v.l 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 FROM 
 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 3 1924 088 000 777 
 
 Date Due 
 
 4^H^' 
 
 3i^ -' WB^^ 
 
 
The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924088000777 
 
By the same Author. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 UNDER THE 
 
 DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM AND CHARLES THE FIEST, 
 
 A.D. 1624-1628. 
 Two Yols. 8vo. price 24«. 
 
 THE HOUK. 
 
 ' Mr. Gardiner is a careful etudent of the records of the time, with special 
 advantages as regards his sources of information. We have no preconceived theory 
 to be illustrated and enforced, as in Macaulay, or Feotide, or Caeltle, but a careful, 
 vivid picture of the men who made the history of these four years. The work, 
 however, is not in any sense dry. Though full of detail, there is no surplusage. 
 Trifles are carefully put aside. One chain of events after another is presented in a 
 clear, succinct narrative, and interspersed we have life-like studies of the leading 
 characters.' 
 
 SPBCTATOK. 
 
 ' The period is one of special historical interest and attraction, and by the light 
 now concentrated on it one is enabled to follow the course of events with a clearer 
 understanding of certain matters hitherto but half explained, and a better appreciation 
 
 of the motives of the chief actors Probably the most noticeable feature in 
 
 these volumes is the thorough and intelligible account of Parliamentary procedure, 
 illustrated, when occasion required, by extracts from the importHnt debates ; and from 
 one source and another Mr. Gardiner has been able to unfold a good deal of new 
 information. The careful arrangement of events as they occurred, and their dove- 
 tailing into very readable history, are two points in Mr. Gardiner's historical writing 
 that should not be lost sight of. Valuable, too, for its trustworthiness, acquired by 
 long and patient investigation of official materials, for the judgment shewn in the 
 selection of those materials, and the endeavour to write without bias, this instalment 
 will not fail to sustain the good name Mr. Gardiner has won by his previous works. 
 The descriptions of individuals are, as usual, given with a distinctness and delicacy of 
 touch that indicate the hand of an artist as well as of an historian.' 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE. 
 
 ' Mr. Gardiner's work is by far the most comprehensive and accurate study of its 
 subject that has yet appeared, and is quite worthy to take its place beside those 
 earlier volumes on the reign of James which have made their Author the first living 
 authority on an era of high importance. He has been lucky enough to discover 
 documents which throw an unexpected light on many intricate passages in the career 
 of Charles and Buckingham, and these he has interpreted with the skill of one 
 accustomed to distinguish between the essential and accidental elements in the 
 
 sources of history The most characteristic quality of the book is its absolute 
 
 impartiality cf tone. As Mr. Gardiner points out, historians who have treated this 
 period have always felt it incumbent upon them to take a side. They hnve been 
 fierce partisans either of Chari-es or of Parliament. We are gradually learning that 
 this is not the true spirit in which to approach the study of the past. It may be 
 impossible in investigating a great struggle to avoid sympathy with one party or the 
 other ; but nothing is more certain than that we shall never obtain a faithful picture 
 of a period unless we endeavour to place ourselves at the point of view of both 
 combatants.' 
 
Gardiner's Buckingham, & Charles I. 
 
 THE STANDARD. 
 'Mr. GARDraEE's book is a most useful and interesting contribution to the history 
 of the seventeenth century. His estimate of Chakles the First is, on the whole, fair 
 and philosophical. His partial vindication of Btjckingham seems justified by the 
 evidence adduced ; and in the married life of the royal couple he presents us with 
 a picture that will be as new, we think, to many of his readers as it must be 
 interesting to all of them.' 
 
 THE LITBRAB.T' ■WOKLD. 
 
 ' Mr. Gaedineb writes with perfect clearness and not a little animation. His 
 narrative proceeds rapidly, and he has no bad habit of pulling up and inflicting on 
 us ethical or statistical lectures. Be has evidently read extensively in the old 
 treatises, letters, and parliamentary notes and chronicles, which constitute the dreary 
 sources out of which the historian of the seventeenth century is expected to distil a 
 charming literary beverage for the modern reader. On some important points he 
 takes those views which, after investigating the matter at first hand, we are prepared 
 to pronounce just.' 
 
 "WBSTMIWSTEB REVIE-W. 
 
 ' We do not hesitate to say that Mr. Gaedinee has done more for history than 
 the Eight Translators. His book is a bit of honest, original work. He has 
 taken the period extending from the death of Elizabeth to the assassination of 
 Buckingham in 1628, and he has illustrated it in three excellent works. The present 
 
 work is the last of the trilogy Mr. Gardineb's view of the character of 
 
 Charles is judicial and extremely just. As an instance of historical narrative few 
 stories are better told than Mr. Gardiner's account of the assassination of Buckingham 
 by Felton. Those who have followed Mr. Gardiner in his masterly delineation of 
 the characters of Charles and Buckingham will not wonder at the fate of the 
 unhappy monarch.' 
 
 THE GLOBE. 
 
 ' Mr. Gardiner is a historian in the truest sense ; that is, he does not merely 
 repeat in new forms the conclusions of others, but goes directly to the original 
 authorities, reconstructs in imagination the periods of which he treats, and gives 
 prominence only to such causes as lead to important efiects. . . . In the most troubled 
 ages, which are generally judged from a strictly party standpoint, he strives after com- 
 plete impartiality, doing justice to the actions and motives even of those with whom he 
 has no personal sympathy. His History of England from the Accession of James I. to 
 the Disgrace of Chief Justice Coke, and Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage, 
 have cast a flood of fresh light on an epoch of high importance ; and in the present 
 work the story is continued with as thorough a mastery of detail and as profound 
 an understanding of the great movements of the time as were exhibited in the previous 
 volumes.' 
 
 THE AOADEMT. 
 
 ' To say that the present work is based on varied, original, and most conscientious 
 research, and that, consequently, it does not leave the history of the period as it found 
 that history, but contains new facts and sets oif old facts in new and more authentic 
 light, is only to say that it is Mr. Gaudiner's. For the diplomatic transactions of 
 the period Mr. Gardiner has explored so many new sources of information, 
 whether in collections of the contemporary despatches of foreign agents, or in the 
 foreign series of our own State Papers, that he may be said to have made these trans- 
 actions his own property, and to have unravelled them intelligibly for the firat time. 
 But not for the story of the foreign transactions alone has he sought and found new 
 material. His researches for the proceedings of the first three Parliaments of Charles 
 have enabled him to correct and modify at various points the hitherto received 
 accounts — most notably, perhaps, for the great Parliamentary Session of 1628, In 
 short, so far as mutter is concerned, we may congratulate Mr. Gardiner on having 
 now added to the list of works bearing his name, and already known and honoured, 
 one which will certainly take its place as a standard authority for the history of 
 England, or, at least, for the history of the government of England, from 1624 
 to 1628.' 
 
 London, LONGMANS & CO. 
 
HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 1628 — 1637 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
LONDON : PBINTBD BY 
 
 BPCTTISWOODK ANB CO., HHW-8THKKT 8QDARB 
 
 AUti I'AULIAllKNT aiRIfiKT 
 
THE 
 
 PEESONAL GOYEENMENT 
 
 OF 
 
 CHAELES I. 
 
 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE ASSASSINATION OF THE 
 
 DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM TO THE DECLARATION 
 
 OF THE JUDGES ON SHIP-MONEY 
 
 1628 1637 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL EAWSON GAEDINEE 
 
 LATE STUDBNT OF OHHIST CHURCH 
 
 PnOFRSSOR OP MODERN HISTORY AT KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON ; CORREflPONDIXd 
 
 MEMBER OP THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTOKICAL SOCIETY, AND Off 
 
 THE ROYAL BOHEMIAN SOCIETY OP SCIENCES 
 
 IK TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 1877 
 
 r 
 
 A/l rifjhis^ reserved 
 
A-9 iT// 
 
 ^cornell\ 
 
 UiSiiVERSITYi 
 
 ^ 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
PEEFACE, 
 
 The two volumes now published will bring the reader 
 to the threshold of the Puritan Eevolution, as the 
 demonstration in the streets of London at the execu- 
 tion of the sentence upon Prynne, Burton, and Bast- 
 wick, together with the almost simultaneous demon- 
 stration at Edinburgh upon the introduction of the 
 new Prayer Book, may fairly be regarded as the start- 
 ing points of the movement. The period of nine years 
 here treated of is one in which many causes were at 
 work to undermine the Eoyal authority, and an accu- 
 rate knowledge of these less exciting times is therefore 
 absolutely indispensable to the formation of a sober 
 judgment on the more stirring events which followed. 
 Hitherto no book has come into existence which has 
 even professed to trace the gradual change which 
 came over English feeling year by year ; even Eanke, 
 who has poured a flood of hght on the foreign relations 
 of the country, and who has elucidated its domestic 
 afiairs so far as he was able to do so by the light thrown 
 on them by the despatches of foreign diplomatists, 
 having left much room for further and more detailed 
 enquiry. Much confusion has been caused by the 
 habit which prevails where it would least be expected, 
 
VIU PREFACE. 
 
 of classifying events rather according to their nature 
 than according to their chronological order, so that 
 the true sequence of the history is lost. It is needless 
 to add that where, as too often happens, no attenapt 
 whatever is made to understand the strong points in 
 the case of the King or the weak points in the case of 
 his opponents, the result is a mere caricature. 
 
 It is probable that some of my readers may think 
 that I have allotted too large a space to the treatment 
 of foreign affairs. I do not, however, see how it would 
 have been possible to say less about them without in- 
 jury to the main subject of the narrative. No one can 
 apprehend the truth about Ship-money and the ship- 
 money fleet, imless he understands the relations be- 
 tween England and the Governments of the Continent 
 which first suggested the necessity of a larger fleet 
 than Charles's exchequer could support ; and if the 
 bearing upon domestic history of Charles's diplomacy 
 with Spain and Sweden in earlier years is less obvious, 
 it should not be forgotten that the question of the 
 amount of confidence which could be reposed in 
 Charles assumed a pre-eminent importance in 1641 
 and 1642, in 1646 and 1647 ; and that the revelation 
 of his earlier diplomatic secrets rnay not be without con- 
 siderable weight in helping to the formation of a right 
 judgment on that question. It is impossible, I suppose, 
 for any one to read of the intrigues which Charles 
 carried on alternately with France and Spain, without 
 being forcibly reminded of the very similar intrigues 
 which he subsequently carried on with Presbyterians 
 and Independents, with Parhament and Army. But 
 whatever may be the amount of space whicli I have 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 assigned to Continental aflfairs, I have always treated 
 them as subsidiary to those of our own country. It 
 was here and not upon the Continent that rehgious 
 and political liberty was ultimately adopted as the 
 solution of the difficulties of the time, and my business 
 is to tell the story at least of the earlier stages of the 
 process of the discovery of that solution. 
 
 I wish I had been able to penetrate more deeply 
 into the thoughts and feelings of the mass of the nation. 
 Nothing is, however, more difficult than to descend 
 below the surface to the depths of society: nothing 
 more easy than to be led astray into imagining the 
 chance utterance of some poetaster or pamphleteer to 
 be the echo of the popular mind. Nor is it always 
 possible to obtain sufficient information on a subject 
 the knowledge of which would seem to be more easily 
 attainable — the progress of the nation in wealth and 
 prosperity and in the improvement of the social 
 machinery. Such fragments as I have been able to 
 gather will, however, find a more appropriate place in 
 a future volume. 
 
 The materials on which I have relied have been 
 brought together from various sources. The State 
 Papers, Foreign and Domestic, have been of the greatest 
 value, and Nicholas's Notes of the Session of 1629 
 have been especially helpful as containing an account 
 altogether independent of the original report which 
 formed the basis of all the various journals which have 
 been hitherto accessible. For the despatches of foreign 
 ambassadors I have had to look in various quarters. 
 Copies of those of the Dutch Joachimi, as well as of the 
 newsletters of Salvetti, the Florentine agent, are in the 
 
X PliEFACE, 
 
 Museum Library. The letters of the Venetian ambas- 
 sadors, however, are for this period only to be found 
 at Venice itself, and though much which I found there 
 has been already made use of by Professor Eanke, 
 there is also much which it did not serve his purpose 
 to employ. Though unhappily the French despatches 
 have not been preserved with anything like complete- 
 ness, still it will be seen that not a little has been 
 gained through the permission accorded to me to 
 examine the volumes in the Archives des Affaires 
 Etrangeres, the deficiencies of which are, during Sene- 
 terre's mission, filled up by the two volumes of that 
 ambassador's letter-book in the Bibliothique Nationale. 
 Much information on the proceedings of the Spanish 
 Government is to be obtained from the Archives du 
 Royaume at Brussels, as the Spanish ministers were 
 fortunately in the habit of sending copies of important 
 despatches for the use of the Government of the 
 Netherlands. A visit to Simancas, though not without 
 results, was unfortunately far less productive than 
 former experience had given me reason to expect. 
 The many hundreds of despatches which throw such a 
 flood of light upon the reign of James, find but a scanty 
 counterpart in the reign of Charles. The bundles of 
 cartas are entirely missing from 1622 to 1660; and all 
 that we have is the collection of consultas of the 
 Council of State, in which are sometimes enclosed 
 copies of those despatches or other official documents 
 which formed the subject of debate. 
 
 The recent transmission by the Eev. J. Stevenson of 
 the Panzani letters from the Vatican archives to the 
 Public Eecord Office occurred at a moment most 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 opportune for my work. They do not indeed shew 
 events in any new light, as there is little general in- 
 formation to be gained from them which is not already 
 known from the Memoirs of Panzani which have been 
 long published, But it would have been impossible to 
 make use of a work of which the origin and authority 
 was uncertain without considerable hesitation, and if I 
 had had nothing else upon which to found ray narra- 
 tive I should have been in considerable doubt at every 
 step as to the propriety on the one hand of omitting 
 all reference to statements so important, or on the 
 other hand of inserting those statements without some 
 stronger assurance of their credibility. Those doubts 
 are now set at rest for ever, and it is thus possible to 
 give the story of Panzani's mission upon indisputable 
 authority. 
 
 I ought perhaps to have stated before that I have 
 sometimes allowed myself the liberty of altering into 
 the first person reports of speeches given in the third. 
 It gives a greater interest to the story, and as the 
 speeches and sayings were not taken down in short- 
 hand, and cannot therefore, even when reported in the 
 first person, be more than approximately accurate, the 
 restoration of the first person is merely the removal of 
 one undoubted inaccuracy of the reporter. When, 
 however, this could not be done without effecting some 
 further change, however slight, I have abstained from 
 all alteration, except in one or two special cases to 
 which attention is drawn in the notes. 
 
 I should like to draw particular attention to the 
 tables of cases in the Star Chamber and High Com- 
 mission contained in the Appendix. No doubt every 
 
XU PREFACK. 
 
 case of actual penalty inflicted in the latter Court im- 
 plies a great number of cases in which submission was 
 made without appearance in court at all ; and, as far 
 as the former court is concerned, the possibility that 
 such transactions as those recorded in the erratum to 
 p. 299 in vol. i., and at p. 152 of vol. ii. must be taken 
 into account, and the discovery of the first of these 
 instances does not leave my argument at p. 182, 
 note ^, of vol. i., as strong as it was. Still, after every 
 allowance has been made on this score, these tables 
 stand in starthng contrast to the declamations of 
 popular writers. 
 
 I had not intended to say anything here about my 
 view of Wentworth's character. To a great extent, the 
 question between me and my critics has dwindled into 
 a mere difference of opinion on the moral sense attached 
 to the word ' apostate,' and so far as any further objec- 
 tion has been taken, I am quite content to refer my 
 readers to that which they will find in these volumes. 
 At the very last moment, however, I have been allowed 
 to see an unpublished letter of Wentworth's in the col- 
 lection of the late Mr. John Forster, now in course of 
 arrangement in the South Kensington Museum, of which 
 I have printed a complete copy in the Academy for 
 June 2, 1877. There is nothing there which throws 
 any specially new light on Wentworth's character, but 
 it will perhaps not be out of place to notice it here, as 
 this letter, written on September 24, 1632, and pro- 
 bably addressed to the Earl of Carlisle, should be taken 
 in connection with the subsequent letter of October 24, 
 quoted at p. 281 of vol. i. 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 "Wentworth, after a complimentary introduction, 
 gives his opinion of the conduct of Foulis : — 
 
 Sir David Foulis, a person raised by the favour and 
 bounty of the Crown to a fair and plentiful fortune, and one 
 I had upon all occasions given the best respects unto I could, 
 as promising myself helps and assistance from him in his 
 Majesty's service, it seemed to me marvellous strange to 
 hear how ill and mutinously affected he was to his Majesty's 
 rights and government, so as taking the report either to be 
 mistaken, or to be grounded upon some personal malice, I 
 gave no great belief or regard thereunto until this late riot 
 of his brake forth with such violence and virulence as might 
 not with my duty be longer silenced. 
 
 Foulis, it seems, presented himself before the door 
 of the Council of York, asking to see the President. 
 Wentworth sent to ask whether he wished to see 
 him on private business, or on the King's. He said 
 that he had both, and was in consequence admitted. 
 As soon as he was allowed to speak, however, he ex- 
 plained that his business was only ' touching his own 
 private.' Then, writes Wentworth — 
 
 Then I told him I was glad when I heard he had any- 
 thing to offer for the service of our master, as that which he 
 had never seemed to look after, since I had the honour to 
 serve him in this place, albeit I had expected and pro- 
 mised myself as much from him in that nature as from 
 any other ; but seeing that it now all terminated in particu- 
 lars of our own, the King's Board was no fit place for those 
 discourses ; therefore I desired him to excuse me, the matters 
 between him and me being of such a condition as could not 
 be heard betwixt us privately in a chamber, but must pass 
 the file of his Majesty's Courts of Justice, and so rose, went 
 my way and left them. 
 
 My Lord, you best know how much the regal power is 
 become infirm by the easy way such have found who with 
 rouo-h hands have laid hold upon the flowers of it, and with 
 
XIV PllEFACE. 
 
 unequal and swaggering paces have trampled upon the rights 
 of the Crown, and how necessary examples are (as well for 
 the subject as the sovereign) to retain licentious spirits 
 within the sober bounds of humility and fear. And surely 
 if in any other, then in the case of this man, who hath the 
 most wantonly, the most disdainfully demeaned himself 
 towards his Majesty and his ministers that is possible, so as 
 if he do not taste of the rod, it will be impossible to have 
 his Majesty's Council here to be obeyed, and should I say less 
 were to betray the trust my master hath honoured me with, 
 I hear he cries out of oppression ; so did my Lord Faucon- 
 berg too, — your Lordship heard with what reason or truth, — 
 believe me, this man hath more wit, but his cause is so much 
 the worse as he hath notwithstanding less to say for himself; 
 in this nevertheless they are tied by the tails together, that 
 both of them dared to strike the Crown upon my shoulders 
 without being at all concerned in my own interest, or having 
 any other part to play than such as innocence and patience 
 shall suggest unto me. And truly give me leave to assure 
 your Lordship I have much reason to carry my eyes along 
 with me wherever I go, and to expect my actions, from the 
 highest to the lowest, shall all be cast into the balance and 
 tried whether heavy or light. Content in the name of God ! 
 Let them take me up and cast me down. If I do not fall 
 square, and — to use a word of art — paragon, in every point 
 of my duty to my master ; nay, if I do not fully comply 
 with that public and common protection which good kings 
 afford their good people, let me perish, and let no man pity 
 me. In the meantime none of these clamours or other ap- 
 prehensions shall shake me or cause me to decline my master's 
 honour and service, thereby to please or soothe these popular 
 frantic humours ; and if I miscarry this way, I shall not even 
 then be found either so indulgent to myself or so narrowly 
 hearted towards my master as to think myself too good to 
 die for him. El deve bastar. 
 
 Only this I will protest to your Lordship in the words of 
 truth, I have been hitherto known to this gentleman only by 
 courtesies. That I bear no malice to his person, or at all 
 consider my own interests in this proceeding, wnich in truth 
 
PREFACE, XV 
 
 are none at all, but simply the honour and service of his 
 Majesty and the seasonable correcting an humoiur and liberty 
 I i:nd 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 
 vainly think to impose upon it. 'Tis true this way is dis- 
 pleasing for the present, lays me open to calumny and hatred, 
 causeth me by some ill-disposed people to be, it may be, ill- 
 reported ; whereas the contrary would make me pass smooth 
 and still along without noise ; bi>t I have not so learnt my 
 master, nor am I so indulgent to my own ease as to see his 
 affairs suffer shipwreck whilst I myself rest secure in harbour. 
 No, let the tempest be never so great, I will much rather put 
 forth to sea, work forth the storm, or at least be found dead 
 with the rudder in my hands ; and all that I shall desire 
 is that his Majesty and my other friends should narrowly 
 observe me, and see if ever I question any man in my own 
 interests, but where they are only interlaced as accessories, 
 his Majesty's service and the just aspect towards the public 
 and duty of my place set before them as principals. 
 
 No one who has studied Wentworth's letters and 
 speeches can fail id notice his habit of repeating or 
 echoing a phrase which he had used on some other 
 occasions long before, a habit which in some men 
 might be explained as a thoughtless repetition of for- 
 mulas, but which in a man of Wentworth's character, 
 can only be interpreted as arising from the fixity of his 
 views on the main principles on which he founded his 
 practice. In the extracts given above, two cases of 
 this land occur. The sentence in the last paragraph 
 about the Crown being enabled ' to subsist of itself 
 without being necessitated to accept of such conditions 
 as others might vainly think to impose upon it,' carries 
 
XVI PREFACE, 
 
 US on to the well-known phrase (vol. ii. p. 328), in 
 which he speaks in '1637 of Ship-money as vindicating 
 ' Eoyalty at home from under the conditions and re- 
 straints of subjects,' and by the way in which the idea 
 is here connected with the proceedings of Foulis, we 
 get a httle nearer to Wentworth's conception of the 
 danger which he dreaded as arising from the power of 
 subjects to enforce upon the Crown a policy which 
 suited their own private ends. Another phrase, earlier 
 in the letter, carries us back in quite another direction. 
 When Wentworth speaks of the rights of the Crown as 
 trampled on, and declares ' how necessary examples 
 are — as well for the subject as the sovereign — to retain 
 hcentious spirits within the sober bounds of humility 
 and fear,' we are at once reminded of the call made 
 by the writer on the Commons of 1628, to vindicate 
 their ' ancient, sober, and vital liberties, by reinforcing 
 of the ancient laws of our ancestors ; by setting such a 
 stamp upon them as no licentious spirit shall dare 
 hereafter to enter upon them.' Then too as here he 
 had declared the interest of sovereign and subject to be 
 the same. " I speak truly," he had said, " both for the 
 interest of the King and people. If we enjoy not these 
 it is impossible to relieve him." Mistaken as Went- 
 worth's idea of government was, there is a unity of 
 conception in both its parts. He waged war against 
 ' licentious spirits ' in the country as in the court. 
 Alas ! that one so highly endowed by nature and in- 
 spired by such rectitude of purpose, should himself 
 have become the ' licentious spirit ' to work unwittingly 
 what mischief he could in his day of power. 
 
\ 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PEEPAEATIONS FOB A PAELIAMEUTAEY SESSION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1628 Charles takes the direction of the government into his own 
 
 hands i 
 
 His foreig-n policy . 2 
 
 Character of Lord Treasurer "Weston 3 
 
 Demands of the King of Denmark 4 
 
 Negotiations with France . . . . . • . S 
 
 Political ignorance of the Queen 6 
 
 A Spanish alliance suggested by Carlisle .... 7 
 
 Weston advocates a general peace 8 
 
 Dorchester supports a French alliance 9 
 
 Growing weakness of Spain . . . . . ..10 
 
 Successes of the Dutch 11 
 
 Question of Tonnage and Poundage 12 
 
 Resistance to its payment 15 
 
 ' Committal of Chambers 16 
 
 He is bailed, but proceeded against in the Star Chamber . 17 
 
 RoUe's attempt to obtain back his goods by a replevin . . 18 
 
 Position taken by the King 19 
 
 Ecclesiastical questions 20 
 
 Oosin and Neile 22 
 
 Oosin's Book of Devotions 23 
 
 Burton and Prynne . 25 
 
 Prynne's early life 27 
 
 Ceremonial disputes 28 
 
 Difficulty of enforcing the Elizabethan compromise about 
 
 the position of the Communion Table 29 
 
 VOL. I. a 
 
xvill CONTENTS OF 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Conflict at Grantham 3° 
 
 Decision of Bishop Williams 32 
 
 Heath's letter to Montague 33 
 
 Charles and Laud on dogmatic controversy . . . . 34 
 
 The King's Declaration on Religion 36 
 
 Abbot restored to favour 38 
 
 Wentworth's speech at York 39 
 
 Wentworth's political position 41 
 
 1629 Fresh disturbances about Tonnage and Poundage . . 44 
 
 Parliamentary prospects 45 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SESSION OF 1629. 
 
 1629 Opening of the Session 46 
 
 Alleged violation of the Petition of Right . . . . 47 
 
 Case of RoUe's privilege 48 
 
 Extension of privileges of Parliament 49 
 
 The King's speech 50 
 
 Postponement of the Tonnage and Poundage Bill . . . 51 
 
 Committee on religion 52 
 
 Pym's views .......... 53 
 
 Eliot's speech on religion 54 
 
 Resolution of the Commons . . . , . . . 58 
 
 Difiiculty of interpreting it . ." 59 
 
 Eliot proposes to take the aggressive . . . . . 60 
 
 Montague's bishopric questioned 62 
 
 The Durham ceremonialists 63 
 
 Smart's sermon 64 
 
 Cosin on the Royal supremacy 65 
 
 The pardons questioned 66 
 
 Attack on the Article relating to the authority of the 
 
 Church 67 
 
 Charges against Heath and Neile 68 
 
 Selden on the liberty of the press 70 
 
 Oliver Cromwell's early life 71 
 
 His first speech in Parliament 75 
 
 Cmious charges against the ceremonialists .... 76 
 
 The Jesuits" College at Clerkenwell 77 
 
 Tonnage and Poundage again discussed .... 78 
 
 Eliot proposes to call in question the farmers of the customs 80 
 
 Proposals of Noy and Selden 81 
 
 The Court of Exchequer rejects the dictation of the Com- 
 mons 82 
 
THE FIKST VOLUME. xix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Pym's warning 
 
 Eliot refuses to accept it 84 
 
 The House insists that the farmers have brolten the pri- 
 vileges of the House gc 
 
 The King protects them 86 
 
 The Resolutions on Religion 87 
 
 Attempts to avert a rupture 89 
 
 The King's order to adjourn the House resisted ... 90 
 
 The Speaker held down in his chair 91 
 
 The door of the House locted 93 
 
 Eliot's charge against Weston 94 
 
 The Speaker refuses to put the resolutions proposed . . 95 
 
 Jerome Weston defends his father 96 
 
 Confusion in the House 97 
 
 The Speaker threatened 98 
 
 Adjournment of the House after the adoption of the resolu- 
 tions by acclamation 99 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PEIVILEGE OF PAKLIAMENT BEFOEE THE JUDGES. 
 
 1629 Dissolution of Parliament, and imprisonment of the members 
 
 concerned in the last scene . . . . . . . 100 
 
 The King's intentions announced ..... loi 
 
 Examination of the prisoners 103 
 
 Firm stand taken by Eliot 104 
 
 Proclamation against rumours of another Parliament . . 105 
 Tonnage and Poimdage exacted . , . . . .106 
 Sentence upon Chambers in the Star Chamber . . . loS 
 He refuses to submit, and brings an action against the Cus- 
 tom House officers no 
 
 He questions the jm-isdiction of the Star Chamber . ..in 
 The Judges consulted on the proper mode of dealing with 
 
 the imprisoned members 112 
 
 The prisoners apply for a Habeas Corpus . . . . n 5 
 
 The Attorney Geneml's information in the Star Chamber . n6 
 
 Demurrer of the defendants 117 
 
 Arguments in the King's Bench on the prisoners' demand to 
 
 be bailed 118 
 
 The Judges consult the King n9 
 
 Charles does not produce the prisoners 120 
 
 The King's foreign policy 123 
 
 The Edict of Restitution in Germany 124 
 
 Roe advocates a warlike policy 125 
 
XX CONTENTS OF 
 
 PAOB 
 
 The Treaty of Susa 126 
 
 Vane's mission to Plolland 1 27 
 
 Tlie peace of Liibeck 128 
 
 Rohan's rebeDion 128 
 
 Rubens in England 129 
 
 Roe's mission to the Baltic 13° 
 
 Charles listens to the overtures of Spain . . . . 131 
 Resolves on sending Cottington to Madrid . . . .132 
 
 Charles and the Queen 133 
 
 Further negotiations with Spain 13S 
 
 The Star Chamber prosecutions dropped . . . . 136 
 
 Charles's letters to the Judges 137 
 
 The prisoners refuse to be bound to good behaviour . . 138 
 
 Suspension of Chief Baron Walter 140 
 
 Chambers's case in the Exchequer 142 
 
 Eliot in the Marshalsea . . • . . . • I43 
 
 1630 The Attorney General's information in the King's Bench . 144 
 
 The prisoners deny the jurisdiction of the Court . . . 145 
 
 The Judges claim jurisdiction 146 
 
 Judgment pronounced . . . . . . . . 148 
 
 Eliot's imprisonment 1 50 
 
 CHAPTER rV. 
 
 LAUD, ■WENTWOETH, AND WESTON. 
 
 1629 The Judges and the Petition of Right . . . -153 
 
 Laud's view of toleration 1 54 
 
 His eagerness to enforce uniformity 157 
 
 His view of the Royal authority 158 
 
 He becomes the centre of the opposition to Puritanism . 1 59 
 
 Sentence on Peter Smart 160 
 
 Prohibition of nonconformity 161 
 
 The lecturers 162 
 
 The King's instructions 163 
 
 1 630 Death of Pembroke . . . . . . . . 1 64 
 
 Laud Chancellor of the University of Oxford . . .165 
 
 1629 Wentworth at York 166 
 
 Character of his policy 167 
 
 He brings Dudley's paper of advice to the King, and becomes 
 
 a Privy Councillor 170 
 
 History of Dudley's paper 171 
 
 1630 Prosecution of those who circulated it put an end to in con- 
 
 sequence of the birth of a Prince 173 
 
 Death of Sir R. Cotton 174 
 
 The Puritans regret the birth of a Prince . , . . 175 
 
THE FIRST VOLUME. xxi 
 
 FAGE 
 
 Alexander Leighton 176 
 
 Sion's Plea agmnst Prelmy . . . . . . . 177 
 
 Leighton's sentence in the Star Ohamber . , . .181 
 
 Execution of the sentence 185 
 
 John Winthrop . . , .- 187 
 
 Resolves to emigrate to New England 1 89 
 
 Early settlements in Massachusetts 190 
 
 Transference of the Massachusetts charter to America . . 191 
 
 Winthrop sails for America 192 
 
 Ecclesiastical and pohtical system of Massachusetts . . 193 
 Toleration rejected in England and America . . -194 
 
 Went worth in the Privy Council 196 
 
 Attempt of the Council to restrict the ravages of the plague 197 
 
 Measures taken to avert famine 198 
 
 Oommissions for the relief of dehtors and for the relief of 
 
 the poor 200 
 
 Cromwell's objections to the charter of Huntingdon . . 202 
 
 Weston's financial difficulties 203 
 
 The knighthood fines 204 
 
 Enforcement of Tonnage and Poimdage 205 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ENGLISH DIPLOMACT AND SWEDISH VICTOEIES. 
 
 1630 Domestic and foreign policy of Charles .... 207 
 
 Result of Vane's mission to the Hague 208 
 
 Opening of Cottington's negotiations at Madrid . . . 209 
 
 Proposed league with Spain against the Dutch . . . 211 
 
 Mission of Anstruther to Vienna 212 
 
 Dismissal of Wallenstein, and landing of Gustavus in Ger- 
 many 213 
 
 The treaty of Madrid 214 
 
 1631 Result of Vane's second mission to the Hague . . . . 215 
 Secret treaty with Spain for the partition of the Dutch terri- 
 tory 216 
 
 Money convoyed to the Spanish Netherlands . . ..217 
 
 Richardson's diplomacy 218 
 
 Progress of the war in Germany 219 
 
 Hamilton levies volunteers for Gustavus . . . .221 
 
 Lord Reay's charge against Hamilton 222 
 
 Hamilton allowed to start 223 
 
 Richelieu's overtures to Weston 224 
 
 Mary de Medicis in the Netherlands 225 
 
 Quarrel hetween Henrietta Maria and the French ambas- 
 sador 226 
 
XXll 
 
 CONTENTS OF 
 
 Failure of Anstrather's missiou . 
 Vane's mission to Gustavus 
 Charles oifers aid to the Emperor 
 Hamilton's misfortunes .... 
 
 Eliot in prison 
 
 Charles receives the demands of Gustavus 
 
 1 632 Further negotiation with Gustavus 
 Faihire of Richelieu's expectations . 
 Charles's propositions to Gustavus 
 Advance of the P'rench .... 
 Roe's political advice .... 
 Windehank Secretary of State 
 Massinger's political Plays . 
 Jerome Weston's mission 
 Gustavus rejects Charles's propositions 
 Failure of Charles's diplomacy 
 Deaths of Gustavus and Frederick 
 Boast of material prosperity in England . 
 Elizabeth refuses to come to England 
 Discontent in the Spanish Netherlands . 
 Meeting of the States General at Brussels 
 Charles oifers to protect them 
 Strong position of Richelieu 
 Charles hesitates hetween France and Spain 
 
 1633 Richelieu's oflFers to the Dutch . 
 Charles's offer to the Swedes . 
 "Weston created Earl of Portland 
 The Queen's letter intercepted 
 Quarrel between the Queen's Court and the Westons 
 Understanding hetween Richelieu and Portland 
 
 PAGE 
 
 228 
 229 
 231 
 232 
 233 
 235 
 236 
 
 237 
 239 
 240 
 241 
 
 243 
 244 
 247 
 248 
 249 
 250 
 2sr 
 
 253 
 254 
 25s 
 257 
 258 
 259 
 260 
 261 
 262 
 263 
 265 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1631 
 
 1632 
 1631 
 
 1632 
 
 DIYEKGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND EELIGION. 
 
 The lawyers rally round the Government .... 265 
 
 Views of the antiquaries 268 
 
 Eliot's Monarchy of Man 269 
 
 His last days and death 272 
 
 Wentworth in the North 275 
 
 Is insulted by Bellasys 276 
 
 Death of Lady Wentworth 277 
 
 Case of Sir D. Foulis 278 
 
 Lord Eure's resistance 279 
 
 Foulis offers to use his influence on the King's behalf . . 280 
 
 Wentworth's protest 281 
 
THE FIRST VOLUME. xxiii 
 
 Sentence on Foulis . . ^to^ 
 
 • • • , 2o2 
 
 Wentworth defends the jurisdiction of the Council of the 
 
 North 28^ 
 
 1633 He leaves for Ireland -Ra 
 
 The Government and the country gentlemen . . .281; 
 
 1 63 1 Laud's influence in the Ohurch 286 
 
 Bowing in church 287 
 
 The consecration of St. Catherine Cree 288 
 
 Laud's buildings at St. John's 200 
 
 The repair of St. Paul's 20 1 
 
 Controversy between Prynne and Widdowes . . , 293 
 
 Party feeling at Oxford 204. 
 
 Laud's view of conformity 201; 
 
 Laud's treatment of the Piu-itan clergy 206 
 
 1632 Matrimonial cases in the Court of High Commission . . 208 
 Cases of Antinomianism and Separatism . . . . 200 
 
 Case of John Vicars ,qj 
 
 Sherfield breaks a painted window at Salisbury . . , 302 
 
 1633 His trial and sentence in the Star Chamber . . . 304 
 The feoffees for impropriations dissolved by the Court of 
 
 Exchequer 3qc 
 
 William Gouge 307 
 
 Richard Sibbes 308 
 
 Nicholas Ferrar 3U 
 
 George Herbert . . . 314 
 
 Comparison between Herbert and Milton . , . .310 
 
 Tone of Milton's early poems 321 
 
 The disruption of the nation yet incomplete . , . 322 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE king's TISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 1612 Effects of the establishment of episcopacy . . . . 324 
 i6l6 The Assembly at Aberdeen authorises the preparation of a 
 
 liturgy 32s 
 
 The five Articles proposed by the King 326 
 
 Preparation for James's visit to Scotland .... 327 
 
 1617 Adornment of the chapel at Holyrood 328 
 
 James in Scotland 329 
 
 He urges on the nobles the duty of abandoning their herit- 
 able jurisdictions 330 
 
 Proposes an act on ecclesiastical ceremonies . . .331 
 
 Hewat's Prayer Book . . . ^ . . ■ • 332 
 The King's speech at St. Andrew's in recommendation of the 
 
 five Articles 333 
 
XXIV 
 
 CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 Feeling about them in Scotland . 
 
 Patrick Forbes 
 
 Archbishop Spottiswoode .... 
 1618 Preparations for an Assembly at Perth . 
 
 Proceedings of the Assemblj' 
 
 The five Articles accepted 
 
 Difficulties of the Bishops in enforcing them 
 
 The Articles confirmed by Parliament 
 
 First measures of Charles I. . . . 
 1625 The act of revocation .... 
 1629 The commutation of tithes .... 
 
 The Crown and the aristocracy 
 1633 Charles's coronation at Edinburgh 
 1629 Question of a new Prayer Book discus?ed 
 
 Position of the Scottish Bishops . 
 
 1633 Ceremonies observed at the Coronation . 
 Difficulty of opposition in the Scottish Parliament 
 The bills proposed by the Government accepted 
 The introduction of the Prayer Book postponed . 
 
 1634 William Forbes, the first Bishop of Edinburgh 
 The King and the Lords of the Opposition . 
 The supplication 
 
 1635 Lord Balmerino's trial 
 
 Composition of the Privy Council . 
 
 Archbishop Spottiswoode made Chancellor of Scotland 
 
 PAQE 
 
 334 
 335 
 338 
 339 
 340 
 343 
 344 
 346 
 347 
 348 
 350 
 351 
 353 
 354 
 356 
 358 
 359 
 362 
 
 363 
 364 
 366 
 
 367 
 369 
 371 
 373 
 
 Page 48, line 5i /<"" " Henry" read " John." 
 
 „ 71 „ 8 from bottom, and p. 72, lines 8 and 12, for " Hinchinbroke " 
 read "Hinchinbrook." 
 
 ,. 74 ..II .. /o»- "judgment " ?-m(? "judgments." 
 
 I, 172 i, 7 .. li^le "but who was commonly reported to be 
 
 his own natural son," a,nd add as a foottwte, 
 "The statement that he was reaUy Cotton's 
 natural son is suspicious, as resting on the 
 authority of D'Ewes, who is not to be trusted 
 when he brings charges of this kind." 
 
 „ 299 note 2. After all it appears from a release to Sir T. Hatton 
 {JPatmt Rolls, 13 Charles I., Part 33, No. 5) that 
 in reality Alington's fine, reduced to lO.oooZ., 
 was paid over to the Queen, a pardon being 
 granted to conceal the transaction. 
 
 „ 301 line 2 from hoitom, after "reinstated" read"m the ministry but 
 not in his cure." To the footnote in the same 
 pnge add the reference " 295, b." 
 
THE 
 
 PERSONAL GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES L 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 PEEPARATIONS FOR A PAELIAMENTAKT SESSION. 
 
 The murdered Buckingham had no successor in chap. 
 Charles's affections. No other man could bring with • — r — ' 
 him the long habitude of personal friendship, or the 
 promptness oi decision made palatable by winning Bucidng- 
 gracefulness of manner, which had enabled the late replaced in 
 Lord Admiral, under the show of deference, to guide favoiir^' 
 his sovereign at his pleasure. 
 
 It was easy to dispose of Buckingham's offices, to His offices 
 give the Mastership of the Horse to Holland, and to away, 
 place the Admiralty in commission in order that the 
 profits of the place might be applied to the payment of 
 debts which Buckingham had contracted, for the most 
 part, in his master's service. But Charles marked his 
 sense of personal loss by refusing to give away the 
 vacant Garter which his friend had worn.^ 
 
 Buckingham had been more than a Master of the The 
 Horse or a Lord Admiral. He had been even more S™' 
 than a Prime Minister is in a modern Cabinet. His by'the*'"'" 
 word had given the impulse to the whole machine of ^'"^" 
 government. Every act had been submitted to his 
 
 ' Oontarini'a Despatch, ^*f . Yen. MSS. 
 
 VOL. 1. B 
 
 7 
 
2 PEEPARATIONS FOR A SESSION. 
 
 CHAP, approval. Every office had been filled by personal 
 ' — 7— — ' followers, who had learned that their fortunes could be 
 g J " made or marred by his nod. Into this supreme direc- 
 tion of affairs Charles stepped at once. He announced 
 his intention of presiding continually at the Coimcil, 
 and ordered each minister to report directly to him- 
 self on the business entrusted to his charge. 
 Charles as Of industrious attention to business Charles was 
 
 ofgoyern- eminently capable. Countless corrections upon the 
 drafts of despatches and state papers show how diligent 
 he was in moulding the minutest turns of expression to 
 his taste, and how httle latitude he allowed to those 
 who served under him. For government in the higher 
 sense he had no capacity. He was as obstinate in 
 refusing to abandon any plan which he had once 
 formed, as he was irresolute in the face of any obstacles 
 which might arise in the way of their execution. Hence 
 the contrast between his treatment of difficulties at 
 home and abroad. Within the kingdom, where his 
 authority was undisputed, he required prompt obe- 
 dience without troubling himself with the growing 
 iU-will which was storing itself up to become the source 
 of future trouble. But with the Kings and States of 
 the Continent who had no thought of taking his word 
 for law, he never succeeded in gaining his ends. Con- 
 stant repetition of the same demand without any in- 
 tention to offer advantages in return, or any power to 
 extort by prompt action the object which he sought, 
 made Charles's diplomacy a byword on the Continent, 
 as his father's had been before. 
 Charles's ' From the beginning of the reign it had been the 
 policy? fault of Charles's foreign policy that it rested rather on 
 the supposed necessity of giving satisfaction to the 
 personal honour of the king than on the well-under- 
 stood interests, either of England or of the nations of 
 
WESTON'S INFLUENCE. - 
 
 the Continent. Because the Elector Palatine was chap. 
 Charles's brother-in-law, and because he had himself ■ — ^^ — 
 failed to secure a wife at Madrid, he had engaged in ^^^^' 
 war against Spain. Because his guarantee to the ^^^' 
 treaty between Lewis XIH. and his Huguenot subjects 
 had been disregarded, he had engaged in a war with 
 France. As long as Buckingham lived, Charles had 
 struck blow after blow in the vain hope of recovering 
 the Palatinate, and saving Eochelle. With Bucking- 
 ham no longer at his side, it was likely that words 
 would take the place of deeds, and that he would write 
 despatches and instruct ambassadors, instead of arming 
 fleets and appointing generals. But it was not likely 
 that he would frankly acknowledge that events were 
 stronger than himself, or that he would give up the 
 hope of obtaining objects which he still beheved to be 
 desirable, because they were beyond his reach. 
 
 Everything thus combined to increase the influence character 
 of the minister whose voice was persistently raised in ° ^ °" 
 favoiu: of peace. Weston, the Lord Treasurer, was 
 neither a highminded nor a farsighted politician. His 
 wife and some of his children were acknowledged 
 Eecusants ; and though he himself conformed to the 
 English Church, it was generally beheved that but for 
 the allurements of temporal interest he would have 
 followed in their steps. He was outrageously rude to 
 those whom he could afford to despise, and obsequiously 
 subservient to those upon whom he was obhged to 
 depend. He alone of aU those v.'ho had advocated the 
 maintenance of peace in 1624 had contrived to keep 
 his place in Buckingham's favour by promptly accommo- 
 dating his actions to the wishes of the favourite, and 
 men were already beginning to laugh at the timidity 
 with which he shifted his ground whenever a persis- 
 tence in the course which he had adopted would be 
 
 B 2 
 
4 PREPARATIONS FOR A SESSION. 
 
 CHAP, likely to be accompanied by consequences unpleasant 
 ^^ — -— ' to himself. 
 
 g^^ ■ Like Middlesex, Weston was a careful and econo- 
 
 His ' mical administrator of the treasury, though he took 
 FnflueMe. good carc to fill his own pockets as well by means 
 even more unscrupulous than those to which Middlesex 
 had resorted. Like Middlesex, too, he was now endea- 
 vouring to impress upon the Government the policy of 
 complete abstention from foreign comphcations, except 
 when intervention was absolutely required by the 
 material interests of England. The men of the six- 
 teenth century had handed down traditions of heroism 
 displayed on behalf of the Continental Protestants. 
 Weston wished to hear of nothing of the kind. He 
 cared for England alone. But he cared for England 
 with no exalted patriotism. It was not to him the 
 land of ordered liberty and ancient pre-eminence in 
 arts and arms. It was a land the people of whom it 
 was his business to make rich, in order that they might 
 be more easily made obedient. 
 His influ- The influence of Weston would thus bring itself to 
 
 Charles, bear on that side of Charles's character which had been 
 neglected by Buckingham. Buckingham had encour- 
 aged his unyielding persistency, and had reheved his 
 helplessness by his own promptness in action. Weston 
 taught him that inactivity was in itself a virtue, that 
 the best poHcy was to do nothing. But he did not 
 weary him by contradiction. He offered himself as 
 the instrument of his will, whatever it might be, cer- 
 tain that something would occur in the end to throw 
 insuperable difficulties in his way. No minister, in 
 fact, could hope to keep his place for an hour who 
 should venture to inform Charles that the recovery of 
 the Palatinate was beyond his power to efiect. 
 
 In the beginning of September, the Danish ambas- 
 
CHAELES'S FOREIGN POLICY, 5 
 
 sador, Eosencrantz, arrived to represent King Chris- citap. 
 tian's desperate need of men and money. In reply, ' — '- — ' 
 Morgan was ordered to carry to Gliickstadt the i , 200 g^ ^ ^j 
 men who formed the shattered remains of the garrison Eosen- 
 
 *^ crantz in 
 
 of Stade, and to do his utmost to relieve Krempe. England. 
 Before the end of the month, commissioners were OTdefe^to 
 appointed to treat with Eosencrantz on the best means ^^^^' 
 of rendering more considerable assistance.^ Sept. 28. 
 
 ._ ■ n ,-11 1 Commis- 
 
 it was more easy to mduce Charles to consent to sioners to 
 make peace with France than to bring him to make Eosen- 
 peace with Spain and its allies, as long as they were in p^*^° ^'^^ 
 possession of the Palatinate. Contarini, the Venetian of peace 
 ambassador, continued to offer the mediation which France. 
 had been interrupted by Buckingham's assassination. 
 He had the unusual satisfaction of finding his advances 
 accepted by men of every shade of opinion. Weston 
 was delighted to help on peace in any shape ; whilst 
 Pembroke and Dorchester looked upon a treaty with 
 France as a necessary preliminary to an active co- 
 operation with the German Protestants. 
 
 In this last view Charles apparently concurred. 
 He averred that he could not make terms with Lewis 
 as long as Eochelle was besieged and the Huguenots 
 unsatisfied. But he gave it to be plainly understood 
 that, if once these obstacles were removed, he was quite 
 prepared for a military alliance. He even went so 
 far as to express a preference for the plan which he 
 had rejected when proposed by Gustavus in 1624, 
 that France should carry on war with Spain in Italy, 
 whilst England and the Protestant Powers combated 
 the Emperor in Northern Germany.^ 
 
 1 Proposition by Roaencrantz, Sept. 4. Oommission to Weston and 
 others, Sept. 28 ; S. P. Denmarh. Oarleton to the Privy Council, Oct. 
 20; S. P. Holland. 
 
 * Coutarini's Despatches give full particulars on his conversations with 
 the King and others. 
 
6 PREPAEATIONS FOR A SESSION. 
 
 CHAP. Contarini found a warm ally in the Queen. Hen- 
 
 ' — 7— — rietta Maria had been gradually accustoming herself to 
 
 Sept. *^® ^°^^ of ^^^ French attendants. Buckingham's death 
 
 Jup'' OTte ™ ^^^ ^^^ removal of a wall of separation between herself 
 
 the Freuch and her husband. When the confidential friend was 
 
 aUiaaoe. 
 
 gone, Charles turned for consolation to his wife. At 
 last he tasted the pleasures of a honeymoon. She was 
 now in her nineteenth year, ignorant and undisciplined, 
 but bright and graceful, with flashing eyes and all the 
 impulsive vehemence of her race. Her pouting suDdness 
 had been the response to her husband's cold assertion 
 of superiority, and when he threw aside his reserve 
 and sought but to bask in the sunshine of her smiles, she 
 repaid him with all the tenderness of a loving woman. 
 Courtiers had many stories to tell of the affection of 
 this pair so long estranged, and it was soon announced 
 that a direct heir to the English throne was to be ex- 
 O"*- pected. Of politics the Queen was completely ignorant, 
 and it was always difficult to interest her in them, 
 unless some personal question was involved. But she 
 could not be indifferent to the continuance of strife 
 between her brother and her husband. 
 
 Efet of Charles Hstened, but he did not hsten too eagerly. 
 
 the news of Evcu the ucws of the fall of Eochelle did not at once 
 
 the capture t , 
 
 ofEochene. produce a better understandmg between the Govern- 
 ments. Charles took it iU that Eichelieu did not 
 immediately despatch messengers to England to sue 
 for peace.^ He began to cast about for other means 
 of regaining the Palatinate. In Buckingham's lifetime 
 
 Carlisle's Porter had been sent to Madrid, and Carlisle after 
 
 mission to . l -n n -r • 
 
 Turin. passing through Brussels and Lorraine, had arrived at 
 Turin, to knit together, if possible, a general league of 
 the enemies of France. Ever since the failure of the 
 
 ' Contarini to Zorzi, Nov. H. Oontarini's Despatcli, ^^\ Yen 
 MSS. 
 
PROPOSED LEAGUE WITH SPAIN. 
 
 Erench alliance, whicli he had negotiated in 1624, Car- chap. 
 lisle had thrown himself warmly into opposition to 
 
 Eichelieu, by whose arts, as he held, the honest inten- „ ' 
 
 „ , ' Nov. 
 
 tions of the Enghsh Government had been thwarted. 
 There was, indeed, much to complain of on both sides. 
 If Charles had broken his word in the matter of the 
 marriage treaty, Lewis had broken his word in the 
 matter of Mansfeld's expedition ; and whilst the expulsion 
 of the Queen's attendants and the renewed persecution 
 of the English Catholics were bitterly remembered at 
 the Louvre, the utter failure of the first mihtary ex- 
 pedition of the war was by no means forgotten at 
 Whitehall. Carlisle now urged the continuance of the 
 war with Trance. " If the present government of He sug- 
 France," he wrote, " were such as good and honest Ipamah 
 patriots do wish and desire, many questions would fall ^^'^' 
 to the ground." The King of France, however, he con- 
 tinued, had neither the power nor the will to recover 
 the Palatinate, and he certainly designed the ruin of 
 Protestantism in his own country. If Charles listened 
 to the overtures of Spain, without accepting them too 
 impatiently, he might have full satisfaction in aU that he 
 desired. Charles caught at the suggestion. He hoped 
 that no one would suspect him of ' so great a villainy ' 
 as a peace with France which failed to seciu:e terms 
 for the Huguenots. He at once invited the Savoyard 
 diplomatist, the Abbot of Scagha, to England, to act 
 as an intermediate agent between Spain and himself, 
 and he assured the Duke of Kohan that he would con- 
 tinue to support him in spite of ' the late mis-accident 
 of Eochelle.' 1 
 
 It was the fundamental weakness of Charles's 
 
 ' Carlisle and Wake to Oonway, Nov. i ; Oonway to Carlisle and 
 Wake, Nov. 23. The King to Carlisle, Nov. 24 ; S. P. Savoy. Oonway 
 to Rohan, Nov. 23 ; S. P. France. 
 
PREPARATIONS FOR A SESSION. 
 
 CHAP. 
 I. 
 
 1628." 
 
 Nov. 
 
 Oct. 
 Arundel 
 in the 
 C!ouncil. 
 
 Nov. 12. 
 Cottington 
 a Coun- 
 cillor. 
 
 Weston's 
 economy 
 
 He holds 
 back from 
 interfer- 
 ence in 
 Germany. 
 
 foreign policy that he had no moral sympathy with 
 any single party on the Continent. The States which 
 he courted were nothing more in his eyes than instru- 
 ments which might help him to gain his own objects. 
 If one King would not help him, another might. He 
 forgot that it was imhkely that anyone would care to 
 help him at all, unless he had something to offer in 
 retm-n. 
 
 In the meanwhile, Weston's influence was daily 
 growing. He effected a complete reconciliation be- 
 tween the King and Arundel. That stately nobleman 
 once more took his place at the Council Board, ready 
 when the moment came to give his vote in favour of 
 peace. He was soon joined there by Cottington, a 
 man of the world without enthusiasm, believing that 
 the Roman Catholic behef was the safest to die in, and 
 that Weston's pohcy ran less risk than any other in 
 the immediate present. Weston was thankful for his 
 support, and marked him out for the Chancellorship 
 of the Exchequer as soon as a vacancy could be made. 
 
 Weston's voice was always raised in favour of 
 economy. Charles proposed to raise a sumptuous 
 monument to Buckingham's memory. " I would be 
 loath," said Weston, " to tell your Majesty what the 
 world would say, not only here but all Christendom 
 over, if you should erect a monument for the Duke 
 before you set up one for King James, your father." ^ 
 With still greater persistency he opposed any opening 
 for fresh warlike expenditure. Eosencrantz was ur- 
 gent that some of the ships and troops returning from 
 Eochelle might be sent to the King of Denmark's 
 assistance. Weston hastened to pay ofi" the landsmen, 
 and gave an unfavourable answer about the ships.^ 
 
 ' Meade to Stuteville, Nov. i. Court and Times, i. 419. 
 " Council Register, Oct. 26, Nov. 12. Oontarini's Despatches, ~^ 
 ^■^. Vm.MS8. 
 
KEGOTIA.TION WITH FRANCE. 9 
 
 When news arrived that Krempe had surrendered chap. 
 to the Imperiahsts, Charles resolved to send no present ""^I^g"' 
 aid to Denmark, and Morgan was ordered to keep Nov. 24. 
 quiet at Gluckstadt till the winter was over. Yet 
 though Charles allowed himself to be persuaded into 
 inaction for the present, he could not be induced to 
 forego the luxury of promising large aid in the future. 
 His ambassador, Anstruther, was directed to inform 
 the King of Denmark that though the aid which he 
 sorely needed was postponed, it was not refused. 
 Parliament would, doubtless, grant the necessary 
 supplies, and help would be sent in the spring. 
 Morgan's regiment should be reinforced, and a fleet of 
 forty ships should be despatched to the Elbe.^ 
 
 In the course of December a nomination was made DOTchesteV 
 which showed that Charles did not place himself un- secretary. 
 reservedly in Weston's hands. Conway was old and 
 sickly, and was removed from the 'Secretaryship to the 
 less troublesome ofiice of President of the Council, 
 which the still older Marlborough was induced to 
 vacate. He was succeeded by Dorchester, a warm 
 advocate of the French alliance. It was not long 
 before Dorchester had the satisfaction of seeing the 
 diflSculties in the way of peace with Prance gradually 
 removed ; and in January a treaty sent over by Eiche- 1629. 
 lieu was, with the exception of one not very important 
 particular, agreed to by the English Council.^ 
 
 Almost at the same time Carhsle and Porter re- ft^hie 
 turned from their respective missions. The most and Porter. 
 dazzling offers were dangled before Charles's eyes as 
 the price of an alliance with Spain. With the help of 
 Olivares, Frederick and EUzabeth would soon be re- 
 
 1 Ooke to Morgan, Nov. 24 ; Anstruther to Oonway, Dec. 29. An- 
 swer of the Commissioners, Jan. S. P. Denmark. 
 
 " Oontarini's Despatches, ?a°'.^ , Jan. |§. Ven. MSS. 
 
10 tREPAilATiONS von A SESSION. 
 
 installed at Heidelberg, whilst Denmark and the Dutch 
 Eepublic should be relieved from the attack of the 
 Catholic Powers. Already the two great rivals, Eiche- 
 heu and Olivares were measuring one another's strength 
 with hostile glances, and were anxious to secure the 
 neutrahty, if not the aUiance, of England in the inevi- 
 table conflict. 
 Progress of A negotiation almost completed and publicly 
 ation with avowed for a treaty with France, which might possibly 
 lead to an aUiance against Spain and the Emperor — 
 an inchoate and unavowed negotiation for a treaty 
 with Spain, which might possibly lead to an alliance 
 against France — and a promise to send active aid to 
 Denmark in its war against the Emperor ; such were 
 Results of the bewildering results of three months of Charles's 
 
 Charles's 
 
 diplomacy, dlplomacy since he had lost Buckingham's assistance. 
 What likelihood was there that he would succeed in 
 making his policy intelligible to the House of Com- 
 mons, or that he would gain the support of the nation 
 for his plans ? 
 Feeling As far as it is possible to gauge the feeling of the 
 
 nation. nation, it may be asserted that, though any favour 
 shown to Spain would be unpopular, there was no 
 longer that burning zeal for war which had animated 
 the political classes when the news of the loss of the 
 Palatinate first reached England. Not only had the 
 thoughts of the nation been diverted to domestic affairs. 
 Growing but Spain itself was far less formidable in 1629 than 
 of Spain, shc had been in 1621. The reduction of Breda in 
 1625 had been followed by a long period of quies- 
 cence, during which the Spanish .generals had not even 
 attempted to push home the advantage which they had 
 gained. In Germany, though Spanish troops continued 
 to occupy Frankenthal and the Western Palatinate, 
 they stood aloof from all active participation in the 
 
DUTCH SUCCESSES. 11 
 
 .war, and left Tilly and Wallenstein to stamp out if chap. 
 they could the last embers of resistance on the coasts — ' — 
 of the Baltic. Nor, if Spain failed to make any show '^^^' 
 of strength in Germany or the Netherlands, was it able 
 to explain its inertness by any increased activity in 
 opposing England. Even at the height of Bucking- 
 ham's mismanagement, when Wimbledon returned 
 discomfited from Cadiz, when Buckingham himself 
 brought back the beaten remnants of his army from 
 Eochelle, she had not ventured on a single aggressive 
 movement. And now at last it was seen that she 
 could no longer hold her own. In the summer of 
 1628, the stadtholder, Frederick Henry, for the first 
 time, quitted the defensive tactics which necessity had 
 for so many years imposed on the guardians of the 
 Dutch Eepublic, and had attacked and taken Grol '^>A'^*f 
 under the eyes of Spinola. Before the year was out, 
 still more glorious tidings were wafted across the 
 Atlantic. The prize which Drake and Ealeigh had 
 failed to secure, and for which Wimbledon had waited 
 in vain, had been secured by the conduct and courage 
 of a Dutch mariner. Peter Heia had captured the Hem's 
 Plate fleet, and the treasure which had been destined of the 
 for the payment of Spanish soldiers was on its way to 
 support the arms of the Eepublic in a more daring 
 campaign that any Dutchman had dared to contemplate 
 since the day when Ostend had surrendered to the skill 
 and resources of Spinola. 
 
 It had thus become plain in England that the English 
 danger of the erection of a universal monarchy having with the 
 its seat at Madrid had passed away. Nor were the Protestants 
 imaginations of Enghshmen much moved by the risk. ™ * 
 of the establishment of a strong military and Catholic 
 empire having its seat at Vienna. No doubt there was 
 sympathy with the German Protestants, and much angry 
 
12 
 
 PREPARATIONS FOR A SESSION. 
 
 CHAP. 
 I. 
 
 1628. 
 
 The fear of 
 Spanish in- 
 terference 
 at home 
 removed. 
 
 Weston 
 hopes to 
 conciliate 
 Parlia- 
 ment, 
 
 Jul}-. 
 Tonnage 
 and Pound- 
 age. 
 
 talk about the devastations of Wallenstein and Tilly. 
 But after all, the coast of the Baltic was far away, and 
 the fall of Krempe did not touch Englishmen as the fall 
 of Ostend had touched them in earlier days. It did not 
 bring home to them any sense of immediate danger to 
 themselves, nor were the conquerors men of that race 
 whose very existence had been a standing menace to 
 England ever since the early days of Elizabeth's reign. 
 TiUy's veterans were not the mihtary representatives of 
 the troops wlio had contended with Sidney under the 
 walls of Zutphen, or who had waited on the Flemish 
 sandhills under Parma till the Armada should appear 
 to convey them to the invasion of the island realm. 
 
 Above all, neither the King of Spain nor the 
 Emperor threatened now to undermine the institutions 
 of England by secret sap. There was no longer any 
 fear of the arrival of an Infanta to be the bride of a King 
 of England ; and it is difl&cult to say how much of the 
 warlike ardour of 162 1 was to be attributed rather to 
 the fear of the intrigues of Spain in the EngUsh Court, 
 than to the fear of its warlike predominance in Ger- 
 many and the Netherlands. Those who in 1 621 were 
 eager to avert a domestic danger by engaging in a 
 foreign war, were ready in 1628 to allow the Conti- 
 nental nations to shift for themselves. 
 
 Thus it came about that Weston's foreign pohcy 
 was in >jreater danger from his. master's reluctance to 
 abanaon the hope of regaining the Palatinate, than from 
 the warlike zeal of the House of Commons. He would 
 have a harder task in assuaging the asperities which 
 had sprung up at home during the last session than in 
 putting an end to the war. 
 
 Weston's first difficulty was the question of Tonnage 
 and Poundage. The Commons had not only declared 
 the levy of these dues to be illegal in itself, but had 
 
TONNAGE AND POUNDAGE. 13 
 
 encouraged individual merchants to refuse payment to chap. 
 
 1628. 
 
 July. 
 
 the King's officers.^ To the merchants, whose trade 
 had suffered severely from the ravages of the Dunkirk 
 privateers, the suggestion that they might free them- 
 selves from such a burthen fell upon willing ears. The 
 spirit of the old English constitution was on their 
 side, and they were assured by no less a body than 
 the House of Commons, that they had the letter on 
 their side as well. The King was certain to take a 
 different view of the case. He held it to be the duty 
 of subjects to give him a revenue sufficient to enable 
 him to conduct the regular administration of govern- 
 ment without interruption ; and it was certain that, 
 unless Tonnage and Poundage and the still more ques- 
 tionable impositions continued to be paid, httle short 
 of half of his income would be lost at a stroke. 
 
 At the close of the last session the King had taken The King's 
 
 , . ■, , . . ,, appeal to 
 
 strong ground, m asserting that the interpretation ot the Judges. 
 the law belonged- to the Judges, not to the House of 
 Commons. Such then, as now, was the accepted rule 
 of the constitution. Yet it was impossible to allow any 
 mere interpretation of the law to decide the question 
 at issue.^ As well might two men engaged in deadly 
 
 ' England vmder Buckingham and Charles L, ii. 307. 
 
 ' A possible instance may be taken to illustrate the position. The 
 present constitution rests upon the maintenance of tolerable harmony be- 
 tween the two Houses. Suppose it should happen that the House of 
 Lords placed itself in deliberate opposition to the House of Commons, 
 even after a general election had shown that the House of Commons was 
 in accordance with the feelings of the constituencies. Suppose that the 
 House of Lords rejected every Bill sent up to it by the Commons. What 
 would be the use of applying to the Judges as arbitrators ? They coidd 
 but decide that the Lords were legally in the right. They could not 
 decide whether they were politically in the right. That would depend 
 partly upon their chance of converting the nation to their views, partly 
 upon the extent to which the existing constituencies were a fair represen- 
 tation of the nation. It would be quite possible for a national feeling to 
 spring up which had no representation in the House of Commons, though 
 that is far less likely to happen now than it was with the unreformed House. 
 
at issue. 
 
 14 PREPARATIONS FOR A SESSION. 
 
 CHAP, strife ask an impartial arbiter to decide the question 
 ' — 7^7— of property in the dagger to which both were clinging 
 with convulsive gi-asp. Nothing less than the supreme 
 authority in England was at stake. 
 Question If the King could -collect money without opposition, 
 
 he might govern as he pleased till he provoked a revo- 
 lution. If he could not collect it without the consent 
 of the Commons, they might dictate their own terms. 
 The impositions had been adjudged to James simply 
 because certain words had been used instead of others 
 in Acts of Parliament three centuries old. If Tonnage 
 and Poundage were now to be declared leviable as 
 impositions had been levied, at the sole will of the King, 
 it would be because certain technical words had been 
 omitted in the Petition of Eight. Such considerations 
 would never be suffered to weigh very heavily in the 
 balance. However accurate men might try to be in 
 their reading of the law, they could not avoid being 
 influenced by the enormous coEsequences of the inter- 
 pretation which they gave to it. They would not scan 
 statutes and year-books with the serene impartiality 
 with which a botanist scans the claims of a newly- 
 discovered plant to be classed in one natural order or 
 another. Those who thought that it was better that 
 authority should remain in the King's hands, than pass 
 into the hands of the House of Commons, would 
 naturally be of one opinion. Those who thought that 
 it was better that England should be ruled in accord- 
 ance with the wishes of the House of Commons, than 
 that her destinies should be left to the good pleasure 
 of the King, would naturally be of another opinion.^ 
 
 ' An able writer who reviewed my former volumes in the Edinburgh 
 Heoiew for January 1876, has undoubtedly made out that the word ' tax ' 
 was sometimes used even officially to cover customs duties. But the 
 Crown lawyers would, I believe, hold that when a doubt existed the 
 judgment should be for the King, and, therefore, the absence of a more 
 
RESISTANCE TO THE GOVERNMENT. 1 5 
 
 Whatever the views of the Judges might be, a grave chap. 
 
 political question would never be settled by other than 
 political arguments or political forces. j^j 
 
 The immediate danger arose from the appeal of Eesistance 
 
 o . J^ ^ . . to the pay- 
 
 the House of Commons to the private action of indi- pent of 
 viduals. The first result of that appeal was that some tions. 
 merchants refused to pay the imposition on wines. 
 Those who resisted were committed to the Fleet, but 
 were speedily hberated on entering into bonds to pay 
 the required sum. The imposition on currants, the 
 very article which had been the subject of the Judges' 
 decision in James's reign, was next challenged. Im- 
 porters began to land goods without paying duty. 
 Charles took a firm stand against this attempt of 
 individual merchants to take the law into their own 
 hands. In fuU council he declared that these impositions July 20. 
 were his 'by a solemn and legal judgment.' Finding ou orders 
 the warning ineffectual, the Council issued orders felzed." 
 to seize all goods landed without payment.-^ 
 
 The example of the recalcitrant merchants spread. Tonnage 
 
 '- . , .. and Pound- 
 
 Goods liable to Tonnage and Poundage were seized age re- 
 fer non-payment of dues. The owners had recourse to 
 the Sheriff's Court of the City of London, and sued out 
 a replevin, as if to regain property of their own which 
 had been illegally distrained. Popular feehng was on 
 the side of the merchants ; and it was feared that an 
 
 definite word shows, I still think, that the framers of the Petition did not 
 mean to cover the case of impositions, probably, as the Reviewer thinks, 
 because they expected to pass theii- Bill of Tonnage and Poundage, and 
 also because they were unwilling to encimiber the Petition with more 
 matter disagreeable to the King than was absolutely needful. If the King 
 on his part did not directly say that he levied all these duties as imposi- 
 tions, it was because he thought it inexpedient to do so. Logically there 
 was nothing to prevent him, and his expressions show that he kept this 
 argument in reserve. He was, however, in a stronger position by leaving 
 his case generally to the Judges, than he would have been if he had settled 
 upon a special plea for himself. 
 
 • Jiuxhworth, i. 639; Coumil Register, July 20, Aug. 13. 
 
1-6 
 
 PREPAEATIONS FOE A SESSION. 
 
 CHAP. 
 I. 
 
 1628. 
 Aug. 31. 
 Offenders 
 resisting 
 to be im- 
 prisoned. 
 
 Sept. 28. 
 Committal 
 of 
 Chambers. 
 
 Proroga- 
 tion of Par- 
 liament. 
 
 attempt woiild be made to carry off the goods by force. 
 The Council directed that assistance should be given 
 to the Custom-house officers in the execution of their 
 duty, and that those who resisted them should be 
 imprisoned ' until this Board give other order, or that 
 they be delivered by order of law.' ^ Evidently the 
 Government wished to conform to the Petition of 
 Eight, and to make the Judges the arbitrators of the 
 dispute. 
 
 Eesistance did not cease. To the merchants it was a 
 question of refusing to submit to an unblushing attempt 
 to extract illegal duties by force ; and this question was 
 mixed up in the minds of some of them with the in- 
 jury done to trade by compelling them to pay duties 
 at all. On September 28, the refusers were summoned 
 before the Council. One of them, Eichard Chambers, 
 flung out defiant words. " Merchants," he said, " are 
 in no part of the world so screwed and wrung as in 
 England. In Turkey they have more encouragement."^ 
 The words themselves, perhaps still more the tone in 
 which they were spoken, were treated as a contempt 
 of the Board, and Chambers was cominitted to the 
 Marshalsea. 
 
 In the midst of such agitation it would hardly be 
 wise to allow ParUament to meet in October, as had 
 been originally proposed. Two days after the com- 
 mittal of Chambers, it was resolved to prorogue it to 
 January 20. It was fervently hoped by the Coun- 
 cillors that time would thus be gained for establishing 
 a better understanding with the Commons ; ' the medi- 
 cine of a constant and settled form of government ' 
 being ' the only remedy for the distemper ' of the 
 times.^ 
 
 ' Council Register, Aug. 31. 
 
 ' Form of Submission ; Rvsh.wm'th, i. 672. 
 
 " Dorchester to Carlisle, Sept. 30 ; CouH and Times, i. 403. 
 
CHAMBERS BEFORE THE KINGS BENCH. 1 7 
 
 Chambers was not the man to give any assistance chap. 
 to the establishment of a constant and settled govern- ~ — 7~7^ 
 ment. He applied to the Court of King's Bench for a oct. 16. 
 writ of habeas corpus. For the first time the Judges d^Tnds a 
 were called upon to exercise the authority secured to ^*'"" 
 them by the Petition of Eight. The warrant of com- 
 mittal was produced in Court, stating that the cause of 
 imprisonment was ' insolent behaviour and words spoken 
 at the Council Table.' The Judges did not dispute that 
 the Council, like any other superior Court, might com- 
 mit for contempt. But they held that the words 
 spoken ought to be set down for their information, in 
 order that they might convince themselves that they 
 really amounted to a contempt. As no account of the Oct. 23. 
 words had been given, they admitted Chambers to bail, bailed. 
 though they advised him to make his submission to the 
 Board, and warned him that they might, if they pleased, 
 order an indictment or information to be drawn against 
 him in their own Court for his contemptuous words. The 
 Lord Keeper and other members of the Council com- 
 plained that the Judges had failed to give them due 
 notice of what they intended to do ; but they did not 
 deny the principle on which the Court had acted, that 
 the Judges had the right of examining whether the 
 cause named on the warrant was truly given.^ 
 
 The Crown lawyers took another course than that Nov. e. 
 suggested by the Judges. The Petition of Eight had ber po-""' 
 not in any way lessened the powers of the Star Cham- ^ain°f 
 ber, and the Attorney General preferred an informa- ""' 
 tion against Chambers in that Court. It is hkely 
 enough that the Government was by no means sorry 
 that some months would pass away before the case 
 
 came on for trial.^ 
 
 4 
 ' Jtushwofth, i. 639. 
 
 ' Meade to Stiiteville, Nov. 15. Court and Tiinec, i. 429. Meade 
 
 VOL. I. C 
 
i8 
 
 PREPARATIONS FOR A SESSION. 
 
 CHAP. 
 I. 
 
 1628. 
 
 Renewed 
 resistance 
 to the 
 duties. 
 
 Nov. 12. 
 
 Nov. 13. 
 Inter- 
 ferenoe of 
 the Court 
 of Exche- 
 quer. 
 
 Nov. 27. 
 Final deoi- 
 siun of the 
 Court. 
 
 The ques- 
 tion re- 
 ferred to 
 Parli.i- 
 meat. 
 
 Whatever fate might be reserved for Chambers, it 
 was necessary to take an instant decision on the collec- 
 tion of the duties. Some thirty of the principal mer- 
 chants, amongst them John EoUe, a member of the 
 House of Commons, refused to pay, though they offered 
 to give security for any sum which might ultimately 
 be adjudged to the King by law. On November 12, 
 EoUe and three others made a fresh attempt to regain 
 their goods by a replevin. The Attorney General ap- 
 plied to the Court of Exchequer, and the Barons at once 
 ordered that the goods should remain in the officers' 
 hands. The question at issue, they held, was too impor- 
 tant to be determined in an off-hand fashion by a City 
 Court. It was ' only fit for the Parliament now shortly 
 to be reassembled, there to be finally settled, as the 
 desire of His Majesty and the discreeter sort of mer- 
 chants is it should be.' A fortnight later the Court of 
 Exchequer finally decided that a replevin was not the 
 proper method of taking ' goods out of His Majesty's 
 own possession,' and that in this case the property must 
 be held to be in the King's possession.^ 
 
 The question between the Crown and the merchants 
 was thus narrowed to a difference of opinion as to which 
 party was so far entitled to be considered primd facie 
 in the right, as to be allowed to retain the custody of 
 the goods whilst the legality of the demand for duty 
 was submitted to a superior Court. Weston, however, 
 
 says that he was ' committed a second time to one of the tipstaves of that 
 Court.' Does that mean that he was actually imprisoned till the case 
 came on ? 
 
 * Orders and Decrees in the Exchequer, Nov. 13, 27, 4 Charles I., 
 fol. 254, 262 ; Att. Gen. v. Rolle. In S. P. Dom. civ. i, is an undated 
 collection of orders, ' apparently granted hy the Court of Exchequer to 
 stay proceeding-s in suits at the Common-law brought against the King's 
 officers for levying his duties.' It must have been made eithet now, or 
 during the subsequent session of Parliament, and must have formed a 
 valuable support to the decision of the Court, 
 
ROLLE'S CASE REFERRED TO PARLIAIIENT. 19 
 
 who, as Lord Treasurer, had a seat on the Bench of the chap. 
 
 Exchequer, announced that he looked to another quarter - — ^^ - 
 
 for a solution of the difficulty. The Court, he said, ^^^^" 
 would now ' by no means meddle with the question of 
 right, but did refer it wholly to the Parliament, where 
 he made no doubt there would be perfect agreement 
 between the King and subject.' ^ 
 
 Thus far, under Weston's guidance, Charles had Th^e"King'3 
 proceeded with no inconsiderable tact. He had re- p"^'"""- 
 treated from the defiant position which he had taken 
 up at the close of the last session, and without openly 
 abandoning his claim to levy the whole of the customs 
 duties of the realm under the name of Impositions, had 
 refrained from irritating his subjects by bringing it 
 prominently forward. He would not suffer the rights 
 which he believed to be his own to be trampled under 
 foot by mob violence. But he was ready to submit 
 them to the decision of the Judges. At the same time 
 he acknowledged that the question went too deep to 
 be settled by legal arguments. It was pre-eminently a 
 pohtical question, and he hoped to be able to come to 
 an amicable arrangement on it with his Parliament. 
 
 It was not unhkely that Parliament, and especially Possibmty 
 the House of Commons, would regard the question ence with 
 from a very different point 01 view, ihey might resent mons. 
 the levy of the duties as an infraction of the law, ac- 
 cording to the interpretation which they had persistently 
 put upon it since 16 10. They might even pronounce 
 it, as they had pronounced it in the last session, to be 
 contrary to the Petition of Eight. Further, if there 
 was any object upon which they had set their hearts, 
 and which the King declined to grant, they might use 
 their power of refusing to pass a bill of Tonnage and 
 
 » Pory to Meade, Nov. 28. Court and Times, i. 437. 
 C 2 
 
20 PREPARATIONS FOR A SESSION. 
 
 CHAP. Poundage in order to extort that object from their 
 
 unwilHng Sovereign. 
 
 I. 
 
 ^^^^' It was only too probable that contention would 
 
 Difficulties arfse ou some question of ecclesiastical politics. At the 
 Church. close of the last session the Eemonstrance of the Com- 
 mons had spoken bitterly of Laud and Neile, and 
 had demanded the suppression of Arminianism in the 
 Church. The Church of England, in fact, was called 
 upon to face the difficulty which meets every society 
 Avhich renounces old authority and relaxes the bonds of 
 ancient discipline. The victory over external enemies 
 was won. But there was danger of divisions and dis- 
 tractions within. Those who questioned the received 
 Calvinistic doctrines were regarded as renegades from 
 the faith, as traitors ready to replace a Protestant 
 Church under the Papal yoke. But though the re- 
 pulsion to Arminianism, or to what passed as Arminian- 
 ism, was real and strong, a political element was 
 mingled with the religious element in the popular feel- 
 ing. Montague had closed his obnoxious book with 
 alarming words : " Do thou defend me with the sword, 
 and I will defend thee with the pen." It was probably 
 unavoidable that a body of clergy whose views were 
 proscribed by popular religious opinion should lean 
 upon the Eoyal authority which they regarded as raised 
 above popular opinion. Ehzabeth had kept Puritans at 
 bay, and why should not Charles follow in her steps ? 
 Was not the Church the King's peculiar province, to 
 be ruled without reference to Parliament ? Montague 
 had been followed by others who carried the attack into 
 the enemies' quarters. Sibthorpe and Manwaring had 
 publicly maintained doctrines concerning the State 
 which stripped Parliament even of those powers which 
 had hitherto been universally allowed to belong to it. 
 It seemed as if a league had been struck by which the 
 
DOCTRINE AND CEREMONY. 21 
 
 King was to maintain the anti-Calvinist clergy in their chap. 
 places, whilst they in return were to inculcate the duty • — I — • 
 of obeying the absolute authority of the King. j^^*- 
 
 The King had done everything that lay in his power Promotions 
 to give strength to this impression ; for he had raised tague°and 
 Montague to the bishopric of Chichester, and had ^varlng. 
 granted a rich living to Manwaring. How could men 
 doubt that Charles was bent not merely on providing 
 for liberty of opinion, — ^which would have been un- 
 popular enough, — but on closing the mouths of Calvi- 
 nistic preachers, and on breeding up a race of clergy 
 ready to inculcate doctrines of a different cast ? 
 
 Abstruse as the prevailing doctrine of grace and Moral side 
 
 1 ,. ,. . . , r -, , . , of the 
 
 predestination was, it struck its roots deeply into the theological 
 moral nature of those who valued it as a pearl of great '^^^ ^" 
 price. It made them braver and more self-reliant. 
 It imparted to them a contempt for merely human 
 authority, by impressing on them the duty of an 
 absolute surrender of the will to a Perfect and Divine 
 Being. Yet strong as the sentiments were which 
 gathered round it, a nation would hardly have been 
 roused in the defence of a merely theological dogma, if 
 the question at issue had not been presented in some 
 more palpable form. The human mind requires con- 
 siderable cultivation before it is seriously impressed by 
 that which appeals to it through the ear : it is easily 
 moved by sights which reach the eye. Already there 
 were signs, though few as yet, that the quarrel would 
 soon take a new form. The men who looked back for 
 their doctrine to the early Eeformers and to the earlier 
 Fathers were likely to look in the same direction for 
 their ceremonies. In proportion as they broke loose ceremonial 
 from the logical bonds of Calvinism, necessity led '^''^p"*^- 
 them to seek to order their lives by the requirements 
 of a ceremonial devotion which might constantly 
 
2 2 PREPARATIONS FOR A SESSION. 
 
 CHAP, remind them that they were the servants of a Heavenly 
 
 - — ^ — - Master. 
 
 -C. -Q 
 
 j^^^ ■ Amongst those who were repelled by the baldness 
 
 Gosin. of the ordinary Church worship of the day was John 
 Cosin. Early in life he had attracted the notice of 
 men as distinguished as Overall and Andrewes. After 
 Overall's death he attached himself to Bishop Neile of 
 Durham, and joined the circle which comprised Laud 
 and Montague, and which met constantly at Durham 
 House, once the splendid habitation of Ealeigh, to dis- 
 cuss the prospects of the Church and the possibihty 
 Bishop of resisting the tide of Puritanism. Neile was as strict 
 ^' *■ a disciplinarian as Laud himself. He is described as a 
 good preacher, but a poor scholar ; and he left no mark 
 upon the theological literature of the time. He had the 
 good sense to make no atteinpt to conceal his deficiencies. 
 One day he reproved a Durham schoolmaster for flogging 
 his pupUs unmercifully. He himself, he said, was an 
 example of the uselessness of so ferocious a disciphne. 
 He had been flogged so constantly at Westminster that 
 he had never mastered the difficulties of the Latin lan- 
 guage.^ Yet he had that undefinable quahty which 
 enables some men in no way distinguished by their 
 intellectual achievements to gather disciples round them, 
 and to utilise the efibrts of men whose powers are more 
 productive than their own. He was a man of sumptuous 
 habits, and displayed a marked preference for archi- 
 tectural and ceremonial splendour. 
 1625. Cosin had mingled early in controversial strife. In 
 
 aisistg 1 625 the shccts of the Appello Ccesarem were placed 
 in his hands as they came from the press, and he was 
 invited by the confiding author to alter or to omit 
 
 ' The story is told by Leighton (Epitome, 75) as being to the Bi- 
 shop's disadvantage. 
 
 Muntagae. 
 
cosiN's devotions; 23 
 
 passages at his pleasure.^ In 1626 he took part in the chap. 
 conference at York House between Montague and his ^' 
 
 opponents. The next year he was brought more pro- ^^^^" 
 minently before the eyes of the world. The Zing was The " ' 
 alarmed at the discovery that his wife and her priests attend.4t3 
 were practising upon the rehgion of the English ladies manual of 
 of the Koyal household. Eehgious books were thrown p™^"''"- 
 in their way, and conversation was led to the contrast 
 between the English forms of worship and the imposing 
 ceremonial of the Catholic Church. Either Lady 
 Denbigh or Charles himself asked Cosin to provide a 
 manual of private prayer which might fitly be used 
 by members of the English Church.^ 
 
 The result was a Book of Devotions, which was ^^ 
 ready for publication early in 1627. It was founded q^J^^- 
 upon the Primer which had been issued in i =560, as that g'"*^?* 
 
 iTi n Ti T T-> • • ~i ■ Devotions. 
 
 had been founded upon an earner rrnuer issued \n 
 1546. But much was added which had no autho- 
 rity from the book published by the direction of 
 Ehzabeth. 
 
 The devotion of Cosin was as precise and methodical 
 as the logic of a Puritan's creed. In it every external 
 form was to be taken advantage of to quicken the 
 aspirations of the soul. Classification and arrangement 
 have here a supreme importance. Certain days are to 
 be kept for special abstinence or for special rejoicing. 
 The Apostles' Creed is to be divided into twelve arti- 
 cles, the Lord's Prayer into seven petitions, each of 
 which is to be separately regarded. Every one of the 
 Commandments has its appended list of duties to be 
 
 ' Tliis we learn from Montague's letters in Oosin's Correspondence. 
 Surtees Society. 
 
 " Oosin's Works, i. xxi. 
 ' Ibid. ii. 82. 
 
24 PREPARATIONS FOR A SESSION. 
 
 CHAP, performed and of offences to be avoided. Praj'ers are 
 "■ — r — ■ to be said at certain specified hours. The distinction 
 between good and evil threatened to become involved 
 in considerations of time and number. There were 
 three theological virtues, three kinds of good works, 
 seven spiritual and six corporal works of mercy, seven 
 deadly sins, and seven virtues opposed to them, whilst 
 Death, Judgment, Hell, and Heaven are duly catalo- 
 gued as the four last things which may befal a man.^ 
 Contrast 'y\^q cmlf bctwceu this religion and the religion of 
 
 between y _ ° '-> 
 
 cosinand thc Ordinary English Protestant was wide and deep. 
 
 tans. As the central point of the Piu-itan system lay in 
 preaching and conversion, the central point of the 
 system of their opponents lay in the Sacrament of the 
 Lord's Supper. In preparing for it Cosin laid stress 
 upon the words in the Prayer-book in which those who 
 required counsel and comfort were admonished to seek 
 out some discreet minister of God's Word, in order that 
 they might receive absolution from him, though he 
 never thought of proposing that such applications 
 should be general or compulsory. For the Commu- 
 nion Service itself he provided a form of words to be 
 repeated by the worshipper 'prostrate before the altar,' 
 and he spoke of a real though spiritual presence of 
 Christ in the Sacrament itself, and reminded Christians 
 that they were here enabled to offer a ' sacrifice of 
 praise and thanksgiving' as a memorial of the sacrifice 
 of the Cross. 
 
 His views Such a doctrinc would offer a refuge to many who 
 
 not tobe. iii n t n i 
 
 suppressed, but lor it would have fled from the uncongenial teach- 
 ing of Puritanism into the arms of the Church of Eome. 
 It would gather round it all the growing love of 
 assthetic decoration, of colour, and of music. Beyond 
 
 ' Except tho special hours of prayer, tliere is nothing of all this in 
 Elizabeth's took. 
 
BURTON AND PRY>fNE. 
 
 25 
 
 that, it appealed to one whole side of humaii nature, chap. 
 its weakness, its dependence upon outward siuround- ■ — A—' 
 ings, its need of a curb upon irreverence and thought- ^ ^ ' 
 lessness. But to men of a strong and highsouled 
 temperament it was nothing but Popery in disguise, 
 bringing the spirit under outward and material 
 bondage. 
 
 Puritanism had a noble and vigorous protest to opposition 
 urge against the attempt to confine religion within the 
 bonds of ceremonial forms. It had too its own narrow- 
 ness, its prostration before a logical system of theology. 
 The first assault upon Cosin came from men who 
 had no broad intelligence or spiritual insight, no 
 quality to inspire respect, except that dogged per- 
 sistency in support of that which they believed to be 
 true, which is in itself a virtue. One of these men, 
 Henry Burton, had been attached to the service of ^^^ 
 Henry Prince of "Wales, and had afterwards been taken 
 into his brother's household. Before Charles's acces- 
 sion he had taken orders. As soon as the new reign com- 
 menced he gave offence by an untimely recommendation 
 to the King to dismiss Neile and I^aud from Court.^ 
 After this, Whitehall was no place for him. As Eector 
 of St. Matthew's in Friday Street he found a more sym- 
 pathetic audience, and declaimed against Popery and 
 Arminianism to his heart's content. He had criticised 
 Montague's book with unsparing bitterness, and he now 
 followed up his blow by an equally violent criticism of 
 Cosin's Devotions. 
 
 William Prynne deserves fuller recognition. Born Wiiiiam 
 at Swainswick in the neighbourhood of Bath in 1600, '^'^^' 
 he grew up under the influence of his father, a Puritan 
 farmer, and of his maternal grandfather, a Puritan 
 clothier, who had been Mayor of Bath, and had repre- 
 
 ' A Narratii-c of the Life of Henry Bwton. 
 
26 PREPARATIONS FOR A SESSION, 
 
 I. 
 
