Constitutional History of England Volume II Part 2

A characteristic tenet of this party was, as I have already observed, that episcopal government was indispensably requisite to a Christian church.[117] Hence they treated the presbyterians with insolence abroad, and severity at home. A brief to be read in churches for the sufferers in the Palatinate having been prepared, wherein they were said to profess the same religion as ourselves, Laud insisted on this being struck out.[118] The Dutch and Walloon churches in England, which had subsisted since the Reformation, and which various motives of policy had led Elizabeth to protect, were hara.s.sed by the primate and other bishops for their want of conformity to the Anglican ritual.[119] The English amba.s.sador, instead of frequenting the Hugonot church at Charenton, as had been the former practice, was instructed to disclaim all fraternity with their sect, and set up in his own chapel the obnoxious altar and the other innovations of the hierarchy.[120] These impolitic and insolent proceedings gave the foreign protestants a hatred of Charles, which they retained through all his misfortunes.

This alienation from the foreign churches of the reformed persuasion had scarcely so important an effect in begetting a predilection for that of Rome, as the language frequently held about the Anglican separation. It became usual for our churchmen to lament the precipitancy with which the Reformation had been conducted, and to inveigh against its princ.i.p.al instruments. The catholic writers had long descanted on the l.u.s.t and violence of Henry, the pretended licentiousness of Anne Boleyn, the rapacity of Cromwell, the pliancy of Cranmer; sometimes with great truth, but with much of invidious misrepresentation. These topics, which have no kind of operation on men accustomed to sound reasoning, produce an unfailing effect on ordinary minds. Nothing incurred more censure than the dissolution of the monastic orders, or at least the alienation of their endowments; acts accompanied, as we must all admit, with great rapacity and injustice, but which the new school branded with the name of sacrilege. Spelman, an antiquary of eminent learning, was led by bigotry or subserviency to compose a wretched tract called the "History of Sacrilege," with a view to confirm the vulgar superst.i.tion that the possession of estates alienated from the church entailed a sure curse on the usurper's posterity. There is some reason to suspect that the king entertained a project of restoring all impropriated hereditaments to the church.

It is alleged by one who had much access to Laud, that his object in these accommodations was to draw over the more moderate catholics to the English church, by extenuating the differences of her faith, and rendering her wors.h.i.+p more palatable to their prejudices.[121] There was, however, good reason to suspect, from the same writer's account, that some leading ecclesiastics entertained schemes of a complete re-union;[122] and later discoveries have abundantly confirmed this suspicion. Such schemes have doubtless been in the minds of men not inclined to offer every sacrifice; and during this very period Grotius was exerting his talents (whether judiciously or otherwise we need not enquire) to make some sort of reconciliation and compromise appear practicable. But we now know that the views of a party in the English church were much more extensive, and went almost to an entire dereliction of the protestant doctrine.

The catholics did not fail to antic.i.p.ate the most favourable consequences from this turn in the church. The _Clarendon State Papers_, and many other doc.u.ments, contain remarkable proofs of their sanguine and not unreasonable hopes. Weston, the lord treasurer, and Cottington, were already in secret of their persuasion; though the former did not take much pains to promote their interests. No one, however, showed them such decided favour as Secretary Windebank, through whose hands a correspondence was carried on with the court of Rome by some of its agents.[123] They exult in the peaceful and flouris.h.i.+ng state of their religion in England as compared with former times. The recusants, they write, were not molested; and if their compositions were enforced, it was rather from the king's want of money than any desire to injure their religion. Their rites were freely exercised in the queen's chapel and those of amba.s.sadors, and, more privately, in the houses of the rich. The church of England was no longer exasperated against them; if there was ever any prosecution, it was to screen the king from the reproach of the puritans. They drew a flattering picture of the resipiscence of the Anglican party; who are come to acknowledge the truth in some articles, and differ in others rather verbally than in substance, or in points not fundamental; who hold all other protestants to be schismatical, and confess the primacy of the holy see, regretting the separation already made, and wis.h.i.+ng for re-union; who profess to pay implicit respect to the fathers, and can best be a.s.sailed on that side.[124]

These letters contain, no doubt, a partial representation; that is, they impute to the Anglican clergy in general, what was only true of a certain number. Their aim was to inspire the court of Rome with more favourable views of that of England, and thus to pave the way for a permission of the oath of allegiance, at least with some modification of its terms. Such flattering tales naturally excited the hopes of the Vatican, and contributed to the mission of Panzani, who was instructed to feel the pulse of the nation, and communicate more unbia.s.sed information to his court than could be expected from the English priests. He confirmed, by his letters, the general truth of the former statements, as to the tendency of the Anglican church, and the favourable dispositions of the court. The king received him secretly, but with much courtesy; the queen and the catholic ministers, Cottington and Windebank, with unreserved confidence. It required all the adroitness of an Italian emissary from the subtlest of courts to meet their demonstrations of friends.h.i.+p without too much committing his employers. Nor did Panzani altogether satisfy the pope, or at least his minister, Cardinal Barberini, in this respect.[125]

During the residence of Panzani in England, an extraordinary negotiation was commenced for the reconciliation of the church of England with that of Rome; and, as this fact, though unquestionable, is very little known, I may not be thought to digress in taking particular notice of it. Windebank and Lord Cottington were the first movers in that business; both calling themselves to Panzani catholics, as in fact they were, but claiming all those concessions from the see of Rome which had been sometimes held out in the preceding century.

