.r.days, under a penalty. The 35th Eliz. c. 7, -- 22, reduces the penalty of three pounds or three months'

imprisonment, enacted by 5th of Eliz. to one-third. This is the latest statute that appears on the subject.

Many proclamations appear to have been issued in order to enforce an observance so little congenial to the propensities of Englishmen. One of those in the first year of Edward was before any statute; and its very words respecting the indifference of meats in a religious sense were adopted by the legislature the next year. Strype's _Eccles. Memor._ ii.