 "7628^ 
 
 CHAP, sented his native city in Parliament, His was not 
 the genial nature to seek out new paths for himself, or 
 to learn from contact with the world a softer, gentler 
 view of life than that which he had brought with him 
 from home. He came to Oxford in 1616 to hsten, at 
 the most impressionable age, to tales of James's defec- 
 tion from the Protestant cause, and to be stirred to 
 indignation by the diplomacy which aimed at placing 
 a Catholic Queen upon the English throne. Then 
 came the war in Bohemia, and after the war in Bohemia 
 came the war in the Palatinate, Protestantism, it 
 seemed, was betrayed abroad, and from his Calvinistic 
 teachers, still, at that time, dominant in the University, 
 he learned to look upon Neile and Laud as the traitors 
 who were undermining it at home, 
 1621. In 162 1, after his father's death, Prynne established 
 
 Lincoln's Mmself as a student of law at Lincoln's Inn, His un- 
 tiring industry, and his stupendous memory soon enabled 
 him to make himself master of the whole store of legal 
 knowledge, and to combine with his legal knowledge an 
 acquaintance with ecclesiastical writers which Selden 
 could hardly equal. The preachers at Lincoln's Inn had 
 alv/ays been selected as men of large and liberal culture, 
 but they had always been prominent exponents of that 
 Calvinistic theology, the formal completeness of which 
 had special attractions for the legal mind. There it was 
 that Eeynolds and Field had preached. There, soon after 
 Prynne's arrival, Donne gave place to Preston, the noted 
 Master of Emanuel College, whose influence over Buck- 
 ingham only paled before the rising star of Laud. When 
 J623 the Society opened its new chapel in 1623, the young 
 Prynne found himself in the presence of many of the 
 occupants of the judicial Bench, of Hobart and Ley, of 
 Denham and Crewe, as well as of others whose names 
 were in various ways to become noted in the stirring 
 
PRYNNE'S WRITINGS. 
 
 27 
 
 times to come. There was Noy who had not yet ia- chap. 
 
 vented ship-money, and Sherfield who had not yet ■ ^;-_ 
 
 broken the painted window at Sahsbury. There, too, ^^^^• 
 were Lenthall the future Speaker of the Long ParUa- 
 ment, and St. John the future advocate of Hampden, 
 With such companions around him Prynne kept on his 
 steady course. He watched the dangers to Enghsh 
 Protestantism from the entanglement in the Spanish 
 aUiance and the marriage treaty with France ; watched, 
 too, the growing strength of that party which appealed 
 to the early Fathers rather than to the Protestant 
 divines of the Continent and the Puritan divines of 
 Elizabethan England ; and he saw in Montague's 
 attack upon predestination a blow struck at the root of 
 Protestant theology.^ 
 
 In 1 6 2 7 Prynne's first book appeared. The Perpetuity 1627. 
 of a Regenerate Mans Estate. Under the forms of theo- books" 
 logical argument, Prynne's contention is, in the main, a 
 contention for the central idea of Protestantism, the 
 immediate dependence of the individual soul upon 
 God without the intervention of human or material 
 agencies. But in Prynne's hands the theme was 
 stripped of all the imaginative grandeur with which it 
 has been so often clothed. His pages, with their 
 margins crowded with references, afforded a palpable 
 evidence how much he owed to his reading and his 
 memory. He had no formative genius, no broad 
 culture, no sense of humour. He had no perception of 
 "the relative importance of things distasteful to him. 
 Healtlis Sickness, a violent diatribe on the supreme 
 wickedness of drinking healths, was followed by The isas. 
 Unloveliness of Lovelocks, an equally violent diatribe on . 
 the supreme wickedness of the long lock of hair floating 
 
 ' Up to this point I have made use of Mr. Bruce's fragment of 
 Prynne's biography published by the Camden Society. 
 
28 
 
 PREPARATIONS FOR A SESSION. 
 
 CHAP. 
 I. 
 
 1628. 
 
 His resist- 
 ance to 
 Cosin. 
 
 He de- 
 mands the 
 silencing of 
 the Ar- 
 
 Ceremonial 
 differences. 
 
 over the shoulder, which was the latest fashion amongst 
 courtiers. The folly of the day was chastised with a 
 torrent of learned obj urgatiou which would not have been 
 out of place in a harangue directed against the seven 
 deadly sins. He had nothing worse to say when he 
 sat down to prepare A brief Survey and Censure of 
 Mr. Cosiri's cozening Devotions. 
 
 It is easy to turn scornfully upon the aridity of 
 Prynne's mind, far easier than it is to read his books. 
 Yet hard and unintelligent as his assault upon Cosin was, 
 he was but giving voice in his own peculiar way to the 
 repugnance felt by strong men to the feminine neatness 
 of Cosin's devotional exercises. They threatened to 
 ' take the imprisoned soul and lap it in Elysium,' to 
 teach the ardent spirit to forego the stern wrestling for 
 truth and to content itself with the passive acknowledg- 
 ment of an order in the formation of which it was to 
 take no part. Cosin would teach men to regard the 
 State as dependent on the authority of the King, and the 
 Church as dependent on the authority of the clergy. 
 
 The problem presented by these disputes was a 
 hard one for a statesman to solve. To Prynne it pre- 
 sented no difficulty at all. No man was to be allowed 
 to speak or write against the Calvinistic doctrines. The 
 conclusions of the Synod of Dort were to be offered as 
 a test to every clergyman in England. Those who re- 
 fused to subscribe were to be at once excluded from 
 holding any ecclesiastical office.^ 
 
 If it was difficult for a ruler to mediate between' 
 forms of thought so hostile, it was still more diffi- 
 cult to mediate when adverse thoughts clothed them- 
 selves in ceremonial. To the Calvinist the pulpit 
 was clearly the first thing in the Church, the place 
 
 1 See the Address to Parliament prefixed to the Survey of Cosin's 
 Devotions. 
 
PLACE OF THE COMMUNION-TABLE. 29 
 
 where the Divine Word, through the intervention of the chap. 
 understanding, was dispensed to hungry souls. To ■ — I— • 
 those who recurred to older Church traditions the ^^^^" 
 Communion-table, or — as they loved to call it — .the Altar, 
 was worthy of the highest reverence, the place where 
 holy mysteries were dispensed which raised man into 
 communion with God without the intervention of the 
 understanding. The one party would have had the 
 Table either standing permanently under the pulpit or 
 brought out occasionally for its special purpose, to be 
 placed ' table wise,' or East and West. The other party 
 would have had it placed permanently ' altar wise,' or 
 North and South, in the place of honour at the East end. 
 
 Elizabeth, as usual, had done her best to effect a Elizabeth's 
 compromise. In the Injunctions issued soon after her m^e^" 
 accession, she had followed the second Prayer-book 
 in directing ' that the holy table in every church be 
 decently made and set in the place where the altar 
 stood, and there commonly covered as thereto belongeth, 
 and as shall be appointed by the visitors ; and so to 
 stand, saving when the Communion of the Sacrament is 
 to be distributed ; at which time the same shall be so 
 placed in good sort within the chancel as whereby the 
 minister may be more conveniently heard of the com- 
 municants in his prayer and ministration, and the com- 
 municants also more conveniently and in more number 
 communicate with the said minister ; and after the 
 Communion done, from time to time, the same holy 
 table to be placed where it stood before.' 
 
 This compromise, which was substantially adopted Difficulty 
 in the Canons of 1 604,^ was decidedly in favour of the confoSy! 
 Puritan view, the balance being weighted on the other 
 
 ■ The Injunctions only contemplate a removal within the chancel ; the 
 Sind Canon goes fiu'ther, and allows the Tahle to he placed in ecdesid vel 
 efusdem cancello. 
 
i628. 
 
 3P PREPARATIONS FOR A SESSION. 
 
 CHAP, side by a strict order that the Communion should be 
 received in a kneehng posture. It was one thing to 
 direct conformity, another to enforce it. It was above 
 all difficult to obtain compliance with a rule which 
 demanded that a heavy pieoe of furniture should be 
 moved backwards and forwards from one part of the 
 church to the other. Before the end of James's reign 
 the Table was pennanently established at the East end 
 in the Eoyal Chapel and in all Cathedrals, whilst in 
 most parish churches it was permanently estabhshed in 
 the middle of the church or chancel. Any attempt to 
 remove it to the East end was sure to be regarded as 
 an unwarranted innovation by those who had grown 
 accustomed to the existing practice. 
 
 1627. Such an attempt was made at Grantham. The 
 
 Conflict at ... ^ ^ rn 1 i n 
 
 Grantham, actmg vicar,^ a young man named Tytler, had engaged 
 in various disputes with his parishioners. There had 
 been quarrels about the rights and income of the 
 vicarage, quarrels about a lectureship which the towns- 
 people had set up in opposition to his teachings. In 
 1627 he had preached vigorously in defence of the 
 forced loan, threatening, unless report spoke falsely, 
 everlasting punishment to those who refused to pay it.^ 
 In the heat of this contention he resolved to restore the 
 Communion-table, or the Altar as he termed it,^ tothat 
 
 ' There were two vicars of Grantham. 
 
 " Valentine's Speech in the House of Commons, Feb. 7, 1629. 
 Niehola^s Notes. 
 
 ' Bishop Andrewes, preaching in 1612, puts it thus : " This is it in 
 the Eucharist that anawereth to the sacrifice in the Passover, the memorial 
 to the figure. To them it was Jwcfacite in Mei prcsfiffurationem ; do this 
 in prefiguration of Me ; to us it is ' Do this in commemoration of Me ' 
 .... By the same rules that theirs was, by the same may ours be 
 termed a sacrifice. In rigour of speech, neither of them ; for to speak 
 after the exact manner of divinity, there is but one only sacrifice, veri 
 nominis 'properly so called;' that is Christ's death. While yet this 
 offering was not, the hope of it was kept alive by the prefiguration of it 
 in theirs. And after it is past, the memory of it is still kept fresh in the 
 
THE GRANTHAM COMMUNION-TABLE. 3 1 
 
 which he held to be its appropriate site. Hitherto it chap. 
 had stood in the 'upper part of the choir,' probably in ^ ' 
 
 front of the ancient rood-screen which then divided the ^^^^' 
 chancel from the body of the church.^ Bringing work- The Com- 
 men with him, he carried itinside the screen and placed table 
 it agamst the wall at the East end. Alderman Wheatley, 
 the chief magistrate of the town, asked him by what 
 authority he acted, " My authority," answered Tytler 
 sharply, " is this, — I have done it, and I will justify 
 it." Wheatley and his friends carried the table back 
 to its old position. There was a scufEe in the church. 
 Eough words were spoken and blows were struck. "I 
 care not," said the angry Vicar, " what you do with your 
 old trestle. I will build me an altar of stone at my 
 own charge, and fix it in the old altar place. I will 
 never officiate at any other." " You shall set up no 
 dressers of stone within our church," was the equally 
 angry reply. "We will find more hands to throw 
 
 mind by the commemoration of it in ours. So it was the wUl of God that 
 so there might be with them a continual foreshowing, and with us a con- 
 tinual showing forth the Lord's death till He come again. Hence it is 
 that what names theirs canied, ours do the like, and the Fathers make 
 no scruple at it ; no more need we. The Apostle in the tenth chapter 
 compareth this of ours to the immolata of the heathen, and to the Hebrews 
 habemus aram matcheth it with the sacrifice of the Jews. And we know 
 the rule of comparisons, they must be (jmdem generis." The ecclesiastical 
 teaching of Charles's reign was so deeply leavened by the teaching of 
 Andrewes ; and Laud, in particular, reverenced him so highly, that these 
 words are worth particular consideration. 
 
 ' Much information aboiit Grantham is collected in a work by the 
 Rev. B. Sweet, a sight of which I owe to the kindness of the author, as 
 there is no copy in the Museum Library ; and this special quarrel has 
 recently been illustrated by the Rev. E. Venables in a paper published in 
 the Transactions of the Lincoln Diocesan Architectural Society. I am 
 unable to concur in his view that the Vicar did not mean the Table to 
 stand permanently at the East end. Williams at least understood that 
 he did. In his unsigned letter to the Vicar, he quotes him as saying of 
 the Table, ' that the fixing thereof in the choir is so canonical that it 
 ought not to be removed upon any occasion to the body of the church.' 
 The Holy Table, Name and Thing, 13. 
 
Z2 
 
 treparations for a session. 
 
 1628. 
 
 Appeal to 
 Williams. 
 
 His deci- 
 sion. 
 
 your stones out, than you will do to bring them in. 
 We will all in a body make our journey to the Bishop 
 before we will endure it." 
 
 Grantham was in the diocese of Lincoln, and the 
 Bishop of Lincoln was Williams. Williams had no 
 strong prejudices on either side. He was fond of pomp 
 and ceremony, and in the chapel of his episcopal residence 
 at Buckden, the Table stood against the Eastern wall. 
 But he had no sympathy with the doctrinal teaching 
 which was held to be involved in this position, and he 
 had a strong conviction of the impolicy of estranging 
 a whole population by imposing upon it ceremonial 
 forms which they regarded with detestation. He 
 decided, as every unprejudiced person would decide 
 now, that the meaning of the Injunctions and Canons 
 was that the Table should ordinarily stand at the 
 East end, and should be moved down when required 
 for use. More questionable was his ruling, that the 
 Table when placed at the East end should stand East 
 and West as a table, and not along the wall as an altar. 
 
 " Lastly," wrote Williams to the Vicar, " whether 
 side soever, you or your parish, shall first yield unto 
 the other in these needless controversies shall remain, 
 in ray poor judgment, the more discreet, grave, and 
 learned man of the two ; and by that time you have 
 gained some more experience in the cure of souls, you 
 shall find no such ceremony equal to Christian charity."^ 
 
 Williams has many faults to answer for. He was 
 hot tempered and worldly minded, and when driven to 
 bay he had resort to the most discreditable means in 
 order to overpower his pursuers. But he had the 
 
 * Printed in TJie Holy Table, Name and Thing. Williams appeals to 
 general practice, " If you mean by altar wise," he writes, " that the Table 
 should stand along close to the wall, I do not believe that ever the Com- 
 munion-tables were, otherwise than by casualtj', so placed in country 
 
 churches." 
 
HEATH AND MONTAGUE. «, 
 
 strong conviction that men were greater than either chap 
 intellectual or ceremonial forms. On the one hand, - ^; _- 
 he repelled Prynne's assumption that the human mind ^^^^■ 
 could only be purified by submission to the strictest 
 Calvinistic dogmatism. On the other hand, he repelled 
 Laud's assumption that the human mind could only be 
 purified by submission to a certain external order. It 
 is impossible not to think the better of Charles for 
 refusing to look up to a man so shifty as Williams. 
 But it is impossible not to regret that Charles was not 
 great enough to utilise the counsel of one who, if he 
 could have kept himself aloof from trickery and in- 
 trigue, might have been the Burke of the ecclesiastical 
 politics of the seventeenth century. 
 
 It soon became evident how much need Charles Heath's 
 had of a councillor who could have taught him that a Montague. 
 ruler can no more afford to despise the currents of 
 opinion than a navigator can afford to despise the set 
 of the tides. It was only natural that Charles should 
 do his best to shield from future attack the Churchmen 
 who had been assailed in the last session, and he accord- 
 ingly ordered the preparation of a pardon for Montague, 
 which, as he hoped, would place out of the question the 
 continuance of his impeachment. A letter addressed 
 to the new Bishop by Heath, the Attorney General, 
 shows the disquietude felt, by men most devoted to the 
 prerogative, at the danger lest the King should involve 
 himself in the quarrels of ecclesiastical controversialists. 
 " I know," he wrote, " you are wise, and I presume 
 you are charitable, and will make no misconstruction of 
 my honest intentions. Haply this pardon may set your 
 lordship free in foro civili ; and yet I must put your 
 lordship in mind that the Court of Parliament may 
 peradventure call things past into question, notwith- 
 standing your pardon ; nay, perhaps, by your pardon 
 
 VOL. I. i> 
 
34 PREPAKATIONS FOR A SESSION. 
 
 1628. 
 Oct. 7. 
 
 CHAP, they will rather be stirred to question you : not but that 
 the King by his supreme power may pardon whatsoever 
 may be questioned by any Court; yet that is not- all, 
 a scar to one is worse than a wound to another. You 
 are now a father of our Church ; and, as a father, you 
 will, I know, tender the peace and quiet of the Church. 
 Alas, a little spot is seen on that white garment, and a 
 little fire, nay a spark, may influence a great mass ; 
 and how glad would the common adversary be to see 
 us at odds amongst ourselves. We are not bound to 
 flatter any in their humours ; but we are bound in 
 conscience to prevent, nay to avoid, all occasions of 
 strife and contentions in those things specially which 
 are so tender as the peace of the Church and the unity 
 of religion. My lord, I take not upon me to advise 
 your lordship, — but I pray, give me leave to put your 
 lordship in mind of thus much, — that if your lordship 
 will be pleased to review your book, to consult first 
 with Almighty God the God of peace, the bond of peace, 
 the spirit of peace ; next, with our most gracious and 
 good King, and by his approbation take away the 
 acrimony of the style, and explain those things which 
 are therein left doubtful and undefined, that the ortho- 
 doxal tenets of the Church of England might be justi- 
 fied and cleared by your own pen, — I am persuaded all 
 scandal would be taken away, and your lordship may 
 be a happy instrument of reconciling and giving a stop 
 to these unhappy diflerences and jealousy which else 
 may trouble the quiet of our Church, and may occasion 
 the disquiet of our commonwealth."^ 
 Nov. Heath's recommendation met with ready accept- 
 
 Chariesnoi- aucc from those in whose hands the decision lay. 
 ofdoK™ Neither Charles nor Laud, by whose advice in eccle- 
 toversy™" siastical matters Charles was more than ever guided, had 
 any taste for dogmatic controversy. Laud believed 
 
 ' Heath to Montague, Oct. 7. S. P. Dom. cxviii. 33 
 
THE KING'S DECLARATION. -, c 
 
 that it only served to distract the clergy frora their chap. 
 real work, and he looked with the contempt of a ^; _- 
 practical man upon the endless discussions upon pro- ^^^^• 
 blems which it was impossible for the human intellect 
 to solve. It was only, he thought, to lose themselves 
 in wandering mazes, that reasonable beings, with the 
 world's sin and shame before them, could rack their 
 brains to divine the secret 
 
 Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate, 
 Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute. 
 
 Nor had he less contempt for public opinion than he 
 had for abstract thought. There was something in his 
 eyes inexpressibly mean in the notion that a teacher was 
 to be bound to deliver the sentiments and inculcate the 
 doctrines of which his disciples happened to approve. 
 In the combat which he waged against this double 
 danger lay the strength of his position. Prynne's de- 
 mand for the imposition of the test of agreement with 
 certain abstruse doctrines contained in it a tyranny 
 which deserved to be resisted as sternly as the demand 
 that what was believed by the mass of ordinary English- 
 men must be stereotyped for ever on the minds of the 
 rising generation. Unhappily Laud did not catch a 
 glimpse — no man at that time could be expected to do 
 more — of the truth that in full liberty of utterance lies 
 the true corrective of the tyranny of pubhc opinion. 
 
 Laud had no hesitation in recommending that the Laud'ssug- 
 
 1 gestion. 
 
 substance of the Eoyal Proclamation for the peace of 
 the Church which had been drawn up in 1626 should 
 be issued in a form calculated to reach the ears of every 
 one. Orders were accordingly given for the preparation 
 of a new edition of the Articles of Eehgion, to be pre- 
 faced by a Declaration which every minister entering 
 upon a new cure would be bound to read.^ 
 
 1 Heylyn'siJ/eo/io«rf, 187. 
 
36 PREPARATIONS POR A SESSION. 
 
 CHAP. "Being by God's ordinance," thus ran Charles's last 
 
 " ■ -' word in the controversy, " according to our just title, 
 jfj,^ * Defender of the Faith, and supreme governor of the 
 Deciwi"^'' Church, within these our dominions, we hold it most 
 tion. agreeably to this our kingly office, and our own religious 
 
 zeal, to conserve and maintain the Church committed 
 to our charge in unity of true religion and in the 
 bond of peace ; and not- to suffer unnecessary disputa- 
 tions, altercations, or questions to be raised which may 
 noiu-ish faction both in the Church and Commonwealth. 
 " We have therefore, upon mature deliberation, and 
 upon the advice of so many of our Bishops as might 
 conveniently be called together, thought fit to make 
 this Declaration following : — That the Articles of the 
 Church of England, which have been allowed and 
 authorised heretofore, and which our Clergy generally 
 have subscribed unto, do contain the true doctrine of 
 the Church of England agreeable to God's Word : which 
 we do therefore ratify and confirm ; requiring all our 
 loving subjects to continue in the uniform profession 
 thereof, and prohibiting the least difference from the 
 said Articles ; which to that end we command to be 
 new printed, and this our Declaration to be published 
 therewith : 
 
 " That we are supreme governor of the Church 
 of England; and that if any difference arise about the 
 external policy concerning Injunctions, Canons, and 
 other Constitutions whatsover thereto belonging, the 
 Clergy in their Convocation is to order and settle them, 
 having first obtained leave under our broad seal so to 
 do, and we approving their said ordinances and con- 
 stitutions, providing that none be made contrary to the 
 laws and customs of the land : 
 
 " That out of our princely care that the Churchmen 
 may do the work which is proper unto them, the Bishops 
 and Clergy, from time to time in Convocation, upon their 
 
THE KING'S DECLARATION. 
 
 37 
 
 1628. 
 
 Nov. 
 
 humble desire, shall have license under our broad seal chap. 
 to deliberate of, and to do aU such things, as being made 
 plain by them, and assented to by us, shall concern the 
 settled continuance of the doctrine and discipline of the 
 Church of England now established ; from which we will 
 not endure any varying or departing in the least 
 degree : 
 
 " That for the present, though some differences 
 have been ill raised, yet we take comfort in this, that all 
 clergymen within our realm have always most willingly 
 subscribed to the Articles estabhshed ; which is an 
 argument to us that they aU agree in the true, usual, 
 literal meaning of the said Articles ; and that even in 
 those curious points in which the present differences He, 
 men of aU sorts take the Articles of the Church of 
 England to be for them ; which is an argument again that 
 none of them intend any desertion of the Articles 
 established : 
 
 " That therefore in these both curious and unhappy 
 differences, which have for so many hundred years, 
 in different times and places, exercised the Church of 
 Christy we will that all further curious search be laid 
 aside, and these disputes shut up in God's promises as 
 they be generally set forth to us in the holy Scriptures, 
 and the general meaning of the Articles of the Chiu:ch 
 of England according to them ; and that no man here- / 
 after shall either print or preach to draw the Article 
 aside any way, but shall submit to it in the plain and 
 full meaning thereof, and shall not put his own sense or 
 comment to be the meaning of the Article, but shall take 
 it in the hteral and grammatical sense : 
 
 " That if any public reader in either of our Univer- 
 sities, or any head or master of a college, or any other 
 person respectively in either of them, shall affix any 
 new sense to any Article.- or shall publicly read, deter- 
 mine, or hold any pubhc disputation, or suffer any such 
 
38 
 
 PREPARATIONS FOR A SESSION. 
 
 CHAP. 
 I. 
 
 1628. 
 
 Nov. 
 
 The Decla- 
 ration 
 approved 
 by the 
 Council. 
 
 Dec. II. 
 Abbot 
 restored to 
 favour. 
 
 Dec. 12. 
 Meeting of 
 Bi-shops at 
 Lambeth. 
 
 1629. 
 Jan. 17, 
 Appello 
 Ccesnrem 
 called in. 
 
 to be held either way, in either the Universities or 
 colleges respectively, or if any divine in the Univer- 
 sities shall preach or print anything either way, other 
 than is already established in Convocation with our 
 Eoyal assent ; he or they the offenders shall be liable to 
 our displeasure, and the Church's censure in our Com- 
 mission ecclesiastical, as well as any other ; and we will 
 see there shall be due execution upon them."^ 
 
 The draft of the document thus prepared was 
 approved by the Privy Council in the end of November 
 or the beginning of the following month.^ The next 
 step was to obtain the assent of both parties amongst 
 the Bishops. Montague was induced to write a letter to 
 Abbot in which he disclaimed any wish to uphold 
 Arminianism.^ Abbot accepted the hand thus held out 
 to him, and was restored by Charles to such favour as 
 Charles had to bestow upon one with whom he had 
 so little sympathy. On December 1 1 the Archbishop 
 appeared once more at Whitehall, kissed the Bang's 
 hands, and was graciously bidden to attend the meetings 
 of the Council. 
 
 The next day such Bishops as could be brought 
 together on so short an invitation met in Council at 
 Lambeth.* As soon as they had declared their accept- 
 ance of the proposed Declaration, it was sent to the 
 press. 
 
 The first step taken to emphasise the Declaration 
 was the issue of a Proclamation calling in Montague's 
 Appello CcBsarem, in order that men might ' no more 
 
 ^ The Declaration is prefixed to the edition of the Articles of 1628, and 
 is to be found in the present Book of Common Prayer. How many 
 people who see it there are aware of its historical importance ? 
 
 * It is mentioned in Oontarini's Despatch of Dec. ^j. Ven. MS8. 
 
 ^ I do not believe that he went beyond this, which he might honestly 
 do, on the same gi-ounds as Laud. Pory in his letters makes him really 
 to subscribe to the Synod of Dort, which is incredible. 
 
 * Pory to Meade, Dec. 12, 19, Court and Times, i. 448, 451. 
 
WENTWORTH AT YORK. og 
 
 trouble themselves with these unnecessary questions, chap 
 the first occasion being taken away.' If writers con- ^ 
 
 tinned to carry on the dispute, such order should be '^^^: 
 taken with them, that they ' shoidd wish that they had '^' 
 never thought upon these needless controversies.'^ 
 The Proclamation had been preceded by the grant of Pai^aons 
 
 c J c issued. 
 
 Special pardons to Montague, Sibthorpe, Manwaring 
 and Cosin, in order that the Commons might be warned 
 not to rake up the embers of the old quarrel. 
 
 Oblivion for the past and silence for the future Charieas 
 
 tfinn s 
 
 were the terms offered by Charles. It remained to be 
 seen how acceptable they would be to the Commons; 
 whose competency to deal with religious questions at 
 all was imphcitly denied by the reference in the y 
 Declaration to the King and the Convocation as the 
 sole constitutional authority in such matters. 
 
 It was hardly likely that the Commons would be 1628. 
 content with this. But there was one man who had Wentworth 
 played a leading part in the preceding session who of the 
 asked nothing better. Immediately after the close of 
 that session, Wentworth had been raised to the peerage, 
 and had been promised the Presidency of the North. 
 On December 10, he became Viscount Wentworth, and 
 five days later he received the patent of his Presidency. 
 
 On the ^oth he entered upon the duties of his office ^P^c-ao- 
 
 »-' ^ ^ His speech 
 
 at York. In the speech^ which he there delivered at York, 
 amongst his old friends and neighbours, he showed no 
 signs of regret for the part which he had played in the 
 preceding session. He thanked them for the kindness He does 
 with which they had received him after his exile for dLteTh"' 
 resisting the forced loan. What confidence or affection ^^^'' 
 could be greater? Yet he had not thanks for them 
 alone. " Cast," he said, " the free bounties of my gracious 
 
 ' Proclamation, Jan. 17. Rxjmer, xix. 26. 
 
 "^ Printed from ranjiw^'S'S. Ixxii. 300; inthe^cnrfemy, June 5, 1875. 
 
40 
 
 PEEPARATIONS FOR A SESSION. 
 
 CHAP 
 
 I. 
 
 1628. 
 Dec. 30, 
 
 His con- 
 stitutional 
 views. 
 
 Kings and 
 subjects. 
 
 master into the other scale : there weigh me, -within the 
 space of one year, a bird, a wandering bird cast out of 
 the nest, a prisoner, planted here again in my own 
 soil, amongst the companions of my youth ; my house 
 honoured, myself entrusted with the rich dispensation 
 of a sovereign goodness, nay assured of all these before 
 I asked, before I thought of any." 
 
 If Wentworth did not repudiate the Petition of 
 Eight, he repudiated the challenge of sovereignty put 
 forward on behalf of the Commons at the close of the 
 session. " To the joint individual wellbeing of sove- 
 reignty and subjection, " he said, " do I here vow all 
 my cares and diligences through the whole course of 
 my ministry. I confess I am not ignorant how some 
 distempered minds have of late very far endeavoured 
 to divide the considerations of the two ; as if their ends 
 were distinct, not the same, nay, in opposition ; a mon- 
 strous, a prodigious birth of a licentious conception, 
 for so we would become all head or all members. But 
 God be praised, human wisdom, common experience. 
 Christian religion, teach us far otherwise." 
 
 Wentworth's conception of the Constitution was 
 in the main the same as Bacon's. " Princes," he con- 
 tinued, " are to be indulgent, nursing fathers to their 
 people ; their modest liberties, their sober rights ought 
 to be precious in their eyes, the branches of their govern- 
 ment be for shadow for habitation, the comfort of hfe. 
 They^ repose safe and stiU under the protection of their 
 sceptres. Subjects, on the other side, ought with soh- 
 citous eyes of jealousy to watch over the prerogatives 
 of a Crown. The authority of a King is the keystone 
 which closeth up the arch of order and government, 
 which contains each part in due relation to the whole, 
 
 ■- "They" is added by conjecture and inserted here and elsewhere 
 when it is needed. 
 
WENTWORTH AT YORK. 4 1 
 
 and which once shaken, and infirmed, all the frame chap. 
 falls together into a confused heap of foundation and • — ^^ — - 
 battlement, of strength and beauty.^ Furthermore, ^^^^" 
 subjects must lay down their hves for the defence of 
 kings freely till those offer out of their store freely, ' 
 like our best grounds, qui majore ubertate gratiam 
 quietis referre sohnt. 
 
 " Verily there are those mutual inteUigence of love TheoUiga- 
 and protection descending and loyalty ascending which mntaai. 
 should pass and be the entertainments between a King 
 and his people. Their faithful servants must look 
 equally on both, weave, twist these two together in all 
 their counsels ; study, labour, to preserve each without 
 diminishing or enlarging either ; and by running in the 
 worn wonted channels, treading the ancient bounds, 
 cut off early all disputes from betwixt them. For ^ 
 whatever he be which ravels forth into questions the 
 right of a King and of a people shall never be able to 
 wrap them up again into the comeliness and order he 
 found them." 
 
 Had he not himself ravelled forth these rights into Had 
 questions? In his heart doubtless he believed that it changed? 
 was not so. He had always in his fiercest denunciation 
 of the King's ministers preserved his respect for the 
 King, and had spoken of the King's prerogative in 
 terms far more reverential than any other member of 
 the House of Commons not in the actual service of the 
 
 ' Sliakspere's Ooriolaniia says much the same thing (act iii. scene 1) : 
 
 "My soul aches 
 To know, when two authorities are up, 
 Neither supreme, how soon confusion 
 May enter 'twixt the gap of hoth and take 
 
 The one by the other 
 
 That is the way to lay the city flat ; 
 To bring the roof to the foundation, 
 And bury aU, which yet distinctly ranges. 
 In heaps and piles of ruin." 
 
42 PREPAEATIONS FOR A SESSION. 
 
 Crown. The utmost which he had claimed for the 
 assembly of which he was a member had been the 
 right of lifting up its voice against oppression and 
 wrong; and, if its voice were disregarded, of refusing 
 to grant those supplies for carrying on a useless and 
 extravagant war which it was in its power to grant or 
 to refuse. And yet they were not in the wrong who 
 held that he had ranged himself on the side of the 
 nation against the Crown. Facts had been too strong 
 for even Wentworth's theories ; and when, in his lofty 
 impassioned eloquence he denounced attacks upon pro- 
 perty and law, it was impossible that the blow which 
 was aimed at Buckingham should not light upon 
 Charles, who had in reality been the author of the 
 mischief as much as Buckingham. Yet there is no 
 He was rashuess in affirming that Wentworth was himself 
 conscious uncouscious of any change in himself. It was the 
 change. House of Commous which had changed. In March he 
 had argued that the danger of anarchy and disorder 
 came from the Government. In June he might have 
 argued that it came from the Commons. The invita- 
 tion addressed to him to take part in the work of 
 government would do the rest. The condescension 
 of the King, the affable unbending of a Sovereign 
 usually so reserved, would strengthen him in the con- 
 viction that all danger from the Crown was past. As 
 a defender of order against disorder he had raised his 
 voice in Parliament ; as a defender of order against 
 disorder he would exercise at York the authority en- 
 trusted to him by his Sovereign. 
 His view of ^g lie continued his speech he let fall not a few 
 
 the ecclesi- i • i 
 
 asticai words wnich showed how little sympathy he had with 
 Eliot in those ecclesiastical questions which had risen 
 to such sudden prominence during the last days of the 
 session. " I not only," said he, " profess my entire 
 
WENTWOKTH AT YORK. 43 
 
 filial obedience to the Churcli, but also covet a sound, 
 a close conjunction with the grave, the reverend clergy, 
 that they to us, we to them, may as twins administer 
 help to each other ; that ecclesiastical and civil insti- 
 tutions, the two sides of every State, may not stand 
 alone by themselves upon their own single walls, 
 subject to cleave and fall in sunder ; but joined strongly 
 together in the angle, where his Majesty under God, 
 is the Mistress of the corner, the whole frame may 
 rise up unitate ordinatd both in the spirituals and the 
 temporals." 
 
 Wentworth, it is plain, had accepted without hesi- Accepts 
 tation, the King's Declaration. He was ready too to supervision 
 accept his general supervision in confidence that it crown. 
 would be used for the benefit of the State. It was for 
 him, not for the Judges at Westminster, who might be 
 actuated by professional jealousy, to settle the hmits of 
 the jurisdiction of the Council of the JSTorth. Went- 
 worth's idea of government, indeed, was not one in 
 which the people had no part. They were not to con- The people 
 trol the King, they were to counsel and co-operate, rate?"^^' 
 The objection which had been raised tlaat there was 
 no statute compelling attendance upon musters stirred 
 him to indignation. There was such a statute, he re- 
 plied in the first place, declaring service in the militia to 
 be obligatory. What, however, if no such statute had 
 been in existence ! " Admit," he said, " the law were 
 defective, yet then it will be confessed a necessary 
 service for the State, for the defence of yourselves, 
 wives, and children, so as we might manifest more dis- 
 cretion to wink at it than thus narrowly to pry into it." 
 
 A King thoroughly well meaning and prudent, 
 counsellors intelligent and patriotic, a people even out- 
 stripping the government in its zeal to carry out the 
 royal commands, such was Wentworth's vision of the 
 
44 
 
 PEEPARATIONS FOR A SESSION. 
 
 Commonwealth which he hoped to see flourishing upon 
 English soil. Arthur, it would seem had come again 
 in Charles, now that Buckingham was gone. England 
 had but to sing the song of Arthur's knights : — 
 
 ' Blow trumpet, for the world is white with May ; 
 Blow trumpet, the long night hath roU'd away, 
 Blow through the living world, " Let the King reign." ' 
 
 1629. 
 
 Jan. 
 Fresh dis- 
 turbances 
 about 
 Tonnage 
 and 
 Poundage. 
 
 The 
 
 King's re- 
 solution. 
 
 162S. 
 
 Dec. 
 Charles's 
 difficulties. 
 
 ' The King will follow Ohrist, and we the King, 
 In whom high God hath breathed a secret thing. 
 Fall battleaxe, and flash brand ! Let the King reign.' 
 
 The powers of evil, as Wentworth would have reck- 
 oned them, were, however, still stirring. Before the 
 opening of the session arrived, fresh tumults at the 
 Custom-house came to trouble the hopefulness of 
 the Government. In defiance of the order of the Court 
 of Exchequer, another attempt was made to carry off 
 goods by force under cover of a replevin. The attack 
 was repulsed, and the leaders committed to prison to 
 await proceedings in the Star Chamber.^ A few days 
 later the King consulted his principal Councillors on 
 the best mode of deaUng with so agitating a question. 
 It was resolved that if the Houses would ' pass the 
 Bill as his ancestors had it, his Majesty' would ' do any 
 reasonable thing to declare that he claims not Tonnage 
 and Poundage otherwise than by grant of Parliament, 
 but if this do not satisfy, then to avoid a breach upon 
 just cause given, not sought by the King.'^ 
 
 Those who watched the position of affairs with an 
 impartial eye were of opmion that Charles was really 
 anxious to avert all chance of a quarrel with the House 
 of Commons.* The dark side of the picture may be 
 
 ^ Council Register, Jan. 5, 7. Rushworth, i. App. 7. 
 ' Rushwofth, i. 642. 
 
 ' " Fra dieci giorni si radunera il Parlamento con opinione di buon 
 succeaso, giS, 8. M. invigila con ogni soUecitudine di ben preparar tutte 
 
THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY. 45 
 
 sHowii in words which had not long before been 
 addressed to Carlisle by a correspondent in England. 
 " At home," he wrote, " the httle thing that is done is 
 done by ray Lord Treasurer. They are about to satisfy 
 some things both in religion and government to 
 sweeten things to the Parliament, but most men doubt 
 that they are not sincerely intended, and so will 'give 
 little satisfaction. The Parliamentary men have an eye on 
 your Lordship, and are afraid that you will join with 
 my Lord Treasurer, who, though as I think an honest 
 man and good patriot, has much ado to overcome and 
 dissipate those clouds of suspicion concerning reli- 
 gion that are hung over him all this while." ^ 
 
 It was a fair account of the situation. It was not PMUamen- 
 
 tary pros- 
 
 enough for Charles to be well intentioned. He could pects. 
 not in a moment do away with the impression pro- 
 duced upon his subjects by the errors of the past four 
 years, or by his own moral and mental isolation amongst 
 the people whom he ruled. No electric cord of sym- 
 pathy stretched from his heart to the heart of the 
 nation. From their aims, their hopes, then- prejudices 
 he stood apart. His Court was no place where the 
 independent gentlemen of England could find a chance 
 of reaching his ear. His progresses were made to some 
 hunting seat of his own, not to the houses of his sub- 
 jects, where Elizabeth had been wont to win all hearts 
 by her queenly condescension. Above all, he did not 
 understand the meaning of ' those clouds of suspicion 
 concerning religion,' which were so exaggerated, but 
 so natural, and which needed to be treated with 
 judicious but sympathetic firmness if they were not 
 to burst up in the fiercest intolerance, or to give rise 
 to the most deep-seated discord. 
 
 le cose e di proceder piu consultatamente di queUo si fece per 1' adietro." 
 Cmtarinis Despatch, Jan. If. Ven. MSS. 
 
 1 Aston to Carlisle, Dec. 19- S. P. Bom. clii. 58. 
 
46 
 
 sion, 
 Jan. 22. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE SESSION OF 1 629. 
 
 ^^f^- So confident was Charles of the issue that, when the 
 
 ' — 7 — ^ Houses met on January 20/ he did not even think it 
 1629. •' 
 
 Jan. 20. necessary to explain what he has done. The Commons, 
 ttwsS? "^ ^s soon as they proceeded to business on the 2 2nd, 
 showed that they looked upon the events of the past 
 months from a point of view of their own. Complaints 
 were at once heard that the speech in which the King 
 at the close of the last session had claimed Tonnage and 
 Poundage as his due, had been enrolled with the Petition 
 of Eight, and that a printed copy of the great statute 
 had been circulated in the country ' with an answer 
 which never gave any satisfaction,' that is to say, with 
 the answer which had been rejected as insufficient, in 
 addition to the final answer and the speech by which 
 it was finally expounded by the King.^ 
 
 ' The ordinary account of the debates of this session appears in its 
 best form in a volume in the possession of Lord Verulam, which was de- 
 scribed by Mr. Bruce in the 38th volume of the Archceologia. Mr. Bruce's 
 copy has, through Lord Verulam's kindness, been placed in my hands. 
 The Parliamentary history has additional matter fTom other sources, 
 and Nicholas's Notes {8. P. Dom. oxxxv.) give a report entirely indepen- 
 dent commencing with Jan. 26. Mr. Forster {Sir J. Eliot, ii. 197) gives 
 from the MSS. at Port Eliot a speech said to have been spoken by Eliot 
 on Jan. 20. I am afraid this must be relegated to the domain of 
 speeches never uttered. Lord Verulam's MS. distinctly says of that day 
 that on it ' nothing was done but only the settling of the Committees,' 
 and Nethersole, in the letters in which he details the main occurrences of 
 the session, has no mention of any such speech. 
 
 ' The copy of the Statutes of the last session in the Miiseiun Library 
 
ALLEGED VIOLATION OF THE PETITION OF EIGHT. 47 
 
 Selden then stepped forward with a weightier chap. 
 charge. The Petition of Eight, he said, had been "' 
 
 actually broken. For liberties of state, he said, "we ^^^^' 
 
 11, Jan. 22. 
 
 know of an order made in the Exchequer that a sheriff Has the 
 
 , . T , Petition of 
 
 was commanded not to execute a replevin, and men s Eight been 
 goods are taken away and must not be restored." 
 Further, " one had lately lost his ears by a decree of 
 the Star Chamber, by an arbitrary judgment. Next," 
 he said, " they will take away our arms, and then our 
 legs, and so our hves ; let all see we are sensible of this. 
 Customs creep on us, let us make a just representation 
 hereof unto his Majesty." 
 
 The case of Savage, of which Selden spoke so savage's 
 bitterly, had been one of extreme harshness. Either 
 from a foohsh love of notoriety or from actual insanity 
 he had announced that Felton had asked him to join in 
 killing Buckingham.^ He was sentenced in the Star 
 Chamber to lose his ears.^ It was well that Selden 
 should raise his voice against the scandal. It was well 
 that a limit should be placed to the swelling jurisdiction 
 of the Star Chamber.^ But it was absurd to argue 
 
 shews that this was what was really done, and it is so put in Nethersole's 
 letters to Elizaheth. S. P. Dum. cixxiii. 4. 
 
 1 Meade to Stuteville, Sept. 27, Nov. 8. Court and Times, i. 402, 422. 
 
 ' Hudson, in his treatise in the Star Chamber, written before any con- 
 troversy arose, holds that the Court had the power of cutting off ears in 
 certain cases. 
 
 ' According to Nethersole, Chambers's case was expressly mentioned, 
 " They began to complain that the Petition of Bight granted the last 
 session had been already invaded in all the parts thereof: that of the 
 liberty of men's persons, by the imprisonment of a merchant without show- 
 ing a lawful cause, the difficulty in showing a corpus habeas: that 
 against the use of martial law, by the taking a man's ears off by a sentence 
 in the Star Chamber, being an arbitrary Coui-t, and having no power of 
 life or limb : that of the property of men's goods, by the seizure of the 
 wares of divers merchants, for refusing to pay the customs and imposi- 
 tions, there being no law to demand this, and the refusing of the 
 grant of a writ of replevin when it was demanded." Nethersole to 
 Elizabeth, Jan. 24. S. P. Bom. cxxxiv. 4. Not one of these charges 
 
48 THE SESSION OF 1629. 
 
 CHAP, that the jurisdiction of that Court was in any way 
 
 - — -p — -^ affected by the Petition of Eight. 
 Jan^a' Unluckily the question of Tonnage and Poundage, 
 
 EoUe's embarrassing enough in itself, was complicated by the 
 fact that Henry EoUe, one of the merchants whose 
 goods had been seized, was a member of the House, 
 " Cast your eyes," said the impetuous Phelips, " which 
 way you please, and you shall see violations on aU 
 sides. Look on the privileges of this House ! Let any 
 say if ever he recall or saw the like violations by in- 
 ferior ministers that ever do their commands. They 
 knew the party was a Parliament man. Nay, they said, 
 'if all the Parliament were in you, this we would do 
 and justify.' " Phehps concluded by moving for a Com- 
 mittee on the whole question of the levy of Tonnage 
 and Poundage.^ 
 
 Question of It was hardly possible to dwarf a sreat question 
 
 privUege. i i i i • i 
 
 more completely than to convert the mighty struggle 
 against unparliamentary taxation into a mere dispute 
 about privilege. Yet this was what the House seemed 
 disposed to do. " Let the parties," said Littleton, " be 
 sent for that violated the liberties." The Commons 
 did not notice that in so doing they were leaving a 
 strong position for a weak one. In resisting the 
 King's claim to levy duties without consent of Parlia- 
 
 necessarily mvolved a direct breach of the Petition, the question of pro- 
 perty being the very one which the Judges had to decide. The line taken 
 here involved the assertion that the interpretation of the Petition be- 
 longed to the House of Oonunons, not to the Judges. 
 
 The case of bUleting at Ohichester, RushwoHh, ii. 32, is sometimes 
 alleged as a breach of the Petition. But the Petition forbade billeting 
 against the householder's will. The authorities of Ohichester barred the 
 gates of the city against the soldiers so as to prevent the householders 
 from exercising an option. 
 
 ' Mr. Forster (Sir J. Eliot, ii. 205) says that Phelips alleged that 
 S,oooi. worth of goods had been sold for dues not exceeding 200/, He 
 gives no authority for the selling, and it is altogether improbable. 
 
POSTPONEMENT OF THE TONNAGE AND POUNDAGE BILL. 5 I 
 
 the speech was extremely favourable. It was not chap. 
 
 then the decent custom to listen to announcements - — -^ — - 
 from the throne in respectful silence, and the King was ^^' 
 
 many times interrupted by sounds of applause. As the The im- 
 
 J. i. TirGSSion. 
 
 Commons left his presence, one of them observed that fayourabie, 
 it was easy to see that Buckingham was no longer 
 ahve. " This speech," wrote Nethersole, " hath given 
 great satisfaction for the present." But Nethersole 
 was too old a member to be ignorant where the xhereii- 
 real danger lay. "In matter of religion," he pro- dXaity. 
 ceeded to say, " they are quiet as yet. For it is early 
 days. But the greatest business is like to be about that, 
 notwithstanding that his Majesty hath called in Monta- 
 gue's book by a special proclamation. . . His Majesty 
 hath also granted his pardon to Montague, Cosin, Man- 
 waring, and Sibthorpe. But that will hardly save some 
 of them. God keep us in good temper." ^ 
 
 On the 26 th Sir John Coke offered to bring in a Jan. 26. 
 Bill of Tonnage and Poundage. But he was told that Tonnage 
 it was not the custom of the House to vote on a Bill of age post- 
 supply, except upon resolutions debated in Committee. "^""^ ' 
 Besides, the question of Impositions must be cleared up 
 before anything could be done.^ 
 
 The question of Impositions had not been taken The ques- 
 into account by Charles. Still, it was one on which imposi- 
 compromise was possible, and it is unlikely that, if the 
 House had proposed to include existing impositions in 
 the new Tonnage and Poundage Bill, in retiu:n for an 
 abandonment of the King's claim to levy further im- 
 positions by prerogative, Charles would have offered 
 any decided resistance to an amicable settlement of the 
 long dispute. But the hearts of the members were 
 elsewhere than in the question of impositions. Scarcely 
 
 1 Nethersole to Elizabeth, Jan. 24. S. P. Bom., cxxxiii. 4. 
 ^ This debate is only to be found in Nicholat's Notes. 
 
50 
 
 THE SESSION OF 1629. 
 
 CHAP, he was perfectly aware at the time, were not to be 
 — r^— ' imposed upon him for many weeks to come. 
 
 Jan. 24. 
 The 
 
 King's 
 speech. 
 
 Moderation 
 of the 
 speech. 
 
 At last Charles discovered that it was unwise to 
 allow the debates to proceed without a word from 
 himself. Summoning the Houses to Whitehall, he 
 assured them that he had had no intention to levy the 
 duties by his ' hereditary prerogative.' " It ever was," 
 he declared distinctly, " and still is my meaning, by 
 the gift of my people to enjoy it ; and my intention in 
 my speech at the end of the last session was not to 
 challenge Tonnage and Poundage of right, but for 
 expedience de bene esse, shewing* you the necessity, 
 not the right, by which I was to take it until you had 
 granted it unto me ; assuring myself, according to your 
 general profession, that you wanted time and not good 
 will to give it me." He had been startled, he added, 
 by some things which had been said amongst them. 
 But he would not complain. " The House's resolu- 
 tion," he ended by saying, " not particular men's 
 speeches, shall make me judge well or ill, not doubt- 
 ing but, according to mine example, you will be deaf to 
 all reports concerning me, until my words and actions 
 speak for themselves, that this session beginning, with 
 confidence one towards the other, it may end with a perfect 
 good understanding between us ; which God grant." ^ 
 
 It would be easy to find fault with the account 
 given by Charles of the language which he had 
 employed at the close of the last session. But it was 
 not of the slightest importance whether he had con- 
 tradicted himself or not. It was enough that he had re- 
 nounced plainly all claim to levy Tonnage and Poundage 
 as his right. Accordingly, the first impression made by 
 
 ' Oontarini, who tells this, adds, however, significantly, " Parmi non- 
 dimeno che primo d' avantarsi in questa materia vogliono aggiustar i 
 punti deUa religione." Oontarini's Despatch, —j;^. Ven. MSS. 
 
POSTPONEMENT OF THE TONNAGE AND POUNDAGE BILL. 5 I 
 
 the speech was extremely favourable. It was not chap. 
 then the decent ciistom to listen to announcements 
 
 from the throne in respectful silence, and the King was ^ ^^' 
 many times interrupted by sounds of applause. As the The im- 
 
 /-v ij?T. r T ^ 71 pression 
 
 Commons leit his presence, one of them observed that favourable, 
 it was easy to see that Buckingham was no longer 
 ahve. " This speech," wrote Nethersole, " hath given 
 great satisfaction for the present." But Nethersole 
 was too old a member to be ignorant where the Thereu- 
 real danger lay. "In matter of religion," he pro- dSity. 
 ceeded to say, " they are quiet as yet. For it is early 
 days. But the greatest business is like to be about that, 
 notwithstanding that his Majesty hath called in Monta- 
 gue's book by a special proclamation. . . His Majesty 
 hath also granted his pardon to Montague, Cosin, Man- 
 waring, and Sibthorpe. But that will hardly save some 
 of them. God keep us in good temper." ^ 
 
 On the 26 th Sir John Coke offered to bring in a Jan. 26. 
 Bill of Tonnage and Poundage. But he was told that Tonnage 
 it was not the custom of the House to vote on a Bill of age post- 
 supply, except upon resolutions debated in Committee. ^°^^ ' 
 Besides, the question of Impositions must be cleared up 
 before anything could be done.^ 
 
 The question of Impositions had not been taken The ques- 
 into account by Charles. Still, it was one on which imposi- 
 compromise was possible, and it is unlikely that, if the 
 House had proposed to include existing impositions in 
 the new Tonnage and Poundage Bill, in return for an 
 abandonment of the King's claim to levy further im- 
 positions by prerogative, Charles would have offered 
 any decided resistance to an amicable settlement of the 
 long dispute. But the hearts of the members were 
 elsewhere than in the question of impositions. Scarcely 
 
 1 Nethersole to Elizabeth, Jan. 24. S. P. Bom., cxsxiii. 4. 
 ^ This debate is only to be found in Nicholas's Notes. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 THE SESSION OF 1629. 
 
 CHAP. 
 II. 
 
 1629. 
 
 Jan. z6. 
 
 Rouse's 
 speech on 
 religion. 
 
 Kirton's 
 explana- 
 tion. 
 
 Committee 
 
 on 
 
 Religion. 
 
 was the mode of procedure on the Tonnage and Pound- 
 age Bill settled, when Francis Eouse rose. He lived to 
 be the author of that metrical version of the Psalms 
 which was one day to be the cherished treasure in joy 
 or in affliction of every Scottish household. He lived, 
 too, to be the speaker of that strangest of all English 
 political assemblies which strove in vain to hurry 
 conservative England into the path of social revolution. 
 He now called upon no inattentive hearers to stand 
 firm against the encroachments of Popery, that con- 
 fused mass of errors which cast down ' Kings before 
 Popes, the precepts of God before the traditions of men, 
 living and reasonable men before dead and senseless stocks 
 and stones,' and against the encroachments of Armini- 
 anism, ' an error that makes the grace of God lackey it 
 after the will of man, that makes the sheep to keep the 
 shepherd, and makes a mortal seed of an immortal 
 God.' Kirton rose to explain the source of the mischief. 
 The new doctrines, he argued, had been introduced in 
 order to pave the way for the betrayal of Protestantism 
 to Eome. The personal ambition of the clergy was 
 the cause of it all. " The highest dignity," he said, 
 " they can attain to here in England is an Archbishopric, 
 but a Cardinal's cap is not here to be had. Our 
 endeavour must be to take away the root, and then the 
 branches will decay of themselves. It is not the calling 
 in of the Appeal to Cassar that will do it ; for if they 
 can get Bishoprics for writing of such books, we shall 
 have many more that will write books in the same 
 kind." 
 
 So flowed on confusedly and without restraint the 
 pent-up waters of indignation. In the end the whole 
 subject of religion was referred to a Committee ; and in 
 spite of a message from the King urging the House to 
 proceed at once with the Tonnage and Poundage Bill, 
 
COMMITTEE ON RELIGION. . 53 
 
 it was resolved that the report of the Committee should chap. 
 first be heard. - — A — - 
 
 The reporter, or as we should now say, the chair- '^^^9- 
 man of the Committee, was Pym, as he had been the Pj-m's con- 
 
 , n r^ -.. T--1 • stitutional 
 
 reporter 01 every Committee on religion m the reign, views. 
 He combined a firm persuasion of the truth and im- 
 portance of the Calvinistic creed with a knowledge of 
 the world, and with a tact in the management of men, 
 which was hereafter to raise him to the supreme leader- 
 ship of the Long Parliament.^ He clearly saw the 
 intimate connexion between all the various questions 
 by which the reign had been agitated. He held that the 
 path of safety lay in the combined supremacy of King 
 and Parliament. The time had not yet come when men 
 could venture, even in thought, to separate between the 
 two. AU other institutions, ecclesiastictd, judicial, mili- 
 tary, must work in accordance with rules laid down by 
 King and Parliament together. They must not claim 
 to be independent of the nation itself, revolving in 
 orbs of their own, and careless of the national con- 
 science and the national wiU. 
 
 Such a view of government was alien to the mind 
 of Charles. He was himself, he held, the sun of 
 the constitutional system. Parliament was but one of 
 the many planets revolving round his throne. Against 
 this view of the case Pym's report was a decided Report of 
 protest. Parhaments, he ominously said, ' have enacted mutee.™" 
 laws for the trial of heretics.' The two Convocations 
 were but Provincial Synods. ' The High Commission 
 derived its authority from Parhament, and the deriva- 
 
 1 Pym is frequently spoken of as a statesman for whom religious 
 questions had only a secondary interest. I believe this view of his cha- 
 racter to be incompatible with his course in these early Parliaments. 
 See especially his speech in the Parliament of 1 631. 
 
54 THE SESSION OF 1629. 
 
 CHAP, tive could not prejudice the original.' What Pym had 
 said on the religious question was said by Eliot on the 
 
 ^ ^^' temporal question. " I find," he declared upon the 
 Eliot "on "^ reading of a petition from Chambers, " the Judges-, the 
 petition. ' Couucil, Sheriffs, Customers, the Attorney and all con- 
 spire to trample on the liberty of the subjects." 
 Chambers, however, ought to take a legal course that it 
 might be known who were the ministers who had 
 declined to do their duty. Eliot, in short, refused to 
 acknowledge tliat even the Judges could be the final 
 arbitrators of the constitution. King and Parliament 
 together were the highest authority ; and there can be 
 no doubt that in his own mind he believed that the 
 authority of King and Parliament ought to be exercised 
 in accordance with the decision of the House of 
 Commons. 
 Eliot's''^' ^^ spi^^ of renewed protests from Secretary Coke, 
 rc%'ion°" *^® Housc Went into Committee on Pym's report. The 
 tone of the whole debate was given by a great speech 
 from Ehot.^ He began by warning the House of the 
 danger of turning its debates into a theological con- 
 Truthtobe fereucc. "I presume. Sir," he said, "it is not the 
 
 maintained. . . it • • 
 
 intention we now have to dispute the religion we 
 profess. After so long a radiance and sunshine of the 
 Gospel, it is not for us to draw it into question. The 
 Gospel is that truth which from all antiquity is derived, 
 that pure truth which admits no mixture or corrup- 
 tion, that truth in which this kingdom has been happy 
 through a long and rare prosperity. This ground, 
 therefore, let us lay for the foundation of our building, 
 
 • Mr. Forster (Sir J. JEliot, ii. 210) gives the speech from Eliot's own 
 MS. and follows the Parliamentary History in assigning it to an earlier 
 day. Lord Veriilam's MS. gives it to the 25th, and explains the allusion 
 to Eliot' 9 countryman, as referring to Rouse, not to Ooryton, as Mr. 
 Forster supposed. Nicholas, however, gives the 29th, and his shorthand 
 notes must be accepted as conclusive on a question of this kind. 
 
ELIOT'S SPEECH ON RELIGION. 55 
 
 that that truth, not with words but with actions, we 
 will maintain. Sir, the sense in which our Church still 
 receives that truth is contained in the Articles. There 
 shall we find that which the acts of Parliament have 
 established against all the practice of our adversaries. 
 Not that it is the truth because confirmed by Parliament, 
 but confirmed by Parliament because it is the truth." 
 
 Then, aiming not, like Kirton, at imaginary ambi- The King's 
 tions, he pointed fearlessly to the root of the mischief : tion. 
 " Among the many causes of the envy we have con- 
 tracted," he said, " there is none comes with a fuller 
 face of danger to my thoughts than the late Decla- 
 ration that was published in the name and title of his 
 Majesty." It could not, he continued, have really pro- 
 ceeded from the King, or it must have been won from 
 him by misinformation. " I will so believe it," he cried, 
 " of this Declaration — by which more danger is por- 
 tended than in all that has been before. For by the rest, 
 in all other particulars of our fears concerning Popery or 
 Arminianism, we are endangered by degrees ; the evils 
 approaching by gradation, one seeming as a preparation 
 to another ; but in this, like an inundation, they break 
 on us with such impetuous violence that, leaving art and 
 circumstance, they threaten at once to overwhelm us by 
 plain force. For, I beseech you, mark it. The Articles 
 contain the grounds of our religion ; but the letter of 
 those Articles, as the Declaration doth confess, implies 
 a doubtful sense, of which the application makes the 
 difierence between us and our adversaries ; and now 
 the interpretation is referred to the judgment of the 
 prelates who have, by this Declaration, the concession 
 of a power to do anything for the maintenance or 
 overthrow of the truth. The truth, as I said, being 
 contained in the Articles, and they having a double 
 sense, upon which the differences arise, it is in the 
 
56 THE SESSION OF 1629. 
 
 1629. 
 
 Jan. 29. 
 
 CHAP, prelates now to order it which way they please, and so, 
 for aught I know, to bring in Popery or Arminianism, 
 to, which we are told, we must submit. Is it a light 
 thing to have canons of religion rest in the discretion 
 of these men ? Should the rules and principles of our 
 faith be squared by their affections ?" Some of the 
 Bishops, it was true, might ' be fathers to all ages.' 
 "But," continued the orator, "they are not all such, I fear. 
 Witness those two, complained of in the last Remons- 
 trance we exhibited. Doctors Laud and Neile ; and you 
 know what place they have ! Witness, likewise Montague, 
 so newly now preferred. I reverence the order, though 
 I honour not the man. Others may be named, too, of 
 the same bark and leaven, to whose judgments if 
 our rehgion were committed, it might easily be dis- 
 cerned what resolutions they would give ; whereof 
 even the procuring of this reference, this manifesto, to 
 be made, is a perfect demonstration." 
 Meaning of Eliot had singled out the true rock of offence, 
 ence be- Betwecu the controversiahsts, whom Charles had 
 anrhisop- hopcd to silcncc, there was a difference not to be 
 ponents. measured by words or terms. It was a difference 
 reaching deep down into the moral and spiritual basis 
 upon which all conceptions of theology rest, a difference 
 of habit of mind and religious instinct. To Eliot and 
 to such as Eliot, the helps and assistances to faith upon 
 which Cosin dwelt so lovingly only served to distract 
 the mind from the contemplation of the great Task- 
 master in whose eye they lived, even if they did not 
 threaten to occupy His place. To them even the hard 
 Calvinistic dogmatism, so repulsive in the pages of 
 Prynne, was fuU of a precious and tender reality. 
 Through it they entered into the sweet contemplation 
 of a ruling Personality, who had raised them from 
 the dust, and who guarded them from the sin which so 
 
ELIOT S SPEECH ON RELIGION. 57 
 
 easily beset them. To the harder, sterner features of chap. 
 that creed they closed their eyes. • — r^ — ■ 
 
 Where then was the remedy? It is easy for us to ^ ^^' 
 
 , *' ** , Jan. 29. 
 
 say that it was to be found in liberty, in the permission where was 
 to each new thought to develope itself as best it might, remedy ? 
 But the very notion of religious liberty was as yet un- 
 heard of, and even if it had been as familiar as it is 
 now, its bare proclamation would have been of little 
 avail. Bishops, it seemed, of the stamp of Laud and 
 Montague were to rule the Church, to exercise the 
 enormous powers of the Episcopate and of the High 
 Commission to depress one mode of thought and to 
 elevate another. All the patronage of the Court, all 
 the patronage of the Bishops, would flow in one direc- 
 tion. The ideas of a minority of religious men would 
 prevail by other means than their own persuasiveness. 
 The rehgion dear to the gentlemen of England was 
 thrown on the defensive, and the House of Commons 
 was not inclined to abandon it without a struggle. 
 . Ehot refused to allow that his faith was a matter Religion to 
 
 /. , -r CI n -I ' 1 51 be defended 
 
 tor argument. •' bome 01 our adversaries, you know, by Pariia- 
 he said, " are masters of forms and ceremonies. Well, ""^"^ ' 
 I would grant to their honour even the admission at 
 our worship of some of those great idols which they 
 worship. There is a ceremony used in the Eastern 
 Churches of standing at the repetition of the Creed to 
 testify their purpose to maintain it, and as some had it, 
 not only with their bodies upright, but with their swords 
 drawn. Give me leave to call that a custom very 
 commendable. It signified the constancy and readiness 
 of their resolution to live and die in that profession ; and 
 that resolution I hope we have with as much constancy 
 assumed, and on all occasions shall as faithfully dis- 
 charge, not valuing our hves where the adventure may 
 be necessary, for the defence of our Sovereign, for 
 
58 
 
 THE SESSION OF 1629. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 II. 
 
 1629. 
 
 Jan. 29. 
 
 Eliot's con- 
 clusion. 
 
 Position 
 taken by 
 the House. 
 
 Resolution 
 of the Com- 
 mons. 
 
 the defence of our country, for the defence of our 
 religion." 
 
 " I desire," said Eliot, in conclusion, " that we may 
 avoid confusion and distraction ; that we may go 
 presently to the grounds of our rehgion, and lay that 
 down as a rule. Then, when that is done, it wUl be 
 time to take into consideration the breakers and 
 offenders against this rule, and before we have done 
 that, our work will be in vain. Therefore, first lay 
 down the profession wherein we differ from the 
 Arminians, and in that I shall be ready to deliver my 
 opinion." 
 
 It was the inevitable consequence of the failure of 
 Charles to stand forth as the representative of the 
 nation, that the House of Commons should thrust 
 itself into a position which it could not with credit 
 occupy. Because Charles treated the religion of the 
 nation as a matter with which the nation had no con- 
 cern whatever, therefore the Commons attempted to 
 define the doctrine of the nation and to inflict penalties 
 upon those who refused to accept it. Eliot and Pym 
 said in effect, " We will not allow the religion of England 
 to be changed." To carry out their purpose they were 
 forced much against their will to convert the House of 
 Commons into a school of theology one day, as they 
 would have to convert it into a school of law on 
 the next. At one time the Bishops, at another time 
 the Judges, would be called to account before a 
 body which had never studied profoundly the subjects 
 with which Bishops and Judges were respectively con- 
 versant. 
 
 The House shrunk from the uncongenial path 
 which it was called on to enter. It was not till after 
 many suggestions had been made, that the following 
 Resolution was finally adopted : — 
 
THE RESOLUTION ON RELIGION. 59 
 
 " We the Commons now in Parliament assembled chap. 
 do claim, profess, and avow for truth the sense of the - — 7 — - 
 Articles of Eeligion which were established in Parha- j^ „ 
 ment in the reign of our late Queen EUzabeth, which 
 by pubhc act of the Church of England, and by the 
 general and concurrent exposition of the writers of our 
 Church, have been dehvered to us, and we do reject 
 the sense of the Jesuits and Arminians." 
 
 Like many other celebrated Parliamentary docu- Jan. 31. 
 ments, this famous Eesolution was by no means a model douS.'"^ 
 of precision. The clause about the Parliamentary 
 title of the Articles, which had been suggested by 
 Selden, was evidently intended to deny the claim of 
 Convocation to legislate even in rehgious matters. But 
 nothing of the kind was said, and the rest of the docu- 
 ment was still more indefinite. When the Committee 
 met two days afterwards, even friendly criticism pro- 
 fessed that it was impossible to understand what was 
 really meant by the Besolution.^ What, for instance, 
 were the public acts of the Church to what it appealed ? 
 According to Sir Nathaniel Eich, they were the 
 Catechisms, the Lambeth Articles, the Irish Articles, the 
 Acts of the Synod of Dort which had been approved 
 by King James, the readings of professors in the Uni- 
 versities, the Homilies, and all other books of divines 
 printed by authority. To this portentous Hst the law- 
 yers demurred. Nothing, said Selden, could be called 
 a public act of the Church which had not received the 
 assent of Convocation. Serjeant Hoskins refused to 
 give the title even to acts of Convocation. "That 
 only," he argued, "is said to be a pubhc act which is 
 considered of, debated, disputed, and resolved on by 
 the Zing and all the State." 
 
 Was Convocation or Parliament to lay down the 
 
 '■ This debate is only to be found in Nicholases Notes. 
 
6o 
 
 THE SESSION OF 1629. 
 
 CHAP, rule of faith for England ? Practically the Bishops were 
 supreme in Convocation, and, as every one knew, the 
 
 p,^^ ^' Bishops owed their appointment to the King. How- 
 The Com- ever much the Commons might shrink from avowing it, 
 
 nions feel it ° ... 
 
 necessary thcv had to ask thcmselves whether their religion was 
 
 their con- safe in Charles's hands. The House at least felt it 
 
 necessary to explain their conduct in interrupting the 
 
 progress of the Bill of Tonnage and Poundage. Charles 
 
 restrained his vexation, but not without showing signs 
 
 rT.J^r.3-, of irritation beneath his friendly words. lie was 
 
 The King's t ■, ,. . . 
 
 reply. thankful to the House, he said, for their confidence in 
 his good intentions, but they must think that he 
 either wanted power, which could not be, or that he 
 was very ill counselled, if rehgion was in such danger 
 as they affirmed. Ehot, at least, was not afraid of 
 drawing the inference. "If these things be thus 
 as we see," he said, " then he is not rightly coun- 
 selled." 
 
 Eliot pro- ^g goon as Pym had once more taken the chair in 
 
 poses to .... 
 
 take the ag- the Committee on Kelisdon, Ehot rose again. The re- 
 suit of the last meeting had not been satisfactory. The 
 Committee had been unable to discover with certainty 
 what were' those pubhc acts to which so solemn an 
 appeal had been made. Eliot now proposed to drop 
 the investigation. Whether the Lambeth Articles had 
 been formally accepted by the Church or not, they all 
 believed them to be true. Let them, therefore, boldly 
 rely upon that. " Are there Arminians ? — for so are they 
 properly called — Look to those : see to what a degree 
 they creep ; let us observe their books and sermons ; let 
 us strike at them, and make our charge at them, and 
 vindicate our truth that yet seems obscure, and if any 
 justify themselves in their new opinions, let us deal 
 with them, and these testimonies will be needful. Our 
 truth is clear, our proofs will be manifest, and if these 
 
 gressivc. 
 
ELIOT'S AGGRESSIVE PROPOSAL. 6 1 
 
 parties will dare to defend themselves, then seek for chap. 
 proofs."^ ' — A — • 
 
 It is impossible to deny that Eliot's proposal could ^ ^^' 
 only be justified by the arguments which may be used Character 
 to justify a revolution. The mere assent of the House proposal. 
 of Commons to certain doctrinal propositions which 
 had never been legally binding upon any one was to be 
 made the touchstone of orthodoxy. Unpopular theo- 
 logians were to be summoned to give account of their 
 actions and opinions before a tribunal which recognised 
 no fixed legal procedure, and which would decide 
 according to the popular instinct rather than according to 
 any certain rule of law. It was perhaps inevitable that 
 it should be so. The King's claim to rule as seemed 
 right in his own eyes without taking the national con- 
 science into account was met by the claim of the House 
 of Commons to rule as seemed right in its own eyes 
 without taking the rights of individual conscience into 
 account. The time would come when it would be 
 understood that liberty of speech and action is all that 
 either a majority or a minority can fairly claim. But 
 that time had not yet arrived. The Declaration on 
 Eeligion nominally imposed silence on both parties alike. 
 Practically it imposed silence on those to whom the 
 Calvinistic doctrines were precious, not upon those who 
 cared far more about other doctrines on which they 
 were at hberty to talk as much as they pleased. The 
 restraint upon freedom which the Declaration un- 
 doubtedly was, was therefore answered by an attack 
 upon the men from whom the restraint proceeded. 
 
 As usual, Charles had studied the letter rather than 
 the spirit of history. It was undoubtedly true that 
 
 1 This debate I take from Lord Verulam's MS. and Nicholas. The 
 Pari. Skt. (ii. 457) is confused, giving speeches really delivered on the 
 following day. 
 
62 THE SESSION OF 1629. 
 
 CHAP, religious changes had been effected by the authority 
 - — ^ — • of Kings. It was undoubtedly true that Henry and 
 ^ ^5" Elizabeth had made use of the Bishops in Convocation 
 Position 'of and out of Convocation with scant respect for any 
 objections which might reach them from the House of 
 . Commons. But they had allowed it to be plainly seen 
 that they were not wedded to any particular Church 
 party. They took their stand as moderators above all. 
 Charles could not do this. What he believed he 
 believed thoroughly. He had no notion of watching 
 the tides to gain the port which he had in sight. He 
 had honestly believed his Declaration to be a heal- 
 ing measure, and it was perfectly incomprehensible to 
 him how men, except from factious motives, could lash 
 themselves into a fury against it. 
 Eliot's pro- The adoption of Eliot's proposal by the House 
 posa a op ^i^gj.gi'Qj.g meant nothing less than a declaration of war 
 against the King. The House was ready to follow him. 
 It resolved to make enquiry into the pardons lately 
 granted, and more especially to take up once more the 
 charges against Montague. Addresses and remons- 
 trances to the King had comg to an end. They were 
 to give place to sharp action against the men who 
 owed to the King's favour their power to do good or evil. 
 w^Mon- The appointment of Montague to a Bishopric had 
 
 leSiiv a b^^'^ '^^'^ ^^ Charles's most indiscreet actions. In the 
 Bisiiop? House of Commons it was felt most bitterly. What, 
 Seymour had argued in the late debates, was the use 
 of suppressing a book, if its author was made a Bishop ? 
 The House caught eagerly at a suggestion that, after all, 
 he was not legally a Bishop. One Jones, a bookbinder, 
 had declared in a petition that at Montague's confirma- 
 tion he had presented objections which had been passed 
 over as irregular in form, and though the Solicitor 
 General explained that the confirmation nevertheless 
 
CEREMONIALISM AT DURHAM. 63 
 
 was perfectly legal, it was resolved that the question chap. 
 should be argued at the bar. • — ^^ — - 
 
 The quarrel of the Commons with Montague was a ^^^^' 
 quarrel about doctrine. Their quarrel with Cosin was 
 a quarrel about ceremonies. Since the publication of 
 his Book of Devotions, Cosin had been involved in 
 charges on which he would hardly receive a fair 
 hearing from the House of Commons. During the The cere- 
 last summer the old Norman pile which looked down Durham, 
 from its green height upon the then limpid waters of 
 the Wear had been the scene of religious strife. Dur- 
 ham Cathedral had remained longer than most other 
 Cathedrals in the state in which a Puritan would have 
 wished to see it. It was not so very long ago that the 
 Communion-table and the Font had stood one on each 
 side of the North door which leads into the choir. Before 
 James I. died the hand of the reformer had come. The 
 font was moved first into the nave, then into the gahlee, 
 the Lady Chapel as it had been of old days, the only 
 Lady Chapel in England which stood at the West end 
 of a church, whither it had been driven, as local legends 
 told, by the persistent refusal of St. Cuthbert to sur- 
 render a site which he had already occupied. The 
 Communion-table was altogether removed, and a new 
 table of stone, supported on marble pillars and adorned 
 with figures of cherubim, was erected in the place were 
 the altar had originally stood, and where the very same 
 table stands somewhat mutilated at the present day. 
 The services assumed a statelier form. The congrega- 
 tion were bidden to stand up at the recital of the 
 Nicene Creed, which was now sung to the music of an 
 organ and of other instruments. Old copes, according to 
 the directions of the Canons of 1604, were sought out 
 and refurbished for the use of the officiating ministers. 
 The custom of bowing towards the East on entering 
 
64 THE SESSION OF 1629. 
 
 CHAP, the Chiirch, which had been prescribed by ancient 
 
 1628. 
 
 statutes, was revived, and two large candlesticks appeared 
 upon the Communion-table, though they do not seem 
 to have been lighted except when it was dark. 
 
 1628. Such things could not be done without awakening 
 
 July 37. . . % T . . „ , , . .° 
 
 Smart's oppositiou, and that opposition lound a mouthpiece m 
 sermon. ^^^ ^^ ^^^ prebendaries of the Cathedral, Peter Smart. 
 For seven years he abstained from preaching in 
 a Church which he held to be contaminated by 
 these innovations. His subsequent history shews 
 him to have been an inaccurate, if not a consciously 
 mendacious, reporter of things which had passed before 
 his eyes. On July 27, 1628,^ he resolved to ascend the 
 Cathedral pulpit to bear testimony against the changes 
 which he disliked. It may be that the Remonstrance 
 of the Commons filled his mind with zeal, as it had 
 filled the disordered mind of Felton. His sermon was 
 a bitter invective against his colleagues. He charged 
 them with attempting to revive and raise up again 
 Jewish types and figures long since dead and buried, in 
 bringing in altars instead of tables, priests instead of 
 ministers, propitiatory sacrifices instead of sacraments. 
 In all this, he added, they had but copied ' that painted 
 harlot, the Church of Eome.' In short, they were 
 bent on introducing the Mass into the midst of an 
 English congregation. 
 ^ July 27. Smart was at once convented before the Ecclesi- 
 
 against astical Commissiouers for the Province of York. He 
 appealed to the secular Courts. At the summer assizes 
 he preferred an indictment against the principal 
 prebendaries for their conduct relating to the Com- 
 munion-table, standing at the Nicene Creed, and other 
 
 ' The edition of his sermon printed in 1640, gives July 7, instead of 
 ■ the true date, as appears from the Act of the Ecclesiastical Oommissiouers. 
 Sue An lllvMration of Ned's Hist, of the Puritans, Durham, 1736, 
 
 Smart. 
 
Jan. 29. 
 
 ACCUSATION AGAINST COSIN. 65 
 
 ceremonies of the Church. Whitelocke, the Judge on chap. 
 Ckcuit, had taken care in the new chapel at his own ' — ^'T"' 
 house at Fawley, to place the Communion-table by 
 the side of the pulpit.^ But he seems to have thought, 
 as many others thought, that a Cathedral was not to 
 be bound by the regulations which were fitted for a 
 parish Church. He allowed himself to be conducted 
 over the Cathedral, expressed his approval of all that 
 he saw, and refused Smart's application. Upon this the Sept. 20. 
 Dean and Chapter sequestered Smart's prebend for an 
 offence ' against good manners, Christian charity, and the 
 statutes of the Church of Durham.' In the following 1629. 
 January he was transmitted to the High Commission 
 Court of the Province of Canterbury, where his judges 
 would at least be so far impartial that they would not 
 feel personally aggrieved by his sermon.^ 
 
 Amongst the Durham prebendaries Cosin was the 1628. 
 most active and influential. In the preceding spring cosin'sc'on- 
 he had been present at a conversation which turned Ib^ut th° 
 upon the right of excommunication. Cosin maintained pre^^acy."" 
 that the clergy held it directly from Christ. A certain 
 Mr. Pleasance, who was present, was of a diflferent 
 opinion. " You have it," he said, " from the King. He 
 can excommunicate as well as you." " The exercise 
 of it indeed," replied Cosin, " is under the King. But 
 the power is derived from Christ and by virtue of 
 Holy Orders." The discourse then took a wider turn. 
 " How," said Pleasance, " can the King be said to be 
 Head of the Church ? " " Who says it now ? " was 
 Cosin's reply. The title, he explained, though capable 
 of innocent interpretation, was liable to be misunder- 
 stood. It had been dropped by Queen Elizabeth,^ 
 
 ' This appears from Lord Bute's MS. of Whitelocke's Memoriak. 
 "^ Illustration of Neal, 47-58. The Dean and Chapter to Neile, Aug, 
 23. S. P. Bom., cxiii. 65. 
 
 ' See, however, Coke's argument on the other side, 4 Inst. cap. 74. 
 
 VOL. I. *' 
 
66 
 
 THE SESSION OF 1629. 
 
 CHAP. 
 II. 
 
 1628. 
 
 April. 
 
 Nov. 
 Charpje 
 ngainst 
 Cosin. 
 
 1629. 
 Feb. 4. 
 
 The par- 
 dons for 
 Mortngue 
 and others. 
 
 and had ceased to be binding upon any one. It was 
 enough to say that the King was ' supreme governor of 
 Church and State,' and that he might by his ' power 
 of supreme dominion command churchmen at any time 
 to do their office, or punish thera for neglect of it . . . 
 External co-action. . . . whereby men were forced 
 to obey the jurisdiction of the Church was only from 
 the King ; but the power of spiritual jurisdiction itself 
 was from Christ, who had given it to his Apostles, and 
 they to their successors by ordination.' 
 
 Such a conversation, after passing over the tongues 
 of a few gossiping reporters, was easily converted into 
 an attack upon the Eoyal Supremacy. Tlie attention 
 of the Attorney General was called to it by one of 
 Smart's friends.^ Charles was not likely to pay atten- 
 tion to such a charge against such a man; and another 
 of Smart's friends, thinking that he would find a more 
 favourable hearing in the House of Commons, drew up a 
 petition full of charges against Cosin, some of them perhaps 
 true, some of them afterwards proved to be entirely false. 
 
 Before any enquiry could be made into the truth of 
 the petition, Phelips, who had been sent to ask the 
 Attorney General by whose authority he had drawn 
 the obnoxious pardons, returned with the answer. 
 Heath explained that he had drav^n Montague's pardon 
 by his Majesty's express command. The order for 
 preparing the pardons for Sibthorpe, Manwaring and 
 Cosin, had been conveyed to him by Bishop Neile.^ 
 The House ordered that a sifting enquiry should be 
 instituted into the history of these pardons, and into 
 the reasons why the charges brought against Cosin had 
 
 • Oosin to Laud, Nov. 22. S. P. Bom., cxxi. 33. 
 
 ' The Bishop of Ohichester is the name given in Lord Verulam's MS. 
 Nicholas is surely right in giving that of the Bishop of Winchester, whose 
 connection with the aiFair is referred to in a subsequent speech of 
 Eliot's. 
 
WHAT IS THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH? 67 
 
 been allowed to sleep. Cosin himself was ordered to chap. 
 appear on the 23rd. The House, it seemed, was more - — ^ — - 
 jealous of the King's honour than he was himself. Feb^^ 
 
 In one form or another, the vital question, whether 9"^*'f? 
 Parliament or Convocation were the supreme legisla- autborityof 
 
 ^ '-' the Church. 
 
 tors m religious matters was constantly recurring. 
 
 It was suggested that the Articles as usually printed ^^"^^^ f- 
 
 differed in one important clause from the Articles as ^'J™^''^^" 
 
 mentioned in the Act of Parliament of i S 7 1 » from upon t^e 
 
 Articles. 
 
 which, according to the contention of the House of 
 Commons, the Articles derived their binding force. 
 The twentieth Article now contained a clause asserting 
 that " The Church hath power to decree rites and 
 ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith," 
 Such a clause might easily be quoted in support of the 
 pretensions of Convocation. It had been absent from 
 the printed book acknowledged by Parliament in 1 5 7 1 . 
 " By adding these two lines," it was said of the existing 
 addition, " it gives power to alter rehgion."^ 
 
 In all probabiUty the clause in question had been History of 
 
 If A • 1 T 1 .the Clause 
 
 added by Elizabeth after the Articles passed through in dispute. 
 Convocation in 1562, though the alteration had been 
 tacitly accepted by the clergy. For some time editions 
 of the Articles accepted or omitted the clause at plea- 
 sure. In the edition acknowledged by Parliament in 
 1 5 7 1 it was not to be found. In the same year it 
 was adopted by Convocation ; and though for a few 
 years longer the practice of the printers continued to 
 vary, it had found a place in every edition subsequent 
 to 158 1. Till the question arose between Parliament 
 and Convocation in 1629, no practical importance had 
 attached itself either to its adoption or its omission.''^ 
 
 ' Nicholas's Notes. 
 
 = Hardwick, Hist, of the Articles, 143. Cardwell, Synoddia, i. 34, 
 
 53- 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 THE SESSION OF 1 629. 
 
 CHAP. 
 II. 
 
 1629. 
 
 Feb. 6. 
 Attack 
 upon 
 Heath. 
 
 Feb. 9. 
 
 The ques- 
 tion of Mon- 
 tague's con- 
 firmation. 
 
 Feb. 7. 
 CJiarffea 
 n£:aiDst 
 Neile. 
 
 The question of authority reached too far to h'e 
 settled without a struggle. Unhappily, its existence 
 jaundiced the minds of those who felt strongly 
 on one side of the conflict. The simple question 
 of Cosin's very innocent conversation about the Eoyal 
 Supremacy assumed portentous dimensions in Eliot's 
 eyes. It was always a satisfaction to the men who 
 were opposing the King's claims to persuade them- 
 selves that they were in reality on his side, and 
 Eliot charged Heath with stifling a charge which 
 amounted to little less than high treason. Yet 
 Heath's account given to the House must have been 
 accepted as satisfactory, as no further proceedings 
 were taken in the matter. In the course of the de- 
 fence, however, he mentioned the name of the person 
 who had communicated to him the King's directions 
 that he should drop the prosecution, and Charles took 
 offence at this revelation of his secrets. It was only 
 after making very humble apologies indeed, that he 
 was restored to favour.^ 
 
 The attempt to prove that Montague was not a 
 Bishop failed as completely as the attempt to prove 
 that Cosin was a traitor. Counsel was heard in sup- 
 port of the objection which had been taken ; but an 
 argument of Sir Henry Marten satisfied the House 
 that it could not be sustained. 
 
 Great as was the eagerness of the Commons to 
 listen to charges against the men whom they disliked, 
 they had not ceased to be amenable to reason. At 
 last it was hoped that an unanswerable case had been 
 found. Sherfield, the member for Salisbiu-y, whose name 
 was a few years later to blaze forth into notoriety in a 
 Star Chamber prosecution, reported to the Committee 
 on Eeligion that Neile had caused the insertion in the 
 
 » Oontarini's Despatch, Feb. i|. Ven. MSS. 
 
CHARGES AGAINST NEILE. 69 
 
 pardons to Montague and the others of words, freeing chap. 
 them from the penalties for erroneous, unorthodox, ■ — ^^—^ 
 and false opinions;^ words which were doubtless '^^^" 
 simply intended to guard against accusations founded 
 upon the utterance of opinions which might be alleged 
 by Parliament to be erroneous, unorthodox, or false, 
 but which looked like a premeditated attempt to 
 encourage the promulgation of heretical doctrine. 
 Sir Daniel Norton followed by a still more telling 
 accusation. JSTeile, he said, had sent for Dr. Moore, 
 one of the Prebendaries of his Cathedral at Winches- 
 ter, and told him ' that he had oftentimes heard him 
 preach before King James, and that he had used to 
 preach against Popery.' " This," the Bishop was 
 alleged to have said, "was well liked of then, but now 
 you must not do so." " If occasion serves," Moore 
 had replied, " I will not spare to do the like again." 
 " The times," rejoined JSieile, " are not the same, and 
 therefore you must not do so." 
 
 What Neile in all probability had intended to say Neiie to be 
 was, that the King disapproval of the violent polemical ^™' ^°'^' 
 objurgations which too often took the plg,ce of moral 
 or religious instruction wliich ought to form the 
 staple of a preacher's work. But no such explanation 
 in favour of the Bishop who had been so busy in 
 obtaining the pardons was hkely to gain a hearing. 
 " In this Lord,"^ said Eliot, " is contracted all the 
 danger we fear ; for he that procured those pardons, 
 may be the author of these new opinions ; and I 
 doubt not but his Majesty, being informed thereof, 
 will leave him to the justice of the House, and. I hope 
 their exhalations will not raise jealousies between his 
 
 ^ Erronea8 opiniones vel minus ortliodoxas, doctrinas falsas, earumque 
 publicationes, scandalize dicta, male gesta. Nicholas's Notet. 
 ^ Not " Laud," as in the Pari. Hist. 
 
70 
 
 THE SESSION OF 1629. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 II. 
 
 Let the Doctor be sent for, to jua- 
 
 1622. 
 
 Feb. II. 
 Selden's 
 position. 
 
 Majesty and us. 
 tify it." 
 
 The power to silence opponents was the real object 
 in dispute. Hitherto the Commons had shown them- 
 selves far more inquisitorial than the Bishops. Yet 
 there was one voice amongst them which was raised 
 in favour of liberty. Selden's unenthusiastic nature 
 and wide learning had made him utterly indiflferent to 
 the theological disputes with which the air resounded, 
 and he thought it very hard that any one should suffer 
 because he held one view or another on a speculative 
 question. He was no more born to be a martyr of 
 liberty than a martyr of orthodoxy. In his chambers 
 in the Temple he loved to pose his friends with 
 sudden questions, revealing his indifference to the 
 issues which seemed so momentous. On the whole, 
 he attached himself to the popular party. But his 
 object was not to seize upon power in order that it 
 might be turned against those who held it. Power 
 itself, he held, needed to be diminished. His friends 
 had, therefore, to resign themselves to listen to argu- 
 ments Avhich must have appeared to them to be the 
 merest quixotry, and which made it certain that if 
 ever, by some unexpected turn of the wheel of fortune, 
 they found themselves in the possession of authority, 
 they might count on Selden's opposition. In the last 
 session, he had startled the House by an opinion, that 
 no Englishman could legally be pressed into military 
 service. At the opening of this session he had declared, 
 with more applause, that the Star Chamber had no 
 legal right to cut off" ears. He now threw out a far 
 His opinion morc Startling suggestion. Certain printers presented 
 a petition, complaining that Laud's chaplain had refused 
 to license books which they described as orthodox, 
 whilst he had licensed books which they described as 
 
 on tlie li- 
 berty of 
 printing. 
 
SELDEN ON THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. -j i 
 
 * holding opinions of Arminianism and Popery,' and chap. 
 that the printers who had acted in defiance of this deci- — ii — 
 sion had been punished by the High Commission. To ^^^9- 
 this Selden rose. " There is no law," he said, " to 
 prevent the printing of any book in England, but only 
 a decree in the Star Chamber. Therefore that a man 
 should be fined, imprisoned, and his goods taken from 
 .him, is a great invasion of the liberty of the subject ; 
 and therefore, I desire that a law may be made on 
 this." Selden was before his time. The question was 
 referred to a select committee, and no more was heard 
 of it. If the Commons had taken any step at all 
 in the matter it would only have been to wrest from 
 their adversaries a power which they would gladly 
 have exercised themselves. 
 