Bishop Montagu soon made himself a party, and had several interviews with Panzani. He professed the strongest desire for a union, and added that he was satisfied both the archbishops, the Bishop of London, and several others of that order, besides many of the inferior clergy, were prepared to acknowledge the spiritual supremacy of the holy see; there being no method of ending controversies but by recurring to some centre of ecclesiastical unity. For himself, he knew no tenet of the Roman church to which he would not subscribe, unless it were that of transubstantiation, though he had some scruples as to communion in one kind. But a congress of moderate and learned men, chosen on each side, might reduce the disputed points into small compa.s.s, and confer upon them.

This overture being communicated to Rome by its agent, was of course, too tempting to be disregarded, though too ambiguous to be s.n.a.t.c.hed at. The re-union of England to the catholic church, in itself a most important advantage, might, at that particular juncture, during the dubious struggle of the protestant religion in Germany, and its still more precarious condition in France, very probably reduce its adherents throughout Europe to a proscribed and persecuted sect.

Panzani was therefore instructed to flatter Montagu's vanity, to manifest a great desire for reconciliation, but not to favour any discussion of controverted points, which had always proved fruitless, and which could not be admitted till the supreme authority of the holy see was recognised. As to all usages founded on positive law, which might be disagreeable to the English nation, they should receive as much mitigation as the case would bear. This, of course, alluded to the three great points of discipline, or ecclesiastical inst.i.tution--the celibacy of the clergy, the exclusion of the laity from the eucharistical cup, and the Latin liturgy.

In the course of the bishop's subsequent interviews, he again mentioned his willingness to acknowledge the pope's supremacy; and a.s.sured Panzani that the archbishop was entirely of his mind, but with a great mixture of fear and caution.[126] Three bishops only, Morton, Hall, and Davenant, were obstinately bent against the church of Rome; the rest might be counted moderate.[127] The agent, however, took care to obtain from another quarter a more particular account of each bishop's disposition, and transmitted to Rome a report, which does not appear. Montagu displayed a most unguarded warmth in all this treaty; notwithstanding which, Panzani suspected him of still entertaining some notions incompatible with the catholic doctrine. He behaved with much greater discretion than the bishop; justly, I suppose, distrusting the influence of a man who showed so little capacity for a business of the utmost delicacy. It appears almost certain that Montagu made too free with the name of the archbishop, and probably of many others; and it is well worthy of remark, that the popish party did not entertain any sanguine hopes of the king's conversion. They expected doubtless that, by gaining over the hierarchy, they should induce him to follow; but he had evidently given no reason to imagine that he would precede. A few casual words, not perhaps exactly reported, might sometimes elate their hopes, but cannot excite in us, who are better able to judge than his contemporaries, any reasonable suspicion of his constancy. Yet it is not impossible that he might at one time conceive a union to be more practicable than it really was.[128]

The court of Rome omitted no token of civility or good will to conciliate our king's favour. Besides expressions of paternal kindness which Urban lavished on him, Cardinal Barberini gratified his well-known taste by a present of pictures. Charles showed a due sense of these courtesies. The prosecutions of recusants were absolutely stopped, by cas.h.i.+ering the pursuivants who had been employed in the odious office of detecting them. It was arranged that reciprocal diplomatic relations should be established, and consequently that an English agent should constantly reside at the court of Rome, by the nominal appointment of the queen, but empowered to conduct the various negotiations in hand. Through the first person who held this station, a gentleman of the name of Hamilton, the king made an overture on a matter very near to his heart, the rest.i.tution of the Palatinate. I have no doubt that the whole of his imprudent tampering with Rome had been considerably influenced by this chimerical hope. But it was apparent to every man of less unsound judgment than Charles, that except the young elector would renounce the protestant faith, he could expect nothing from the intercession of the pope.

After the first preliminaries, which she could not refuse to enter upon, the court of Rome displayed no eagerness for a treaty which it found, on more exact information, to be embarra.s.sed with greater difficulties than its new allies had confessed.[129] Whether this subject continued to be discussed during the mission of Con, who succeeded Panzani, is hard to determine; because the latter's memoirs, our unquestionable authority for what has been above related, cease to afford us light. But as Con was a very active intriguer for his court, it is by no means unlikely that he proceeded in the same kind of parley with Montagu and Windebank. Yet whatever might pa.s.s between them was intended rather with a view to the general interests of the Roman church, than to promote a reconciliation with that of England, as a separate contracting party. The former has displayed so systematic a policy to make no concession to the reformers, either in matters of belief, wherein, since the council of Trent, she could in fact do nothing, or even, as far as possible, in points of discipline, as to which she judged, perhaps rightly, that her authority would be impaired by the precedent of concession without any proportionate advantage: so unvarying in all cases has been her determination to yield nothing except through absolute force, and to elude force itself by every subtlety that it is astonis.h.i.+ng how honest men on the opposite side (men, that is, who seriously intended to preserve any portion of their avowed tenets, not such as Montagu or Heylin,) could ever contemplate the possibility of reconciliation. Upon the present occasion, she manifested some alarm at the boasted approximation of the Anglicans. The attraction of bodies is reciprocal; and the English catholics might, with so much temporal interest in the scale, be impelled more rapidly towards the established church than that church towards them. "Advise the clergy," say the instructions to the nuncio in 1639, "to desist from that foolish, nay rather illiterate and childish, custom of distinction in the protestant and puritan doctrine; and especially this error is so much the greater, when they undertake to prove that protestantism is a degree nearer to the catholic faith than the other. For since both of them be without the verge of the church, it is needless hypocrisy to speak of it, yea, it begets more malice than it is worth."[130]

