Constitutional History of England Volume II Part 4

This note ought to have been inserted in Chapter I., where the antiquity of the star-chamber is mentioned, but was accidentally overlooked.

[56] P. 56.

[57] P. 62. Lord Bacon observes, that the council in his time did not meddle with _meum_ and _tuum_ as formerly; and that such causes ought not to be entertained. Vol. i. 720; vol. ii. 208. "The king," he says, "should be sometimes present, yet not too often." James was too often present, and took one well-known criminal proceeding, that against Sir Thomas Lake and his family, entirely into his own hands.

[58] P. 82.

[59] P. 108.

[60] Pp. 100, 102.

[61] P. 107. The following case in the queen's reign goes a great way: An information was preferred in the star-chamber against Griffin and another for erecting a tenement in Hog-lane, which he divided into several rooms, wherein were inhabiting two poor tenants, that only lived and were maintained by the relief of their neighbours, etc. The attorney-general, and also the lord mayor and aldermen, prayed some condign punishment on Griffin and the other, and that the court would be pleased to set down and decree some general order in this and other like cases of new building and division of tenements. Whereupon the court, generally considering the great growing evils and inconveniences that continually breed and happen by this new erected building and divisions made and divided contrary to her majesty's said proclamation, commit the offenders to the Fleet, and fine them 20 each; but considering that if the houses be pulled down, other habitations must be found, did not, as requested, order this to be done for the present, but that the tenants should continue for their lives without payment of rent, and the landlord is directed not to molest them, and after the death or departure of the tenants the houses to be pulled down. Harl. MSS. N. 299, fol. 7.

[62] Harl. MSS. p. 142, etc. It appears that the court of star-chamber could not sentence to punishment on the deposition of an eye-witness (Rushw. Abr. ii. 114): a rule which did not prevent their receiving the most imperfect and inconclusive testimony.

[63] P. 36, 224. Instead of "the slavish punishment of whipping," the printed book has "the slavish speech of whispering," which of course entirely alters the sense, or rather makes nonsense. I have followed a MS. in the Museum (Hargrave, N. 250), which agrees with the abstract of this treatise by Rushworth, ii. 348.

[64] Vallenger, author of seditious libels, was sentenced in the queen's reign to stand twice in the pillory, and lose both his ears.

Harl. MSS. 6265, fol. 373. So also the conspirators who accused Archbishop Sandys of adultery. _Id._ 376. And Mr. Pound, a Roman catholic gentleman, who had suffered much before for his religion, was sentenced by that court, in 1603, to lose both his ears, to be fined 1000, and imprisoned for life, unless he declared who instigated him to charge Serjeant Philips with injustice in condemning a neighbour of his to death. Winwood, ii. 36.

[65] The scarcity must have been very great this season (1631), for he refused 2 18_s._ for the quarter of rye. Rushworth, ii. 110.

[66] Rushworth, 340. Garrard, the correspondent of Wentworth, who sent him all London news, writes about this: "The attorney-general hath sent to all taverns to prohibit them to dress meat; somewhat was required of them, a halfpenny a quart for French wine, and a penny for sack and other richer wines, for the king: the gentlemen vintners grew sullen, and would not give it, so they are all well enough served."

_Strafford Letters_, i. 507.

[67] Hacket's _Life of Williams_; Rushworth Abr. ii. 315, _et post_; Brodie ii. 363.

[68] Osbaldiston swore that he did not mean Laud; an undoubted perjury.

[69] Mr. Brodie (_Hist. of Brit. Emp._ vol. ii. p. 309) observes, that he cannot find in Leighton's book (which I have never seen) the pa.s.sage constantly brought forward by Laud's apologists, wherein he is supposed to have recommended the a.s.sa.s.sination of the bishops. He admits, indeed, as does Harris, that the book was violent; but what can be said of the punishment?

[70] Rushworth; _State Trials_.

[71] _Id._ Whitelock, p. 18; Harris's _Life of Charles_, p. 262. The unfortunate words in the index, "Women actors notorious wh.o.r.es," cost Prynne half his ears; the remainder he saved by the hangman's mercy for a second harvest. When he was brought again before the star-chamber, some of the lords turned up his hair, and expressed great indignation that his ears had not been better cropped. _State Trials_, 717. The most brutal and servile of these courtiers seems to have been the Earl of Dorset, though Clarendon speaks well of him. He was also impudently corrupt, declaring that he thought it no crime for a courtier that lives at great expense in his attendance, to receive a reward to get a business done by a great man in favour. Rush. Abr. ii.

246. It is to be observed that the star-chamber tribunal was almost as infamous for its partiality and corruption as its cruelty. See proofs of this in the same work. P. 241.

[72] The intimidation was so great, that no counsel dared to sign Prynne's plea; yet the court refused to receive it without such signature. Rushworth, ii. 277; _Strafford Letters_, ii. 74.

[73] _Id._ 85; Rushw. 295; _State Trials_. Clarendon, who speaks in a very unbecoming manner of this sentence, admits that it excited general disapprobation. P. 73.