 The debate which followed upon Neile's share in NeUeand 
 procuring the pardons is memorable for the first public again, 
 appearance of a man who was one day to have some- 
 thing to say upon liberty of conscience far more deter- 
 minately than Selden. 
 
 Oliver Cromwell was born at Huntington in 1 599. ouver 
 His father, Eobert, was a younger son of Sir Henry famujhii 
 Cromwell, the Golden Knight, whose splendour at *"^' 
 Hinchinbroke had been the subject of wonder to a past 
 generation. The family, hke so many others which 
 rose to historical fame in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries, had thriven by the dissolution of the monas- 
 teries. The old nunnery at Hinchinbroke had been 
 given by Thomas Cromwell to a young kinsman who 
 took the name of Cromwell in addition to, or in 
 exchange for, that of Williams which he inherited from 
 his father. Sir Richard Cromwell was fortunate Sir Richard 
 
 Oromwell. 
 
 enough to preserve the Kmg s favour after his patron s 
 fall. His descendants were not as prudent as himself, 
 and the prodigality of his son and grandson wasted estates 
 
72 THE SESSION OF 1 6 29. 
 
 CHAP, which had been suddenly acquired. When JameS 
 
 • — ^^ — ' arrived in England, the Golden Knight was dead. 
 
 l/"^' His son, Sir Oliver, the uncle of the future Lord 
 
 Feb. II. ' . . , , 
 
 The Golden Protector, welcomed his new Sovereign with that 
 Sir Oliver magnificence and prodigality which was the failing of 
 the family. Such vast expenditure could not be sup- 
 ported for ever, and in 1627, Sir Oliver Cromwell was 
 compelled to sell Hinchinbroke to Sidney Montague, a, 
 brother of the Earl of Manchester, and to retire to 
 Eamsey, where he end^d his days in such circumstances 
 as his reduced income would allow. 
 Robert Eobert Cromwell settled close by Hinchinbroke, at 
 
 the little town of Huntington. He had a younger 
 brother's portion, and a younger brother's encourage- 
 oiiver's meut to thrift. His son Oliver grew up connected, 
 through his uncle, with the chief families of the county, 
 and connected, through his place of residence, with the 
 townsmen, amongst whom his father occupied a leading 
 position. Educated at the free grammar-school of the 
 place, under Dr. Beard, and then passing to Cambridge 
 in 1616, he was probably recalled to Huntington by 
 his father's death in the following year, to take charge 
 of the land which Eobert Cromwell had owned, and to 
 oare with all the strength and tenderness of his nature 
 for his mother and his sisters. Early responsibility 
 developed his sterling qualities. A visit made to 
 London for the purpose of studying law, a study 
 without which, in that age, no gentleman's education 
 was complete, led, when he was only in his twenty- 
 His mar- secoud year, to a marriage with EHzabeth Bourchier, 
 ™^°' the gentle sharer of his anxieties and greatness, who 
 preserved the whiteness of her simplicity alike in the 
 modest house at Huntington and in the stately gal- 
 leries of Whitehall. It is generally believed that the 
 marriage was arranged by Oliver's aunt, the mother of 
 
YOUTH OF OLIVER CROMWELL. 73 
 
 Jolin Hampden. In the beginning of 1628, Ms fellow chap. 
 townsmen chose- him to represent them in the great 
 
 Parliament which was to claim the Petition of Eight. ^ ^^' 
 
 o Feb. II- 
 
 To be so chosen whilst still in his twenty-ninth year, is chosen 
 
 ,1 Till • • • -1 Memberfor 
 
 by those who had the most intimate acquaintance with Hunting- 
 his daily life, is the best possible testimony to his high 
 character. 
 
 Of the wild calumnies repeated of him in after years His moral 
 it is unnecessary to say a word.^ So far as it is possi- 
 ble to catch a glimpse of the human figure which they 
 surround, we see a youth endowed with a vigorous 
 frame and strong animal spirits, not unmindful of his 
 studies, mastering the difficulties of the Latin language, 
 so far at leastasto be able to converse init inlateryears, 
 though he did not satisfy the requirements of professed 
 scholars. It was the same with his other studies. 
 From mathematics, history, and law, he extracted just 
 as much as would be serviceable to him in his battle 
 with the world ; and it may perhaps be taken as the 
 residuum of a vast mass of scandal, that he loved his 
 jest, and was fond of outdoor exercise, sometimes 
 allowing his pursuit of amusement to interrupt his 
 severer, studies. On the whole, there was in him a 
 balance of the mental, the moral, and the physical 
 powers which must have rendered him a notable 
 example of the sound mind in the sound body, without 
 which but little can be accomplished in the world. 
 
 Not one man in a thousand who is possessed of a crisis in 
 sound mind and a sound body raises himself from 
 obscurity. Great achievements come but to those 
 who have learned to sacrifice themselves to the ideal 
 which flashes before the inner eye of conscience. To 
 some the wakening to higher aims and a nobler life 
 
 * They are collected, accompanied'by judicious reflections, in Sanford's 
 Studies of t fie Great Rebellion, 174. 
 
74 - THE SESSION OF 1629. 
 
 comes gradually and insensibly; to some it comes 
 with a painful struggle : but to none was the sense of 
 change so complete, and the struggle so intensified 
 as to the Puritan of the seventeenth century. It 
 may be that Cromwell's marriage and return to 
 Huntington may have awakened new thoughts in his 
 mind. The pleadings of his young wife may have 
 wound themselves round his heart, and the return to 
 the teaching of his schoolmaster. Dr. Beard, may have 
 influenced him deeply. The struggle was great in pro- 
 portion to the energy of his character. No mere resolu- 
 tion to improve would satisfy him. He learned to look 
 upon his old life as utterly vile in the sight of God and 
 man. " You know," he wrote, not many years after- 
 wards, " what my manner' of life hath been. Oh ! 
 I lived in and loved darkness, and hated light. I was 
 chief, the chief of sinners. This is true, I hatedgod- 
 liness, yet God had mercy on me."^ It is not necessary 
 to take these words literally. It is enough to believe 
 that his soul was crushed with a sense of sinfulness. 
 Dr. Beard, it may be suspected, had niuch to do with 
 strengthening him in this frame of mind. The book of 
 which he was the author, The Theatre of God's Judg- 
 ment displayed, is full of instances of immediate tem- 
 poral penalties inflicted on the breach of God's laws. 
 The higher spiritual penalty would be that upon which 
 Cromwell's mind would fix itself. But the feeling of 
 his own inabiUty to meet the requirements of the Judge 
 would be all the more intense for that. His strong 
 nature could find no nurture in dogmatic assertions 
 or in ceremonial devotion. He longed for purity of 
 heart, for reahty of life. What was he that he should 
 silence the voice of judgment, — of a judgment which 
 searched to the very depth of his being, pronouncing 
 
 ' Carhjle (ed. 1857), i. 80. 
 
CROMWELL'S FIRST SPEECH. 75 
 
 him unclean. We may well believe that long months of chap. 
 inward conflict harrowed his soul, a time of impaired 
 
 health, of strange visionary imaginations and of drear 9- 
 
 melancholy despondency. Then at last came light, as 
 it has come to so many others, in the beaming forth 
 from that Bible which he cherished, of the bright image 
 of the Eedeemer, of the Helper whose loving kindness 
 would purify his life and ennoble his aims. Cromwell's 
 misery lasted as long as he gazed with painful intro- 
 spection into himself ; it was hghtened as soon as he 
 forgot himself. Yet he ever held that the misery was 
 a necessary preliminary to the joy, " Wlao ever," he 
 assured his daughters, " tasted that the Lord is gracious, 
 without some sense of self, vanity, and badness ?" 
 
 There was no vanity in the course which Cromwell uiscon- 
 
 ■^ . duct m 
 
 took in Parliament. During the long session of 1628 Pariia- 
 
 ment. 
 
 he had remained silent. He was quite conscious that 
 he was not master of the burning oratory of Eliot, or 
 of the clear precision of Selden. The great lawyers 
 who bore the weight of the struggle for the Petition 
 needed no help from him. But as the battle changed 
 its ground, it must have gained in interest in his eyes. 
 The growing fondness for ceremonial observances was 
 to him a return to the dark ways of carnal ordinances. 
 But he watched it all in silence. At last a moment came 
 when he became aware that he was in possession of 
 the knowledge of a fact which might be of interest 
 to the House. When Sherfield had charged Neile His first 
 with originating the pardons, Cromwell remembered ^^^^"''' 
 that he had heard a story in Neile's disfavour from 
 Dr. Beard. It was an old story enough now. It 
 was the custom that on the Sunday after Easter, a 
 preacher should be selected to sum up and repeat the 
 main points of three other sermons which had been 
 preached before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen from a 
 pulpit in the open air in Spital Square. In some year 
 
Feb. n. 
 
 76 , THE SESSION OF 1 629. 
 
 CHAP, not later than 1617, the first aermons had been assigned 
 • — r^ — • to Dr. Alablaster. It became known that Beard, who was 
 ^^" appointed to recapitulate what he had said, intended to 
 contravert him as having preached ' tenets of Popery.' 
 Cromwell now told in a few plain words how Neile, 
 who as Bishop of Lincoln was at that time Beard's 
 diocesan, had sent for him, charging him ' not to preach 
 any doctrine contrary to that which Alablaster had 
 delivered.' Beard, however, had persisted in his 
 intention, had attacked Alablaster's opinions, and had 
 been reprimanded by Neile for his conduct.^ 
 
 We have no means of knowing what Alablaster's 
 arguments were ; and it is easy to understand that the 
 sight of one preacher ascending the pulpit to criticise 
 the opinions of another which he was expected to 
 condense would be regarded as unseemly by a Bishop 
 like Neile. The House was in no mood to examine 
 into details. Phelips quoted a Dr. Marshall, who had 
 been treated by Neile as Moore and Beard had been 
 treated. Stronger charges followed. Sir Eobert Crane 
 had heard from ' a very honest man, and a good divine' 
 that Cosin had been seen reading a book called The 
 Preparation for the Mass, during the administration of 
 the Communion. Mr. Waller, too, had heard that 
 Cosin had ordered a printer who was setting up the 
 type for an edition of the Prayer-book, to substitute 
 
 ' Nicholas, who took down the speeches in shor<>hand, gives the speech 
 thus: "Mr. Oromwell saith that Dr. Beard told him that one Dr. 
 Alablaster did at the Spital preach in a sennon tenets of Popery, 
 and Beard being to repeat the same, the now Bishop of Winton, then 
 Bishop of Lincoln, did send for Dr. Beard, and charge him, as his diocesan, 
 not to preach any doctrine contrary to that which Alablaster had de- 
 livered, and when Dr. Beard did, by the advice of Bishop Felton, preach 
 against Dr. Alablaster's sermon and person. Dr. Neile, now Bishop of 
 Winton, did reprehend him, the said Beard, for it." The remainder of 
 the speech, as printed from the Pari. Hist, by Oarlyle, referring to 
 Manwaring, and concluding, " If these are the steps to Church-prefer- 
 ment, what are we to expect," is taken from another speech by another 
 speaker on a different occasion. 
 
THE JESUITS' COLLEGE. 77 
 
 the word ' priest' for 'minister.' Marshall and Beard chap. 
 
 were sent for to give their evidence ; and a select — ^ — ' 
 
 committee was appointed ' to consider of those things ^^^^' 
 that have been already agitated concerning the inno- 
 vation of our religion, together with the cause of the 
 innovation and the remedy.' 
 
 Some time must elapse before all the witnesses could Feb. 13. 
 
 -r\ -»yr • n l it • Moore'stes- 
 
 appear. Dr. Moore arrived on the 1 3th. It was quite timony. 
 true, he said, that Neile had forbidden him to preach 
 against Popery. At Winchester Cathedral, since 
 NeUe's arrival, the Communion-table had been re- 
 moved to the place of the Altar. On it had been 
 placed ' two high candlesticks, which, they say, were 
 the same that were used at the marriage of Queen 
 Mary.' Then came a story which looks as if it was 
 but the repetition of the wildest gossip. ' Dr. Price 
 .... hath used at his house to have two napkins laid 
 across, which done, he himself maketh a low obeisance 
 to that cross, and causes his man to put at one end of 
 that cross a glass of sack, at another end a glass of 
 claret, at another a cup of beer, and in the midst a cup 
 of March beer.'^ 
 
 As this was all the evidence to be had for the pre- TheCoUege 
 
 , __ ... . . at Clerkeu- 
 
 sent, the House had time to turn its attention to the weu. 
 Eoman Catholics. Selden, who had no thought of 
 including them in his anticipations of liberty, com- 
 plained that of the ten priests seized in that College at 
 Clerk enwell, which had played such a curious part at 
 the opening of the last session, only one had been con- 
 demned. Sir Francis Davey said that only three had 
 even been tried, and that though two of these who were 
 acquitted, together with the seven who had not been 
 brought to trial, had refused to take the oath of alle- 
 giance, they had not been retained in prison on that 
 
 * Nicholais Notes. 
 
78 
 
 THE SESSION OF 1 629. 
 
 CHAP. 
 II. 
 
 1629. 
 Feb. 14. 
 
 The Com- 
 mons ac- 
 cusers, not 
 judges. 
 
 Tonnage 
 and Poun- 
 dage again. 
 
 score. The next day it came out that the condemned 
 priest had been reprieved by a warrant from Chief 
 Justice Hyde. The other nine persons had been 
 released on bail by an order conveyed from the King 
 by the Earl of Dorset. In the eyes of the House this 
 carefulness not to shed blood for religion's sake was 
 treason to Protestantism. Yet what could they do ? 
 They repeated in chorus that the King was innocent : 
 his ministers had done it all. It was very natural. 
 All the old hereditary respect for the monarchy, all 
 the consciousness of services rendered in the days of 
 their fathers, stood in the way of a rupture with the 
 King, if it could by any means be avoided. It would 
 be difficult to avoid it much longer. 
 
 After all, ready as the Commons had been to 
 welcome every suspicion against NeUe and Cosin, it 
 must not be forgotten that they were not judges, but 
 accusers. When the evidence was brought into shape^ 
 it would have to be carried before the Lords, and the 
 Lords would have to listen to the defence and to pro- 
 noimce judgment. 
 
 No House of Lords could intervene in the other 
 great question of the session. The enforced cessation 
 of the debates on religion till the witnesses appeared 
 gave time for the resumption of the debates on Ton- 
 nage and Poundage. A compromise was far less pro- 
 bable than it had been a fortnight before. Angry 
 feelings had arisen, and they were not likely to be 
 soothed by the knowledge that the possession of these 
 duties would enable the King to set the ecclesiastical 
 feeling of the House at defiance. Charles, on the other 
 hand, could not forget that for more than a century 
 the duties had been granted formally at the commence- 
 ment of every reign, and the attempt of the House 
 of Commons to convert this formal consent into a right 
 
TONNAGE AND POUNDAGE AGAIN. 79 
 
 of refusal must have seemed to Mm au unwarrantable 1629. 
 shifting of the balance of the Constitution ; much in the Feb. 14. 
 same way as we should regard an attempt of the Sove- 
 reign to exercise the right of veto upon Bills presented 
 by ParUament. 
 
 There was one circumstance, however, which it cannot 
 Charles had forgotten. Beyond the legal question, lay wMiout** 
 the question of the safety of property. If the Commons questi'ms of 
 gave way, they not merely conceded the right of jjyP^^ 
 levying an ascertained revenue, but of extracting from 
 commerce an undefined amount, which might entirely 
 ruin the trade of the kingdom. 
 
 The 1 2th had been fixed as the day on which the Feb 10. 
 discussion was to be resumed in a Committee of the provoca- 
 whole House. Before the day had arrived the feehng 
 on both sides was embittered by mutual provocation. 
 On the one hand, a sheriff of London had been sent by 
 the Commons to the Tower for giving unsatisfactory 
 answers about the seizure of the merchants' goods. 
 On the other hand, proceedings had been commenced 
 in the Star Chamber against some of the merchants, 
 apparently to punish them for the riotous manner in 
 which they had carried off these very goods.^ In the 
 course of these proceedings a subpoena was directed 
 to EoUe, commanding his attendance. 
 
 It was impossible to deny that a breach of privi- pfrthereu- 
 leee had been committed in summoning a member qu'ryde- 
 
 ^ manded. 
 
 during the actual session. The Attorney General 
 frankly acknowledged the mistake. But the House 
 was not satisfied. "We heard the King say," ob- 
 served Kirton, " he took not nor did claim the subsidy 
 of Tonnage and Poundage as his right ; and yet, by the 
 
 ' In Nicholas's Notes the information is said to have been for not pay- 
 ing the duties ; but the account given above seems the only way of ex- 
 plaining how the matter got into the Star Chamber. The non-payment 
 would be for the Exchequer Ooiu-t to pimiah if it chose to do so. 
 
8o 
 
 THE SESSION OF 1629, 
 
 CHAP. 
 II. 
 
 1629. 
 Feb. 12. 
 
 Eliot's lea- 
 dership 
 makes an 
 arrange- 
 ment im- 
 passible. 
 
 He advises 
 an attack 
 upon the 
 farmers of 
 the cus- 
 toms. 
 
 Noy's sug- 
 gestion. 
 
 information exhibited in the Star Chamber, we see his 
 ■ Majesty's ministers do proceed otherwise." It was 
 resolved to take these proceedings into consideration, 
 together with the grievances of the merchants. 
 
 It is most imHkely that, until the ecclesiastical 
 difficulties had been settled, any arrangement satisfac- 
 tory to both parties could have been made on this 
 question of Tonnage and Poundage. Under Eliot's 
 leadership no such arrangement was possible. Full of 
 enthusiasm for the supremacy of the House of Com- 
 mons, he reverted to his old tactics of calling the 
 King's ministers to account, whilst he treated the 
 King himself with the highest respect, a respect which 
 was doubtless altogether imfeigned. He could not see 
 that he was striking away all the supports of the Eoyal 
 authority, as it had established itself under the Tudor 
 Sovereigns, and that whether his course was to be 
 justified by precedents and reason or not, it was one to 
 which no Sovereign with the slightest feeling of self- 
 I'espect was hkely to submit. He now proposed to 
 dissociate the farmers of the customs from the King. He 
 argued that as these men had paid a certain sum into 
 the Exchequer for the right of levying the duties, the 
 Crown was not involved in the matter at all. If the 
 farmers failed to recoup themselves by levying duties, 
 it was upon them, and not upon the King, that the loss 
 would fall. Let the Barons of the Exchequer be told 
 that they had been misinformed. If they once knew 
 that the goods had been seized for the farmers, and not 
 for the King, the ground of their decision would be 
 taken away, and they would allow the replevins to 
 take their course. 
 
 Eliot's proposal to go round the difficulty was met 
 by an argument from Noy, that it would be better to 
 
 ' The fullest report is in Nicholas' t Notes. 
 the speech to the I ith. 
 
 The Pari. Hist, transfers 
 
NOY'S INTERVENTION. 8 1 
 
 meet it in the face. As he had attempted to mediate chap. 
 in the last session, he attempted to mediate now. He - — r^ — 
 began by stating his opinion that Tonnage and Pound- ^ ^^" 
 age was ' an aid and subsidy,' which ultimately fell 
 upon the whole body of the nation. They were the 
 greatest hinderers who sought to take it by force. It 
 would be necessary to rid themselves of the proceed- 
 ings in the Exchequer and in the Star Chamber, or the 
 King's claim would be confirmed by their silence. 
 The best way to do this would be to go on with the 
 grant, inserting in the Bill a clause declaring that all 
 judgments based on the King's claim to levy the duties 
 were void and of no effect. As soon as such a Bill was 
 drawn up, the King would doubtless restore the goods 
 which had been seized.-^ 
 
 Whatever chance there was of maintaining the right Seiden pro- 
 claimed by the House without a breach with the King sage to the 
 layintheprompt adoption of Noy's proposal. Unhappily Exchequer. 
 Seiden threw the weight of his authority on the other 
 side. It is possible that his constitutional timidity led 
 him to approve of the less direct mode of facing the 
 difficulty. Whatever his motive may have been, he 
 argued that what had been done had been the act of 
 the King's ministers, not of the King himself. Let a '^^^ ""^- 
 
 D ' d sage. 
 
 message be sent to the Barons of the Exchequer to 
 
 ' Nicholas's Notes. The feeling of the House was probably well ei- 
 pressed by Netbersole. " On Thursday last," he writes, " the matter of 
 Tonnage and Poundage was taken into consideration, and by what was 
 then said, it is easy to see that the House will give it to the King your 
 brother, without any diminution in point of profit, but not without a very 
 full acknowledgment and declaration of the right of the subject and 
 cessation of aU that hath been done to the prejudice thereof either by the 
 King your father or your brother." The question of impositions, in 
 short, was to be settled as well as that of Tonnage and Poundage. But 
 there was more behind. The writer adds that nothing had been dore 
 since ' nor wiU be much tUl religion be settled, whereon the hearts of all 
 the House are earnestly set.'— Nethersole to Elizabeth, Feb. 14. S. P. 
 Bom. cxxxv. 40. 
 
 VOL. I. G 
 
82 
 
 THE SESSION OF 1629. 
 
 CHAP. 
 II. 
 
 1629. 
 Feb. 14. 
 
 Feb. 14. 
 Beply of 
 the Court. 
 
 Feb. 19. 
 The CuB- 
 tom Honse 
 officers at 
 the Bar. 
 
 Question of 
 
 privilege 
 
 raised. 
 
 inform them that the goods in question had been seized 
 for Tonnage and Poundage. When they knew that, 
 they would doubtless alter their decree. Noy and other 
 members who agreed with him urged that it would be 
 better for the merchants to plead their own cause in the 
 Exchequer ; but the House refused to accept the sug- 
 gestion, and ordered that a message should be sent 
 drawing the attention of the Barons to the fact that 
 the goods seized had been seized for Tonnage and 
 Poundage.^ 
 
 As yet the House had not openly engaged in a con- 
 flict with the Courts of Law. But such a conflict was 
 perilously near. The Barons of the Exchequer were 
 not likely to submit to dictation from the Commons in 
 whatever words it might be veiled. They replied that 
 the attempt to recover the goods by replevin ' was no 
 lawful action.' If the owners considered themselves to 
 be wronged, they might ' take such order as the law 
 requireth.' 
 
 What answer could the Commons make.? They 
 appointed a Committee to search the records of the 
 Exchequer in the hope of convicting the Barons of 
 acting in defiance of their own precedents. In the 
 meanwhile Eliot's proposal of the 1 2th was adopted, and 
 the Custom House officers were summoned to the Bar. 
 
 When the officers appeared, the questions put to 
 them shewed that those who guided the deliberations 
 of the House had resolved to restrict the ground of 
 dispute to a question of privilege. They were asked 
 whether they had known EoUe to be a member of 
 Parhament when they seized his goods. The officer to 
 whom the question was put replied that he was not 
 aware that a member's goods as well as his person were 
 covered by the privilege, and May, who alone, with the 
 
 ' Nicholas's Notes, 
 
fYM'S WARNING. 83 
 
 feeble Coke, sustained the weight of the defence of the chap. 
 
 II 
 
 Government, declared that- it had never been heard ^.-,-^— 
 ' till this Parliament ' that a member ' should have his ^ ^^" 
 
 Feb. iQ. 
 
 goods privileged against the King, and he is not yet 
 satisfied that he ought.' Eliot urged the House simply 
 to discuss the question whether the officers were de- 
 linquents or not. The Commons were indeed in a great 
 strait. But voices were not wanting to urge them to 
 take some broader course. Those who objected to see 
 a great constitutional question narrowed to a mere 
 dispute over privilege had the weighty support of 
 Pym. " The liberties of this House," he said, " are Pym's ob- 
 inferior to the liberties of this kingdom. To deter- narrow the 
 mine the privilege of this House is but a mean matter, ^*''" "' 
 and the main end is to establish possession of the sub- 
 jects, and to take off the commission and records and 
 orders that are against us. This is the main business ; 
 and the way to sweeten the business with the King, and 
 to certify ourselves, is first to settle these things, and 
 then we may in good time proceed to vindicate our own 
 privileges." 
 
 In Pym's words was to be heard the prudence of pym-spro- 
 the great tactician of the Long Parliament. His skill ''^'^"''^" 
 was formed upon the truest perception of the condi- 
 tions of action. He felt instinctively that the great 
 cause of the subject's rights ought to be brought into 
 the foreground, and that the petty question of Eolle's 
 privilege, resting as it did on precedents not absolutely 
 certain, and involving an unfair advantage to members 
 of the House over other merchants, ought to be kept in 
 the background. 
 
 Once more Selden failed to rise to the height of the SeWen-s 
 argument. If a point of privilege was raised, he said, ''°"''^' 
 all other matters must give place. Sir Nathaniel Eich Rich's sug- 
 pointed out the risk into which Selden was bringing the ^*'"™' 
 
 a 2 
 
84 THE SESSION OF 1629. 
 
 1629. 
 
 Feb. 19. 
 
 CHAP. House. He asked whether it was true that a member of 
 Parharaent had privilege for his goods against the King. 
 " We have not used," he added, " when anything has 
 been done by the King's command, to the breach of a 
 privilege of this House, to fly on the officer that hath 
 put such commands in question ; but have by petition 
 gone to the King, and it hath ever succeeded well." 
 He suggested that the mode of proceeding should be 
 referred to a Committee. 
 Eliot will Eliot would not hear of such a suggestion. " Place 
 
 not accept . , . °° 
 
 't- your Uberty," he cried, " in what sphere you will, if it 
 
 be not to preserve the privileges of this House ; for if we 
 were not here to debate and right ourselves and the 
 kingdom in their liberties, where had all our liberty 
 been at this day ?" The course proposed by Pym, how- 
 ever, was not left unsupported, Digges and Seymour 
 spoke warmly for it. May thought that the time was 
 come to strike in for the King. " God forbid," he 
 said, " that the King's commands should be put for 
 delinquency. When that is done his crown is at 
 stake."^ Eliot turned aside from the main issue to wrap 
 himseK once more in the robes of privilege. " Mr. 
 Chancellor of the Duchy," he replied to May, " said we 
 were making a question of bringing the King's com- 
 mand for a delinquency. But the question is whether 
 an act done on pretence of the King's command, to the 
 breach of the privileges, be a delinquency or no. I have 
 heard the King cannot command a thing which tends 
 to the breach of Parliament privilege, and the Chan- 
 cellor of the Duchy said that if we did go about to 
 bring the King's commands for a dehnquency, the 
 King's crown was at stake, which if we should go 
 about were an act of the highest treason." May rose 
 
 ' " Actum est de imperio " in May's words, as in Eliot's and his own 
 second speech. 
 
THE COMMONS FOXLOW ELIOT. 85 
 
 to explain. He had accused no one, but if the officers chap. 
 were punished after justifying themselves on the King's ■ — ^ — - 
 command, the King might think that his crown was ^ ^^' 
 at stake, ' seeing he should be no more obeyed.'^ 
 
 May had touched the heart of the question. The importance 
 
 ^ J- of the ques- 
 
 question of responsibility was the question of sove- «<>" raised, 
 reignty. If that was decided against Charles a com- 
 plete revolution would have been effected in the 
 relations between the King and his subjects, as those 
 relations had been understood by four generations of 
 Englishmen. 
 
 The Commons shrank, as well they might, from Feb. 21. 
 
 „. , . APii- Decision of 
 
 lacmg so tremendous an issue. After two days 01 theCom- 
 further discussion the Committee came to a vote on 
 the restricted question of privilege. Their resolution 
 declared that a member of the House ought to have 
 privilege for his goods as well as for his person. Did 
 this mean, asked May, that he ought to have privilege 
 against the King. The Committee did its best to avoid 
 a reply. Many of the members expressed a conviction 
 that the goods had been seized without orders, till the 
 production of the King's warrants made the subterfuge 
 no longer possible. In the vote which was taken, the 
 King's name indeed was not mentioned, but it was re- 
 solved that EoUe was to have privilege for his goods.^ 
 
 It was impossible for Charles to keep silence any Feb. 22. 
 longer. The next day was Sunday, and, as usual, a intervenfs. 
 full Council was held in the afternoon The King 
 attended its meeting, and declared ' that what was 
 formerly done by his farmers and the officers of the 
 Customs was done by his own direction and command- 
 ment of his Privy Council, himself for the most part 
 
 1 
 
 Only from Nicholas's Notes do we learn the full importance of this 
 debate. Hitherto we have only had a fragment of it. 
 " Nicholas's Notes. 
 
86 THE SESSION OF 1629, 
 
 CHAP, being present in Council,' and if he had been at any 
 • — ^ — ' time from the Council Board, yet he was acquainted 
 with their doings, and gave full direction in it ; and 
 therefore could not in this sever the act of the officers 
 from his own act, neither could his officers suffer from 
 it without high dishonour to his Majesty.' To this 
 declaration the Council assented unanimously, and Sir 
 John Coke was ordered to inform the House of the 
 King's words.^ 
 Feb. 23. When the morning came, however. Coke did not at 
 
 Were the o ' ' 
 
 officers to first delivcr the message, waiting perhaps to see if the 
 ished." House might be inclined to extricate itself without the 
 intervention of the King. May pleaded hard for an 
 amicable solution. " We all agree," he said, " that a 
 wound is given, and there is oil and vinegar to put into 
 it. If we put in oil, we may cure it ; if vinegar, I know 
 not what may be the success. Think upon some course 
 to have restitution made."^ 
 
 Eliot waved the suggestion haughtily away. He 
 
 had confidence, he said, in the justice of the King. 
 
 Let them go to the delinquency of these men. It may 
 
 be that a murmur of applause shewed that Eliot had 
 
 Coke an- carried the Committee with him. At all events Coke 
 
 nouncesthe -iiii. ni/*i/^i p 
 
 King's dc- thought that the tnne was come tor the fulfilment of 
 his mission. " I must now," he said, " speak plain 
 English." The officers had acted by the King's com- 
 mand, and the step proposed to be taken against them 
 concerned him highly ' in point of government.' 
 He could not sacrifice his honour by giving way to the 
 distinctions which appeared to satisfy others. 
 
 It was now plain to the dullest understanding that 
 the House would have to deal with the King and not 
 with his officers. Charles would not follow the Tudor 
 
 ' Rushw. i. 659. 
 
 ^ So far from Nicholas ; what follows is from Lord Verulam's MS. 
 
 cision. 
 
ADJOUENMENT OF THE HOUSE. 87 
 
 habit of throwing over his ministers to escape respon- chap. 
 
 sibility. The House adjourned to the 25th to afford 
 
 time for consideration. ^ ^^* 
 
 If anything was needed to confirm Charles in his Feb. 24. 
 resolution, it must have been the knowledge that if he ludons oa 
 surrendered the Custom House officers he would next ^ "^'°°' 
 be called upon to surrender the Bishops. On the 26th 
 a Sub-committee completed the Eesolutions which were 
 to be submitted to the House on the religious diffi- 
 culty.^ 
 
 The [Resolutions repeated the grievances of which Grievances 
 
 recited. 
 
 complaints had been made in the debates. Popery 
 and Arminianism were spreading, Communion-tables 
 had been removed, to be set as altars at the Eastern 
 end of churches. Candlesticks had been placed on 
 them, and obeisance made towards them. Congre- 
 gations had been ordered to stand up at the singing of 
 the Gloria Patri, and women coming to be churched 
 had been compelled to wear veils. Then there was 
 the ' setting up of pictures and lights and images in 
 churches, praying towards the East, crossing' and other 
 objectionable gestures. The orthodox doctrine had 
 been suppressed, the doctrine which was supported by 
 the Prayer book, the HomiHes and Catechism, by 
 Jewel's writings, the public determination of divines, 
 the Lambeth articles, the Irish articles, and the reso- 
 lutions of the Synod of Dort, by the uniform consent 
 of writers whose works had been published by autho- 
 rity, and by the submission enjoined by the two Uni- 
 versities upon the opponents of the Lambeth articles. 
 Those who now opposed this orthodox doctrine had 
 
 ^ Pari. Hist. iii. 483. There is some difficulty about the date of 
 this. Lord "Verulam's MS. here becomes utterly confused, and other 
 MSS. give varying dates. T have followed JIa7-l. 4296. We know that 
 this Sub-committee was at work, and there is no reason to think that 
 the resolutions were ever accepted by the House. 
 
Feb. 24. 
 
 proposed. 
 
 88 THE SESSION OF 1629. 
 
 CHAP, been preferred to Bishoprics and Deaneries, and some 
 ■ '- — ' prelates, Neile and Laud in particular, had been taken 
 
 l^ht^ into special favour, and having gotten the chief admi- 
 nistration of ecclesiastical afiairs under his Majesty, 
 had discountenanced and hindered the preferment of 
 those that are orthodox, and favoured and preferred 
 such as are contrary. 
 Kemediea In the last ckuse lay, to modern ears, the real 
 
 weight of the Commons' case. The King's authority 
 was being used in a one-sided way to secure the undue 
 preponderance of unpopular opinions. The remedy 
 proposed was the old remedy of compulsory unifor- 
 mity. The laws were to be put in force against 
 ' Popish opinions ' and ' superstitious ceremonies.' 
 ' Severe punishment ' was to be inflicted on those who 
 should 'publish either by word or writing anything 
 contrary to orthodoxy.' The books of Montague and 
 Cosin were to be burnt, and ' authors and abettors 
 of those Popish and Arminian innovations,' to be 
 condignly punished. 'Good order' was to be taken 
 ' for licensing of books.' ' Bishoprics and other eccle- 
 siastical preferments ' were to be conferred only ' upon 
 pious, learned, and orthodox men.' Parliament was to 
 consider how means might be provided for maintaining 
 ' a godly and able minister in every parish church,' 
 and care was to be taken that the Ecclesiastical Com- 
 missioners might be men ' approved for integrity of 
 life and soundness of opinion.' 
 
 If the House should adopt these resolutions — and 
 there was shght probabihty that it would refuse to do 
 so — it would be but to little purpose to allay the strife 
 about the responsibility of officials. Of liberty and of 
 all the treasures which that word conveys there was no 
 thought in the minds of the members of the House of 
 Commons. The idea had not yet presented itself even 
 to the leaders. It would be the merest pedantry to 
 
ELIOT'S RESOLUTION. 89 
 
 blame them for not anticipating the thought of days to chap. 
 
 come. Only through suffering does any people enter 
 
 into rest. To strive ever forwards amidst bewildering ^ ^'^' 
 
 a Feb. 24. 
 
 entanglements and distracted wanderings from the 
 true path is the law of service, for a nation as truly 
 as for an individual. Happy is that nation which 
 keeps its courage high and its heart pure, that the eyes 
 of its understanding may in due time be enlight- 
 ened. 
 
 The day on which the House was to resume its Feb. 25. 
 debates, brought an order of the King commanding an to avert a 
 adjournment for another week. Charles fondly hoped '"^ ""' 
 that the Commons might be induced to reconsider their 
 position. His agents were busy with the leaders to 
 induce them to desist from their pretensions, in order 
 that, as he afterwards said, ' a better and more right 
 understanding might be begotten between him and 
 them.' ^ It could not be. In the Church the pohcy of 
 silence imposed on theological disputes and of permis- 
 sion to revert to older ceremonial practices, was met 
 by the policy of the absolute exclusion of opinions and 
 ceremonies to which the existing generation had ceased 
 to be accustomed. In the State, King and Commons 
 were striving for the mastery. 
 
 It is hardly likely that under any circumstances the Eiiot re- 
 breach could have been long averted. But the conflict pelftoX" 
 in its actual form was distinctly the work of Ehot. He "'"""''y- 
 now resolved to urge the House to appeal from the 
 King to the country. When the House met again it 
 would probably only meet to be re-adjourned, and Eliot 
 resolved to take advantage of the claim of the House 
 to adjourn itself in order to move a protest which might 
 go forth to the world before the dissolution which was 
 certain to foUow. 
 
 Of the leaders who had stood by his side in the 
 
 1 Farl. Hist. ii. 502. Oontariui's Despatch, March ^. * 
 
90 
 
 THE SESSION OF 162$. 
 
 CHAP. 
 II. 
 
 1629. 
 Feb. 25. 
 
 March 2. 
 The ad- 
 journment 
 resisted. 
 
 The right of 
 adjourn- 
 ment. 
 
 great struggle for the Petition of Eight, Seldea alone 
 supported him now. Pym had relapsed into silence 
 ever since the course which he had proposed had been 
 overborne by the torrent of Eliot's elog[uence. Phelips 
 and Littleton and Digges, and many another whose 
 voices had once been loud, took no part in his counsels. 
 But there was plenty of indignation amongst members 
 of less repute, and in these he found not a few who 
 were ready to assist him in carrying out his plan. 
 
 The first difficulty was to obtain a few minutes 
 before the Speaker left the chair, and arrangements 
 were accordingly made to resist the usual hurried 
 adjournment. 
 
 As was expected, when the morning of March 2 
 came, the Speaker, Sir John Finch, declared the King's 
 pleasure that the House should be adjourned to the 
 loth.^ He then put the formal question to which, 
 under such circumstances, a negative had never been 
 returned. Shouts of No ! No ! rose on every side. Eliot 
 rose, as if to speak to the question of adjournment. 
 Finch did his best to check him. He had, he said, an 
 absolute command from his Majesty instantly to leave 
 the chair if any one attempted to speak. 
 
 The question of the right of adjournment which was 
 thus brought to an issue was not beyond dispute. The 
 King had again and again directed adjournments. 
 
 1 There are ' three accounts of the proceedings of this day which 
 throw a much clearer light upon them than anything which has teen 
 hitherto published ; one in NiclioMa Notes, the others amongst the 
 State Papers, Bom. cxxxyiii. 6, 7. Excepting in the case of one or two 
 unimportant speeches the order in which everything occurred becomes 
 quite clear from the agreement of these authorities. Some valuable in- 
 formation is to be had from Lord Verulam's MS., of which this part was 
 published by Mr. Bruce in Archceologia, xxxviii. 237. Mr. Forster's 
 narrative is very incorrect, and the paper printed at p. 244 was cer- 
 tainly not the paper read by Eliot. Consequently the charges which he 
 brings against Heath of distorting facts are founded upon a very imper- 
 fect knowledge of the evidence. 
 
THE SPEAKER FORCED INTO THE CHAIR. 9 1 
 
 The Lords had always considered the command as chap. 
 binding. The Commons had been accustomed to ■ — ,^ — - 
 adjourn themselves in order to avoid the appearance of ^ ^^' 
 submission to the King's authority, though they had 
 never refused to comply with his wishes. 
 
 EUot had made up his mind that the time had The 
 arrived when the House ought to make a practical use heu down. 
 of the right of self-adjournment which he claimed for it. 
 As Finch moved to leave the chair, Denzil Holies and 
 Benjamin Valentine stepped forward, seized him by 
 the arms, and thrust him back into his seat. May and 
 Edmondes, with the other Privy Councillors present, 
 hurried to his assistance. For a moment he broke 
 away from his captors. But his triumph was short. 
 Crowds of members barred the way, and Holies and 
 Valentine seized him again and pushed him back into 
 his seat. " God's wounds," cried Holies, " you shall 
 sit till we please to rise," Physical force was clearly 
 not on his side, and he made no further eifort to 
 escape.-^ 
 
 As soon as quiet had been restored Eliot's voice was EUot 
 heard claiming for the House the right to adjourn he^! " 
 itself. His Majesty, he went onto say, must have been 
 misinformed, or he had been led to believe that they 
 had ' trenched too far upon the power of sovereignty.' 
 They had done nothing unjust, and as the King was Proposes a 
 just, there could be no difference between them. A ^edaraUou 
 short declaration of their intentions had been prepared, 
 which he asked to be allowed to put to the question. 
 
 Ehot SDoke from the highest bench at the back of The 
 
 ^ Speaker 
 
 ^ As Finch spoke frequently afterwards, it is proliable that Holies 
 and Valentine did not continue to hold him, contenting themselves with 
 watching him. Mr. Forster separated the two seizures, but I have 
 followed Heath's information {Pari. Hint. ii. 510), which gives a very- 
 probable account of the matter. The theory that the Government was 
 always inventing falsehoods seems to me quite unreasonable. 
 
92 THE SESSION OF 1629, 
 
 CHAP, the House, and he threw the paper forward in order 
 
 — --^ — ' that some one in front might hand it to the clerk to be 
 
 March -""^^^ ^^ *^® Speaker refused to allow the clerk to 
 
 refuses to read it. Shouts of " Eead ! read ! " were raised in the 
 
 allow It to 
 
 be read. midst of a confuscd struggle. The crowd swayed 
 backwards and forwards around the chair. In the 
 midst of the excited throng, Coryton struck one of his 
 fellow members.^ The Speaker defended his rights. 
 He knew no instance, he said, in which the House had 
 continued to transact business after a command from 
 his Majesty to adjourn. " What would any of you do," 
 he added plaintively, " if you were in my place ? Let 
 not my desire to serve you faithfully be my ruin." 
 
 There was no room for the suggestion that the 
 Speaker was not properly authorised to order the 
 adjournment. He had had the command, he said, 
 from the King's own lips. Ehot rejoined that they 
 were quite ready to adjourn in obedience to his 
 Majesty, but the declaration must first be read. Strode 
 in a few words acknowledged the reason for this oer- 
 sistency. " I desire the same," he said, " that we may 
 not be turned off like scattered sheep, as we were 
 at the end of the last session, and have a scorn put 
 on us in print, but that we may leave something 
 behind us." They wished that their voice should be 
 heard as a rallying cry to the nation in the conflict 
 which had begun. 
 The One after another rose to urge upon the Speaker 
 
 foirtol'bey the duty of obeying the order of the House. The 
 the House. ^^^^^ ^£ ^^^ Housc, Said EUot, would be sufficient to 
 excuse him with the King. If he refused obedience, he 
 should be called to the bar. 
 
 • This incident is placed here by Heath, and is made probable by the 
 words used by Coryton soon afterwards, in which he speaks of himself as 
 having been to blame as well as the rest. 
 
THE SPEAKER URGED TO PUT THE QUESTION. 93 
 
 At this intimation of defiance of the King's com- chap. 
 
 II 
 
 mand, some members rose to leave the House. Orders ■ — <^ — ■ 
 were at once given to the Serjeant-at-Arms to shut the ^ ^^' 
 
 1 T 1 -Tf-T March 2. 
 
 door, that no tales might be carried to those who were The door 
 
 . . . locked. 
 
 outside. The Serjeant-at-Arms hesitated to obey, and 
 Sir Miles Hobart, at his own suggestion, was directed 
 to close the doors. He swiftly turned the lock and 
 put the key into his pocket.^ 
 
 As soon as order was restored. Finch's voice was Finch begs 
 heard once more. To be called to the bar, he said, lowed togo. 
 was one of the greatest miseries which could befal him. 
 Then, after a few words from others, he begged to be 
 allowed to go to the King, as in the last session. He 
 had done them no ill offices then, and he would 
 do them none now. " If I do not return, and that 
 speedily," he ended by saying, " tear me in pieces." 
 
 Cries of Ay and No shewed that there was a division Renewed 
 of opinion. Eliot again threatened the Speaker with Mm to put 
 the consequences of persisting in his refusal. No man, tion?"^" 
 he said, had ever been blasted in that House, ' but a curse 
 at length fell upon him.' He asked that his paper 
 might be returned to him. He would read it himself, 
 that the House and the world might know the loyalty 
 of the afiections of those who had prepared it. Before 
 the paper was returned. Strode made one more efibrt 
 to have the question regularly put. " You have pro- 
 tested yourself," he said to the Speaker, "to be our 
 servant, but if you do not what we command you, that 
 protestation of yours is but a compliment. The 
 Scripture saith ' His servants ye are to whom ye obey.' 
 If you will not obey us, you are not our servant," 
 
 ' The usual account makes the shutting of the doors consequent upon 
 an attempt of the Serjeant to carry off the mace. But a comparison of 
 the three principal narratives induces me to think that the Serjeant was 
 sent for to bring the mace at a later period. 
 
94 THE SESSION OF 1629. 
 
 CHAP. Finch's position was indeed a hard one. Elected 
 
 r-" — ' by the Commons, but with a tacit regard to a previous 
 
 Mareif " selection by the King, the Speaker had hitherto served 
 Hisdiffi- as a link between the Crown and the House over 
 tion. which he presided. In Elizabeth's days it had been 
 
 easy for a Speaker to serve two masters. It was no 
 longer possible now. The strain 'of the breaking con- 
 stitution fell upon him. " I am not the less the King's 
 servant," he said piteously, " for being yours. I will 
 not say I will not put the reading of the paper to the 
 question, but I must say, I dare not." 
 Eliot's Upon this final refusal Eliot raised his voice. He told 
 
 his hearers, silent enough now, how religion had been 
 attacked; how Arminianism was the pioneer to Popery ; 
 how there was a power above the law which checked the 
 magistrates in the execution of justice. Those who ex- 
 ercised this power had been the authors of the interrup- 
 tions in this place, whose guUt and fear of punishment had 
 cast the House upon the rocks. Amongst these evil coun- 
 sellors were some Prelates of the Church, such as in all 
 ages have been ready for innovation and disturbance, 
 though at this time more than any. Them he denounced 
 as enemies to his Maj esty . And behind them stood another 
 ^JJll figiu-e more base and sinister still. The Lord Treasurer 
 wajton! himself was the prime agent of iniquity. "I fear," con- 
 tinued EUot, " in his person is contracted the very root and 
 principle of these evils. I find him building upon the old 
 grounds and foundations which were built by the Duke of 
 Buckingham, his great master. His counsels, I am doubt- 
 ful, begat the sad issue of the last session, and from this 
 cause that unhappy conclusion came." Not only was 
 
 ' Eliot heg&n, "I shall now express," &c., as printed by Mr. Forster 
 (ii. 244.) Then followed, " The miserable condition," &c., which Mr. 
 Forster believed to have been spoken at the beginning of the debate (ii. 
 240.) The concluding phrase, " And for myself," &c, (ii. 245) followed 
 next. 
 
ELIOT'S ATTACK UPON WESTON. 95 
 
 Weston ' the head of all the Papists,' and the root of 
 all the dangers to which religion was exposed, but the 
 course which he had taken in the question of Tonnage 
 and Poundage had been adopted from a deliberate design 
 to subvert the trade of the country, and in the end to 
 subvert the Government. When commerce had been 
 ruined, and the wooden walls of England were no longer 
 in existence, the State would be at the mercy of its 
 neighbours, " These things," cried Eliot, " would have 
 been made more apparent if time had been for it, and 
 I hope to have time to do it yet." 
 
 Once more Eliot's highly- kindled imagination had 
 played him false. The charge of deliberate treason was 
 as unfounded as it was improbable. In the wild ex- 
 citement of that day everything seemed credible to him, 
 and the proud confidence of his bearing stamped upon 
 his listening auditors the firm assurance that he was not 
 dealing his shafts at random. At last, turning to the 
 paper which he held in his hand, he briefly explained 
 its meaning. " There is in this paper," he said, " a pro- Explains 
 testation against those persons that are innovators in poLdTro- 
 religion, against those that are introducers of any new *'''*• 
 customs, and a protestation against those that shall ex- 
 ecute such commands for Tonnage and Poundage, and a 
 protestation against merchants that, if any merchant 
 shall pay any such duties, he as all the rest shall be as 
 capital enemies of the State, and whensoever we shall 
 sit here again, if I be here— as I think I shall— I will 
 deliver myself more at large, and fall upon the person 
 
 of that man."^ 
 
 Eliot had made it known what the contents of the The read- 
 ing of the 
 
 1 This last paragraph is from S. P. Bom. cxxiviii. 6. It is more 
 
 lifelike than the words given in Nicholas's Notes. " If ever I sei-ve again 
 
 in Parliament I shall proceed against them as capital enemies of the 
 
 State." It must be acknowledged, however, that the latter form agrees 
 
 better with that printed by Mr. Forster (ii. 245.) 
 
96 THE SESSION OF 1626. 
 
 CHAP, paper were ; but unless it could be formally put by the 
 
 • — <^ — ' Speaker, it would not go forth as more than the expres- 
 March ^^°^ °^ ^^^ private opinion. Coryton urged that it would 
 protest be for the King's advantage that the paper should be 
 u?|ed. read. He had need of help from the House, and those 
 persons that had been named kept it from him. The 
 members had come there with a fuU resolution to grant 
 not merely Tonnage and Poundage, but all other neces- 
 sary supphes as well. Shouts of ' All ! All ! ' encouraged 
 Coryton to proceed. " Shall every man," he said, "that 
 hath broken the law have the liberty to pretend the 
 King's commands ? " Ought that transcendent Court, 
 highest of all others, to permit the laws to be ' broken.' 
 " Therefore," he ended, " I shall move that his Majesty 
 may be moved from this House to advise with his grave 
 and learned Council, and to leave out those that have 
 been here noted to be ill councillors both for the King 
 and kingdom." 
 Weston de- There was one in that assembly whose ears tingled 
 
 fended bj' . , , i • t • x ttt i t t 
 
 his son. With shame and indignation. Jerome Weston, the Lord 
 Treasurer's eldest son, stood up to defend his father. 
 "We have here in consideration," he said, "human 
 laws which, as they be many, so there is one eternal 
 law of God, that we should love our neighbours as 
 ourselves. Now, what can be more unjust than, with- 
 out true grounds, to lay aspersions upon a noble person ? 
 Would any of us think it just to be done to ourselves ? 
 Let not the Lord Treasurer be prejudged. He has as 
 faithful a heart to Church and Commonwealth as any 
 man sitting here." 
 Clement Then, as now, the House of Commons was wisely 
 
 i^g'ism.^^'' tolerant of divergence of opinion, especially when it 
 was prompted by domestic affection. Even in that 
 supreme hour of conflict the call was not altogether 
 without effect. The reckless Clement Coke, indeed, 
 
THE LAST SCENE. 97 
 
 struck the blow home. "Whoever," he said, "laid chap. 
 
 Tonnage and Poundage on the people without the gift < ^^i— - 
 
 of Parhament is an enemy to the Commonwealth, and ^^^9- 
 that this great person has done this, there are not light EUot's ex- 
 suspicions only upon him, but apparent proofs." But p'''"""'"'- 
 EHot was not so entirely thrown off his balance as to 
 assume guilt which had not been proved. He had 
 no intention, he declared, of asking the House to take 
 his assertions as evidence. He hoped to be allowed to 
 produce his proofs when they met again. 
 
 The discussion threatened to become endless for want s«iden 
 
 n -t n • . ri T 7 threatens 
 
 01 denmte aim. Selden brought it back to the original to place 
 
 T i IT ,1 01 1 T 1 Eliotinthe 
 
 issue by telling the Speaker once more that he was chair, 
 bound to put the question. If he refused, they had in 
 him a master instead of a servant. He would virtually 
 abdicate his office, and they ought then to proceed to 
 the choice of another Speaker. For the present he 
 would be content with moving that Eliot should take 
 the chair and put the Eesolutions to the House.^ 
 
 An unexpected obstacle arose. Eliot having, as it Eiiot has 
 would seem, despaired of obtaining a formal vote upon paper, 
 his Eesolutions, had thrown the paper in the fire. " I 
 think," said Holies, reasonably enough, " that gentle- 
 man hath done very ill to burn that paper." Eliot 
 gracefully submitted to the correction. " I give that 
 gentleman great thanks for reproving me for the burning 
 of that paper, and of all obligations that have passed 
 between us I hold this for the greatest." With the 
 exception of a formal motion made shortly afterwards, 
 these words of courtesy were the last utterance of the 
 high-souled man within the walls of the House of 
 Commons. 
 
 Whatever was to be done must be done speedily. The Ser- 
 As Holies rose, a knocking was heard at the door. The Cr' '''°' 
 
 ' Nicholas's Notes. 
 VOL. I. H 
 
98 
 
 THE SESSION OF 1629. 
 
 CHAP. 
 II. 
 
 1629. 
 
 March 2. 
 
 Hevman 
 upbraids 
 the Speaker 
 
 Black Rod 
 at the door. 
 
 HoUes 
 reads the 
 Reso- 
 lutions. 
 
 King had sent for the serjeant to bring away the mace. 
 The House would not yet part with the symbol of autho- 
 rity. But after some delay, thAe rjeant was allowed 
 to go. Hobart let him out, and locked the door after 
 him again.i 
 
 As soon as order was restored, there was a fresh dis- 
 cussion on the propriety of naming the Lord Treasurer. 
 Sir Peter Heyman turned once more upon Finch : " I 
 am sorry," he said, " that you must be made an instru- 
 ment to cut up the liberties of the subject by the roots. 
 I am sorry you are a Kentish man, and that you are of 
 that name which hath borne some good reputation in 
 our country. The Speaker of the House of Commons 
 is our mouth, and if our mouth will be sullen and will 
 not speak when we would have it, it should be bitten 
 by the teeth, and ought to be made an example ; and, 
 for my part, I think it not fit you should escape with- 
 out some mark of punishment to be set upon you by 
 the House." 
 
 It was easier to speak of punishment than to iniiict 
 it. Maxwell, the Usher of the Black Eod, was now 
 knocking at the door with a message from the King. 
 The moments were fast flying, and there was no time 
 for longer deliberation. Charles had sent for his guard 
 to force a way into the House. Not a minute was to 
 be lost in idle recrimination. Holies threw himself into 
 the breach. " Since that paper is burnt," he said, " I con- 
 
 ' Heath's infonnation speaks of the serjeant as having been detained 
 a prisoner. On the other hand, Lord Verulam's MS. and Hargrave MS. 
 299, fol. 139 b, plainly speak of his being put out. I have tried to re- 
 concile the two. From Nicholait Notes we learn that the knocking was 
 heard when Holies rose, and from S. P. Bom. cxxxviii. 6, that the 
 messenger was still at the door after Eliot's reply. This delay woidd 
 enable Heath to speak of the serjeant as a prisoner. Mr. Forster brings 
 no authority for his statement that the serjeant laid his hand on the 
 mace to take it away, and that ' a fierce cry arose to shut the door.' 
 Sir J. Eliot, ii. 244. The door had been shut long before. 
 
THE APPEAL TO THE COUNTRY. 99 
 
 ceive I cannot do Ms Majesty nor my country better 
 service than to deliver to this House what was con- 
 tained in it, which, as I remember, was thus much in ^^^^' 
 effect :i— 
 
 "Whosoever shall bring in innovation in religion. The three 
 or by favour seek to extend or introduce Popery or tioal"' 
 Arminianism, or other opinions disagreeing from the 
 true and orthodox church, shall be reputed a capital 
 enemy to this Kingdom and the Commonwealth. 
 
 " Whosoever shall counsel or advise the taking and 
 levying of the subsidies of Tonnage and Poundage, not 
 being granted by Parliament, or shall be an actor or 
 an instrument therein, shall be likewise reputed an in- 
 novator in the government, and a capital enemy to this 
 Kingdom and Commonwealth. 
 
 " If any merchant or other person whatsoever shall 
 voluntarily yield or pay the said subsidies of Tonnage 
 and Poundage, not being granted by Parliament, he 
 shall hkewise be reputed a betrayer of the hberty of 
 England, and an enemy to the same."^ 
 
 It was hopeless to apply again to Speaker or Clerk. I^^^^^"- 
 Holies put the question himself Hearty shouts of Ay, adopted. 
 Ay, adopted the defiance which he flung in the face of 
 the King. The House then voted its own adjournment. The House 
 The door was thrown open at last, and the members ^'J""'"'- 
 poured forth to convey to the outer world the tidings 
 of their high resolve. Eleven years were to pass away 
 before a House of Commons was permitted to cross that 
 threshold again. 
 
 1 Nicholas's Notes. " Pari. Hist. ii. 491. 
 
 H 3 
 
lOO 
 
 CHAPTEE ni. 
 
 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP. 
 111. 
 
 1629. 
 
 March 2, 
 DisBoIution 
 of Parlia- 
 ment dis- 
 cussed. 
 
 March 4 
 Imprison- 
 ment of 
 members. 
 
 The disso- 
 lution pro- 
 nounced. 
 
 Immediately after the adjournment a Proclamation for 
 the dissolution of Parliament was drawn up and signed 
 by the King. Charles threw the whole blame upon 
 the insolence of those who had resisted his command to 
 adjourn.-' Yet it was not without hesitation that the 
 decisive step was taken. Coventry was supported by 
 a considerable following in the Council in asking that 
 a milder course should be adopted. Weston, whose 
 impeachment had been called for by Eliot, argued 
 strongly on the other side. For two days the contend- 
 ing parties strove with one another, and it was only on 
 the 4th that the Proclamation was made public.^ The 
 day before, Eliot and eight other members of the Com- 
 mons had been summoned to appear before the Board. 
 Seven of them presented themselves before the Council, 
 and were committed to the Tower and to other prisons. 
 The other two were subsequently captured, and shared 
 the fate of their friends.^ 
 
 The Houses had stood adjourned to the loth, and 
 Charles thought it well to go to the House of Lords, 
 that the words of dissolution might be pronounced in 
 
 • Proclamation, March 2. Rymer, xix. 29. 
 ^ Oontarini's Despatch, March {^. Ven. MSS. 
 ^ Council JRegiater, March 3, 4. 
 
DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAISIENT. lOI 
 
 his presence, and that he might take the opportunity chap. 
 of expressing his confidence in the Peers. It was 
 
 observed that on his return he looked pleased with his ^^^-^'^^ 
 day's work, as if he had at last freed himself from a 
 yoke to which he had long submitted with difficulty.^ 
 
 Charles's feeling of self-satiafaction was in truth the Charies/s 
 
 ^ ^ self-satis- 
 
 most ominous element in the political prospect. No faction. 
 candid person can find fault with him for dissolving 
 Parliament. The House of Commons which had just 
 ceased to exist had been elected under circumstances 
 of peculiar excitement, and it had ended by clamouring 
 for stringent measures of repression which would have 
 been fatal to the free development of thought in Eng- 
 land. Unhappily Charles had been himself to blame Was the 
 
 ,.,,. . . „ 111 dissolution 
 
 for the explosion by his unwise promotion oi men hoid- justifiable ? 
 ing unpopular opinions. Yet if he had repented of his 
 mistake, and had merely wished to gain a year or two 
 to recover the confidence of the nation, no one but a 
 constitutional purist would blame him for refusing to 
 abdicate his hereditary authority. A wiser man might 
 well have shrunk from placing himself unreservedly in 
 the hands of a House of Commons which claimed 
 supremacy in the State whilst crying down that essen- 
 tial condition of liberty of thought and speech, without 
 which parliamentary government is only a more crush- 
 ing form of tyranny. 
 
 The Declaration set forth by the King ^ to justify ^^^jf '°s's 
 the dissolution was an able statement of his case against ation. 
 the House of Commons. In his own mind at least 
 Charles took his stand upon the law. He would carry 
 out, he said, the provisions of the Petition of Eight. 
 He would allow no innovations in the Church. But he 
 protested against the new doctrine that the House of 
 
 > Lords' Journals, iv. 43 ; Oontarini's Despatch, March if. Ven. MSS. 
 ' Declaration, March 10. Pari. Hist. ii. 492. 
 
I02 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP. Commons might erect itself into a supreme tribunal, 
 ' — r^— before which all Ministers of State, and even all Courts 
 ,/ ^^' of Justice, were bound to give account. As to Tonnage 
 
 March lo. ° ° 
 
 and Poundage, it had always been enjoyed by his pre- 
 decessors from the first day of their reign. His father 
 had collected it for a year before it had been granted 
 by Parliament. It was clear to him therefore that the 
 Commons had no right to construe a formal and 
 friendly act of acknowledgment into an authority to 
 transfer the whole government of England into their 
 hands. 
 
 Of course there was an answer to all this. Formal 
 or not, the grant of Tonnage and Poundage by Parlia- 
 ment signified that the government rested upon the 
 co-operation of King and Parliament. If it was a new 
 thing for the Commons to claim supreme power with- 
 out the King, it was also a new thing for the King to 
 claim supreme power without consulting the wishes of 
 the nation. The old. order had given way. It was 
 not in the nature of things to eliminate the House o 
 Commons from the constitution without efiecting cor- 
 responding changes in every direction. A King with- 
 out a Parliament would be quite difierent from a King 
 with a Parliament. He would glide without a check 
 down the easy path which leads through arbitrary 
 power to despotism, and through despotism to anarchy. 
 No doubt Charles did not distinctly acknowledge to 
 himself that he had resolved never to call a Paiiiament 
 again. But he had made up his mind to exact condi- 
 tions which no English Parliament would ever again 
 yield. The time had gone by when a House of Com- 
 mons could be content with respectfully watching for 
 the word of command from the throne, not because the 
 members were more unruly than they had been fifty 
 years before, but because the King was utterly careless 
 
THE IMPRISONED MEMBERS. I03 
 
 of the course of public opinion. Elizabeth had con- chap. 
 trolled her Parliaments because she embodied that ■ — -' — 
 opinion better than they did. Charles would, in the ^ ^^' 
 end, be controlled by his Parliaments because they 
 represented that opinion better than he did. He had 
 indeed a work to do to guide that opinion, to prevent 
 it from degenerating into mob- government either in 
 Parliament or in the streets. It was his misfortune to 
 think it possible to fulfil this duty by placing himself in 
 opposition to the current of contemporary sentiment. 
 He did not appeal to the nation against the House of 
 Commons. He bade the nation to keep silence whilst 
 he moulded it into the shape which seemed best to 
 himself. 
 
 On the r 7th of March a series of questions was put ^*'^^ '7- 
 to the prisoners. It now appeared that they were not nation of 
 all alike prepared to carry their opposition to extremes, suuers. 
 Valentine indeed firmly refused to answer any charge 
 founded on acts done in Parliament. Cpryton was less 
 firm. He acknowledged that it was ' fit to suffer by 
 paying ' Tonnage and Poundage rather ' than to do 
 those things that might be worse. '^ Before long he 
 made his submission, and was at once released, and 
 Heyman soon afterwards satisfied the Court that he 
 too might safely be allowed his liberty. 
 
 Selden, who was examined on the following day, j^^'^^/^- 
 had still less the temperament of a martyr than Cory- 1^^^°^ 
 ton or Heyman. Intellectually audacious, he needed 
 the applause of a favouring audience to inspire him 
 to resist authority. He boldly assured his examiners 
 that he was in absolute ignorance of all that had passed 
 on the eventful morning. He had never moved that 
 Eliot's paper should be read by the clerk. He had 
 
 ' Interrof^atories and Examinations^ March 17. -S. P. Bom. cxxxviii. 
 87, 88, 89. 
 
I04 
 
 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP, 
 nr. 
 
 - 
 
 1629. 
 
 March 17. 
 
 And of 
 
 Eliot. 
 
 Charles's 
 feeling to- 
 wards 
 EUot. 
 
 only made a motion in order to help on the adjourn- 
 ment of the House in compliance with the King's 
 wishes. If he had understood Eliot's speech, 'he 
 would have absolutely dissented from him.' The false- 
 hood was so unblushing that it can hardly be reckoned 
 as a falsehood at all. He could never for an instant 
 have expected to be beheved. All he meant was to 
 intimate that he had no intention of allowing himself 
 to be made a victim for any opinion whatever.^ He 
 deeply felt his separation from his books and his pen, 
 and he was anxious to recover the use of them as soon 
 as possible.'-^ 
 
 If Eliot was weak where Selden was strong, he was 
 strong where Selden was weak. He never peered for- 
 ward into the gloom of the future in anxious watching 
 for the new ideas of toleration and liberty. But he was 
 not the man to flinch before danger. To every ques- 
 tion put he had but one reply to give. " I refuse to 
 answer, because I hold that it is against the privilege of 
 the House of Parhament to speak of anything which 
 was done in the House."^ 
 
 No wonder the whole wrath of Charles was dis- 
 charged upon Ehot. To Charles, as his Attorney 
 General expressed himself in a subsequent case. Par- 
 liament was ' a great court, a great council, the great 
 council of the King.' But the Houses were ' but his 
 council, not his governors.'* Eliot claimed for Par- 
 hament an independent position, free except in the 
 
 ' Mr. Forster {Sir J. Eliot, iii. 249) doubts the correctness of these 
 answers because ' the alleged result of Selden's examination is not re- 
 concilable either with his former speeches or with his tone afterwards.' 
 Probably Mr. Forster contented himself with the abstract in Mr. Bruce's 
 Calendar. The original examination (S. P. Dom. cxxxiv. 8) is signed 
 by Selden, and his signature is attested by the Privy Councillors present. 
 
 ' Selden to Apsley, March 30. S. P. Bom. ccxxxix. 78. 
 
 ' Ibid, cxxxiv. 7. 
 
 * Heath's speech against Leighton, p. 9. Camden's MisceUany, vol. vii. 
 
rumoura. 
 
 CHARLES AND ELIOT. 105 
 
 specified cases of treason, felony, or breach of tlie chap. 
 
 peace, from any authority whatever. The whole con- • — ■ — - 
 
 flict between Crown and Parhament appeared to be jiard^is 
 summed up in this duel between two men, of whom 
 one was armed to the teeth, and the other was a de- 
 fenceless captive at his feet. 
 
 To Charles, Eliot was but an ambitious demagogue ]^^J^^-^^°- 
 
 who must be punished in order that the Common- sited in the 
 
 ■*- Tower. 
 
 wealth might have peace. Eliot, he knew, did not 
 stand alone. Men of the highest rank, the Earl of 
 Lincoln, Lord Eochford, Lord St. John, and many 
 others were flocking to the Tower to express their 
 sympathy with him in his sufferings.^ A Proclamation March 27. 
 issued on March 27th bore the impress of Charles's matjoa 
 angry feeling. He spoke of Eliot as ' an outlawed man, false 
 desperate in mind and fortune.' " And whereas," he 
 continued, " for several ill ends the calhng again of 
 a Parliament is divulged, however we have shewed by 
 our frequent meeting with our people our love to the 
 use of Parliaments ; yet the late abuse having for the 
 present driven us unwillingly out of that course, we 
 shall account it presumption for any to prescribe any 
 time unto us for Parliaments, the calling, continuing, 
 and dissolving of which is always in our own power, 
 and we shall be more inclinable to meet in Parhament 
 again when our people shall see more clearly into our 
 intents and actions, when such as have bred this inter- 
 ruption shall have received their condign punishment, 
 and those who are misled by them and by such ill 
 reports as are raised in this occasion, shall come to a 
 better understanding of us and themselves."^ 
 
 The Proclamation breathed nothing but the fiercest 
 indignation. Charles had no thought that amongst 
 
 • Apsley to Dorchester, Marcli 20. S. P. Bom. cxxxix. 19. 
 ' Proclamation, March 27. Rijmer, xix. 62. 
 
io6 
 
 PRIVILEGE OF PAELIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP. 
 III. 
 
 1629. 
 March 27. 
 
 State of the 
 Treasury. 
 
 March 7. 
 Tonnage 
 and Poun- 
 dage exac- 
 ted. 
 
 March 30. 
 The Mer- 
 chant Ad- 
 venturers 
 before the 
 Council. 
 
 the wild deeds aud wilder words of the past session 
 there might be something which it would be well for 
 him to lay to heart. There was no bending forward 
 to meet his people half way, no sympathetic eye to 
 detect the true causes of their complaints. He alone 
 stood upon the rock. He alone could afford to wait. His 
 subjects might come to him. He would never go to them. 
 It was Charles's fixed determination to inflict severe 
 punishment upon Eliot. It was the business of the 
 Crown lawyers to consider how he was to be reached 
 in accordance with the forms of the law. In the mean- 
 while Weston was hard put to it to find a remedy 
 for the emptiness of the exchequer. The subsidies 
 voted in the preceding session were more than 
 swallowed up by the payment ofdebts contracted in the 
 war, Nor was the war itself at an end. English com- 
 merce had long been liable to the ravages of Dunkirk 
 privateers and of French cruisers. Then had come the 
 strife about the customs duties. The refusal to allow 
 the legality of Tonnage and Poundage was met by a 
 prompt order that all persons declining to pay the 
 duties were to be imprisoned until his Majesty should 
 direct otherwise, ' or that they be delivered by order of 
 law.'^ The Judges were still to be the arbitrators 
 between the King and his subjects. It was easier 
 to enforce obedience than to bring about a revival of 
 trade. Merchants held back from buying and selling, 
 and if any goods were brought into the Custom House 
 at all, the owners were hooted by the crowd outside as 
 traitors to their country.^ A deputation from the 
 Merchant Adventurers, the great Company which had 
 in its hands the exportation of cloth, was summoned 
 before the Council. The merchants who composed it 
 
 ' Council Reyister, March 7. 
 
 ' Oontarini's Desiiatcli, March |§, 
 
 Ven. iMS8. 
 
STOPPAGE OF TKADE. 107 
 
 1629. 
 April. 
 
 were asked why exportation had ceased. At first they chap. 
 made excuses. They were afraid of pirates. The 
 markets were glutted. At last they spoke plainly. They 
 were afraid of the Protestation of the House of Com- 
 mons. Personally, at least, they had laid themselves 
 open to a sharp retort. Manchester reminded thera 
 that they carried on the most lucrative part of their 
 trade, the exportation of undressed and undyed cloths, 
 in direct defiance of a parliamentary statute which had 
 been suspended in their favour by an act of prerogative. 
 In the end they were told to summon a full Court of 
 the Company, and to submit the King's wishes to its 
 consideration. 
 
 The Court was held, and the merchants were asked 
 whether they would ship cloths or not. Not a hand 
 was held up in the affirmative. The Council then 
 turned to the Dutch merchants settled in London, in 
 the hope that they would be less regardful of the 
 Eesolutions of an English House of Commons. The 
 Dutch merchants, however, refused to separate their 
 interests from those of their neighbours. " We shall 
 be much degenerate," they replied, " if we go about to 
 betray the liberties of the English nation."^ In London 
 the resistance was general, and nearly the whole trade 
 of the kingdom was concentrated in London. So angry 
 was the King at this passive opposition, that he thought 
 of dissolving the Merchant Adventurers' Company in 
 order to substitute for it a body composed of noblemen 
 and courtiers who would make no difficulty about pay- 
 ing the duties.^ 
 
 The King's exchequer did not suffer alone. It was J^^^^-^^^^^ 
 calculated that there were in England 20o,oco persons workers. 
 depending on the cloth trade.^ The weavers in Essex 
 
 > Tanner MSS. Ixxi. fol. i. 
 
 2 Joachimi to the States-General, April ^, Add. MSS. 17,677 M. 
 
 fol. 336- 
 
 3 Salvetti's Neiosletter, April §§. 
 
io8 
 
 PKIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP. 
 III. 
 
 1629. 
 
 Mays- 
 
 The mer- 
 chants con- 
 tinue to re- 
 fuse to 
 trade. 
 
 May 6. 
 Chambers 
 in the Star 
 Chamber. 
 
 Constitu- 
 tion of the 
 Star Cham- 
 ber. 
 
 were thrown out of work. The Council interfered to 
 mitigate the worst consequences of the stoppage of 
 trade. The adjoining parishes were ordered to con- 
 tribute to the relief of the poor in the villages in 
 which distress prevailed. A proclamation was issued 
 forbidding the export of corn, whilst at the same 
 time some rioters who had rifled a vessel laden 
 with grain at Maldon were put down with a strong 
 hand. But the knot of the difficulty was in London, not 
 in Essex, and one body of merchants after another was 
 summoned before the Council, to be entreated or 
 threatened to take the goods oiFthe weavers' hands.^ 
 
 There were indeed some shrewd heads who per- 
 ceived that men who lived by trade would not persist 
 in ruining themselves for the sake of a principle. 
 But such was not the general feeling. " The obstinacy," 
 said a letter- writer of the day, " lies not only in the 
 merchant's breast, but moves in every small vein through 
 the kingdom."^ In the beginning of May there was a 
 slight improvement. " I have ever said," wrote Williams, 
 " that the merchants would be weary of this new habit 
 of statesmen they had put on, and turn merchants 
 again by that time they heard from their factors that 
 their storehouses began to grow empty. God send 
 those men more wit who, living in a monarchy, rely 
 upon the democracy."^ 
 
 The soreness caused by this prolonged resistance 
 shewed itself in the punishment inflicted by the Star 
 Chamber upon Chambers. Eight months before, he had 
 told the Council that ' the merchants were in no part of 
 the world so screwed and wrung as in England, and that 
 in Turkey they have more encouragement.' The con- 
 
 ' Council Register, April 18, 29; May 12, 22, 23. 
 * Notes on Trade, April 6, Lake to Vane, April 20. S. P. Bom. 
 cxl. 24 ; cxli. 10. 
 
 "Williams to Dorchester, May 5. S. P. Dom. oxlii. 19. 
 
STAR CHAMBER SENTENCE ON CHAMBERS. 109 
 
 stitution of the Star Chamber had been admirably chap. 
 
 Ill 
 adapted for the purposes for which it had been used in ■ — J^ — ■ 
 
 the days of the Tudor sovereigns. Composed of the \^ ^^" 
 two Chief Justices and the whole of the Privy Council, 
 it brought the highest legal and the highest political 
 capacity to bear upon cases in which the offenders were 
 too powerful to be reached by the ordinary courts, or 
 in which the evidence was too complicated to be un- 
 ravelled by the skill of an ordinary jury. It had thus 
 become a tribunal constantly resorted to as a resource 
 against the ignorance or prejudices of a country jury, 
 much in the same way as a special jury is applied to in 
 our own days.^ In such investigations it showed itself 
 intelligent and impartial. In pohtical trials, however, 
 impartiality could hardly be expected. Every member 
 of the Court, with the exception of the two Chief 
 Justices, was also a Privy Councillor. The persons 
 who were cited as defendants were invariably persons 
 who in some way or another had given offence to the 
 Privy Council, and the great majority of the members 
 of the Court were therefore in reality parties to the 
 dispute which they were called upon to decide. 
 
 Before such a Court, Chambers had no chance of sentence of 
 escape. But there was a difference of opinion as to the 
 extent of the punishment to be injflicted. The two 
 Chief Justices, Hyde and Eichardson, would have been 
 content with a fine of 500Z. The two Bishops, Neile and 
 Laud, would not be satisfied with less than 3,000/. The 
 fine was at last fixed at 2,000/., and to this was added — 
 the Chief Justices alone dissenting — imprisonment until 
 the fault committed had been duly acknowledged. 
 
 Chambers refused to allow that he had committed He refuses 
 
 to acknow - 
 ' We are so apt to think of the Star Chamher simply as a Court 
 employed upon State Trials, that it rectuires a strong effort of the ima- 
 gination to grasp the fact that the great majority of cases before it were 
 owing to the action of private prosecutors. 
 
no 
 
 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFOBE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP. 
 III. 
 
 ' . 
 
 1629. 
 May 6. 
 
 ledge his 
 offence. 
 
 Brings an 
 
 action 
 
 against 
 
 the Custom 
 
 House 
 
 officers. 
 
 June 23. 
 The 
 greater 
 part of his 
 goods re- 
 stored. 
 
 June 25. 
 
 any fault at all. In vain a form of submission prepared 
 by the Court was oiFered to him for signature. " All 
 the above contents and submission," he wrote at the 
 foot of it, " I, Eichard Chambers, do utterly abhor and 
 detest as most unjust, and never till death will acknow- 
 ledge any part thereof" Then followed a string of 
 Scripture texts denouncing those who refused to execute 
 judgment and justice, and who were ready to make a 
 man an offender for a word."^ 
 
 Chambers was not content with the choice of im- 
 prisonment rather than submission. In order to force 
 on a legal decision upon the main point at issue, he 
 brought an action in the Exchequer for the recovery of 
 his goods against the officers of the customs by whom 
 they had been seized.^ He even made application 
 to the same Court to invalidate the Star Chamber 
 decree against himself on various grounds, of which 
 the most important was that the Court had exceeded 
 the statutory powers conferred upon it in the reign of 
 Henry VII. 
 
 The question of the legality of the levy of Tonnage 
 and Poundage by prerogative alone was not one to be 
 decided in a hurry. But there was time before the Long 
 Vacation to reduce the practical grievance of the mer- 
 chants to the lowest possible point. A quantity of their 
 goods sufficient to serve as a security for the ultimate 
 payment of the duty was retained in the Custom House 
 by order of the Court of Exchequer. The rest of the 
 
 1 state Trials, iii. 374. 
 
 ' There are two actions traceable, Oliambers v. Dawes &c., and The 
 Attorney-General v. Chambers. The answer of Dawes &c. is dated 
 May 12, and Chambers's answer is dated June 22. I presume, there- 
 fore, that Chambers brought his action first, Exchequer Bilk and 
 Answers, (Carles I., Nos, 264, 236, 
 
CHAMBEES APPEALS TO THE COURT OF EXCHEQUER. Ill 
 
 property which had been seized was restored to its chap. 
 owners.^ ■ '- — ■ 
 
 The consideration of Chambers's obiection to the /, ^^' 
 _, July 17- 
 
 jurisdiction of the Star Chamber was also postponed. Question of 
 
 1 -r» /> the juris- 
 
 It was not likely that the Barons of the Exchequer diction of 
 
 the Star 
 
 would seriously entertain it. It had long been held by chamber, 
 lawyers, as it is held by lawyers at this day, that the 
 jurisdiction of the Star Chamber was extended, not 
 created, by the statute of Henry VII. But the decision 
 was thrown over to Michaelmas Term.^ 
 
 It is impossible to overrate the service rendered to the Sei-vice 
 nation by such men as Chambers. No doubt faults had chambers^ 
 been committed on both sides in the political struggle. 
 But when once the wearer of the crown insisted on 
 standing alone without responsibihty to anyone, it was 
 necessary to raise a protest against a theory of govern- 
 ment which could never be admitted unless Englishmen 
 were to degenerate into that servitude into which most 
 of the nations of the Continent had sunk in order to 
 escape from the still more terrible evils of aristocratic 
 anarchy. 
 
 At the time. Chamber's sturdy resolution appeared 
 to be thrown away. But it is not by its immediate 
 result that such conduct as his can be judged. The 
 habit of firm but legal resistance to hardships which are 
 permitted or supported by the opinion of those who 
 hold the reins of government in their hands is one of 
 those precious possessions of a race which every mem- 
 ber of it is bound to defend to the uttermost. Chambers 
 had not the tongue or the brain of Selden ; but he 
 
 1 The amount demanded from Ohamlers was 364/. 2s. 2^d. on goods 
 valued at 7,282?. os. Sd., or almost exactly 5 per cent. Exchequer 
 Orders and Decrees, June 23. 
 
 » State Trials, iii. 376. 
 
112 Plin^ILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP, knew what Selden never learned, that England required 
 " — -p — ' those who could suffer for its rights, as well as those 
 who could defend them in argument. 
 April. In the main, the position taken by Chambers was the 
 
 Eliot and Same as that taken by Eliot. But Eliot was for the 
 Members of present concerned not with the general question of 
 mons."™" parliamentary taxation, but with the special question 
 of the privileges necessary to enable the House of Com- 
 mons to hold its own against the claim of the Crown to 
 be the originator of taxation. It had been possible for 
 the Star Chamber to make short work with Chambers. 
 It was necessary for the Government to make sure of 
 its ground before it could deal as it wished with Eliot. 
 Opinion of The first thing to be done was to obtain the opinion 
 
 the Judges. „ , _ " .. .,, , 
 
 or the Judges. The Petition of Eight had strengthened 
 the hands of the Judges as arbitrators between the King 
 and his subjects. But it had not converted them into 
 warm admirers of the doctrine of the supremacy of 
 Parhament. The dismissal of Chief Justice Crew had 
 doubtless not been without its effect in lowering the 
 tone of the Bench, and his successor, Chief Justice Hyde, 
 had neither energy nor acquirements to compensate for 
 the irregularity of his elevation. Eichardson, Chief 
 Justice of the Common Pleas, had received promotion 
 on account of his connexion with Buckingham, whilst 
 Chief Baron Walter enjoyed a high reputation as a 
 sound lawyer and an honest man. Whether honest or 
 not, the Judges were now under special temptations to 
 look askance upon the House of Commons. In the last 
 session their authority had been called in question as 
 much as the authority of the Crown, and the ruling of 
 the Barons of Exchequer in the case of customs had 
 been treated with special contempt. 
 The Chief In spitc of all this, however, it was not hkely that 
 
 tteCMeT^ the Judges would act with precipitation. Their legal 
 
CHARLES CONSULTS THE JUDGES. II3 
 
 training would serve to guard them against that, and chap. 
 there is no reason to doubt that they wished to take - — ^ — - 
 their position seriously, and' to decide as fairly as they ^ J" 
 were able to do in such a case. It was not without Baioneon- 
 
 - , , smtea. 
 
 hesitation that the two Chief Justices and the Chief 
 Baron answered a series of questions propounded to 
 them by Heath. -^ The extent of Parliamentary privilege 
 had never been reduced to a fixed rule, and there would 
 naturally be a wide difference of opinion on the subject 
 between the members of the Privy Council and the mem- 
 bers of the House of Commons. 
 
 The case put by the Attorney General was a double The Attor- 
 one. In the first place, he held that in the week of ad- erJrs case. 
 journment before March 2, there had been a conspiracy 
 to publish false statements against Privy Councillors or, 
 in plain language, against Weston. In the second place, 
 he held that as soon as the King's command to adjourn 
 had been delivered by the Speaker, the House had been 
 legally adjourned, and that all that had taken place 
 afterwards was of the nature of a riot. In this way 
 he did his best to steer clear of an examination of the 
 full extent of Parliamentary privilege. He laid his 
 charges at times when the House was either not actually 
 sitting or might be held not to be legally sitting. 
 
 From the answers of the Judges it is evident that The an- 
 they took much the same view of the question as Heath judgrs. 
 
 ' Two sets of questions have tesn printed, the one in Rushworth, 
 i. 662 : the other in the State Trials, iii. 235, and 238, Note. Mr. Forster 
 treats them as mere variations, and Mr. Bruce seems to have been of the 
 same opinion, as he has calendared the MSS. of both forms under the 
 same date, April 27. I feel no doubt that they are quite distinct. The 
 form in the State Trials which is taken from Nalson is said to contain 
 the answer to questions put to ' the three Chief Judges.' From S. P. I)om. 
 cxli. 45, we find that the three Judges asked that their opinions might 
 not be published ' but by consent and conference with the other Judges.' 
 Rushworth's form contains answers from all the Judges, and is therefore 
 doubtless subsequent to that given in the State Trials. 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
114 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 <^fi|P- had taken. They held that the King's ordinary right 
 "~^Z~' of inflicting punishment was hmited by the privileges 
 April, of Parliament. But they did not hold that the House 
 of Commons had the right of declaring itself to be pos- 
 sessed of any privileges it might think good to claim. 
 It was the business of the Judges to examine the pre- 
 cedents upon which such claims were based, and to hinder 
 encroachments upon the authority of the Crown. Hence 
 the answers to the questions put were framed in a spirit 
 of true judicial caution. A conspiracy to publish false 
 and scandalous rumours against the Privy Council or 
 any of its members, ' not to the end to question them in 
 a legal or Parliamentary way, but to bring them into 
 hatred of the people and the Government into contempt,' 
 would be punishable out of Parliament ; but it would 
 be necessary to examine the whole of the circumstances 
 of the special case before it was possible to pronounce 
 what the nature of the offence had been. On the second 
 point the Judges were of opinion that the power of 
 adjournment was in the King's hands, but it must be ex- 
 ercised in accordance with the precedents of the House. 
 If, however, any should tumultuously oppose it further 
 or otherwise than the privileges of the House would 
 warrant, it would be a great contempt. 
 The King In later times it has been wisely decided that it 
 
 not satis- -g ^^^ expedient that the Judges should act as legal 
 advisers of the Crown. In Charles's reign they were 
 regarded as the King's counsellors, whose opinions he 
 might obtain in all cases of difficulty. The natural 
 impatience of the King to obtain an answer in ac- 
 cordance with his wishes was likely to come into 
 collision with the natural desire of the Judges to refrain 
 from giving a decisive opinion on a point which had not 
 been fiiUy argued before them. 
 tafo furtiier Charlcs was anxious, as he afterwards said, that his 
 questions, jujjges should uot auswcr him in riddles. He sent two 
 
THE PRISONERS DEMAND BAIL. II5 
 
 further questions, the replies to which might save him 
 from the terrible disaster of a defeat in open court. 
 He wanted to know at once what would be 'the nature '^' 
 
 of the offence ' if a conspiracy were fully proved. He 
 wanted also to know .whether any privilege whatever 
 could 'warrant a tumultuous proceeding.' 
 
 The three Judges were not to be beaten from their 
 position ; but they suggested that, before their replies 
 were acted on, it would be well that all their brethren 
 should be consulted in a body. 
 
 The twelve Judges were therefore convened on April April 25-28. 
 215. To Heath's questioning they save much the same Judges 
 
 111 • 1 << 1 1 r^T • P T • consnlteci. 
 
 answers as had been given beiore by the Uhiei J ustices 
 and the Chief Baron. They were further of opinion 
 that it would be proper to proceed in the Star Chamber 
 against the prisoners ; but the form of proceeding ought 
 to be such as not to deny the incriminated persons the 
 use of counsel. Only after a full argument would it be 
 possible to decide finally what the extent of Parlia- 
 mentary privilege really was. 
 
 Whilst Heath was making preparations for acting Maye. 
 
 ,.-,., • T , T Thepiiso- 
 
 on this advice, he was surprised by an unexpected move ners appiy 
 on the part of the prisoners. Whether their actions in leaa corpus. 
 Parliament were punishable or not, it was clear to the 
 seven prisoners who remained in the Tower after the 
 liberation of Coryton and Heyman that they were fairly 
 entitled to bail. Six of the number accordingly, Selden, 
 Valentine, Holies, Strode, Hobart,^ and Long applied to 
 the Court of King's Bench for a writ of Habeas corpus. 
 Eliot took no part in the demand, thinking, perhaps, 
 that the Judges would be more likely to give fair con- 
 sideration to the application if he were not concerned 
 in it. 
 
 > Hobarfs name is omitted in the usual accounts of the matter. But 
 the Eif'e Book of the Kiriff's Bench shows that he joined the others. 
 
 1 2 
 
ii6 
 
 PEIVILEQE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP. 
 III. 
 
 1629. 
 
 May 7. 
 The cause 
 of commit- 
 tal expres- 
 sed. 
 
 Heath's in- 
 formation 
 in the Star 
 Chamber. 
 
 The application was made on May 6, the day on 
 which Chambers was being sentenced in the Star 
 Chamber. It was held by the Government that it 
 was not bound by the Petition of Eight to express the 
 cause of committal till a Habeas corpus had been ac- 
 tually demanded, and the original warrant had there- 
 fore given no reason for the imprisonment beyond the 
 King's pleasure. A fresh warrant was now issued, 
 stating the ground of committal to be notable con- 
 tempts against the King and his Government, and stirring 
 up of sedition in the State. The next step to be taken 
 by the prisoners' counsel would be to convince the 
 Judges that the offence so named was a bailable one. 
 
 The cause expressed was somewhat vaguely given. 
 All reference to the existence of such a body as Par- 
 liament was carefully avoided. In the information 
 exhibited by Heath in the Star Chamber on the same 
 day, it was impossible to avoid all mention of Parlia- 
 ment. But as little was said about it as possible. 
 Heath took his stand upon the conspiracy to publish 
 slanderous rumours, in order to bring the Government 
 into disrepute. The Attorney General waived, in his 
 public information, the question of the King's right to 
 enforce an adjournment which he had mooted in his 
 private application to the Judges, and he contrived to 
 represent the tumult as an offence against the House 
 as well as against the King, by alleging that, but for 
 the machinations of the prisoners, the majority of the 
 Commons would have been ready to adjourn. 
 