This exceeding boldness of the catholic party, and their success in conversions, which were, in fact, less remarkable for their number than for the condition of the persons, roused the primate himself to some apprehension. He preferred a formal complaint to the king in council against the resort of papists to the queen's chapel, and the insolence of some active zealots about the court.[131] Henrietta, who had courted his friends.h.i.+p, and probably relied on his connivance, if not support, seems never to have forgiven this unexpected attack. Laud gave another testimony of his unabated hostility to popery by republis.h.i.+ng with additions his celebrated conference with the jesuit Fisher, a work reckoned the great monument of his learning and controversial ac.u.men. This conference had taken place many years before, at the desire and in the presence of the Countess of Buckingham, the duke's mother. Those who are conversant with literary and ecclesiastical anecdote must be aware that nothing was more usual in the seventeenth century than such single combats under the eye of some fair lady whose religious faith was to depend upon the victory.

The wily and polished jesuits had great advantages in these duels, which almost always, I believe, ended in their favour. After fatiguing their gentle arbitress for a time with the tedious fencing of text and citation, till she felt her own inability to award the palm, they came with their prejudices already engaged, to the necessity of an infallible judge; and as their adversaries of the English church had generally left themselves vulnerable on this side, there was little difficulty in obtaining success. Like Hector in the spoils of Patroclus, our clergy had a.s.sumed to themselves the celestial armour of authority; but found that, however it might intimidate the mult.i.tude, it fitted them too ill to repel the spear that had been wrought in the same furnace. A writer of this school in the age of Charles the First, and incomparably superior to any of the churchmen belonging to it, in the brightness and originality of his genius, Sir Thomas Brown, whose varied talents wanted nothing but the controlling supremacy of good sense to place him in the highest rank of our literature, will furnish a better instance of the prevailing bias than merely theological writings. He united a most acute and sceptical understanding with strong devotional sensibility, the temperament so conspicuous in Pascal and Johnson, and which has a peculiar tendency to seek the repose of implicit faith. "Where the Scripture is silent,"

says Brown in his _Religio Medici_, "the church is my text; where it speaks, 'tis but my comment." That jesuit must have been a disgrace to his order, who would have asked more than such a concession to secure a proselyte--the right of interpreting whatever was written, and of supplying whatever was not.

_Chillingworth._--At this time, however, appeared one man in the field of religious debate, who struck out from that insidious tract, of which his own experience had shown him the perils. Chillingworth, on whom nature had bestowed something like the same const.i.tutional temperament as that to which I have just adverted, except that the reasoning power having a greater mastery, his religious sensibility rather gave earnestness to his love of truth than tenacity to his prejudices, had been induced, like so many others, to pa.s.s over to the Roman church. The act of transition, it may be observed, from a system of tenets wherein men had been educated, was in itself a vigorous exercise of free speculation, and might be termed the suicide of private judgment. But in Chillingworth's restless mind there was an inextinguishable scepticism that no opiates could subdue; yet a scepticism of that species which belongs to a vigorous, not that which denotes a feeble understanding. Dissatisfied with his new opinions, of which he had never been really convinced, he panted to breathe the freer air of protestantism, and after a long and anxious investigation returned to the English church. He well redeemed any censure that might have been thrown on him, by his great work in answer to the jesuit Knott, ent.i.tled _The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation_. In the course of his reflections he had perceived the insecurity of resting the reformation on any but its original basis, the independency of private opinion. This, too, he a.s.serted with a fearlessness and consistency hitherto little known, even within the protestant pale; combining it with another principle, which the zeal of the early reformers had rendered them unable to perceive, and for want of which the adversary had perpetually discomfited them, namely, that the errors of conscientious men do not forfeit the favour of G.o.d.

This endeavour to mitigate the dread of forming mistaken judgments in religion runs through the whole work of Chillingworth, and marks him as the founder, in this country, of what has been called the lat.i.tudinarian school of theology. In this view, which has practically been the most important one of the controversy, it may pa.s.s for an antic.i.p.ated reply to the most brilliant performance on the opposite side, _The History of the Variations of Protestant Churches_; and those who, from a delight in the display of human intellect, or from more serious motives of inquiry, are led to these two master-pieces, will have seen, perhaps, the utmost strength that either party, in the great schism of Christendom, has been able to put forth.