[74] Laud's character is justly and fairly drawn by May, neither in the coa.r.s.e caricature style of Prynne, nor with the absurdly flattering pencil of Clarendon. "The Archbishop of Canterbury was a main agent in this fatal work; a man vigilant enough, of an active or rather of a restless mind; more ambitious to undertake than politic to carry on; of a disposition too fierce and cruel for his coat; which notwithstanding he was so far from concealing in a subtle way, that he increased the envy of it by insolence. He had few vulgar and private vices, as being neither taxed of covetousness, intemperance, or incontinence; and in a word a man not altogether so bad in his personal character, as unfit for the state of England." _Hist. of Parliament_, 19.

[75] The following entry appears in Laud's Diary (March 6, 1636): "Sunday, William Juxon, lord bishop of London, made lord high-treasurer of England: no churchman had it since Hen. VII.'s time.

I pray G.o.d bless him to carry it so that the church may have honour, and the king and the state service and contentment by it. And now, if the church will not hold themselves up under G.o.d, I can do no more."

Those who were far from puritanism could not digest this strange elevation. James Howell writes to Wentworth: "The news that keeps greatest noise here at this present, is that there is a new lord-treasurer; and it is news indeed, it being now twice time out of mind since the white robe and the white staff marched together; we begin to live here in the church triumphant; and there wants but one more to keep the king's conscience, which is more proper for a churchman than his coin, to make it triumvirate." _Straff. Letters_, i. 522. Garrard, another correspondent expresses his surprise, and thinks Strafford himself, or Cottington, would have done better. P.

523. And afterwards (vol. ii. p. 2), "The clergy are so high here since the joining of the white sleeves with the white staff, that there is much talk of having as secretary a bishop, Dr. Wren, Bishop of Norwich, and as chancellor of the exchequer, Dr. Bancroft, Bishop of Oxford; but this comes only from the young fry of the clergy; little credit is given to it, but it is observed, they swarm mightily about the court." The tone of these letters shows that the writer suspected that Wentworth would not be well pleased at seeing a churchman set over his head. But in several of his own letters he positively declares his aversion to the office, and perhaps with sincerity. Ambition was less predominant in his mind than pride, and impatience of opposition. He knew, that as lord-treasurer he would be perpetually thwarted and undermined by Cottington and others of the council. They, on the other hand, must have dreaded that such a colleague might become their master. Laud himself, in his correspondence with Strafford, never throws out the least hint of a wish that he should succeed Weston, which would have interfered with his own views.

It must be added that Juxon redeemed the scandal of his appointment by an unblemished probity, and gave so little offence in this invidious greatness, that the long parliament never attacked him, and he remained in his palace at Fulham without molestation till 1647.

[76] _Strafford's Letters_, i. 33, etc. The letters of Wentworth in this period of his life show a good deal of ambition and resentment, but no great portion of public spirit. This collection of the Strafford letters forms a very important portion of our historical doc.u.ments. Hume had looked at them very superficially, and quotes them but twice. They furnished materials to Harris and Macaulay; but the first is little read at present, and the second not at all. In a recent and deservedly popular publication, Macdiarmid's _Lives of British Statesmen_, the work of a young man of letters, who did not live to struggle through the distresses of that profession, the character of Strafford is drawn from the best authorities, and with abundant, perhaps excessive candour. Mr. Brodie has well pointed out that he has obtained more credit for the early period of his parliamentary life than he deserves, by being confounded with Mr.

Wentworth, member for Oxford. Vol. ii. p. 249. Rushworth has even ascribed to Sir Thomas Wentworth the speeches of this Mr. Wentworth in the second parliament of Charles, from which it is notorious that the former had been excluded.

[77] Hacket tells us, in his elegant style, that "Sir John Eliot of the west, and Sir Thomas Wentworth of the north, both in the prime of their age and wits, both conspicuous for able speakers, clashed so often in the house, and cudgelled one another with such strong contradictions, that it grew from an emulation between them to an enmity. The lord-treasurer Weston picked out the northern c.o.c.k, Sir Thomas, to make him the king's creature, and set him upon the first step of his rising; which was wormwood in the taste of Eliot, who revenged himself upon the king in the Bill of Tonnage, and then fell upon the treasurer, and declaimed against him, that he was the author of all the evils under which the kingdom was oppressed." He proceeds to inform us, that Bishop Williams offered to bring Eliot over, for which Wentworth never forgave him. _Life of Williams_, p. 82. The magnanimous fort.i.tude of Eliot forbids us to give credit to any surmise unfavourable to his glory, upon such indifferent authority; but several pa.s.sages in Wentworth's letters to Laud show his malice towards one who had perished in the great cause which he had so basely forsaken.

[78] Wentworth was brought over before the a.s.sa.s.sination of Buckingham. His patent in Rymer bears date 22nd July 1628, a month previous to that event.

[79] Fourth Inst. c. 49. See also 13 Reports, 31.

[80] Rymer, xix. 9; Rushworth, ii. 127.

[81] Rushworth; Strafford's Trial, etc.; Brodie, ii. 319; _Straff.