 It was possible that when Heath came to argue his 
 case he would find that he had only escaped one diffi- 
 culty to land himself in another. He would first have 
 to prove that the conspiracy had a real existence. He 
 would then have to prove the falsehood of Eliot's de- 
 liberate statement that whatever he had said against 
 
THE KING'S IMPATIENCE. II7 
 
 Weston had been said with a view to a formal impeach- chap. 
 ment. The defendants, however, saved him the trouble ■ — r-^ — • 
 of marshalling his evidence. They repudiated the juris- ji^^^z 
 diction of the Court entirely. Of the pleas put in Sel- J^^^^'/^^" 
 den's was the longest and most comprehensive.^ The mut- 
 great lawyer was himself again. It was one thing to 
 plead in due professional form. It was another thing 
 to be brought face to face with Privy Councillors in a 
 cell in the Tower. Going to the heart of the question, 
 he asserted boldly, what Heath had abstained from 
 denying, that the Eoyal command did not adjourn the 
 House, and that all that had been done till the doors 
 were thrown open, must therefore be considered as 
 having been done in full Parliamentary session, and 
 as covered by privilege of Parliament. 
 
 There was no avoiding this question any more. It May 23. 
 was referred to the two Chief Justices and the Chief urged re- 
 Baron for their opinion. The point of law was argued th" Judges. 
 in their presence. But they could not bring themselves 
 to take upon their shoulders the responsibility of 
 giving a hasty decision. When June 6 arrived, the ^^^H^- 
 day on which their answer was expected, the Judges delay, 
 asked for further delay. They said that they had still 
 many precedents to consult.^ 
 
 The King was too impatient to be satisfied. He sent June 9. 
 for all the Judges, and asked them one by one what before'th?' 
 their opinion was. The answer made has not been pre- "^' 
 
 1 Pari Hist. ii. 507. S. P. Bom. cxliii. 4-13. 
 
 ^ Heath to Oonway, June 4. S. P. Bom. cxliv. 37. Gresley to 
 Pickering, June 10. Court and Times, ii. 17. I liave no doubt that the 
 arguments mentioned in the former letter were delivered before the 
 Judges. Mr. Forster speaks of them as arguments in the Star Chamber. 
 It does not seem that the case was ever argued ill the Star Chamber at 
 all. The Judges had to consider whether the prboners could be made to 
 answer in that Court, ' off de gevangen parlementslieden gehouden syn te 
 rechte te staen in de Sterre Chamber.' Joachimi to the States General, 
 Jldd. MSS. 17,677, M. fol. 358 b. 
 
ii8 
 
 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP. 
 III. 
 
 1629. 
 
 June 5. 
 Littleton 
 demands 
 bail for the 
 prisoners. 
 
 June p. 
 Selden de- 
 mands 
 judgment. 
 
 June 13. 
 Heath's 
 reply. 
 
 served, but it seems that seven out of the twelve replied 
 in a way which did not respond to the hopes and 
 wishes of the King.^ 
 
 WhUst the Judges had been taking time to consider 
 whether the general case came under the jurisdiction of 
 the Star Chamber or not, the Court of King's Bench 
 had been listening to arguments on the prisoners' 
 demand for bail. On the 5th, Littleton urged on 
 behalf of the prisoners, that the sedition and con- 
 tempt of which they were charged did not consti- 
 tute treason, and that there was therefore nothing 
 to interfere with the taking of bail in the ordinary 
 course.^ 
 
 The heads of Littleton's argument had been fur- 
 nished by Selden. It seems to have made great im- 
 pression upon the Attorney General, as he asked for 
 time to consider his reply. As he was not ready on 
 the 9th, Selden demanded an immediate decision. 
 ♦' Will you bail a seditious priest," said Strode, with 
 bitter reference to the affair of the Clerkenwell Jesuits, 
 " though not seditious Parliament-men, as we be 
 charged to be ?" 
 
 On the 1 3th Heath at last replied. He began by 
 casting a slur upon the Petition of Eight. The first 
 return, he said, would in former times have been held 
 sufficient ' when due respect and reverence were given 
 to Government.' But though Heath had no praise to 
 bestow on the Petition, he was quite right in arguing 
 that its conditions had been satisfied. A cause had 
 been specified for the information of the Judges. It 
 was for them to decide whether the offence was bail- 
 able or not. The Petition was silent as to the nature of 
 
 • Gresley to Pickering, June lo. CouH and Times, ii. 19. Life of 
 If Ewes, i. 414. The only names of the seven which have reached us are 
 those of Denharn, Yelvorton, and Hutton. 
 
 ' State Trials, iii. 241, 252. 
 
THE JUDGES IN A DIFFICULTY. II9 
 
 a bailable offence, and the Judges would therefore 
 have to decide the point by the law as it had stood 
 before. Heath then proceeded to argue that the 
 Judges had often refused bail to prisoners committed 
 by the King, and that, at all events, the Judges might 
 exercise their discretion, and refuse bail to persons who 
 were Hkely to do harm by spreading the contagion of 
 sedition in the country. If they doubted whether the 
 release of any particular prisoners would be dangerous 
 or not, they ought to consult the King. 
 
 The old difficulty which had occupied so large a where ;» 
 space in the debates of the previous year cropped up a^ power 
 once more in an unexpected manner. Somewhere or puced? 
 another there must exist in every StaLe a discretionary 
 power to modify and even to overrule the precepts of 
 positive law. Parliament in 1628 had snatched that 
 power from the King. Heath now offered it to the 
 Judges on condition that they would exercise it in 
 the maintenance of the King's authority. The judicial 
 instinct of the Judges repelled the dangerous gift. It 
 was the function of their office simply to declare the 
 law. When Littleton asked them to bail the prisoners 
 because the particular offence laid to their charge was 
 legally baUable, he spoke in language which they - 
 could understand. When Heath asked them to retain 
 the prisoners in custody because it was inexpedient to 
 set them free, he spoke in language which would be 
 comprehensible in a political assembly, but which was 
 out of place when addressed to the Judges. 
 
 The Judges felt themselves to be in a great strait. The judges 
 They did not believe that they would be doing right in KiLg. ° 
 refusing bail. But they did not wish to fly in the 
 King's face. They wrote to the King, informing him 
 that they were bound by their oaths to admit the pri- 
 soners to bail, and suggesting to hiro that he might 
 
I20 
 
 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 1629. 
 
 June. 
 Charles 
 seeks delay. 
 
 He clings 
 to the let- 
 ter of the 
 law. 
 
 June 22. 
 Long, Ho- 
 hart, and 
 Strode re- 
 moved to 
 the Tower. 
 
 June 23. 
 They do 
 not appear 
 in Court. 
 
 have the credit of the act by sending them directions to 
 do so. In reply they received a summons to Green- 
 wich, where they were warned not to decide on so 
 vital a point without consulting the Judges of the other 
 Courts. The other Judges naturally refused to give an 
 opinion on a question which had not been argued before 
 them, and as time was slipping away, it was possible 
 that the Long Vacation might come before any judicial 
 decision had been openly pronounced.-^ 
 
 Charles had evidently made up his mind that if it 
 came to the worst, he would not allow the scruples of 
 the Judges to stand in his way. Yet it was not in his 
 nature to look fairly in the face the obstacle which had 
 risen in his path. He did not wish openly to trample 
 upon the guardians of the law. He did not wish to 
 fall back upon State expediency as upon something 
 far higher than legal precedent. He was anxious if 
 possible to act through the Judges, and would wrap 
 himself in the proud consciousness that the voice of the 
 Judges was the voice of the law itself. 
 
 His first step was to assure himself of the safe cus- 
 tody of three of the prisoners who had not been 
 originally committed to the Tower. . Long, Hobart, 
 and Strode were removed to the strong fortress, within 
 the walls of which the King could count on the fidelity 
 of the keeper. Sir Allen Apsley. There they were to 
 remain ' imtil they were delivered by due course of 
 law. '2 
 
 By due course of law Long, Hobart, and Strode were 
 to have appeared in court on the following day to 
 receive an answer to theii" application for bail. When 
 the time came for their appearance, the Court was 
 informed by the keeper of the prison from which they 
 
 ' Whitelocke's Memorials, 14. 
 
 ' Controlment Moll, Kind's Bench, 5 Charles I. Membr. 65. 
 
THE PRISONERS ARE NOT PRODUCED. 121 
 
 had been taken, that it was no longer in his power to chap. 
 produce them. ^ . ^".•. _.. 
 
 There have been Judges in England who would '^^9- 
 have been roused to indignation by the slight cast upon 
 their office. But Hyde was not a Coke, and the Court 
 contented itself with the assertion that the prisoners 
 being absent, they could not be bailed, delivered, or 
 remanded. 
 
 Charles felt that some iustification was necessary. June 24. 
 
 T 1 T • 1 1 ^ ■ 1 ■ r ^^ The King's 
 
 in an obscure and incoherent letter, which painfully letter. 
 betrayed the uncertainty of his mind, he explained to 
 the Judges of the King's Bench that he had kept back 
 the prisoners because they had behaved insolently on a 
 former occasion. Further, as no decision had yet been 
 come to on the legality of the Star Chamber proceed- 
 ings, he did not think the presence of the prisoners was 
 necessary. Nevertheless, to shew his respect to the 
 Court, he would allow Selden and Valentine to attend 
 them on the following day.^ 
 
 Scarcely had this strange letter been despatched Tbepriso- 
 
 J ° ^ ners not to 
 
 when Charles was warned by Heath that the Court was be pro- 
 not likely to take the hint which it was intended to 
 convey. If Selden and Valentine appeared in court, 
 wrote the Attorney General, they would assuredly be 
 bailed. Apsley must therefore be distinctly ordered 
 not to produce them. Charles at once gave the order 
 suggested, and wrote a second letter to the Judges, 
 telling them that he had changed his mind. None of 
 the prisoners should be produced till he had reason to 
 beheve that they would make a better demonstration of 
 their modesty and civility than on the last occasion.^ 
 
 1 The King to the Judges of the King's Bench, June 24. RushwoHh, 
 i. 680. 
 
 ' Heath to Dorchester ; the King to Apsley ; the King to the Judges 
 of the King's Bench. S. P. Bom., cxlv. 40, 41, 42. 
 
122 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP. When the Court met on the following day no pri- 
 
 III, 
 
 allowed. 
 June 26. 
 
 soners appeared. The Judges accepted the check with- 
 ^^' out remonstrance. On the 26th the term came to an 
 No baif ' end, and the Court contented itself with directing that 
 the prisoners should be produced after the Long Vaca- 
 tion. This time Eliot's name is found on the list of 
 applicants for bail. It would seem that though he had 
 taken no steps to share in his comrades' chances of 
 freedom, he was ready to share in their misfortune, 
 now that there was no longer any risk of compromising 
 them by his presence.^ 
 Charles's Charles had been scrupulous to observe the Peti- 
 
 the Judges, tion of Eight in the letter, but he had not observed its 
 spirit. He had sought to entrust the arbitration 
 between himself and his subjects to the Judges, and on 
 the first occasion that the Judges decided against him, he 
 set aside their decision by a subterfuge. Perhaps it was 
 inevitable that he should refuse to submit. A modern 
 Parliament under similar circumstances would have 
 overruled the Judges by suspending the Habeas Corpus 
 Act. It is a clear gain to the working of the constitu- 
 tion that overwhelming power should be placed in a 
 political and not in a judicial body. It is also a clear 
 gain that it should be placed in a body which is likely 
 to exercise it as seldom as possible. Charles was 
 neither in the position of an absolute King nor of an 
 absolute Parhament. The traditions of the constitu- 
 tion forbade him from claiming to be the source of law. 
 Yet the traditions of the constitution justified him in 
 claiming the supreme regulative power in the nation. 
 True to his nature, he concealed from himself the real 
 meaning of his act by the trick in which it was 
 enveloped. His own position was weakened by the 
 manoeuvre. He had humihated the Judges, and if he 
 
 ' 'Rule Book of the Kin<f» Bench. 
 
CHARLES AND THE CONTINENTAL POWERS. 1 23 
 
 humiliated the Judges his subjects were not Hkely to chap, 
 respect them. He could no longer look to them to - — ^i^i— - 
 break the collision between himself and his Parliament, '^^9- 
 if ever a Parliament should meet again. 
 
 The arrival of the Long Vacation left every con- Charles's 
 stitutional question unsettled. In Charles's relations p^uoy? 
 with foreign Powers equal uncertainty prevailed. Com 
 mon sense, it might be thought, would have convinced 
 him that his only chance of success at home lay in 
 complete abstention from entanglements with foreign 
 states. It was impossible for him to lay down the law 
 on the Rhine or the Danube without the support of an 
 united nation. It was equally impossible for him to 
 lay down the law at Westminster if he was engaged in 
 war or in the preparations for war. Weston saw all 
 this clearly. Charles did not see it at all. He fancied 
 that because he was able to send Eliot to the Tower 
 his word would be equally powerful at Paris or Madrid. 
 He did not even perceive the necessity of interesting 
 himself in the objects for which the nations of the Con- 
 tinent were striving, and of waiting patiently till his 
 own special grain could be garnered in the general 
 harvest. To recover the Palatinate was the one object 
 which he had set before him, and it was a matter of 
 indifference to him whether he recovered it by the aid 
 of France or of Spain, of Protestant or Catholic. He 
 was treating more or less openly with Eichelieu, 
 with Olivares, with Christian IV., and with Gustavus 
 Adolphus at one and the same time. Was it to be 
 wondered at if he failed to secure the confidence of any 
 of them ? 
 
 The spring of 1629 was a time of crisis in Ger- German 
 many. In the preceding summer Wallenstein had been 
 beaten back from the walls of Stralsund. The assist- 
 ance given to the citizens by Sweden and Denmark had 
 
124 
 
 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP. 
 III. 
 
 1629. 
 
 March 19. 
 
 The Edict 
 of Resti- 
 tution. 
 
 Charles's 
 negotia- 
 tions with 
 Sweden 
 and Den- 
 mark. 
 
 enabled them to resist the master of the most numerous 
 ' and well appointed army which had been seen on the 
 Continent since the days of the Eomans. The King of 
 Sweden and the King of Denmark drew near to one 
 another in spite of ancient rivalry and personal 
 jealousy. Yet though Wallenstein had failed at 
 Stralsund, his power still seemed irresistible. Krempe 
 had fallen, and Gllickstadt was menaced; andif Gliick- 
 stadt and Stralsund were overcome, Germany would be 
 at the feet of the Emperor. Ships would be built and 
 equipped, and neither Copenhagen nor Stockholm 
 would be safe. 
 
 Then it was that the Emperor and the Catholic 
 Electors committed a fault as portentous in its conse- 
 quences as the Eevocation of the Edict of Nantes was 
 to be in future years. The Edict of Eestitution, signed 
 nine days after the dissolution of the Enghsh Parlia- 
 ment, swept into the hands of the Catholic clergy the 
 Bishoprics and Abbeys of Northern Germany which 
 had long been in possession of Protestant laymen. The 
 Protestant populations of these ecclesiastical lands knew 
 that their religion was at stake. The Protestant Princes 
 around knew that the provision which they had been 
 accustomed to find in these lands for their younger sons 
 was snatched away from them, and that each one of 
 the lost territories would be turned into a garrison 
 held against them in the interests of the Emperor and 
 ■ hia Church. 
 
 It might be a question whether Charles was able 
 to interfere at all with profit on the Continent. But 
 there could be no question that, if he was to in- 
 terfere at all, it was only by a close alliance with 
 the German Princes that he could hope to gain his 
 ends. 
 
 Such a policy had a warm supporter in Sir Thomas 
 
ROE'S POLICY. 125 
 
 Eoe. As ambassador at Constantinople he had been chap. 
 the constant correspondent of the exiled Elizabeth, had -— ,-^ — - 
 been made the confidant of all her hopes and schemes, ^ ^^' 
 and had done his best to carry them out so far as his sir Thomas 
 influence allowed him. " Honest Tom," as she playfully posai. 
 called him, after consulting the Prince of Orange on the 
 way, had returned to England in January, with little 
 xmderstanding of the political strife which had arisen 
 during his long absence from home, but with an over- 
 flowing knowledge of Continental politics and a clear 
 belief that England's true place was on the side of 
 the Protestants of the world. At that time a good 
 understanding between the King and the House of 
 Commons was looked forward to at Court, and Eoe 
 had no difficulty in persuading the Privy Council to 
 listen with approval to his urgent entreaty that forty 
 ships and 6,000 men should be sent to the aid of the 
 King of Denmark before March was over.^ As, how- Feb. 
 ever, nothing could be finally settled till the result of 
 the Session was known, Eoe was allowed to visit 
 the Hague once more to concert measures with his 
 friends in Holland. 
 
 In the beginning of March Eoe was once more in March. 
 England. He found there Sir James Spens, the Scotch- England. 
 man who had been so often employed as a negotiator 
 by Gustavus, and who had come to urge upon Charles 
 the necessity of taking an active part in the war. He 
 found, too. Parliament dissolved. Charles professed March 9. 
 himself as ready as ever to help the King of Denmark, commendt 
 But at present he had not the means to do it. His p''*'™'^*- 
 uncle must have a little patience till he could put his 
 affairs in order.^ 
 
 ' Oontarini's Despatch, Feb. ^. Vm. MSS. In publishing Sir 
 Thomas Hoe's Mission for the Oamden Society, {Miscellany, vii.) I waa 
 not aware of this first visit to England. 
 
 » Dorchester to Anstruther, March 9. S. P. Denmark. 
 
126 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP. Gustavus's plan was his old one of a Protestant 
 
 - — ■ — ' alliance to hold head against the Emperor in Germany, 
 whilst France undertook the conflict against Spain in 
 French in- Italy. Events appeared to be propitious to his under- 
 ^"t5y.°° taking. A disputed succession in the Duchies of 
 Mantua and Montferrat had brought Spain and France 
 into collision beyond the Alps without an actual 
 declaration of war. Casale was besieged by a Spanish 
 army in the name of the claimant who was favoured by 
 Spain and the Emperor. In the name of the Duke of 
 Nevers, the claimant favoured by France, Eichelieu, 
 carrying Lewis with him, scaled the Alps in the depth 
 of winter, compelled the Duke of Savoy to separate 
 himself from Spain, and to place Susa in French hands 
 as a pledge of his submissiveness. The siege of Casale 
 March 5. was raised. A limit was placed to Spanish predomin- 
 ance in Italy, as a limit had been placed to Wallenstein's 
 predominance in Germany by the failure of the siege 
 of Stralsund. In Italy as in Germany a centre of re- 
 sistance was formed to a hard uncongenial domination. 
 The ambassadors of the Italian Princes flocked to the 
 camp of Lewis, proffering their friendship and their 
 services. 
 April 14. At Susa, the scene of Richelieu's triumph, the treaty 
 
 Peace be- -yy^^s signed which put an end to the war between 
 
 tween f ^ 
 
 E™°and°^ Fraucc and England. The principle that each Sovereign 
 was to be free to settle his relations with his own 
 subjects as he thought fit was tacitly accepted. Lewis 
 put in no claim for the toleration of the English Catholics. 
 Charles put in no claim for the better treatment of the 
 French Huguenots. When Lewis learned from his 
 sister that she was perfectly satisfied with her present 
 household, it was impossible for him to press for the 
 return of her French attendants. 
 
 The removal of the difficulties which stood in the 
 
THE TREATY OF SUSA. 1 27 
 
 way of the treaty was publicly and deservedly ascribed chap. 
 to the efforts of the Venetian Ambassador Contarini. ■ — ~ — - 
 As might have been expected, he had relied much on ^^^''■ 
 the influence of the Queen. At a moment when she *""' 
 was looking forward to becoming a mother for the first 
 time, it would have been hard for the husband to re- 
 sist the entreaties of his wife. The peace was published 
 in London on May 10. Henrietta Maria, proud of her f^'tl'on of 
 work, came up from Greenwich to take part in the Te ">« p^»<^«- 
 Deuni which was to be sung at the Chapel at Somerset 
 House in celebration of an event which gave her such 
 peculiar reasons for rejoicing. The fatigue of the 
 journey was too great for her, and soon after her return 
 she was frightened by two dogs quarrelling in her 
 presence. On the morning of the 1 3th she gave birth ^<^y ^3- 
 prematurely to an infant which lived only for two rfageofthe 
 hours. For some time she was herself in great peril. 
 The King was constantly at her bedside, waiting upon 
 her with the tenderest affection during the time of her 
 trial. If God pleased, he said to the physicians, he 
 might have other children. But let them do all they 
 could to save his wife.^ 
 
 Henrietta Maria had looked upon the treaty of Susa Feb. 
 merely as a reconciliation between her husband and sends vane 
 her brother. Contarini- had regarded it as the first 
 step to an alliance against Spain. Charles was, how- 
 ever, still hankering after the promises which Spain was 
 always ready to dispense. In February he had sent Sir 
 Henry Vane to the Hague to ask the Prince of Orange 
 and the States what they thought of the Spanish offers of 
 peace. As might have been expected, they did not March 20. 
 even think them worth listening to. They knew well 
 that Spain was crippled by the loss of the treasure fleet, 
 
 1 Sahetti't NewBletter. May ||. Contarini to Zorzi, May l|. Fern. 
 M8S. 
 
128 
 
 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP. 
 III. 
 
 1629. 
 March. 
 
 Negoti- 
 ation be- 
 tween Den- 
 mark and 
 the Em- 
 peror. 
 
 Majr 2. 
 
 May 12. 
 The Peace 
 of Lilbeck. 
 
 Bohan's re- 
 bellion in 
 France. 
 
 and that a portion of her forces would be diverted to 
 the defence of Italy. Vane was accordingly sent back 
 with an admonition to Charles to take part in the 
 vigorous prosecution of the war. 
 
 How could Charles prosecute the war vigorously ? 
 The despatch urging the King of Denmark to patience 
 was already on its way. Negotiations had long ago 
 been commenced at Liibeck between Christian and the 
 Emperor. Yet Christian had assured Charles's ambas- 
 sador Anstruther that, if he could be certain of aid from 
 England, he would continue the war. On May 2 he 
 learned that he was to be fed by hopes, and he knew 
 too well from the sad experience of Lutter that it was 
 useless to depend on promises which Charles had not 
 the means of fulfilling. He angrily told Anstruther 
 that he ' wished of God he had known sooner what he 
 might have expected '^ Ten days afterwards a treaty 
 was signed at Liibeck. Christian received back his 
 hereditary dominions, and abandoned the championship 
 of German Protestantism. A small fleet which was being 
 leisurely fitted out in the English ports was equipped 
 too late to be of any avail. 
 
 The news which reached Charles from France 
 seemed to be almost as bad as the news which reached 
 him from Denmark. Eichelieu was the last man in the 
 world to throw himself into a policy of adventure. 
 He contented himself with the success which he had 
 acquired at Casale, and returned to France to complete 
 the subjugation of the Huguenots. Eohan and the 
 Protestants of Languedoc and the Cevennes were still in 
 arms in the South. The King in person, with the 
 Cardinal by his side, marched against the insurgents. 
 On May 28 Privas was taken and treated with the 
 utmost barbarity by the triumphant soldiery. Charles 
 
 ' Anstruther to Dorchester, June 6. S. P. Denmark. 
 
OVERTURES FROM SPAIN. 1 29 
 
 may well be excused if he suspected Eichelieu of having chap. 
 taken advantage of his credulity to impose a religious ■ — r^ — - 
 tyranny upon the French Protestants. " I have made ^^^9' 
 peace with France," he said to Contarini, "for the *^" 
 advantage of Christendom and to carry out my original 
 designs for the public good." He added that he could 
 not tell what the French were aiming at. The other 
 - day a French gentleman had repeated in his presence 
 a list of the Huguenot towns which his master was 
 assailing. " In short," said Charles, " he seemed to be 
 telling me the best news in the world. I thought 
 at first that he was joking, but when I found that he 
 was serious, I listened with great patience without 
 answering a word." 
 
 Of all this the Spaniards were not slow to take Coioma's 
 advantage. Coloma had written from Flanders to his Weston. 
 old friend Weston, holding out vague hopes of the resti- 
 tution of the Palatinate.^ He obtained permission for 
 Eubens to visit England on an unavowed mission. No 
 diplomatist could have been personally more welcome 
 to Charles, who was never so happy as when he was 
 arranging his pictures or discussing their beauties. 
 Eubens had many illusions to disperse. He acknow- May 27. 
 ledged that it would not be so easy to restore the in'Engiand. 
 Palatinate as Charles seemed to think. Only part of 
 it was held by Spanish garrisons, and if those garrisons 
 were removed, their place would be at once occupied 
 by the troops of the Emperor and the League.^ 
 
 The statement made by Eubens was not the less charies 
 disagreeable because it was true, and Charles, doubting Gustavna 
 whether he had anything to hope from France or Spain, Dutch.'' 
 turned once more an open ear to those who were 
 
 » Oontarini's Despatch, May |f , |^. Ven. MSS. Weston to 
 Coloma, ^f^g- Simancas MSS. 2C,-ic). 
 
 ' iWflf.'june i. Salvetti's Nmodetter, |^. 
 VOL. I. K 
 
I30 
 
 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE TIIE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP. 
 III. 
 
 1629. 
 
 June. 
 
 June 20. 
 Roe*s mis- 
 sion to the 
 Baltic. 
 
 Course of 
 
 Rubens's 
 
 negotiation. 
 
 urging him to a strictly Protestant alliance. Gustavus 
 was allowed to levy one regiment in England and 
 another in Scotland.^ The Dutch were permitted to 
 take into their service soldiers for whom he had him- 
 self ^no further use.^ He sent Eoe on a diplomatic 
 mission to the Baltic. It is true that he bound himself 
 to nothing by it. The ambassador was to mediate a 
 peace between Sweden and Poland, which would set 
 Gustavus free to carry out in Germany the great enter- 
 prise which he was already meditating. But Eoe carried 
 Avith him no engagement to provide either men or money- 
 Before Eoe left England he obtained a promise 
 from Charles that he would come to no agreement 
 with Spain without the consent of his friends and allies.^ 
 Charles, in fact, had taken fresh offence at the declara- 
 tion of Eubens, that he had no authority to surrender 
 any part of the Palatinate. Eubens had afterwards 
 disgusted him by proposing a mutual cessation of arms 
 between England and Spain, whilst each state was left 
 free to assist its allies upon the Continent.* The Prince 
 of Orange was at that time besieging the fortress of 
 Hertogenbosch, one of the bulwarks of the Spanish 
 Netherlands. Charles, in the presence of Eubens, ex- 
 pressed a hope that the siege might be successful. 
 "Why," said the painter, "should your Majesty wish 
 the triumph of my master's rebels T' " I found them," 
 replied the King, " a free State. I do not know them 
 as rebels. They are my friends, and I wish them to 
 gain the victory in order that your master may become 
 more moderate."* Eubens was told that Cottington 
 would be sent as ambassador to treat for peace at 
 
 > SalvettitoSacchetti,^. 
 
 ^ Joachimi to the States General, June jj, ""^f . AM. MSS, 17,677, 
 
 fol. 357, 362. 
 
 s Oontarini to the Ambasaadors in France, June |^| 
 * Oontarini to Zorzi, June ^, 11, ^^. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 Vm. MSS. 
 
RUBENS IN ENGLAND. 131 
 
 Madrid, but that the intention of the King of Spain to chap. 
 surrender the fortresses held by him in the Palatinate 
 
 must first be distinctly declared.^ ^ ^^' 
 
 Whilst Charles was in this mood the Marquis of J™| ^s. 
 Chateauneuf, the new French ambassador, arrived m tion in 
 England. He was able to announce that, the Hugue- 
 nots in the south of France had submitted to the King. 
 No resistance to the Eoyal authority would be allowed. 
 But toleration was to be the maxim of the State. 
 Catholic and Protestant were to have nothing to fear 
 from one another, that they might devote their ener- 
 gies to the defence, it might be to the aggrandisement, 
 of their common country. 
 
 Chateauneuf was empowered to invite Charles to chafe^au^' 
 active co-operation against Spain. He soon discovered \^^\'^^g 
 that nothing of the kind was to be expected. "I have 
 orders," he said to Contarini, "to offer to England 
 carte blanche for all that they wish to have done in 
 Germany ; but I find them so weak that I do not see 
 how, as things stand, anything of importance can be 
 done." 2 
 
 The very urgency of the French Ambassador (,^/j.)^y^' 
 must have startled Charles, and he was still more dis- tmiis to 
 
 Spain. 
 
 gusted when Chateauneuf, at Holland's instigation, 
 recommended him to call a ParHament, in order 
 that he might declare war with some prospect of 
 success. Spain, at any rate, did not ask him to join 
 in a war or to summon a ParHament. Once more he 
 turned to Kubens. "In September or October," he 
 said to the Queen, " you will see a Spanish ambassador 
 here."^ "Weston pHed him, as ever, with the argument 
 
 1 Rubens to Olivares, 7^'. Simaiwas MSS. 2519. 
 
 2 Despatch of Oontarini and Soranzo, July ^. Vm. MSS. Chateau- 
 neuf s Instructions, May |§. Aff. m.rangh-es, xliii, 139. 
 
 ' Rubens to Olivares, July i|. SimaiKris MSS. 2519. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 PEIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP, that unless he made peace he must summon a Pariia- 
 ■ — <^ — ' ment again. At last Charles took the step which he 
 ^" had long hesitated to take. On July 1 2 Rubens was 
 able to forward the English demands in writing. 
 Charles recognised the necessity of consulting others 
 besides the King of Spain about the Palatinate, He 
 would be content, he said, if Eubens would promise to 
 do all good offices in his power with the Emperor and 
 the Duke of Bavaria, and he hoped that those poten- 
 tates would send ambassadors to Madrid to treat con- 
 jointly with his own. Yet he must have something 
 more than a mere negotiation on which to depend. 
 Philip must distinctly declare that whatever happened 
 he would deliver up the fortresses which he himself 
 held in the Palatinate.^ Cottington, who had lately been 
 July 9. appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, was accord- 
 send cot- ° ingly named ambassador to the King of Spain. On 
 M^id.'° July 19 Charles announced his intention to the Council. 
 He invited no opinion, and his tone was such that no 
 one ventured to object. 
 
 The immediate cause of the resolution thus taken 
 was a fresh letter from Coloma to Weston. It was now 
 arranged that Coloma should come to England as 
 Philip's ambassador ; but the real business of the nego- 
 tiation was to be left to Cottington at Madrid. 
 J"iy- Chateauneuf saw clearly that his real antagonist 
 
 Weston'g ^ 
 
 antagonists was Weston. The Lord Treasurer was as unpopular 
 at Court as he was in the country. The close-fisted 
 guardian of the Exchequer kept a tight hold upon 
 pensions, and pleaded in surly tones the emptiness of 
 the Treasury to those who had incurred debts in the 
 service of the King. Many a courtier cried out for a 
 Parhament that he might dip his hand in the stream of 
 
 ' Paper given to Rubens by Weston, enclosed in a letter from 
 Rubens to Olivares, July ||. Simancaa MSS. 2519. 
 
CHARLES AND THE QUEEN. 133 
 
 subsidies.^ Eubens, himself nO ascetic, was astonislied chap. 
 
 III. 
 at the vast expenditure of the Court. Carlisle and - — ■ — • 
 
 Holland distinguished themselves by the splendour of 
 their hospitaUty. Not a few of the Lords in attendance '^^' 
 upon the King followed their example with very in- 
 sufficient revenues. The necessary result followed. 
 " Therefore," wrote the artist, " pubUc and private 
 affairs are to be sold here for ready money."^ All this 
 craving discontent Chateauneuf hoped to mould to his 
 uses by making the Queen the centre of an organisa- 
 tion which would receive the word of command from 
 the Louvre. 
 
 Everything the ambassador saw led him to believe Nations 
 
 . •' o between 
 
 that v?ith the Queen on his side he could hardly fail of Charies 
 
 '^ and the 
 
 success. Charles was still an ardent lover. He kissed Queen, 
 his wife again and again in Chateauneufs presence. 
 " You do not see that at Turin," he said gaily, referring 
 to the Queen's elder sister. " Nor at Paris either," he 
 added in a lower tone, with a glance at the loveless 
 wedlock of Lewis. Some councillors complained that 
 the King was always in his wife's apartments. Except 
 when he was hunting, it was impossible to speak to 
 him. Yet he was excessively jealous of the supposi- 
 tion that he was under the Queen's influence. "I 
 wish," he said to her one day, " that we could be 
 always together, and that you could accompany me to 
 the Council ; but what would these people say if a 
 woman were to busy herself with matters of govern- 
 ment ? " Chateauneuf thought that if the Queen would 
 play her cards well she might lead her husband where 
 she chose. But he could not persuade her to care for 
 pohtics at all. She was too happy in the immediate 
 present, too Httle capable at any tune of a sustained 
 
 1 Ohateavmeuf to RicheUeu, ^■^^. Aff. Etraiigh-es, xliii. 204. 
 » Rubens to Olivares, July |§. Simancas MSS. 2519. 
 
134 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP, efiort, except when some personal object was at stake, 
 - — r^ — - to trouble herself with the combinations of statesmen.^ 
 I, ^^' Chateauneuf now tried to reach the Queen through 
 
 May 7. . ^ 
 
 The _ her religious zeal. He proposed to establish in her 
 priests. household eight French Capuchins and a Bishop, and 
 to get rid of the two Oratorians who had been in 
 attendance since the expulsion of the French, one of 
 whom, Father Philip, an Englishman, had acted as the 
 Queen's Confessor. Chateauneuf found the King ready 
 to give his wife all freedom in the exercise of her re- 
 ligion. He sometimes scolded her for stajnng in bed 
 so long that she was unable to hear mass before noon. 
 To the eight Capuchins he made no objection. But 
 he would not hear of the Bishop. He would come to 
 England, he said, in his episcopal habit, and would 
 jostle with the bishops of the land. To the Queen he" 
 expressed his own personal objection. "Your mother," 
 he said, " is sending you a governor. When he comes, 
 do not let him enter your room as you allowed the 
 Bishop of Mende to do. Let him approach you only 
 at church and at dinner," The King of France, he 
 told Chateauneuf, wanted to have two ambassadors in 
 London, one for himself and another for the Queen. 
 
 If the King would not admit a Bishop, the Queen 
 
 would not part with her confessor. Chateauneuf was 
 
 forced to give way to her strongly expressed wishes, and 
 
 to renounce for the present the hope of establishing the 
 
 Capuchins in England, at least till the two Kings could 
 
 come to terms on the subject of the Bishop.'"^ 
 
 The The Ambassador had therefore to engage the Queen 
 
 ?eTd of° against Weston in some other way. The sore point was 
 
 money. g^^ ^j^g^ found, Henrietta Maria was profuse in her 
 
 ' Chateauneuf to Richelieu, July ||, Aug. §1, ^755. Aff. Etrangh-es, 
 xliii. 195, 217, 249. 
 
 ^ Chateaurwuf's Despatches are full of his negotiations on this subject 
 from liis arrival till liie departure. 
 
NEGOTIATIONS WITH SPAIN. 135 
 
 expenditure. " She is a bad housekeeper," said Charles chap. 
 
 III. 
 
 of her in her presence. Weston, who found it hard 
 enough to get money for any purpose, was driven to ^' 
 
 despair by the urgent need of satisfying the Queen's 
 demands. Chateauneuf openly did his best to effect a 
 reconciliation ; but the quarrel served his purpose too 
 well to be in reality disagreeable to him.^ 
 
 By this time Charles was looking for an answer from „ '^^p'- 
 
 _ •' _ O Further ne- 
 
 Spain to his demand about the fortresses of the Palatinate, gotjation 
 
 TT • T • • 
 
 He waited in vain. He was told that when Cottington Spam. 
 arrived at Madrid the Enghsh propositions would form 
 a fitting subject of negotiation. They could not be dis- 
 cussed in England as a preliminary to his mission. 
 Olivares declined to bind his hands beforehand. Charles 
 struggled hard against this conclusion. He pleaded with 
 Eubens that the places held by the Spaniards were of 
 little importance to them, whilst his own reputation was 
 deeply concerned in their recovery. But Olivares main- 
 tained an imperturbable silence, and Charles gave way. 
 Cottington was to go to Madrid without any previous 
 declaration from Philip. If he did not receive a satis- 
 factory answer about the fortresses, he was to come away 
 at once, and Charles was to be free to accept the over- 
 tures of France. 
 
 In Cottington Eubens had found an instrument ready 
 to his hand. His good faith, he assured Olivares, could 
 not be greater if he had been a Spanish Councillor of 
 State. The minister of the King of England now joined 
 the Fleming in urging Charles to offer a higher price for 
 the Palatinate than a mere treaty of peace. Why should 
 not England request the Dutch to come to terms with 
 Spain by threatening to abandon them entirely to them- 
 selves, or even to take part against them if they persisted 
 
 ' Chateauneuf to Kichelieu, July ||. Aff. Etrangkres, xliii. 125. 
 
 Soranzo's Despiitch, July \\. Vm. MSS. 
 
136 
 
 PrsiVTLEQE OP PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 III. 
 
 1629. 
 
 Sept.- 
 
 Continued 
 resistance 
 to the pay- 
 ment of 
 Customs. 
 
 The Star 
 Chamber 
 prosecution 
 of members 
 of Parlia- 
 ment drop- 
 ped. 
 
 Sept. 9. 
 Difficulties 
 fibout bail. 
 
 in carrying on the war? Charles gave way at last so 
 far as to consent that when Cottington left for Madrid 
 Sir Henry Vane should be sent back to the Hague in 
 order to induce the States General to accept his arbitra- 
 tion.^ Eoe's negotiation, of which so much had been 
 thought a few months before, was now entirely neg- 
 lected, and Charles even left his ambassador to wander 
 amongst the Baltic States without a single despatch to 
 acquaint him of the turn which afiairs were taking in 
 England. 
 
 The treaty with France had done something to revive 
 English trade. But the old difficulties were not at an 
 end. To some extent, indeed, the prediction of those who 
 had declared it impossible for the merchants long to 
 desist from buying and selling had been realised. Many 
 of them were now again passing goods through the 
 Custom House ; but there were many who were still 
 obstinate, ' because,' as the new Venetian Ambassador 
 Soranzo expressed it, ' they believe in their conscience 
 that they will commit the greatest sin in surrendering 
 their liberties.' The political struggle was carried on 
 with all the instinctive resolution of a war of religion. 
 
 The Government wisely resolved to leave the mer- 
 chants to time and to the allurements of gain. The 
 prosecution of the members of Parhament could not be 
 so lightly abandoned. But the Star Chamber process 
 was dropped in compliance with the wishes of the Judges. 
 The great cause was to be removed to the King's Bench. 
 
 The scandal of calling the offending members before 
 a Court mainly composed of Privy Councillors was there- 
 fore avoided. Charles would appeal to the ordinary 
 guardians of the law to punish his assailants. 
 
 He had not much cause to fear. The Judges were 
 ready enough to carry out his wishes. • The course to 
 
 ' Rubens to Olivares, 1^^, Sept. §1. Stmarwas MSS. 2519. 
 structions to Vane, Oct. 1 8. S. F, Holland, 
 
 In- 
 
THE IMPRISONED . MEMBERS. I 37 
 
 be pursued in the question of bail was settled at a con- chap. 
 ference between Coventry, Manchester, and Dorchester, ^- — ^-^— 
 with the assistance of Heath. The first day of term on ^sept?" 
 which the prisoners would be brought up in pursuance 
 of the rule of the Court was October 9. It was now 
 resolved to anticipate the day, to bring them up as 
 soon as possible, and to take their bail for the remainder 
 of the vacation on condition that they would give 
 seciurity for their good behaviour whilst at hberty ; in 
 other words, that they would engage not to make the 
 Government unpopular by recounting their vn:ongs.^ 
 
 This proposal was adopted by the Judges without sept. 30. 
 difficulty. They were even prepared to go further. Not adopted ij 
 only would they offer the bail on the King's terms, but '''« J'"is«»- 
 they would offer it as a matter of favour, not as a right 
 to which the prisoners were legally entitled.^ Even 
 with this Charles was not satisfied. He required Oct. i. 
 that if the prisoners once refused the grace offered difficulties. 
 them, they should not be allowed another chance unless 
 they first asked his pardon. On this point, however, the 
 Judges were firm. Hyde answered that the prisoners 
 would not be so foolish as to reject the favour offered 
 to them, yet, ' if they should be so gross,' and should 
 afterwards repent of their folly, ' bailable they are by 
 law.' 
 
 The King insisted. He sent his letter empowering oot. 2. 
 the Judges to offer bail, but accompanied with a warn- 
 ing that if his grace was refused the prisoners should 
 'neither have their liberty by his letter or by other 
 means till they had acknowledged their fault. '^ The 
 next morning they were admitted one by one before 
 the Court. The bond for good behaviour was un- 
 
 '■ The King to the Judges of the King's Bench, Sept. 9. Heath to 
 Dorchester, Sept. 10. S. P. Bom. cxlix. 37 ; i. 37. 
 
 ' Hyde to Dorchester, Sept. 30. S. P. Bom. cxlix. no. 
 
 ' Dorchester to Hyde, Oct. i ; Hyde to Dorchester, Oct. i ; Dorchester 
 to Hyde, Oct. 2. 8. P. Bom. cl. 3, 4, 10. 
 
138 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP, doubtedly in the power of the Judges to demand. By 
 
 ■ r-^ — • the prisoners it was regarded as a deadly insult, for it 
 
 ' ^^' was seldom if ever asked, except from keepers of dis- 
 A bond for orderly houses, from women of profligate life, or from 
 haviourde- turbulent distuibers of the peace. One of the seven, 
 Walter Long, after a quarter of an hour's resistance, 
 accepted the terms at the urgent entreaty of his counsel. 
 Refused by Not One of the Others followed his example. When he 
 prisoners, fourid that hc stood alonc, he bitterly repented his weak- 
 ness, complained that he had been circumvented, and 
 entreated in vain to be sent back to share the imprison- 
 ment of his comrades.^ 
 Oct. 4. The Judges were in a difficulty. The 9th would" 
 
 Itlthe^^" quickly come, when they were legally bound to give 
 Kmg. ]^g^[i j£ j(. ^jj^g asked for, though they might persist in 
 coupling their offer with the condition which had been 
 rejected. The King had forbidden them to grant bail after 
 the first refusal, till the prisoners had asked his pardon. 
 Hyde supplicated Ch-arles to revoke his decision,^ and he 
 and Whitelocke were ordered to wait on the King at 
 Hampton Court.^ They found him in a good humour. 
 It is possible that he thought the chance that the 
 prisoners would now give way was too slight to be 
 taken into account. He always wished, he said, to 
 comply with the opinion of his Judges as long as they 
 did not speak in riddles. He would raise no further ob- 
 jection to the reappearance of the prisoners on the 9th. 
 Oct. 9. When the 9th came the seven appeared at the bar. 
 
 for*good This time they all refused the terms offered. Long, his 
 
 ' Narrative of Proceedings. S. P. Dom. cl. 85. 
 
 " Hyde to Dorchester, Oct. 4. Ibid. cl. 22. 
 
 ' This interview is dated Sept. 30 by Rushworth (i, 682), but the 
 letters which we have on that date and the following days seem incom- 
 patible with the date. After the 4th it is quite in its place. Besides, it 
 accounts for the want of any answer to Hyde's letter of that date, all the 
 rest of the correspondence being carefully preserved. 
 
BAIL OFFERED ON CONDITIONS. 139 
 
 few days of unwelcome liberty having come to an end, ^?j4^- 
 
 briskly placed himself by the side of the others, and thus ■ — -'—' 
 .1 • 1 T T • 1 T • 1 1 ■ 1629. 
 
 by yielamg his body once more to prison, he set his ^^^ ^ 
 
 mind at liberty.' The three puisne Judges tried their ^^^?;^'j.°" 
 
 best to explain away the condition of bail as unimpor- f"sed. 
 
 tant. Hyde alone threatened the prisoners with the 
 
 consequences of their folly. If they did not accept the 
 
 King's offer now they might, he told them, be left in 
 
 prison, it might be for seven years. ^ 
 
 Hyde was sick of it all. There was no dignity in YPhaUs^to 
 the part he was called on to play to sustain him. Why, come next? 
 he asked Heath, impatiently, was any further trouble 
 to be taken ? Further proceedings were unnecessary. 
 ' The best way were to dispose of them either where they 
 now are or to other prisons at the King's pleasure, and 
 there leave them as men neglected until their own 
 stomachs came down, and not to prefer any information 
 at all, they being now safe and so shall continue.' Heath 
 would not hear of so high-handed a proceeding.^ He 
 had confidence in the strength of his own position, and 
 he was not afraid to speak out the arguments in which 
 he trusted in the face of a hostile world. He brought 
 in his information against Eliot, Holies, and Valentine, 
 those who had taken the principal part in the attack 
 upon the Speaker. 
 
 Hyde might well shrink back. Events had conspired 
 
 > Narrative. 8. P. Dmn. cl. 85. State Trials, iii. 288. 
 
 « Heath to Dorchester, Oct. 13. 8. P. JDom. cl. 53. Hyde's opinion 
 can only he gathered from Heath's letter, from which the words in the 
 text are given. Hyde's meaning is therefore left in obscurity. I suspect 
 that he meant that as the Petition of Right had been obeyed, the cause 
 of imprisonment had been shewn, and bail had been refused, the prisoners 
 min-ht be left where they were simply on the ground that they had 
 refused to give baU. It seems incredible that a Chief Justice should 
 argue even in Hyde's position, that the punishment for their action in 
 Parliament ought to be pei-petual imprisonment without trial, unless 
 there had been some quibble to fall back upon. 
 
140 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP, to thrust forward the Judges into a position which it 
 
 ■ — r^ — ■ was impossible for them to hold. The storm of the 
 
 Oct?' political battle raged around them, and they were drag- 
 
 TUe Judges ged forth to act as arbiters, where arbitration was im- 
 
 nave to , 
 
 submit to possible.^ The Commons had spurned their decisions, 
 and now the King, with more outward show of respect, 
 waved away their claims to measure his political au- 
 thority by the standard of legal precedents and maxims. 
 It was so clear to him that his own position was legal, 
 that he could not understand the scruples of the Judges. 
 At this very moment he was treating one of them with 
 contumely, and was doing his best to present to his sub- 
 jects the men on whose judgments he wished to rely as 
 the tools of a Government which would tolerate no 
 decision of which it did not approve. 
 Oct. 12. The Chief Baron, Sir John Walter, had every claim 
 
 Baron to the Consideration of the King. He had been his 
 Walter. Attorney General when he was Prince of Wales, and 
 was universally respected for his ability and integrity. 
 Up to the Long Vacation his course had been eminently 
 satisfactory to Charles. In the Court of Exchequer 
 he had refused to allow the replevins for the goods 
 seized for non-payment of duties, and he had encou- 
 raged the King to proceed against the imprisoned 
 members of Parhament. 
 He is asked Soou after the beginning of Michaelmas Term, 
 ws'^piLm. however, Walter received a visit from Coventry. The 
 Lord Keeper had come to suggest to him that he should 
 petition the King to be allowed to retire from the 
 Bench. His Majesty, it appeared,, was displeased with 
 
 ' The notion that the Judges could settle all political quarrels is 
 something like the notion that arbitration can settle all international 
 quarrels. In both cases much can be done when both parties are agreed 
 on the principles of the point at issue, and merely ask for their applica- 
 tion. In neither case is there sufficient physical force to compel sub- 
 mission when there is disagreement as to principles. 
 
SUSPENSION OF THE CHIEF BARON. 14I 
 
 him on account of his laxity on the circuit ixom which 
 he had just returned in enforcing the obhgation of his 
 subjects to attend musters. Walter protested that there 
 had been no laxity at all. The King refused to accept 
 the explanation. He sent Coventry back to ask the 
 Chief Baron whether he intended to ' submit himself 
 to his Majesty, or stand to his trial.' Walter replied 
 that he would stand to his trial. " I desire," he wrote, 
 " to be pardoned for making a surrender of my patent, 
 for that were to punish myself. I do with confidence 
 stand upon my innocency and faithful service to his 
 Majesty, and therefore will abide my trial."^ 
 
 Charles was unprepared for such an answer. As 
 always happened, he was disconcerted by firm but 
 quiet opposition. Walter held his ofiice by patent ' as 
 long as he should behave well,' and the scandal of an 
 open investigation, which at the most could only result 
 in proof of negligence, was of all things most to be 
 deprecated at a time when Charles was appeahng to 
 the Judges to arbitrate between himself and his people. 
 He shrunk jfrom the Chief Baron's challenge. If, Oct. 22. 
 however, he could not deprive Walter of his office, he pended. 
 could suspend him from the exercise of his judicial 
 functions.^ Walter, therefore, continued to bear the 
 title of Chief Baron of the Exchequer, but during the 
 year of life which remained to him, he never again 
 took his seat upon the Bench. 
 
 Contemporaries agreed to regard the charge about probaWe 
 the musters as a mere subterfuge. The real cause of fortMs 
 Charles's displeasure, they held, was that Walter, after ^'^''" 
 having exhorted him to proceed against the members,^ 
 
 ' Coventry to the King, Oct 12; Dorcliester to Coventry, Oct. 13; 
 Coventry to Dorchester, Oct. 14. S. P. Dom. cl. 47, 52, 58. 
 " Gresley to Puckering, Oct. 24. Court and Times, ii. 35. 
 ' Salvetti dwells upon thia point. He says {Newsletter, Oct. \\), 
 
142 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 now turned round, and expressed himself strongly 
 against the course which had been adopted. If this 
 was the case, Charles might very well have taken 
 offence at so sudden a change of opinion, and might 
 have charged him, as he is said to have done, with 
 ' deahng cautelously, and not plainly, concerning the 
 Parliament men.'^ 
 Chambers's It is possiblc too that a further consideration was not 
 
 case m the . ^ . 
 
 Exchequer, without Weight with Charlcs. The case of the members 
 
 of Parhament was to be decided in the King's Bench, 
 
 and as far as that case was concerned, it was of no 
 
 practical importance what Walter might think about 
 
 the matter. But the cases connected with the levy of 
 
 Tonnage and Poundage would come before the Court 
 
 of Exchequer, and it would be highly inconvenient for 
 
 Charles to have them decided before a Chief Baron 
 
 Question of who was likely to adopt the popular view. If reliance 
 
 Chamber cau bc placcd on a statement which has reached us, it 
 
 m"he'Ex° would secm that the Barons of the Court, with "Walter 
 
 chequer. ^^ ^.j^gj^, Jjead, had already remonstrated strongly with 
 
 the Lord Treasurer for attempting to levy Chambers's 
 
 that Walter was suspended, ' per havere da principio consigliato sua 
 Maeata d' agitare contro di quest! gentilhuomim come fine ad hora lia 
 fatto, et che dipoi giuditiariamente si fusse gettato alia popularita.' That 
 he had done this judicially is a mistake. Soranzo says that the Judges 
 had heen ordered to condemn the prisoners, and that the King had heen 
 much disgusted by their refusal to do so. He had accordingly sus- 
 pended one, ' et dicono lui stato queUo che piu degl' altri affermo doversi 
 venir alia retentione, perche vi eran leggi che li condannavano.' Soranzo's 
 Despatch, ?^^. Yen. MSS. 
 
 ' Whitelocke, Mem. i6. He gives as Walter's opinion ' that a Par- 
 liament-man for misdemeanour in the House criminally out of his oiBce 
 and duty, might he only imprisoned, and not further proceeded against. ' 
 This opinion, if Indeed it proceeded from Whitelocke, is so strange as to 
 he uninteUigihle as it stands. It is possible that we have here a distorted 
 report of the words, whatever they may have been exactly, to which 
 Heath replied on Oct, 13. See p. 139. 
 
ELIOT IN PRISON. HS 
 
 fine before the question of its legality had been adjudged. 
 After Walter's removal no further difficulty was raised.^ 
 The three remaining Barons dealt summarily with 
 Chambers's plea questioning the jurisdiction of the Star 
 Chamber. That Court, they informed him, was erected 
 many years before the statute of Henry VII. to which 
 he had appealed as limiting its powers. It was ' one 
 of the most high and honourable Courts of Justice,' 
 and to deliver one who was committed by the decree 
 of one of the Courts of Justice was not the usage of the 
 Exchequer.^ The proceedings on the main question 
 of the right to Tonnage and Povmdage dragged on for 
 some time longer, apparently without any anxiety on 
 the part either of the Government or the Judges to 
 bring them to an issue. 
 
 From these it is pleasant to turn to Eliot and his Euot'intho 
 companions in suffering. On October 29, together Marshaisea. 
 with Holies and Valentine, he was transferred from 
 the Tower to the Marshaisea, 'from a palace to a 
 country house, ' as he playfuUy expressed it, in order 
 that he might be in the custody of the authorities of 
 the Court which was to determine his case. It was 
 not long before Holies, worn out by the importunities 
 of his wife and friends, consented to give the security 
 for good behaviour which would set him at liberty till 
 the day of trial.^ 
 
 Some weeks would have to be passed by Eliot in this 
 
 ' The following note occurs on the back of a MS. account of the pro- 
 ceedings in the Exchequer in Chambers's case. " The 2 of July, 1629, 
 a, fieri facias cap. and extent from the Lord Treasurer and Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer without the consents of the Lord Chief Baron and other 
 Barons, who disavowed the proceedings as being out of the due course 
 of the law." Add. MS8. 1 1,056, fol. 39 b. 
 
 2 Rvshworth, i. 676. 
 
 ' Gresley to Puckering, Nov. S (not i). Court and Times, ii. 36. 
 
144 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP, new prison before the case was ripe for a hearing. They 
 
 > — ,~ — • were spent by him without hope of better times in 
 
 j^^^" this life, but in the quiet and cheerful confidence of 
 
 well doing. He had none of the self-consciousness of 
 
 the aspirant to martyrdom. He had words of playful 
 
 and tender affection for his friends, serious thoughts 
 
 about the prerogative of kings at home, and about new 
 
 homes for exiled religion in far America. He had not 
 
 a word of scorn for his adversaries, not a word of 
 
 regret for his comrades' desertion. Now and then 
 
 came a friendly letter from Hampden or Luke, with 
 
 presents of game and country cheer. Selden and 
 
 Strode came to join him in the Marshalsea before 
 
 long. Here he was allowed greater liberty than in 
 
 the Tower, and was permitted under due guardianship 
 
 to attend the preaching at St. Mary Overies.^ 
 
 1630. -^t last, on January 26, Eliot, Holies, and Valen- 
 
 jan 26. ii^Q QQgg more stood together at the King's Bench bar. 
 
 Heath s m- o o 
 
 formation. Heath's information now at last went directly to the 
 point. There was no longer any attempt to escape 
 from the full assertion of the jurisdiction of the Court 
 ■ over actions done in ParHament. The Attorney 
 General did not urge that there had been a conspiracy 
 during the adjournment in private houses, or that 
 Parhament was no Parliament after the King's orders 
 had been conveyed. The conspiracy, he now declared, 
 had been formed in Parliament itself, to resist the 
 King's lawful order to adjourn, and to rend asunder 
 the links which bound the King to his subjects by 
 calumniating the ministers of the Crown, and by assault- 
 ing the Speaker, an order to compel the House to listen 
 to an invitation to the people to refuse obedience to 
 the King's orders.^ 
 
 ' Forster, Sir J. Eliot, ii. 293. 
 
 ' Information, State Trials, iii. 320. 
 
THE ARGUMENT IN COURT. 1 45 
 
 To this the prisoners answered by denying the chap. 
 jurisdiction of the Court over acts committed in Par- 
 
 Hament. The Judges tried to limit the issue as much '^ ^°' 
 as possible. They declared that on the main question The Judges 
 their minds were made up already, and that all the the issue!" 
 twelve Judges were resolved that an offence committed 
 in Parliament, criminally or contemptuously, might, 
 when Parliament came to an end, be punished in another 
 Court. The only question to be argued was whether 
 the King's Bench was the proper Court to punish it. 
 
 Mason, who undertook the defence of Eliot, took no Arguments 
 notice of this intimation. He roved over the whole the piiaon- 
 field of enquiry, and was told by the Court that a 
 great part of his argument was nothing to the pre- 
 sent question. Calthrop, who followed on Valentine's 
 behalf, was more discreet. He argued that there was 
 no instance of the interference of the King's Bench 
 with cases in which Parliamentary privilege was invol- 
 ved, excepting when a capital offence was alleged to 
 have been committed. If the Court took cognizance 
 of the present charge, it would be impossible to draw 
 the line at which its interference was to stop. If trea- 
 son or murder were committed in Parliament, they 
 might be questioned out of Parliament. If words were 
 to be called to account on the ground that they had 
 been spoken ' maliciously and seditiously,' then ' all 
 actions of Parliament men ' might, ' under pretence of 
 malice,' be drawn within the sphere of the Court. 
 Besides, Parliament was a superior Court to the King's 
 Bench, and as such was not subject to its jurisdiction. 
 
 Heath, in reply, admitted that some actions were Heath's 
 covered by Parliamentary privilege. Bat he drew the '^p^-^- 
 Une not at capital offences but at criminal offences. If 
 no precedent could be found for caUing in question 
 such actions as those of which the prisoners had been 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
146 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP, guilty, the reason was that no such offence had ever 
 • — ^^— been committed before. For the present, however, 
 ^ •'°' the only question was whether the Court had the right 
 of punishment on the hypothesis that the offence were 
 proved to have been committed. If it had not, there 
 would undoubtedly be a failure of justice whenever, 
 as in the present case, a Parliament came to an end 
 without taking action in the matter. Even if a new 
 Parhament were disposed at some future time to seek 
 out the criminal, it could have no official knowledge 
 of the facts of the case. 
 Judgment The judgmcut delivered was a foregone conclusion. 
 
 Court. The reasons by which it was prompted found their 
 fullest expression in the mouth of Whitelocke, the only 
 one of the Judges on the Bench who had had personal 
 White- experience of Parliamentary life. The offence charged 
 glmelu' against the prisoners, he said, was one tending to the 
 destruction of the Commonwealth. It was true that 
 Parliament was a High Court, and the King's Bench an 
 inferior Court. But Parhament itself was not called in 
 question. The issue lay between the King and some 
 private persons. " You have," he said, " in every 
 Commonwealth a power that hath this superiority, that 
 do they right or wrong, are subject unto no control 
 but of God, and that in this kingdom is the King. 
 But no other within the realm hath this privilege. It 
 is true that that which is done in Parliament by con- 
 sent of all the House shall not be questioned else- 
 where ; but if any private member puts off the person 
 of a judge, and puts on the person of a malefactor, 
 becoming seditious, is there such sanctimony in the 
 place that they may not be questioned for it elsewhere ? 
 . . . There is no man hath more privilege than a minister, 
 in regard he preacheth the word of God, yet if he fall 
 on matter of slander to the State, his coat shall not 
 
VIEW TAKEN BY THE JUDGES. 1 47 
 
 privilege him. So, if a Pariiament man, that should chap. 
 be a man of gravity and wisdom, shall decline his - — r^ — - 
 gravity, and fall on matter of sedition, he hath made ^^3°' 
 himself incapable of that privilege, although I conceive °' ^^' 
 the Parliament to be the best servant the King hath, 
 and the Commonwealth cannot stand without it. I 
 have been a Parliament man almost these twenty years, 
 yet I never observed any inveighing against the person 
 of any great man, but we followed the matter, although 
 we thought that there were as great offenders then as 
 at any time. Suppose a Judge of this Court flies into 
 gross invectives and leaves his office, shall this Judge in 
 Court of Oyer and Terminer plead his privilege ? No, 
 for you did this as a defamer, not a Judge."^ 
 
 But for one consideration, it would be impossible to cons.i<iera- 
 resist this argument. If Parliament was to be nothing t'eigift.''" 
 more than the High Court which in technical language 
 it still is, it would be for the public benefit that a 
 power should exist strong enough to impose upon its 
 members the restraints to which every other Enghsh- 
 man submits his language and his actions. It was be- 
 cause Parliament was rapidly becoming more than a 
 High Court that Whitelocke's argument was invalid. 
 It was unconsciously putting in a claim to share 
 in the superiority which, as Whitelocke said, was 
 subject to no control. By and by it would vindicate 
 it entirely to itself. Privileges which might be 
 lightly regarded when the machinery of govern- 
 ment was working easily, became matters of life and 
 death when the different powers of the constitution 
 were eyeing one another suspiciously, ready before 
 long to sound the challenge to civil war. Calthrop 
 had said that if malice could bring words within the 
 
 ' state Trials, \\i. 293. Ilarg. MSS. 25, fol. 2. I have taken ex- 
 tracts indiscriminately from tlie two reports. 
 
148 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CHAP, jurisdiction of the King's Bench, malice might be 
 
 III. 
 
 imputed to any one. To surrender the point at issue 
 ' ^°" was to renounce the weapon without which victory in 
 
 Jan. 27. _.,.,,- 
 
 the approaching strife was hardly possible. 
 
 It was simply impossible that such a view of the 
 case should be taken by the Judges. Even Eliot did 
 not avow it — probably hardly suspected it in the self- 
 communings of his heart. With him resistance pro- 
 ceeded rather from instinctive defiance of wrong than 
 from a deliberate foreknowledge of the path before 
 ?rimi'-'''° °^ ^™- -^^ y^* ^^® Court had only claimed its jurisdic- 
 uaiityre- j^^qq j^ jj^d vct to dccide whether an offence had 
 
 served. " " j 
 
 Jjeen committed. For the rest of the time allowed for 
 the preparation of the defence neither Eliot nor his 
 friends were idle. They seem to have thought it 
 possible to discover some form which would enable 
 them to defend themselves without betraying the 
 privileges of Parliament. They met with unexampled 
 difficulties. Counsel could not be brought together at 
 their summons, either because the lawyers shrunk from 
 embarking further in a cause so displeasing to the 
 King, or because they knew that it would be perfectly 
 hopeless to discover a form of words which would 
 satisfy Eliot and the Judges as well. At last, on 
 Feb. 12. February 12, the lawyers were collected, and a paper 
 was drawn up reciting once more Eliot's reasons for 
 declining the jurisdiction of the Court. Struck down 
 by illness, the result of fatigue brought on by his 
 exertions in preparing his case, Eliot was unable to be 
 in Court on the day when judgment was pronounced.^ 
 Thejndg- Holies and Valentine, however, were there, refusing, 
 as he would have refused, to acknowledge the jurisdic- 
 tion of the Court by pleading to the charge. Jones, 
 who delivered the judgment, took unworthy advantage 
 
 ' Forster, Sir J. Eliot, ii. 315-322. 
 
 ment. 
 
SENTENCE. ON THE PRISONERS. ' 1 49 
 
 of their silence, treating it as an acknowledgment of chap. 
 
 III. 
 
 their fault. Eliot was sentenced to a fine of 2,000/., 
 Holies to 1,000 marks, Valentine, as being less wealthy, ^ ^°' 
 to 500/. None of them was to be released from prison 
 without acknowledgment of the offence and security 
 for good behaviour.^ 
 
 The ground on which the judgment was based was its view of 
 the generality of the charges brought by Eliot in the Distinction 
 House. He might have accused any particular Privy 
 Councillor as a preparation for an impeachment. But 
 on one occasion he had brought a sweeping charge 
 against Privy Councillors in general, and as he could not 
 possibly ha,ve intended to impeach the Privy Council 
 as a body, his words must be regarded as malicious. 
 
 The distinction was not without ground. But it 
 would be impossible to maintain it in practice. A 
 member out of favour at Court would be sure to let 
 drop some words which might be interpreted as a 
 general accusation, and he would find himself face to 
 face with the Judges. The rough common-sense view 
 of the situation was taken by Dorchester when he said March 3 
 that the object of the trial was " to let the world see ter's view 
 that Parliament men must be responsible for their ° ,*°*"'" 
 words and actions in other Courts, and so they will be 
 more moderate and circumspect hereafter, and the 
 King, when he finds good, may meet his people with so 
 much the more assurance that they will never trans- 
 gress in the point of due respect and obedience,"^ an 
 opinion which fully justified Ehot in refusing sub- 
 mission to a claim which was certain sooner or later to 
 pass into the assertion of a right to control Parha- 
 mentary speeches of every kind. 
 
 Eliot knew that he had no mercy to expect from 
 
 > St(d;e Trials, iii. 309. 
 
 » Dorchester to riemirg:, March 3. S. P. Bom. clxii. 18. 
 
ISO 
 
 PRIVTLEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 CH AP. 
 
 III. 
 
 1630. 
 
 March 3. 
 Treatment 
 of the 
 prisonera. 
 
 Charles. The way was made easy for the other prison- 
 ers to make theu* submission, and some of them were 
 even allowed to leave their prisons without . any sub- 
 mission at all. It was not so with Eliot. It was from 
 Eliot's hps that the challenge of the King's authority 
 had first come. It was EHot who presented himself 
 before Charles's eyes as the malignant accuser of Buck- 
 ingham, who had struck down the minister in order 
 that he might strike down the King. To those who 
 know him for what he was, no caricature could be more 
 distorted than such a portrait. It is indeed no service 
 to historical truth to paint him as a faultless prodigy. 
 It is enough to know him as a man, sometimes mis- 
 taken, but never wilfully bUnd to truth, equally ready 
 to brand with withering scorn the traitor to his country, 
 and to turn his own cheek to the petulant reproaches 
 of those whose blows were only directed against himself. 
 The last trial of his patience was that he was deserted 
 in the hours of watching by those who had stood shoulder 
 to shoulder with him in the excitement of the battle. 
 Yet, even for them he had no word of reproof, as he 
 had no word of regret for his own calamities. He was 
 stiU in the prime of life — only thirty-eight years of age 
 — ^when liberty is sweet. But, like Luther at Worms, 
 it was not in him to do otherwise than he did. A word 
 of submission would have set him free to revisit his Cor- 
 nish home and the dear ones whom it contained. That 
 word he would not speak. He had taken care to 
 relieve his children from the consequences of the King's 
 anger. When the Sheriff's oflScers enquired at Port 
 Eliot for property on which to levy the fine, they were 
 told that the man whom they believed to be the owner 
 of that fair estate had nothing which he could call his 
 own. Everything had been made over to trustees for 
 the use of his family. It was only with his body that 
 
CONSTANCY OF ELIOT. 151 
 
 he was able to answer the_ demands made upon him. chap. 
 " I am now freed," he wrote to a friend, " from the — ^^i— - 
 tedious attendance of courts and counsel, and am pass- l^^°- 
 
 March 3. 
 
 mg agam to the observance only of myself."^ In the 
 highest sense he belonged to himself alone. In a lower 
 sense he belonged to the King and to the King's officers. 
 " Mr. Lieutenant," said the Marshal of the King's Bench 
 as he delivered him at the Tower, " I have brought you 
 this worthy knight, whom I borrowed of you some 
 months ago, and now do repay him again." ^ 
 
 EUot's many friends were struck with admiration 
 at his self-devotion. " The judgment upon you," wrote 
 Kirton, " is blown amongst us with wonder attending it. 
 For ray own part I can wonder at nothing ; but I think 
 that that man who doth not take your judgment as in 
 part a judgment upon himself, doth fail either in honesty 
 or discretion. I will use no more words unto you of it, 
 because I know you are so weU composed that things 
 of this nature, although never so high, slack not your 
 resolutions, or move you to be otherwise than you were. 
 The time may come that such virtues may be re- 
 garded." ^ 
 
 Many years were to pass away before Eliot's prin- Yet his 
 ciples were fully adopted by the nation. The mass of ™7et "V 
 mankind is never moved by the fear of impending evils. ac^pfeJ. 
 To the farmer as he plodded in his daily rounds, to the 
 trader as he looked for customers in his shop, it was 
 nothing that the power exercised by the King might 
 possibly be put forth at some future time to the de- 
 triment of religion or of commerce. The ecclesiastical 
 innovations were as yet confined to a very few locahties. 
 The Custom House officers did not as yet exact a single 
 
 > Eliot to Kirton, Feb. 20. Forster, Sir J. Eliot, ii. 326. 
 ' Meade to Stuteville, March 13. CmH and Times, ii. 66. 
 ' Kirton to Eliot, March. Forster, Sir J. Eliot, ii. 327. 
 
152 PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT BEFORE THE JUDGES. 
 
 ^m^" penny more than had been paid without sign of re- 
 ^~^7^ luctance for many years. On the other hand, the events 
 March, of the last session had made it plain that the objects at 
 which Eliot aimed could only be attained by defiance 
 of the King ; and much as the intelligent classes were 
 dissatisfied with the course which Charles had taken, 
 even they, and still less the bulk of the nation, were 
 not as yet prepared to defy the King. 
 
 It was well that it should be so, well that the belief 
 that it was possible for a sovereign to cut himself oflf 
 from sympathy with his people, and yet to keep free 
 from actual misgovernment, should be slowly accepted. 
 To Eliot belongs the glory of being the first to see 
 plainly that this could not be, that Charles's isolation 
 was a fi:uitful seed of evil. It was for him to sufier as 
 those suffer who see that which their fellows cannot see. 
 Like the Swiss warrior, he had gathered into his own 
 bosom the spear points of the adverse host. His country- 
 men would follow by and by through the breach which 
 he had made at the cost of his life. 
 
153 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 The permanent interest of the judicial proceedings <^^^^- 
 which have just been narrated centred in Eliot's protest. ' — 7 — ' 
 Their importance for the immediate future lay in the The Judges 
 tacit renunciation by the Judges of that high authority p°t;j|^„ „(■ 
 which the Commons had thrust upon them in 1628. ^'s''*- 
 They refused to be arbitrators between the King and 
 the nation. They accepted the position which Bacon 
 had assigned them, of lions beneath the throne, upon 
 whom was imposed the duty of guarding the throne 
 from attack. All that had been gained by the Petition 
 of Right seemed to be lost in an instant. What would 
 it matter that the Judges were ready to enforce the 
 specification of the cause of committal, if they were 
 ready to be satisfied with the cause shown, whatever it 
 might be? The Petition, in truth, had laid down a 
 great principle, which could only be carried out to its 
 logical results by the strenuous efibrts of future Parlia- 
 ments. 
 
 Would Parhament ever meet again ? The real line The re- 
 
 • J 1 TT llglOUS 
 
 of separation between the King and the House of question 
 Commons had lain in the religious question. So de- 
 cided had been the opposition that it seemed hardly 
 possible that a compromise could be discovered which 
 would enable them to meet on friendly terms. At 
 first sight, indeed, it might seem that the policy 
 
154 
 
 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 CHAP. 
 IV. 
 
 1629. 
 
 March. 
 Laud's 
 comments 
 on the Re- 
 solution of 
 the Com- 
 mons. 
 
 July 14. 
 His letter 
 to Vossius. 
 
 involved in the King's Declaration on Eeligion was 
 more likely to win general support than the zealous 
 intolerance of the Commons. Laud's comment on the 
 Eesolution in which the Lower House had taken its 
 stand upon the Calvinistic interpretation of the Articles, 
 was full of promise. " All consent in all ages," he wrote, 
 " as far as I have observed, to an article or canon, is to 
 itself, as it is laid down in the body of it, and if it bear 
 more senses than one it is lawful for any man to choose 
 what sense his j udgment directs him to, so that it be a 
 sense according to the analogy of the faith, and that he 
 hold it peaceably, without distracting the Church, and 
 this till the Church which made the article determine 
 the sense ; and the wisdom of the Church hath been in 
 all ages or the most, to require consent to articles in 
 general as much as may be, because that is the way of 
 unity, and the Church in high points requiring assent 
 to particulars hath been rent."^ 
 
 A few words in a letter to a foreign correspondent 
 carry us still more deeply into those inmost feehngs 
 of Laud's heart which he usually veiled from the eye of. 
 the world. " I have moved every stone," he wrote to 
 the learned Vossius, " that those thorny and perplexed 
 questions might not be discussed in public before the 
 people, lest we should violate charity under the appear- 
 ance of truth. I have always counselled moderation, 
 lest everything should be thrown into confusion by 
 fervid minds to which the care of religion is not the 
 first object. This perhaps has not given satisfaction, 
 but I remember how seriously the Saviour commanded 
 charity to his disciples, and how cautiously and pa- 
 tiently the Apostle commanded us to treat the weak. 
 If I perish by these efforts of mine,^ and become, as 
 
 • Prynne, Canterbmy's Doom, 163. 
 
 ' I suppose this is the meaning of ' si his artihua peream.' The letter 
 is in Latin. 
 
LAUDS VIEW OF HIS POSITION. 1 55 
 
 usually happens, a prey to the victorious litigant, my 
 reward is in my own bosom, nor shall I seek comfort 
 out of myself, except in God. For the present I have 
 little to hope, much to fear. The Ke'formed Church 
 has no greater reason for regret and precaution than 
 the danger lest, at a time when she is being attacked 
 by the sword amongst other nations, she should here 
 and with you where she dwells more safely, be torn in 
 pieces by her own hands, and so by a cruel rent 
 should first be broken up into fragments, and then, by 
 gradual subdivision, into minute atoms, and should 
 
 so vanish into nothing For my own part, I 
 
 will labour with the grace of God that truth and 
 peace may kiss one another. If, for our sins, God 
 refuses to grant this, I wUl hope for eternal peace for 
 myself as soon as possible, leaving to God those who 
 break that kiss asunder, that he may either convert 
 them, as I heartily desire, or may visit them with pu- 
 nishment." ^ 
 
 Dislike of arrogant and self-sufficient dogmatists is How far 
 plainly to be read in these words of Laud. For all that, accept the 
 the true ring of hberty is not in them. There is none tokration ? 
 of that sympathy with the aspirations of the hmited 
 human mind to win by arduous struggle a footing on 
 the outworks of truth which is the sustenance of the 
 spirit of toleration. For speculative thought Laud 
 cared nothing. Not truth but peace was the object 
 which he pursued. Hence the interest which he took 
 in the fortunes of that Dutch Church which came so 
 short of his own episcopal standard gave no warrant of 
 equal hberahty at home. He never'felt himself to be 
 burthened with faults committed outside his own special 
 sphere of action, and he might therefore be easily 
 moved to treat with extreme severity in England prac- 
 
 • Laud to Vossius, July 14. Works,-n. 265. 
 
156 LAUD, WENT WORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 CHAP, tices which in a foreign country would cause him no 
 
 - — ■ — - more than a passing annoyance. In England his hand 
 
 Jul ^ ^^^ likely to be heavily felt. The pursuit of peace in 
 
 Hisesti- preference to the pursuit of truth was certain to be 
 
 mate of ex- "- • n i i • r> i • 
 
 teinai iu- accompamed by an exaggerated estimate or the impor- 
 tance of external influences over the mind. It was 
 characteristic in him to speak of Aristotle, the philoso- 
 pher who taught that virtue owed its strength to the 
 formation of habits, as his great master in humanis} 
 His love of outward observances, of the Beauty of 
 Holiness, as he fondly calls it, was partly founded on a 
 keen sense of the incongruity of dirt and disorder ; 
 partly upon the recognition of the educative influence 
 of regularity and arrangement. There was in his mind 
 no dim sense of the spiritual depths of life, no reaching 
 forward to inefiable mysteries veiled from the eye of 
 flesh. It was incomprehensible to him why men 
 should trouble themselves about matters which they 
 could not understand. His acts of reverence had 
 nothing in common with the utter self-abnegation of 
 the great Itahan falling as a dead body falls before 
 the revelation of those things which eye had not seen, 
 nor ear heard. If he is called upon to defend his prac- 
 tice of bowing towards the altar upon entering a church, 
 he founds his arguments not on any high religious 
 theme, but upon the custom of the Order of the Garter. 
 To him a church was not so much the temple of a 
 living Spirit, as the palace of an invisible King. He 
 had a plain prosaic reason for everything that he did. 
 
 Hisdteams Evcn those straugc entries in his diary which have 
 sometimes been treated as if they contained the key of 
 his mind have nothing imaginative in them. There is 
 no thought of following a heavenly voice when he re- 
 cords the falling down of a picture or the dropping out 
 
 ' Worlcs, iv. 59. 
 
 and omens. 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL UNIFORMITY. 1 57 
 
 of a tooth. " God grant," he writes, " that this be no chap. 
 omen," as if there were just a possibihty that the invi- - — ^ — - 
 sible King might have something to tell him in this \2^; 
 way. He notices it sufficiently to make him think it 
 worth while to jot it down for future comparison with 
 events. But he never thinks of acting upon it. 
 
 To form the habits of Englishmen in order that 
 there might be peace amongst them, was the task which 
 Laud set before him. The Declaration on Eehgion Policy of 
 had been the first great step in this direction. The ration on' 
 excitement caused by polemical controversy must be ^ '^'"°" 
 allayed by the prohibition of controversy. It remained 
 to foster a sense of union amongst those whom theological 
 argument had divided. If all men worshipped in the 
 same way, used the same forms and ceremonies, pro- 
 nounced the same words, and accompanied them with 
 the same gestures, a feeling of brotherhood would gra- 
 dually spring up. The outward and visible was to be 
 the road to the inward and spiritual. " Since I came 
 into this place," he wrote long afterwards in defence of 
 his conduct, " I laboured nothing more than that the 
 external public worship of God — too much slighted in 
 most parts x)f this kingdom — might be preserved, and 
 that with as much decency and uniformity as might unifor- 
 be ; being still of opinion that unity cannot long con- unit/." 
 tinue in the Church where uniformity is shut out at 
 the church door. And I evidently saw that the public 
 neo-lect of God's service in the outward face of it, and 
 the nasty lying of many places dedicated to that 
 service, had almost cast a damp upon the true and in- 
 ward worship of God ; which, while we live in the 
 body, needs external helps, and all little enough to 
 keep it in any vigour."^ 
 
 Forming so high an estimate of the value of ex- 
 
 1 Worhs, iv. 60. 
 
158 LAUD, WENT WORTH, ANJ) WESTON. 
 
 CHAP, ternal influence, he had no difficulty in accepting fully 
 ~ — 7-^ — - the Eoyal supremacy. As the task of a Bishop was in 
 j^j^f his eyes chiefly the enforcement of regulations, he natu- 
 t\e"Ro*°a1 ^^-^ly looked with the highest respect to that authority 
 authority, which was able to compel the observance of those regu- 
 lations. All the thoughts which had led the great 
 ecclesiastics of the Middle Ages to regard the merely 
 external authority of kings as something infinitely 
 inferior to the spiritual power of the guardians of the 
 divinely appointed faith had no place in his mind. 
 What he wanted was force to carry out his ideas, and 
 that force he found in the King. He did not even care 
 to theorise about the source of this authority. The 
 notion of a divine right of kingship hardly assumed any 
 real prominence anywhere till Charles's title to rule 
 was questioned, and it never assumed prominence at 
 any time in the mind of Laud. It was enough for him 
 to accept the Eoyal supremacy in the Church as it was 
 established by existing law and custom, and to use it 
 for the great ends which he hoped to accomplish by 
 its means. 
 He lias the Laud, therefore, was ready to speak everywhere in 
 fid'eMe.™" the name of the King. Charles was ready to accept 
 the responsibility. He could no more originate a 
 scheme for the reform of the Church than he could 
 originate a scheme for the recovery of the Palatinate. 
 But he would give his confidence to Laud as he had 
 given his confidence to Buckingham. He, too, thought 
 of the outward and visible before the inward and 
 spiritual. To him, too, the fervent individual zeal of 
 Puritanism was an unfathomable mystery, and its fierce 
 dogmatism a hateful annoyance. When it had been 
 driven out of the land, England would be itself again, 
 as loyal and obedient as it had been to its Tudor 
 
LAUD AND THE PURITANS. 159 
 
 sovereigns. He took counsel, as Bacon would have ghap. 
 said, of the time past, not of the time present. ■ — ^ — - 
 
 Hitherto Laud had not occupied the foremost place ' ^^" 
 
 1 1 f T -r^ ■ TA • 11 • March 29. 
 
 in the attacks 01 the Puritans. During the last session Hisun- 
 Neile and the Durham ceremonialists had almost in London, 
 covered the field of vision. In his own diocese he was 
 regarded more correctly. His name was coupled with 
 that of Weston in the popular imagination of the Lon- 
 doners. Libels were scattered about the streets, threat- 
 ening his life. " Laud, look to thyself," was read upon 
 one of these ; " be assured thy hfe is sought. As thou 
 art the fountain of all wickedness, repent thee of thy 
 monstrous sins, before thou be taken out of the world." 
 Weston, to whom similar threats were addressed, was 
 easily frightened. Dread of assassination haunted him 
 to the last. But Laud was absolutely above fear, as 
 he was absolutely above self-seeking and corruption. 
 " Lord," he wrote in his diary, as the only notice fit 
 to take of the insult, "I am a grievous sinner; but 
 I beseech thee, dehver my soul irom them that hate 
 me without a cause." ^ 
 
 As long as Abbot lived. Laud's sway in the English ^^^^^^^^^ 
 Church could never be complete. With the Kinop's opppsiHon 
 
 ' _ _ o to Puritan 
 
 authority to rely upon there might be no active opposi- i™. 
 tion to his wishes, but there would be a force of inertia 
 at the very centre of the ecclesiastical machinery which 
 it would be impossible to overcome. Yet if he could 
 not do all that he wished, he could accomplish much. 
 Everyman who was at issue with Puritanism knew 
 that he could count upon a favourable hearing if he 
 poured his complaints into the ear of the Bishop of 
 London, and that the Bishop of London was sure 
 of a favourable hearing from the King. Eavesdroppers 
 
 ' Works, iii. 210. 
 
l6o LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 CHAP, and talebearers soon discovered how to set at naught 
 the orders of their own Bishops or the commands of 
 
 ^^' laymen in authority 
 SmS'a^' Laud's influence made itself felt in the disputes by 
 
 case. which the Chapter of Durham was distracted. At the 
 Summer Assizes, Smart repeated his charges of the pre- 
 ceding year against the Prebendaries who had deprived 
 him of his prebend. The Judges on this occasion were 
 Yelverton and Trevor. Yelverton at once took Smart's 
 part. He spoke in conversation of Smart's sermon as 
 good and honest. It was quite right, he added, to 
 condemn the singing of the service. When the organ 
 was playing it was impossible to know what was 
 said. One of the Prebendaries asked him how he con- 
 trived to sing psalms to the accompaniment of music. 
 Trevor told him that if he would look at his Prayer- 
 book, he would have no diflSculty in understanding 
 what was said. Yelverton would hear nothing in 
 favour of the organ. He did not Uke whistUng at the 
 service. He had always been called a Puritan. He 
 thanked God for it, and as such he would live and die. 
 July 20. In this spirit he charged the jury on the following 
 
 -charge. day. Inuovatious in the Church, he said, were lair 
 matters to be dealt with at the Assizes. The jury 
 accordingly found a true bill against the Prebendaries. 
 Smart and his friends were in high spirits. The next 
 morning they were plunged into bitter disappointment. 
 Yelverton had all his life been accustomed to pass 
 suddenly from blustering independence to servile humi- 
 lity. He now changed his tone, scolded Smart for his 
 conduct, delivered an address in commendation of 
 peace and charity, and refused to allow the proceedings 
 to be carried further. 
 Nov^°8 ^^^ *^^^ ^^^ *^"^y reported to Laud. Smart's own 
 
 fe"tence ^^^^ might easily be predicted. - He was sentenced to 
 
ENFORCEMENT OF CONFORMITY. l6l 
 
 degradation from the clerical office by the Northern High chap. 
 Commission, to whose jurisdiction he had been returned. 
 
 The disputes at Durham did not end here. Bishop ^ ^^' 
 Howson was no Puritan, and he had been one of the 
 four Bishops who had supported Montague in 1625. 
 But he had been frightened at the rapid ceremonial 
 changes at Durham, and had come to look upon Cosin 
 as a firebrand whose persistency in his own crotchets 
 was endangering the maintenance of peace. Laud was 
 appealed to, and after a long correspondence the King 
 commanded Howson to carry the dispute no further. 
 Such interference with a bishop tended to bring episco- 
 pal authority into contempt by shewing that it might 
 be wielded in one direction or another according to 
 the varying influences which prevailed at Court. ^ 
 
 In the suppression of books in which the predes- Suppies- 
 
 • ^ sion 01 un- 
 
 tinarian doctrine was handled. Laud had no need of licensed 
 
 books 
 
 the King's assistance.. A decree of the Star Chamber 
 in Elizabeth's reign had prohibited the printing of 
 books without the license of one of the Archbishops 
 or of the Bishop of London. Printers and authors 
 in vain urged the argument which Selden had sup- 
 ported in Parliament, that the Star Chamber had ex- 
 ceeded its powers. Printers and authors were brought 
 before the High Commission, and were taught to obey 
 the restrictions imposed upon them at the risk of fine 
 and imprisonment. 
 
 "In his own diocese, at least, Laud was able greatly Piohibi- 
 to restrict, if not altogether to brmg to an end, that corformity. 
 diversity of practice which had long been suffered to 
 prevail. The Book of Common Prayer was to be 
 accepted as the complete rule of worship. The 
 
 1 Cosiris Cmrespmimce, i. 155. Acts of the High Commission. 
 Surtees Society. App. A. Much correspondence is scattered through the 
 State Papers. The first letter from the King to Howson is dated Nov. 
 3, 1 63 1. Tanner MSS. Ixx. 128. 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
turera. 
 
 162 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 CHAP, ministers of the Church were no longer to be per- 
 • — ^ — - mitted to omit this or that prayer at pleasure, to stand 
 ^^' when they were bidden to kneel, or to kneel when 
 they were bidden to stand. 
 The leo- Laud's chicf difficulty lay with the lecturers. The 
 
 parish clergy could hardly avoid reading Morning or 
 Evening Prayer in a more or less mutUated form. 
 But a lecturer was under no such obligation. He was 
 paid by a Corporation, or by individuals, to preach 
 and to do nothing more. He might remain sitting in 
 the vestry, if he chose, tiU the service was at an end, 
 when he could come out to ascend the pulpit, and to 
 shine forth in the eyes of the congregation as one who 
 was far superior to the man by whom the printed 
 prayers had been recited. The lecturers were to be 
 found chiefly in towns where there was a strong 
 Puritan element in the population, and they were 
 themselves Piu-itans almost to a man. 
 
 To those who think it desirable that the teaching 
 of a Church should bear some relation with the pre- 
 valent opinions of the congregations of which it is 
 composed, the arrangement may seem not to have 
 been a bad one after all. The existence of the lec- 
 turers provided a certain elasticity in the ecclesiastical 
 institutions of the country, without which the enforce- 
 ment of uniformity would in the long run prove im- 
 practicable. Laud was not hkely to regard the lec- 
 turers from so favourable a point of view. Not only 
 were they careless about forms and ceremonies, but 
 they owed their appointment to the private action of 
 the laity. Those who appointed might dismiss as well, 
 and if Laud's eyes were closed to the evils of subjecting 
 the clergy to the word of command from the Court, 
 they were opened widely to the evils of leaving them 
 in entire dependence upon the varying humours of the 
 richer members of their congregations. 
 