This celebrated work, which gained its author the epithet of immortal, is now, I suspect little studied even by the clergy. It is, no doubt, somewhat tedious, when read continuously, from the frequent recurrence of the same strain of reasoning, and from his method of following, sentence by sentence, the steps of his opponent; a method which, while it presents an immediate advantage to controversial writers, as it heightens their reputation at the expense of their adversary, is apt to render them very tiresome to posterity. But the closeness and precision of his logic, which this mode of incessant grappling with his antagonist served to display, are so admirable, perhaps, indeed, hardly rivalled in any book beyond the limits of strict science, that the study of Chillingworth might tend to chastise the verbose and indefinite declamation so characteristic of the present day. His style, though by no means elegant or imaginative, has much of a nervous energy that rises into eloquence. He is chiefly, however, valuable for a true liberality and tolerance; far removed from indifference, as may well be thought of one whose life was consumed in searching for truth, but diametrically adverse to those pretensions which seem of late years to have been regaining ground among the Anglican divines.

_Hales._--The lat.i.tudinarian principles of Chillingworth appear to have been confirmed by his intercourse with a man, of whose capacity his contemporaries entertained so high an admiration, that he acquired the distinctive appellation of the ever-memorable John Hales. This testimony of so many enlightened men is not to be disregarded, even if we should be of opinion that the writings of Hales, though abounding with marks of an unshackled mind, do not quite come up to the promise of his name. He had, as well as Chillingworth, borrowed from Leyden, perhaps a little from Racow, a tone of thinking upon some doctrinal points as yet nearly unknown, and therefore highly obnoxious in England. More hardy than his friend, he wrote a short treatise on schism, which tended, in pretty blunt and unlimited language, to overthrow the scheme of authoritative decisions in any church, pointing at the imposition of unnecessary ceremonies and articles of faith, as at once the cause and the apology of separation. This having been circulated in ma.n.u.script, came to the knowledge of Laud, who sent for Hales to Lambeth, and questioned him as to his opinions on that matter. Hales, though willing to promise that he would not publish the tract, receded not a jot from his free notions of ecclesiastical power; which he again advisedly maintained in a letter to the archbishop, now printed among his works. The result was equally honourable to both parties; Laud bestowing a canonry of Windsor on Hales, which, after so bold an avowal of his opinion, he might accept without the slightest reproach. A behaviour so liberal forms a singular contrast to the rest of this prelate's history. It is a proof, no doubt, that he knew how to set such a value on great abilities and learning, as to forgive much that wounded his pride. But besides that Hales had not made public this treatise on schism, for which I think he could not have escaped the high commission court, he was known by Laud to stand far aloof from the Calvinistic sectaries, having long since embraced in their full extent the principles of Episcopius, and to mix no alloy of political faction with the philosophical hardiness of his speculations.[132]

These two remarkable ornaments of the English church, who dwelt apart like stars, to use the fine expression of a living poet, from the vulgar bigots of both her factions, were accustomed to meet, in the society of some other eminent persons, at the house of Lord Falkland near Burford. One of those, who, then in a ripe and learned youth, became afterwards so conspicuous a name in our annals and our literature, Mr. Hyde, the chosen bosom-friend of his host, has dwelt with affectionate remembrance on the conversations of that mansion.

His marvellous talent of delineating character, a talent, I think, unrivalled by any writer (since, combining the bold outline of the ancient historians with the a.n.a.lytical minuteness of De Retz and St.

Simon, it produces a higher effect than either), is never more beautifully displayed than in that part of the memoirs of his life, where Falkland, Hales, Chillingworth, and the rest of his early friends, pa.s.s over the scene.

For almost thirty ensuing years, Hyde himself becomes the companion of our historical reading. Seven folio volumes contain his _History of the Rebellion_, his _Life_, and the _Letters_, of which a large portion are his own. We contract an intimacy with an author who has poured out to us so much of his heart. Though Lord Clarendon's chief work seems to me not quite accurately styled a history, belonging rather to the cla.s.s of memoirs,[133] yet the very reasons of this distinction, the long circ.u.mstantial narrative of events wherein he was engaged, and the slight notice of those which he only learned from others, render it more interesting, if not more authentic. Conformably to human feelings, though against the rules of historical composition, it bears the continual impress of an intense concern about what he relates. This depth of personal interest, united frequently with an eloquence of the heart and imagination that struggles through an involved, incorrect, and artificial diction, makes it, one would imagine, hardly possible for those most alien from his sentiments to read his writings without some portion of sympathy. But they are on this account not a little dangerous to the soundness of our historical conclusions; the prejudices of Clarendon, and his negligence as to truth, being full as striking as his excellencies, and leading him not only into many erroneous judgments, but into frequent inconsistencies.

_Animadversions on Clarendon's account of this period._--These inconsistencies are nowhere so apparent as in the first or introductory book of his history, which professes to give a general view of the state of affairs before the meeting of the long parliament. It is certainly the most defective part of his work. A strange mixture of honesty and disingenuousness pervades all he has written of the early years of the king's reign; retracting, at least in spirit, in almost every page what has been said in the last, from a constant fear that he may have admitted so much against the government as to make his readers impute too little blame to those who opposed it. Thus, after freely censuring the exactions of the Crown, whether on the score of obsolete prerogative or without any just pretext at all, especially that of s.h.i.+p-money, and confessing that "those foundations of right, by which men valued their security, were never, to the apprehension and understanding of wise men, in more danger of being destroyed," he turns to dwell on the prosperous state of the kingdom during this period, "enjoying the greatest calm and the fullest measure of felicity that any people in any age for so long time together have been blessed with," till he works himself up to a strange paradox, that "many wise men thought it a time wherein those two adjuncts, which Nerva was edified for uniting, Imperium et Libertas, were as well reconciled as is possible."