Letters_, i. 145. In a letter to Lord Doncaster, pressing for a severe sentence on Foulis, who had been guilty of some disrespect to himself as president of the North, Wentworth shows his abhorrence of liberty with all the bitterness of a renegado; and urges the "seasonable correcting an humour and liberty I find reign in these parts, of observing a superior command no farther than they like themselves, and of questioning any profit of the Crown, called upon by his majesty's ministers, which might enable it to subsist of itself, without being necessitated to accept of such conditions, as others might easily think to impose upon it." Sept. 1632. _Somers Tracts_, iv. 198.

[82] Rushworth Abr. iii. 85; Clarendon, i. 390 (1826). The original editors left out some words which brought this home to Strafford. And if the case was as there seems every reason to believe, I would ask those who talk of this man's innocence, whether in any civilised country, a more outrageous piece of tyranny has been committed by a governor than to compel a n.o.bleman of the highest station to change the disposition of his private estate, because that governor carried on an adulterous intercourse with the daughter-in-law of the person whom he treated thus imperiously?

[83] _Clarendon Papers_, i. 449, 543, 594; Rushworth Abridg. iii. 43; _Clar. Hist._ i. 386 (1826); _Strafford Letters_, i. 497, _et post_.

This proceeding against Lord Mountnorris excited much dissatisfaction in England; those of the council who disliked Strafford making it a pretext to inveigh against his arrogance. But the king, invariably on the severe and arbitrary side, justified the measure, which silenced the courtiers. P. 512. Be it added, that the virtuous Charles took a bribe of 6000 for bestowing Mountnorris's office on Sir Adam Loftus, not out of distress through the parsimony of parliament, but to purchase an estate in Scotland. _Id._ 511.

Hume, in extenuating the conduct of Strafford as to Mountnorris's trial, says, that, "_sensible of the iniquity of the sentence_, he procured his majesty's free pardon to Mountnorris." There is not the slightest evidence to warrant the words in italics; on the contrary, he always justified the sentence, and had most manifestly procured it.

The king, in return to a moving pet.i.tion of Lady Mountnorris, permitted his release from confinement, "on making such a submission as my lord-deputy shall approve."

[84] _Strafford Letters_, i. 111.

[85] P. 155.

[86] _Strafford Letters_, p. 329. In other letters they complain of what they call the Lady Mora, which seems to be a cant word for the inefficient system of the rest of the council, unless it is a personal nickname for Weston.

[87] The bishops, before the Reformation, issued process from their courts in their own names. By the statute of 1 Edw. VI. c. 2, all ecclesiastical jurisdiction is declared to be immediately from the Crown; and it is directed that persons exercising it shall use the king's arms in their seal, and no other. This was repealed under Mary; but her act is itself repealed by 1 Jac. I. c. 25, -- 48. This seems to revive the act of Edward. The spiritual courts, however, continued to issue process in the bishop's name, and with his seal. On some difficulty being made concerning this, it was referred by the star-chamber to the twelve judges, who gave it under their hands that the statute of Edward was repealed, and that the practice of the ecclesiastical courts in this respect was agreeable to law. Neal, 589; Kennet, 92; Rushw. Abr. iii. 340. Whitelock says (p. 22), that the bishops all denied that they held their jurisdiction from the king, for which they were liable to heavy penalties. This question is of little consequence; for it is still true that ecclesiastical jurisdiction, according to the law, emanates from the Crown; nor does anything turn on the issuing of process in the bishop's name, any more than on the holding courts-baron in the name of the lord. In Ireland, unless I am mistaken, the king's name is used in ecclesiastical proceedings. Laud, in his famous speech in the star-chamber, 1637, and again on his trial, a.s.serts episcopal jurisdiction (except what is called in foro contentioso) to be of divine right; a doctrine not easily reconcilable with the Crown's supremacy over _all_ causes under the statute of Elizabeth; since any spiritual censure may be annulled by a lay tribunal, the commission of delegates; and how this can be compatible with a divine authority in the bishop to p.r.o.nounce it, seems not easy to prove. Laud, I have no doubt, would have put an end to this badge of subordination to the Crown. The judges in Cawdrey's Case (5 Reports) held a very different language; nor would Elizabeth have borne this a.s.sumption of the prelates as tamely as Charles, in his poor-spirited bigotry, seems to have done. Stillingfleet, though he disputes at great length the doctrine of Lord c.o.ke, in his fifth Report, as to the extent of the royal supremacy before the first of Elizabeth, fully admits that since the statute of that year, the authority for keeping courts, in whose name soever they may be held, is derived from the king. Vol. iii. 768, 778.

This arrogant contempt of the lawyers manifested by Laud and his faction of priests led to the ruin of the great churchmen and of the church itself--by the hands, chiefly, of that powerful body they had insulted, as Clarendon has justly remarked.

[88] P. 111.

[89] P. 173.

[90] P. 129.

[91] P. 201. See also p. 223.

[92] Vol. ii. p. 100.

[93] _Id._ ii. 136.

[94] P. 138.

[95] P. 158.