LECTURERS AND CHAPLAINS. 1 63 
 
 In December Laud's meditations on tte subject of chap. 
 
 lecturers took shape in a series of Instructions sent out • — ^ - 
 
 by the King to the Bishops. Some clauses were '^^9- 
 applicable to special abuses committed by the Bishops The King's 
 themselves in the administration of the property of tums.'^'^ 
 their sees. But the clauses of most general import- 
 ance touched the preachers, and more especially the 
 lecturers. In the first place the King's Declaration for- 
 bidding the introduction of controversial topics was to 
 be strictly observed. Further, there were no longer 
 to be any afternoon sermons at all. Catechizing of 
 children was to take their place. In the morning ser- 
 mons were still permitted, but no lecturer was to be 
 suffered to open his mouth unless he had first ' read 
 Divine Service according to the Liturgy printed by 
 authority, in his surplice.' Nor was any lecturer to 
 receive an appointment in a corporate town unless he 
 was ready to accept ' a living with cure of souls ' within 
 the hmits of the Corporation. The bishops were to 
 gather information on the behaviour of the preachers, 
 and to ' take order for any abuse accordingly.' 
 Lastly, in order to discourage the entertainment by 
 the wealthier country gentlemen of private chaplains 
 who were dependent entirely upon their patrons, 
 the Bishops were to ' suffer none but noblemen and 
 men quahfied by law to have a chaplain in their 
 houses.' 
 
 The King's Instructions were the first step taken in 
 narrowing the hmits of Church union. The lecture- 
 ships were not a very satisfactory provision for meet- 
 ing the strain of enforced conformity. But at least 
 they permitted diversity of opinion to manifest itself 
 without an absolute breach of rehgious continuity. 
 They could not be suppressed without suppressing the 
 independent development of religious thought. In some 
 
 K 2 
 
1 64 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 CHAP way or another, in spite of Laud, Puritanism would find 
 
 ■ — -'^ — - a voice in England. The silenced lecturer of 1629 
 
 Dec. would be the triumphant Presbyterian or Independent 
 
 of 1645, and the excluded Nonconformist of 1662. 
 1630. The King's resolution to allow no polemics in the 
 
 pulpit was firmly taken. Davenant, Bishop of Salis- 
 bury, a man of mark amongst the Calvinistic prelates, 
 March, veuturcd to touch upon the forbidden topic of predes- 
 
 Davenant'a ... , ., . ^ Jl. 
 
 sermon. tiuatiou in a sermou preached at Whitehall. He was 
 at once summoned before the Council Table to answer 
 for his disobedience. He pleaded that he had done no 
 more than explain the Articles. He was told that it 
 was the King's will that ' for the peace of the Church 
 these high questions should be forborne.' He received 
 a sound rating from Harsnet, now Archbishop of York, 
 and only escaped actual punishment by promising a 
 judicious silence for the future.^ 
 Deo. In their attempt to close discussion for ever, Charles 
 
 and Laud were at least impartial. In vain Dr. Brooke, 
 
 Brooke's the Master of Trinity at Cambridge, implored permis- 
 sion to publish a book which, as he affirmed, would 
 crush the Puritans and reconcile all difficulties at issue. 
 Laud told him coldly that he should have no objection 
 to read his argument, but that he had not changed his 
 opinion that ' something about these controversies ' was 
 ' unmasterable in this life.' As the book never reached 
 the press, it is to be presumed that, in spite of a 
 vehement tirade against Puritanism from the author, 
 Laud's objection was insuperable.^ 
 April 10. An unexpected event brought to Laud an in- 
 
 Pembroke'e j. i j • j> •^ •^• , • 
 
 death. crease 01 work and an increase 01 responsibility in 
 
 ' Puller, vi. 74. 
 
 ' Brooke to Laud, Nov. 17, Dec. i. S. P. Dom. clxxv. 69; clxxvi. 
 2 ; Laud to Brooke, Dec. 9 ; Laud!s Works, vi. 292 ; Brooke to Laud, 
 Dec. ij ; Prynne, Canterbury's Doom, 167. 
 
LAUD AT OXFORD. 1 65 
 
 a fresh direction. On April 10 the Earl of Pembroke chap. 
 
 '^ IV. 
 
 died suddenly.^ Several times during the past years 
 naen had looked up to him hopefully as a possible ' ''°' 
 leader. He was known to be averse to all rash and 
 unpopular measures, and he had a high character for 
 disinterestedness. But his disinterestedness was merely 
 that of a wealthy man with nothing to seek for him- 
 self and the solace of an afiable and unruffled disposi- 
 tion. He had no force of character to enable him to 
 control events. As Bacon said of him, he was ' for his 
 person not effectual.'^ He easily passed from hot 
 opposition to the tamest submission. With an intelli- 
 gence greater than his power of will, he was the 
 Hamlet of Charles's Court. 
 
 No attempt was made to fill up the office of Steward April 13. 
 of the Household, left vacant by Pembroke's death, chancellor 
 Charles seemed to think that by leaving such posts 
 vacant he would have a stronger hold upon those who 
 aspired to fill them. But Pembroke had been Chancellor 
 of the University of Oxford as well, and that post, at least, 
 could not be left vacant. The Earl of Montgomery, who 
 now succeeded his brother in the Earldom of Pem- 
 broke, was put in nomination by those who were faith- 
 ful to the traditions of Calvinism. The election, how- 
 ever, fell upon Laud, though only by a majority of 
 nine. The defeated party complained of unfair deahng ; 
 whether truthfully or not it is now impossible to say.^ 
 
 The University was made to feel that the days of May. 
 slack government were at an end. Laud at once reviVe™* 
 attacked the riotous and disorderly habits of the place. 
 Academical costume was no longer to be neglected. 
 Undergraduates were no longer to occupy seats destined 
 to Masters of Arts. Above all the King's Declaration 
 
 1 Mead to Stuteville, April 17. Court and Timet, ii. 71. 
 » WorU, vii. 446. ' Lavd's Works, y. 3. 
 
1 66 LAUD, WENT WORTH, AND WESTON, 
 
 1630. 
 
 was to be enforced. Even a preacher wlio ventured 
 to praise Arminianism and to revile the Synod of Dort 
 was severely reprimanded. Another preacher had 
 offended in a different way. He had declared ' directly 
 against all reverence in churches, and all obeisance or 
 any devout gesture in or at the receiving of the Com- 
 munion. " If this be true," wrote Laud, " beUke we 
 shall not kneel neither."^ 
 Contrast There was little in common between the bustling 
 
 between c i t-«- i • ■ i 
 
 Land and energy of the Bishop prying into every corner of the 
 land, and counting nothing too small for his regulative 
 authority, and the ponderous inertia of the Lord Trea- 
 surer, to -whom it was the highest of arts to leave 
 difficulties alone, and who was well satisfied if he could 
 leave to a future generation the problems which he 
 was himself incapable of solving. There was but one 
 man in England as untiring as Laud, and that man, 
 though long admitted into the King's service, had only 
 recently acquired even a very slight hold upon the 
 1620 King's favour. But little is known of Wentworth for 
 
 ^™*- , nearly a year after his speech at York.^ He was in his 
 
 worth and '' . '' '- ^ -. . 
 
 Land. placc in the House of Lords during the short session 
 which followed, and it needs no evidence to prove that 
 the proceedings of the Lower House must have left an 
 indelible impression upon his mind. Whatever distrust 
 he had before of the intolerant predominance of Cal- 
 vinism ; whatever shrinking he had telt for the rule of 
 a dominant House of Commons, was now doubled. 
 In the maintenance and elevation of the Eoyal autho- 
 rity lay for him now the only path of safety and 
 wisdom. It was impossible for him to be content, as 
 Charles and Weston were content, with the mere sus- 
 pension of Parliamentary life. He knew too well that 
 the habit of insubordination to authority could not be 
 
 ' Laud to Tolson, May 7, Ibtd.,y. 15. ' See p. 39. 
 
WENTWORTH'S POLITICAL IDEAS. 167 
 
 uprooted by mere passive expectation. Like Laud he chap. 
 perceived that it must be met face to face, be wrestled ' — -"- — ■ 
 with and overthrown. Yet if he did not despise the 
 remedial measures which seemed all-suflGicient to Laud, 
 the trainins; of the mind to obedience by uniformity Went- 
 
 worth 3 
 
 of external worship, and the silencing of preachers who poUcy. 
 claimed the right of declaring doctrines which engen- 
 dered strife, he had too much genius to be content with 
 this. He required active co-operation in the service of 
 the Commonwealth from every man who received pro- 
 tection from the Government. In thought, if not in 
 expression, he anticipated the watchword which the 
 nation was hereafter to accept from the dying lips of 
 her greatest sailor, that England expects every man to 
 do his duty. But he did not see that it is only by 
 enhsting the active sympathies of those upon whose co- 
 operation he depended that he could reasonably hope 
 for the assistance upon which he was forced to depend. 
 Knowing that the mass of men is ignorant and pre- 
 judiced, he fancied that they would not merely submit 
 to be guided, but that they would throw themselves 
 heart and soul upon his side, if only he commanded 
 their services in a right direction. Wisdom, simply 
 because it was wise, was to bind folly and slothfulness 
 to its car, and to compel them to bear it swiftly 
 onward on its triumphant path. He could not stoop to 
 the slow and irregular progress which is all that can be 
 expected when a nation guides its own course, nor 
 could he acknowledge that a progress thus made is 
 surer than the most brilliant achievement into which it 
 is dragged panting and gasping for breath in the hands 
 of a master. 
 
 There were moments in which Wentworth felt that 
 there was something wrong, though he never dreamt 
 of tracing the mischief to anything in himself. He 
 
1 68 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND "WESTON. 
 
 CHAP, lamented that his lot had fallen in an age in which he 
 ■ — -^ — was forced to wish with all his heart that ' men knew 
 
 less and practised more.'^ 
 Its weak- No IdcaHst, it has been often said, commits so many 
 
 errors as the practical man of the world. Eliot, with 
 all his superabundant trust in the wisdom of the House 
 of Commons and his superabundant reliance upon the 
 all-suflBciency of the average religious feehng of his day, 
 never entered upon a course so hopeless as Wentworth 
 did when he set his hand to build up a compact con- 
 stitutional edifice of which Charles was to be the 
 corner-stone. Nor would he have been likely to achieve 
 permanent success even if Charles had been other than 
 he was. Willing co-operation can never be looked for 
 where there is no sympathy between the governors and 
 the governed, no spontaneousness of action in those 
 whose assistance is required. Experience teaches that 
 such a sympathy and such spontaneousness of action 
 can only be maintained where the government is in 
 one sense or another representative. Either by the 
 election of a controlling assembly or by some less 
 direct means, the nation must be able to make its 
 voice heard, unless a gulph is to open between King 
 and people which nothing short of revolutionary vio- 
 lence could close up. 
 Eliot and EHot and Wentworth indeed were of one mind as 
 
 T^rth. to wishing such a catastrophe to be averted. But they 
 differed as to the means to be employed to ward off 
 the danger. For Eliot it was enough that the House 
 of Commons had spoken. That House in his eyes 
 truly represented the nation in the fervour of its re- 
 ligion, in the wisdom and gravity of its political aspira- 
 tions. In Wentworth's eyes it only partially represented 
 the nation, if it represented it at all. The lawyers 
 
 ' Wentworth to Conway, Oct. 14. S. P. Bpm. cl. 61, 
 
CONTRAST BETWEEN WENTWORTH AND ELIOT, 1 69 
 
 and country gentlemen of whom it was composed were chap. 
 
 not to be trusted to govern England. The lawyers 
 with their quirks and formulas too often stood in the ^ ^^' 
 way of substantial justice. The country gentlemen too 
 often misused the opportunities of their wealth to 
 tyrannise over their poorer neighbours. Wentworth 
 therefore would appeal to the nation outside the House of 
 Commons, as Chatham afterwards appealed to the nation 
 outside the House of Commons. The King was to do 
 judgment and justice fairly and equally for rich and 
 poor. So would come the day when Parliament 
 would meet again. The King would not have altered 
 his course to put himself in harmony with the nation, 
 but the nation would have grown in intelligence to 
 take hold of the hand which was offered to it by the 
 King. 
 
 Thus Wentworth seemed to himself to be contending went- 
 
 worth rG" 
 
 for the old and undoubted liberties of Englishmen, for gards Mm- 
 their right to freedom from vexatious injustice. He mamtainer 
 was standing in the ancient paths. His knowledge of consti- 
 history told him how a Henry H. and an Edward I., a 
 Henry VHI. and an Elizabeth, had actually guided 
 a willing people. It told him nothing of a dominant 
 House of Commons reducing its Sovereign to insigni- 
 ficance. What it told him of control from the baron- 
 age, or even from ParUament as a body, might safely be 
 set down as irregular and unconstitutional, the deplor- 
 able result of misgovernment. That Charles should 
 ever make such violence necessary he could not bring 
 himself to believe. At all events, he did not see that 
 the King had made it necessary by his resistance to the 
 House of Commons. As he had accused Buckingham 
 once, so he might accuse EUot now ' of ravishing at 
 once the spheres of all ancient government.' 
 
 Was there indeed a nation behind the House of 
 
170 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 c^^P- Commons to which Wentworth could give an articulate 
 
 ' — 7 — " voice, or had he miscalculated his strength and over- 
 1629. . . . . , . 
 
 estimated his power of raising the inert masses to a 
 
 level with the effective strength of the nation, in the 
 same way as he undervalued the worth of those 
 rehgious and moral ideas to which the pohtical classes 
 climg so tenaciously ? This was the secret of the future. 
 Others, Charles more especially, would have to con- 
 tribute to the solution of the problem. But even if 
 all power had been concentrated in Wentworth's hands, 
 it is unlikely that he would have solved it successfully. 
 He had too little attractive force to overcome the 
 diflficulties in his path. He was too self-reliant, too 
 ready to leave his deeds to speak for themselves, too 
 haughty and arrogant towards adversaries, to conciliate 
 opposition, or even to be regarded by those whose 
 cause he supported with that mingled feeling of re- 
 verence and familiarity which marks out the true leaders 
 of mankind. He might come to be looked upon as 
 the embodiment of force. Men might quail before his 
 knitted brow and his clear commanding voice. They 
 would not follow him to the death as Gustavus was 
 followed, or hasten to his succour as the freeholders of 
 Bucks hastened to the succour of Hampden. Went- 
 worth in his strength and Charles in his weakness were 
 ahke lonely amidst their generation. They understood 
 not the voices which sounded on every side, they drew 
 no strength from the earth beneath nor fi'om the 
 heaven over their heads. They set before them the 
 task of making men other than they were, not the task 
 of guiding men to make themselves other than they were. 
 What could come of it but failure, disgrace, and ruin ? 
 Nov.s- In the beginning of November 1629 a paper fell 
 
 worth into Wentworth's hands which stirred his indignation 
 to the uttermost. The writer urged the King ' to bridle 
 
DUDLEY'S PAPER OF ADVICE. 171 
 
 1629. 
 
 places in 
 
 the impertinency of Parliament' by taking military ^^^ap. 
 
 possession of the country, establishing fortresses guarded 
 
 by mercenary soldiers in every town, and compelling 
 
 the payment of new and unheard of taxes to be levied the King's 
 
 ^ •' _ hands a 
 
 by the sole authority of the Crown. ^ There was iust paper , 
 
 , T , , which he 
 
 enough resemblance between the course thus recom- has found, 
 mended and the constitutional position assumed 
 by Wentworth to rouse his resentment at so gross 
 a caricature of his own principles. He took the 
 paper at once to the King, who regarded it as the result 
 of a plot to bring his Government into disrepute, and 
 ordered enquiry to be made for the author.'^ 
 
 Wentworth, at least, was the gainer by the discovery. Nov. 10. 
 Five days after he had placed the paper in Charles's wo™h a 
 hands he took his seat in the Privy Council. He owed councilor, 
 his promotion to his resolution to guard from all attack 
 the prerogatives of the Crown, without infringing upon 
 the outward decencies of English constitutional practice. 
 
 The paper which shocked Wentworth and the King Dudley's 
 had a curious history. Soon after the dissolution of l^f^°^ 
 the Parhament of 16 14, Sir Eobert Dudley, the Ulegiti- H^ll^^Z 
 mate son of Elizabeth's favourite Leicester, who was 
 living in exile at Florence, fancied that he saw a way 
 of gaining permission to return to his native soil. 
 Together with a proposal to communicate to James 
 certain naval inventions which as he asserted were such 
 as to change entirely the face of maritime warfare, he 
 forwarded to Sir David Foulis, a Scotchman in the 
 King's service, the very paper which was at last brought 
 into unexpected notoriety.^ 
 
 Foulis gave the paper to Somerset, and Somerset, 
 
 ' A proposition for Ms Majesty's service. Sicshworth, i. App. 13. 
 = Eawson to D'Ewes, Nov. 6. Sari. MSS., 383, fol. 90. 
 ' Dudley to Foulis, May 8, 1614. Fortescue Papers, 6, and note at 
 p. II. 
 
172 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 CHAP, at that time at the height of his favour, shewed it to 
 ■ — t-^ — • James. James would have nothing to say to it, and 
 N^^' ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ aside and forgotten. Some years later it 
 found its way into that great receptacle of manuscript 
 treasures. Sir Eobert Cotton's library. Time went on, 
 and Cotton entrusted the care of his books to his 
 librarian, Eichard James, a clever, well-informed man, 
 who was not above earning money by lending his 
 master's papers to the curious. In the summer of 
 1629, when all men were talking about the encroach- 
 ments upon Parliament, James lent this particular 
 paper to Oliver St. John, a young lawyer who took the 
 popular side, and who showed the copy which he took 
 of it to his client, the Earl of Bedford. Bedford 
 showed it to Somerset, who distinctly remembered that 
 it had once been in his hands. From Somerset it 
 passed to the Earl of Clare, the father of Denzil Holies, 
 and Clare carried it to Cotton. Cotton, who had quite 
 forgotten that the original had long been in his own 
 library, fancying that he had before him a revelation 
 of the immediate designs of the Court, sat down to 
 reply to its arguments, no doubt with the intention of 
 publishing his refutation. 
 
 Cotton was not well served. In his house was a 
 youth who passed by the name of Flood, but who was 
 commonly reported to be his own natural son. Like 
 James he saw in the paper a means of making money. 
 He sold copies freely, and in this way the paper had 
 come into Wentworth's hands.^ 
 
 The investigation ordered traced the document 
 
 • through Cotton and the three Earls to St. John. St. John 
 
 was committed to the Tower, and his chambers were 
 
 > Harsnet to Vane, Nov. 6. Court and Times, ii. 37. Dorehester to 
 Edmondes, Nov. 7, 18. S.P.France. If Eweis Autobiography, \i. y). 
 Examinations of Somerset and Bedford, State friah, iii. 396. 
 
BIRTH OF PRINCE CHARLES. 173 
 
 searched for incriminatory evidence. He stoutly affirmed chap. 
 that the paper had come to him from Cotton's Hbrary, -^r^— - 
 and Cotton who, as well as the Earls, had been ^^' 
 committed to private custody, as stoutly declared that 
 he knew nothing about the matter. On November ^ov. 15. 
 
 *-" , , The Ivjng 
 
 15, as no further light seemed likely to be thrown on renounces 
 
 the mystery, Charles protested in the Council that the of the 
 suggestions of the paper were ' fitter to be practised in '"''^' 
 
 a Turkish state than amongst Christians.' Eleven ^ays Nov. 26. 
 
 later, much to Cotton's surprise, the original manuscript of the 
 
 was discovered in his own library, and Foulis, who was °"^""' " 
 still living, deposed to the circumstances in which it had 
 formerly come into his hands. The paper thus lost 
 much of its supposed importance. But orders had 
 
 already been given to prosecute Cotton, St. John, and prose- 
 
 the Earls in the Star Chamber for concealment of the oidere'i. 
 paper, and these proceedings were allowed to run their 
 course.^ 
 
 "What Charles wanted was evidently an opportunity ^^^^ 
 
 of making a protestation of his resolution to abide by Th« ^efen- 
 
 , '' dants par- 
 
 the law. He could have had no angry feelmg against aoned in 
 those who circulated the paper as soon as the circum- quence of 
 stances had been explained. The hearing of the a Prince, 
 cause had been fixed for May 29. The day arrived, 
 and a few words had been spoken when a messen- 
 ger hastily entered the Court and whispered in the 
 Lord Keeper's ear. Coventry at once interrupted the 
 proceedings. It had pleased Heaven, he said, to bless 
 his Majesty with a son, ' a hopeful Prince, the great joy 
 and expectation both of the King and kingdom.' His 
 Majesty therefore was inclined to think rather of mercy 
 than of justice. Dudley's paper should be burnt, but 
 those who had circulated it might depart unharmed. 
 This was the last appearance of the most notable of the 
 
 • Dorchester to Edmondes, Nov. 26. S. P. France. 
 
174 
 
 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. . 
 
 CHAP 
 
 IV. 
 
 1630. 
 
 Nov. 24. 
 Search in 
 Cotton's 
 library. 
 
 1631. 
 Mav 6. 
 Death of 
 Cotton. 
 
 1630. 
 The future 
 Charles II. 
 
 defendants before the eyes of the world. The fact that 
 an important State Paper which ought never to have 
 passed out of the possession of the Crown had been 
 discovered in Cotton's library, gave rise to the suspicion 
 that other documents of the same kind might be found 
 in his possession. Orders were accordingly given that 
 he should himself prepare a catalogue of the manu- 
 scripts, with the assistance of two clerks of the Council, 
 and that he should only enter the library in their 
 presence.^ The old man felt the grievance deeply. He 
 was not, it is true, excluded from the sight of his be- 
 loved books. But it was one thing to be permitted to 
 visit his treasures in the presence of two unwelcome 
 companions. It was another thing to sit at ease as the 
 master of the house, with his friends chatting around 
 him, each more eager than the other to pay court to 
 the dispenser of such stores of knowledge. His death, 
 which was at the time ascribed to his annoyance, took 
 place within the year after his visit to the Star Chamber. 
 The services which he rendered to historical literature 
 will never be forgotten. In his own day the services 
 which he rendered to political controversy were more 
 highly appreciated. His function was to collect materials 
 for others to use. His own antiquarianism was not 
 enUghtened by any steady and consistent view of society 
 and life. At one time it led him to associate with 
 Somerset and Gondomar. At another time it drew 
 him to Eliot and Selden.^ 
 
 The child whose birth formed an excuse for drop- 
 ping a hastily undertaken prosecution was destined to 
 strange vicissitudes. Through the fault of his parents 
 
 ' Coimcil Register, Nov. 24. 
 
 ^ lyEweis Autobiography, ii. 41. After a decent interval orders were 
 given that tlie catalogue should he continued in the presence of Cotton's 
 son. Cinmeil Register, July 23. 
 
DISSATISFACTION OF THE PURITANS. 175 
 
 lie was early to taste the bitterness of exile, and to be 
 recalled after years of apparently hopeless wandering 
 to sit upon his father's throne. To his mother the 
 child, dark and ugly as she playfully acknowledged 
 him to be,^ was the more welcome after her disappoint- 
 ment a year before. There were others who were very 
 far from sharing her delight. The birth of the infant Dissatis- 
 
 1 1 T /• 1 n ^ faction of 
 
 seemed to be a pledge of the permanence of the thePuri- 
 
 . . „ .p T tans. 
 
 existing system oi government, even it he were not 
 nurtured in his mother's faith to trouble Protestant 
 England when he came to sit upon the throne. Till 
 now there had been a prospect, however remote, of 
 seeing the golden crown of England encircling the fair 
 brow of Elizabeth, and it was never doubted that if 
 Elizabeth took her seat upon the throne, there would 
 be no place for Laud and Weston upon its steps. No 
 wonder the Puritans hung their heads whilst bells were 
 ringing and bonfires blazing. " God," said one, " had 
 already better provided for us than we had deserved 
 in giving such a hopeful progeny by the Queen of 
 Bohemia, brought up in the Eeformed religion ; where- 
 as it is uncertain what reUgion the King's children will 
 follow, being to be brought up under a mother so de- 
 voted to the Church of Eome."^ 
 
 It was only by the remonstrances of his ministers proposal to 
 that Charles was induced to avoid emphasising in the the^hud 
 eyes of all men the risk which would have to be faced Roxburgh, 
 at last. On the very day of his son's birth, he an- 
 nounced that the child was to be entrusted to the charge 
 of the Eoraan Catholic Lady Eoxburgh, who, as Jane 
 Drummond, had been the main instrument in attachingthe • 
 infant's grandmother. Queen Anne, to the rehgion which 
 
 ' The Queen to Madame de St. George. StricUancHs Lives of the 
 Queens, v. 252. 
 
 ' Heylyn, Cypi-ianus Anglicus, 198. Soranzo's Despatch, June A. 
 Ven. MSS. 
 
1630. 
 
 May. 
 
 176 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 CHAP, she herself professed. It had doubtless been hard for 
 Charles, at such a moment, to resist the entreaties of his 
 wife. But he gave way at last, and Lady Dorset, an 
 Englishwoman and a Protestant, was finally appointed. 
 Charles, however, continued as usual to mar the gra- 
 ciousness of concession by the coldness of his manner. 
 " This King," wrote the Venetian ambassador, " is so 
 constituted by nature that he never obhges any one, 
 either by word or deed."^ 
 Laud's at- To uo One, cxccpt to his parents, was the birth of 
 
 to Charles, the heir more welcome than to Laud. Wentworth's 
 attachment to Charles, though not without a romantic 
 tinge, was pohtical at the bottom. Laud regarded him 
 with the warmest personal affection. The two men had 
 so much in common. Nor did Laud, like Wentworth, 
 soar into regions in which Charles was incapable of 
 following him. He simply found in Charles's mind the 
 receptive soil in which he might hopefully plant his ideas 
 of external order. Laud joyfully composed a prayer 
 commending the royal babe to its heavenly Protector,^ 
 June 27. and on June 27 he was called upon to baptise him by 
 
 Baptism of t • r* , i j 
 
 the Prince, his lathcr s name. 
 
 Alexander At the time of the Prince's birth. Laud and Went- 
 
 Leighton. .^^y-Qj-j-j^ ]^^^ ^g yg^ formed no special tie of friendship. 
 They were brought together by a common dislike of 
 subversive doctrines, and a common resolution to visit 
 with the harshest penalties those who spread them 
 amongst the people. Such a one, at least in the eyes 
 of courtiers and councillors, was Alexander Leigh ton. 
 A Scot by birth, the father of the gentle and thought- 
 
 1 Soranzo's Despatch, July ^, |f . Ven. MSS. 
 
 ' Hacket (ii. 96) records Williams's expression of dissatisfaction with 
 a phrase in this prayer, " Double his father's graces, O Lord, upon him, 
 if it be possible." As printed in Laud^s Works, iii. 103, it is simply, 
 " And when fulness of days must gather time, Lord, double his graces, 
 and make them apparent in this his heir." 
 
ALEXANDER LETGHTON. 177 
 
 fill student, who became Archbishop of Glasgow in the chap. 
 
 IV. 
 
 next generation, had been a minister of his native 
 Church, and had risen to the full height of Presbyterian ^ ^'^' 
 zeal. Of his reasons for leaving Scotland no record has 
 been, preserved, but it is probable that he fled, like 
 Oalderwood, to avoid submission to the innovations of 
 James. At Leyden he studied physic, and took the 
 degree of doctor of medicine. Coming to London, he 
 attempted to practise his new profession. But he was 
 soon brought before the College of Physicians, charged 
 partly with being a quack and partly with daring to 
 smuggle himself into a profession from which his orders 
 excluded him. He was subjected to an examination 
 in which he failed to satisfy examiners who were prob- 
 ably not very anxious to detect his knowledge, and he 
 was then interdicted from practising in England. He 
 continued, however, to prescribe clandestinely, and he 
 also reverted to his clerical work, collecting around him, 
 doubtless in the privacy of his own house, a considerable 
 number of disciples. His first book, the Speculum Belli His first 
 Sacri, was launched into the world in 1624, as an in- 
 centive to the declaration of war against Spain. It was 
 chiefly distinguished by the furiousness of its intolerance, 
 and by the cool presumption with which, with the help 
 of quotations . from the Scriptures and the writers of 
 Greece and Eome, he ventured to give dogmatic 
 opinions on the miUtary art. 
 
 In 1628, after the Houses had been prorogued and 1628. 
 the Eemonstrance of the Commons was passing from a^tlt 
 hand to hand to fan the flame of opposition, the en- ^'''''''"'^■ 
 thusiasts who gathered .at Leighton's house began to 
 talk over plans for carrying on the war against the pre- 
 valent ecclesiastical system in the coming session. Some 
 talked of abating the authority of the Bishops, others of 
 various minor reforms. Leighton, like a true Scotch- 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
178 
 
 LAUD, WENTWOETH, AND WESTON. 
 
 CHAP. 
 IV. 
 
 1628. 
 
 1629. 
 Copies in- 
 tended for 
 Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 July. 
 
 1630. 
 
 Feb. 17. 
 Arrest of 
 Leighton. 
 
 Charsijter 
 of his book, 
 
 man as he was, went to the root of the matter. His 
 ' opinion was right down for extirpation of the prelates, 
 with all their dependencies and supporters.' This au- 
 dacious proposal was well received, and he was requested 
 to embody his views in a petition to Parliament. A 
 draft was soon prepared and circulated amongst those 
 whom Leighton described as ' the godliest, learnedest, 
 and most judicious of the land.' Before long he had five 
 hundred signatures to his petition, some of them being 
 those of members of Parliament. Satisfied with the 
 number, he crossed over to Holland, to print the petition 
 without fear of interruption. In its passage through the 
 press it was elaborated into a lengthy treatise, dated, ap- 
 parently with the object of exciting indignation against 
 the Government, 'in the year and month wherein 
 Eochelle was lost.' 
 
 Two early copies were sent over to be laid before 
 the two Houses when they met for their last session. 
 The dissolution came before they had reached those for 
 whom they were intended. In July, Leighton, probably 
 thinking that his work had escaped notice, returned to 
 England. His book, however, though it could not be 
 sold openly, was circulated in private under the title of 
 An Appeal to Parliament; or, Sion's Plea against Pre- 
 lacy. In the following February a copy feU into Laud's 
 hands. The pursuivants were at once put upon the 
 track of the daring author, and, before long, he was 
 arrested by a warrant from the High Commission, and 
 lodged, if his description is correct, ' in a nasty dog-hole 
 full of rats and mice.'^ 
 
 Leighton's treatise was undoubtedly the production 
 of a vigorous understanding. There is an intellectual 
 freshness in its composition which is wholly wanting in 
 the ponderous learning of Prynne. It is, however, the 
 
 1 The evidence on which this narrative is based is collected in the 
 introduction to Heath's speech in the Camden Misceliany, vol. vii. 
 
SIGN'S PL-EA AGAINST PRELACY. 1 79 
 
 work of a man witli a single fixed idea. Whatever evil chap. 
 
 rv. 
 existed in the world was laid to the charge of the - — '^ — ■ 
 
 Bishops, the antichristian and Satanical prelacy. If ^^^°' 
 the season was unhealthy, if provisions were dear, if 
 ladies displayed extravagance in dress, it was all the 
 fault of the Bishops. They had poisoned the ear of the 
 late King, telling him that if he would support their 
 authority he might have ' absolute liberty to do what 
 he list.' They had supported Buckingham in his resis- 
 tance to Parliaments tiU God cut him off. They were 
 ' men of blood,' persecuting the saints, ' knobs and wens 
 and bunchy popish flesh ;' they were the ' trumpery of 
 Antichrist,' by whom the land was filled with swear- 
 ing, drunkenness, pride, idleness, and all kinds of 
 sin. 
 
 Of the King, Leighton spoke respectfully. But he 
 did not shrink from" wounding his tenderest feelings. 
 He described Buckingham as ' that great Goliath ' who 
 had been made ' to fall unexpectedly ' by ' the Lord of 
 Hosts.' Buckingham had set ' all things to sale, and sold 
 the fee-simple of England to Eome, that he might have 
 the tenant-right.' The King's own marriage was not 
 spared. God had ' suffered him to match with the 
 daughter of Heth, though he missed an Egyptian.' 
 
 Sion's Plea was more than an ecclesiastical mani- its political 
 festo. It was an appeal to political Presbyterianism teriaJsuL 
 to take the sword in hand. " Put the case," wrote 
 Leighton, hypothetically, " that the good harmless King 
 be a captivated Joash by Athaliah's Arminianised and 
 Jesuitical crew, or a misled Henry VI., dispossessed of 
 his faithfullest friends and best counsel by the pride of 
 the French ; or a Henry HI., overawed by a devihsh 
 domineering favourite ; or an Edward VI., overpoised 
 and borne down from his good purposes to God's glory 
 and the good of the State by the halting and falsehood 
 
l8o LATTD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 CHAP, of the prelates and their Eomish confederacies, so that 
 
 • — r^ — ' such a king, though he hold the sceptre, neither can 
 Feb° ^^ ^^^ himself nor execute his designs, because the sons 
 of the man of sin are too hard for him."^ 
 
 Parliament Leightou did uot shriuk from calling upon Parha- 
 
 to interfere, meut to take up the work which had been left undone 
 by the King. " Then," he said, addressing the two 
 Houses, which the book contemplated as still in session, 
 " you, the great Council of State, must, remove the 
 wicked from the head, and take away the corrupting 
 and corroding dross from the silver excellency and ex- 
 cellent argentry^ of the King. . . . Strike neither at 
 great nor small, but at these troublers of Israel. Smite 
 that Hazael in the fifth rib." ^ The words were no doubt 
 intended to be taken metaphorically, but they were 
 easily capable of another interpretation. 
 
 And to re- , Lcighton ended his book with a deliberate invitation 
 
 sistadisso- r . ,. , . T 
 
 lution. to Parhament to resist a dissolution. Its members, he 
 argued, were bound to stay in the ship. " Every dissolu- 
 tion of Parhament without real information is against 
 right, reason, and record." * This long indictment of 
 Eoyalty and Episcopacy was brought to a close with 
 the following suggestive Hnes : — 
 
 ' High must you soar, but gloiy gives thee wings, 
 No low attempt a starlike glory brings.' * 
 
 Did Leigh- The invitation to Parliament to constitute itself into 
 alone?" ^ permanent body was naturally regarded by the Go- 
 vernment as an invitation to revolution. The Attorney 
 General, as might have been expected, was anxious to 
 
 ' Siorit Plea, p. 207. ' " ingentrie " as printed. 
 
 ' Siorit Plea, p. 240. * Sioris Plea, 337. 
 
 ° Ibid., 344. I have read a copy in Dr. Williams's Library. I do 
 not understand why former enquirers have failed to discover most of the 
 passages here quoted. 
 
PROSECUTION OF LEIGHTON. l8l 
 
 know whether Leighton stood alone. He lavished all chap. 
 
 ° IV. 
 
 his powers of persuasion to draw from him the names 
 
 of those five hundred persons who had signed the ^p^°" 
 
 petition. It was all in vain. No offers of forgiveness 
 
 or liberty could draw a single name from Leighton's 
 
 hps. The form of his book he distinctly asserted to be 
 
 entirely his own.^ The Court of Star Chamber was 
 
 called to judge his offence. 
 
 At the present day Leighton's attack would doubt- p^^^'^- 
 less be left to the contemptuous indifference of all ings 
 
 . . against 
 
 sensible men. But the conduct which commends itself him in the 
 
 ~ , „ , . StarCham- 
 
 to a (iovernment so strong as to deiy treason to do its ber. 
 worst is hardly to be expected from a Government 
 conscious of weakness. Leighton's attack came too near 
 EUot's attack to be treated as an isolated occurrence. 
 Unhappily, the contemplation of the danger was not 
 likely to be accompanied by any profitable reflections. 
 That the House of Commons, so loyal and submissive 
 to Ehzabeth, should have raised a thinly disguised 
 demand for supremacy in the State ; that the forcible 
 introduction of Presbyterianism should be regarded as 
 anything more than a dream ; were surely phenomena 
 to induce the King and his counsellors to ask them- 
 selves what they had done to make such things possible. 
 No such thought, however, passed through their minds 
 for an instant. All that was thought of was to crush 
 a fanatic who could only be dangerous through their own 
 maladministration. The two Chief Justices, in their 
 place in the Star Chamber, declared that if the King 
 had so pleased, Leighton might have been put on his 
 trial for high treason, and other members of the Court 
 assured him that ' it was his Majesty's exceeding mercy 
 and goodness ' which had brought him there. In order 
 to show his Majesty's mercy and goodness, Leighton 
 
 ' Leighton's Answer, Sloane MSS. 41. 
 
 His sen- 
 tence. 
 
l82 LAUD, WENT WORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 CHAP, was condemned to pay a fine of io,oooZ., to be set in the 
 ^— T^^ — ' pillory at Westminster, and there whipped, and after 
 J ^°' his whipping to ' have one of his ears cut off and his 
 nose slit, and be branded in the face with SS, for a 
 sower of sedition.' At some future time he was to be 
 taken to the pillory at Cheapside. The lash was again 
 to descend upon his back, his other ear was to be sliced 
 off, and he was then to be imprisoned for life, ' unless 
 his Majesty shall be graciously pleased to enlarge him.' 
 It is not probable that any one of the Judges 
 expected Leighton ever to pay a hundredth part of the 
 fine which had been set upon him. In truth the enor- 
 mous fines which have left such a mark upon the his- 
 tory of this reign were seldom exacted, and became 
 little more than a conventional mode in which the 
 Judges expressed their horror of the offence,^ except 
 so far as it may have been intended to bring the 
 offender to an early confession of his fault. But the 
 rest of the sentence was far from consisting of nominal 
 penalties. It is true that, in its treatment of criminals 
 the age was hard and brutal. The constant passing of 
 the deathcart along the road to Tyburn raised no 
 compunction in the minds of Londoners. The pillory 
 
 ' Every individual payment of the fines is set down in the Eeceipt 
 Books of the Exchequer. The only question is whether any of these 
 fines was paid underhand. I think if this had been the case we should 
 have heard something of it. There is, moreover, one instance in which, 
 if ever, concealment would have been maintained. When the heavy fine 
 of 70,000?. was set on the Oity of London in 1635, nothing was heard of 
 any payment for some time. In 1638, however, there is a pardon for the 
 whole sum (Pat. Molls, 14 Oharies I., Part 14). About the same time 
 the Receipt Books (June 29) show a payment of 12,000/. from the Oity. 
 The explanation is found in a Privy Seal of April 23 of the same year 
 (Chapter House Records), in which the King states that he had pro- 
 mised the Queen io,oooZ. out of this fine, and that he thought fit to make 
 it i2,oooZ. Surely if the Queen's grant passed through the Exchequer, 
 money given to inferior persons would have been dealt with in the same 
 way. See Appendix to Vol. II. 
 
CHARACTER OF THE STAR CHAMBER. 1 83 
 
 with its accompanying brandings and mutilation, was chap. 
 an ordinary penalty known to the law, and there was - 
 
 nothing in Leighton's sentence which was not authorised chan ed 
 by the practice of the Court of Star Chamber.^ What p^^'^™^"* 
 was really new was that the members of the Court were 
 now virtually parties in the case. They had a personal 
 interest in avengiug an insult directed against themselves. 
 If this was true of the Judges and the temporal Lords, 
 it was still more true of the Bishops. If Leighton's 
 account of the proceedings, given many years afterwards, 
 when his temper was soured by cruel sufferings, is to 
 be accepted as at all approaching to accuracy, the 
 Bishops took a leading part in insisting upon the 
 heaviest sentence. Neile opposed the theory of the 
 divine right of Episcopacy to Leighton's theory of 
 the divine right of Presbytery. He had his calling, he 
 
 ' Hudson's Treatise on the Star Chamher, being WTitten in James's 
 reign, is good evidence of past practice on this point, as well as on the 
 point of the fines. " The punishment," he writes, " is by fine, imprison- 
 ment, loss of ears, or nailing to the pillory, slitting the nose, branding 
 the forehead, whipping ; of late days, wearing of papers in public places, 
 or any punishment but death. 
 
 "Fines are now of late imposed secvmdum quantitatem delicti ; and 
 not fitted to the estate of the person, so that they are rather in terrorem 
 popvli than for the true end for which they were intended when fine and 
 ransom was appointed. The ransom of a beggar and a gentleman being 
 all one, to the loss of the Crown and the great detriment of the Common- 
 wealth. 
 
 " Imprisonment always acoompanieth a fine, for if the party be fined 
 he must be imprisoned, and there remain until he find security to pay his 
 fine, and then must pay his fee to the Warden of the Fleet. 
 
 " Loss of ears is the pimishment inflicted upon perjured persons, in« 
 famous libellers, acandalers of the State, and such like. 
 
 " Branding in the face and slitting the nose is inflicted upon forgers 
 of false deeds, conspirators to take away the life of innocents, false 
 scandals upon the great, judges, and justice of the realm. 
 
 " Whipping hath been used as the punishment in great deceipts and 
 unnatural offences, as the wife against the husband, but never constantly 
 observed in any case but where a clamorous person in formd pauperis 
 prosecuteth another falsely, and is not able to pay him his cost. Then, 
 quod non habet in cere, luet in corpore." 
 
1 84 
 
 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 Leighton 
 to be de- 
 graded. 
 
 Nov. 4. 
 His degra- 
 dation. 
 
 said, ' from the Holy Ghost. If he could not make it 
 good, he would fling his rochet and all the rest from 
 his back.' ^ Laud's speech lasted for two hours, " Until 
 the time of Luther, Calvin, and Beza," he said, " the 
 world heard not of any other government of the Church 
 Dut by Bishops, and although Calvin and Beza did 
 abjure Bishops and their government, yet he found 
 them to be more proud and imperious in their govern- 
 ment than any Bishops in England."^ According to 
 the same authority, as soon as judgment had been 
 dehvered. Laud took oJSFhis cap, and raising his hands, 
 ' gave thanks to God who had given him the victory 
 over his enemies.'^ 
 
 Whether this last anecdote be true or false, it illus- 
 trates the position into which Laud had come. He 
 looked upon those Avho opposed his opinions as his 
 enemies, and upon his enemies as the enemies of 
 God. 
 
 Before the terrible sentence could be carried out 
 Leighton was to be degraded from his ministerial office 
 by the High Commission, in order that he might not 
 appear in his clerical character upon the piUory, As 
 the High Commission was not then sitting, it might be 
 that the names of his supporters might be extracted 
 from him during the vacation. But Leighton was of 
 the stuff of which martyrs are made. Introduced 
 before the Commission at last, he refused to take off his 
 hat to the Court, and declared defiantly that it had no 
 
 ' Leighton'fl Epitome, 75. 
 
 ' Ibid., 70. Leighton, however, does not seem to have been present 
 at this part of the proceedings, as he says, ' I have set down his own 
 words as they were related unto me,' p. 73, misnumbered 65. 
 
 ' Ibid., 78. The part of Laud's speech given above seems just what he 
 would have said. Other things attributed to him seem unlikely, and the 
 story of raising the cap may have been invented or distorted. This 
 book of Leighton's seems to have been entirely overlooked. 
 
LEIGHTON IN THE PILLORY. 1 85 
 
 authority to touch, him. Leighton's clerical dress was chap. 
 stripped from his back, and he was sent back to prison • — ^ — - 
 to prepare for suffering.^ The King, it is said, was ^ ^°' 
 meditating the remission of his corporal punishment.^ His escape 
 On the night before the day fixed for his appearance capture. 
 in the piUory, however, he contrived to make his 
 escape from prison, with the aid of two of his country- 
 men named Livingston and Anderson. A fortnight 
 afterwards he was captured in Bedfordshire. His flight 
 put an end to all thoughts of mercy. Leighton went Nov. 26. 
 bravely to his sufiering, together with two other culprits ment. 
 who had in some way offended against the law. His 
 wife walked before him as if in some triumphal proces- 
 sion. " As Christ," she said, " was crucified between two 
 thieves, so is my husband led between two knaves." 
 His own courage did not fail him. " All the arguments 
 brought against me," he said to the spectators, " are 
 prison, fine, brands, knife, and whip." " This is Christ's 
 yoke," he cried, as his neck was thrust into the piUory. 
 Then, as the sharp knife of the executioner rent away 
 his ear, he exclaimed, " Blessed be God, if I had a 
 hundred, I would lose them all for the cause." But 
 in the opinion of some he marred the simple dignity of 
 these words by others which trenched upon profanity. 
 ' He told the people he suffered that for their sins ; and 
 out of the Psalms and Isaiah applied unto himself the 
 prophecies of Christ's sufferings, to the great scandal of 
 many.'^ 
 
 Leighton was carried back bleeding and fainting to Part of it 
 
 ° 00 remitted. 
 
 ' Leighton's JEpitome, 83. Meade to StuteviUe, Nov. 27, Court and 
 
 Times, ii. 79. 
 
 * " For, at the censuring of those that helped him to escape, some of 
 the lords said that, had he not made an escape, his Majesty was graciously 
 inclined to have pardoned all his corporal punishments." Meade to 
 StuteviUe, Dec. $■ -^^-i "• 82. 
 
 = Ibid: 
 
1 86 
 
 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON 
 
 CHAP. 
 IV. 
 
 1630. 
 
 Nov. 26. 
 How far 
 was he 
 popular? 
 
 Laud and 
 SVentworth 
 
 his prison, there to endure long years of misery. The 
 second agony at the Cheapside pillory was spared him. 
 One ear was left uncropped. One scourging was not 
 inflicted. So far the mercy of Charles extended.^ 
 
 There is no evidence that Leighton met with any- 
 thing like general sympathy. He had his followers, no 
 doubt, who regarded him as a martyr for the truth ; 
 but nothing is heard of any popular movement in his 
 favour round the pillory at Westminster. At the Inns 
 of Court, when search was made for him at the time of 
 his escape, the lawyers 'took it unkindly that they 
 should be suspected for Puritans.'^ It may well be 
 doubted whether the feeling of opposition had as yet 
 reached below the political classes. Even amongst 
 them Leighton's subversive Presbyterianism could have 
 found but few defenders. It required many years of 
 misgovernment to convert dissatisfaction with particu- 
 lar acts of the King and the Bishops into the torrent of 
 revolutionary abhorrence which was to sweep away 
 King and Bishops together. 
 
 It has been said, and it is by no mean improbable, 
 that Leighton's denunciations were the means of 
 drawing Laud and Wentworth into close communica- 
 tion with one another.^ To them at least they would 
 
 ' The infliction of the second part of the sentence is noticed only in 
 the forged entry in Laud's diary {Ruihwortk, ii. 57). It is conclusive 
 against it that Leighton says nothing of it in the Epitome. The sen- 
 tence had not been executed when Meade's letter of Dec. 5 was written. 
 Court and Times, ii. 82. 
 
 ' Meade to Stuteville, Nov. 27. Ihid., ii. 79. 
 
 ' Leighton, in his Epitome, says that ' a man of eminent quality told 
 me that the hook and my sufierings did occasion their combination, for 
 the prelate seeing that the hook struck at the root and branch of the 
 hierarchy, and Strafford perceiving that the support and defence of the 
 hierarchy would make him great, they struck a league, like sun and 
 moon to govern day and night, religion and state.' He also says that in 
 the Star Ohamber Wentworth ' used many violent and virulent expres- 
 sions.against' him. 
 
Nov. 
 
 FRIENDSHIP OF LAUD AND WENT WORTH. 1 87 
 
 contain the same lesson of warning. Presbyteria- chap. 
 nism in the Church and Parliamentarism in the ■ — -p — ' 
 State would seem to be two forms of one disease, t,t„.. 
 of the error which sought to control the govern- 
 ment of the wise few by the voice of the ignorant 
 many. 
 
 Governments do themselves httle direct harm by 
 the punishment which they inflict upon violent and 
 unreasonable opponents. Indirectly, the temper which 
 encourages harsh and extreme repression leads to an 
 unwise antagonism to the moderate demands of those 
 who are neither violent nor fanatical. Charles might 
 long have treated the claims of the House of Com- 
 mons with contempt, and might long have bidden 
 defiance to Presbyterian enthusiasts, if he could have 
 understood how to make use of the higher devotional 
 tendencies of the Puritanism of his day. It was of no 
 good omen for the State that by choice or by com- 
 pulsion men who would have added strength to any 
 government stood aside from participation in public 
 duties, and that some even sought elsewhere than in 
 England for homes in which they might pass the 
 remainder of their lives in peace. 
 
 Foremost amongst these latter was John Winthrop. johnWin- 
 Sprung from an ancient family which had enriched itself 
 by trade, and born at Groton in Suffolk in 1 588, he had 
 grown up under the influence of the tide of Protestan- 
 tism which swept over the nation in the years of 
 triumph which followed upon the ruin of the Armada, 
 and was nowhere so strongly felt as in the eastern 
 counties. His sensitive mind was early racked by the 
 agonies of religious despondency. Self-examination, 
 leading to self-condemnation, became the habit of his 
 daily Ufe, albeit it was chequered by intervals of calm 
 
 throp. 
 
1 88 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 CHAP, refreshment in the remembrance of his Saviour's mercies. 
 
 1629. 
 
 He had ' an insatiable thirst after the word of God,' 
 so as never willingly ' to miss a good sermon, though 
 many miles off, especially of such as did search deep 
 into the conscience.'^ 
 
 To Winthrop the God whom he worshipped seemed 
 to be very near, an invisible presence detecting and 
 bringing to light his faults, and even saving him from 
 bodily harm in the occurrences of daily life, ' crossing 
 him in his dehghts,' if he fell into idleness, or revealing 
 to his wife a spider in the children's porridge.^ Tor 
 many years the consciousness of being unworthy of 
 such favour gave rise to a morbid feeling. He could 
 not attend the sessions as Justice of the Peace without 
 dreading lest he should be entangled in the vanities of 
 the world, or without thinking with self-conscious 
 shyness of the smiles which rose to the lips of his 
 gayer neighbours as they glanced at his plain and 
 unadorned dress. 
 
 Domestic trouble came to add its depressing 
 influence. Married at eighteen to an illiterate wife 
 four years older than himself, he accepted his lot 
 without repining. But there was no intensity of love, 
 no tenderness of feeling to soften the rigours of his 
 life. When his wife died after eleven years of wedlock, 
 she had borne him six children. He quickly married 
 again, but it was only to lay his second wife in the 
 grave, after a brief year of happiness. In his third 
 wife, Margaret Tyndal, he found his mate ; she it was 
 who made him what he now became. From the day 
 that his faith was phghted to her, nothing more was 
 
 ' Winthrop's lAfe ofJohm Winthrop, i. 61. 
 
 ' A spider, it should be remembered, was believed to be poisonous. 
 Wintm's Tale, ii. I. 
 
FRESH EMIGRATION. 1 89 
 
 heard of the old moodiness and timidity. He learned chap. 
 
 ■' IV. 
 
 to step boldly out amongst his equals, to take his -- — ■ — ^ 
 share in the world's work. He became a practising ^.^ ^^.^.^ 
 attorney in the Court of Wards, and in his letters of marriage, 
 this period there is nothing to distinguish him from 
 any other godfearing Puritan of the time, excepting 
 the almost feminine tenderness and sensitiveness of his 
 disposition.^ 
 
 To this life of his the dissolution of Parhament in r.\^^^'„^. 
 1629 sounded the death-knell. The proneness to ^^^o^^ _ 
 despondency had been banished from his own rehgion. ia°<i. 
 But as he looked around him he despaired of his 
 native country. Evil times were coming, when the 
 Church must ' fly to the wilderness.' Where Eliot saw 
 a passing sickness, Winthrop's softer nature turned 
 sadly from the symptoms of mortal disease. Population, 
 he thought, was overtaking the means of subsistence. 
 The rich were vieing with one another in sumptuous- 
 ness of dress and fare. At the universities men had 
 learned to ' strain at gnats and swallow camels,' to 
 ' use all severity for the maintenance of caps,' but to 
 ' suffer all ruffian-like fashions and disorders in manners 
 to pass uncontrolled,' Winthrop resolved to seek in 
 New England the congenial home which Old England 
 could not afford him,^ 
 
 ' It is only by inference that the evident change can be connected 
 ■with Winthrop's marriage. He says (I^fe, ii. 171), "I was about 
 thirty years of age, and now was the time come that the Lord would re- 
 veal Ohrist unto me. I could now no more look at what I had been, or 
 what I had done, nor be discontented for want of strength or assurance ; 
 mine eyes were only upon his free mercy in Jesus Ohrist." Winthrop 
 was thirty on January 23, 161 8. His father, writing on March 31, speaks 
 of the marriage as already arranged. I am responsible for this and other 
 conclusions on Winthrop's character, but they are based on the facts as 
 narrated in the Life, the memorial which has been raised by the devotion 
 of the Hon. R. 0. Winthrop to illustrate the deeds of his ancestor, 
 
 ' Reasons to be considered. Life, i, 309. 
 
I90 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 CHAP. Emigration to New England was no longer the ser- 
 
 ' — 7 — ' vice of danger which it had been when Bradford and 
 
 I020, 
 
 State of Brewster crossed the Atlantic in the Mayflower. But 
 New Eng- [^ -yy^^s Still a work demanding endurance of hardship. 
 The Plymouth colony had succeeded in establishing its 
 footing, and others had come out in scanty numbers 
 to settle here and there upon the neighbouring coast. 
 Eew Englishmen were tempted to leave their native 
 land for a home in the wilderness, and of those who 
 tried the experiment many succumbed to the difficul- 
 ties of the undertaking. 
 Settle- It was time that a fresh stream of English emigra- 
 
 the Dutch tiou should bc directed to the coasts of America. The 
 Dutch had already erected Port Amsterdam at the 
 mouth of the Hudson on the island which was after- 
 wards to bear the great commercial city of New York. 
 The Prench had settled at Port Eoyal in Nova Scotia, 
 and had established a trading post for the piurchase 
 of furs from the Indians at Quebec. Though Sir 
 WiUiam Alexander claimed the whole district under a 
 grant from the Crown, and his emissary. Captain Kirk, 
 had seized Port Eoyal and stormed Quebec, negotia- 
 tions were already on foot in Europe for the restoration 
 of the French settlers. 
 J 528 Eeligious enthusiasm was to secure the preponder- 
 
 settiement auce ou the Continent for men of Enghsh race. At the 
 close of 1628 about fifty or sixty persons had formed 
 a settlement at Salem in Massachusetts Bay under 
 authority of a company in London which had received 
 a grant of lands from the Council for New England. In 
 the following year fresh members were admitted to the 
 company ; and on March 4, two days after the Speaker 
 had been held down in his chair by HoUes and Valen- 
 tine, it was reconstituted by Eoyal Charter under the 
 
THE MASSACHUSETTS SETTLEMENT. 19I 
 
 name of the ' Company of the Massachusetts Bay in chap. 
 
 IV. 
 
 New England.' About two hundred persons were de- 
 spatched in April, and Oharlestown rose by the side of ^ ^^' 
 Salem. They carried with them two clergymen who pany of 
 
 were dissatisfied with the state of things in England, chusetts 
 and they immediately on their arrival constituted 
 themselves into a church after the Separatist model. 
 Bradford came over from Plymouth to offer them the 
 right hand of fellowship. " That which is our greatest 
 comfort," wrote one of them, " is that we have here the 
 true rehgion and holy ordinances of Almighty God 
 taught among us. Thanks be to God, we have here 
 plenty of preaching and diligent catechizing, with 
 strict and careful exercise, and good and commendable 
 orders to bring our people into a Christian conver- 
 sation." 
 
 In setting up their worship these men had no idea Toleration 
 of admitting the principle of toleration. Two brothers 
 who attempted to worship apart, using the English 
 Common Prayer, were at once placed on board ship 
 and sent back across the Atlantic. It may be that the 
 rulers of the httle community were wise in their resolu- 
 tion. Their own religious liberty would have been 
 in danger if a population had grown up around them 
 ready to offer a helping hand to any repressive mea- 
 sures of the home government. 
 
 It was in this settlement that Winthrop proposed to July 28. 
 find his new home. But neither he nor those who were of the Mas- 
 ready to join him were wiUing to go if they were to be Company 
 merely the subjects of a trading company in London 
 liable to be controlled by the King. An unexpected 
 way was found to meet the difiiculty. On July 28, 
 Cradock, the governor of the company, proposed that 
 the government of the Corporation should be trans- 
 
ciples. 
 
 192 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 ferred to America, 'for the advancement of the planta- 
 tion, the iaducing and encouraging persons of worth and 
 ^9" quahty to transplant themselves and families thither.' 
 He did not say, what he must have been clearly un- 
 derstood to mean, that in this way the King would 
 have some difficulty in laying his hand upon the 
 Aug. 26. governor. On August 26 Winthrop and eleven other 
 
 agrees t?" gentlemen signed an agreement to emigrate if this con- 
 
 eimgrate. (ji^-^Q^ were fulfilled. Two days later the transference 
 was voted by the company, and on October 20 Win- 
 throp was elected governor in Cradock's place. 
 1639. In April, 1630, "Winthrop was on his way to Mas- 
 
 winthrop sachusetts. His name was a powerful magnet to draw 
 his friends and neighbours to associate their fortunes 
 
 His prin- with his owu. Either in the fleet in which he sailed or 
 in vessels which shortly followed, a thousand persons 
 were added to the strugghng settlements on the New 
 England coast. ^ It was not the love of democratic 
 equality which led these men — many of them gentle- 
 men of wealth and position — to wrestle with the hard- 
 ships of an unkindly soil, and of a harsh and rigorous 
 climate. If they had their share with Bradford and 
 Brewster and Winslow as the founders of a nation, it 
 was because these temporal blessings were added to 
 them who first sought the Lord and his righteousness. 
 They had set an ideal before them which they strove to 
 realise upon earth, and in spite of human shortcomings 
 in its conception, and of human errors in its embodi- 
 ment in action, their life and the life of those around 
 them was ennobled by their high spiritual earnestness. 
 The old world, they believed, was growing very old, 
 falling swiftly into corruption and decay. The im- 
 moralities around them, they thought, would be 
 
 ' Life of Winthrop, i, 305. Palfrey, Hiet, of New England, i. 283. 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND IDEAL. 1 93 
 
 strengthened, not weakened, by the ecclesiastical cere- chap 
 monialism which was in favour in high places in Eng- 
 
 land. Winthrop and his friends believed thoroughly ^°' 
 in the Calvinistic system of theology, but to him, as for 
 every noble nature, that theology was clothed in the 
 heartfelt appreciation of the personal nearness of his 
 Saviour to his heart. It was this which to him and to so 
 many others rendered a ceremonial worship so hateful. 
 It was a mere distraction from the burning self-sus- 
 tained passion of devotion. All that was needed to 
 impose a check upon the intense individuality of his 
 creed he found in the study of the Scriptures, in which 
 he recognised the voice of his heavenly guide. To his 
 soul, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, the 
 Bible was a code of moral law perfect and complete. 
 Earthly life, as those Massachusetts settlers held, was 
 to be the expression of the heavenly life. No man 
 who had no part in the greater could be entrusted with 
 control over the less. By their charter, which they church 
 carried with them to America, the members of the ship and 
 company who formed the governing body were em- ^^h^. 
 powered to admit freemen to share in their privileges, 
 and they used this power to establish a Commonwealth 
 into which none were to enter as masters who did not 
 fully share in the religious conceptions of the existing 
 members. " The only way," wrote Winthrop, " to 
 avoid shipwreck is to do justly, to love mercy, to walk 
 humbly with our God."^ Church membership was de- 
 clared to be the indispensable condition of admission to 
 the governing body. A religious oligarchy was thereby 
 established, round which gathered hundreds of persons 
 who were unable or unwilling to satisfy the test im- 
 posed. But for the mingled firmness and gentleness of 
 the rulers, such an arrangement could not have lasted 
 
 > Life of Winthrop, ii. i8. 
 VOL. I. 
 
194 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 CHAP, for a month. The year after Winthrop's arrival only 1 26 
 
 IV. 
 
 freemen were admitted, and it took ten years of immi- 
 ^°" gration and selection to add 1,200 more.^ 
 Severeruie Massachusetts was uot a place where men might 
 do as they liked. Those who gave signs of proving 
 troublesome to the colony were simply placed on ship- 
 board and sent back to England. Those who were 
 guilty in any special way were condemned to harsher 
 penalties. A quack doctor was fined 5^. Captain 
 Stone, for assaulting a member of the community ' and 
 calling him a just ass,' was fined lool. and banished. 
 Edward Palmer, who made the Boston stocks and 
 charged too highly for the wood, had to sit in them him- 
 self. Swearers had to stand with their tongues fixed in 
 cleft sticks. PhiHp Eatcliff, the Leighton of the colony, 
 was ordered to 'be whipped, have his ears cut off", 
 fined 40^., and banished ' out of the hmits of the 'juris- 
 diction,' for uttering mahcious and scandalous speeches 
 against the government.^ 
 Toleration ^^ proportion as the student of the history of the 
 
 rejected, seventeenth century perceives clearly that religious 
 toleration was the goal to which it was tending, and 
 that in it alone could its difficulties find their appro- 
 priate solution, he is tempted to think hardly and 
 bitterly of those men who tiu'ned their backs upon such 
 a benefit. Ehot and Winthrop would hear as little of it 
 as Laud and Wentworth, Even the intellectual per- 
 ception of the value of toleration had not yet dawned 
 upon the world. The obstacle was, however, not 
 purely intellectual. The real difficulty was to know 
 who was to begin. The problem as it presented itself 
 to the men of that generation was not whether they . 
 were to tolerate others, but whether they were to give 
 to others the opportunity of being intolerant to them- 
 
 ' Loviell ImtituU Lectvres, 237. ' Ibid., 86. 
 
DrFFICULTIES OF TOLERATION. 1 95 
 
 selves. Was Laud to allow Leighton to gather strength chap. 
 to sweep away the whole Church system of England ? '- — ^ — ' 
 Was Winthrop to allow the dissidents to gather ^ •'°' 
 strength to sweep away the whole Church system of 
 New England ? It is only when a sentiment of mutual 
 forbearance has sprung up which renders it improbable 
 that the spread of any given opinion will be used to 
 repress other opinions by force, that the principle of 
 toleration can possibly commend itself to a wise people. 
 Even in these days we are tolerant because we believe 
 that freedom of thought, besides being a good thing in 
 itself, is not likely to be tiu:ned against ourselves ; not 
 because we feel bound in principle to give to the holders 
 of one particular doctrine a chance of establishing their 
 own authority on the ruins of the rest. 
 
 It was the glory of England that she had ap- The 
 
 in 111 • 1 Church 
 
 proached more nearly than other nations to the con- ofEngiana. 
 dition of mutual forbearance which renders toleration 
 possible. It was the misfortune of the reign of Charles I. 
 that the tacit compact between the two great parties in 
 the Church was broken. The Puritan demanded exact 
 conformity with the doctrine which he professed. Laud 
 demanded exact conformity with the practices of which 
 he approved. The largeness of view, the power of con- 
 cession, the recollection on the one hand that personal 
 and individual religion need not throw off regard 
 for the demands of external authority and ceremonial, 
 and on the other hand that the devotees of external 
 authority and ceremonial need not reject the de- 
 mands of personal and individual religion, was being 
 lost sight of. Each party was coming to look upon 
 the other as something to be repressed and extir- 
 pated. Yet each party regarded itself, not without 
 excuse, as standing on the defensive. Winthrop ex- 
 plained his refusal of the use of the Common Prayer- 
 
 2 
 
196^ 
 
 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 CHAP. 
 IV. 
 
 1630. 
 
 Cosin's 
 semtion. 
 
 Went- 
 worth in 
 theCouncil. 
 
 book by calling to miiid the persecution to which 
 the emigrants had been subjected in England. Cosin 
 preached on the text, " Pray for the peace of Jeru- 
 salem." " Those other men," he said, " have but 
 little to do, it seems, who are finding fault with the 
 public prayers of the Church when, according to the 
 prophet's rule here, we pray for the continuance of our 
 peace, and desire to be kept from battle and persecu- 
 tion. . . . ' Pray for the peace of Jerusalem,' saith the 
 prophet here ; pray that you may live a peaceable and 
 a godly life under your king, saith St. Paul. No ; pray 
 for no peace, pray not against any battle, saith our 
 Puritan, directly against the text ; and for so saying, 
 let us ever think what spirit governs the sect, we shall 
 be sure to find that it is none of the Spirit of peace. 
 They are all for contentions and brabbles, both at home 
 and abroad, and He everywhere against them, as we also 
 ought to be." ^ 
 
 The tendency of these words is unmistakable. To 
 Cosin disputatiousness was not the mere waste thrown 
 ofi'in the process of maintaining intellectual vigour. It 
 was a sheer evil, without any compensating good what- 
 ever, from which it was the duty of the governors to 
 protect the helpless mass of the population. Something 
 of the same idea lies at the root of the action of the 
 Privy Council in social matters. It would be a great 
 mistake to attribute to Wentworth at this time anything 
 like the influence which he subsequently acquired. In 
 the general direction of the Government he had, as far as 
 we know, no hand whatever, and his name was not even 
 thought worthy of mention by those who chronicled 
 the doings of the King and his ministers. But it can 
 hardly be by accident that his accession to the Privy 
 Council was followed by a series of measures aiming at 
 
 > Sermon vii. Cosin's Works,!. 115. 
 
ACTIVITY OF THE COUNCIL. 1 97 
 
 the benefit of the people in general, and at the protec- chap. 
 tion of the helpless against the pressure caused by the - — ^ — - 
 self-interest of particular classes. No doubt much was ^ ^°' 
 done which in later days would be regarded as injudi- 
 cious. But there can be no doubt of the existence of 
 a tendency to find a sphere of action in the pursuance 
 of the common good. 
 
 The aid of the Council was first invoked by a visita- „^*';<=''- 
 
 •' The plague 
 
 tion against which the science of that age afforded inEngiand. 
 little or no protection. The plague, which had com- 
 mitted such devastations in 1625, reappeared in Eng- 
 land in the sprins of 1630.^ The Council sounded the ,Aprii23. 
 
 \ " Measures 
 
 alarm. Magistrates were ordered to stop the passage t'^^"- 
 of rogues and vagabonds who might carry the infec- 
 tion. Houses in which the disease already prevailed 
 were to be closed. Householders were to refuse relief 
 to wandering beggars, and to cause them to be appre- 
 hended by the nearest constable. On the other hand, 
 the deserving poor were to be protected against want 
 and suffering, and the laws on their behalf were to be 
 strictly put in force. ^ 
 
 Three months later an attempt was made to deal July 24. 
 with the evU in London, where its consequences were ma«on 
 most to be dreaded. There is no doubt that our fore- nf^uud 
 fathers were indebted for the existence of this as well "^^' 
 as of other forms of disease to the overcrowded habita- 
 tions in which they dwelt, and to the neglect of the 
 most elementary sanitary precautions. In such a city 
 as London, growing from year to year, it seemed hope- 
 less to cope with the evil in any other way than by 
 strictly controlling the influx of population to the 
 city. An Act of Parliament in Elizabeth's reign had 
 prohibited the building of new houses, and the recep- 
 
 1 Meade to Stuteyille, March 20. Coui-t and Times, ii. 68. 
 ' ProclamatioB, April 23. Rymer, xix. 160. 
 
198 
 
 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 CHAP, 
 IV. 
 
 1630. 
 July 14. 
 
 Deficient 
 harvest. 
 
 .Tune 13, 
 Measures 
 to avert 
 famine. 
 
 Sept, 
 
 tion of an increased number of lodgers in the old ones, 
 but had been passed for a limited period of seven years, 
 and when the term came to an end it had not been 
 renewed. In James's reign, however, the same diffi- 
 culty had been felt. Eecourse had been had to the 
 Judges, who had declared that the excessive building of 
 houses was illegal as a nuisance, and coidd therefore be 
 dealt with whether the Act of ParHament were renewed 
 or not.^ James had accordingly proceeded to execute 
 the powers thus acknowledged to be his, and Charles 
 followed in his father's steps. All previous orders on 
 the subject were reinforced by a fresh proclamation 
 not long after the outbreak of the plague. Injurious as 
 the intervention was, there is no reason to doubt that 
 it was well intended, and the prohibitions against build- 
 ing new rooms under a certain height, and against 
 erecting houses with the upper stories overhanging the 
 streets deserve unquaUfied praise.^ 
 
 This time the pestilence was accompanied by an 
 extraordinary di'ought which caused a failure in the 
 harvest. As early as in June the alarm was taken, and 
 the exportation of corn was prohibited.^ In September 
 a proclamation was issued which sounds strange at the 
 present day. The observance of Lent and other special 
 days by abstinence from meat had been a practice 
 handed down from the mediasval Church. Elizabeth's 
 Parliaments had sought to find an economical basis for 
 that which had ceased to be acknowledged by most 
 persons as a religious duty, and had enjoined ab- 
 stention from meat at those seasons as a means of 
 encouraging the fisheries. The Elizabethan statutes, 
 
 1 " About 6 JacoU the Judges resolved in the Star Chamber and de- 
 clared that these buildings were nuisances and against the law." Notes 
 in the hand of Secretary Ooke, February (?) 1632. S. P. Dom. ccxi. 92. 
 
 ' Proclamation, July 24. Rymer, xix. 177. 
 
 ' Proclamation, June 13. Md., xiv. 175. 
 
PRECAUTIONS AGAINST DEARTH, 199 
 
 with some alteration in details, had been re-enacted in chap. 
 
 ' IV. 
 
 the last Parliament of Charles, and the proclamation 
 which now demanded the observance of the law only \ ^°' 
 
 Sept. 
 
 carried out the views which had been accepted by that 
 House of Commons which had risen up in indigna- 
 tion against Laud and Weston. The fast, as was stated 
 in the proclamation, was observed in his Majesty's 
 household, in the houses of the greater part of the 
 nobihty, at the Inns of Court, and at the Universities. 
 But it was treated with contempt at taverns and other 
 places of entertainment. More meat was eaten there 
 on fasting nights than on any other day. Private 
 persons were therefore to be admonished to use absti- 
 nence, and the City companies to suspend their festi- 
 vities, devoting the money thus saved to the starving 
 poor, unless they wished the King ' to remember the 
 hardness of their hearts.'^ 
 
 More direct measures were taken at the same time. 
 The Lord Mayor and Aldermen were ordered to pre- 
 vent the price of corn from rising in the London 
 market. Directions were sent to L^eland, which had 
 not been reached by the dearth, to transmit to Eng- 
 land all the grain which was not absolutely required to 
 meet the wants of its own population. Justices of the 
 Peace in counties where corn was by any accident 
 plentiful were to supply the wants of less fortunate 
 neighbourhoods. No one was to venture to ask more 
 than seven shillings a bushel for wheat, about two 
 shillings more than the highest ordinary price, nor was 
 more than a Hmited quantity to be purchased, or the 
 storing of grain permitted for resale. It was not in the 
 nature of things that such directions should be submitted 
 to without opposition. Again and again the Council 
 complained .of resistance. In spite of threats, corn was 
 
 1 Proclamation, September 28. Rymer, xix. 116, 195. 
 
200 l.AUD, WENTWOBTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 CHAP held back from the market, and prices continued to 
 -— r^ — • rise. Justices had to be reminded that it was their duty 
 •'°' to visit the markets week by week. Starchmakers had 
 to be reminded that their work was not absolutely 
 necessary to human existence. Maltsters were told to 
 limit the quantity of barley consumed by them. Here 
 and there there were riots and disturbances. But on 
 the whole order was maintained. Fortunately the next 
 harvest proved to be a good one, and in the summer of 
 1 63 1 prices fell as rapidly as they had risen.^ 
 Dec. 31. It was perhaps the experience gained in this struggle 
 
 irH^ion for wlth famine which suggested to the Council the pro- 
 of ^debtors, priety of more permanent intervention on behalf of the 
 poor. The class of bankrupt debtors was one which 
 met with but little pity from the prosperous tradesman, 
 and it had been one of the charges against Bacon before 
 his fall, that he had been inclined to stretch his autho- 
 rity in their favour. A body of Commissioners was 
 now appointed to mediate with the creditors of pri- 
 soners whose debts were under 200I., and whose cases 
 were reported by the Judge by whom they had been 
 committed as worthy of commiseration. The mediation 
 of Privy Councillors would be apt to express itself in 
 language difficult to resist, and was sure to be re- 
 garded by the creditors as an attack upon their legal 
 rights. " What care I," said one who was summoned 
 to give account of his harshness, " for the King or his 
 Commissioners, for they have no power to give away my 
 debt ? . . . Unless the Commission be confirmed by Act 
 of Parliament, I will go when I hst and come when I 
 hst, nor never a messenger in England shah make me 
 come but when I list."^ 
 
 ^ The whole course of the proceedings can be traced in the Council 
 Register. 
 
 ' Commission, December 31. Rymer, xix. 228. Affidavit of K. 
 Steevens, ."August 28, 1632. S. P, Dom. ccxxxi. 48. 
 
of the poor. 
 
 PROTECTION TO THE POOR. 20I 
 
 Still more sweeping was the appointment of Com- chap. 
 missioners to see that the laws for the relief of the • — ^ — - 
 poor were duly carried out. The country Justices of ^ ^^' 
 the Peace were chareed, doubtless with truth in many in- Com- 
 
 . . ,.. mission for 
 
 stances, with neglectmg their duties where their interests the relief 
 were concerned. Few, it was said, dared complain of 
 the great landowners of their neighbourhood. ' Poor 
 people ' had once been better relieved than now they 
 were. Such abuses were to continue no longer. 
 Money bequeathed for charitable uses was to be 
 apphed to the purposes for which it had been given. 
 Eogues and vagabonds were to be punished, alehouses 
 to be kept in good order, children without visible 
 means of subsistence to be put out as apprentices, and 
 those who had fallen into distress to be provided with 
 support. The Justices were ordered to report from 
 time to time the result of their labours ; and in this 
 way a check was put upon the tendency of the local 
 powers to slacken in their efforts for the public good.'^ 
 Such measures on the part of the Government may 
 serve as an indication that there were some at least in 
 the Council who were anxious to fall back upon an 
 alhance with the people in their quarrel with the 
 aristocracy. It was hardly likely that their good 
 deeds in this direction woidd weigh very heavily in 
 the balance. When the whole state of society is 
 rotten, when the upper classes use the superiority of 
 their position freely for oppression, a Government may 
 deservedly rise to power by substituting the despotism 
 of one for the tyranny of many. Such had been 
 the cause of the extraordinary powers acquired by the 
 Tudor sovereigns at the beginning of the sixteenth 
 
 1 Commission, January 5, Rushw. ii. App. 82. There is a copy 
 of tlie orders in Lord Verulam's Library, apparently printed for general 
 circulation. The State Papers are full of the Justices' Reports as long as 
 Charles maintained his authority, 
 
1630. 
 
 202 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 CHAP, century. But it was only by the grossest exaggera- 
 tion that anything of the kind could be apprehended 
 in the reign of Charles. If Justices of the Peace were 
 sometimes ignorant or harsh, if country gentlemen 
 were sometimes violent or oppressive, the e^dl was not 
 sufficiently widely spread to call for so drastic a 
 remedy. There was nothing to shew that the pro- 
 pertied classes would fail as a body to respond to a 
 demand from the Government that justice should be 
 done. 
 
 July 10. One instance had not long before occurred in which 
 
 Uhe Hunt ° 
 
 ingdon all the efforts of the Government would have proved 
 
 Charter. ... . , , , ^ . 
 
 nitile to avert mjustice without local co-operation. 
 In the summer of 1630 a new charter was granted to 
 the borough of Hmitingdon.-^ A dislike of popular 
 action prevailed at Court, and at the petition, it was 
 said, of the burghers themselves, the rule of the town 
 was handed over to a Mayor and twelve Aldermen 
 appointed for hfe, in the first instance by the Kiag 
 himself, and authorised to fiU up all future vacancies in 
 their own body. The change seems to have been made 
 with Cromwell's consent,^ and he himself was named one 
 of the three Justices of the Peace for the borough. But 
 Cromwell's ^^ CromwcU did not care much for democratic theories, 
 objectionB. jjg -^y^s easily moved to anger by injustice, especially 
 by injustice to the poor. He saw that under the new 
 charter the Aldermen might deal as they pleased 
 with the common property of the bor-ough, and in 
 pointing out the hardship thus entailed upon the less 
 prominent members of the community, he spoke 
 roughly to Eobert Barnard, the new Mayor, who had 
 been the prime instigator of the change. A complaint 
 
 ' Huntingdon Charter, July lo. Patent Soils, 6 Charles I., Part ii. 
 ' This seems placed heyond doubt by Dr. Beard's certificate, printed 
 in the Duke of Manchester's Court and Society from Elizabeth to Anne. 
 
CROMWELL BEFORE THE COUNCIL. 203 
 
 was quickly carried to London, and Cromwell was chap. 
 summoned before the Council. In the end the matter - — ^ — ' 
 was referred to the arbitration of the Earl of Manchester, J ^°' 
 
 ' rs' ov. 26. 
 
 whose brother was now the owner of Hinchinbrook. Heissum- 
 
 . ... nioned be- 
 
 Manchester was not likely to be preiudicedin Cromwell's for^ ^^^ 
 
 J. , , . y ,.,.*" . . . Council. 
 
 lavour, but he sustained his objections m every point, 
 and ordered that care should be taken to guard against 
 the risk which he had pointed out. On the other Dec 
 hand, Cromwell acknowledged that he had ' spoken j^ctiolJ^ ad- 
 in heat and passion,' and begged that his angry words "'*'®^- 
 might not be remembered against him.^ A few weeks 
 later Cromwell withdrew from Huntingdon, selling his 
 property, and renting lands near St. Ives. It is possible 
 that some very prosaic motive may have influenced 
 him in making the change. But it may be that he 
 found that his influence was at an end in a town the 
 governors of which he had successfully opposed. 
 
 It is hardly possible for a government to break Financial 
 loose from popular control without falling into financial 
 difficulties. Sooner or later it is certain to engage in 
 enterprises the expenses of which the nation is unwil- 
 ling to meet, and which necessitate the imposition of 
 taxation the levy of which gives rise to discontent out 
 of all proportion to the burthen imposed. In Weston, 
 however, Charles had a minister who would put ofi'the 
 evil day as long as possible. He had no fancy for 
 bold and startling remedies, and would rather submit 
 to a deficit than resort to new and unpopular schemes. 
 Yet even Weston was unable to avoid doing something. 
 Ever since the dissolution, he had been engaged in 
 meeting the most pressing debts of the Crown with the 
 help of the subsidies which had been voted in 1628. 
 Still the creditors cried for more. There were claims 
 
 ' See the whole story in the Preface to Mr. Bruce'a Calendar, 
 1629-31, xiii-xiv. 
 
204 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 CHAP, arising from the expedition to Eh^, from the expedi- 
 
 1630. 
 
 - tion to Stade, and even from the Cadiz voyage. A debt 
 of 40,000/. was owing to the Earl of Holland. A 
 debt of 42,000/. was owing to the Earl of Carlisle. 
 Carlisle was put oif by a grant of fines to be paid by 
 persons who had encroached upon the King's landed 
 property,^ and which would bring him in a few hundred 
 pounds annually for some time to come. Holland was 
 contented with promises ^ which several years after were 
 not fulfilled. But the mass of creditors could not be 
 dealt with so, and it was absolutely necessary, if 
 Charles was not to acknowledge himself a bankrupt, that 
 either Parliament should be summoned, or that resort 
 should be had to some unusual mode of obtaining money. 
 Jan. 28. Of all men Charles was the, least likely to perceive 
 
 sitiWor the risk attending upon the revival of obsolete but 
 hooi'''" technically legal forms of levying money. If, however, 
 recourse was to be had to any such measures, the one 
 which was actually adopted was probably open to 
 fewer objections than any other. No lawyer doubted 
 that the King had the right to summon such of his 
 subjects as were owners of an estate worth 40/. a year 
 to receive knighthood. No lawyer doubted that he 
 had the right of fining them if they neglected or re- 
 fused to obey the summons, and though this right had 
 not been put in force for more than a century, it could 
 not be said that the King was asking for anything 
 illegal. The first demand was made in January 1630.^ 
 It was some time before those who were asked to pay 
 could be convinced that Charles was in earnest. In 
 
 • Oommission for Defective Titles, February 24. Hymm; xix. 123. 
 The payments appear from the Receipt Books of the Exchequer. 
 
 " Inrolment of Privy Seals, April 9. No. 11, p. 167. 
 
 ' Oommission, January 28. Proclamation, July 13. Kymer, xix. 
 119, 175. The King to Mildmay, August 4. 8. P. Dom. clxxii. 16. 
 Proceedings in the Exchequer, February 5, 7. AM. MSS. 11,764, 53. 
 
KNIGHTHOOD FINES. 205 
 
 July it was thought necessary to appoint commis- '^^^p- 
 sioners to receive compositions. Up to Michaelmas, — ^^ — ' 
 however, only 13,000/. was thus brought in. The juiy°3. 
 Judges then came to the aid of the Government. In 
 August the Barons of the Exchequer pronounced the 
 King's right to be undoubted, and in 'the following 
 February they overruled a series of special objections 1631. 
 on points of form. Payment could no longer be ^^^'■7- 
 avoided. By Michaelmas 1631, 115 ,000/. was collected, 
 and much more was still to come.^ 
 
 Charles was evidently determined to put in force 
 his legal rights, and he doubtless persuaded himself 
 that nothing more could be demanded from him than 
 conformity to the requirements of the law as inter- 
 preted by the Judges. To the Court which vindicated 
 his right to the compositions for knighthood he was 
 indebted for a support which was at least practically 
 sufficient for him in his claim to levy Tonnage and Tonnage 
 Poundage. It is true that Chambers pleaded in vain dage. """ 
 for a day to be fixed on which the wide issues which 
 he had raised might be determined by the Court of 
 Exchequer. There was less difficulty in meeting the ,/«"« s- 
 case of Vassall, who had refused to pay the imposition 
 on currants. He was told that in the preceding reign 
 the Court had decided that imposition to be due, and 
 its decision was not to be departed from. He was 
 therefore to pay the duty. Vassall sturdily replied 
 that he would have nothing to do with the currants 
 under such circumstances. ' The order did not con- 
 strain him to fetch them away, and he would let them 
 lie where they were.' He was at once committed to 
 custody for contempt of the Court ; and the Judges 
 were at last obliged to order the sale of the currants 
 
 ' Seceipt Books of the Exchequef. 
 
 Vassall's 
 case. 
 
2o6 LAUD, WENTWORTH, AND WESTON. 
 
 CHAP, without the intervention of their owner.^ Payment 
 was enforced in the other cases in a somewhat similar 
 
 1630. 
 
 way. 
 
 General re- Thosc who coutinued to resist payment, however, 
 dTeVout. "^6re no longer assured of the support of their fellow 
 merchants. Before the year 1630 came to an end, a 
 treaty of peace was signed with Spain. Trade re- 
 vived with the cessation of hostilities, and the mass of 
 persons engaged in commerce was indisposed to hold 
 back from the pursuit of wealth for the sake of a poli- 
 tical principle. 
 
 ' Excheque}' Decrees and Orders, viii. 269, 309 b ; ix. 204 b ; xi. 
 466 b. 
 
207 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 On the whole Charles's treatment of his home difficul- chap. 
 ties had been tolerably straightforward. He had been ^' 
 
 under no temptation to act otherwise than he had done. ^^^^' 
 He had cast upon the Judges the duty of defending Domitic 
 his position, and as there was no general disposition to policy™^ 
 resist their decisions he was able to maintain his ground ^'"^^^' 
 without much effort of his own. 
 
 The moment that Charles cast his eyes beyond his 
 own dominions these conditions were reversed. He could 
 not cite the Kings of France or Spain before the Court 
 of Exchequer. He could not persuade the citizens of 
 the Dutch Eepublic to submit the interests of their 
 State to technical argument. Whatever he wanted 
 he must achieve by wise foresight and by the confi- 
 dence inspired by honesty of purpose and by readi- 
 ness to postpone considerations of his own welfare to 
 considerations of the general good. Nothing of the 
 kind was to be expected from Charles. His know- 
 ledge of foreign nations was most elementary. With 
 their aims and struggles he had no sjmapathy whatever. 
 James had made many mistakes, but at least he had 
 a European policy. Charles had no European policy 
 at all. The one thing for which he cared was the 
 
208 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 re-establishment of his sister in the Palatinate. His 
 object was merely dynastic. How it would affect 
 
 ^ ^^' Germany, even how it would affect England, were 
 questions which he never thought of proposing to 
 himself. The result was what might have been ex- 
 pected. Whatever tendency to duplicity was in him 
 was fostered by the effort to cajole those who had it in 
 their power to give him what he required. Eegarding' 
 himself as the one just man in the midst of angry and 
 interested combatants, he began by offering aid to one 
 or the other, regardless of the intrinsic merit of the 
 quarrel which for his own purposes he offered to 
 espouse. The habit of looking out for the highest 
 bidder quickly grew into the habit of making profuse and 
 often contradictory offers to each bidder in turn. 
 
 Nov. When, in the autumn of 1629, Vane started for the 
 
 V a1j0 iXXr 
 
 the Hngiie. Haguc and Cottington for Madrid, Charles was proba- 
 bly full of the most beneficent designs. If he could 
 mediate a peace between Spain and the Netherlands 
 at the same time that he was negotiating a treaty for 
 himself, he would at least be quit of the obligations of 
 the Treaty of Southampton, which boimd him to assist 
 the Dutch against their enemies. Vane now discovered 
 that his message of peace found no favour in the eyes 
 of the Prince of Orange. The campaign of 1629 had 
 been eminently successful Wesel and Hertogenbosch 
 1630. had fallen. The Prince was informed by the English 
 ambassador that if his master failed to recover the 
 Palatinate by his treaty with Spain, he would be ready 
 to enter into a fresh agreement with the Eepublic on 
 condition that the restitution of the Palatinate was 
 distinctly provided for. He replied that the States 
 would never consent to bind themselves to a stipula- 
 tion which would bring them into direct collision with 
 the Emperor. Charles thought it very hard that the 
 
NEGOTLVTIONS WITH SPAIN. 209 
 
 Dutcli were unwilling to run the risk in his sister's chap. 
 
 service 
 
 1 
 
 Was it likely that the chivalrous self-renunciation ^ •'°' 
 for which Charles had sought in vain in Holland would Coioma's 
 be found at Madrid ? When Don Carlos de Coloma inEngiand 
 arrived in England, the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall 
 was crowded with spectators. The ruffs of the ladies 
 Were torn in the struggle which ensued,^ but there were 
 very few who gave the new ambassador a hearty wel- 
 come. The Queen paid him no compliment. It was 
 only with diflSculty that a house had been found for his 
 reception.^ But he had Weston on his side, and 
 Weston's word was all-powerful with Charles. 
 
 It was to Cottington, however, not to Coloma, that cottington 
 
 , , . „ 1 ° . . , ' at Madrid. 
 
 the busmess 01 the negotiation was entrusted. Cot- 
 tington soon found that Olivares would make no posi- 
 tive engagement for the restitution of the Palatinate. 
 German ambassadors were expected, and when they 
 came the whole subject might be discussed.* Nothing 
 need be done at once. "We well know," said the 
 Spanish minister, " that the King will be contented 
 with a promise from hence." Cottington had to inform 
 his master that if he expected anything more decisive 
 he had better order his return.* . 
 
 When Charles heard of the difficulty, he was much Feb. 
 annoyed, and the Queen took good care to heighten his disaatisfled. 
 displeasure. One morning he sent her in jest a white 
 hair which he had discovered in his head. " Don 
 
 1 Vane to Dorchester, Nov. 20. The King to Vane, Jan. 5. Vane 
 to Dorchester, Feb. 4. S. P. Holland. 
 
 2 Dorchester to Cottington, Jan. 10. S. P. Spain. 
 ' Soranzo's Despatch, 25t». Venice MSS. 
 
 * The Spanish Qovemment had heen urging the sending of these am- 
 bassadors in order to find some means of accommodation. Philip IV. to 
 Aytona, July ^, 1629. Add. MSS., 28,474, fol. 184. 
 