Such wisdom was not, it seems, the attribute of the nation. "These blessings," he says, "could but enable, not compel, us to be happy; we wanted that sense, acknowledgement, and value of our own happiness which all but we had, and took pains to make, when we could not find, ourselves miserable. There was, in truth, a strange absence of understanding in most, and a strange perverseness of understanding in the rest; the court full of excess, idleness, and luxury; the country full of pride, mutiny, and discontent; every man more troubled and perplexed at that they called the violation of the law, than delighted or pleased with the observation of all the rest of the charter; never imputing the increase of their receipts, revenue, and plenty, to the wisdom, virtue, and merit of the Crown, but objecting every small imposition to the exorbitancy and tyranny of the government."[134]

This strange pa.s.sage is as inconsistent with other parts of the same chapter, and with Hyde's own conduct at the beginning of the parliament, as it is with all reasonable notions of government.[135]

For if kings and ministers may plead in excuse for violating one law, that they have not transgressed the rest (though it would be difficult to name any violation of law that Charles had not committed); if this were enough to reconcile their subjects, and to make dissatisfaction pa.s.s for a want or perversion of understanding, they must be in a very different predicament from all others who live within the pale of civil society, whose obligation to obey its discipline is held to be entire and universal. By this great writer's own admissions, the decision in the case of s.h.i.+p-money had shaken every man's security for the enjoyment of his private inheritance. Though as yet not weighty enough to be actually very oppressive, it might, and, according to the experience of Europe, undoubtedly would, become such by length of time and peaceable submission.

We may acknowledge without hesitation, that the kingdom had grown during this period into remarkable prosperity and affluence. The rents of land were very considerably increased, and large tracts reduced into cultivation. The manufacturing towns, the sea-ports, became more populous and flouris.h.i.+ng. The metropolis increased in size with a rapidity that repeated proclamations against new buildings could not restrain. The country houses of the superior gentry throughout England were built on a scale which their descendants, even in days of more redundant affluence, have seldom ventured to emulate. The kingdom was indebted for this prosperity to the spirit and industry of the people, to the laws which secure the Commons from oppression, and which, as between man and man, were still fairly administered, to the opening of fresh channels of trade in the eastern and western worlds (rivulets, indeed, as they seem to us, who float in the full tide of modern commerce, yet at that time no slight contributions to the stream of public wealth); but above all, to the long tranquillity of the kingdom, ignorant of the sufferings of domestic, and seldom much affected by the privations of foreign, war. It was the natural course of things, that wealth should be progressive in such a land. Extreme tyranny, such as that of Spain in the Netherlands, might, no doubt, have turned back the current. A less violent, but long-continued despotism, such as has existed in several European monarchies, would, by the corruption and incapacity which absolute governments engender, have r.e.t.a.r.ded its advance. The administration of Charles was certainly not of the former description. Yet it would have been an excess of loyal stupidity in the nation to have attributed their riches to the wisdom or virtue of the court, which had injured the freedom of trade by monopolies and arbitrary proclamations, and driven away industrious manufacturers by persecution.

If we were to draw our knowledge from no other book than Lord Clarendon's _History_, it would still be impossible to avoid the inference, that misconduct on the part of the Crown, and more especially of the church, was the chief, if not the sole, cause of these prevailing discontents. At the time when Laud unhappily became Archbishop of Canterbury, "the general temper and humour of the kingdom," he tells us, "was little inclined to the papist, and less to the puritan. There were some late taxes and impositions introduced, which rather angered than grieved the people, who were more than repaired by the quiet peace and prosperity they enjoyed; and the murmurs and discontent that was, appeared to be against the excess of power exercised by the Crown, and supported by the judges in Westminster Hall. The church was not repined at, nor the least inclination to alter the government and discipline thereof, or to change the doctrine. Nor was there at that time any considerable number of persons of any valuable condition throughout the kingdom, who did wish either; and the cause of so prodigious a change in so few years after was too visible from the effects." This cause, he is compelled to admit, in a pa.s.sage too diffuse to be extracted, was the pa.s.sionate and imprudent behaviour of the primate. Can there be a stronger proof of the personal prepossessions, which for ever distort the judgment of this author, than that he should blame the remissness of Abbot, who left things in so happy a condition; and a.s.sert that Laud executed the trust of solely managing ecclesiastical affairs, "infinitely to the service and benefit" of that church which he brought to destruction? Were it altogether true, what is doubtless much exaggerated, that in 1633 very little discontent at the measures of the court had begun to prevail, it would be utterly inconsistent with experience and observation of mankind to ascribe the almost universal murmurs of 1639 to any other cause than bad government. But Hyde, attached to Laud and devoted to the king, shrunk from the conclusion that his own language would afford; and his piety made him seek in some mysterious influences of Heaven, and in a judicial infatuation of the people, for the causes of those troubles which the fixed and uniform dispensations of Providence were sufficient to explain.[136]

_Scots troubles, and distress of the government._--It is difficult to p.r.o.nounce how much longer the nation's signal forbearance would have held out, if the Scots had not precipitated themselves into rebellion.