 5 Cottington to Dorchester, Jan. 29. S. P. Spain. 
 
 VOL. I. P 
 
2IO ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 CHAP. Carlos," she replied, " will give you many such before 
 ■ — r — • the Emperor restores the Palatinate." In spite of his 
 ^°' disappointment, however, Charles ordered Cottington to 
 await the coming of the ambassadors from Gerrhany.^ 
 Feb. 22. With one diplomatist, at least, Charles was on good 
 
 leaves tcrms. When Eubens left England he received the 
 honour of knighthood. During his stay his brush had 
 not been idle. The picture of Peace and War, which 
 formed one of the glories of Charles's gallery, is the 
 memorial of the painter's abode here. After wander- 
 ing to the shores of the Mediterranean, it has once more 
 found a fitting resting-place in the National Collection.^ 
 March. Between peace and war Charles had, in reality, no 
 
 negoS-'^ choice. But it pleased him to think that he had a 
 ation. choice. In March fresh news came from Madrid that 
 the German ambassadors were not coming after all, 
 and that all negotiations must be carried on in the Diet 
 which was expected to meet shortly at Eatisbon. At the 
 same time Philip insisted that if a peace was to be treated 
 of it must be treated of independently of the cession of 
 the Palatinate. He would do all that lay in his power 
 to induce the Emperor to take off the ban. Frederick 
 would then be capable of holding the towns occupied 
 by Spanish garrisons, and it might then be hoped that 
 Apru. the rest would follow. To this reasoning Charles 
 succumbed. He would not ask for any promise about 
 the Palatinate as a condition of peace, but he must 
 have for his own satisfaction a written declaration 
 stating what the King of Spain intended to propose at 
 the Diet, and he must have a document conferring on 
 him powers to mediate with the Dutch. Whatever 
 firmness still remained in Charles's mind was explained 
 away by Weston. The Lord Treasurer told Coloma 
 
 ' The King to Oottiiigton, Pel). 14. QerWer to Cottington, Feb. 
 17. Ibid, " Sainabury's iJuSejM, 147. 
 
SECRET TREATY AGAINST THE DUTCH. 211 
 
 that his master was ready to make peace, whatever chap. 
 was done about the Palatinate, and that his demand -— ,^ — 
 for a declaration had only been made to stop the ' ^°' 
 mouths of the wretches who were trying to sow dis- 
 cord between himself and Spain.' 
 
 Cottington, in fact, had private orders to hold out May. 
 hopes that if liis master's mediation were not accepted league 
 by the States General, England would interfere in a far ^otch. 
 more decisive manner. On May lo, Olivares and 
 Onate were authorised to listen to a proposal which the 
 English ambassador had made for a league offensive 
 and defensive against the Dutch. ^ Of course the 
 Spaniards were delighted. Powers were at once sent 
 off to enable Charles to mediate conjointly with the 
 Infanta Isabella as soon as his own peace was made 
 with Spain. He would offer his mediation to the Dutch 
 as satisfaction in fiiU of all demands which might be 
 made upon him for assistance in accordance with the 
 terms of the Treaty of Southampton. If the Dutch 
 refused to accept it, he might consider himself free 
 from all obligations to them. At the same time Phihp 
 himself wrote to assure him that not only would he 
 support the claims of his brother-in-law at the ap- 
 proaching Diet, but that, if the exiled Frederick were 
 rendered capable of holding territory in Germany by 
 the revocation of the ban, he would at once surrender 
 into his hands the fortresses in the Palatinate which 
 were garrisoned by Spanish troops.® 
 
 1 Cottington to Dorcliester, MarcL 3. Dorchester to Cottington, 
 March 21. The King to Cottington, April 7. S. P. Spain. Dor- 
 chester's ans-wer to Ooloma, April ^. Coloma to Olivares, April ^. 
 Simancas MSS. 2519. 
 
 ^ Consulta of Olivares and Onate, Jan. ^, 1631 (misdated 1632). 
 Simancas MSS. 2520. 
 
 » Rojas to Cottington, May |l. Philip TV. to the King, May i|. 
 Simancas MSS. 2574. 
 
 p2 
 
212 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 CHAP. It was a strange revolution of events. The days 
 
 • — 7 — ■ of James and Gondomar seemed to have returned. 
 June' Charles expressed himself content with offers which 
 Anstouther ®^ Y^ars before had at his instigation been indignantly 
 and Vane, rejected. Anstruthcr was to go to Katisbon to nego- 
 tiate with the Emperor. Vane, who had returned to 
 England, was to go back to the Hague to ask the 
 Dutch to accept the proposed mediation. But he was 
 also to hold out hopes of what might happen if the 
 Joiys- negotiation with Spain proved unsuccessful. "We 
 may then," Charles expressed it in Vane's instructions, 
 " make this virtue of necessity. We shall have leisure 
 to rectify our affairs at home, to make friends abroad, 
 and by a joint quarrel with those who have equal if not 
 more interest in the restitution of the Palatinate, work 
 better effects than by the course we have hitherto 
 continued of diversion by the war upon Spain ; for 
 experience hath shown us that to beat the King of 
 Spain until he bring the Emperor to reason is not the 
 next way to gain our desires ; besides, it is impossible 
 for us alone to effectuate this great work, except our 
 friends and allies join with us more heartily than 
 liitherto they have done." 
 Charles ^ league with Spain against the Dutch, or a league 
 
 Richelieu, with the Dutch agaiust Spain, was to Charles but 
 means to an end. He was perhaps right in thinking 
 that Eichelieu's professions of interest in the public 
 welfare were hollow. Eichelieu cared for the national 
 aggrandisement of France and for the humiliation of 
 the House of Austria, and he was ready to seek any 
 allies who would help him to attain his object. But 
 he did not, like Charles, fancy that allies could be 
 gained without definitive action on his own part, or 
 without a resolution to associate himself with those 
 
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS IN GERMANY. 213 
 
 great currents of popular feeling in which strength is . chap. 
 ultimately to be found. ■ — ^ — - 
 
 Affairs in Germany were rapidly approaching a j^^°' 
 crisis. On the one hand, the resolution of the Em- Dismissal 
 
 , ~ 1 T-i T i- Wallen- 
 
 peror and the Catholic States to carry out the Edict of stein. 
 Eestitution exasperated the Protestants. On the other 
 hand, the ravages and oppressions of Wallenstein and 
 the Imperial army exasperated the Catholic States. 
 At the Diet of Eatisbon, Ferdinand was compelled to 
 dismiss Wallenstein at the demand of the Elector of 
 Bavaria and the Catholic Princes. The great military 
 instrument which had hitherto overpowered all resis- 
 tance was shattered. Before it could be reconstructed 
 a fresh enemy appeared to attack that Empire which 
 was outwardly so strong, but which had grown so 
 weak through its inward distractions. In June, Landing of 
 Gustavus Adolphus landed on the Baltic coast. 
 
 Eichelieu had been ready to profit by every cir- 
 cumstance. All through the year French troops had 
 been fighting in Italy. French emissaries had been 
 busy at Eatisbon, hounding on the angry Princes against 
 Wallenstein. A French envoy, in conjunction with 
 Eoe, had patched up the truce between Sweden and 
 Poland which set Gustavus firee for his great enter- 
 prise. Charles was strongly urged to seize the oppor- 
 tunity, and to strike for the Palatinate in the only way 
 in which he had a chance of regaining it, by placing 
 himself on the side of Gustavus. 
 
 Charles could neither accept nor reject a pohcy so Hg^j"^f;„„ 
 promising and yet so hazardous. He listened to appeals ofcharies. 
 from every side. He offered both to the Dutch and 
 to the French to join them on some future occasion, if 
 his negotiation with Spain should fail. For the present 
 he adopted his father's favourite device for ireeing 
 
214 
 
 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 CHAP. 
 V. 
 
 1630. 
 
 Sept. 
 Hamilton's 
 volunteers. 
 
 Roe asks 
 for further 
 assistance. 
 
 Charles's 
 poverty. 
 
 Nov. s. 
 The Treaty 
 of Madrid, 
 
 himself from responsibility. He gave permission to 
 the Marquis of Hamilton to levy six thousand volun- 
 teers for the service of Gustavus, a course which would 
 not implicate himself, whilst it gave him, as he fancied, 
 a title to the gratitude of the King of Sweden.^ 
 
 Eoe, who had by this time returned from Germany, 
 was amongst the most active supporters of a more war- 
 like policy. Charles proposed to send him back as his 
 ambassador to Gustavus. Eoe told him plainly that 
 unless he could carry with him a large sum of money 
 the mission would be useless, and he soon found that 
 his master ceased to care to hsten to his advice.^ 
 
 If Charles had held aloof from the German war on 
 the ground of his own inability to take part in war 
 at all, no reasonable objection could be raised to his 
 inaction. Almost at the moment when the Swedish 
 army was crossing the Baltic, a story was going the 
 round of the English Court, telling how the Queen, in 
 receiving a French lady who came to see her and the 
 infant Prince, had been obhged to direct that the 
 shutters should be closed lest the visitor's critical eye 
 should detect the signs of poverty in the ragged 
 coverlet of the bed. It is possible that the tale was 
 untrue or exaggerated ; but how was a King to go to 
 war of whom such a story could be credited for an 
 instant ? ^ 
 
 No difficulties of this kind, however, could restrain 
 Charles from meddling with Continental afiairs. At 
 Madrid, indeed, no further obstacle was placed in the 
 way of the negotiation for peace, and on November 5 
 
 ' Dorchester to Vane, Aug. 16. S. P. Holland. Undated secret 
 negotiation in S. P. France, dated approximately by a letter from Mon- 
 tague to Richelieu, Aug. §i. Af. Mr. xliv. 96. Salvettfs newsletters, 
 Sept. If. 
 
 » Sdvettts newsletteri, ^;~. 
 ' Soranzo's despatch, June |§. 
 
 Venice MSS. 
 
THE TEEATY OF MADRID. 21 5 
 
 a treaty was signed which reproduced with a few 
 unimportant modifications the treaty which had been 
 concluded in 1 604. Charles received the news with the 
 liveliest satisfaction, and ordered bonfires to be lighted 
 in the streets. The Queen, on the other hand, took care 
 to note her displeasure by appearing at a banquet 
 given to Coloma in her soberest attire, and it was 
 observed that there was but little enthusiasm in the 
 public demonstrations. The unofficial partisans of 
 peace were mostly to be found amongst the merchants 
 who looked forward to the prospect of enriching them- 
 selves, now that the fear of the Dunkirk privateers was 
 removed.^ 
 
 On December 7 Coloma swore to the peace in his Dec. ^. 
 master's name. At the same time he placed two swom!*™ 
 papers in Charles's hands. The one contained the 
 King of Spain's promise to do his best for the resto- 
 ration of the Palatinate. The other contained the 
 authority to Charles to mediate with the Dutch.^ 
 
 The Prince of Orange, at least, did not form a high 1631. 
 opinion of the value of either of these papers. " When- views ot 
 ever," he said to Vane, " either the Upper or the of orangc. 
 Lower Palatinate is restored by treaty, I will give his 
 Majesty my head, which I should be loath to lose." 
 Nor did he think more of Charles's capacity for war 
 than he thought of his capacity for negotiation. " The 
 Emperor, " he added, " is powerful and great, and to 
 think of the recovery of the- Palatinate by the sword 
 may be as full of difficulty as by treaty." Besides, 
 the King's treasure was exhausted, and he was ' in 
 dispute with his people.' If he wished the States to 
 bind themselves to make no peace without the restitu- 
 tion of the Palatinate, he must ' be pleased timely to 
 
 ' Sdlvetti's newsletters, Dec. |g, ||. 
 
 ' Soranzo's despatch, Dec. ^. Vefnice. MSS, 
 
2l6 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTOKIES. 
 
 CHAP, consider of the way and means' of maintaining the 
 
 . — Z^ . undertaking 'upon soKd grounds.' Vane rephed that 
 
 ^^31' his master was thinking of some way to provide money. 
 Trederick Henry shook his head. Only by a Parha- 
 ment, he said, could money be readily obtained.^ 
 seitei '' '^^^ Prince little thought what a price Charles was 
 
 ^^th'J ain pi'^pared to offer for the Palatinate. On January 2 a 
 secret treaty was signed at Madrid by Cottington and 
 Olivares for the partition of the independent Nether- 
 lands. The two Kings were to make war upon the 
 Dutch by land and sea till they were reduced to 
 submission. In the part which was to be ceded to 
 England, the Eoman Catholic religion was to be freely 
 tolerated. No corresponding stipulation was inserted 
 on behalf of Protestantism in those lands which were to 
 be handed over to the King of Spain.^ 
 
 No doubt everything was not settled by this 
 nefarious instrument. It still needed Charles's ratifica- 
 tion. It seems, too, that there was no more than a 
 general understanding upon the order in which each 
 Government was to take the steps to which it was 
 bound. In Spain there was a tendency to think that 
 the promise of an intervention with the Emperor would 
 be fulfilled by a few formal words. In England there 
 was a tendency to think that nothing short of the 
 complete restitution of the Palatinate was intended. 
 Charles, at all events, took the engagements of Spain as 
 Feb. 15. being worth far more than they really were. Upon 
 EavT"' taking leave, Coloma asked for certain favours which 
 tftking. jjg^jj been granted to former ambassadors. Charles 
 replied that the cases were different. In his father's 
 time there had been friendship between England and 
 
 ' Vane to the King, Jan. 14. S. P. 
 
 ' Secret Treaty, Jan. j^j. C/ai: St. P., i. 49. Drafts of this treaty, as 
 well as the treaty itself, are at Simancas. Dorchester refers to a different 
 document altogether in Ckr. S. P. 11. App. xxxiv. 
 
HAMILTOJ^'S EXPEDITION. 21 7 
 
 Spain. Kow there was only a ' peace barely and chap. 
 simply concluded, with promise of further satisfaction.'^ ^ — ^ — ■ 
 
 Pending Charles's resolution on larger questions, ^^^' 
 there was one way in which he hoped to reap a profit Money 
 from his new ally. Cottington brought home with him fo"tite ' 
 80,000^. in Spanish silver, to be made over in bills of J^n'^^f " 
 exchange to Brussels for the payment of the troops in 
 the Netherlands. So much bulUon, to the simple econo- 
 mists of the day, was a mine of wealth. London would 
 become the Exchange of Europe when the precious 
 metals were received, and nothing but paper was to be 
 given in return. The Dutch might grumble if they 
 pleased.^ The ambassador received his reward on his 
 elevation to the peerage by the title of Baron Cot- 
 tington. 
 
 Early in March instructions were sent to Anstruther ^^^^'^'Jjj^'j. 
 to set out for Vienna, that he might put the Spanish ^\l^^ 
 professions to the test. The mission was hopeless from 
 the beginning. Gustavus had been establishing himself in 
 Pomerania during the autumn and winter. It was im- 
 possible that either the Emperor or the Catholic States 
 should listen to a demand for the re-estabhshment of 
 a Calvinistic Prince in Southern Germany. Charles, 
 too, had given offence by his permission to Hamilton Hamilton's 
 to levy volunteers for Gustavus. The explanation with 
 which he had accompanied the act was not likely to be 
 considered satisfactory at Vienna. Coloma had been 
 told before he left, that he was not to be surprised if 
 Charles should think fit to assist Gustavus, ' engaging 
 himself in the public cause of the liberty of Germany,' 
 which ' hitherto,' he added, ' we have not done, but 
 only permitted our subjects to serve him ; yet it may be 
 that shortly we shall, of which we judge the Spanish 
 
 " Memorial, Feb. 19. S. P. Spain. 
 
 » Joachimi to the States General, April 6. Add, MSS. 17,677 N. 
 fol. 163. 
 
2l8 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 CHAP, ministers should not be very sorry, for that by that 
 
 - — r — - means we shall have a tie of that King not to go 
 
 ^, ^V further than for the libertv of Germanv.'^ Hamilton's 
 
 March. . j j 
 
 levies, in short, were to serve as a threat to the 
 Emperor to drive him to the surrender of the Pala- 
 tinate, whilst they might also be used as a check upon 
 the ambition of Gustavus if that end were once 
 obtained. 
 
 Roe's com- Charles's designs were far too complicated to 
 prosper. He thought he had done much when he 
 granted Hamilton 1 1 ,000^. for his levies, leaving him 
 to depend afterwards upon Gustavus for support. Eoe's 
 comment was the utterance of common sense. . " I fear 
 nothing," he wrote, " but the greatness of the design, 
 not laid low enough in the foundations to build so 
 high." He wished that the King had himself taken 
 the design in hand.^ 
 
 Richelieu's Whilst Charles was attempting to stand well with 
 
 designs. « » ■ i • • 
 
 the House of Austria and its enemies at the same time, 
 
 EicheHeu was aiming at the less difficult object of uniting 
 
 Jan. 13. ^Q ^-^Q branches of the opposition to that House. In 
 
 The Treaty J- ^ 
 
 ofBttr- January, by the Treaty of Barwalde, he engaged to 
 provide Gustavus with money, whilst Gustavus pro- 
 mised to leave the Catholic religion unmolested where 
 he found it established, and to allow the Elector of 
 Bavaria and the Catholic League to enter into a treaty 
 of neutrality if they chose so to do. Four months 
 May 10. later, on May 10, a secret treaty was signed between 
 tween Fraucc and Bavaria, by which they mutually guaran- 
 filvTrla'!" teed to one another the territories which they respec- 
 tively possessed. The Upper Palatinate was therefore 
 placed by this treaty under French protection. 
 
 To substitute pohtical opposition to the House of 
 
 1 The King to Anstrather, March 21. S. P. Germany. 
 ' Roe to Elizabeth, March 22. Ibid. Hamilton subsequently recelTed 
 a grant of 15,016^ See Appendix to Vol. II, 
 
PROGRESS OF GUSTAVUS. 219 
 
 Austria for the religious conflict between Catholic and chap. 
 Protestant was Eichelieu's object. His plan was sim- - — ^ — • 
 plicity itself when compared to the airy imagination of ^^^' 
 Charles. But even Eichelieu had aimed at more than 
 he could accomphsh. The Edict of Eestitution stood 
 in the way. The Elector of Bavaria wished to preserve 
 it intact. Gustavus had not only come to destroy it, 
 but he saw in the terror which it produced a lever by 
 which the German Protestant Princes, more especially 
 the Elector of Saxony, might be driven to throw in 
 their lot with his own. 
 
 As yet John George of Saxony held aloof, hoping Maj- 10. 
 that the Emperor would yet abandon the Edict, and ofMagdl 
 spare him, as a German Prince, the odious necessity of ^^^^' 
 joining a foreign invader. Tilly, who had succeeded 
 Wallenstein at the head of the Imperialist armies, was 
 assailing Magdeburg, which had prematurely declared 
 in favour of Gustavus. John George barred the way 
 against the Swedish succours, and on May 10, the very 
 day of the signature of the treaty between France and 
 Bavaria, the city was taken by storm. Amidst blood 
 and flame the citadel of North German Protestantism 
 perished with a mighty destruction. The next day the 
 cathedral alone stood untouched amidst the blackened 
 ruins. 
 
 In all probability the fire was the work of a few 
 desperate citizens.^ The whole Protestant world be- 
 lieved it to be the deliberate work of Tilly. 
 
 The future course of the war depended on the Position of 
 Elector of Saxony. John George had placed himself of Saxon™ 
 at the head of a league which was ready to support the 
 Emperor if only the Edict of Eestitution were aban- 
 doned or even modified. 
 
 John George's request received support in an un- 
 
 ' Wittich. Magdeburg, Gustav Adolf, und Tilly. 
 
220 
 
 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 CHAP 
 V. 
 
 1631. 
 
 May. 
 
 May 18. 
 Counsel of 
 Olivares. 
 
 expected quarter. Olivares deserves a place amongst 
 the most tragic figures in history. He was not one of 
 those blind guides who, like Charles of England, rush 
 headlong into danger from sheer incapacity to discover 
 its existence. No physician was ever more skilful in 
 forming the diagnosis of physical disease than Olivares 
 was in fathoming the diseases of the State. He was 
 perfectly aware that Spain was sinking under the strain 
 to which it was subjected. He never blinded himself 
 to the absolute necessity of cutting short the demands 
 upon the blood and treasure of the country. For all 
 that, he knew well that he could not stay his hand. 
 His shrewd words were never followed by wise deeds. 
 The monarchy which he served was bound by its past 
 history, and he was not the man to cut loose the ties. 
 With the heroism of calm and impassive courage he 
 guided Spain as wittingly into the valley of death as he 
 who rode at the head of the six hundred Englishmen 
 to the muzzles of the guns of Balaclava foresaw that the 
 sacrifice would be made in vain. 
 
 The Spanish Government now gave wise counsel to 
 the Emperor. Alliance with the Elector of Saxony 
 against France and the Elector of Bavaria on the basis 
 of the suspension of the Edict of Eestitution was the 
 policy recommended by Olivares.^ Ferdinand would 
 
 ' " Mucho conviene en el estado presents de las cosas en que el 
 movimiento contra la casa de Austria es casi uniyersal que el Emperador 
 mire por si y ponga el hombro a su propria defensa y conservacion per 
 todos los medics permetidos a la religion Oatholica que se pudieren dis- 
 poner, y siendo cierto que el mundo tiene hoi al Duque de Baviera por 
 el enemigo mayor de la casa de Austria, y el que mas va machinando 
 su ruina con ligas y negociaciones secretas (quando no lo sea) es licito al 
 Emperador hazer un partido por el dano que despiies seria irreparable. 
 El camino es quietar y dar satiafacion al Duque de Saxonia a condicion 
 de que con sus armas y poder, y con el de sus parciales asista al 
 Emperador contra qualesquier enemigos suyos publicos y secretos; y 
 esto no parece difficil de encaminar, per ear el de Saxonia Principe 
 constante y que se mueve tarde y se halla obligado de la casa de Austria, 
 
HAMILTON'S DIFFICULTIES. 221 
 
 not listen. He insisted on the maintenance of the Edict, chap. 
 He spoke contemptuously of the Saxon armaments. ^' 
 
 John George was arrogantly bidden to dismiss his '^"°^- 
 troops, and to submit to the head of the Empire. 
 
 With a whole world crashing about his ears, Per- Anstruther 
 
 a 'at Vienna. 
 
 dmand had no time to hsten to the pleadings of the 
 English ambassador. Anstruther turned to the Spanish J"iy- 
 ambassadors, urging upon them the wisdom of revok- 
 ing the Edict and satisfying the dispossessed Princes. 
 He got but little comfort from them. " Acts," he was 
 told, " so solemnly done, upon mature dehberation, 
 could not be undone or revoked without a world of 
 difficulty."! 
 
 Neither the King of Spain nor the Emperor would 
 mould their policy in accordance with Charles's wishes. 
 They knew well that from him they had nothing to 
 fear or to hope. Months had passed away, and the 
 secret treaty against the Dutch had not been ratified in 
 England. In March, Hamilton had been sent to Scot- March. ^ 
 land to levy volunteers for Gustavus.^ It was enough volunteers, 
 to irritate the Catholic Powers, not enough to compel 
 their respect. He found that in Scotland, at least, the 
 name of the half-hearted King was not a tower of 
 strength. There was plenty of enthusiasm for the 
 Protestant cause, and many a younger son had already 
 carried his stalwart arm and his ill-lined purse to the 
 
 y siendo lioi el edicto de la restitucion de loa bienes ecclpsiasticoa 
 la causa porque se inquieta, en la qual persists el Emperador Uevado 
 du su zelo, o persuadido de los que con pretexto de piedad quieren 
 irritar contra el a los hereges, es facil y justo suspender la execucion 
 del edicto a mejor sazon, y grangear al Duque de Saxonia y sus 
 confederados, y asegurar con el la propria defensa, y estorvar una guerra 
 de religion en el imperio, que si comienza a creer sera de gravisimos dafios 
 a la causa Oatholica." Philip IV. to Cadereyta, May §|. Simancas 
 MSS. 2S47- 
 
 ' Anstruther to Dorchester, July 5. S. P. Qermtmy. 
 
 ' Articles by the King of Sweden, May 31, 163 1. Articles by 
 Hamilton, March i, 1631. Burnet, Memoirs of Hamilton, 7, 
 
22 2 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 service of Gustavus. Four hundred men only could be 
 induced to follow Hamilton's standard.^ Amongst the 
 volunteers in Germany the vacillations of Charles 
 formed a frequent topic of the rough soldiers' talk 
 around the camp fire or the mess table. To these hardy 
 adventiu-ers it was as incomprehensible as it was in 
 more polished circles how the King of England could 
 hope to regain his brother-in-law's inheritance by 
 negotiation. 
 Lor-i, Some of this talk came to the ears of Donald 
 
 Keay's 
 
 charge Mackay, Lord Eeay, who commanded a regiment in 
 Hamilton, the servicc of Gustavus. Either in the mouths of his 
 informants or in his own brain, the gossip of the camp 
 assumed a formidable shape. He told a friend, Lord 
 Ochiltree, that Hamilton never intended to go to Ger- 
 many at all. He meant to rely on his levies, to seize 
 the King, execute Weston and the partisans of Spain, 
 and make himself King pf Scotland, to which, after 
 the descendants of James, he was the nearest heir. 
 Ochiltree, who had reasons of his own for disliking 
 Hamilton, passed the tale on to Weston. 
 Charles Where Charles placed his confidence he placed it 
 
 it? '^^^^ wholly. " He does not trust many," wrote the Vene- 
 tian ambassador, " and when he conceives a good 
 opinion of any one, he does not let it fall. He is 
 accustomed to say that it is necessary to grant his 
 favour to a single person, and to maintain him in it, as 
 he would be attacked on all sides with calumny."^ But 
 his resolution to support Weston's political authority 
 did not stand in the way of his personal friendship with 
 Weston's enemies. Holland and Pembroke and Hamil- 
 ton were the constant companions of his leisure hours, 
 and he was the last man to believe a slanderous accusa- 
 
 ' Beaulieu to Puckering, May 25. Court and Times, ii. 122. 
 ' Soranzo's despatch, Jan, jg. Venice MSS. 
 
ENGLISH EECHUITS FOR HAMILTON. 223 
 
 tion against one with whom he was in the habit of c^p. 
 daily intercourse. When Hamilton returned from ' — ■y—' 
 Scotland he received him with open arms. He told -^ J^ 
 him of the charges which had been brought against 
 him, and insisted upon his sleeping in the same room 
 with himself as the best evidence in his power to give 
 of his entire disbehef in the alleged conspiracy.^ 
 
 The accusers paid the penalty for their rashness. Fate of the 
 Ochiltree was put upon his trial at Edinburgh as a sower 
 of sedition. He was condemned to perpetual impri- 
 sonment, from which he was only hberated twenty 
 years later by Cromwell. Lord Eeay named David 
 Eamsay, an officer in Hamilton's service, as his infor- 
 mant. Eamsay denied the truth of the accusation, and 
 as no sufficient evidence could be produced on either 
 side, the two Scotchmen demanded the right of settling 
 the question by combat. A Court of Chivalry was 1632- 
 formed, and trial by combat was awarded. The King, 
 however, interfered, and sent both parties to the Tower, 
 till they consented to give securities against breach of 
 the peace.^ 
 
 Charles no sooner heard of Hamilton's ill success 1631- 
 in Scotland, than he gave him permission to try his Hamilton 
 fortune in England. In London his drums attracted JnE^gUnd. 
 even fewer volunteers than in the Northern kingdom.^ 
 The experience of those who had gone forth at Charles's 
 bidding to the war in Germany was not encouraging. 
 At Hamilton's entreaty, the Lords Lieutenants of the 
 Counties were ordered to give every assistance in filling 
 his ranks, pressing only excepted. There were always 
 vagabonds and rogues enough in England, of whom 
 the official people were anxious to be rid, and Hamil- 
 
 ' Bwnet, 13. 
 
 2 State Triak, iii. 425-520. 
 
 ' SalvettCsnewdetters,^^^. 
 
2 24 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 CHAP, tou, as Mansfeld had done before him, at last gathered 
 
 ■ — ^ — ■ round him a force of which the numbers were more 
 
 Jai^i6 ™posing than the quahty. On July i6 he sailed 
 
 Saiuto from the Downs with 6,000 Englishmen. The Scottish 
 
 Guatavus. levies had by this time reached 1,000, and with the 
 
 whole force he started for the Baltic.-^ 
 fS ^^' ■'•* ^^^ probably the knowledge that Charles had 
 
 overtures given his support to Hamilton which induced Eiche- 
 EioheUeu. lieu to make overtures to Weston for the establishment 
 of a better understanding between them. Weston 
 replied, doubtless by his master's direction, that no 
 such understanding was possible unless France were 
 honestly resolved to assist in the recovery of the 
 Palatinate.^ 
 Richelieu There was something not very dissimilar in the 
 
 Weston, position of the two ministers. Both of them were 
 possessed of the fullest confidence of their respective 
 Sovereigns. Both of them found their most vigorous 
 assailants in the family circle of their Sovereigns. 
 In France, the two Queens, Anne of Austria and Mary 
 de Medicis, the wife and mother of Lewis, joined with 
 his only brother Gaston, Duke of Orleans, in an 
 attempt to overthrow the Cardinal. It was an oppo- 
 sition directed not against the weak points of the Car- 
 dinal's government, but against his strongest. If it 
 had been successful, it would have substituted plimder 
 and waste for orderly finance, the despotism of the 
 aristocracy for the despotism of the King, and subser- 
 N^°' vience to Spain for a national policy. In November . 
 The Day of 1630, the cliquc had almost succeedcd in overthrowing 
 Eicheheu by taking advantage of a moment of weak- 
 ness in the King. But Lewis recovered himself in an 
 
 ' Sdvettts newsletters, July i, if. Dorchester to Oarleton, June 22. 
 8. P. HoUand. 
 
 ' Wake to Weston, July 25. Weston to Wake, Aug. 14. S, P. 
 Franoe, 
 
RICHELIEU AND MAEY DE MEDICIS. 225 
 
 instant, and the Day of Dupes, as it was called, left the chap. 
 Cardinal more firmly seated in power than before/ 
 
 Great as was the sullen indignation of all who had ^^^^' 
 taken part in the plot, that of the Queen Mother was The ^' 
 justly regarded as the most dangerous. She had once Mother es- 
 ruled France as Eegent, and her proud spirit could ill Nether- 
 brook the disgrace of being supplanted by one whom ^*'"'^" 
 she had herself assisted to ofiice. In February it was 
 found necessary to place her in confinement at Com- 
 piegne. The next month the weak and cowardly 
 Gaston fled across the frontier to the Duke of Lor- 
 raine, and in July Mary de Medicis herself escaped 
 from her prison and took refuge in the Spanish Nether- 
 lands. 
 
 It was no secret that the Queen Mother and Gaston 
 would ofier the aid of their influence in France to the 
 Spanish Government. A gentleman had come from 
 Gaston immediately after his flight, to urge Charles to 
 make common cause with Spain and Lorraine against 
 the detested Cardinal. Gerbier, who had lately gone 
 to Brussels as Charles's resident minister, was carried 
 off his balance by the enthusiasm of the place. He 
 retailed to his master all the tattle of the fugitive 
 Queen ; told how the lustful Cardinal had offered his 
 hateful love to his master's wife, and had attempted 
 to poison her when he found his overtures rejected. 
 The King of Spain, he said, had sent money to aid the 
 good cause. There were to be levies in Alsace, in 
 Lorraine, and the Spanish Netherlands. The Papal 
 Nuncio, accompanied by the ambassadors of the Queen 
 Mother's sons-in-law, the King of Spain and the Duke 
 of Savoy, was formally to adjure Lewis to hear what 
 his mother had to say in her own defence, and it was 
 
 '■ For the relations betweeii the King and Richelieu, see Topin, 
 Louis XIII. et Richelieu. 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
226 
 
 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES, 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 V. 
 1631. 
 
 Aug. 8. 
 Charles 
 does not 
 counten- 
 ance her. 
 
 Sept. 
 
 Quarrel 
 
 between 
 
 Henrietta 
 
 Maria 
 
 and 
 
 Fontanay, 
 
 expected that Charles, as the third son-in-law, would 
 follow the example.^ 
 
 Charles had no inclination to take the part assigned 
 to him by the Queen Mother. Still less was he willing 
 to risk a war in order to restore her to her country. 
 Gaston, who talked of leading an army into Prance, 
 asked for the loan of some English ships. His mother 
 urged that Eochelle and Ehe were without fortifica- 
 tions and would easily be taken. She forgot that the 
 names must sound somewhat ominously in the ears of 
 her son-in-law. 
 
 The fact was that Spain was not quite so ready to 
 assist her as she hoped. Olivares, with his usual good 
 sense, had seen the arrival of the Queen in his master's 
 dominions with the greatest displeasure, and only 
 wanted to be quit of her as soon as possible. He had 
 no wish to add an open war with France to his other 
 difficulties.^ 
 
 The Queen Mother was growing impatient. Through 
 Lord Chaworth, who was returning from Spa, she sent 
 a pressing message to Henrietta Maria, begging her to 
 grant her a refuge in England. 
 
 Henrietta Maria had other motives than that of 
 filial afiection for supporting her mother's demand. 
 The strife between the Cardinal and Mary de Medicis 
 had found an echo in the English Court. Early in 
 1^30 Chateauneuf had returned to Erance, to occupy 
 the post of Keeper of the Seals. His successor, 
 the Marquis of Fontenay-Mareuil, had come into colli- 
 sion with the Queen by insisting on the dismissal of 
 her confessor.^ By this time Chateauneuf had been 
 
 ' Dorcliester to Wake, March 30. S. P. Savoy. Gerbier to Weston, 
 June 29 ; Gerbier to the King, July i, 11, 30. S. P. Flanders. 
 
 ' Henrard, Marie de Midids dam lei Pays Bas, 99. 
 
 ' Salvetti's newdetteirs, June i§, |f Fontenay to Ejohelieu, j~^i 
 June. Aff. Btr. xliv. 274, 276, 
 
THE CHEVALIER DE JARS. 22/ 
 
 drawn into the opposition against Eichelieu by the chap. 
 influence of the bright eyes of the Duchess of Chevreuse, 
 
 who was the soul of the Spanish party in France. 
 Chateauneuf, whose influence was strong with the chatTau- 
 Frenchmen and Frenchwomen who still remained in "rligues."' 
 the Queen's Court, placed himself at the head of an 
 intrigue for the overthrow of Weston, who was led by 
 his desire of peace to avoid an open breach with 
 Eichelieu. Chateauneuf's chief instrument was the 
 Chevalier de Jars, a witty adventurer, who chatted 
 with the Queen and played tennis with the King. At 
 last the contest between the Chevalier and the Am- 
 bassador broke out into an open scandal. Fontenay June. 
 
 •in ,1 T ■ ^ c -nf Theft of his 
 
 employed a housebreaker to enter the wmuow or i)e corresnon- 
 
 .... deuce. 
 
 Jars, and to carry off the cabinet in which his corre- 
 spondence with Chateauneuf was contained, The 
 Queen demanded justice. Fontenay declared proudly 
 that he had a right to use any means he chose to dis- 
 cover the disloyal manoeuvres of his master's subjects, 
 and Charles refused to press the matter further. He 
 saw that there was a common bond between the intrigue 
 against Eichelieu and the intrigue against Weston, and, 
 like Lewis, he sustained his minister against his wife. 
 
 It was not a moment in which Charles was likely QueenMo* 
 to listen to the Queen's pleadings for her mother. He ^^^^°'' 
 consented to send Sir WiUiam Balfour to the Low 
 Countries on a complimentary mission to Mary de 
 Medicis, but he shut up Lord Chaworth for a few days 
 in the Fleet, for presuming to bring a political message 
 to the Queen without his sanction. Hesitating as he 
 was in more important matters, he was unalterably 
 firm in his resolution not to admit of a visit from his 
 mother-in-law.* 
 
 ' Gei-bier's despatches, Aug. and Sept. iS. P. Flanders. Soranzo'& 
 despatches, Aug. if, Sept. j^, ^^, Oct. ^. Venice MSS. 
 
 Q. 2 
 
2 28 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 CHAP. Olivares might well strive to avoid a collision with 
 
 • — r — • France. Sooner or later it would be unavoidable. 
 
 ^ ^' That huge Spanish monarchy, without geographical or 
 Difficulties political cohcsion, was at once a menace to the weak 
 
 of the ^ ' T- , T . , 
 
 Spanish and a prey to the strong, it had interests everywhere 
 monarc y. ^^^ ^^ home, and at every point there were those who 
 understood those interests otherwise than they were 
 understood at Madrid. At Brussels the Infanta 
 Isabella and her ministers were giving encouragement 
 to the French refugees in spite of Ohvares. At Vienna 
 the Emperor welcomed gladly the support of the 
 Spanish Government, whilst he turned a deaf ear to its 
 counsels. 
 Anftrather Amougst thosc couuscls, the recommeudatiou to 
 leams the rcstore the Palatinate can hardly be seriously reckoned, 
 demands. Austruther, wcary of delays at Vienna, applied to 
 Quiroga, a friar in close connection with the Spanish 
 embassy. The Friar told him frankly that the King of 
 Spain would not even surrender the towns garrisoned 
 by his own troops for nothing. He must have either 
 a general peace, or assistance against the Dutch. The 
 statement was confirmed by the ambassadors them- 
 selves. They had no other instructions, they said, than 
 a paper which had been shown to Cottington in Spain. ^ 
 What this paper was is not exactly known. It 
 seems, however, to have been unsigned, and to have 
 contained a proposal that the restitution of the Spanish 
 part of the Palatinate should be conditional on the 
 carrying out of the secret league against the Dutch.''' 
 
 ' Vane, the younger, to Sir H. Vane, Sept. 13. S. P. Oermany. 
 
 ' A comparison of the extract from Dorchester's letter printed in Clar. 
 St. P. ii. App. xxxiv. with Olivares' Consulta of Nov. 35 {Simancm MSS. 
 Est. 2519) makes this prohable. The paper was certainly not the secret 
 treaty itself, as it is described by Olivares as unsigned. Ranke (Engl, 
 transl. ii. 22) seems to confound 'the paper given to Lord Cottington' 
 with the secret treaty. 
 
TILLT'S DEFEAT AT BEEITENFELD. 229 
 
 The tinsatisfactory nature of the news which chap. 
 reached Charles from Vienna induced him at last to • — -^■^ — - 
 open negotiations with Gustavus. Sir Henry Vane had ' ^^' 
 long been designated for the mission, but it was not till vane sent 
 the end of September that he was allowed to cross the tarus. 
 sea. As a friend and dependent of Weston he could 
 be trusted not to engage his master too precipitately in 
 war, but so great had been the pressure put upon 
 Charles to throw himself into the cause of Gustavus, 
 that even Weston's friends had thought it prudent to 
 associate themselves with the popular cry. Parliament, 
 they said, would soon be summoned in order to pro- 
 vide means for reinforcing Hamilton.^ 
 
 When Vane landed in Holland on his way to Ger- Sept. 7. 
 many, shouts of victory rung in his ears. A Spanish torj;™" 
 attempt to land a military force on the coast of Hoi- feJd!'^"" 
 land had been signally defeated. Almost at the same 
 time news arrived that Tilly had been struck down by 
 Gustavus at Breitenfeld. 
 
 Eichelieu's calculations had proved abortive. He 
 had hoped to hold back Tilly from attacking the Swedes, 
 through his influence with the Elector of Bavaria, 
 whilst he launched Gustavus against the hereditary 
 dominions of the House of Austria.^ The refusal of 
 Ferdinand to admit the slightest modification of the 
 Edict of Eestitution cleared away these diplomatic 
 cobwebs. He ordered Tilly to attack the Elector of 
 Saxony, and Tilly obeyed. John George, loath as he 
 was to abandon his loyalty to the Empire, took his 
 stand with Gustavus. Maximilian took his stand once 
 
 1 Soranzo's despatches, Aug. ff, Sept. i. Venice MSS. 
 
 ' It is clestr from Waie's despatches (<S. P. France) that Richelieu 
 expected that Tilly would leave Gustavus alone. I must leave it to 
 German enquirers to clear up the secret history of Maximilian's conduct 
 in this year. 
 
2 30 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 CHAP, more with Ferdinand. Catholic and Protestant were 
 - — r — - again fairly face to face. 
 
 ^^" The victory of Gustavus was complete. His success 
 
 Character at Breitcnfcld decided once for aU that North Ger- 
 victory. many was to be essentially Pl-otestant. The Edict of 
 Eestitution was swept away at a blow. Ferdi- 
 nand's system, like that of Charles, was one which 
 rested on technical legality, and which took no account 
 of the feehngs and aspirations of the populations over 
 which he ruled. Guarded by the most numerous and 
 well appointed armies which the world had seen since 
 the days of the Eoman Empire, that system had been 
 dashed to the ground through its own inherent weak- 
 ness. Could Charles hope to escape a hke calamity ? 
 In Breitenfeld lay the promise of Marston Moor and 
 Naseby — of the ruin of a cause which rested on tra- 
 ditionary claims in the face of the living demands of 
 the present hour. 
 on thT™ Gustavus pushed on for the Ehine to lay his hand 
 
 Bhine. on the Ecclcsiastical States of the League, to gather 
 round him the scattered forces of the Southern Pro- 
 testants, and to drive home the wedge which he had 
 struck in between France and Bavaria. Vane had 
 Nov. 6. hard work to come up with him. On November 6 
 tep'iew he found him at Wiirzburg. He had been sent, he 
 explained, to 'treat of an alliance , . . the ground 
 whereof was to be the restitution of both Palatinates 
 and the liberty of Germany.' Gustavus naturally 
 enquired what help Charles purposed to give. If he 
 would send him ten or twelve thousand men in the 
 spring, and a large sum of money besides, he was ready 
 to give the undertaking he required. The German 
 Princes, he said, had made no stipulations for the Pala- 
 tinate. It concerned his Majesty to look about him, 
 for unless he gave a Eoyal assistance, the proposal could 
 
THE NEWS OF BEEITENFELD IN ENGLAND. 23 1 
 
 not be entertained. Vane thought all this very unrea- chap. 
 
 sonable. " If this King," he wrote, " gets the Pala- ' — ^ — ' 
 tinate," it will be hard fetching it out of his hands ^ ^^' 
 without satisfaction." It would be far better to get it 
 in a peaceable way by negotiation at Vienna.^ 
 
 Pew in England would have echoed Vane's opinion, g^^""*- 
 
 The news of Tilly's defeat had been received with an ?jasm in 
 
 . . . England. 
 
 outburst of enthusiasm. Sir Simonds D'Ewes, the plod- 
 ding antiquary, raised his head from his plea-rolls and 
 genealogies to record how ' the sole honour and glory 
 of this victory, next under God — to whom the reUgious 
 King of Sweden gave the only glory — redounded to the 
 Swedes and Scots and other nations in the Evangehcal 
 army.' By Gustavus, he added, ' the bloody robbers, 
 ravishers, and massacrers of Tilly's army were not only 
 executed, but infinite comfort afibrded to the distressed 
 and persecuted and oppressed Protestants in Germany, 
 so as all men hoped he in the issue would assert fully 
 both the true religion and the ancient liberties of Ger- 
 many.'^ Eliot, from his prison in the Tower, awoke to 
 new delight. ' If at once,' he wrote, ' the whole world 
 be not deluded, fortune and hope are met.'* 
 
 To Charles the great deliverance brought no plea- chariea 
 sant thoughts. When the news reached England he succour the 
 was planning a closer alliance with the Emperor and "p®'''"" 
 Spain. The Abbot of Scagha had come to England to 
 revive the negotiation about the Palatinate. Weston 
 and Oottington had already agreed with him that the 
 Emperor should be allowed to levy 12,000 volunteers 
 in England, and on October 7 the Abbot was able to 
 write that Charles was ready to enter into a league 
 with the Emperor and the King of Spain against their 
 enemies in Germany, and to induce his brother-in-law 
 
 ' Vane to Dorchester, Nov. 12. S. P. Germany. 
 
 2 D'Ewes. Autobiography, ii. 59, 60. 
 
 ' Eliot to Luke, Oct. 3. Forster, Sir J. Eliot, ii. 438. 
 
232 
 
 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 1631. 
 
 Nov. 
 Hesitation 
 of Charles. 
 
 Dec. 
 Hamilton'! 
 misfor- 
 tunes. 
 
 Fresh 
 rumours of 
 a Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 to do the same as soon as justice was done him in 
 respect to the Palatinate.^ 
 
 Weeks passed away, and there was no sign that 
 either Spain or the Emperor would pay any attention 
 to these lavish offers. The Friar, who had been in Eng- 
 land in 1624 under the name of Francesco deUa Eota, 
 returned to throw the blame upon Anstruther's zeal for 
 the interests of the King of Sweden. Then came bad 
 news from Hamilton. His troops had melted away as 
 Mansfeld's had melted away before, and he had only 
 500 men left. Charles could not make up his mind 
 one way or another. He did not like to give up hope 
 of an agreement with the Emperor tiU he heard again 
 from Spain. He was not ready to send reinforcements 
 to Germany. He ordered Dorchester to write to Vane 
 that ' His Majesty felt Hamilton's losses like a father of 
 his people to whom their blood is precious,' and he 
 would risk no more of their lives.^ Yet when Vane's 
 despatch announcing the offer of Gustavus arrived, it 
 seemed incredible that Charles should reject it, if 
 he really cared for the Palatinate. The rumours of 
 an approaching meeting of Parliament acquired fresh 
 consistency.^ With the thought of a Parliament men's 
 minds turned instinctively to the prisoner in the Tower 
 who would once more become a power in the land. 
 A message, the purport of which is now unknown, was 
 sent to Eliot from some persons about the Court. By 
 popular rumom- it was magnified into a visit paid to 
 him by men high in place to bespeak his goodwill in 
 
 ' Oonsultft on the Abbot of Scaglia's despatches, Not. ^, Simanccu 
 MSS. 2519. 
 
 ' Joachimi to the States General, Dec. 3. Add. MSS. 17,677. N. 
 (ol. 243. Soranzo's despatch, Dec. 55. Venice MSS. Dorchester to 
 Anstruther, Nov. 29. S. P. Oermany. Dorchester to Vane, Deo. 19. 
 8. P. Sweden. 
 
 ' Roe to Hepburn, Dec. i2. S. P. Dom. ccir. 34. 
 
ELIOT IN THE TOWER. 233 
 
 the days when their doings were Hkely to be called in chap. 
 question. Eliot knew better than to trust such rumours. ■ — .'- — - 
 He declined to answer the message he received. Yet ^J"^' 
 
 ° . . . Dec. 
 
 he was by no means insensible to the critical position Their eff ct 
 
 . , . upon Eliot. 
 
 of affairs. In a sketch of the doings of the first Parlia- 
 ment of Charles which he drew up about this time, he 
 spoke enthusiastically of Gustavus as ' that person 
 whom fortune and virtue had reserved for the wonder 
 of the world.' Por himself he had no hope in this 
 life. He knew better than Holland or Eoe that no 
 earthly consideration short of absolute necessity would 
 induce Charles to summon another Parliament. Yet 
 he never doubted that some day or other that necessity 
 would arise. His historical sketch he named Negotium 
 Posterorum. His own example and the example of 
 those who had been his fellow workers he bequeathed 
 to generations coming, nothing doubting that the spirit 
 of England would not be extinguished for ever by the 
 heavy weight of silence under which the voice of his 
 country was smothered for a time. 
 
 If Eliot had little hope that his own voice woidd Eiiots 
 again be heard in Parliament, he could not deny him- speech. 
 self the satisfaction of setting down upon paper the 
 thoughts which burned within him. If opportunity 
 were by any strange freak of fortune to be allowed him, 
 he would not be the counsellor of compromise. He held 
 that the things which had been done were worse than all 
 the misgovernment which had called forth the Petition 
 of Eight. " The one was an act of oppression against 
 hberty and the laws ; but the design of the other is to 
 put at once a conclusion to the work of darkness, and 
 to depress and ruin law and hberty itself. For it is not 
 in any stream, in any branch or derivative of our free- 
 dom, in some one particular of the laws, but it is in the 
 spring and fountain from whence all the streams flow, 
 
I63I 
 
 Dec. 
 
 234 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 CEU^p. that the attempt has been made, not to trouble and cor- 
 rupt it for a time only, but wholly to impeach its 
 course, to make the fountain dry. to dam and stop it 
 up for ever." Parliament, he added, was the sanc- 
 tuary of liberty, the guardian of ' the rubrics of the 
 law.' In harmony with Parhament Kings had ruled 
 happily ; in discord with Parhament success was im- 
 possible.^ 
 Eliot's Such was Eliot's last word on politics, such was the 
 
 last politi- ■■■ _ _ 
 
 cai word. Standard which he set up roimd which his countrymen 
 might gather. In him spoke the voice of a mighty 
 nation, conscious of its powers and impatient of the 
 tutelage under which it had been thrust. What if folly 
 had mingled with wisdom in the last ParUamentary 
 session ? What if the leaders of the Commons, EHot 
 himself included, had been hasty and impatient where 
 quietness and confidence would have been the higher 
 wisdom ? We at least have been admitted within the 
 closed doors of Charles's Cabinet. We at least have seen 
 the value of that statesmanship to which he appealed as 
 giving him a claim to guide the nation in its onward 
 course. There was no educative power in a ruler who set 
 before himself low and poor objects, and who strove to 
 gain those objects in the manner in which Charles was 
 striving to recover the Palatinate. If there were errors 
 and follies in the House of Commons, they were far ex- 
 ceeded by the errors and follies of the Court. 
 
 The time would come when Charles's misgovern- 
 ment would bear its appropriate fruit. The mass of 
 men rise up against the consequences of misgovern- 
 ment, not against misgovernment itself. Those who, 
 like Eliot, see too clearly into the future, have to bear 
 Deo. 21. the burthen of the coming generations. The rumour 
 
 fmp^^n- which told of consultations with Eliot pointed him out 
 
 ' .Forster, Sir J. Eliot, ii. 445. 
 
CHARLES AND GUSTAVUS. 235 
 
 for Charles's vengeance. On December 21 came an chap. 
 order from the Council restraining access of persons of — ^ — - 
 several conditions to Sir John Eliot. Nor was this all. Suot."^ 
 " My lodgings," he wrote on the 26th, " are removed, 
 and I am now where candle-light may be siiffered, but 
 scarce fire."^ This, too, was in the cold Christmas 
 weather. Here are no traces of that generosity with 
 which Hamilton was welcomed home from Scotland. 
 Charles could cling to the friend with whom he had 
 associated from his youth up. It required some 
 imagination to picture to himself the sufferings or the 
 nobihty of the man whom he had known but as an 
 enemy, and had looked upon as a traitor to his beloved 
 Buckingham. 
 
 Charles had no intention of allowing Ehot ever charies's 
 again to raise his voice in opposition. He called upon If^-a^'^ 
 the Privy Council to advise him upon the means of minds. '^*" 
 satisfying the demands of Gustavus. There was but 
 one answer to be made. If 20o,oooZ. or 300,000^. were 
 to be expended upon the German war, it would be 
 necessary to summon Parliament. Such counsel found 
 no favour with the King. The very mention of a Par- 
 hament, he said, was derogatory to his authority. The 
 King of Sweden must be helped, but not in such a way 
 as that. Any other plan, even if it presented greater 
 diflSculties, would be more opportune. The Council 
 was thus driven back iipon projects similar to those 
 which had ended in so signal a failure before the 
 session of 1628. One proposed a general collection in 
 the churches. Another thought that all pensions should 
 be stopped, and the expenses of the Court cut down. 
 Nothing serious could have come of a discussion thus 
 commenced.^ 
 
 1 Forster, Sir J. Eliot, ii. 448. 
 
 » Soranzo's despatch, ^^. Venice MSS. 
 
tavus. 
 
 236 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 CHAP. Those who took an interest in the fortunes of Ger- 
 
 V. 
 
 - — ^ — • man Protestantism at Charles's side were fast falling. 
 
 Feb^^ Conway had died a year ago, and he had soon been 
 
 Dorches- foUowed bv Mav. It was Dorchester's turn now. On 
 
 ter's dtiftth 
 
 February 1 5 he died, ' Christianly and manly,' express- 
 ing, ' as well in his latest words as in his life, that his 
 affections were right to God, to his master, and the 
 good cause.' His master cared little for the good cause, 
 and even amongst those who were not so indifferent, 
 there were many who, as Koe said, were ready to ' en- 
 quire curiously what the King of Sweden doth, and 
 censure him for doing too much or too little, but who 
 did not consider that they themselves were doing 
 nothing.' 
 Further In his perpetual oscillation Charles was now tend- 
 
 wlth Gas-'^ ing, or thought he was tending, to the side of Gustavus. 
 He was dissatisfied with the coolness with which his 
 overtures for a league had been received at Madrid.^ 
 Before the end of the year he had given permission to 
 his brother-in-law to betake himself to Germany, and to 
 place himself at the disposal of the Swedish King.^ 
 Then came fresh offers to Gustavus. But the negotia- 
 tion was rapidly degenerating into a mere bargain, like 
 the negotiations with Parliament and army which 
 fifteen years later were to prove to the world that no 
 pohtical reconstruction was possible of which Charles 
 was an element. Gustavus was as little to be bar- 
 gained with as Cromwell. The constant harping upon 
 the string of the Palatinate, to the disregard of larger 
 objects, was an offence to him. How could he bind 
 himself to the restitution of a province which France 
 and Bavaria were leagued to keep? Was the great 
 cause of the political and reUgious independence of 
 
 ' Salvetti'a newsletters, Feb. ||. 
 
 ' Dorchester to Vane, Dec. 3 r . <S'. P. Sweden. 
 
GUSTAVUS AT MENTZ. 237 
 
 Germany to be postponed to make way for a petty chap. 
 dynastic interest ? He was ready enough to do the best ~^"I7^ 
 for the Palatinate that circumstances would permit. j^n. 
 Charles wanted him to act as if the one question of 
 pre-eminent importance to the world were the question 
 whether an incapable and headstrong Prince were to 
 rule again over the dominions which he had inherited 
 from his father. What hearty co-operation could there 
 be between two men so differently constituted ? 
 
 Gustavus had need to walk warily. In the midst of Gustavus 
 
 •' and the 
 
 his triumphant progress, when all Protestant Europe French, 
 was shouting applause, he was weighing the difficulties 
 before him — above all, the difficulties which were 
 likely to arise from France. When he kept Christmas 
 at Mentz, a French army was not far off. Eichelieu 
 had fallen upon the Duke of Lorraine, and had frus- 
 trated the hopes of Gaston and the Queen Mother. It 
 was not, however, merely to crush the Duke of Lor- 
 raine that he had brought Lewis with him. The 
 Cardinal cherished hopes which were not as yet des- 
 tined to be fulfilled. He hoped that the German 
 Princes and Cities on the left bank of the Ehine — the 
 Ecclesiastical Electorates especially — would take refuge 
 from the storm of Protestant conquest beneath the 
 lilied banner of France. The great German river would 
 form the boundary, if not of French territory, at least 
 of the French confederation, whilst Gustavus would be 
 thrust on to the work for which Eichelieu had originally 
 destined him — the work of crushing the House of 
 Austria for the benefit of France. 
 
 Eichelieu's schemes were premature. As yet the 
 German Princes showed no disposition to revolve as satel- 
 lites round the throne at Paris. The Elector of Bavaria 
 drew closer and closer to the Emperor. Before the end of 
 January, Lewis, sick and disappointed, hurried home 
 
238 
 
 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 CHAP. 
 V. 
 
 1632. 
 
 Jan. 2. 
 
 Further 
 negotia- 
 tions with 
 Gustavus. 
 
 March i. 
 Demands 
 of Gus- 
 tavus. 
 
 Their re- 
 ception in 
 England. 
 
 from the army, leaving the affairs of Germany to be 
 disposed of by Gustavus. He was not anxious to re- 
 main as a looker on, when he had expected to step forth 
 as the arbiter of Europe.^ 
 
 Involved as he was in a diplomatic struggle with 
 France, Gustavus was not likely to bind himself as 
 Charles desired that he should be bound, without secur- 
 ing the absolute co-operation of England in his great 
 designs. He told Vane, with perfect frankness, of his 
 difficulties. He thought it by no means improbable 
 that by raising the Protestant standard he would bring 
 upon himself a combined attack from France and Spain. 
 He therefore asked for the aid of an English fleet to 
 assure his communications with Sweden and his position 
 on the Baltic coast. He asked, too, that if the Pala- 
 tinate were recovered, the restored Elector should tole- 
 rate the Lutheran reUgion in it, and should place at 
 his disposal the military strength of the country during 
 the remainder of the war. Eight regiments of foot and 
 3,000 horse were to form Charles's contingent, of which 
 he was himself to have the absolute military direction. 
 He would then do his best to recover for Frederick his 
 lands and dignities, and if any towns in the Palatinate 
 fell into his hands, he would at once place them in the 
 hands of the Elector. 
 
 Charles, in short, was to have perfect confidence in 
 Gustavus, and was to resign himself to the fusion of his 
 own particular interest with the larger interests of Ger- 
 man Protestantism. The great majority of the Privy 
 Council spoke strongly for the acceptance of these terms.^ 
 Charles would not hear of them. The request that in 
 
 ■ Wake's despatches (S. P. France) contain minute information on 
 all this, and shew the tone prevailing from day to day in the French 
 camp. 
 
 ' Soranzo's despatch, Feb. ^, -^j^. Venice MSS. Salvettfanews- 
 letten, March \L 
 
OVERTURES OF CHARLES TO GUSTAVUS. 239 
 
 certain eventualities lie should oppose the fleets of chap. 
 France and Spain seemed to him to be totally inad- - — -^ — - 
 missible. A league for general co-operation he did ^^.3^' 
 not need. By such a course he ' must change his set- Charles's ' 
 tied quiet state, or else desert that party to which he piopo-"^ 
 doth adhere.' There were, however, ' other two kinds 
 of leagues, one of amity and alliance, the other of aid 
 and assistance, and neither of these breaketh peace nor 
 giveth just offence to any.' For either of these he was 
 prepared. He would give Gustavus 10,000^. a month, 
 in return for which the King of Sweden was to en- 
 deavour by all means possible, whether by arms or 
 treaty, to ' effect the restitution of the Palatinate, de- 
 livering up to the Elector the places in it which were 
 recovered.' As Charles omitted to stipulate that his 
 contribution should continue for any definite number 
 of years, he, in reality, bound himself to nothing beyond 
 the first month's contribution.^ 
 
 Before Charles's proposal reached Gustavus, the March, 
 south of Germany was at the feet of the Swedish Jrie^™" 
 
 Gustavus. 
 
 conqueror. On March 2 1 he entered Nuremberg. On 
 the 26th he was at Donauworth. On April 4 he came 
 up with Tilly on the Lech, and forced the passage of 
 the river after a sharp fight, in which the veteran com- 
 mander of the Imperiahst forces was mortally wounded. 
 Gustavus pressed on. He liberated Augsburg, and 
 entered Munich in triumph. 
 
 The news of victory was received in England with Reception 
 indescribable emotion. It had come, wrote Eoe, hke hiEng'iand. 
 rain in a dry May. ' We will not give the King of 
 Sweden leave to conquer like a man by degrees nor 
 human ways, but we look he should fight battles ' and 
 take towns so fast as we read them in the Book of Joshua, 
 whose example indeed he is.' The Papist, he added, hung 
 his head like a bulrush. The offer of 10,000/. a month 
 
 ' Articles. April 26. Coke to Vane, May 2. S. P. Sweden. 
 
240 
 
 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 CHAP. 
 V. 
 
 1632. 
 
 March 10. 
 Negotia- 
 tions with 
 France. 
 
 March 14. 
 
 April. 
 Kicheiieu 
 and the 
 Queen 
 Mother's 
 part3-. 
 
 May. 
 
 May 29. 
 
 June 16. 
 Over- 
 powers 
 Lorraine. 
 
 The French 
 at Ehren- 
 breitHtein. 
 
 was not all which Gustavus had a right to expect, but 
 a wise Prince would accept of less than he wished to 
 obtain.'^ 
 
 In drawing near to Gustavus, Charles had taken 
 some steps to draw near to Eichelieu as well. On March 
 10 a treaty was arranged to put an end to the com- 
 mercial disputes which had arisen with France since the 
 peace. Four days afterwards, Charles's ambassador, Sir 
 Isaac Wake, presented to Lewis a letter from his master, 
 formally proposing a joint action in Germany. Like 
 Ferdinand and Gustavus, Lewis had views and objects 
 of his own which were not absolutely identical with 
 those of Charles. He was ready, he said, to do anything 
 for Frederick which would not tend to the ruin of the 
 Catholics of Germany.^ For the moment Eichelieu had 
 work enough to* do at home. The party of Gaston 
 and the Queen Mother caused him continual disquiet.. 
 He struck hard and pitilessly. Marillac, the political 
 chief of the opposition, died in prison. His brother, a 
 Marshal of France, perished on the scaffold. Gaston 
 prepared an invasion from the Spanish Duchy of Lux- 
 emburg, whilst the Duke of Lorraine, eager to avenge 
 his defeat of the previous summer, permitted Gaston's 
 troops to enter his territory. Richelieu treated the act 
 as a declaration of war, entered Lorraine, and compelled 
 the Duke to sign a treaty by which he surrendered three 
 of his strongest fortresses as a pledge of his enforced 
 fidelity.^ This time Eichelieu's hand stretched over Ger- 
 many itself. The Elector of Treves, failing to obtain 
 support from the Emperor, invoked French protection. 
 The lilies of France floated over the fortress of Ehren- 
 breitstein. 
 
 ' Roe to Horwood, May 28. S. P. Dom. ccxyi. 92. 
 ' Wake to Coke (?) March 11. Wake to Weston, March 16. Treaty 
 signed, March 19. 8. P. France. 
 
 • Instructions to St. Ohaumont, May \\. Aff. Etr. xlv. 215. 
 
FRENCH OVERTURES. 
 
 241 
 
 Before commencing the attack upon Lorraine, chap. 
 Eichelieu had thought fit to despatch the Marquis of - — ^ — - 
 St. Chaumont as a special envoy to prevent Charles ^^^" 
 from taking offence. He did not promise himself much Mission' of 
 from England. But if Spain should attack France in mont. 
 consequence of its interference in Germany, it was just 
 possible that Charles might be roused to give some kind 
 of assistance. " Although," wrote Lewis in his instruc- 
 tions to St. Chaumont, " the EngUsh should not keep any 
 of their promises, it is important to bring about some 
 sort of union between the two crowns." St. Chaumont 
 was also charged to effect a reconcihation between the 
 French Ambassador, Fontenay, and Henrietta Maria, 
 in order to bring the Queen's influence to bear in the 
 interests of France.^ 
 
 Charles received St. Chaumont coldly ; talked about 
 his good intentions, but went no further. The Queen 
 refused to be reconciled to Fontenay. He had done 
 her no special injury, she said, but she did not Hke 
 him.^ 
 
 The views of those who advocated an alliance with June 9. 
 Sweden, independently of France, may best be iitio^a°d 
 taken from an argument in its favour forwarded "''^' 
 by Eoe to the Earl of Holland whilst St. Chaumont 
 was still in England. He did not agree with those 
 who feared danger from the ambition of Gustavus. 
 "The King of Sweden," he urged, "is not to be 
 considered in his branches and fair plumes of one 
 year's prosperity, but in his root, and so he is not at all 
 to be feared ; and it hath been a false and a feigned sus- 
 picion in those who from his sudden growth have augu- 
 red that he might prove dangerous to the public hberty. 
 
 > Instructions to St. Chaumont, May i|. Aff. Etr. xlv. 215. 
 
 » Fontenay to Richelieu, ^f . St. Chaumont to Richelieu, May ? 
 
 JJwf., Xlv. Ill, 112. 
 
 VOL. I. R 
 
242 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH "VICTORIES. 
 
 CHAP. That kingdom of itself can do no more than Boeotia 
 
 without Epaminondas. If this King had a foundation, 
 J ^^' ancient dependence, and a settled posterity, it were 
 great wisdom to stay his career and limit it ; but when 
 we see he doth embrace more than he can hold, and is 
 rather a torrent than a live spring, that all his glory and 
 greatness depends upon his own virtue and hfe ; and 
 that in case of sure mortality it is certain that all this 
 inimdation will dry up and return to the first channel 
 of moderation, it is mere folly to object him, mere mahce 
 and envy to make the seeming care of the future hinder 
 that course of victory which God hath chosen by him, 
 not to set up a new monarchy, but to temper the fury 
 of tyranny and to restore the equaUty of just govern- 
 ment." 
 
 From France or Spain, Eoe thought there was 
 nothing to be hoped. Neither of these States cared for 
 anything except the gratification of its own ambition, 
 and they were therefore ' best employed Uke millstones 
 to grind themselves thin.' The true alhance for England 
 was with the Dutch. It was true that the States had 
 been ungrateful and insolent. But they had not been 
 kindly treated, and if the Enghsh Government would 
 meet them in a friendly spirit, it would obtain their 
 friendship in return. " I confess," he continued, " they 
 abuse their hberty, deceive us in trade, cosen us of our 
 money, but I cannot be angry with them that they prove 
 cunning friends when we prove slothful and improvi- 
 dent of our own advantages. One settled treaty would 
 at once stop all these breaches and limit them." 
 
 Koe's policy was an immediate alliance with Sweden 
 and the Netherlands, with a view to a general Protestant 
 aUiance to be independent of both the great Catholic 
 monarchies. Koe, as was weU known, was the candi- 
 date of the party opposed to Weston for the vacant 
 
THE NEW SECBETAEY. 
 
 243 
 
 secretaryship. Charles was not likely to give the post chap. 
 
 V. 
 
 to one who held opinions so diflFerent from his own. If 
 Wake had lived, he would probably have been Dor- '^^' 
 Chester's successor.^ But Wake died of a sudden attack 
 of fever. The new Secretary was Francis Windebank, June 13. 
 Clerk of the Council, a man utterly unknown in the secretaiy. 
 world of politics. But he was an old friend of Laud, 
 and Laud's friend was not likely to frighten Weston 
 by urging the King to a breach with the House of 
 Austria. Eoe concealed his disappointment as best he 
 might. " That there is a new Secretary brought out of 
 the dark," he wrote to Elizabeth, " is no news ; preferred 
 by my Lord of London, — not my Lord Mayor — whose 
 sufficiency may be great for anything I know. In other 
 things he is well spoken of, and if he please my master, 
 he loves himself better than he ought that is displeased. 
 These are the encouragements we receive that have 
 laboured abroad ; but for my own part I protest I envy 
 not ; I can make my own content as fit as a garment, 
 and if the State be well I cannot be sick. We cannot 
 say there is any faction in England. All goes one 
 way, and I know not the wit of it."^ 
 
 Truly there was no faction in England. The voice HoUand's 
 of ParHament was silent. If words of opposition rose to ^°'^^^' 
 the lips of private men they were seldom expressed 
 loudly enough to reach the Government. The party at 
 Court, with Holland at its head, to which for want of 
 better support, Eoe looked for help, had neither moral 
 earnestness nor intellectual power to recommend it. 
 The taunts and allurements with which it sought to 
 draw Charles to break with Weston have left scarcely an 
 echo behind them. Their views must be sought in two 
 plays m which Massinger made himself the exponent 
 
 * Guasoni's despatch, March ^, June ^. Venice MSS, 
 ' Koe to Elizabeth, July i. S. P. Germany. 
 
244 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTOEIES. 
 
 of a more daring foreign policy tlian that whicli was 
 acceptable to Charles. In Believe as you List, licensed 
 Massin- ^^^ *^^ Stage in January 1 63 1 , the dramatist reproduced 
 ger's'Be- under fictitious names the refusal of Charles to grant 
 
 lieve aa , «-> 
 
 you List; assistance to his brother-in-law, and satirised the 
 mastery which Weston himself, seduced, as it was 
 alleged, by the gold of the Spanish Ambassador, exer- 
 cised over the mind of the King. Under the feigned 
 name of Flaminius, the Ambassador of Eome, Coloma is 
 made to point out to Charles the material advantages 
 of an inglorious peace : — 
 
 Know then, Kome, 
 In her pious care that you may still increase 
 The happiness you live in ; and youi- subjects, 
 Under the shadow of their own vines, eat 
 The fruits they yield them — their soft musical feasts 
 Continuing, as they do yet, unaflfrighted 
 With the harsh noise of war — entreats as low 
 As her known power and majesty can descend. 
 You would retain, with due equality, 
 A willingness to preserve what she hath conquered 
 From change and innovation. 
 
 In the play the Ambassador requires not merely the 
 abandonment, but the actual surrender of Antiochus, 
 who stands for Frederick. From this, King Prusias, 
 who stands for Charles, recoils. 
 
 Shall I, for your ends 
 Infringe my princely word ? or break the laws 
 Of hospitality P defeat myself 
 Of the certain honour to restore a king 
 Unto his own P and what you Eomans have 
 Extorted and kept from him ? Far be't from me I 
 I vdU not buy your amity at such loss. 
 So it be to all after times remembered 
 I held it not sufficient to live 
 As one born only for myself, and I 
 Desire no other monument. 
 
 This, Massinger would seem to say, is the real Charles, 
 generous and high-minded. It is only the low, coarse- 
 
MASSINGER'S POLITICAL PLAYS. 245 
 
 minded minister who stands in the way. Coloma points chap. 
 to Weston — - — ^ — - 
 
 Here's a man, 1631. 
 
 The oracle of your kingdom, that can tell you. 
 When there's no probability it may be 
 Effected, 'tis mere madness to attempt it. 
 
 Then comes a stinging comparison between the weak- 
 ness of Bithynia and the strength of Eome, in other words, 
 of England and Spain. The power of the former, the 
 Ambassador allows — 
 
 Is not to be disputed, if weigh'd truly. 
 
 With the petty kings, your neighbours ; but when balanced 
 
 With the globes and sceptres of my mistress Rome, 
 
 Will but — I spare comparisons, but you build on 
 
 Your strength to justify the fact. Alas, 
 
 It is a feeble reed, and leaning on it 
 
 Will wound your hand much sooner than support you. 
 
 You keep in pay, 'tis true, some peace-trained troops. 
 
 Which awes your neighbours ; but consider, when 
 
 Our eagles shall display their sail-stretched wings, 
 
 Hovering o'er our legions, what defence 
 
 Can you expect from yours ? 
 
 The Ambassador has his way. The King, on the 
 plea of ' necessity of State,' submits. 
 
 In The Maid of Honour, printed in 1 632, and prob- The mW 
 ably written in the beginning of that year, or in the end "^Honour, 
 of the year before, James I. and his dealings with the 
 Palatinate are brought upon the stage in order to cen- 
 sure, indirectly, Charles's abandonment of Hamilton. 
 Under the name of Eoberto, King of Sicily, we see 
 James arguing that he is not bound to support his ally 
 if he made the first attack upon others. He had only 
 engaged to send him support if he were himself at- 
 tacked. Then, as if to draw attention to those parts 
 of his father's pohcy which Charles was imitating, the 
 King is made to boast of his peaceful rule — 
 
246 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 CHAP. Let other monarchs 
 
 ' _ . Oontend to he made glorious by proud war, 
 
 1632. And -witli the blood of their poor subjects purchase 
 
 Increase of empire, and augment their cares 
 In keeping that which was by wrongs extorted, 
 Gilding unjust invasions with the trim 
 Of glorious conquests ; we, that would be known 
 The father of our people, in our study 
 And vigilance for their safety, must not change 
 Their ploughshares into swords, and force them from 
 The seciire shade of their own vines, to be 
 Scorched with the flames of war ; or, for our sport 
 Expose their lives to ruin. 
 
 To tliis Bertolo answers in words which bear the 
 impress of the fierce love of adventure and prowess 
 which sways alternately with more peaceful energies the 
 breasts of Enghshmen. 
 
 Here are no mines of gold 
 Or silver to enrich you : no worm spins 
 Silk in her womb, to make distinction 
 Between you and a peasant in your habits : 
 No fish lives near our shores whose blood can dye 
 Scarlet or purple ; all that we possess 
 With beasts we have in common : nature did 
 Design us to be warriors, and to break through 
 Our ring, the sea, by which we are environed. 
 And we by force must fetch in what is wanting 
 Or precious to us. 
 
 The King will hear nothing of his counsels. Think 
 not, he answers, — 
 
 Think not 
 Our counsel's built upon so weak a base 
 As to be overturned, or shaken with 
 Tempestuous winds of word. As I, my lord. 
 Before resolved you, I will not enga:re 
 My person in this quarrel ; neither press 
 My subjects to maintain it ; yet to shew 
 My rule is gentle, and that I have feeling 
 0* your master's sufferings, and these gallants, weary 
 Of the happiness of peace, desire to taste 
 The bitter sweets of war, we do consent 
 That, as adventurers and volunteers. 
 No way compelled by us, they may make trial 
 Of their boasted valours. 
 
CHAHLES'S REPLY TO FRANCE. 247 
 
 In another speech Charles himself is brought before chap. 
 us as his language to Hamilton appeared to those who 
 
 were dissatisfied with the course which he had taken. ^^^^• 
 
 'Tis well, and, but my grant in this, expect not 
 Assistance from me. Govern as you please 
 The province you make choice of ; for, I vow 
 By all things sacred, if that thou miscarry 
 In this rash undertaking, I will hear it 
 No otherwise than as a sad disaster, 
 Fallen on a stranger ; nor will I esteem 
 That man my subject, who in thy extreme 
 In purse or person aids thee.^ 
 
 So great was the strength of the feeling which gave juiy. 
 rise to these two plays that even Weston himself bowed WesWs 
 before it. In expectation of the reply of Gustavus, "'''''™" 
 preparations were made for a more active intervention 
 on the Continent. Jerome Weston, the Treasurer's eldest 
 son, was sent on a mission to France and Italy. He 
 was to pave the way to a better understanding with 
 France, and to urge Lewis to a direct declaration for 
 the restitution of the Palatinate. He was to say that 
 Charles hoped that the French were by this time 
 ' sufficiently disabused ' of the notion that anything 
 could be effected as long as attention was paid to the ' in- 
 terests of Bavaria.' " The King," wrote the Treasurer Aug. 10. 
 himself to his son, " hath left no way untried, nor lost 
 any opportunity in uniting his counsels or aids with 
 Princes that be interested, as to the King of Sweden, 
 both by the Marquis of Hamilton and his Ambassador, 
 with large oiFers of monies and other kinds of aids, 
 which we hear now by our Ambassador are likely to 
 
 ' See a paper on The political element in Massinger in the Contem- 
 porary Reoiew ion Axig. 1876. It had been previously read before the 
 New Shakspere Society, when Mr. Hales pointed out that the sugges- 
 tion in Believe as you List (iii. i), that Antiochus should fly to Parthia 
 to Egypt, or to the Batavian, is evidence that Massinger's thoughts were 
 travelling in the direction which I had assumed. 
 
248 
 
 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VIOTOEIES. 
 
 CHAP. 
 V. 
 
 1632. 
 
 Aug. 
 Weston 
 expects the 
 alliance 
 with Gus- 
 tavus to be 
 concluded. 
 
 July. 
 Gustavus 
 opposed by 
 Walleu- 
 steiu. 
 
 July 19. 
 Charles's 
 proposal 
 rejected by 
 Gustavus. 
 
 be accepted, and that by this that friendship is con- 
 cluded." ^ 
 
 Weston was not the man to speak so strongly unless 
 he had believed that the alhance with Gustavus was 
 practically concluded. It was his first object to be on 
 the winning side, and no man had better opportunities 
 of ascertaining the direction in which his master was 
 drifting. It was not long before he learned that he had 
 overestimated the pliancy of Gustavus. When the draft 
 treaty from England was placed in Vane's hands, the 
 King of Sweden could no longer afford to despise any 
 genuine offer of assistance. Bavaria and the League 
 had been crushed, and it seemed for a moment as if no 
 further opposition could be offered to the conqueror. 
 But in the hour of supreme danger Wallenstein was 
 recalled to the command, and entrusted with unheard 
 of powers. His old veterans flocked round his standard 
 at his call, and in a few weeks he was at the head of an 
 imposing army. His first work was to manoeuvre the 
 Saxons out of Bohemia. Then he turned sharply round 
 and pinned Gustavus to the defence of Nuremberg. 
 Yet, even in his mortal duel with the great strategist, 
 Gustavus would not hear of accepting Charles's offers. 
 Doubtless he had a keen recollection of the treatment 
 to which Christian of Denmark had been subjected, and 
 he may well have doubted whether Charles's engage- 
 ment to pay 10,000/. a month was in reality worth as 
 many pence. At all events, he knew that Charles had 
 refused him the naval aid for which he had asked, and 
 had fi:xed no time during which the payment was to be 
 continued. The aid now offered, he said, was useless, 
 ' and for the indefiniteness of the time it was against all 
 form of proceeding in aUiances.' Charles's overtures 
 
 ' Instructions to Jerome Weston, July 24, 
 Weston, Aug. 10, S. P. France. 
 
 Weston to Jerome 
 
CHARLES'S dip:_omaoy breaks down. 249 
 
 were absolutely rejected. Vane had nothing more to chap. 
 
 offer. He took his leave, and returned to England. ^ — • 
 
 Anstruther's position at Vienna had already become ^ ^' 
 untenable, and he too had been ordered home. To Eecau 
 Charles's unfeigned surprise neither of the belligerents andAns- 
 considered his alliance worth purchasing.-^ 
 
 Charles's failure was one more illustration of the paj^^fof 
 truth which Bacon was wont to urge upon James in his ^piJmacy. 
 dealings with his Parliaments. Success is to be had not 
 by sharp bargaining, but by sympathy tempered by pru- 
 dence. Of this system Eoe was now the spokesman. " If 
 his Majesty," he wrote to Holland, " take not care of the 
 King of Sweden, not so much by money, or that only, as 
 by countenance and reputation of unity and colHgation, 
 though an enemy may beat him out of Germany, cold 
 and jealous friends may undermine and undo him." 
 Very different was the thought of Weston's friends when 
 the tidings came from Nuremberg. " You have given," Sept. 39. 
 wrote Cottington to Vane, "great satisfaction to his 
 Majesty, and to those his ministers by whom he mana- 
 geth his foreign affairs. Through your wise and dexte- 
 rous carriage of that great business you have saved 
 his Majesty's money and his honour, and yourself from 
 any kind of blame, as I understand it."^ 
 
 Whether abstention from interference, in Germany oct. 17. 
 were wise or not, it was impossible to represent Charles's pJseTupra 
 diplomacy in a favourable light. The public appetite *ettfs*' 
 for news had called forth swarms of pamphlets and 
 gazettes, which told all who could read how Gustavus 
 had forced the passage of the Lech, and how Maximihan, 
 the oppressor of the Palatinate, had abandoned his own 
 capital to the invader. The mere news that such successes 
 
 1 Vane to Coke, July 19. S. P. Stveden. Ourtius to Vane, Sept. 
 14. S. P. Holland. 
 
 ' Cottington to Vane, Sept. 29. S. P. Doin., ccxiiii. 56. 
 
250 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 ci^p. had been achieved without the help of England would 
 
 ■— -'^ — ■ easily be regarded as a tacit reproach to Charles, and 
 
 Sept 20 *^® authors of the gazettes were sternly bidden to refrain 
 
 from ' all printing and publishing of the same."^ 
 G^tlvns '^^^ Swedish King was not long to cross Charles's 
 
 and Fre- path. If he was not defeated at Nuremberg, at least 
 he had ceased to be victorious. In his train was the 
 exiled Frederick, who had come to beg his inheritance 
 of the disposer of power. Earlier in the year he had 
 wearied the King of Sweden with his obstinate refusal 
 to submit to reasonable conditions. Gustavus had not, 
 however, given up hopes of numbering him as an active 
 member of the great Protestant alliance. " I will let 
 my brother of England know," he said, " that my in- 
 tention is more generous towards the King of Bohemia 
 than that I should have any mercenary dealing with 
 him, as Vane would have me." ^ The time was fast pass- 
 ing when words or acts of his would avail anything. 
 Wallenstein had marched northwards and was ravaging 
 Saxony. Gustavus hastened to the succour of his ally. 
 Nov. 6. On November 6 the victory of Liitzen was won by the 
 Lutzen°and Swcdish army. But the soul of that army expired on 
 G*iwtava3. the field in the death of its heroic King. 
 
 In England the death of Gustavus was felt as keenly 
 as if he had been a national commander. " Never," 
 wrote D'Ewes, " did one person's death in Christendom 
 bring so much sorrow to all true Protestant hearts, — not 
 our godly Edward's, the Sixth of that name, nor our late 
 heroic and inestimable Prince Henry, — as did the King 
 of Sweden's at this present." The general sorrow was 
 Charles not shared by Charles. He had already found out a 
 that Fre _ succcssor to Gustavus in the helpless, headstrong Fre- 
 derick. ' He conceived hope,' he said, ' in God's good- 
 
 ' Coimoil Sef/isto', Oct. 17. 
 
 ' Durie to Roe, Nov. 11. S. P. Germany. 
 
 derick shall 
 
DEATHS OF GUSTAVUS AND FREDERICK. 25 1 
 
 nes". that as He hath taken away him whom He had chap. 
 exa.ted, so He may restore him whom He hath humbled.' >^ — ^ — ■ 
 It was said of Henry VIII. that he knew a man jj^^^^' 
 wh' n he saw him. It was evident that this quahty had German 
 'c\ descended to his successor. Charles at once de- ants. 
 spatched a messenger with 16,000/. in ready money to 
 enable Frederick to levy an army of 10,000 men. He 
 prepared to ask the Dutch to transfer to his brother-in- 
 law the contribution which they had hitherto paid to 
 Gustavus. Around the Elector Palatine, he hoped, 
 would gather the German Princes and the German 
 Cities, so ' that the body which was kept together by 
 the power and credit of the King of Sweden' might 
 'not by his death be dissolved and broken.' 
 
 Frederick never heard of the great expectations Nov. 19. 
 which had been conceived of him in England, A mer- death. 
 ciful fever snatched him away from one^'more bitter 
 disappointment. Thirteen days after Gustavus fell, the 
 candle of his restless unsatisfied life died away in the 
 socket at Bacharach, by the side of the eddying Ehine. 
 
 The death of Gustavus and the death of Frederick Boast of 
 were alike welcome to Weston and his chque. In their prosperity 
 detestation of war there was nothing noble, no prefe- 
 rence of higher objects to be gained in peace, no wise 
 conception of international duties. To them material 
 prosperity had become an idol, and the habit of re- 
 garding the accumulation of wealth as the sole test of 
 greatness was accompanied by a contemptuous indif- 
 ference for the trials and sorrows of other nations, of 
 which the hot Protestant partisan of earlier days had 
 never been guilty. Flatterers found their account in 
 praising the skill with which Charles had preserved 
 England from the scourge of war. The low and de- 
 based feeling which had been fostered by men in high 
 places found full expression in the hues in which Carew, 
 
252 :engi,ish diplomacy and swedisi-i victories. 
 
 CHAP, himself a royal cupbearer, commented on the death of 
 
 s.^^: . the Swedish King. 
 
 1632. 
 
 Dec. " Then let the Germans fear, if Osesar shall 
 
 On the United Princes rise and fall ; 
 But let us that in myrtle howers sit 
 Under secure shades, use the benefit 
 Of peace and plenty which the blessed hand 
 Of our good king gives this obdurate land. 
 
 Tourneys, masques, theatres better become 
 Our halcyon days. What though the German drum 
 Bellow for freedom and revenge ? The noise 
 Concerns not us, nor should divert our joys." 
 
 Perish Europe, if only England may fiddle in safety ! 
 Already the sword was sharpening which should chas- 
 tise the men by whom such things were said. 
 ^ Charles's first thought on receiving the news of the 
 
 Dec. 27. , ,0 c> _ _ 
 
 Elizabeth death of his brother-in-law was to solace his widowed 
 to Eng- sister. Laying aside for the moment his fear that her 
 presence in England would serve as an encouragement 
 to his own Puritans, he despatched Arundel to offer her 
 a refuge at his Court. At first in her loneliness she 
 was inchned to accept the offer. But she very soon 
 jaif changed her mind. She told Arundel that her duty to 
 her family required her presence in Holland. It is pro- 
 bable that she shrank from exchanging a dwelling- 
 place amongst a sympathetic people for the daily 
 annoyance of the companionship of a brother who pro- 
 mised so much and performed so little.^ 
 Growin With the death of Gustavus the question of the re- 
 
 rf'fv^ce^ lations between England and France assumed increased 
 importance. If, as was only too likely, jealousies broke 
 out amongst the Princes who had with difficulty been 
 kept in harmony by the genius of the Swedish King, it 
 
 ' Gussoni's despatch, Dec. ^'f, •-, Feb. jj. Venice MSS. Goring to 
 ? Jan. 5. <S'. P. Holland. 
 
DUTCH SUCCESSES. 253 
 
 would be absolutely necessary that Eichelieu should ci^p. 
 take a more prominent part in the conflict than he had - 
 
 hitherto done. And at this time circumstances were 
 occurring in the Netherlands which forced Charles to 
 consider how his alliances would affect the national in- 
 terests of England as well as how they would affect the 
 dynastic interests of his family. 
 
 The weight of the war fell heavily upon the 1632- 
 
 '-' ^ i. Discontent 
 
 Spanish Netherlands. The King of Spain was no in the 
 
 1 11 1 f 1 1 -I-, Spanish 
 
 longer able to protect them as of old. Every year was Nether- 
 now marked by some fresh defeat, and unless the course 
 of the Prince of Orange could be stopped the whole 
 country would sooner or later be at his disposal. The 
 nobility echoed the lamentations of the common people. 
 The proud Belgian aristocracy complained that mih- 
 tary and civil employments ahke were in the hands of 
 Castilians. Meetings were held, and in the spring of' 
 1632 many of the nobles banded together and made 
 overtures to Eichelieu for assistance to enable them to 
 shake off the authority of Spain. When Erederick 
 Henry took the field, he foimd but cold resistance. 
 Venloo and Kuremonde quickly surrendered, and the May. 
 Prince proceeded to lay siege to Maestricht. Count 
 Henry de Bergh, a Netherlander who had been replaced 
 by a Spaniard in the command of the army, passed 
 over to the Dutch, and called upon his countrymen to 
 free themselves from the foreign yoke. 
 
 The country was not disposed to follow the in- June- 
 
 1 /• 1 -T T J- • 1 Feelings of 
 
 terested counsels of a malcontent nobility, it was afraid the people 
 of being brought under the sway of the Dutch Calvi- Spain, 
 nists. It was equally afraid of incorporation with the 
 French monarchy. The Belgians looked down with 
 well-grounded pride upon a country where municipal 
 liberties and the administration of justice itself were in a 
 far more backward state than in the old provinces of the 
 
254 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VIOTORIES. 
 
 CHAP. House of Burgundy.^ But though the country did not 
 - — -r^ — - wish for revolution, it wished to be rid of the interven- 
 tion of Spaniards in its own internal affairs. Above 
 all it wanted peace. 
 
 The wish was a natural one. But it was impossible 
 
 that the Provinces could remain attached to the Spanish 
 
 monarchy without continuing to share its fortunes. 
 
 They must shake off the yoke or submit to their fate. 
 
 July. The Infanta was obhged to temporise. In July she 
 
 The States t i o ^ t . ■■ 
 
 General summoncd the States General to meet in the end of 
 Aug 4. August. Before the day of assembly same the discon- 
 
 Sk fOT*''^ tented nobles applied to Charles's agent, Gerbier, to 
 
 ™ *ort'' know if they could count on his master's help. Charles 
 was at first startled by the proposal. " Since," he re- 
 Aug. 21. plied to his minister, " I am in friendship with the King 
 of Spain, it is against both honour and conscience to 
 give him just cause of quarrel against me, I being not 
 first provoked by him, and a juster he cannot have than 
 debauching of his subjects from their allegiance. But 
 since I see a hkelihood — almost a necessity — that his 
 rianders subjects must fall into some other King's or 
 State's protection, and that I am offered, without the 
 least intimation of mine, to have a share therein ; the 
 second consideration is that it were a great imprudence 
 in me to let slip this occasion whereby I may both 
 advantage myself and hinder the overflowing greatness 
 of my neighbours, so that my resolution must depend 
 upon the agreement of these two considerations."^ 
 
 viewa of It is no blame to Charles if, believing the overthrow 
 
 of the Spanish power in the Netherlands to be inevitable, 
 he sought to avert the absorption of the Provinces by 
 the Kiagof France and the States General. The es- 
 
 ' See on all this M. Henrard's book, Marie de Midicis dam les Pays 
 Bob. 
 
 ' Gerbier to the King, Aug. 4, The King to Gerbier, Aug. 21. 
 Hardviicke St. P. ii. 55, 79, 
 
 Charles. 
 
TROUBLES IN THE SPANISH NETHERLANDS. 255 
 
 tablishment of an independent Belgian State would have 
 best served the interests of England, and would have 
 best served the real interests of the population. What 
 was characteristic of Charles and his ministers was that 
 they fancied that this could be effected with the con- 
 currence of Spain, and that they did not see that in 
 order to promote a settlement which would be distaste- 
 ful to the French and the Dutch, it would be necessary 
 scrupulously to avoid any appearance of self-seeking on 
 the part of England. At a conference held at the Lord 
 Treasurer's, it was resolved to offer the help of the navy 
 to convey the Spanish soldiers home as soon as they 
 were ready to evacuate the Low Countries, and to ask 
 Philip to make over a large part of Flanders to Charles, 
 to be held under the Spanish crown. The nobihty were 
 to be persuaded that the protection of England would 
 be far more agreeable than that of the Dutch Eepublic. 
 The English Church was as well ordered as their own, 
 and there would be no risk of the introduction of a 
 system under which every burgher might claim a share 
 in the direction of the State.^ 
 
 On August 14 Maestricht surrendered to the Dutch. Aug. 30. 
 On the 30th, the States General were opened at Brussels. Genera' ^' 
 They at once demanded permission to treat for a peace 
 or truce with the Northern States without the inter- 
 vention of the executive government, and this demand 
 was accorded by the Infanta. At the same time the The Dutch 
 
 ■' . , . „ . . , urge them 
 
 Prince of Orange issued a maniiesto promismg the to declare 
 alliance of the Dutch States to the obedient Provinces pe^deMe!" 
 if they would declare themselves independent of Spain. 
 The Spanish troops would then be forced to quit the 
 country, and the Brussels States would become the 
 rulers of the Southern Provinces, as the Northern 
 
 • Conference at the Lord Treasurer's. S. P. Flanders. 
 
256 ENGLISH DIPLOIMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 CRAP- Provinces were governed by the States which assembled 
 - — ^ — ■ at the Hague. 
 
 g ■ Against this incitement to revokition the Brussels 
 
 Eefusai of States stood firm. They would treat for a truce on the 
 
 tne isrus- t • /. i 
 
 seiB States, basis 01 the arrangement of 1 609, but they professed 
 their intention to remain the subjects of theKing of Spain. 
 Their resolution seriously compromised the chances 
 of an arrangement. Doubtless there were large numbers 
 in the Northern Provinces who were weary of war, and 
 who would have welcomed a cessation of hostiHties at 
 almost any cost. But a large party, with Frederick 
 Henry at its head, was by no means inclined to give 
 way to peace or truce so long as the Spaniards retained 
 a threatening position on their southern frontier. It was 
 true that for five years the Dutch armies had been vic- 
 torious. Grol, Hertogenbosch, Wesel, Venloo, Mae- 
 stricht, had fallen in rapid succession. But the Spanish 
 monarchy was not crushed. A few seasons of peace 
 might enable it to restore its dilapidated finances and 
 to reorganise its military resoiurces. 
 Oct 22. With this divergency of feeUng, it is not likely that 
 
 inter-*^^ an agreement would have been come to in any case, and 
 vention, -^ -^ t]jerefore doubtful whether Charles could have inter- 
 vened with good efiect. The course which he actually 
 took was pitiable. The tendency to intrigue which was 
 rooted in his character had been growing during the 
 His in- last few years. He instructed Boswell, his Minister at 
 to BoOTdi. the Hague, to be present at the conferences between the 
 deputies of the two States General. He was to do his 
 best, in an underhand way, to make any arrangement 
 impossible. He was to press the Northern States to in- 
 clude the restoration of the Palatinate in the negotiation. 
 He was to hold up to the Southern States the advantage 
 which they woukl gain by an open trade with England, 
 and to ' show them what near and powerful protection 
 
CHARLES'S OFFERS TO THE SPANISH NETHERLANDS. 257 
 
 they may have from his Majesty's dominions to support chap. 
 them in their freedom and liberties, if they resolve to ^' 
 
 make themselves an entire and independent body ; what ^^^^' 
 indignity and prejudice they may suffer if they submit 
 themselves to those neighbours upon unequal conditions, 
 under whom neither their clergy, their nobility, nor their 
 burghers can expect those honours, that profit, and that 
 continual defence which from his Majesty upon reason- 
 able and equal terms they may be assiu-ed of.'^ 
 
 Assuredly Charles did not stand alone amongst the 
 rulers of the world in resorting to intrigue. Eichelieu 
 was quite as ready to veil his intentions in a cloud of 
 words, and to cover his self seeking with an appear- 
 ance of disinterestedness. But whilst Charles had ab- 
 solutely no perception of the facts of the world, Eichelieu 
 surpassed all his contemporaries, except Gustavus, in the 
 skill with which he mastered events by adapting his 
 course to the currents of opinion around him. He had 
 just brought to a close the long internal struggle with 
 the French aristocracy. Gaston had at last summoned 
 up courage, and had crossed the French border to make 
 his way to the South, where Montmorency, the dashing 
 cavalier, the flower of the French nobiUty, was ready 
 to rise at his bidding. On the field of Castelnaudary ^„g ^j 
 that conflict was brought to an issue. Eichelieu stood Soutmo- 
 up for national unity and religious toleration against ^ncy. 
 those who would have made France their prey, who 
 would have stooped their heads to the foreigner abroad, 
 and relighted the flames of civil war at home. The 
 better side prevailed. The gay chivalry which followed 
 the banner of the insurgents was no match for the steady 
 discipline of the Eoyal army. Montmorency bowed 
 his head as a traitor on the scaffold, whilst Gaston 
 
 ' Instructions to Boswell, Oct. 22. S. P. Holland. 
 VOL. I. S 
 
258 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VIOTOEIES. 
 
 CHAP, alimk home, like a poltroon as he was, to accept a con- 
 ' — ^ — ' temptuous pardon from his brother. 
 ^J*^' Eichelieu turned his attention fixedly abroad. He 
 
 Kicheueu •' 
 
 seeks a did not build his hopes much upon the uncertainties and 
 alliance, the oscillations of the States of Brussels. Charles might 
 dream of thrusting the wedge of English power into Flan- 
 ders by the expenditure of a few soft words. Eichelieu 
 knew that strength was to be found amongst the burgher 
 counsellors of the Hague and the tried veterans who 
 had reduced the proud citadel of Maestricht to surrender. 
 If the obedient Provinces chose to throw ofi" the yoke of 
 Spain, it would be easy to satisfy them on all secondary 
 points. If not, an alliance with the independent States 
 against Spain was the policy imposed by circumstances 
 upon France. 
 Nov. By the middle of November, Charles had learned 
 
 dem^dB t^^t he had no prospect of effecting his object with the 
 Dunkirk, asscnt of Spain. He had directly asked for the surrender 
 of Dunkirk, or of some other strong place in Flanders, 
 as the price of his co-operation. The Spanish Govern- 
 ment was not yet reduced to extremities, and returned 
 a peremptory refusal.-^ 
 His over- Charlcs then turned to France. This time he held 
 
 r/ance. language which, if he had been strong enough to support 
 his words by action, would have been worthy of an 
 Enghsh Sovereign. Jerome Weston, who was at the 
 French Court, was directed to assure Lewis that though 
 the King of England was ready to concur in any step 
 for the hberation of the discontented Provinces from 
 Spain, he would not hear of the increase of Dutch or 
 French territory at their expense. He had ' better 
 reason to maintain the Spaniards there than to let the 
 French in.' At the same time the Lord Treasurer was 
 
 ' Windeljank's Notes, Clair. S, P., i. 61. Sdvettfs newileite)-i, 
 
 Sept. 83 Nov. 30 
 Oct. 3 ' Deo. 0* 
 
ALLIANCE BETWEEN I^WIS AND THE DUTCH. 259 
 
 profuse in his expressions of attachment to Eichelieu, chap. 
 and in his assurances of a wish to see France and Eng- • — ^ — ■ 
 land united on the great questions of the day, the re- ^^^^' 
 covery of the Palatinate being naturally included. ^ 
 
 Two days after these instructions were sent, the Nov. 24. 
 Deputies from the States General of both fractions of the tiationB at 
 Netherlands met at the Hague. Before the end of the *''" ^^^'" 
 year, it was evident to all that the negotiation would end 
 in nothing. The Southern States persisted in regarding 
 themselves as the subjects of the King of Spain. The 
 Northern States were unwilling to come to terms 
 unless the King of Spain's authority were declared to 
 be at an end. The negotiation dragged on, neither party 
 being willing to give up hope of a satisfactory conclu- 
 sion. But no clear-sighted bystander could think it at 
 all likely that such a conclusion would be reached. 
 
 Eichelieu, at all events, saw plainly how matters 1633. 
 stood. On January 3 he instructed Charnac^, the Kicheiieu's 
 French Ambassador at the Hague, to offer to the Dutch the Dutch, 
 increased subsidies and a military force. If Eichelieu 
 could succeed in estabUshing French influence in Ger- 
 many, he would be ready to engage in open war with 
 Spain, with the object of effecting a partition of the Spanish 
 Netherlands between France and the States General.^ 
 
 Charles could not make up his mind what to do. Thepar- 
 In November he had instructed Jerome Weston to cussed in" 
 protest against such a partition. But there was a large 
 party at his Court which regarded the scheme with 
 favour, though no one in England had any knowledge 
 that the proposal had actually been made. If, it was 
 argued, the Dutch frontier became conterminous with 
 
 ' Coke to Weston, Nov. 22, S. P. Fi-ance. Fontenay to Father 
 Joaepli, Nov. 17. Fontenay to Eichelieu, Nov. 26. Af. Mr, xlv. 143, 
 145. 
 
 » Eichelieu to OharnacS, Avenel. Lettres de Eichelieu, iv. 421. 
 
 England. 
 
Anstra- 
 ther's mis- 
 
 260 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 ci^p. the French, the Dutch would speedily become as 
 " — 7 — • jealous of France as they had hitherto been of Spain. 
 Jans. Necessity would thus drive them into the arms of Eng- 
 land, and they would be forced to make concessions to 
 English commerce as the price of political support. 
 To these representations Charles was for a moment 
 inclined to give ear. Even Weston, either because he 
 thought it prudent to agree with his master, or because, 
 as Philip's agent Necolalde fancied, the Spanish Govern- 
 ment had not bribed him highly enough, talked in the 
 same strain. Even Cottington declaimed on the ap- 
 proaching downfall of the Spanish monarchy.^ Charles, 
 Jan. 16, however, soon repented of his momentary weakness. 
 Necolalde had an interview with him, and won him 
 back to his old jealousy of France and the States.^ 
 Charles was now engaged in a fresh diplomatic in- 
 German tervcntiou in Germany. His nephew, Charles Lewis, the 
 eldest surviving son of Frederick and Ehzabeth, was a 
 boy of fourteen. Anstruther was ordered to betake him- 
 self to the Chancellor Oxenstjerna, who had succeeded 
 to the conduct of afiairs after the death of Gustavus. He 
 was to offer assistance in money, though, if possible, he 
 was to promise a sum smaller than the 10,000/. a month 
 which had been proposed to the late King. In return 
 he was to ask that the Swedes and the German Princes 
 should acknowledge his nephew's right, and should at 
 once make over to him the strong places which they 
 had conquered in the Palatinate.^ Jerome Weston was 
 directed to ask the French Government to support this 
 demand, and to join if necessary in carrying on the 
 war in Germany. But he was to add with respect to 
 the Low Countries a repetition of the message which 
 
 ' Intercepted letters of Necolalde to Olivares, ~^, Jan. ^. Aff. Etr. 
 xlv. 166, 176. 
 
 ^ Necolalde to Olivares, ^^'. Simmwas MSS. 2520. 
 ' Anstruther's instructions, Dec. iS, P. Germanj/. 
 
END OF JEROME WESTON',3 MISSION. 26 1 
 
 he had conveyed in November. He was to say ' that chap. 
 if they shall agree to erect those interjacent countries ■ — --" — ■ 
 into free and independent States, his Majesty will give ^^'^l' 
 no interruption. But if they pretend to share or divide 
 them without any consideration of his Majesty's in- 
 terests, he will to his uttermost oppose them.'^ 
 
 How far Charles was guided by Weston in this de- ^eb. 17. 
 termination it is difficult to say. At all events it was created 
 
 •^ Earl of 
 
 quite in accordance with Weston's character to keep Portland. 
 an eye upon the dangers likely to arise from the in- 
 crease of the material forces of his opponents, without 
 any comprehension of the moral and spiritual move- 
 ments by which the world was pervaded. Charles 
 seized this moment to testify his approbation of the 
 Treasurer's services. He conferred upon him an earl- 
 dom, a dignity which he dispensed with a far more 
 sparing hand than his father had been accustomed to 
 do. Prom henceforward his favourite minister would be 
 known as the Earl of Portland. 
 
 When Jerome Weston, now by his father's promo- March. 
 
 . Terms 
 
 tion Lord Weston, returned to England in March, he brought by 
 brought with him Richelieu's terms. They were very toutmiT' 
 different from those which had been expected by 
 Charles. The Prench asked for a defensive alliance 
 against the House of Austria. In other words Charles 
 was to bind himself to protect Prance from a Spanish 
 attack in the impending war. An end was to be put to 
 the assistance which he had given to Spain by convoy- 
 ing money and men to the Plemish ports. Lewis, in 
 return, would assist in recovering from the Spaniards 
 any part of the Palatinate which might fall into their 
 hands.^ 
 
 1 Ooke to J. Weston, Jan. 22. S. P. Frame, 
 
 " Draft Treaty, March. Memoir of Fontenay, Apr. 16. Af. Mr. ilv. 
 222, 233, 235. 
 
 France. 
 
262 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTOIIIES. 
 
 The discrepancy between the two Governments 
 was thus plainly brought to light. Charles expected 
 ^ ^^" the King of France to make war for the recovery of 
 Discre- the Palatinate, and to refrain from satisfying his ambi- 
 tweenthe tiou whenever his objects might clash with EngUsh 
 vernments. interests. Eichelicu asked Charles to take some part, if 
 it was but a subordinate one, in his meditated attack 
 upon Spain. With a Prince more resolute and more 
 powerful than Charles, such a divergency of view 
 would probably have led soon to open war. But Eiche- 
 lieu knew his man. He was prodigal of assurances of 
 good will. He was firmly resolved to give no unneces- 
 sary offence. He knew well that Charles's threats 
 would end in words. The busy diplomacy of the 
 English Government had been absolutely wasted, and it 
 was not likely that failure in the past would be com- 
 pensated by success in the future. 
 4ioLeen4 ^^ Eichcheu had a political interest in maintaining 
 seized by friendly relations with the Enalish Government he had 
 
 LordWes- '' . ... r- ■ ^^ !• 
 
 ton. also a personal interest m mamtammg friendly relations 
 
 with the Lord Treasurer. The enemies of both were 
 still in close correspondence with one another. On his 
 return through France Lord Weston had met an 
 English messenger bearing a packet addressed in Hol- 
 land's hand to a French minister. The fact was enough 
 to awaken suspicion in a Weston, and using the privi- 
 lege of an ambassador he opened the parcel. Inside 
 he found a cyphered letter from Holland, and another 
 letter from the Queen, which he did not attempt to 
 read. He brought both back to England, and placed 
 them in Charles's hands. 
 
 The letters proved harmless. Eicheheu had dis- 
 covered that Chateauneuf and his instrument, De Jars, 
 had joined in the never-ceasing intrigues against him, 
 and had sent them both to prison. According to the 
 
QUARREL BETWEEN HOLLAND AND WESTON. 263 
 
 most coasistent accounts, Henrietta Maria's letter was chap. 
 written to intercede in their favour.^ If Chateau- 
 
 neuf was the enemy of Eicheheu now, he had been March'. 
 Portland's enemy before, and Charles, who looked with 
 well-founded suspicion upon the clique with which his 
 wife was surrounded, warmly declared his approbation 
 of Weston's conduct, and, guessing what was likely to 
 follow, ordered him to refuse any challenge which 
 might be sent him. 
 
 The King's prevision was justified by the event. ^ttJn'is 
 The whole of the Queen's Court took up their mistress's *aUenged. 
 quarrel. Holland challenged Weston. Charles inter- 
 fered with decision, and ordered Holland, who sent the 
 challenge, and Henry Jermyn, who carried it, to be 
 placed in confinement. The Queen's followers turned 
 savagely upon Weston. Only a coward, they said, 
 would accept a duel, and then give notice of it. The 
 gallant young Lord Fielding, Denbigh's son, who was 
 just about to marry Weston's sister, stepped forward to 
 vindicate the honour of the family into which he was 
 about to enter, and challenged George Goring as the 
 noisiest of the offenders. Once more the King inter- 
 fered, and stopped the duel. A new way was then 
 discovered of showing dislike of the Lord Treasurer. 
 Crowds of persons of every degree flocked to the house 
 in which Holland was confined, to express their sym- 
 pathy, till this, too, was angrily stopped by Charles. 
 Holland was then summoned before the Star Chamber. 
 It was commonly believed that he would hardly escape 
 without the loss of his ofiices. But Charles could not 
 resist the tears and entreaties of his wife. The birth of 
 the Prince of Wales in 1630 had been followed in 163 1 
 by the birth of the daughter who was one day to 
 bring WiUiam of Orange into the world. The Queen 
 
 1 Brasser to the States-General. Add. MSS. 17,677, O.^ol. 41. 
 
land. 
 
 264 ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AND SWEDISH VICTORIES. 
 
 CHAP, was now looking forward to becoming a mother again, 
 
 > — 7^ — ■ and Charles was too tender a husband to deal harshly 
 
 ^' with her preferences at such a time. Holland escaped 
 
 with a reprimand from the Lord Keeper delivered in 
 
 the Privy Council.^ 
 
 Under- ^ commou danger drew Eichelieu and Portland 
 
 standing " 
 
 between together. The Cardinal had seized from De Jars a cor- 
 and Port- rcspondcnce m which the mtrigues of some of the 
 Queen's Court against the Treasurer were unveiled. He 
 sent the compromising letters to England, that Portland 
 might have evidence before him that he was himself 
 attacked by those who sought to eflect a change in the 
 Government of France.^ In this way Eicheheu hoped 
 to secure an ally against the suggestions of the Queen 
 on behalf of her mother, which were in reality sugges- 
 tions made in the interests of Spain. 
 
 ' Kilvert to LamTje, April 4. Noy to Windeljank, Apr. 11. Act of 
 Council, Apr. 13. S. P. Bom., ccxxxvi. 14, 43, 47. Cowmil Register, 
 April 5. Fontenay to Bouthillier, Apr. 14. Aff. Etr. xlv. 229. 
 
 ' Memoir for Boutard. Ibid., xlv. 336. 
 
265 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND EELIGION. 
 
 It is impossible to pass from the foreign to the domestic chap. 
 politics of 1631 and 1632 without being conscious of ^- — <^ — • 
 the immense gulf between them. On the Continent ^^^^' 
 great problems were presented to the human mind, and w^' 
 great intellects appUed themselves to their solution dJSo"'^ 
 with the pen and with the sword. Gustavus, Eichelieu, ^°^^^- 
 and Frederick Henry tower above ordinary men. At 
 home all things appear tame and quiet. Enghsh life 
 seems to be unruffled by any breeze of discontent. It 
 is only here and there that some solitary person puts 
 forth opinions which, read in the light of subsequent 
 events, are seen to be the precursors of the storm, only 
 here and there that the legal action of the Government 
 is put forth to settle controversies which, but for those 
 subsequent events, would not seem to possess any very 
 great importance. It was a time of preparation and 
 development for good or for evil, which Charles, if he 
 had been other than he was, might have guided to 
 fruitful ends, but in which it was impossible for the 
 man whose diplomatic helplessness has just passed 
 before us to act with forethought or decision. 
 
 One great advantage Charles had. The lawyers Ang. 
 began to rally to his side. In August 163 1 Chief mofSna"" 
 Justice Hyde died little regretted, and his place was 
 
266 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION 
 
 CHAP, taken by Kichardson. The Chief Justiceship of the 
 
 1631. 
 
 Common Pleas thus vacated was deservedly allotted to 
 Heath. 
 
 Oct. To the surprise of all men the new Attorney General 
 
 torney' "w^^s Wilham Noy. His long Parliamentary opposition 
 General, ^^g remembered. His differences with the leaders of 
 that opposition, like the differences of Wentworth, were 
 forgotten. In 1628 he had supported Wentworth's 
 conciliatory policy. In 1629, though he had declared 
 strongly for the Parliamentary view of the question of 
 Tonnage and Poundage, he had opposed Eliot's mode 
 of action, and had expressed his dislike of the inter- 
 ference of the Commons with the Law Courts and of 
 their claim to make the ministers of the Crown re- 
 sponsible to themselves. A hnk too between him and 
 the Government was probably found in his dislike of 
 Puritanism. He had never had pretensions to any 
 grasp of constitutional law, and to one whose brain was 
 a mere storehouse of legal facts, it may have seemed as 
 easy to quote precedents on one side as on the other. 
 Contemporaries appear rather to have amused them- 
 selves with the oddity of seeing a man so rugged and 
 uncourtly in such a situation, than to have censured 
 him as a turncoat. They told how he replied to the 
 King's offer of the post by asking bluntly what his 
 wages were to be, and how when Coventry, seeing him 
 proceed unattended to Westminster Hall like an 
 ordinary lawyer, directed a messenger to accompany 
 him, he drove the man away, telling him that ' people 
 would take him to be his prisoner.' ^ 
 Dec. 7. Two months later, Littleton, who had also dis- 
 
 Eecorder. tinguishcd hlmsclf on the popular side, accepted the 
 Kecordership of the City. Though the office was not 
 directly in the King's gift, it was virtually at the dis- 
 
 ' Gresley to Puckering, Oct. 27. Court and Times, ii., 136. 
 
CHARLES AND THE LAWYERS. 267 
 
 position of the Crown. Other lawyers less distinguished chap. 
 were not long in following his example in desisting from • — ^ — - 
 an apparently hopeless opposition. ^^^^' 
 
 The acceptance of Charles's claims by the principal ¥8*^ p"- 
 
 •i J? 1 1 . sition of 
 
 lawyers of the day may no doubt be ascribed to a theGovern- 
 great extent to the hope of professional advancement. 
 But other causes may also have been at work with 
 them. Eevolutionary as Charles's government in reality 
 was, it did not profess to have broken with the old 
 constitutional system. He took its stand upon rights 
 which had been possessed by English Kings for 
 centuries, and if he disregarded other rights which had 
 been possessed by English Parhaments, he could argue 
 that these rights were necessarily in abeyance till the 
 Commons consented to resume their proper place in the 
 State. In truth there was much to induce a lawyer to 
 cast in his lot with Charles rather than with the House 
 of Commons. If only the Judges could make up their 
 mind to avoid challenging the King's claim to supreme 
 headship of the nation, and the consequences which he 
 deduced from it, they were certain to be treated with 
 the highest respect. Charles's attack upon the indepen- 
 dence of the Bench was directed against individuals. 
 In the persons of Crewe and Walter the whole legal 
 profession had in reality been assailed. But no other 
 member of the profession need feel personally insulted. 
 The House of Commons, on the other hand, had pro- 
 ceeded much more undisguisedly. They had openly 
 found fault with a judicial declaration solemnly pro- 
 nounced in the Court of Exchequer. They had sum- 
 moned the Barons to give account of the reasons by 
 which they had been guided. It is not strange if many 
 lawyers preferred the silken chains of the Court to the 
 iron yoke of a popular assembly not yet conscious of 
 the necessity of submitting to those restraints which it 
 
268 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAP, was one day to impose upon itself in the hour of 
 • — -■ — -^ victory. 
 
 Sir Si- How far the lawyers who now took the side of Charles 
 
 D-Ewes "w^6i"G led by these considerations we have no means 
 of knowing. But in Sir Simonds D'Ewes we are able 
 to examine the feelings of a man who without being a 
 practising lawyer himself, had received a legal educa- 
 tion, and whose Puritanical turn of mind would lead us 
 to expect a decided antagonism to the King. A prim 
 and acrid young man in his twenty-eighth year, he had 
 made the study of legal antiquities the delight of his life, 
 though he kept a human corner in his heart for his 
 wife, the little lady who possessed, as he boasted, the 
 smallest foot in England. As a proof of the tenderness 
 of his affection, he tells how at the time of his courtship, 
 he ' could not find leisure once to visit the Court of 
 Common Pleas, or continue ' his ' course of reporting 
 law cases, but devoted mornings and afternoons to the 
 service and attendance of ' his 'dearest.' Happily his 
 two passions coalesced into one. The lady had so many 
 ancestors that his ' very study of records grew more 
 delightful and pleasant than ever before,' as he ' often 
 met with several particulars of moment which con- 
 cerned some of those famihes to which she was heir, 
 both of their bloods and coat-armour.' The happiness 
 His re- of the antiouarv's domestic life was sustained and 
 sj-m-. permeated by an abiding sense of rehgious duty 
 and of religious sympathy, not the less real because it 
 ran in narrow and sectarian channels. A Protestant 
 victory on the Continent called up a triumphant out- 
 burst of thanksgiving. A Protestant defeat thrust him 
 into the depths of despair.^ 
 His view That such a man should not have sided with EHot's 
 
 disBoiutfon. resistance to the Crown may indeed to some extent be 
 
 '- D'Ewes. Autobiography, i. 33 1 . 
 
THE VIEWS OF THE ANTIQUARIES. 269 
 
 accounted for by the smallness of his nature ; but it is 
 also some evidence of the anaount of support on which 
 Eoyalty was still able to reckon. The day of the late ^ ^^" 
 dissolution indeed, he pronounced to be ' the most gloomy, 
 sad, and dismal day for England that had happened in 
 five hundred years,' but he added his opinion that ' the 
 cause of the breach and dissolution was immaterial and 
 frivolous, in the carriage whereof divers fiery spirits in 
 the House of Commons were very faulty and cannot 
 be excused.' They ought never, he says, to have 
 attempted to summon the King's officers to their bar. 
 The quarrel, he thinks, was the work of some ' Machia- 
 vellian politics, who seemed zealous for the liberty of 
 the Commonwealth,' but who sought to ' raise dispute 
 between the King and his people, as they verily feared 
 that their new Popish adorations and cringes would not 
 only be inhibited but punished.'^ 
 
 The explanation was ridiculous enough, aad looks 
 like the suggestion of personal vanity or dislike. What 
 is worthy of notice is the decision which the man of 
 precedents and records gives against the claim of the 
 House of Commons to seize the supreme power 
 into its own hands. As yet the lawyers and the 
 antiquaries are on Charles's side. A few years later 
 he will have alienated both. 
 
 It is no wonder that the lawyers and antiquaries EUot's 
 did not venture as yet to justify this claim. Even ^X"*^ 
 Eliot himself, who had done more than any man living 
 to give it prominence, hid from his own mind the fiiU 
 significance of his actions. In the Monarchy of Man, 
 the political and philosophical treatise which was the 
 
 1 Selden and Noy seem to be aimed at, Selden as an Arminian, or at 
 least an anti-Oalvinist ; Noy as an anti-Puritan. The whole passage dis- 
 plays complete want of intelligence, and should put the reader on his 
 guard against attaching too much importance to D'Ewes's opinion. 
 
270 DIVEKGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 VI 
 1631. 
 
 CHAP, result of his enforced leisure in the Tower, Eliot drew 
 a picture of government as he conceived that it ought 
 to be. Of all governments he pronounced monarchy 
 the best. The King was to rule for the good of his sub- 
 jects, not for his own private advantage. He was to con- 
 form his actions to the law. But beyond this there was 
 a sphere particularly his own. He had to look to ' the 
 safety and preservation of the whole.' In this was ' in- 
 volved a higher care and providence for prevention of 
 those evils which the law by power or terror cannot 
 reach, . . . the practice and invasion of their enemies, 
 or sedition and defection in the subjects, as also for the 
 operation of all good which industry and wisdom shall 
 invent for the benefit and commodity of the kingdom, 
 wherein, though the notions flow from others, Princes 
 only can reduce them into act.' To all this Charles 
 might fully have subscribed. Even when Eliot speaks 
 of the way in which this power is to be exercised, 
 the difference between his view and Charles's is rather 
 suggested than expressed. Charles had once said, 
 that he was ready to allow to Parliament the right of 
 counselling him, not the right of controlling him. 
 Eliot here asks for no more. He dwells, indeed, upon 
 the wisdom of Parhaments, and upon the safety which 
 lies in taking advice. But he distinctly argues that it is 
 ' the true explication of a Senate and the duty it sustains, 
 to conceive and form all actions and designs,' ' to give 
 them preparation and maturity, but nc further, the 
 resolution and production resting wholly in the King.'^ 
 Such an argument was no contribution to practical 
 politics. The King's case was that Parliament had 
 come persistently and hopelessly to a wrong conclusion, 
 and that it threatened to make all government impos- 
 sible till its own errors had been carried into practice. 
 
 » Harl. M8S. 2228. Mr. Forster, in his extracts, took no notice of 
 these important words. 
 
ELIOT ON GOYERNMENT. 27 1 
 
 Eliot held that the conclusion come to by Parliament chap. 
 
 VI 
 
 had been right, but he did not touch the question -^ — ^ — - 
 whether in such a case Parliament might in any way , ^ ^^' 
 force its opinions upon the King. 
 
 If, however, Eliot had no particular medicine to 
 offer for the sickness of the Commonwealth, he could 
 lay his hand, as Bacon had laid his hand before him, on 
 the true source of the disease. It had all come, he 
 held, because there had been no sympathy between the ; 
 King and his people, because the King had not striven 
 to understand their thoughts, or to feel for their 
 grievances. To the misfortunes of the State he declared 
 the art of government must now be applied, ' so to 
 dispose the several parts and members that they may 
 be at peace and amity with each other, reciprocally 
 helpful and assistant by all mutual offices and respects 
 as fellow-citizens and friends, brethren of the same 
 mother, members of one body, nay individually one 
 body, one consolid substance ; . . . and hkewise to 
 compose them to that concord and agreement as they 
 may be at unity in themselves, rendering that harmony 
 of the heavens, that pure diapason and concent,^ and in 
 that strength to encounter all opposition of the contrary 
 for the public utility and good, the conservation and 
 fehcity of the whole. For these, because no single 
 ability is sufficient, helps and advantages are provided,' 
 laws, ' which are a level and direction,' and a council 
 ' to be aiding and assistant . . . a supply of that defect 
 which may be in one person by the abilities of more, 
 that by many virtues so contracted one Panaretus 
 might be formed, an all-sufficiency in virtue and fulness 
 of perfection, the true texture and concinnity of a 
 King.'2 
 
 * Had Eliot seen a copy of Milton's lines At a Solemn Mime, sup- 
 posed to have l)een written in 1630 ? 'P. 67. 
 
272 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELiaiON. 
 
 CHAP. Eliot had not many more months of life before him. 
 
 -— -r^ — • " I have these three days been abroad," he wrote to 
 Mardf " Hampden in March, " and as often brought in new im- 
 EUot'siast pressions of the colds, yet both in strength and appetite 
 I find myself bettered by the motion. Cold at first was 
 the reason of my sickness, heat and tenderness by close 
 keeping in my chamber has since increased my weak- 
 ness. Air and exercise are thought most proper to 
 repair it. As children learn to go, I shall get acquainted 
 with the air, the infinite mercy of our Master ! 
 Dear friend, how it abounds in us that are unworthy of 
 His service ! How broken, how imperfect, how per- 
 verse and crooked are our ways in obedience to Him ! 
 How exactly straight is the line of His providence unto 
 us, drawn out through all occurrents and particulars to 
 the whole length and measure of our time ! . . . What 
 can we render ; what retribution can we make worthy of 
 so great a Majesty, worthy such love and favour ! We " 
 have nothing but ourselves, who are unworthy above 
 all ; and yet that, as all other things, is His. For us to 
 ofier up that is but to give Him of His own, and that in 
 far worse condition than we at first received it, yet, — so 
 infinite is His goodness for the merits of His Son, — He 
 is contented to accept. This, dear friend, must be the 
 comfort of His children ; this is the physic we must 
 use in all our sickness and extremities; this is the 
 strengthening of the weak, the enriching of the poor, 
 the Uberty of the captive, the health of the diseased, 
 the Ufe of those that die, the death of that wretched life 
 of sin ! And this happiness have His saints. . . . Friends 
 should communicate their joys; this as the greatest, 
 therefore, I could not but impart unto my friend." 
 Oct. For six months the curtain drops on Eliot's suffer- 
 
 ISfor ings and upon his abounding joyfulness. Then he 
 ib"^" petitioned the Court of King's Bench for leave to go 
 
ELIOT'S LAST DAYS. 273 
 
 abroad for the benefit of his health. Eichardson, the ^yf ^■ 
 
 new Chief Justice, referred him to the King. Charles " — 7 — ' 
 
 1032, 
 
 answered that the prisoner's request was not sufficiently oct. 
 humble. Eliot would not save his hfe by an ac- 
 knowledgment that he had erred. ' Sir,' — this was the 
 utmost to which he could be drawn, — ' I am heartily 
 soiry I have displeased your Majesty, and having so 
 said, do humbly beseech you once again to set me at 
 liberty, that when I have recovered my health I may 
 return back to my prison, there to undergo such 
 punishment as God hath allotted unto me.' It was not 
 in Charles's nature to Usten to such a petition. No hope 
 in this life remained for Eliot. The dying patriot had 
 no harsh words for him who was causing his death. 
 Anger on account of his own sufferings was not a feel- 
 ing which found entrance into his mind. What he had 
 endured was to him but part of the great purpose of 
 God working out the dehverance of His Church and of 
 the English nation. His enforced leisure, as the motto 
 prefixed to The Monarchy of Man testified,^ had pro- 
 ceeded from the hand of God. The misery in the 
 Tower, as the last petition testified, had been a punish- 
 ment allotted by God He had fought a good fight, he 
 had wrestled hard for his fellow countrymen, for gene- 
 rations yet unborn. As a testimony to those coming 
 generations who would take up his work he had pre- 
 pared his Negotium Posterorum, the unfinished record 
 of his unfinished labours. One thing remained, to 
 bequeath to his own family the memorial of his great 
 struggle. When his descendants one after another took 
 their place at Port Eliot they must not be allowed to 
 think of him only as he was represented in the portrait 
 taken in the days of early manhood. The dying man 
 sent for a painter, bidding him to reproduce upon 
 
 ' Deus nobis hcec otia. 
 VOL. I. T 
 
274 
 
 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAP. 
 VI. 
 
 1632. 
 
 Nov. 27. 
 Eliot's 
 death. 
 
 Eliot and 
 Gustavus. 
 
 Charles re- 
 fuses leave 
 to trans- 
 port the 
 body to 
 Port Eliot. 
 
 canvas the "wan, emaciated features which were all the 
 reward of his heroic persistency. Then a few days later 
 came the end. On November 27 that noble and un- 
 conquered spirit passed away from amongst living 
 men. 
 
 The life of Gustavus had ended in far other fashion 
 but three weeks before. In the main the task of the 
 two men was the same, to defend the Hving spirit of 
 nations against the pressure of misinterpreted legal 
 obligations. Charles had heard of the death of Gustavus 
 with a feehng of rehef When Eliot died the feeling of 
 relief was tinged with rancorous animosity. To Charles, 
 Eliot was but a factious and unprincipled rebel who 
 had murdered Buckingham with his tongue, and who 
 would have pulled down the throne itself if it had 
 been in his power. He drily refused a request from 
 the son of his deceased prisoner that he might convey 
 his father's mortal remains to rest at Port Eliot, where 
 he had been loved and honoured in his life. ' Let Sir 
 John Ehot,' wrote the King on the petition, ' be buried 
 in the church of that parish where he died.' 
 
 The dust of the first of England's Parliamentary 
 statesmen lies unnoticed and undistinguishable amongst 
 that of so many others, none more noble than himself. 
 The idea for which he hved and died was the idea that 
 the safest rule of government was to be found in the 
 free utterance of the thoughts of the representatives of 
 the people. He was the martyr, not of spiritual and 
 intellectual, but of political Hberty. He had confidence 
 in the common sense of ordinary citizens, not indeed to 
 govern directly, but to call in question those who were 
 guilty of crime or mismanagement, and to insist that the 
 direction of affairs should be entrusted to purer or abler 
 hands. 
 
 What the House of Commons was to Eliot, the 
 King's authority was to Wentworth. He had no con- 
 
WENTWORTH'S PRESIDENCY OF THE NORTH. 275 
 
 fidence in the common sense of ordinary citizens, chap. 
 
 With him, government was a question of ability and 
 authority. " It is a chaste ambition if rightly placed," he ^^l^' 
 said afterwards when he was put upon his defence, " to worth in 
 
 , , , 1 , , the North. 
 
 have as much power as may be, that there may be power 
 to do the more good in the place where a man lives." ^ 
 When his enemies brought him to bay, they had much 
 to say about the illegality of the Court over which he pre- 
 sided, and of its incompatibihty with the ordinary legal 
 system of the country. They had no charge to bring of 
 personal injustice against Wentworth, except so far as 
 masterful dealing with those who resisted his own 
 authority and the King's might count for injustice. 
 
 It was perhaps not altogether a matter of accident l^lg°^^ 
 that whilst the West and South of England produced the 
 warmest defenders of the predominance of Parliament, 
 the warmest defender of the King's authority should 
 come from the North. Beyond the Trent, government 
 by the strong hand was far more needed than it was in 
 Hampden's Buckinghamshire or Eliot's Cornwall. Old 
 men could still remember the day when the Northern 
 Earls burnt the Bibles in Durham Cathedral and laid 
 siege to Elizabeth's representative in Barnard Castle. 
 Those northern shires were still the stronghold of re- 
 cusancy, and, except in the south of Yorkshire, where 
 a scanty manufacturing population gathered in Leeds 
 and Bradford and Sheffield, poverty was great, and the 
 power of the gentry was great in consequence. The 
 gentry themselves were far less politically advanced 
 than in the South of England, and they banded them- 
 selves together from the consideration of social ties and 
 the memory of ancient feuds rather than from any 
 difference of ideas on affairs of State. In looking upon 
 the rule of the gentry as synonymous with the predomi- 
 
 1 Rushworth. Trial 0/ Strafford, 146. 
 T 2 
 
276 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAP, nance of faction, Wentworth was but transferring to 
 ■ — ^ — • the whole of England an inference which might fairly be 
 ^ ^'" drawn from the condition of his native county. He 
 knew well enough how little of public virtue had given 
 him the victory over his rival Savile in the electoral 
 conflicts of his earlier life. 
 Went- In returning to Yorkshire, therefore, as Lord Presi- 
 
 Buitedby dent of the North, Wentworth had to encounter a 
 ' ^^^^' personal as well as a political opposition. One of those 
 who grudged him his new honours was Henry Bellasys, 
 the son of Lord Fauconberg, a young man of haughty 
 disposition and uncontrollable temper. Coming one day 
 into the hall in which Wentworth was sitting in fiill 
 council, he neglected to make the customary reverence 
 to the King's representative, and when at the close of 
 the business the President left the room, he alone of all 
 who were present, kept his head covered. 
 He is Bellasys was sent for by the Privy Council to answer 
 
 fore the ^ for his ofTensivc conduct. He shewed as little good 
 Coimoii. breeding in London as he had done at York. He ap- 
 peared before the Council with a large stick in his hand, 
 and omitted to kneel as the custom then was. He 
 passed his rudeness off lightly. He asserted that he 
 had no intention of showing disrespect to the President. 
 He was in the midst of an interesting conversation, and 
 he had not noticed that he was leaving the haU. 
 
 The Privy Council took him at his word. All that 
 was asked of him was that, in their presence, and again 
 before the Council of the North, he should acknowledge 
 that he had not intended any disrespect to Wentworth, 
 He refused to make any public declaration of the kind. 
 May 6. He was sent to the Gatehouse. After a month's im- 
 his 8ub-^' prisonment, he expressed himself ready to make the 
 required submission if it was clearly understood to be 
 offered to the Lord President's place, not to his person. 
 
 misBion. 
 
SUBMISSION OF BELLASYS. 277 
 
 1631. 
 
 Wentworth, who was present, repudiated the wish to '^^f^- 
 take cognizance of any personal offence. He had even 
 asked his Majesty, he said, to excuse Bellasys from 
 repeating the acknowledgment at York. But as the 
 young man had chosen to draw the distinction, he 
 could interfere no further on his behalf. Bellasys ac- 
 cordingly had to make the submission at York as well 
 as in London, and received, at some cost to himself, a 
 lesson in politeness.-^ 
 
 It would be interesting to know how far Wentworth j^^^^^^^ 
 ■was rewarded by the aifection of the poor at the time ^^y 
 when he was flouted by this unmannerly youth. But wrth. 
 only very indirect evidence exists of the feelings of those 
 who had most to gain by a prompt and vigorous exe- 
 cution of justice. The year 1631 was a year of sorrow 
 to Wentworth. In September one of his children died. 
 In October, his dearly-loved wife, the sister of Denzil 
 Holies, ' that departed saint now in heaven,' to whom 
 his heart turned in his hour of trial long afterwards, was 
 taken from him. His affections were as strong as his 
 passions, and the stern demeanoiu: which he bore in the 
 presence of the many melted into the tenderest attach- 
 ment to the few whom he really loved and respected. 
 His grief was the more abundant as he was himself the 
 innocent cause of his wife's death. One day, when she 
 was in an advanced stage of pregnancy, he stepped from 
 the garden into the room in which she was. A large 
 fly, which had settled on his breast, spread its wings and 
 frightened the weakly, dehcate lady. She was prema- 
 turely brought to bed of a daughter at the cost of her 
 own life. The widower had many companions in his 
 grief. ' The whole city ' had ' a face of mourning, never 
 any woman so magnified and lamented even of those 
 
 1 Council Register, Apr. 6, May 6. SushwoHh, ii. 88. 
 
278 
 
 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 VI. 
 
 1631. 
 
 1632. 
 
 Jan. 
 Went- 
 worth ap- 
 pointed 
 Lord 
 
 Deputy of 
 Ireland. 
 
 July. 
 Case of 
 SirD. 
 
 Foulis. 
 
 He attacks 
 
 Went- 
 
 ■worth. 
 
 that never saw her face.' ^ Such an expression of feehng 
 would hardly have been manifested if Wentworth him- 
 self had been generally unpopular in York. 
 
 Whether Wentworth had succeeded or not in 
 securing the regard of the lower and middle classes in 
 the North, he had undoubtedly succeeded in securing 
 the regard of the King. In January 1632 he was called 
 upon, as Lord Deputy of Ireland, to face difficulties 
 infinitely more alarming than any which he was likely 
 to encounter in the North of England. But he did not 
 leave England for eighteen months, and he had yet 
 time to arouse a,nd to bear down opposition amongst 
 the gentry, whose submission to his authority he was 
 resolved to enforce. Sir David Fouhs, a Scotchman 
 who had received a large estate in Yorkshire from the 
 liberahty of James, was one of those who chafed against 
 the strong hand which held him down. He had lately 
 been compelled by Wentworth to pay a sum of money 
 which he owed to the Crown, but which he had long 
 retained in his own possession. Though he was him- 
 self a member of the Council of the North, he seized 
 every opportunity of opposing its President. Went- 
 worth's zeal in exacting the compositions for knight- 
 hood enabled Foulis to make common cause with the 
 gentlemen with whom that exaction was naturally un- 
 popular. He said that the people of Yorkshire ' did 
 adore the Lord Viscount Wentworth, and were so 
 timorous and fearful to offend his Lordship, that they 
 would undergo any charge rather than displease him ; ' 
 and that ' his Lordship was much respected in Yorkshire, 
 but at Court he was no more respected than an ordinary 
 
 ' Ferdinando Fairfax to Lord Fairfax, Oct. 8. Fairfax Cotretpond- 
 ence, ii. 237. Sir G. RadcliiFe gives the birtli of tke child and the death 
 of the mother as both occurring in October, and as the mother died be- 
 fore the 8th, and was on her feet when the accident occurred, the order 
 of events follows as given above, though they oi-e nowhere clearly stated. 
 
WENTWORTH AND FOULIS. 279 
 
 man ; ' and that, as soon as his back was turned for chap. 
 
 Ireland, his place of Presidentship of the Council would ■ ^ — • 
 
 be bestowed on another man. Then came a direct ^ •^^" 
 attack upon Wentworth's personal honesty. Fouhs 
 publicly asserted that he had put the knighthood fines 
 into his own pocket. A few days later he took a fresh 
 opportunity of aspersing the character of the President. 
 Sir Thomas Layton, the Sheriff of Yorkshire, received 
 orders from the Exchequer to levy the fine on the 
 goods of a Mr. Wyville, who had already compounded 
 with Wentworth. Wentworth interfered on Wyville's 
 behalf. He sent for the sherifi" to come to him at York. 
 Foulis urged him to refuse obedience. The President's 
 Court, he argued, had no authority over him in the 
 execution of his ofiice. It owed its authority simply 
 to the King's Commission. A mere Justice of the 
 Peace held office under an Act of Parliament.^ 
 
 These words touched the weak point in Went- TheCoun- 
 worth's position. The Court over which he presided North 
 was not established by any law. It had come into Pariiamen- 
 being by an act of prerogative in the days of Henry VHI. tS^^' 
 after the suppression of the Pilgrimage of Grace. Its 
 powers had increased gradually till there was httle 
 room left for the ordinary execution of the law by its 
 side. 
 
 It may be that such a tribunal was needed in the LordEure's 
 
 . ... case. 
 
 North. A case occurred in Yorkshire in this very year 
 which seems to carry us back to the Norfolk of the days 
 in which the Paston Letters were written. Lord Eure, 
 the possessor of an ancient barony, had fallen into 
 debt, and had executed a deed surrendering his estate jai^. 
 to feofiees in order that they might be sold for the 
 benefit of his creditors. When the feofiees, fortified by 
 an order firom the Court of Chancery, attempted to 
 
 ' Jtushw., ii. 215. 
 
28o 
 
 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAP. 
 TI. 
 
 1632. 
 
 Aug. 
 Went- 
 worth's 
 speech at 
 York. 
 
 Oct. 
 Foulis 
 offers to 
 do service 
 to the 
 King. 
 
 take possession of the family mansion at Malton, he 
 peremptorily refused them admission, garrisoned the 
 house, and stood a siege. Layton, who was still sheriff, 
 discovered that he was absolutely helpless without 
 Wentworth's aid. Wentworth at once ordered cannon 
 from Scarborough Castle to be brought up. It was 
 not till a breach was made by these guns that Lord Eure 
 submitted to the authority of the law.^ 
 
 In consequence of the language used by Fouhs, 
 Wentworth had taken occasion at the Summer Assizes 
 to point out that the King's demand from those who 
 willingly paid a composition for omitting to take up 
 their knighthood was only a third or a quarter of the sum 
 which would be exacted as a fine by the Court of Exche- 
 quer from those who refused to compound. The little 
 finger of the law was heavier than the loins of the King.^ 
 
 Foulis was left to feel the weight of the loins of the 
 IQng. He tried to currj favour with Charles by offering 
 to bring the gentry of the county to a better temper. He 
 was ready, he said, ' to lead and persuade others.' He 
 would ' by his example much better the King's service,' 
 whereas much harm might be done ' by his disgrace.' 
 Wentworth's indignation blazed up at once. With a 
 
 ' Dominus Arundel c. Dominus Eure. Chancei-y Order Books. 
 Wentwortli and the OouncU of the North to the Privy Council, Oct. 14. 
 Mason's affidavit, Nov. 20. S. P. Bom. ccxxiv. 28 ; ccxxv. 47. 
 
 ' Rushw., viii. 150. This is Wentworth's account of the matter. 
 It is corrohorated by other evidence, and this is exactly what^ he might 
 have been expected to say under the circumstances. At his trial, he was 
 charged with having said that the little finger of the King was heavier 
 than the loins of the law. On the whole, I rather think he made use of 
 both expressions at different times, the latter perhaps on some occMion 
 when obedience had been refused on the ground that some demand was 
 not wan-anted by law. The theory of a repetition of words is not usually 
 a desirable one to adopt, but Eoulis's evidence at the trial reads as if it 
 referred to a different occasion from these Assizes, and Wentworth was 
 so fond of Scriptural expressions that he might easily have repeated this 
 
OFFER OF FOULIS REJECTED. 28 1 
 
 grand impetuosity he swept away the pretensions of chap. 
 any single man to offer terms to his Sovereign. " Lord," 
 
 he wrote scornfully to Carlisle, "with ^Esop's fly upon ^^^'' 
 the axletree of the wheel, what a dust he makes ! Went- 
 Where are those he can lead or persuade ? . . . Surely protests, 
 if he leave it to be considered by the best affected, 
 their verdict will be, his Majesty shall contribute more 
 to his own authority by making him an example of 
 his justice than can possibly be gained by taking him 
 in again. But this is an arrogance grown frequent 
 now-a-days which I cannot endure. Every ordinary 
 man must put himself in balance with the Eang, as if it 
 were a measuring cast betwixt them who were like to 
 prove the greater losers upon the parting. Let me cast 
 then this grain of truth in, and it shall turn the scale. 
 Silly wretches ! Let us not deceive ourselves. The 
 King's service cannot suffer by the disgrace of him, and 
 me, and forty more such. The ground whereupon / 
 government stands will not so easily be washed away ; 
 so as the sooner we unfool ourselves of this error, the 
 sooner we shall learn to know ourselves, and shake off 
 that self-pride which hath to our own esteem repre- 
 sented us much bigger, more considerable, than mdeed 
 there is cause for." ^ 
 
 The best, the highest side of Wentworth's character vvent- 
 stands here revealed. It had been the crowning evil of ^J^ggje 
 the days of anarchy which preceded the establishment tf*'?!' 
 of the Tudor Monarchy, that wealth and high position ^"J^it^g"^ 
 had enabled men to bargain with the King and to position, 
 grind the faces of the poor by terrifying or influencing 
 juries. It was one day to be the evil attendant upon 
 the victory of the Parhamentary system, that the terri- 
 torial aristocracy were to make use of the forms of the 
 
 ' Wentworth to Carlisle, Oct. 24. Printed in the Preffice to Bruce's 
 of S. P. Dom., 1631-33. 
 
282 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 constitution to fill their own pockets at the expense of 
 the nation, and to heap honours and rewards upon 
 their own heads. Against such a degradation of the 
 functions of the State, Wentworth struggled with all his 
 might. The depository of the national authority, he 
 held, must be above all persons and all parties, that he 
 might dispense justice to all alike. Unhappily for the 
 great cause which Wentworth represented, Charles's 
 course was running counter to those national instincts 
 upon which alone national authority can be securely 
 based. It is not on Charles alone that the blame of 
 failure must be laid. Wentworth himself had too little 
 sympathy with the religious and pohtical feelings of the 
 prosperous and orderly South to be entitled to speak in 
 the name of the whole of England, or to comprehend 
 what a basis of order and authority might be gained by 
 the admission that the complaints which had found so 
 revolutionary an expression in the last Parhament were 
 not without serious foundation. 
 1633. Foulis was left to his fate. In the following year 
 
 upon""^ a sentence in the Star Chamber stripped him of the 
 FoiUis. office which he occupied under the Crown, fined him 
 500/., and imprisoned him in the Fleet. He remained 
 in confinement tUl the Long Parliament came to set 
 him free. Wentworth himself had urged the jnembers 
 of the Coiu-t to show no mercy in a case in which his 
 own personal quarrel perhaps seemed to him to be 
 merged in the public interest. 
 1632. In addition to his conflict with the country gentle- 
 
 Thorats^'' nien, Wentworth had to do battle with the Courts of 
 Law at Westminster, which naturally regarded the 
 special jurisdiction of the Council of the North with a 
 jealous eye. On one case which arose he felt himself 
 on particularly strong ground. Sir Thomas Gower in- 
 sulted the King's Attorney in open Court and then 
 
 Gower. 
 
THE COUNCIL OF THE NORTH. 283 
 
 took refuge in London. Wentworth's officers met him chap. 
 in Holborn, and attempted in vain to arrest him. --^ — ■ 
 The Lord President appealed to the Privy Council. ^^^^■ 
 " Upon these oppositions," he wrote, "and others of 
 like nature, all rests are up, and the issue joined, as 
 we conceive. A provincial Court at York, or none ? 
 It is surely the state of the question, the very mark 
 they shoot at; all eyes are at gaze there, and every 
 ear hstening here what becomes of it: so as it 
 behoves us to attend it, and clearly to acknowledge it 
 before your Lordships, that unless this Court have in 
 itself coercive power, after it be possessed justly and 
 fairly of a cause, to compel the parties to an answer 
 and to obey the final decrees thereof, all the motions 
 of it beconie bruta fulmina, fruitless to the people, useless 
 to the King, and ourselves altogether unable to govern 
 and contain within the bounds of sobriety a people 
 sometimes so stormy as live under it, which partly 
 appeared in the late business of Malton, where, we dare 
 without vanity speak it, had it not been for the httle 
 power and credit that is yet left us here, the injunction 
 of the Chancery itself had been as ill obeyed, as little 
 respected, as either our commission or sergeant in 
 Holborn." 
 
 Other questions than that of jurisdiction arose Prohi- 
 between the Council of the North and the Courts of 
 Westminster. Persons worsted in their suits appealed 
 to the Judges of the King's Bench, who welcomed their 
 complaints and issued prohibitions to stop the execu- 
 tion of their sentences. Wentworth utterly refused to 
 pay any attention to these prohibitions. 'As for the 
 question of jurisdiction of Courts,' he wrote, ' which 
 indeed httle concerns the subject, much more the 
 Crown, and which it may restrain or enlarge from time 
 to time as shall in his Majesty's wisdom seem best for 
 
284 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAP, the good government of his people and dominions,' 
 
 •— --^ — ' he was well able to give satisfaction to the Council.^ 
 
 Dec' Wentworth was clearly right in holding that it was 
 
 Juris- not fit to leave such matters to be settled by the Judges 
 
 quesKon at Westmmster. Whether exceptional iurisdictious 
 
 for the su- - ^ . . - . 
 
 preme Were to 06 Created or mamtained was a question to be 
 power. determined on broad political grounds rather than upon 
 legal arguments. It was one moreover upon which 
 the Judges had clearly their own interests at stake, 
 whilst it might very well happen that the interests of 
 the community lay on the other side. At the present 
 day new Courts are created and their functions defined, 
 not by the Judges, but by Parliament, acting as the 
 supreme pohtical authority of the nation. 
 Where was rpj^^ ^^^^ objection to Wcntworth's course lay 
 ofth^r elsewhere. "Was the King, acting alone, the proper 
 power ? depository of that power ? In other words, was he 
 capable of acting in the real interests of the community, 
 or not ? Did he maintain the claims of the Council of 
 the North as an exceptional jurisdiction, suitable to 
 exceptional circumstances, or was his support of it 
 merely a part of an impatience of control, of a desire 
 to cast himself loose from the necessity of deferring to 
 the ideas and opinions of his subjects. If the latter 
 v?as the case, the Court at York would stand or fall 
 with the good or ill success of Charles's aims in the 
 more populous and wealthy parts of the kingdom. 
 1633- For the moment, Wentworth secured his wish. In 
 
 Went-' January 1633 he left the North to prepare for his 
 leaves the rcmoval to Ireland. He retained his title of Lord 
 President, and continued to exercise a general super- 
 vision over the afiairs of the North. The particular 
 question at issue was decided in his favour. Gower 
 
 ^ Wentworth and the Council of the North to the Privy Council, 
 Deo. I. S. P. Dom. ccxxvi. 1. 
 
GENERAL GOVERNMENT OF CHAELES. 285 
 
 was sent back to York, and expiated his offence by an chap. 
 imprisonment of eighteen months. In March a new set ^-^ — - 
 of instructions was issued to the Council of the North, ,/ ?^" 
 
 • • • 1 • 1 n -I r- March 21. 
 
 giving it the widest and most undefined authority, more The new 
 especially by clothing it with all the powers of the Court tions. 
 of Star Chamber at Whitehall.^ Wentworth after- 
 wards declared that these powers were afiirmed to be 
 in accordance with the law by the legal advisers of the 
 Crown. But it was evident that they would provoke 
 discussion and resistance if ever the existence of the 
 great parent Court of Star Chamber at Westminster 
 were seriously attacked. 
 
 In the North, Wentworth had far more to do with 1632. 
 the opposition of the country gentlemen than with the theGovem- 
 opposition of the Puritans. In the South, the Govern- south" 
 ment found more resistance from the Puritans than 
 from the country gentlemen. The spirit of submission 
 to the King's authority was widely spread even 
 amongst those who shared the feelings of the Parlia- 
 mentary opposition. It is true that the system of expect- 
 ing men to assist in carrying out the orders of the Govern- 
 ment whilst no pains were taken to consult their wishes 
 or to conciliate their prejudices, was one which was 
 likely to break down if any strain were put upon it. 
 But as yet no strain had come, and it seemed as if 
 Charles had no danger to fear in this direction. 
 
 An illustration of the bearing of the Government June 20. 
 towards the gentry is to be found in a proclamation mation for 
 issued in the summer of 1632, directing all gentlemen uXI. 
 to leave London and to return to their houses in the 
 country.^ The Judges were expressly ordered by the j^ne 22. 
 Lord Keeper to enforce obedience to it at the Assizes. 
 The King, said Coventry, had power by ancient prece- 
 dents to send the gentlemen to their homes. They 
 
 ' Instructions, March 21. Rymer, xix. 410. '' Proclamation. Ibid, xix, 374. 
 
286 
 
 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND REIJGION. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 yi. 
 1632. 
 
 June 22. 
 
 Nov. 
 Sentence 
 on Palmer. 
 
 1631. 
 Limits of 
 Laud's in- 
 fluence. 
 
 formed the principal part of the county organisation. 
 In their absence there would be no one to preside over 
 musters or suppress rebeUions, no one to perform the 
 duties of the Justices of the Peace, or to supply a higher 
 element in the composition of juries. In London they 
 only wasted their time. " Themselves," said the Lord 
 Keeper, " go from ordinaries to didng-houses, and from 
 thence to play-houses. Their wives dress themselves 
 in the morning, visit in the afternoon and perhaps 
 make a journey to Hyde Park, and so home again." 
 As the exhortations of the Judges did not produce the 
 desired effect, a Mr. Palmer, who had remained in 
 London during the summer, was brought before the 
 Star Chamber. He pleaded in vain that his house in 
 the country had been burnt down, and that he had 
 nowhere to live except in London. A fine of i,oooZ. 
 was the only answer vouchsafed to his reasoning.^ 
 
 If the feeling of the country gentlemen was one of 
 dissatisfaction, that of the Puritan clergy was far more 
 bitter wherever the hand of Laud reached. As yet, 
 indeed, it did not reach very far. In his own diocese 
 and in the University of Oxford he was supreme. To 
 the rest of England he was able to issue mandates in 
 the King's name, but he could not personally see to their 
 execution, nor could he engage other Bishops to be 
 very zealous in carrying his theories into practice. 
 Practically, therefore, the Puritan was safe, excepting 
 in certain localities. But those localities, the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford, the City of London, with the counties of 
 Middlesex and Essex, were precisely those where Puri- 
 tanism was exceptionally strong, and where a defeat 
 would be most ruinous to it. 
 
 If the settlement at which Charles aimed by 
 the issue of his Declaration, had been less onesided 
 
 ' D'Ewes. Autobiography, ii. 78. 
 
CHURCH CEREMONIES. 287 
 
 than it was in reality, it could not have secured peace ^^f^- 
 for more than a very short time. Even if the contend- 
 
 ing parties had agreed to forget all about predestination, 
 some other question would of necessity have arisen 
 about which they would contend as bitterly. When 
 men are divided by opposing tendencies of thought, it 
 matters little what is the actual point round which a 
 storm of discussion gathers. Such a discussion is not 
 to be judged worthy or unworthy according to the sub- 
 ject by which it is provoked, but according to the temper 
 in which it is conducted, and the intellectual and moral 
 problems which are raised by it. There have been times 
 when opposite views of the deepest problems of human 
 nature have been called out by a dispute about the 
 colour of a vestment, as there have been times when 
 questions of infinite importance to mankind have been 
 approached by men of the meanest intellects and the 
 most wrangling temper. 
 
 In his anxiety to carry out the directions of the Bowing in 
 Church to the letter, Laud soon gave positive offence 
 even to those of the Puritan clergy who had submitted 
 with more or less wiUingness to the King's Declaration. 
 The Canons of 1604 had enjoined upon congregations 
 the duty of expressing reverence by bowing their heads 
 whenever the name of Jesus was uttered. Laud, how- 
 ever, went further than this. He held it right that 
 every one who entered a church should bow in like 
 manner, not, as he explained it, to the altar, but 
 towards the altar, as to the throne of the invisible 
 King in whose house he was. No general law enjoined 
 this practice, but it was inculcated by the special 
 statutes of certain churches, and Laud was able to com- 
 mend it by exhortation and example.^ 
 
 1 This was the line taken by him at the censure of Bastwick, Burton, 
 and Prynne in 1637. "The Government," he then said, "is so moderate 
 
I63I. 
 
 Jan. 
 
 dents of 
 conse- 
 cration. 
 
 288 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAP. In January 1631 attention was publicly called to 
 
 Laud's views on the subject by his proceedings at the 
 church of St. Catherine Oree, in the City of London. 
 Oration of ■'■*' ^^*^ heeu. lately rebuilt by the liberality of the 
 churches, parishioners. The Church of England had provided no 
 form for the consecration of churches. In Elizabeth's 
 time there had been but little church building,^ and 
 when the practice again came into favour, individual 
 Bishops seem either to have omitted the ceremony 
 altogether, or to have introduced a form of their own 
 Prece- dcvisiug. In J 6 1 6 Abbot set apart by a special form of 
 prayer a chapel at Dulwich.^ In 1620 Andrewes con- 
 secrated another chapel near Southampton after a more 
 ornate form of his own composition. With Laud, the 
 authority of Andrewes was conclusive. He had re- 
 cently been engaged, with the assistance of Buckeridge, 
 in issuing to the world a collected edition of Andrewes' 
 sermons, and his whole life was an effort to carry out 
 in a hard practical way the ideas which cast a gleam of 
 
 .... that no man ia constrained, no man queationed, only religioualy 
 called upon, Vmite adoremus, Come, let ua woraMp." Works, i. 56. This 
 would not, however, apply to officials of a church in which the practice 
 was enjoined by the statutea. 
 
 " " Wherein the first thing that moveth them thus to cast up theii 
 poison, are certain solemnities usual at the first erection of churches. 
 Now, although the same should he blameworthy, yet this age, thanks be 
 to God, hath reasonably well forborne to incur the danger of any such 
 blame. It cannot be laid to many men's charge at this day liying, either 
 that they have been so curious as to trouble bishops with placing the first 
 atone in the churchea they built, or ao scrupulous as, after the erection of 
 them, to make any great ado for their dedication. In which kind not- 
 withstanding as we do neither allow unmeet, nor purpose the stiff defence 
 of any unnecessary custom heretofore received ; ao we know no reason 
 wherefore churches would be the worse, if at the first erecting of them, at 
 the making of them public, at the time when they are delivered, as it were, 
 in God's own posseaaion, and when the use whereunto they shall ever 
 serve is established, ceremonies tit to betoken such intents and to ac- 
 company such actions be used, as in the preaent times they have been." 
 Hooker, Hod, Pol. Book v. xii, i. 
 
 ' Wilkins, Cone. iv. 455. 
 
LAUD AT ST. CATHEEINE CREE. 289 
 
 poetry over the unworldly Bishop. On January 16, chap. 
 accompanied by his official attendants, he appeared in - — ^ — • 
 full canonicals in Leadenhall Street before the church ^^'" 
 of St. Catherine Cree, which had just been rebuilt. He .Laud con- 
 adopted the form which had been prepared by An- the 
 drewes. After two Psalms had been sung by all who st. Cathe- 
 chose to join in them, he entered the church, and kneel- 
 ing in the doorway, offered the building to be set apart 
 to the worship of God. Passing from one end to the 
 other he pronounced the church with all its distinctive 
 parts to be consecrated.-^ Then followed other prayers 
 and the Communion Service, Laud doubtless bowing 
 low ' towards the altar ' on the appropriate occasions. 
 
 No contemporary account has reached us to tell 
 what impression was made upon the bystanders. Eight 
 years before an almost similar ceremony had taken 
 place when Bishop Montaigne consecrated the neigh- 
 bouring parish church of St. James' in Aldgate, in the 
 presence of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen.^ Arch- 
 
 ' The general consecration was as follows : — " God the Father, God 
 the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, accept, sanctify, and bless this place 
 to the end whereunto, according to His own ordinance, we have 
 ordained it, to he a sanctuary to the Most High, and a church for the 
 living God. The Lord with His favoiu- ever mercifully behold it, and so 
 send upon it His spiritual benediction and grace, that it may be the house 
 of God to Him and the gate of heaven to lis." The consecration of the 
 Oommunion-table was, " Grant us that all they that shall at any time 
 partake at this table the highest blessing of all. Thy Holy Communion, 
 may be fulfilled with Thy grace and heavenly benediction, and may, to 
 their great and endless comfort, obtain remission of their sins, and all 
 other benefits of Thy passion." Andrewes. Miwyr Works, 316. 
 
 ^ A sketch of the ceremony is preserved in StiTpe's edition of Stow's 
 Swvey of London, Book ii. 60. One point objected to in Laud is to be 
 found here. The Lord Mayor and Aldermen presented the keys of the 
 church to the Bishop, praying him to proceed to consecration, ' which 
 the Bishop receiving, he unlocked and opened the doors which before 
 were locked, and entered with the Archbishop, etc., and took possession.' 
 Then 'in the very threshold at his entrance' he 'blessed the place.' 
 Then 'going a little forward, with bended knees, and handa towards the 
 VOL. I. U 
 
290 
 
 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 VI. 
 
 1631. 
 
 Laud's 
 buildings 
 at St. 
 John's. 
 
 bishop Abbot himself had taken part in the service, 
 and there is no rumour of any objection being made by 
 any one. A London crowd in 1631, however, was 
 • not in quite the same temper as a London crowd in 
 1623, and it may be that if it were now possible to ex- 
 amine some of those who were present at St. Catherine 
 Cree, better evidence than that of the two witnesses 
 who drew so largely on their imagination before the 
 Long Parliament might be found to shew that some 
 feeling of disapprobation was evinced.^ 
 
 In all matters connected with the construction and 
 repair of ecclesiastical buildings Laud is to be seen at his 
 best. Li our time he would have been in his place as 
 
 East, lifted up to heaven, he made a devout prayer, therehy devoting, 
 dedicating the place from that day for ever unto God.' 
 
 ' Prynne (^Cant. Doom, 113) merely gives the story as it was told to 
 the Long Parliament, and Rushworth (ii. yy), whom most modem writers 
 have followed like sheep, does the same. When it is remembered that 
 they both adopted the forged entry in Laud's diary about Leighton's 
 punishment, it is plain that they add nothing to the credit of the wit- 
 nesses. Laud (TForks, iv. 247) not only denied the statements made, but 
 asserted that he had used Bishop Andrewes' form. It is intelligible 
 that the Long Parliament should have neglected to send for a copy of 
 that form, but modem historians might have been expected to take the 
 trouble of looking at it. No part of the charge has been so often re- 
 peated as that which relates to Laud's mode of consecrating the sacra- 
 ment. "As he approached the Communion-table," we are told, "he 
 made many several lowly bowings, and coming up to the side of the 
 table, where the bread and wine were covered, he bowed seven times, and 
 then after the reading of many prayers, he came near the bread, and 
 gently lifted up the comer of the napkin wherein the bread was laid, and 
 when he beheld the bread he laid it down again, flew back a step or two, 
 bowed three several times towards it, then he drew near again and 
 opened the napkin and bowed as before," etc. Laud did not contradict 
 the statement in particulars, thinking perhaps that he had already said 
 enough to discredit the witnesses. But it is altogether incredible, and is 
 worthless except as an illustration of the sort of stuff that men were pre- 
 pared to believe about Laud twelve years afterwards. He was not given 
 to histrionics. His observance of formalities was of a more sober cast. 
 Besides, if he had done anything like this once, he would have been sure 
 to do it again, and Prynne would not have neglected to inform us of Ms 
 follies. 
 
COLLECTIONS FOR ST. PAUL'S. 29 1 
 
 the Dean of a Cathedral in need of restoration. His chap. 
 
 works at his own College of St. John's at Oxford were 
 forwarded with ungrudging but measured and business- ^ ^'' 
 hke liberality which have to this day kept his memory 
 green amongst a generation of students which has 
 drifted far from his principles in rehgion and politics. 
 No surveyor of works was a better judge of the execu- 
 tion of a contract or the correctness of an account 
 than the Bishop of London. To such a man the ruin- 
 ous condition of St. Paul's was an eyesore not to be 
 borne. He was scarcely settled in his See before he called 
 upon the King to carry out the plans for the restoration The re- 
 of the church which had been made and abandoned st. Paurs. 
 by his father. In 163 1 Charles visited the Cathedral 
 and appointed commissioners to gather money for the 
 repair of the fabric. The money of the citizens did 
 not flow in very freely. After two years only 5,400/. 
 had been collected.^ Laud, however, was not the man 
 to allow the undertaking to sleep. He brought his 
 own personal influence to bear upon the wealthy. He 
 caused the Privy Council to put in motion the whole 
 machinery of the Justices of the Peace to gather con- 
 tributions from every county in England. The clergy 
 were the special object of his appeals, and few liked 
 to risk their chances of promotion by refusing to carry 
 out his wishes.^ Something, however, must be allowed 
 for the growing zeal for the building and adornment of 
 churches, which was ordy encouraged by the jeers of 
 such Puritans as thought it seemly to speak of the grand 
 
 * Seylyn, 208. Jones, Cai-ter, and Cooke to the Commissioners, May 
 22, 1633. S. P. Dom. ccxxxix. 20. 
 
 ^ The existence of this motive is distinctly admitted by Heylyn. 
 " Some men," he says, " in hope of favour and preferment from him, others 
 to hold fair quarter with him, and not a few for fear of incurring his dis- 
 pleasure, contributing more largely to it than they had done otherwise, if 
 otherwise they had contributed at all." 
 
292 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAP, old fabric as ' a rotten relic,' and to argue that ' it was 
 
 • — r^ — more agreeable to the rules of piety to demolisli such 
 
 ^ ^'' old monuments of superstition and idolatry than to 
 
 keep them standing.' ^ 
 1632. Already preliminary steps had been taken. Houses 
 
 removed, built up agaiust the walls not only concealed the archi- 
 tectural proportions of the great Cathedral, but threw' 
 obstacles in the way of a searching investigation into 
 the causes of its decay. The houses had been raised, 
 if Laud is to be trusted, on land belonging to the 
 church in defiance of legal right. The Privy Council 
 therefore issued orders for their speedy demolition. 
 But they offered at the same time sufficient compensation 
 for their value. Some of the owners resisted the order. 
 But the Council stood firm, and before the end of 
 1632 the long nave stood exposed to view in all its 
 unrivalled proportions.^ 
 
 Complaints were afterwards made that the action 
 
 of the Council was a violation of the law. None of 
 
 the complainants, however, seem to have thought of 
 
 submitting their grievances at the time to a Court of 
 
 law, and indeed it would hardly have been prudent for a 
 
 private person to contest the King's authority in a case 
 
 so manifestly for the public advantage. In our own 
 
 day powers would easily be obtained from the legisla- 
 
 tiu-e to treat the owners of these houses precisely as 
 
 they were treated by Laud and the Privy Council. 
 
 1631. It was only occasionally that churches required 
 
 PuritTii consecration or repair. The practice of bowing to- 
 
 Ibou"^ wards the East gave daily annoyance to the Puritan. 
 
 bowing. ijij^g -jjg^ q£ Qq^ having a throne at all except in the 
 
 hearts of men was abominable to him, and it was still 
 
 ' Heylyn, 209. 
 
 ' Council Register, Oct. 28, 1 631. March 7, 16, May 9, Aug. 9, Aug. 
 24, 1632, Windebauk to the Kiug, Oct. 20, S. P. Dom. ccxxiv. 40. 
 
BOWING IN CHURCH. 293 
 
 worse to be told that that throne was an altar, a name chap. 
 which he directly associated with idolatry and super- 
 
 stition. Prynne, as usual, was at once in the thick ^^^^' 
 of the fight. His first antagonist was a certain Giles contro- 
 Widdowes, who had written in defence of the practice wein ^ 
 of bowing, and whom he scornfully attacked in a book wTddT^^s. 
 characteristically entitled Lame Giles his haltings. In 
 one place Widdowes argued that men ought to take off 
 their hats on entering a church, because it was ' the 
 place of God's presence, the chiefest place of His 
 honour amongst us, where He is worshipped with holy 
 worship ; where His ambassadors dehver His embas- 
 sage ; where His priests sacrifice their own and the 
 militant Church's prayers, and the Lord's Supper to 
 reconcile us to God, offended with our daily sins.' 
 ' Ergo,' rejoined Prynne, triumphantly, ' the priests of 
 the Church of England — especially those who erect, 
 adore, and cringe to altars — are sacrificing priests, and 
 the Lord's Supper a propitiatory sacrifice, sacrificed by 
 those priests for men's daily sins.'^ 
 
 Prynne was not allowed to have the last word. An ^^"^.f" 
 Oxford writer named Page commenced a reply. It interfe- 
 
 o i^ •> rence. 
 
 was evident that a controversy about gestures was 
 impending which was likely to prove as bitter as the 
 controversy about predestination. Abbot imagined 
 that he would be allowed, as Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 to say something on the matter, and that the principle 
 of abstinence from disputation which had been used 
 against his own side would hold good against the other. 
 " Good Mr. Page," wrote Abbot's secretary, " my Lord 
 of Canterbury is informed that you are pubhshing a 
 treatise touching the question of bowing at the name of 
 Jesus, an argument wherein Mr. Widdowes foolishly, 
 
 1 Widdowes, The lawless, hnedess, schismatical Pwritan, 33. Prynne, 
 Lame Giles his haltings, 34. 
 
294 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAP, and Mr. Prynne scurrilously, have already, to the scandal 
 ■ — p — ■ of the Church, exercised their pens." To keep this 
 May 3^. ^uestion on foot would be to foment ' bitterness and 
 intestine contestations.' If Page had not been a mere 
 theorist, living in a cell of his own, he would never 
 have touched a subject 'wherein the governors and 
 chief pilots of the Church discern more harm and 
 tempest to the Church than ' it was possible that one 
 who was ' unacquainted with ecclesiastical estate and 
 the well-ordering of it ' could ' anyway attain unto.' 
 LaiX"' Abbot forgot that he had to reckon with Laud, 
 
 ^re^ea aud that Laud had the King at his back. The Uni- 
 versity of Oxford had power to license books for the 
 press whether the Archbishop approved of them or 
 not ; and at that University Laud was now supreme. 
 Page was therefore encouraged to continue his work. 
 His Majesty, wrote Laud, was unwUling that Prynne's 
 ignorant writings should be left unanswered.^ 
 Part"'^" '^^^ encouragement to carry on the controversy 
 
 feeling "vsras likely to be more bitterly felt, as Laud was at the 
 
 at Oxford. , *' „ . , . 
 
 very time engaged m enforcmg the King's Declaration 
 at Oxford with the utmost strictness. Party feeUng 
 was running high in the University. Preachers, not 
 content with asserting their own views on the forbidden 
 topic of predestination, proceeded to vilify their an- 
 tagonists as wantonly promulgating heretical opinions 
 for the sake of Court favour. The Vice Chancellor's 
 authority was openly set at naught, and he found no 
 support in Convocation, which was still predominantly 
 Aug 23. Calvinistic. Charles himself intervened, and summoned 
 interfered, the offenders before him at Woodstock. He ordered 
 the preachers whose sermons had been complained of 
 to be expelled from the University, and the proctors 
 
 ' Baker to Page, May 31. Laud to Smith, June 22. Lau(Ts Works, 
 V. 39. 
 
DOCTRINE AND CEREMONY. 295 
 
 who had failed tq call them to account to be deprived chap. 
 of their offices.^ - — ' — ■ 
 
 Silence on controverted points of doctrine com- „^ ?^' , 
 
 - Meaning of 
 
 bmed with encouragement to argue on one side the course 
 alone of ceremonial dispute was the arrangement fa- 
 voured by the Government. It is easy to see how 
 Charles and Laud came to approve of such a solution 
 of their difficulties. On the one hand, they regarded 
 speculative theology as a mere intrusion on religion, and 
 they had no confidence in the attainment of truth by 
 the hot conflict of thought with thought. On the 
 other hand, they were unable to understand that a cere- 
 mony which conveyed to their own minds an innocent 
 or pious impression might be associated in the minds of 
 others with thoughts which were neither pious nor 
 innocent. The result was none the less deplorable. 
 AU that had been gained by opposition to the doctrinal 
 intolerance of the Commons was thrown away. Under 
 the show of impartiality, and doubtless with the firm 
 conviction that impartiality had been actually attained, 
 Charles had deliberately assumed the position of a 
 partisan. Whatever vantage ground he possessed in 
 1629 was surrendered in 163 1. 
 
 Partial, however, as Laud's administration was, he Laud's 
 justified it to himself as an appeal to law against conformity. 
 caprice. On a subject the most difficult to confine 
 within legal restrictions, the most spiritual and unde- 
 finable of all objects of human thought, he appealed 
 simply to the strictest possible interpretation of the law 
 of the Church. Even when the Prayer-book had been 
 drawn up, and still more when the Canons had been 
 voted, the ecclesiastical legislature had been very far 
 from representing the currents of opinion which swept 
 over the ecclesiastical body. It was notorious that in 
 
 » Lau^s Works, v. 49-70. 
 
296 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAP. Laud's own day the contrast between the opinion of 
 
 Convocation and the opinion of the religious laity was 
 ^'" still more striking. It was no matter to Laud. It was 
 no part of his belief that law ought in any way to 
 conform itself to opinion. It was enough for him that 
 it existed. The Canons and the Common Prayer- 
 book were to be accepted by all the clergy. Those 
 who objected had no such resource as they have at the 
 present day. They could not pass from the church to 
 the chapel. They could not address their countrymen on 
 religious subjects even in private houses. They must 
 conform to the least tittle, or abandon their position as 
 teachers. 
 Laurtnnd fj;]jg utmost that can be said is that if Laud's 
 
 thePuntan 
 
 clergy. prcssurc was unremitting, it was not spiteful or violent. 
 " Concerning some ministers," wrote a Puritan clergy- 
 man who had complied with Laud's demands, "I am a 
 witness of your patient forbearing them, giving them 
 time again and again to consult thereabout with what 
 conformable ministers they themselves thought best." '■ 
 Others, however, complained bitterly at the sudden 
 1632. tightening of the string. " It is no easy matter," wrote 
 the despairing Vicar of Braintree, " to reduce a nume- 
 rous congregation into order that hath been disorderly 
 this fifty years, and that for these seven years last past 
 hath been encouraged in that way by all the refractory 
 ministers of that country. . . If I had suddenly and has- 
 tily fallen upon the strict practice of conformity, I had 
 undone myself and broken the town to pieces. For 
 upon the first notice of alteration many were resolving 
 to go to New England, others to remove elsewhere, by 
 whose departure the burden of the poor and charges of 
 the town had grown insupportable to those who should 
 have staid behind. By my moderate and slow pro- 
 
 ' Baker to Laud, Oct. 19. S. P. Dom. ccii. 3, 
 
 Jan. 
 
EKFORCEMENT OF CONFORMITY. 297 
 
 ceeding I have made stay of some, and do hope to settle chap 
 their judgment and abode with us, when the rest that -^ — • 
 are inexorable are shipped and gone."^ ^^•5^" 
 
 Laud, in short, was a lawyer in a rochet, and that Laud's 
 not a lawyer of the highest sort. He could understand legality. 
 the necessity of conducting life in accordance with fixed 
 rules. He could not understand that all existing rules 
 were but the product of fallible human intelligence 
 perpetually needing correction, perpetually halting 
 after the infinite life and diversity of nature. 
 
 Above all, the ill-feeling which his proceedings May6._ 
 aroused was unintelligible to Laud. He could not sermon a' 
 endure to be misunderstood, or perceive that it was in bridge. 
 the nature of things that his own misrepresentations of 
 others should be returned in .kind. One of those who 
 paid the penalty for his too vivid indignation was 
 Nathaniel Bernard. He was not a man of either 
 reticence or prudence. Three years before he had 
 startled his congregation by praying, " Lord, open 
 the eyes of the Queen's Majesty, that she may see Jesus 
 Christ, whom she hath pierced with her infidehty, 
 superstition, and idolatry." He now, in preaching at 
 Cambridge, attacked those who went about to deprive 
 the nation of God's ordinances for his public worship ; 
 " whereby," he added, " we may learn what to account 
 of those amongst ourselves — if any such be,- which is 
 better known to you than me — who endeavour to quench 
 the light and abate the glory of Israel by bringing in 
 their Pelagian errors into the doctrine of our Church 
 established by law, and the superstitions of the Church 
 of Eome into our worship of God ; as high altars, 
 crucifixes, and bowing to them, that is, in plain Eng- 
 lish, worshipping them, whereby they symbolise with 
 the Church of Eome very shamefully, tq the irre- 
 
 1 Collins to Duck, Jan. iS, 1632. S. P. Bom. cox. 41. 
 
298 DIVEKGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 mission. 
 
 Matri- 
 monial 
 cases. 
 
 VI. ■ parable shipwreck of many souls who split upon the 
 
 • ■ rnrlr "l 
 
 1632. ^"*^^- 
 
 1631. Bernard was fined and imprisoned by the High 
 
 Com- ^^^ Commission. Of that Court Laud was the ruling 
 spirit. Yet it must not be forgotten that Abbot was 
 constantly in attendance, and was almost as energetic 
 as Laud in his enforcement of conformity. In the only 
 case affecting ceremonial in the records which have 
 been preserved, and which reach from October 1631 
 to June 1632,2 Abbot declared his opinion to be 
 strongly against the right of certain parishes in London 
 to place seats above the Communion-table. In ques- 
 moni'ai tious relating to marriage the Court struggled, against 
 every kind of opposition, to uphold the standard of a 
 AUngton's Mgh morality. The case of Sir Giles AHngton, who 
 
 case. . , , . . D ' 
 
 married his niece, was doubtless exceptional. But 
 it needed all Laud's firmness to put an end to the 
 scandal. Ahngton appealed to the Court of Common 
 Pleas, and the Judges of that Court issued a prohi- 
 May. bition to stay proceedings. The High Commissioners 
 set the interference at naught. " If this prohibition," 
 said Laud at the Council table, " had taken place, I 
 hope my Lord's Grace of Canterbury would have ex- 
 communicated throughout his province all the Judges 
 who should have had a hand therein. For mine own 
 part, I will assure you, if he would not, I would have 
 done it in my diocese, and myself in person denounced 
 it both in Paul's church and other churches of the 
 same against the authors of so enormous a scandal to 
 our Church and rehgion." In clerical circles the 
 Bishop's firmness gave the highest satisfaction. " I 
 know not," wrote Meade from Cambridge, " what you 
 will say in the country, but we say here it was spoken 
 
 ' Prynne, Canterbury/ 8 Doom, 363. 
 
 ^ Harl. MSS. 4130, and Rawlinson MSS. 128. 
 
THE HIGH COMMISSION. 299 
 
 like a Bishop indeed." ^ Alington's fine was 12,000?., 
 with a bond of 2,oooZ., to be forfeited if he ever lived 
 again with his niece as his wife. But the object of the 
 Court was to prevent rather than to punish offences, 
 and as soon as Alington made it understood that he 
 had forsaken his evil ways for ever, a pardon wiped 
 away the fine which had been imposed upon his 
 previous misconduct.^ 
 
 The Court shewed a special consideration for the 
 misfortunes of injured women. "The law of England," 
 as an advocate pleading before it said, " is a husband's 
 law," and many a time the Commissioners interfered 
 to enforce a separate maintenance for the victim of 
 infidelity or brutality. 
 
 Excepting so far as the suppression of lectureships ^^^^"^ 
 was concerned, there does not seem to have been any mianism. 
 thought at this time of treating ordinary Puritanism as 
 a crime. But anything approaching to Antinomianism 
 was put down with a strong hand. No man was to 
 preach the doctrine of free grace in such a way as to 
 lead his hearers to suppose that the commission of sin 
 was a matter of indifference. A fanatic named Eichard 
 Lane was imprisoned for saying that through Christ's 
 grace he was above sin and needed no repentance, and 
 clergymen who maintained the same opinion were de- 
 prived of their hvings. Private meetings for prayers or 
 preaching were strictly forbidden. " We took another J»°e- 
 conventicle of separatists," wrote Laud, merrily, " in New- The sepa- 
 ington Woods on Sunday last, in the very brake where Newington 
 the King's stag should have been lodged for his hunting ^°°^- 
 the next morning."^ Those who were captured were 
 sturdy representatives of a sturdy sect. Brought before 
 
 ' Meade to StutevUle, May 20. Ccmrt and Times, ii. 119. 
 ' Pardon to Alington, July 14. Sign Manuals, xiii. 32, 
 ' Laud to Windebank, June 13. S. P. Dom. ccxviii. 46. 
 
300 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the High Commission, they refused to take the ex- 
 officio oath to answer whatever questions might be pro- 
 posed to them. They said that they owed obedience to 
 none but to God and the King, and those who were 
 lawfully sent by him. " You do shew yourselves," said 
 Abbot, " the most ungrateful to God, and to his Majesty 
 the King, and to us the fathers of the Church. If you 
 have any knowledge of God, it hath come through or by 
 us or some of our predecessors. We have taken care, 
 under God, to give milk to the babes and younglings, 
 and strong meat to the men of understanding. You 
 have the word of God to feed you, the sacraments to 
 strengthen you, and we support you by prayer. For 
 all this what despite do you return us. You call us 
 abominable men, to be hated of all ; that we carry the 
 mark of the Beast, that we are his members. We do 
 bear this patiently, not because we have no law to right 
 us, but because of your obstinacy. But for the dis- 
 honouring of God and disobeying of the King, it is not 
 to be endured. When you have reading, preaching, 
 singing, teaching, you are your own ministers. The 
 blind lead the blind, whereas his Majesty is God's 
 Vicegerent in the Church. The Church is nothing with 
 you, and its ministers not to be regarded ; and you run 
 into woods as if you lived in persecution. Such an one 
 you make the King, to whom we are so much bound for 
 his great care for the truth to be preserved among us, and 
 you would have men believe that he is a tyrant ; this, be- 
 sides your wickedness, unthankfulness, and ungracious- 
 ness towards -us the fathers of the Church. Therefore 
 let these men be put, two and two, in separate prisons." 
 Difficulties The idea of tolerating separate worship had not 
 goyem""'' occurrcd to either party in the Church. Until that 
 idea had made its way, the difficulties of governing the 
 Church were almost insuper'able. If the rule of the law 
 were strictly enforced, many earnest and conscientious 
 
 ment. 
 