There was still a confident hope that parliament must soon or late be a.s.sembled; and it seemed equally impolitic and unconst.i.tutional to seek redress by any violent means. The patriots, too, had just cause to lament the ambition of some whom the court's favour subdued, and the levity of many more whom its vanities allured. But the unexpected success of the tumultuous rising at Edinburgh against the service-book revealed the impotence of the English government. Dest.i.tute of money, and neither daring to ask it from a parliament nor to extort it by any fresh demand from the people, they hesitated whether to employ force or to submit to the insurgents. In the exchequer, as Lord Northumberland wrote to Strafford, there was but the sum of 200; with all the means that could be devised, not above 110,000 could be raised; the magazines were all unfurnished, and the people were so discontented by reason of the mult.i.tude of projects daily imposed upon them, that he saw reason to fear a great part of them would be readier to join with the Scots than to draw their swords in the king's service.[137] "The discontents at home," he observes some months afterwards, "do rather increase than lessen, there being no course taken to give any kind of satisfaction. The king's coffers were never emptier than at this time; and to us that have the honour to be near about him, no way is yet known how he will find means either to maintain or begin a war without the help of his people."[138]

Strafford himself dissuaded a war in such circ.u.mstances, though hardly knowing what other course to advise.[139] He had now awaked from the dreams of infatuated arrogance, to stand appalled at the perils of his sovereign, and his own. In the letters that pa.s.sed between him and Laud after the Scots troubles had broken out, we read their hardly concealed dismay, and glimpses of "the two-handed engine at the door."

Yet pride forbade them to perceive or confess the real causes of this portentous state of affairs. They fondly laid the miscarriage of the business of Scotland on failure in the execution, and an "over-great desire to do all quietly."[140]

In this imminent necessity, the king had recourse to those who had least cause to repine at his administration. The catholic gentry, at the powerful interference of their queen, made large contributions towards the campaign of 1639. Many of them volunteered their personal service. There was, indeed, a further project, so secret that it is not mentioned, I believe, till very lately, by any historical writer.

This was to procure 10,000 regular troops from Flanders, in exchange for so many recruits to be levied for Spain in England and Ireland.

These troops were to be for six months in the king's pay. Colonel Gage, a catholic, and the negotiator of this treaty, hints that the pope would probably contribute money, if he had hopes of seeing the penal laws repealed; and observes, that with such an army the king might both subdue the Scots, and at the same time keep his parliament in check, so as to make them come to his conditions.[141] The treaty, however, was never concluded. Spain was far more inclined to revenge herself for the bad faith she imputed to Charles, than to lend him any a.s.sistance. Hence, when, in the next year, he offered to declare war against Holland, as soon as he should have subdued the Scots, for a loan of 1,200,000 crowns, the Spanish amba.s.sador haughtily rejected the proposition.[142]

The pacification, as it was termed, of Berwick in the summer of 1639 has been represented by several historians as a measure equally ruinous and unaccountable. That it was so far ruinous, as it formed one link in the chain that dragged the king to destruction, is most evident; but it was both inevitable and easy of explanation. The treasury, whatever Clarendon and Hume may have said, was perfectly bankrupt.[143] The citizens of London, on being urged by the council for a loan, had used as much evasion as they dared.[144] The writs for s.h.i.+p-money were executed with greater difficulty, several sheriffs willingly acquiescing in the excuses made by their counties.[145] Sir Francis Seymour, brother to the Earl of Hertford, and a man, like his brother, of very moderate principles, absolutely refused to pay it, though warned by the council to beware how he disputed its legality.[146] Many of the Yorks.h.i.+re gentry, headed by Sir Marmaduke Langdale, combined to refuse its payment.[147] It was impossible to rely again on catholic subscriptions, which the court of Rome, as I have mentioned above, instigated perhaps by that of Madrid, had already tried to restrain. The Scots were enthusiastic, nearly unanimous, and entire masters of their country. The English n.o.bility, in general, detested the archbishop, to whose pa.s.sion they ascribed the whole mischief, and feared to see the king become despotic in Scotland. If the terms of Charles's treaty with his revolted subjects were unsatisfactory and indefinite, enormous in concession, and yet affording a pretext for new encroachments, this is no more than the common lot of the weaker side.

There was one possible, though not under all the circ.u.mstances very likely, method of obtaining the sinews of war; the convocation of parliament. This many, at least, of the king's advisers appear to have long desired, could they but have vanquished his obstinate reluctance.

This is an important observation: Charles, and he perhaps alone, unless we reckon the queen, seems to have taken a resolution of superseding absolutely and for ever the legal const.i.tution of England.

The judges, the peers, Lord Strafford, nay, if we believe his dying speech, the primate himself, retained enough of respect for the ancient laws, to desire that parliaments should be summoned, whenever they might be expected to second the views of the monarch. They felt that the new scheme of governing by proclamations and writs of s.h.i.+p-money could not, and ought not to be permanent in England. The king reasoned more royally, and indeed much better. He well perceived that it was vain to hope for another parliament so const.i.tuted as those under the Tudors. He was ashamed (and that pernicious woman at his side would not fail to encourage the sentiment) that his brothers of France and Spain should have achieved a work, which the sovereign of England, though called an absolute king by his courtiers, had scarcely begun. All mention therefore of calling parliament grated on his ear. The declaration published at the dissolution of the last, that he should account it presumption for any to prescribe a time to him for calling parliaments, was meant to extend even to his own counsellors. He rated severely Lord-Keeper Coventry for a suggestion of this kind.[148] He came with much reluctance into Wentworth's proposal of summoning one in Ireland, though the superior control of the Crown over parliaments in that kingdom was pointed out to him.

"The king," says Cottington, "at the end of 1638, will not hear of a parliament; and he is told by a committee of learned men, that there is no other way."[149] This repugnance to meet his people, and his inability to carry on the war by any other methods, produced the ignominious pacification at Berwick. But, as the Scots, grown bolder by success, had after this treaty almost thrown off all subjection, and the renewal of the war, or loss of the sovereignty over that kingdom, appeared necessary alternatives, overpowered by the concurrent advice of his council, and especially of Strafford, he issued writs for that which met in April 1640.[150] They told him that, making trial once more of the ancient and ordinary way, he would leave his people without excuse, if that should fail; and have wherewithal to justify himself to G.o.d and the world, if he should be forced contrary to his inclinations to use extraordinary means, rather than through the peevishness of some factious spirits to suffer his state and government to be lost.[151]

_Parliament of April 1640._--It has been universally admitted that the parliament which met on the 13th of April 1640 was as favourably disposed towards the king's service, and as little influenced by their many wrongs, as any man of ordinary judgment could expect.[152] But though cautiously abstaining from any intemperance, so much as to reprove a member for calling s.h.i.+p-money an abomination (no very outrageous expression), they sufficiently manifested a determination not to leave their grievances unredressed. Pet.i.tions against the manifold abuses in church and state covered their table; Pym, Rudyard, Waller, Lord Digby, and others more conspicuous afterwards, excited them by vigorous speeches; they appointed a committee to confer with the Lords, according to some precedents of the last reign, on a long list of grievances, divided into ecclesiastical innovations, infringements of the propriety of goods, and breaches of the privilege of parliament. They voted a request of the peers, who, Clarendon says, were more entirely at the king's disposal, that they would begin with the business of supply, and not proceed to debate on grievances till afterwards, to be a high breach of privilege.[153]

There is not the smallest reason to doubt that they would have insisted on redress in all those particulars, with at least as much zeal as any former parliament, and that the king, after obtaining his subsidies, would have put an end to their remonstrances, as he had done before.[154] In order to obtain the supply he demanded, namely, twelve subsidies to be paid in three years, which, though unusual, was certainly not beyond his exigencies, he offered to release his claim to s.h.i.+p-money, in any manner they should point out. But this the Commons indignantly repelled. They deemed s.h.i.+p-money the great crime of his administration, and the judgment against Mr. Hampden, the infamy of those who p.r.o.nounced it. Till that judgment should be annulled, and those judges punished, the national liberties must be as precarious as ever. Even if they could hear of a compromise with so flagrant a breach of the const.i.tution, and of purchasing their undoubted rights, the doctrine a.s.serted in Mr. Hampden's case by the Crown lawyers, and adopted by some of the judges, rendered all stipulations nugatory. The right of taxation had been claimed as an absolute prerogative so inherent in the Crown, that no act of parliament could take it away. All former statutes, down to the pet.i.tion of right, had been prostrated at the foot of the throne; by what new compact were the present parliament to give a sanct.i.ty more inviolable to their own?[155]

It will be in the recollection of my readers, that while the Commons were deliberating whether to promise any supply before the redress of grievances, and in what measure, Sir Henry Vane, the secretary, told them that the king would accept nothing less than the twelve subsidies he had required; in consequence of which the parliament was dissolved next day. Clarendon, followed by several others, has imputed treachery in this to Vane, and told us that the king regretted so much what he had done, that he wished, had it been practicable, to recall the parliament after its dissolution. This is confirmed, as to Vane, by the queen herself, in that interesting narrative which she communicated to Madame de Motteville.[156] Were it not for such authorities, seemingly independent of each other, yet entirely tallying, I should have deemed it more probable that Vane, with whom the solicitor-general Herbert had concurred, acted solely by the king's command. Charles, who feared and hated all parliaments, had not acquiesced in the scheme of calling the present, till there was no other alternative; an insufficient supply would have left him in a more difficult situation than before, as to the use of those extraordinary means, as they were called, which his disposition led him to prefer: the intention to a.s.sail parts of his administration more dear to him than s.h.i.+p-money, and especially the ecclesiastical novelties, was apparent. Nor can we easily give him credit for this alleged regret at the step he had taken, when we read the declaration he put forth, charging the Commons with entering on examination of his government in an insolent and audacious manner, traducing his administration of justice, rendering odious his officers and ministers of state, and introducing a way of bargaining and contracting with the king, as if nothing ought to be given him by them, but what he should purchase either by quitting somewhat of his royal prerogative, or by diminis.h.i.+ng and lessening his revenue.[157] The unconst.i.tutional practice of committing to prison some of the most prominent members, and searching their houses for papers, was renewed. And having broken loose again from the restraints of law, the king's sanguine temper looked to such a triumph over the Scots in the coming campaign, as no prudent man could think probable.

This dissolution of parliament in May 1640 appears to have been a very fatal crisis for the king's popularity. Those who, with the loyalty natural to Englishmen, had willingly ascribed his previous misgovernment to evil counsels, could not any longer avoid perceiving his mortal antipathy to any parliament that should not be as subservient as the cortes of Castile. The necessity of some great change became the common theme. "It is impossible," says Lord Northumberland, at that time a courtier, "that things can long continue in the condition they are now in; so general a defection in this kingdom hath not been known in the memory of any!"[158] Several of those who thought most deeply on public affairs now entered into a private communication with the Scots insurgents. It seems probable from the well-known story of Lord Saville's forged letter, that there had been very little connection of this kind until the present summer.[159] And we may conjecture that during this ominous interval, those great projects, which were displayed in the next session, acquired consistence and ripeness by secret discussions in the houses of the Earl of Bedford and Lord Say. The king meanwhile experienced aggravated misfortune and ignominy in his military operations.

s.h.i.+p-money indeed was enforced with greater rigour than before, several sheriffs and the lord mayor of London being prosecuted in the star-chamber for neglecting to levy it. Some citizens were imprisoned for refusing a loan. A new imposition was laid on the counties, under the name of coat-and-conduct-money, for clothing and defraying the travelling charges of the new levies.[160] A state of actual invasion, the Scots having pa.s.sed the Tweed, might excuse some of these irregularities, if it could have been forgotten that the war itself was produced by the king's impolicy, and if the nation had not been p.r.o.ne to see friends and deliverers rather than enemies in the Scottish army. They were, at the best indeed, troublesome and expensive guests to the northern counties which they occupied; but the cost of their visit was justly laid at the king's door. Various arbitrary resources having been suggested in the council, and abandoned as inefficient and impracticable, such as the seizing the merchants' bullion in the mint, or issuing a debased coin; the unhappy king adopted the hopeless scheme of convening a great council of all the peers at York, as the only alternative of a parliament.[161] It was foreseen that this a.s.sembly would only advise the king to meet his people in a legal way. The public voice could no longer be suppressed.

The citizens of London presented a pet.i.tion to the king, complaining of grievances, and asking for a parliament. This was speedily followed by one signed by twelve peers of popular character.[162] The lords a.s.sembled at York almost unanimously concurred in the same advice, to which the king, after some hesitation, gave his a.s.sent. They had more difficulty in bringing about a settlement with the Scots; the English army, disaffected and undisciplined, had already made an inglorious retreat; and even Strafford, though pa.s.sionately against a treaty, did not venture to advise an engagement.[163] The majority of the peers however over-ruled all opposition; and in the alarming posture of his affairs, Charles had no resource but the dishonourable pacification of Rippon. Antic.i.p.ating the desertion of some who had partaken in his counsels, and conscious that others would more stand in need of his support than be capable of affording any, he awaited in fearful suspense the meeting of parliament.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "It hath so happened," he says, "by the disobedient and seditious carriage of those said ill-affected persons of the House of Commons, that we and our regal authority and commandment have been so highly contemned as our kingly office cannot bear, nor any former age can parallel." Rymer, xix. 30.

[2] Rymer, xix. 62.

[3] Whitelock's _Memorials_, p. 14. Whitelock's father was one of the judges of the king's bench; his son takes pains to exculpate him from the charge of too much compliance, and succeeded so well with the long parliament that when they voted Chief-Justice Hyde and Justice Jones guilty of delay in not bailing these gentlemen, they voted also that Croke and Whitelock were not guilty of it. The proceedings, as we now read them, hardly warrant this favourable distinction. _Parl. Hist._ ii. 869, 876.

[4] Strode's act is printed in Hatsell's _Precedents_, vol. i. p. 80, and in several other books, as well as in the great edition of _Statutes of the Realm_. It is worded, like many of our ancient laws, so confusedly, as to make its application uncertain; but it rather appears to me not to have been intended as a public act.

[5] _State Trials_, vol. iii. from Rushworth.

[6] Hatsell, pp. 212, 242.

[7] Rushworth.

[8] Rushworth; _State Trials_, iii. 373; Whitelock, p. 12. Chambers applied several times for redress to the long parliament on account of this and subsequent injuries, but seems to have been cruelly neglected, while they were voting large sums to those who had suffered much less, and died in poverty.

[9] I have remarked in former pa.s.sages that the rack was much employed, especially against Roman catholics, under Elizabeth. Those accused of the gunpowder conspiracy were also severely tortured; and others in the reign of James. c.o.ke, in the Countess of Shrewsbury's case, 1612 (_State Trials_, ii. 773), mentions it as a privilege of the n.o.bility, that "their bodies are not subject to torture in causa criminis laesae majestatis." Yet, in his third Inst.i.tute, p. 35, he says, the rack in the Tower was brought in by the Duke of Exeter, under Henry VI., and is, therefore, familiarly called the Duke of Exeter's daughter; and after quoting Fortescue to prove the practice illegal, concludes--"There is no law to warrant tortures in this land, nor can they be justified by any prescription, being so lately brought in." Bacon observes, in a tract written in 1603: "In the highest cases of treason, torture is used for discovery, and not for evidence."--i.

393. See also Miss Aikin's _Memoirs of James I._ ii. 158.

[10] _State Trials_, iii. 359. This was a very important determination, and put an end to such tyrannical persecution of Roman catholics for bare expressions of opinion as had been used under Elizabeth and James.

[11] Rushworth (Abridged), ii. 253; Strafford's _Letters_, ii. 74.