JSCCENTEIO CLERGYMEN. 30I 
 
 preachers would be put to silence. If it were laxly chap. 
 enforced, congregations would suffer from the mere 
 
 vagaries of eccentric clergymen. It is noticeable that ^ ^^' 
 the only important case of irregular teaching, not Anti- 
 nomian, which was brought before the Court during 
 the eight months over which the report extends, was 
 that of John Vicars, Vicar of Stamford, prosecuted, not ^f^^°^ 
 ,by the Bishop of the diocese, but by the inhabitants of 
 the parish, with the Town Clerk at their head. Vicars 
 had invited persons from other parishes to attend his 
 sermons in words not complimentary to their own 
 clergy. 'They must have a care,' he said, 'to hear 
 that minister that preached the word, and not those 
 that brought chaff.' His own preaching seemed very like 
 chaff to many of his congregation. He had a theory 
 that Christmas Day ought to be kept in September. He 
 had pecuhar views about married life, which he enun- 
 ciated with such plainness of speech as to give offence 
 even in that plain-spoken age. He held meetings of 
 preparation before the administration of the Communion, 
 and in his sermons he spoke scornfully, with irritating 
 emphasis, of those who abstained from attending them. 
 He told his congregation that it was a sin to receive 
 the Sacrament except upon the Sabbath-day. He had 
 warned them that persecution was at hand. A specimen 
 of the objurgations with which he ventured to interlard 
 the exhortation in the Communion Service was given. 
 " Thou son of the devil," he cried out to one who pre- 
 sented himself before him, " thou art damned and the 
 son of damnation. Get thee to the devil. Take hell 
 for thy portion." The High Commission does not 
 deserve blame for removing this man from his ministry 
 at Stamford. He was, however, subsequently rein- 
 stated upon promise of obedience.-^ ^g 
 On the whole, it would seem that as long as Abbot March 3 
 
 ' S. p. Dom. cdxi. fol. S, b. 
 
302 DIVEEGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND EELIGION. 
 
 CH A p. lived there was nothing done by the Court of High Oom- 
 • — 7. — • mission likely to give offence to moderate men of either 
 Ecciesi-" party. We must look elsewhere for the two great ec- 
 casra in clesiastical processes of the day, and even those processes 
 Chamber aimed not so much at the suppression of any particular 
 chequer, opi^ions as at the gathering up of all authority in the 
 Church into the hands of the central Government. 
 Laud was rather sharpening the instrument of power 
 than making use of it in any special direction. 
 1629. In 1 629 Henry Sherfield returned home to Salisbury 
 
 at'saHs- from the Parliament in which he had represented the 
 ^^' city, with no kindly feeling towards Bishops or cere- 
 monies. He was Eeeorder of the borough, and a 
 member of the vestry of the parish of St. Edmund's. 
 Like the great majority of the laity of his day, he had 
 no objection to bring against the services of the Church 
 as he had been in the habit of seeing them carried out, 
 that is to say, with some omissions. He had, however, 
 been accustomed to kneel at the reception of the Com- 
 munion, and had been active in punishing separatists. 
 Together with his fellow-vestrymen, he had a special 
 The paint- gricvance to complain of. The windows of the church 
 It St ""' were of painted glass, and one of them contained a 
 Edmunds, ^epj-gggj^^ation of the First Person of the Trinity as an 
 old man measuring the world with a pair of compasses, 
 and raising Eve out of the side of Adam. 
 
 It was easy to take offence at such a picture ; and 
 though to most persons entering the church it was 
 probably a mere piece of coloured glass and nothing 
 more, there were relics of old mediaeval superstitions 
 still floating about under the shadow of the most grace- 
 ful of English Cathedrals. One Emily Browne bowed 
 before the window as she passed to her seat. " I do it," 
 she repHed to Sherfield's remonstrance, " to my Lord 
 God." " Why," said the Puritan lawyer, "where is He ? " 
 
SHEEFIELD AND THE WINDOW AT SALISBURY. 303 
 
 " In the window, is He not ? " was the answer lie received, chap. 
 In February 1630 Sherfield brought the matter before ■ — ^ — 
 the vestry, and the vestry directed him to remove the ^^°" 
 painting and to replace it by plain white glass. They The vestry 
 did not, however, care to place on record the real MdLto 
 motive of their decision. " The said window," they ^"""^ 
 explained, " is somewhat decayed and broken, and is 
 very darksome, whereby such as sit near the same 
 cannot see to read in their books." ^ 
 
 The afiair was not long in reaching the ears of The Bishop 
 
 obiects. 
 
 Davenant, the Bishop of the See. He was regarded as 
 the theologian of the Calvinistic party in the Church, 
 and had been one of the representatives of the King of 
 England at the Synod of Dort. But he at once sent 
 for the churchwardens of St. Edmund's, and forbade 
 them to carry out the order of the vestry. 
 
 Accordingly no action was taken in the matter. ghJ^Pj^i-g 
 About Michaelmas, Sherfield was called by business to ™^ *^ 
 the neighbouring village of Steeple Aston. The Vicar -A^ston. 
 showed him over the church. The windows glowed 
 with ' painted images and pictures of saints.' Not far 
 off a knight lately dead had left in his will a sum of 
 money to put up windows representing ' works of 
 mercy.' The mischief, as Sherfield considered it, was 
 plainly spreading. " For my part," he said to the Vicar, 
 " I do not like these painted windows in churches. 
 They obscure the light, and may be a cause of much 
 superstition." He then spoke of the window at St. 
 Edmund's, and complained of the Bishop's interference.^ 
 
 Sherfield returned to Salisbury with his mind made oct. 
 up. He had personally received no official notice of the wS- ^ 
 the Bishop's inhibition, and he resolved to set it at ^°""^' 
 defiance. Obtaioing the key of the church from the 
 
 1 Order of the Vestry in Hoare's History of Wiltshire, vi. 371. 
 ' Webb's Deposition, Jan. .p 1631. S. P. Dom. clxxyiii. 58. 
 
304 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAP, sexton's wife, he went in alone, locked the door behind 
 
 ■ . — - him, climbed up on the back of a seat and dashed his 
 
 ^°' stick through the glass. In his vehemence he lost his 
 balance and fell to the ground. 
 1633- A Star Chamber prosecution was. the result. The 
 
 The rase' iu case was postponed till February 1633.^ It was Noy's 
 Chamber, first appearance as Attorney General in an important 
 State prosecution. He said something to show that 
 Sherfield had acted independently of the vestry's order. 
 But the main scope of his argument went to urge that 
 a vestry had no power to make such an order at aU, 
 It might make or mend seats, or place a reading-desk 
 in a more convenient position. But it was not in its 
 power to carry out a change which imphed a special 
 religious view without the Bishop's consent. If every 
 vestry could, deal at pleasure with the fabric of the 
 building in its charge, one church might be pulled 
 down because it was in the form of a cross, another 
 because it stood East and West. One man might hold 
 that to be idolatry which was not idolatry to another. 
 These differences of opinion would engender strife, and 
 strife would lead to sedition and insurrection. 
 The sen- The Star Chamber unanimously concurred in Noy's 
 
 view of the case. But there was much difference of 
 opinion as to the penalty to be inflicted. The lawyers, 
 Coventry, Heath, and Eichardson were on the side of 
 leniency. The Bishops, Laud and NeUe, were on the 
 side of harshness. The sentence was at last fixed at 
 500/. and a public acknowledgment of the fault. Sher- 
 field duly made the acknowledgment before the Bishop 
 of Sahsbury ; but he died not very long afterwards, 
 leaving the fine to be paid by his relatives.''^ 
 
 ' The date 1 63 J, whicli even Mr. Bruce accepted (S. P. Lorn. ccxi. 
 20) is clearly wrong. The fact that AVindehank took part in the sen- 
 tence is decisive against it. 
 
 " State Trials, iii, 519. Nicholas to E, Nicholas, written early in 
 
 tence. 
 
CASE OF THE "FEOFFEES. 305 
 
 On the general question Noy's argument was un- chap. 
 
 VI. 
 
 answerable. But the objections of the lawyers in the 
 Court went deeper than the lowering or raising of a ^^^ ^^' 
 fine by a few hundred pounds. It was well that the Bishops 
 
 1 • 1 • T 1 n 1 and the 
 
 authority to remove such a wmdow as had been re- lawyers, 
 moved by Sherfield should be in the hands of persons 
 of larger views than the members of a parish vestry 
 were likely to be. But it would be to little purpose to 
 assign this authority to the Bishops, if the Bishops were 
 to have as little sympathy as Laud had with the domi- 
 nant religious feelings of the country. Works of art 
 are worth preserving, but the religious sentiments of 
 the worshippers demand consideration also. It was 
 evident from the language employed by Coventry and 
 the Chief Justices, that though they objected to the way 
 in which Sherfield's act had been done, they shared his 
 dislike of the representation which had given him 
 offence. Laud was so occupied with his detestation of 
 the unruly behaviour of the man, that he had no room 
 for consideration whether his dishke was justifiable or 
 not. He treated the reasonings of the lawyers as an 
 assault upon the Episcopal order. He told them that 
 the authority of the Bishops was derived from the 
 authority of the King, and that if they attacked that, 
 they would fall as low as Bishops had once fallen. '' 1 ' 
 A few days afterwards, a case of stQl greater im- „, ^^s- 
 
 • ni T /^ CT11 T Thefeoffees 
 
 portance was decided by the Court of Exchequer. In for impro- 
 the beginning of the reign, four citizens of London, 
 four lawyers, and four Puritan clergymen of note, had 
 associated themselves for the purpose of doing some- 
 thing to remedy the evil of an impoverished clergy. 
 They estabUshed a fund by means of voluntary con- 
 tributions, from which they bought up impropriate 
 
 1634, not in 1632, as calendared. S. P. Bom. ccxiv. 92. Narrative, 
 March 15, 1633. S. P. Dom. cxxxiii. 89. 
 VOL. I. X 
 
306 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAP, tithes, and were thus enabled to mcrease the stipends of 
 
 ~ — 7 — ' ministers, lecturers, and schoolmasters. Naturally the 
 
 persons selected for their favours were Puritans, and 
 
 Laud had early marked the feoffees for impropriations, 
 
 as they were called, for destruction. 
 
 1630. The first to lift up his voice publicly against them 
 
 Heyiyn's was Peter Heylyn, Laud's chaplain and future biogra- 
 
 Bermon. 
 
 pher. In a sermon preached at Oxford, in 1 630, he 
 said that the enemy had been sowing tares. The 
 feoffees were ' chief patrons of the faction.' They pre- 
 ferred those who were ' serviceable to their dangerous 
 innovations.' In time they would ' have more prefer- 
 ments to bestow, and therefore more dependencies, than 
 all the prelates in the kingdom.' ^ 
 1632. Laud took the matter up warmly. At his instiga- 
 
 Noy s in- , ... - . *■ , . P 
 
 formation, tiou, Noy exhibited against the feoffees an information 
 in the Exchequer Chamber, a Court of Equity in which 
 the Lord Treasurer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 sat as judges by the side of the Barons. The charge 
 against the feoffees was that they had illegally consti- 
 tuted themselves into a body holding property without 
 the sanction of the King. An argument of more general 
 interest was that, instead of employing the money col- 
 lected in the permanent increase of endowments, they 
 had paid the favoured ministers or schoolmasters by 
 grants revocable at their own pleasure. They had 
 already diverted the tithes of Presteign in Eadnorshire 
 to provide lectures for a church in the City of London, 
 and the lecturers here and elsewhere would be obliged 
 to conform their teaching to the opinions of their pay- 
 ,1633- masters. The Court decreed the dissolution of the 
 
 The sen-' feoffment, and directed that all the patronage in their 
 hands should be placed at the King's disposal.^ 
 
 ■ Heylyn, Oypi-ianvs Anglicm, 199. 
 
 * Exchequm- Decrees, iv. 88. The decree is carefully deleted by pen- 
 
THE MODERATE PURITANS. 307 
 
 If it were possible to look upon this sentence apart chap. 
 
 VI. 
 
 from the circumstances of the time, it would not be 
 difficult to adduce arguments in its favour. Of all ^^^' 
 modes of supporting a clergy yet invented, their main- 
 tenance by a body of capitalists living for the most 
 part at a distance from the scene of their ministrations, 
 is, in all probability, the worst. But there are times 
 when the most irregular manifestations of life are 
 welcome, and in making his attack upon the feoffees 
 Laud was not merely assailing the special system under 
 which they acted, but was taking one more step in the 
 work of suppressing a form of belief which was deeply 
 rooted in the heart of the nation, and of setting aside 
 the life and energy of individual initiative in favour of 
 the cold hard pressure of official interference. The 
 action of Charles, of Laud, and of Wentworth, was all 
 of a piece. Instead of finding their work in the con- 
 trol and guidance of the irregular and often ignorant 
 action of individuals and corporations, they sought to 
 substitute their own ways of thought for those of the 
 generation in which they lived. They forgot that they 
 too were but fallible mortals, and that if they had 
 been possessed of infallibility itself, they would have 
 been the first to learn that the path to excellence lay 
 in the struggle and the aspiration, not in mute and un- 
 resisting obedience to the word of command. 
 
 The first two names on the list of the feoffees, those waiiam 
 of "William Gouge and Eichard Sibbes, offered sufficient '"^^' 
 guarantees that no destructive influences were here at 
 work. Gouge's sermons at Blackfriars were preached 
 in the presence of an overflowing auditory, of very 
 varying character. It was from his church that Leigh- 
 strokes by order of the Lords in Parliament, March 3, 1648. See Bilh 
 and Answers, Charles I. London and Middlesex, No, 533. The receipts 
 had heen 6,361^. 6s. id. 
 
3o8 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES OF POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAP, ton had stepped forth when he was seized by the pur- 
 
 • — ~. — - suivants. It was in his church that Lord Keeper 
 Coventry learned to do judgment and justice. Mer- 
 chants, lawyers, scholars, flocked to hear him. Stran- 
 gers did not consider their business in London to be 
 finished till they had heard the lecture at Blackfriars. 
 Gouge's life was a constant stream of benevolent labour. 
 Many a man in the next generation could bear witness 
 that the first seeds of godliness and virtue had been 
 sown in his mind by one of Gouge's sermons.^ He did 
 his best to satisfy Laud. He received his admonitions 
 on account of some irregularities in the administration 
 of the Communion with meekness. He detested, as he 
 declared, those who despised authorities. ^ 
 
 Richard Sibbcs was a still more notable personage in the 
 
 ranks of the moderate Puritans. The son of a Suffolk 
 wheelwright, he had been sent to a neighbouring school. 
 But his father grudged the expense, and fetched him 
 home. He would rather see him hammering at the 
 forge than conning his book. But the village clergy- 
 man and the village lawyer had their eyes upon the 
 hopeful boy, and sent him to Cambridge to be educated, 
 making up by the help of friends the scanty sum which 
 they had shamed the wheelwright into allowing him. 
 
 sibbes at Evcr slncc the days of Cartwright there had been a 
 
 strong Puritan element at Cambridge. Perkins had 
 handed on the torch of religious oratory to Bayne, and 
 Bayne was the spiritual father of Sibbes. He early 
 became a preacher in London. Then he returned to 
 Cambridge. In 1609 he was chosen College preacher 
 of St. John's, and in the next year he was invited to 
 i6io. undertake the weekly lecture at Trinity parish church. 
 
 leeture^ In his hands Trinity lecture became a great power in 
 
 ' Clarke, Lives often eminent divines, 95. 
 
 ' Gouge to Laud, Oct. 19, 163 1. S. P. Bom. ccii. 3. 
 
EICHARD SIBBES. 309 
 
 Cambridge. Men like Cotton, afterwards the light of chap 
 
 1610. 
 
 New England, and Goodwin, the noted Independent 
 divine, traced their spiritual generation to Sibbes. 
 " Young man," he said to Goodwin, " if you ever would 
 do good, you must preach the gospel and the free grace 
 of God in Christ Jesus." 
 
 The free grace of God, the lovingkindness of a 
 merciful Saviour looking down in pity upon each in- 
 dividual soul, and bidding it be of good cheer, was the 
 message which Sibbes delivered to men. In 161 5, for isis- 
 some unexplained reason, he was deprived of his lecture- 
 ship.-^ In 161 7, at Yelverton's suggestion, he was 1617. 
 chosen preacher to Gray's Inn. There, men bearing sh?p''of^'' 
 the first names in England, Bacon, it may be, himself ™^^ 
 dropping in amongst his old companions, flocked to hear 
 him. If the worth of a man is to be known by those 
 who combine to honour him, Sibbes needs no further 
 testimony. In 1626 he was chosen, at Usher's recom- _ 1626. 
 mendation. Provost of Trinity College, DubUn. Almost tumfto 
 at the same moment he was elected Master of Catherine *"" " ^*' 
 Hall. The choice between his old University and a 
 removal to Ireland was soon made, and he took his 
 place once more at Cambridge.'-^ By the statutes of 
 Gray's Inn his preachership was vacated by the accept- 
 ance of office elsewhere. But the lawyers would not 
 spare him, and he was allowed, by a special Act, to 
 hold both preferments at once. Cambridge submitted 
 once more to the charm of his fervid eloquence. St. 
 Mary's pulpit was thrown open to him. The church 
 was so thronged that the parishioners had to draw up 
 
 ' Mr. Grosart, from whose biograpky, prefixed to his edition of Sibbeis 
 Works, I extract these particulars, suggests that Laud had something to 
 do with it, — an evident anachronism. 
 
 2 Trinity College chose Joseph Meade to succeed him, and then upon 
 his refusal, William Bedell, afterwards the celebrated Bishop. Sir J. 
 Ware'e Diary. Q'owcombe Court MSS, 
 
310 DIVEEGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION, 
 
 CHAP, regulatioas to prevent their being thrust out of their 
 - — ^ — ■ seats by strangers. 
 _ ,, ]'. Such a man was sure to come into collision with the 
 
 Collects for 
 
 thePaia- Court. In 1 62 7, together with Gouge and two others, 
 
 tinate. . # ' o o ' 
 
 he issued a circular letter asking for alms for the exiles 
 from the Palatinate. The four were summoned to the 
 Star Chamber, and were reprimanded for this act of 
 invitation to charity, which seemed likely to be more 
 favourably received than the forced loan had been. 
 Becomis Thcu came the trouble about the impropriations. 
 
 Trinu"^ Though Laud and the King might look askance at 
 Sibbes's work, they could not charge him with being 
 a disturber of the peace. In November, Charles, 
 anxious perhaps to show that he had no personal grudge 
 against him, presented him to the Vicarage of Trinity, 
 and about the same time the grateful Master of Catherine 
 Hall contributed some glowing lines to a collection of 
 Latin verses written in honour of the birth of the King's 
 second son, the future James 11. 
 His letter Such words Were not mere flattery. Doubtless 
 
 there were many things in the Chm:ch which Sibbes 
 regarded with grave dissatisfaction. But he had no 
 more wish than Gouge to cast off the ties which bound 
 him to his countrymen. He dissuaded Goodwin from 
 separating himself from the Church of which he was a 
 minister in the most urgent terms. That Church, he 
 wrote, had all the marks of a true Church of Christ. 
 It had ' begot many spiritual children to the Lord.' As 
 for ceremonies, even if it were admitted that they were 
 evil, it would be a remedy worse than the disease to tear 
 the Church in sunder on their account. He begged 
 his correspondent to forsake his ' extravagant courses, 
 and submissively to render ' himself ' to the sacred 
 communion of this truly evangelical Church of England.' 
 That Church would never remain united unless its 
 
NICHOLAS FERRAK. 3II 
 
 rulers knew how to conciliate such moderate opponents, chap. 
 They would have to conciliate others too, whose minds ■ — r— ' 
 were cast in a very different mould. They would have ^^ ^ ^^' 
 
 •^ ^ Necessity 
 
 to find room by the side of Gouge a,nd Sibbes for ofcoucuia- 
 Nicholas Ferrar and George Herbert. 
 
 Nicholas Ferrar was the younger son of a wealthy '^■'"^'j^^d 
 London merchant. Having received the rite of con- Ferrar. 
 firmation when only five years old, as the custom then 
 was, the child slipped in unnoticed on a second occa- 
 sion, and was twice confirmed. " I did it," he said, 
 " because it was a good thing to have the Bishop's 
 prayers and blessing twice, and I have got it." He 
 was a studious youth, loving above all other books the 
 Bible, and Foxe's Martyrs. After a course of study 
 full of promise at Cambridge, he travelled on the Con- 
 tinent, where he attracted attention by the quickness 
 of his observation and the retentiveness of his memory. 
 At his return he found employment under the Virginia 
 Company, and drew upon himself tlie notice of the 
 leading statesmen of the day by the vigour and ability 
 with which he defended its charter when it was Defeat 
 called in question in 1623. Elected to Parliament in '^^J'"^- 
 the next year, he took part in the impeachment of Company. 
 Middlesex, who had roused his indignation by his attack 
 upon the Company. 
 
 It was Ferrar's last appearance in public life. 
 He took no pleasure in the political and religious 
 conflict which was evidently impending when Charles 
 ascended the throne, and the plague which devas- 
 tated London in that year gave the final impress p^^/jf^^^ 
 to a determination which had long been floating in his L^tie Gid- 
 mind. His widowed mother bought the manor of 
 Little Gidding, in Huntingdonshire. The once smiling 
 fields had been long ago converted into pasture land, 
 and the cottages of the tillers of the soil had disap- 
 
312 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 ^vt^' peared. A single shepherd's hut contained all the 
 '~77T7~' inhabitants of the estate. The manor house was in 
 
 1020. 
 
 ruins. The church was used as a hay-barn and a pig- 
 sty. Here mother and son met after a long separation, 
 rarstaice The youug man invited his aged parent to take the 
 rest which she needed in the house, ruined as it was. 
 She refused to follow him. First, she said, she must 
 give thanks in the house of God for his preservation 
 from the plague during his stay in London. The 
 church was full of hay. She pushed her way in as far 
 as she could, knelt down and prayed with many tears. 
 She would take no rest till all tlie available labourers 
 had been summoned to clear the building. 
 The Litfle As soou as the church was cleared, the old lady 
 
 community, invitcd all her children and grandchildren to share 
 her home. Nicholas was ordained deacon by Laud. 
 Preferment in the Church was at once placed at his 
 disposal ; but he had made up his mind to live and 
 die at Little Gidding. Nothing would induce him 
 even to take priest's orders. All he wanted was to be 
 the chaplain to the community, some forty persons in 
 all, who had devoted themselves to a special life in the 
 service of God. There were prayers in the church 
 twice a day, and four times jn the house. Two of the 
 inhabitants watched all night to read the Psalms through 
 from beginning to end. Ferrar drew up a Harmony of 
 the Scriptures, and this, together with narratives of 
 history and adventure, more especially his old favoimte, 
 Poxe's Martyrs, was read from time to time. Besides 
 those who lived in the house, he had his Psalm-children, 
 as he called them, who came in from the neighbouring 
 parishes to receive, in addition to a breakfast, a penny 
 or every Psalm that they could repeat by heart. He 
 had schoolmasters for his nephews and nieces, and the 
 children who lived near were welcome to share in the 
 
LITTLE GIDDING. 313 
 
 instruction given. Everyone there was obliged to learn chap. 
 
 some useful work, and the art of bookbinding was • r^ — • 
 
 carried to great perfection. Once a month, on Com- ^ ■^^' 
 munion Sunday, the servants of the establishment sat 
 down at table with the other members of the com- 
 munity. Two of Ferrar's nieces devoted themselves to 
 perpetual virginity, and all were obliged to remain celi- 
 bate as long as they continued at Little Gidding. But 
 there was no compulsory injunction on the subject, and 
 not a few who passed many years with the Ferrars, left 
 them without reproach to enter into marriage. 
 
 Such an institution naturally gave rise to strange Reports 
 reports. Ferrar, it was said, was a Eoman Catholic estabush- 
 in disguise. He repelled the charge with energy. 
 One day he was asked what he would do if mass were 
 to be celebrated in his house. " I would build down 
 the room, and build it up again," was his reply. To 
 another who told him that his proceedings ' might 
 savour of superstition and popery,' he answered, 
 quietly, " I as verily believe the Pope to be antichrist 
 as any article of my faith." 
 
 Visitors brought nothing but good reports away, visit of 
 Williams, in whose diocese Little Gidding was, ex- 
 pressed his warm approbation, more especially perhaps 
 as the Communion-table was placed east and west, and 
 not along the wall. 
 
 In Ferrar the devotional spirit of the age reached character 
 the extreme limits possible within the bounds of Protes- "hMen^by 
 tantism. Life at Little Gidding was preserved from all ^*"*''' 
 moral questionings by submission to external rule and 
 order. Those who were always praying or working, 
 had not much time left for thought. Each day passed 
 away as like the last as possible. Ferrar sought but a 
 harbour from the changes of life. There was no striv- 
 ing after an ideal perfection, no fierce asceticism or 
 
314 BrVEEGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAP, self-torture in him. His life was the application to 
 • — -^ — ■ himself of that dislike of mental and moral unrest" 
 ^^' which was at the • bottom of Laud's disciplinarian 
 efforts. That which existed acquired a sacredness 
 in his eyes merely because it existed. He was once 
 asked why he did not place a crucifix in his church. " If 
 there had been any when we came," he answered, " I 
 would not have pulled it down except authority had 
 commanded ; so neither will I set up anything without 
 command of authority." He at least would be free as 
 long as possible from the responsibility of decision.^ 
 
 It was not by such negative virtues that the old 
 monasticism had gained a hold on the medigeval world. 
 Men came to look at Ferrar's community, wondered, 
 admired, and turned away to their own activities. 
 George Georgc Herbert had much in common with Ferrar. 
 But he never could have arrived at this perfect 
 quiescence of spirit. A younger brother of that 
 Edward Herbert who had been created by Charles 
 Lord Herbert of Cherbury, he was fired, at an early 
 age, with an ambition to rise in the service of the State, 
 George At Wcstminstcr and Cambridge he was noted for 
 Cambridge, industry and intelligence, wrote lines, like so many 
 others, to the memory of Prince Henry, and flashed 
 before the University as the author of a series of Latin 
 poems in defence of the ceremonies of the Church against 
 Andrew Melville. If the reader misses in these sar- 
 castic poems any manifestation of high spiritual devo- 
 tion, they need not, on that account, be set down as a 
 mere offering upon the altar of courtiership. Herbert 
 was a ceremonialist by nature. The outward sign was 
 to him more than to most men the expression of the 
 inward fact. His rehgion fed itself upon that which 
 he could handle and see, and that quaintness which 
 
 > Two Lives of Nicholas Ferrar. Edited by J. E. B, Mayor. 
 
 1609. 
 
 1612. 
 
GEORGE HERBERT. 31,5 
 
 strict criticism reprehends in his poetry, was the effect chap. 
 
 VI. 
 
 1612. 
 
 of his irresistible tendency to detect a hidden meaning 
 in the most unexpected objects of sense. 
 
 In these Cambridge days Herbert's mind was dis- 
 tracted between two different aims, which yet appeared 
 to him to be but one. Marked out by his character for 
 a peaceful devotional life, and absolutely unfitted for' 
 the turmoil of poUtical controversy, his youthful spirits 
 were too buoyant to allow him to acknowledge at once 
 Ms inability to play a stirring part in the world. One 
 day he was writing religious poetry. Another day he 
 was canvassing for preferment, and he contrived to per- 
 suade himself that preferment would enable him to 
 help on the cause of religion still better than writing 
 poetry. In 1619 he succeeded Nethersole as Pubhc 1619. 
 Orator of the University. The position delighted him Public 
 as giving him precedence next to the doctors, ' and 
 such like gaynesses, which will please a young man 
 well.' On the other hand, he reminded himself that 
 progress in the study of divinity was still to be his 
 main object. " This dignity," he wrote, " hath no such 
 earthiness in it but it may very well be joined with 
 heaven ; or if it had to others, yet to me it should 
 not, for aught I yet know." 
 
 Herbert's efforts after worldly distinction ended in 
 failure. He had good friends at Court. Hamilton, 
 Lennox, and James himself, loved him well. But he 
 was too honest to sink to the lower arts of a courtier's 
 life, and he had not the practical abihties of a states- 
 man. The oration with which he welcomed Charles His^oration 
 on his return from Spain was an evidence of the 
 sincerity with which he could not help accompanying 
 flatteries neither more nor less absurd than those which 
 flowed unmitigated from the pens of so many of his 
 contemporaries. It was no secret that the Prince had 
 
3l6 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND EELIGION. 
 
 CHAP, come back bent upon war. Herbert disliked war, and 
 
 he could not refrain from the maladroit compliment 
 of commending Charles for going to Madrid in search 
 of peace. All that he could bring himself to say was 
 that, as war was sometimes necessary, he would be con- 
 tent to believe any war to be necessary to which James 
 shoidd give his consent. If Herbert bowed down, it 
 was not to the Prince whom it was his interest to capti- 
 vate, but to the peaceful King who had maintained the 
 ceremonies of the Church against their assailants. 
 
 1625. A change came over Herbert's life. His three 
 to take patrous, Hamilton, Lennox, and James, died. From 
 
 Charles, rushing headlong into war, the lover of peace 
 had no favour to expect. His health, always feeble, 
 broke down. In this time of depression he formed a 
 resolution to take orders, to become, as he said, one of 
 ' the domestic servants of the King of heaven.' The 
 clerical office was not in those days held in very high 
 esteem. A friend dissuaded him from entering upon 
 ' too mean an employment, and too much below his 
 birth and the excellent abiUties and endowments of his 
 mind.' " Though the iniquity of the late times," he 
 answered, " have made clergymen meanly valued, and 
 the sacred name of priest contemptible, yet I wiU 
 labour to make it honourable by consecrating aU my 
 learning and all my poor abilities to advance the glory 
 of that God that gave them, and I will labour to be like 
 my Saviour by making humility lovely in the eyes of 
 all men, and by following the merciful and meek 
 example of my dear Jesus." 
 
 1626. Nevertheless, Herbert hesitategl long. He was still 
 Ecciesia. a layman when Williams presented him to the prebend 
 
 of Leighton Ecciesia in the diocese of Lincoln. The 
 chiu-ch was in ruins, and Herbert signahsed his con- 
 nection with it by collecting money from his wealthy 
 
HERBERT AT BEMERTON. 317 
 
 friends for its repair. As ia Cosih's churcli at Brance- chap. 
 
 VI. 
 
 1626. 
 
 peth and Ferrar's at Little Gidding, the reading-desk 
 and the pulpit were placed side by side, and both were 
 made of the same height, in order that it might appear 
 that ' they should neither have a precedency or priority 
 of the other ; but that prayer and preaching, being 
 equally useful, might agree like brethren and have an 
 equal honour and estimation.' 
 
 Four years after his acceptance of preferment in the 1630. 
 Church, Herbert was still a layman. In 1630, at the Bemerton. 
 request of the head of his family, the new Earl of Pem- 
 broke, he was presented by the King to the Eectory of 
 Fugglestone and Bemerton, two hamlets lying between 
 Salisbury and Wilton. Stories were afterwards told of 
 his reluctance to undertake a duty which he held to be 
 too high for his powers, and it is said that he only gave 
 an unwilling consent on Laud's representation ' that the 
 refusal of it was a sin.' It was doubtless at this time 
 that he received ordination, either from Laud, or from 
 Davenant his diocesan.^ 
 
 The charm of Herbert's life at Bemerton lies in the His life and 
 harmony which had arisen between the discordant '"^ ^^' 
 elements of his Cambridge life. The love of action, 
 which was wanting in Ferrar, is still there. " A pastor," 
 he declares " is the deputy of Christ for reducing of man 
 to the obedience of God." But it has blended with a 
 quiet meditative devotion, and out of this soil spring 
 the tenderest blossoms of poetic feehng. His own Hfe 
 was a daily sacrifice, but it was a sacrifice, made not 
 
 1 Walton's well-known story that the Oourt was at Wilton, and that 
 the tailor was sent for from Salisbury to provide a clerical dress, is cer- 
 tainly untrue. The Oourt was at Whitehall, and the presentation, 
 printed from the Patent Rolls in Rymer (xix. 358) is dated from West- 
 minster. It also describes Herbert simply as a master of arts. The 
 omission of the usual Clericus shows that he was still a layman at this 
 time. 
 
3l8 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAP, by the avoidance, but by the pursuance of work. For 
 ■ — 7- — -' him the sacraments and observances of the Church had 
 a fellowship with the myriad-sided sacrament of nature. 
 As the bee hummed and the tree sent forth its branches, 
 they conveyed to his pure and observant mind the 
 inward and spiritual grace which was to him a comfort 
 and a strength. The things of nature formed a standing 
 protest against idleness. " Every gift of ability," he 
 said, " is a talent to be accounted for." There was to 
 be no mere crucifying of the flesh for its own sake, no 
 turning of the back upon the world as evil. His ser- 
 mons were filled with homely illustrations, and he took 
 good care to explain to his parishioners the meaning of 
 the prayers which they used. His own life was the best 
 sermon. His predecessor had lived sixteen or twenty 
 miles off, and had left the church in need of repair, 
 whilst the parsonage-house was in ruins. The congre- 
 gation was that of an ordinary country parish, long un- 
 taught and untended, and accustomed to regard their 
 rector as a mere grasper of tithe corn. The chainge pro- 
 duced by Herbert's presence was magical. Wherever 
 he turned he gathered love and reverence round him, 
 and when his bell tolled for prayers the hardworked 
 labourer, weary with the toils of the day, would let his 
 plough rest for a moment, and breathe a prayer to 
 heaven before returning to his labour. 
 Pathos of The dominant note of Herbert's poetry is the eager- 
 
 ness for action, mingled with a sense of its insufficiency. 
 The disease which wasted his body filled him with the 
 consciousness of weakness, and he welcomed death as 
 the awakening to a higher life. Sometimes the sadness 
 overpowers the joy, as in those pathetic lines :— 
 
 " Life is a business, not good cheer, 
 
 Ever in wars. 
 Tlie sun still shineth there or here ; 
 
 Whereas the stara 
 Watch an advantage to appear. 
 
 his poetry. 
 
HERBERT AT BEMERTON. 3 19 
 
 Oh that I were an orange tree, CHAP. 
 
 That busy plant ! "^I- 
 
 Then should I ever laden be, " i6-x%. 
 
 And never -want 
 Some fruit for him that dressed me. 
 
 But we are stiU. too young or old ; 
 
 The man is gone 
 Before we do our wares unfold ; 
 
 So we freeze on. 
 Until the gi-ave increase our cold." 
 
 To Herbert the life of the orange tree was the best ; Herbert's 
 
 '-' , , death. 
 
 the hfe of strenuous restfulness which brings forth 
 fruit without effort. He lived less than three years at 
 Bemerton. When he died he left behind him a name 
 which wiU never perish in England. 
 
 Herbert and Ferrar were instinct with the feminine Tendencies 
 
 n • • T 1 1 ml T of thought. 
 
 tendencies of spiritual thought. The masculme energy 
 of life is to be sought elsewhere. The self-reliant 
 strength is with the Puritan. The voices of Sibbes and 
 Gouge are raised in great cities. Wherever men are 
 thickest, their prevailing eloquence is heard. Herbert 
 and Ferrar allow the waves of change to pass over 
 them, glad if they can find a refuge at last where they 
 may, if but for a little time, be hidden from the storm. 
 From them comes no note of the abounding joyfulness, 
 the calm assurance of success, which breathes alike in 
 the sermons of the Puritan divine, and in the firm con- 
 viction of the dying Eliot. 
 
 Even where there was much similarity in thought Herbert 
 
 - • ii J. • I] !.• 1 • and Milton 
 
 and expression, the two influences which were passing on music, 
 over England are immutably distinguished by the 
 passive or active part assigned to the individual human 
 soul. Herbert dearly loved music. Twice a week he 
 would shake off his daily cares by a walk along the 
 banks of the river to Sahsbury, to drink in delight by 
 listening to the Cathedral choir. It was for him a 
 
320 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES IN POLITICS AND KELIGION. 
 
 CHAP, medicine against the monotony of life and the pains of 
 -- — ^ — ■ irresistible disease, healing by the charm of self-forget- 
 ^^" fulness. 
 
 " Sweetest of sweets, I thank you ; when displeasure 
 Did thi-ough my body wound my mind, 
 You took me thence, and in your house of pleasure 
 A dainty lodging me assigned." 
 
 From this height of rapt abstraction, those upon whom 
 the burden of the world rested were but objects of 
 distant pity. 
 
 " Now I in you without a body move, 
 Rising and falling with your wings, 
 We both together sweetly live and love. 
 Yet say sometimes, ' God help poor Hngs ! ' " 
 
 Another singer, quickening in the first flush of youth 
 to the consciousness of poetic power, loved music as 
 dearly as Herbert. John Milton, the son of the London 
 scrivener, had the open ear for — 
 
 " That undisturbed song of pure concent 
 Ay sung before the sapphire-coloured throne." 
 
 The earthly music lifted Herbert to heaven ; the 
 heavenly music sent Milton forth to perform his duties 
 upon earth. The lesson of Puritanism stands as clearly 
 written here as on the last page oi Paradise Regained : — 
 
 " That we on earth with undisoording voice 
 May rightly answer that melodious noise ; 
 As once we did tUl disproportioned sin 
 Jarred against Nature's chime, and with harsh din 
 Broke the fair music that all creatures made 
 To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed 
 In perfect diapason, whilst they stood 
 In first obedience, and their state of good. 
 may we soon again renew that song, 
 And keep in time with Heaven, till God ere long 
 To his celestial comfort us unite, 
 To live with him and sing in endless mom of light." 
 
 To Milton, God was ever ' the great Taskmaster ' 
 
MILTON'S EARLY POEMS. 32 1 
 
 who had set him to cultivate the field of his own mind chap. 
 
 VI 
 
 that he might afterwards hold out help to others. Early - — ^—^ 
 in life he had perceived that ' he who would not be „.' ^f ' 
 
 >- Milton's 
 
 frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable conscioua- 
 tmngs, ought nimseli to be a true poem — that is a com- work to be 
 position and pattern of the best and honourablest things ; 
 not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men or 
 famous cities, unless he have in himself the experience 
 and practice of all that which is praiseworthy.' Thus 
 he grew up in his father's house in Bread Street, and 
 amongst the thoughtless, scoflBng, Academic youth of 
 Cambridge, breathing the highest life of Puritanism, its 
 serious thoughtfulness, its love of all things good and 
 honourable, its pure morality and aversion to low and 
 degrading vice, yet with nothing exclusive or narrow- 
 minded in him. If he drank deeply of the Bible, he 
 drank deeply of the writers of Greece and Eome as well, 
 and the influence of the philosophers and poets of Greece 
 and Eome was as marked upon his style as that of the 
 Prophets and Psalmists of Jerusalem. Even in the great 
 rehgious controversy of the day, the voice of the future 
 assailant of Episcopacy and ceremonies gives as yet no 
 certain sound. The tone is Puritan, but there is nothing 
 there of the fierce dogmatism of Prynne. At the age Miiton not 
 of seventeen he not only joined in the praises of ^^he^rder 
 Andrewes, the prelate whom Laud most reverenced, but church, 
 described him as entering heaven dressed in the vest- 
 ments of the Church.^ A few years later, in // Pen- 
 seroso, he shewed a power of entering into the thoughts 
 of men with whom he was soon to come into deadly 
 conflict, in the well-remembered lines : — 
 
 " But let my due feet never fail 
 To walk the studious cloisters pale, 
 
 1 " Vestis ad auratos defluiit Candida talos, 
 Infula divinum cinxerat alba caput." 
 
 VOL. I. T 
 
32 2 DIVERGENT TENDENCIES TN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAP. And love the high embowed roof 
 
 ^J- With antic pillars massy proof, 
 
 jg5 2_ And storied windows richly dight, 
 
 Casting a dim religious light. 
 There let the pealing organ blow 
 To the full-voiced choir below 
 In service high, and anthems clear, 
 As may with sweetness through mine ear 
 Dissolve me into ecstasies 
 And bring all heaven before mine eyes." 
 
 The intei- To the historian these early poems of Milton have 
 
 pMUion ''" the deepest interest. They tell of a time when the great 
 complete, intellectual disruption of the age was still capable of 
 being averted. Between Herbert and Milton there is 
 a difference in the point of view which may lead to 
 absolute opposition, but which has not led to it yet. It 
 is the same with men so unlike as Terrar and Gouge. 
 When Ferrar was asked whether ' he thought the chapel 
 more holy than his house,' he replied, ' that God was 
 more immediately present when we were worshipping 
 Him in the temple.'^ " Though the Lord," wrote Gouge, 
 " in His infinite essence be everywhere present, yet the 
 special presence of His grace and favour abideth in those 
 places where He is truly and duly worshipped."^ The 
 one lays stress upon the place where the worshippers 
 meet, the other upon the temper of those who meet 
 in it. But there is no breach of continuity, no violent 
 opposition making a conflict necessary. 
 1633. Never, in spite of all that had occurred, had dvil 
 
 apparraTtiy war appeared farther off than in the spring of 1633. 
 Never did there seem to be a fairer prospect of over- 
 coming theirritation that had prevailed four years before. 
 If only the rulers of England could comprehend the 
 virtue of moderation, and could learn the strength 
 which is to be gained by concihation, all might yet be 
 
 * Mayor's Two Lives of Ferrar, xxxiv. 
 ' Gouge, The SaMs Sacrifice (1632), 259. 
 
 far off. 
 
PROSPECTS OF THE FUTURE. 323 
 
 well. Unhappily, Charles was still at the helm, and chap. 
 Charles had promised the Archbishopric of Canterbury -- — ^ — - 
 to the most conscientious, the most energetic, and the ^ ^^' 
 most indiscreet man in his dominions. Abbot's death 
 would be the signal for violent changes, followed by a 
 still more violent reaction. Abbot had yet a few months 
 of life before him. During those months, Charles, 
 with Laud in his company, paid a visit to his northern 
 kingdom. 
 
 T 2 
 
324 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 1612. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE king's visit TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 The act of Parliament which in 161 2 confirmed the 
 establishment of episcopacy in Scotland, closed one 
 jamlsV chapter of Scottish ecclesiastical history. It gave the 
 '^"^"11^ King a legal mode of keeping the clergy in subjection. 
 Presijyte- Jn accomplishing his obiect, he had had the effective 
 
 nan clergy. ^ ... 
 
 strength of the nation on his side. The powerful 
 aristocracy, the lawyers, and part at least of the 
 growing middle classes, had been alienated by the 
 harsh and intolerant spirit of the clerical assemblies 
 which were now silenced. It remained to be seen 
 whether James would be content with providing for 
 some elasticity of speech and thought, without attempting 
 to mould the belief and the worship of his subjects 
 according to his own ideal. 
 His use of James, it is true, was far more prudent than his son 
 
 thevictory. r- -i i xt t ti n t i 
 
 was afterwards to be. He disliked extremes, and he 
 shrunk from the exertion needed to overcome serious 
 opposition. But he was fond of theological specula- 
 tion, and he had the highest confidence in his own 
 conclusions. At the same time his residence in England 
 threw the burden of maintaining the ground which he 
 had taken up on others rather than on himself, and thus 
 rendered him less sensitive to the action of opinion in 
 Scotland. 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL CHANGES IN SCOTLAND. 325 
 
 la the spring of 1614 James issued an order that 
 all persons should partake of the Communion on April 
 24 ; the day which to the south of the Tweed was ^J^ ^'^ 
 known as Easter Day. In 161 15, a second order munionto 
 appeared directing the administration of the Commu- at Easter, 
 nion ' on one day yearly, to wit, Pasch day.' ^ 
 
 Further changes were in contemplation. An 1616. 
 Assembly was gathered at Aberdeen, and Aberdeen semWyat 
 was the centre of a reaction which was growing up 
 against Presbyterianism, even amongst the Scottish 
 clergy. The few southern ministers who made their 
 way to so distant a place of meeting found themselves 
 in a scanty minority. The Bishops and their sup- 
 porters mustered strongly, and many of the temporal 
 Lords had come in to give them their countenance. 
 Most of those who had come to protest returned in 
 despair to their homes in Pife or the Lothians. As soon 
 as they were gone, the real business of the meeting 
 commenced. The Assembly authorised the prepara- 
 tion of a new Confession of faith, and of a Liturgy 
 which was intended to supersede Knox's Book of 
 Common Order. Children were to be examined by 
 the Bishop or his deputy before they were admitted 
 to the Communion, an administration of which was 
 always to take place on Easter Day.^ 
 
 Such a decision ran counter to the feehngs of that Character 
 energetic part of the clergy which had been thrust Bishops, 
 aside from the management of afiaixs. But if the 
 composition of the new Liturgy had been left in the 
 hands of the Bishops, it is not likely that it would have 
 caused any widespread dissatisfaction. They had not 
 
 ' Calderwood, yii. 191, 196. Act of Scottish Privy Ooimcil, March 
 3, 1614. Botfield's Original Letters, i. 448. 
 
 ' Calderwood, vii. 322. Compare a paper by Spottiswoode in Bot- 
 field's Original Letters, iii. 445. 
 
326 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 1616. 
 
 CHAP, floated to the surface on the tide of ecclesiastical 
 reaction. Their opinions, so far as they had pro- 
 nounced opinions at all, were very much like those of 
 the clergy around them, only held with an increased 
 sense of the value of quiet and of the duty of sub- 
 The King's mittiug to the Eoyal authority. But James was too 
 cies. impatient to await the slow process of discussion and 
 
 preparation. In reply to the letter in which the 
 Bishops communicated to him the resolutions of the 
 Assembly, he sent down five Articles of his own which 
 he required them to adopt. These Articles directed 
 that the Communion should always be received in a 
 kneehng posture ; that in case of sickness or necessity 
 the Lord's Supper should be administered in private 
 houses ; that Baptism should under similar circum- 
 stances be administered in the same way ; that days of 
 observance should be appointed for the commemora- 
 tion of the Birth, Passion, and Kesurrection of the 
 Saviour, and of the Descent of the Holy Ghost ; and 
 that children should be brought to the Bishop for a 
 blessing. 
 Not called jt "was uot much to ask according to the notions 
 
 for m Scot- , , ^-^ , 
 
 land. which surroundcd James in England. But it would be 
 a severe shock to the religion of Scotland. There is 
 not the slightest reason to suppose that the first Article, 
 which was certain to be more violently opposed than 
 the other four, had the support of any party whatever 
 in the Scottish Church. In England the custom, though 
 sometimes neglected, was in possession of the field. It 
 was in accordance with the law of the Church, the 
 observance of which had never been interrupted. In 
 Scotland it was a pure innovation. 
 spottis- To the Archbishop of St. Andrews, on whom would 
 
 satisfao- ' fall the brunt of the conflict, the news of the King's 
 resolution was most unwelcome. Archbishop Spottis- 
 
THE FIVE ARTICLES PROPOSED. 327 
 
 woode knew his countrymen well enough to be aware chap. 
 
 VII 
 
 1616. 
 
 that he would have no peace if the Articles were to be 
 enforced, and he would have been glad to avoid a 
 conflict in which his own sympathies were not enlisted. 
 He did not, however, think it wise to oppose the 
 King's peremptory command. But he begged James 
 not to issue the Articles by the Eoyal authority alone. 
 It would be safer, he argued, to procure for them the 
 sanction of an Assembly — an Assembly doubtless after 
 the fashion of that of Aberdeen ; and he offered, if the 
 question were postponed for another year, to do his 
 best to procure the assent of such a body.^ 
 
 It may be that the Archbishop was not entirely James pro- 
 
 . . Doses to 
 
 disinterested in wishing so unpopular a change to be visit Scot- 
 discussed in the following year. For James had given 
 out that in that year he intended to visit the country 
 of his birth, and Spottiswoode's work would doubtless 
 be easier if the King were at his side. 
 
 James, however, was not desirous of engaging once The consi- 
 
 ' -111 ?T deration of 
 
 more m a personal dispute with the clergy. He wrote thcArticiea 
 to the Scottish Council that, though he should have 
 been glad to see the proposed reforms carried out 
 during his visit, he would not at such a time bring 
 forward anything which was unlikely to meet with 
 universal acceptance.^ 
 
 It was not from any wish to consider the feehngs 
 or prejudices of his subjects that James threw over 
 the realisation of his hopes to another year. He had 
 resolved at least to shew them what Enghsh worship 
 was. In October the citizens of Edinburgh were The organ 
 scandalised by the strange apparition of an organ which ^^°^^' 
 
 ' Spottiswoode, iii. 236. 
 
 * The King to the Scottish Privy Oouncil, Dec. 15, 1616. Printed 
 with a ■wrong date in the Abhotsford Club edition of Letters and State 
 Papers of the reign of James VIL, 202. 
 
328 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAP, had just been landed at Leith for the King's chapel at 
 • — r^-— Holyrood. Two or three months later it was followed 
 ' '^' by some Enghsh carpenters, who brought with them 
 figures of the patriarchs and apostles, carved in wood 
 The car- for the samc chapel. All Edinbrn-gh was immediately 
 the chapel, in an uproar. Popish images, it was confidently said, 
 were to be set up at Holyrood, and the Popish mass 
 would follow soon. So alarming were the symptoms 
 of the public discontent, that the Bishops begged the 
 King to withdraw his order for the erection of the 
 obnoxious carvings. James yielded, but as usual, he 
 yielded with no good grace. He told the Bishops that 
 he had not been in the shghtest degree influenced by 
 their arguments. But he had heard from his master 
 of the works that it would be difficult to complete the 
 proposed arrangements in time. " Do not, therefore," 
 he proceeded to say, " deceive yourselves with a vain 
 imagination of anything done therein for ease of your 
 hearts, or ratifying your error in your judgment of 
 that graven work, which is not of an idolatrous kind, 
 like to images and painted pictures adored and 
 worshipped by Papists, but merely intended for orna- 
 ment and decoration of the place where we should 
 sit, and might have been wrought as well with figures 
 of lions, dragons, and devils, as with those of patriarchs 
 and apostles. But as we must wonder at your igno- 
 rance and teach you thus to distinguish between the 
 one and the other, so are we persuaded that none of 
 you would have been scandalised or offended, if the 
 said figures of lions, dragons, or devils had been carved 
 and put up in lieu of those of the patriarchs and 
 apostles, resembling in this the Constable of Castile, 
 who being sent here to swear the peace between us 
 and Spain, when he understood that this behoved to 
 be solemnly performed in our chapel, he foresaw like- 
 
JAMES'S VISIT TO EDINBURGH. 329 
 
 wise that then some anthems would be sung, and chap. 
 therefore protested before his entry of our chapel that ^"' 
 
 whatever were sung, God's name might not be used in '^^7- 
 it."^ It was all very shrewd. But if the Bishops 
 needed to be reasoned with in this fashion, what hope 
 was there of carrying conviction to the heart of the 
 mass of Scotchmen ? 
 
 On May 13 James crossed the border. On the jamesat 
 16th he entered Edinburgh, and for the first time "^"° ' 
 since his mother's dethronement the voice of choristers 
 and the pealing notes of the organ were heard in the 
 chapel of Holyrood.^ But James was not satisfied 
 with the display of the forms of Church worship 
 which he had learned to admire in England. He Kneeling 
 gave peremptory orders that all the noblemen, the 
 Privy Councillors, and the Bishops who were in 
 Edinburgh should receive the Communion on then- 
 knees in the chapel on Whitsunday. Of those who 
 were thus summoned, many complied at once. But 
 there were some who absented themselves from the 
 service, and of those who appeared, some abstained 
 from presenting themselves at the table. A second 
 mandate was then issued, commanding the recusants 
 to appear on the following Sunday, and, in some cases 
 at least, the King's persistency was not without its 
 efiect.^ 
 
 James's resolution was the more ill judged as he J^^ ^7- 
 
 - 1*111 ^^® Scot- 
 
 had before him m Scotland a task which would require tish Pariia- 
 
 aU the popular support which he could contrive to 
 
 rally round him. The conflict which the Crown had 
 
 waged with the clergy had ended as he had wished it to 
 
 end mainly because he had entered upon it with the 
 
 > The King to the Bishops, March 13. Botfield's Original Letters, ii. 
 
 496- 
 
 » Calderwood, vii. 246. ' Calderwood, vii. 247, 249. 
 
330 
 
 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 VII. 
 1617. 
 
 June. 
 
 Hereditarj' 
 jurisdic- 
 tions. 
 
 nobility on his side. But for all that, a conflict with 
 ■ the nobility was looming in the future. Though the 
 Scottish nobles were no longer the fierce rebels and 
 murderers which they had been in the days of James's 
 infancy, they exercised powers which were ill-befitting 
 to subjects in a well-ordered state, and they knew how 
 to hold with a strong hand lands and goods which they 
 had acquired by firaud or rapine. Old feudal rights long 
 ago swept away in England were still exercised in 
 Scotland. On their own lands the nobles handed down 
 from father to son their heritable jurisdictions, the right 
 of judging criminals. Men were put to death, not by 
 the sentence of a Eoyal Judge, but by the sentence of 
 the Lord's Court. James, in his desire to put an end 
 to a system such as this, was acting for the true interests 
 of the Scottish nation. 
 
 His mode of setting to work was eminently 
 characteristic. In his speech at the opening of Parlia- 
 ment he told his countrymen that they were a bar- 
 barous people. He only hoped that they would be as 
 ready to adopt the good customs of their Southern 
 neighbours as they had been eager to become their 
 pupils in the arts of smoking tobacco, and of wearing 
 gay clothes.^ If he meant by this that the nobles were 
 to strip themselves of their jurisdictions, he might as 
 well have lectured a gang of smugglers on the propriety 
 of respecting the interests of the revenue. All that 
 was yielded to him was the appointment of a commis- 
 sion empowered to compound with any nobleman who 
 might be inchned to voluntarily surrender his authority 
 to the Crown. It is needless to say that the office of 
 the commissioners was all but a complete sinecure,^ It 
 was not till the next reign that the Earl of Huntly 
 
 ' to Bacon, June 28. Bacon's Works, fid. Montagu, xii. 320, 
 
 Spottkwoode, iii. 240. 
 
 ' Acts of the Pari, of Scotland, iv. 549. 
 
ITIE EXTERNAL GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCH. 33 1 
 
 sold his iurisdictions in Aberdeen and Inverness. No chap. 
 
 . . VII 
 
 other Scottish lord followed his example. -- — r-^ — • 
 
 In carrying another point James was more success- ^ ^^" 
 ful. The Scottish clergy were miserably poor. Lands, Mainte-' 
 possessions, and tithes, by which the earlier Church had the cie?gy. 
 been supported, were held by the iron grip of the 
 dominant nobility. A miserable stipend, irregularly 
 paid, was all that was assigned to those whose work it 
 was to uphold the standard of religion and morality in 
 an age of chicanery and bloodshed. .James now asked 
 for some small increase of this stipend, and for its 
 assignment upon, local sources, instead of its being 
 relegated, as had hitherto been the case, to the un- 
 certainty of a general fund. With some difficulty 
 he carried his point, and from the visit of James 
 to Edinburgh dates the possession by the Scottish 
 ministers of a modest competence.'^ But though the 
 King had his way, there were symptoms, for the first 
 time for many years, of resistance amongst the nobility. 
 
 Even with the support of the clergy and the middle I'^po^ed 
 
 J^i <-'•' actoneccle- 
 
 class it would not be an easy task to reduce the nobles siasticai 
 to surrender their special privileges on behalf of the 
 general interests of the State. James, however, had not 
 relinquished those proposals which were likely to offend 
 the clergy and the middle classes most deeply. An 
 act was brought forward in Parhament decreeing that 
 ' whatever His Majesty should determine in the ex- 
 ternal government of the Church, with the advice of 
 the Archbishops, Bishops, and a competent number 
 of the ministry, should have the force of law.' The 
 more independent of the clergy at once took fright. 
 
 1 The minimiim was to be 27/. 15*. 6|(?., the maximum 447. 9*. od. 
 This in England would imply in modern value an income varying be- 
 tween about iiol. to 180Z. at least. But I suppose that on the scale of 
 living in Scotland it would imply much more than such an income would 
 imply in England now. See Oonnell, A treatise ore the law of Scotland 
 respecting Tithes, i. 180. 
 
332 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAP. As many as could be got together at a moment's notice 
 
 1617. 
 
 protested warmly against the measure, and James 
 shrunk from encounteriiig the opposition which he 
 had raised. 
 
 The act was withdrawn. But the manner in which 
 James withdrew it was justly regarded as an aggrava- 
 tion of the offence. The right, he said, of making 
 changes in the external government of the Church was 
 already inherent in the Crown. It was therefore un- 
 necessary to pasg a new act to give him what he 
 possessed already. In these words he asserted in the 
 baldest way his claim to regulate forms of worship as 
 he chose, whilst renouncing his right to decide upon 
 doctrine. As if it were possible to separate between 
 the external observance which is the expression of 
 the doctrinal opinion, and the belief which recom- 
 mends the use of any given form to those who have 
 attached themselves to it. 
 Caider- ' Jamcs veutcd his anger upon the protesters. Two 
 
 nished.^ of them wcrc imprisoned. A third, David Calderwood, 
 persisted in maintaining that he had been in the right, 
 and was banished.'^ He took refuge in Holland, where 
 he employed his pen in vindicating the cause to which 
 he had sacrificed his worldly prospects. The history in 
 which he embalmed the sufferings and the constancy of 
 the Church of Scotland has become to those who 
 revere the memory of Melville and Henderson all that 
 Foxe's Book of Martyrs was to the Elizabethan 
 Protestant, and all that Clarendon's History of the 
 Rebellion became to the Tory of the reign of Anne. 
 Hewat'8 That a rigorous Presbyterian like Calderwood 
 
 Liturgy. g}jQ^i(j have fallen into disgrace was only to be ex- 
 pected. But it is significant of the state of opinion in 
 Scotland that one of the two imprisoned protesters was 
 
 ' Calderwood, vii. 257. 
 
PROPOSED SCOTTISH LITURGY. 333 
 
 Thomas Hewat, to whom had been committed by the chap. 
 
 VII 
 
 Assembly of Aberdeen, the most episcopal of Scottish as- — > " -■' 
 semblies, the task of compiling a Liturgy for the Church. ^ ' ^' 
 The Liturgy which he prepared is drawn upon the lines 
 of Knox's Book of Common Order, and differs from it 
 chiefly in its greater fulness, and in the introduction of 
 a considerable number of prayers for special occasions.^ 
 There is nothing in it to give offence to the most zealous 
 Presbyterian. If James was to make any change of 
 importance in the service of the Church it would be his 
 own doing. No Scottish ecclesiastical party was hkely 
 of its own accord to go so far as he wished to go. 
 
 James, however, persisted in his intention. On July The King's 
 
 1 n n A 1 ■ ^ • speech at 
 
 1 1 he convened at St. Andrews a special meeting, at st. An- 
 
 . . . r drews. 
 
 which the Bishops and a select number of ministers 
 were present. He told them that he merely wished to 
 introduce a more decent order into the Church. If 
 they had anything to say against his five Articles, he 
 was ready to listen. But they must remember that his 
 demands were just and religious, and that he was not to 
 be resisted with impunity. In conclusion, he reminded 
 them that it was the special prerogative of Christian 
 kings to order the external polity of the Church, after 
 taking the advice of the Bishops. They might approve 
 of his proceedings, or they might disapprove of them. 
 But they must not imagine that anything they might 
 choose to say would have the slightest influence with 
 him unless they could support their opinions by argu- 
 ments which he found himself unable to answer.^ 
 
 It is not surprising that no one present thought it 
 possible to find an argument which James would ac- 
 knowledge himself to be unable to answer. Postpone- 
 
 ' Hewat's Liturgy is printed in Sprott's Scottish Liturgies of the reign 
 of James VI. 
 
 " Spottiswoode, iii. 246. 
 
334 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAP, ment of the difficulty was all that could be hoped, and 
 — r-^— it was finally arranged that an Assembly should meet 
 ' '^' at St. Andrews in November to discuss the Articles, 
 James returned to England, trusting that there would 
 be no further difficulty on the subject. 
 Two only Of the five Articles, three would probably have 
 
 des mipo^'' been accepted without difficulty, though the Assembly 
 ruiai. uiigiit perhaps have wished to fence round with some 
 precautions against abuse the permission to administer 
 Baptism and the Lord's Supper in private houses, and the 
 introduction of the rite of Confirmation. The article 
 which related to Church festivals was more unpopular. 
 Not only was there a disincHnation to adopt customs 
 which could not plead the direct authority of the 
 Scriptures, but there was a vague impression that the 
 observance of these days was in some way or another 
 Popish, and a behef that these holidays would serve to 
 many as an excuse for riot and debauchery. But it was 
 to the Article which prescribed kneehng at the recep- 
 tion of the Communion that the most decided opposi- 
 Speciai ob- tiou was to be expected. It was absurd to speak of 
 ■imreiSig at the question raised by it as a mere matter of external 
 munio™' discipline. Such actions as this are intimately con- 
 nected with the innermost beliefs and feelings of the 
 heart, and it is impossible to interfere with them with- 
 out intruding upon the sanctuary of the conscience. 
 To one man, to kneel at the reception of the Com- 
 munion is a simple act of self-humiliation in the 
 presence of Him in whose worship he is engaged. To 
 another the same action would carry with it an acknow- 
 ledgment of the doctrine of transubstantiation, or at 
 least of the Eeal Presence in the consecrated elements. 
 No doubt rules of some kind are necessary in every 
 place where men meet together, and when members of 
 the same congregation difier on matters of importance, 
 
OBJECTIONS TO THE FIVE AETICLES. 335 
 
 there will be considerable difficulty in keeping them on chap, 
 
 VII. 
 
 good terms with one another. But it was not even 
 pretended that any single Scotchman had asked for the ^ ^^' 
 change, though Scotch Presbyterians were in those days 
 in the habit of kneeling at the ordinary prayers. No 
 doubt, when James had once declared his resolution, he 
 would meet with plenty of support. But it would be 
 support of that kind which is valueless in the end. 
 He would have the assistance of those amongst the 
 clergy who thought it dangerous to quarrel with him, 
 and of those amongst the laity who bore a grudge 
 against the clergy, and who would have come to his 
 help with equal readiness if he had proclaimed that 
 standing upright or reclining on a couch was the fitting 
 posture for the reception of the Communion. 
 
 The Assembly at St. Andrews gave no satisfaction ThiAslem- 
 to James. It agreed to the administration of the wy at st. 
 Communion to the sick, but it postponed consideration 
 of the other Articles to a more convenient season. 
 
 To all who had ears to hear the opposition of the ifiis. 
 Assembly conveyed a serious warning. Of all men Patrick" 
 living in Scotland there was probably none whose Bishop of 
 advice was better worth taking on ecclesiastical matters 
 than Patrick Porbes of Corse. Sprung from an ancient 
 Scottish family, and himself a landed proprietor in 
 Aberdeenshire, he had attached himself in youth to the 
 high Presbyterian party of Andrew Melville. Circum- 
 stances changed in Scotland, and the dechne of the 
 combative spirit which made James's alterations pos- 
 sible was not without its efiect upon him. Secluded 
 in his Aberdeenshire home from the main current of 
 ecclesiastical pretensions, he grew more earnest in his 
 zeal for the spread of morality and piety, less careful 
 to keep up distinctions of outward ceremonies. The 
 country around him was in a sad state of spiritual 
 
33^ TPIE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAP, destitution. The great land owners, the Earls ofHuntly 
 • — r^—' and Errol, had remained faithful to the Church of 
 Eome, and whilst priests and Jesuits were favoured by 
 the landed aristocracy, the more vehement Presbyterian 
 ministers had been hurried off to prison and banish- 
 ment by the King. Though Patrick Forbes's own 
 brother, John Forbes of Alford, had been banished 
 for his part in resisting the introduction of Episcopacy,^ 
 he himself took no share in these conflicts. At the 
 request of the neighbouring clergy he consented to 
 occupy the pulpit, layman as he was, in an empty 
 church near his home, and though he was silenced by 
 the King's directions, he does not appear to have taken 
 offence at the interruption. In 1612, in the forty- 
 seventh year of his age, he received ordination, and 
 when the See of Aberdeen was vacant in January 
 1618, he was appointed Bishop at the unanimous 
 request of the clergy. 
 
 His letter The letter in which Forbes explained to Arch- 
 
 to Spottis- . , _. . , , p 1 • T 
 
 woode. bishop Spottiswoode the reasons 01 his reluctance to 
 accept the office is most valuable as an expression of 
 the opinion of one so high-minded and so honest. His 
 hesitation, he said, did not proceed from any 'dis- 
 allowing the office and degree of a Bishop.' Episcopacy, 
 if Bishops were ' rightly elected and defined with such 
 moderation of place and power, as ' might ' put restraint 
 to excessive usurpations, was not only a tolerable, but 
 even a laudable and expedient policy in the Church, 
 and very well consisting with God's written word.' 
 Nor was he influenced by any fear of giving offence 
 to others. He even thought it would be right for an 
 honourable man who did not entirely approve of 
 Episcopal government, to accept the office of a Bishop 
 when it had once been determined that the chief 
 
 ' mat. of Engl, from the accession of James I. i, 530-537. 
 
PATRICK FORBES'S WARNING. 337 
 
 authority in the Church should be entrusted to Bishops, chap. 
 
 rather than to run the chance of seeing their places 
 filled ' with the oflfscouring of the world, and the dregs 
 of men.' 
 
 Forbes's real difficulty lay elsewhere. "This is 
 that, my good Lord," he writes, " which maketh 
 all my scruple, the present condition and course 
 of things — and we cannot teU. how far a farther 
 novation in our Church is intended — so peremptorily 
 and impetuously urged on the one part, and so hardly 
 received on the other ; as betwixt these extremities, 
 and the undertaking of a Bishopric, I see no option 
 left to me, but either to incur his Majesty's displeasure, 
 which is the rock under Christ I am loathest to strike 
 on ; or then to drive both myself and my ministry 
 in such common distaste, as I see not how henceforth 
 it can be any more fruitful. I dispute not here of 
 the points themselves ; but I am persuaded if so wise, 
 so learned, and so religious a King as God hath 
 blessed us with, were fully and freely informed, or did 
 thoroughly conceive the sad sequel of inforcing our 
 Chiu-ch, that neither in the points already proposed, 
 nor in any which we fear yet to ensue for this intended 
 conformity, would his Majesty esteem any of such fruit 
 or effect as therefore the state of a quiet Kirk should 
 be marred, the minds of brethren who for any bygone 
 distraction were beginning again to warm in mutual 
 love should be of anew again and almost desperately 
 distracted, the hearts of many good Christians dis- 
 couraged, the resolution of many weak ones brangled,^ 
 matter of insulting ministered to Eomanists, and to pro- 
 fane epicureans of a disdainful deriding of our whole pro- 
 fession. ... If wherein our Kirk seemeth defective, his 
 Majesty would so far pity our weakness, and tender our 
 
 ' i.e. 'shaken.' 
 VOL. I. Z 
 
 VII. 
 
 1618. 
 
 Feb. 
 
338 
 
 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAP, peace, as to enforce nothing but which first in a fair and 
 ^^^■_- national Council were determined, wherein his High- 
 
 1618. 
 
 Feb. 
 
 Hia con- 
 duct in 
 his diocese. 
 
 1617. 
 
 Dec. 
 Spottig- 
 woode's 
 character. 
 
 ness would neither make any man afraid by terror, nor 
 pervert the judgment of any with hope of favour, then 
 men may adventure to do service. But if things be so 
 violently carried as no end may appear of bitter con- 
 tention, neither any place left to men placed in rooms, 
 but, instead of procuring peace, and reuniting the 
 hearts of the brethren, to stir the coals of detestable 
 debate — for me, I have no courage to be a partner in 
 that work. I wish my heart-blood might extinguish 
 the ungracious rising flame in our Kirk. But if I can 
 do nothing for the quenching of it, then I would be 
 heartily sorry to add fuel thereto.' ^ 
 
 Forbes's objections were not insuperable. He 
 became Bishop of Aberdeen. He was one of those 
 Bishops who justify episcopacy in the eyes of men. 
 There was no man in the diocese who was not the 
 better for his acceptance of the office. He was a true 
 overseer of the Church. Parishes were filled under his 
 direction with pious and earnest ministers. Learning 
 was encouraged at the Universities of Aberdeen. The 
 Bishop's justice and gentleness gave him the highest 
 place in the estimation of his fellow citizens, and he 
 was frequently employed as an arbitrator in disputes 
 which a generation before would have led to deadly 
 feuds, to be extinguished only in blood. If, when the 
 day of trouble came, there was a Eoyalist party in Sco1> 
 land at all, it was mainly owing to the impression pro- 
 duced by the life and labours of Patrick Forbes. 
 
 If his advice had been taken by James and by his 
 son, there would have been no civil war in Scotland. 
 But James was resolved to force on the Articles, and in 
 
 ' P. Forbes to Spottiswoode, Feb. 13 [P]. Calderwood, vii. 291. 
 date, see Fimerala of P. Forlea (Spot. Soc.) Ix. 
 
 For 
 
SPOTTISWOODE'S TBIESBRVING. 
 
 339 
 
 Spottiswoode he found an instrument fitted for the chap. 
 work. Eor Spottiswoode, who, like Forbes, was a lover -.^^^'-, 
 of peace, and an opponent of the absolute assertions of ^^^7- 
 the Presbyterians in matters which he beheved to be 
 indifferent, was ready for the sake of peace to stoop to 
 work with which Forbes would never have defiled his 
 fingers. James, when he heard of the resolution taken james 
 by the Assembly which had met at St. Andrews, told thrmSls- 
 its members that they should now know what it was to *^"' 
 draw upon themselves the anger of a King, and to give 
 point to his denunciation, threatened those who refused 
 to accept the Articles ^ with the loss of their stipends. 
 Spottiswoode prevented the immediate execution of the 
 threat, but he made use of the King's letter to overawe 
 the reluctant ministers into submission.^ 
 
 Such were the disgraceful means by which the new „ '^is- 
 
 T • 1 n ^ 1 Prepara. 
 
 religious observances were to be forced upon the wonsforan 
 Church. Many a man who conscientiously believed the at Perth. 
 Articles to be Popish and antichristian drew back from 
 an opposition which threatened to reduce to beggary 
 himself and those who were dearer to him than himself. 
 When the Bishops met in Edinburgh in May they were May. 
 able to inform the King that he might summon an 
 Assembly with every prospect of success.^ The obser- 
 vance of the festivals had already been enjoined by Act 
 of Council.* But for the other Articles it was thought 
 advisable to obtain at least the semblance of ecclesiastical 
 authority. Attempts had been made by the Bishops 
 
 1 The King to the Archbishops, Dec. 6. Botfleld's Original Letters, 
 
 ii. 522. 
 
 2 " Which letters being shewed to the ministers of Edinburgh and 
 others that happened to repair to that city for augmentation of stipends, 
 did cast them into great fear ; and, repenting theii- wilfulness, as they had 
 reason, became requesters to the Archbishop of St. Andrews to preach, 
 as he was commanded, upon Christmas Day." Spottiswoode, iii. 250. 
 
 ' Lindsay, The Proceedings of the Assembly at Perth, 19. 
 * Botfleld's Original Letters, ii. 540- 
 
 z 2 
 
340 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 to enforce kneeling at the Communion. But these 
 attempts had met with but indifferent success. It was 
 accordingly resolved that on August 25 an Assembly 
 should meet at Perth. 
 Lord Bin- rjj^g King was to be represented at Perth by three 
 
 Commissioners, of whom Lord Binning was the most 
 prominent. As Sir Thomas Hamilton he had been 
 noted for the violence with which he had upheld the 
 Eoyal authority against aU clerical claims to independ- 
 ence. He was now Secretary of State, and his pre- 
 sence at Perth would bring with it the certainty that 
 no unnecessary scruples would be allowed to stand in 
 the way of the King's wishes. 
 Aug. Even Binninar, however, was disconcerted as he rode 
 
 The oppo- . ° , . 
 
 sitiou at into the streets of Perth. His practised eye told him 
 that many of the black gowns he saw were worn by his 
 old enemies the ministers of the thoroughly Presby- 
 terian districts of Fife and the Lothians. Hurrying to 
 the Archbishop, he confided to him his fears. Spottis- 
 woode quickly reassured him. In the early days of the 
 Eeformation, Knox, full of confidence in his country, 
 and wishing to make the General Assembly the ecclesias- 
 tical Parhament of the nation, had welcomed the pre- 
 sence of the nobility as well as that of the elected re- 
 presentatives of the clergy and laity. The noblemen 
 were flocking to Perth in large numbers, and were 
 ready, almost to a man, to vote for the King. If only 
 thirty clerical votes were cast for the Articles, failure 
 was impossible ; and it would be strange if, with all the 
 means at his disposal, the Archbishop could not secure 
 thirty clerical votes for the King. 
 Aug 2s The sermons at the opening of the Assembly were 
 
 Bermon. preachcd by Forbes and Spottiswoode. Forbes seems 
 to have contented himself with recommending the 
 members of the Assembly to act according to their 
 
OPENING OF THE ASSEMBLY OF PERTH. 34 1 
 
 consciences, at the same time that he pointed out that if chap. 
 the Articles were themselves indifferent, the effect of the ■ — v^— ' 
 anger of the King upon the Church was an element of the ^^ 
 situation which might well be taken into consideration.^ 
 
 Spottiswoode's sermon disclosed more naively still ^^""g?; 
 the only ground on which the Articles seemed worthy sermon. 
 of recommendation to any one in Scotland. " Had it 
 been in our power," he said, " to have dissuaded or 
 declined them, we certainly would." But they were 
 matters of indifference, and in such matters the danger 
 of disobedience was greater than the danger from in- 
 novation. All that he could adduce in support of the 
 Articles was that they were neither impious nor unlaw- 
 ful. " And surely," he continued, " if it cannot be 
 shewed that they are repugnant to the written word, I 
 see not with what conscience we can refuse them, being 
 urged as they are by our Sovereign Lord and King ; 
 a King who is not a stranger to divinity, but hath such 
 acquaintance with it as Eome never found, in the con- 
 fession of all men, a more potent adversary ; a King 
 neither superstitious nor inclinable that way, but one 
 that seeks to have God rightly and truly worshipped 
 by all his subjects. His person, were he not our 
 Sovereign, gives them sufficient authority, being recom- 
 mended by him ; for he knows the nature of things and 
 the consequences of them, what is fit for a Church to 
 have, and what not, better than we do all." 
 
 It is easy to imagine what must have been the Order of 
 effect of so absolute a self-surrender on the minds of biy. ^^^"^^ 
 such of the ministers present as retained a spark of 
 independence. But a glance at the Assembly would 
 have been sufficient to show that the hour of the inde- 
 pendent ministers was not yet come. By accident or 
 
 ' Cdderwood, yii. 305. Binniug to the King. Botfield's Original 
 Letters, ii. 573. 
 
342 THE king's visit TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 VII. 
 i6i8. 
 
 CHAP, design the place ia which it was convened was too 
 small to aflford decent accommodation to aU who were 
 present. Seats were provided for the nobility, for the 
 Bishops, and even for the representatives of the 
 boroughs. The ministers were left, to stand huddled 
 together in a crowd behind the backs of those who 
 were seated at the table. As soon as order was estab- 
 lished the proceedings were commenced by the read- 
 ing of a letter from the King, 
 ktter'"^'^ James's missive was couched in his usual style. He 
 
 hoped, he said, that the Assembly would not allow the 
 unruly and ignorant multitude to bear down the better 
 and more judicious. They must, however, understand 
 that nothing that they could do would be of any real 
 importance. It would do them no good to reject the 
 Articles, as they would be imposed at once by the 
 Eoyal authority, which was all that was reaUy needed. 
 Those who denied this called in question that power 
 which Christian kings had received from God. 
 
 Aug. 25. As soon as the letter, had been read, the Arch- 
 
 bishop enforced its advice by a recital of the various 
 miseries which would befal those who were unwise 
 enough to brave the King's displeasure. 
 
 Aug. a6. A conference was then held in which a number of 
 
 nary con- ministers, selected by Spottiswoode, took part. They 
 had taken care that the majority of these should be on 
 the side of the King. There was a sharp debate on the 
 form in which the question should be put to the As- 
 sembly. The independent ministers thought it should 
 be, "Whether kneeling or sitting at the Communion 
 were the fitter gesture ?" Spottiswoode was too good 
 a tactician to admit of this, and he carried a motion 
 that the question should be, " His Majesty desires our 
 gesture of sitting at the Communion to be changed into 
 kneeUng. Why ought not the same to be done ?" The 
 burden of proof was thus thrown upon his opponents. 
 
THE FIVE ARTICLES OF PERTH. 343 
 
 The next morning Spottiswoode confronted the 
 full Assembly. Everything was done to harass the 
 opponents of the Court. They were not allowed to 
 discuss the ecclesiastical question on its own merits. Thefuu' 
 They were told that the only question before them 
 was, " Is the King to be obeyed or not ?" They were 
 repeatedly warned of the penalties awaiting their 
 obstinacy. When at last the vote was taken, Spot- 
 tiswoode reminded each man of the consequences of - 
 his decision. " Have the King in your mind " he said ; 
 "Eemember the King," "Look to the King." Under Thearti- 
 this pressure eighty-six votes were given for the cepted.' 
 Articles, only forty being secured to the opposition.^ 
 
 The majority thus obtained was, if the twelve composi- 
 Bishops' votes be set aside as already acquired for the majority. 
 King, almost entirely derived from the laity. Of the 
 ministers present there was a bare majority of seven in 
 favour of the Articles, a majority which, under the 
 circumstances in which the vote was taken, indicates a 
 very large preponderance of clerical opinion against the 
 change. On the other hand, out of thirty lay votes 
 only two were given in opposition.^ If indeed the 
 divergence between lay and clerical opinion had indi- 
 
 > Oalderwood, Pei-th Assembly, and Hiatory, vii. 304, Lindsay, A 
 true narrative of all the passages at Perth. Binning to the King. Bot- 
 field's Original Letters, ii. 573. Oalderwood and Lindsay do not differ 
 more than might he expected from men taking opposite sides. Lindsay 
 admits quite enough against his own party, and Binning's letter, written 
 a few hours after the occurrence, agrees suhstantially with Oalderwood 
 as to the form in which the vote was taken. Oalderwood gives the 
 words thus : " Whether will ye consent to these articles, or disbhey the 
 King ? " Lindsay positively denies that this form was used. It is pos- 
 sible that in the formal question the King's name was omitted ; hut that 
 Spottiswoode's language left no doubt what was intended. 
 
 * The following calculation is founded on Lindsay's statements : — 
 Bishops. Ministers. Laity. Total. 
 Affirmative . 12 46 28 86 
 
 Negative .0 39 2 41 
 
 12 85 30 127 
 
344 TPIE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAP, cated a real desire on the part of the laity to alter the 
 ■ — T-T-" ceremonies of the Church, it might have been said that 
 James had only given effect in a hasty and indecorous 
 manner to the voice of the country. But in truth there 
 is everything to shew that this was not the case. The 
 laity of Scotland, and especially the nobility, gave no 
 signs of any ardour on behalf of the new ceremonies. 
 They were glad enough to worry the ministers, still 
 more gkd, if it were possible, to plunder them of their 
 scanty revenues. But there were no convictions 
 firm and strong behind the votes which they had re- 
 corded. 
 The arti- The moral weight of high purpose and fixed resolve 
 
 forced. was ou the other side. The Bishops had enough to do 
 in sentencing those who refused to conform, and who 
 declared that the meeting at Perth was no lawful 
 Assembly. In Hfe and the Lothians, at least, the 
 recalcitrant ministers had their congregations at their 
 backs. In Edinburgh large numbers of the inhabitants 
 poured out of the city to the country churches where 
 the new orders were less strictly enforced. That a 
 fitting example might be set, the officers of state and 
 the nobles of the land were marshalled to church hke 
 unwilling recruits, whilst the poor who hved upon the 
 charity dispensed by the clergy were threatened with 
 starvation if they refused to conform. Ministers were 
 cited before the Bishops, and the examination usually 
 ended in an unseemly wrangle. A man like Spottis- 
 woode could only at the last appeal to the orders of the 
 King.-' Even Forbes was the worse for the unhappy 
 contest in which he was engaged. " Will you," he 
 said, when some of the Bishops were induced to 
 forward to the King a petition for a dispensation to the 
 recalcitrant ministers, " will you justify the doctrine 
 
 ' Calderwood, vii. 370. 
 
OPPOSITION TO THE ARTICLES. 345 
 
 of these men, who have called the reverent sesture chap. 
 
 VII 
 
 which we use idolatry, and raised such a schism in our - — r-^— 
 Church ? Till they be brought pubhcly to confess their 
 error, or heresy rather, I shall never be yielding for 
 my part. It was before indifferent, now I esteem it 
 necessary, in regard to the false opinions they have 
 dispersed, to retain constantly the form we have re- 
 ceived."^ 
 
 The activity of the Bishops called up the first signs April. 
 of resistance in a quarter in which the ministers had of Dun-™^ 
 hitherto not had much to hope. An order from the 
 King to the Privy Council directed that body to 
 banish four citizens from Edinburgh. The Earl of 
 Dunfermline, the Chancellor of Scotland, with a 
 lawyer's jealousy of the domination of Bishops and 
 Presbyters ahke, objected that it was illegal to punish 
 without form of trial. A few months later the Council ^ct. 
 was directed to send for one of the incriminated 
 ministers. " It is not our part," said the Chancellor, 
 " to judge in Kirk matters. The Bishops have a High 
 Commission of their own to try these things." " WUl 
 ye reason with the King," cried Binning, who had 
 been raised to the earldom of Melrose for his services 
 at Perth. " We may reason," replied Dunfermhne, 
 " whether we shall be the Bishops' hangmen or not." 
 The old lawyer carried the Council with him, and the 
 case was referred to the High Commission.^ 
 
 In the following year Parliament was summoned to 1621. 
 give the force of law to the Articles. In a House of The Arti- 
 120, a majority of twenty-seven pronounced in their fomXhy 
 favour. The minority amongst the laity was far more meut!' 
 imposing than it had been at Perth. An analysis of 
 the division Hst shows where the King's strength lay. 
 
 ' Spottiswoode to Dr. John Forbes, Apr. 2, 1635. Funeral Sermons 
 on P. Forbes, 218. ^ Cdderwood, vii. 383. 
 
346 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 1621. 
 
 CHAP. After the Bishops and the Privy Councillors,- his sup- 
 porters were mainly taken from amongst the high 
 nobility, that is to say, from the men who had the 
 largest hold upon the Church lands.^ 
 Thettiua- Long afterwards, zealous Presbyterians loved to 
 
 derstorm. tell how at the moment when the Bills of this session 
 were being converted into law by the touch of the 
 sceptre, a blinding flash of hghtning burst forth from 
 the lurid sky, giving the first warning of the terrific 
 thunderstorm which followed. The air blackened as 
 in the night, and the crashing hail was followed by 
 torrents of rain. As the Lords, instead of riding home 
 in state, hurried away on foot, or in their coaches, not 
 a few of the citizens gazed upon the spectacle with 
 ill-concealed satisfaction, and muttered that the storm 
 was a visible sign of God's anger. " Nay rather," 
 was the reply made by some one of the opposite 
 party, " it is to be taken for an approbation of Heaven, 
 like that given at Sinai." ^ It was long before the 
 memory of ' Black Saturday' died out in Edinburgh. 
 The King's The truc portents of coming evil were to be sought, 
 not in the sky, but in the bitterness of indignation 
 awakened by the King's action. James, as soon as 
 he heard the result of the Parliamentary campaign, 
 hounded on the Bishops to increased severity. " Here- 
 after," he wrote, " that rebellious and disobedient crew 
 must either obey, or resist both to God, their natural 
 King, and the law of their country. . . . The sword is 
 now put into your hands. Go on therefore to use it, and 
 let it rest no longer till you have perfected the service 
 trusted unto you. For otherwise we must use it both 
 against you and them." 
 
 ' Melrose to the King, Aug. 3. Eatification of the Articles, Aug. 4. 
 Botfield's Origincd Letta-e, ii. 656, 658. Calderwood, vii. 488-501. 
 " Calderwood, vii. 505. SpoUiswoode, iii. 262. 
 
CHARLES'S FIRST MEASURES. 347 
 
 During the remainder of James's reign there was chap. 
 
 VII. 
 
 a perpetual effort to enforce the Articles. In 1623 
 Melrose reported that at Edinburgh ' the number of /^^3- 
 communicants was small,' and of those ' sundry of the ofenforomg 
 base sort, and some women not of the best, did sit.' ^ ci^. 
 James was for ever exhorting and threatening in vain. 
 Unruly ministers were imprisoned without effect. It is 
 no wonder that when such resistance was offered to 
 the Ajrticles, James would hear nothing of giving his 
 sanction to further innovations, and that he turned a 
 deaf ear to Laud's ' ill-fangled platform to make that 
 stubborn Kirk stoop more to the English pattern.'^ 
 
 Charles's accession was the signal for the opening of ^, 1625. 
 
 , . , 1 , .1. 1 • 1 1 • P 1 TheChurch 
 
 that controversy with the nobility on which his rather property of 
 had not ventured to enter. In securing a permanent 
 income for the clergy, James had done nothing to obviate 
 the grave social and pohtical evils attendant upon the 
 vast absorption of Church revenues by the high nobihty 
 in the preceding and earlier generations. The possession 
 of a right to tithes, where the tithes were levied in kind, 
 placed the owner of the soil at the mercy of the owner 
 of the tithes, when, as was then the case in Scotland, the 
 latter was not under the control of a strong central 
 authority. The land-owner might be compelled to keep 
 his harvest ungarnered till it pleased the tithe-owner to 
 take possession of his share.^ Even if such extreme 
 
 ' Melrose Papers, ii. 637. 
 
 ^ Mr. Sprott, in his Introduction to the Scottish Liturgies of the reign 
 of James FZ, xxxvii, points out that the story of James's conversation 
 with Williams ahout Laud cannot possibly have taken place at the date 
 assigned to it by Hacket. But it is probably true in the main. 
 
 ' This is distinctly stated in Charles's Large Declaration issued in 
 1639, ^^^ ™*y ^^ taken as a true representation of the lavr of the case, 
 even if the practice was more moderate. Compare, too, Lithgow's 
 Scotland's "Welcome. Poetical Remains, ed. Maidment, sig. 0, 2 : — 
 
 " For, Sir, take heed, what grief is this and cross ? 
 To my poor Commons, and a yearly loss ; 
 
348 
 
 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 VII. 
 
 1625. 
 
 Oct. 12. 
 Charles's 
 act of re- 
 vocation. 
 
 1626. 
 Feb. 9. 
 Explana- 
 tory pro- 
 clamation. 
 
 rights were seldom put in force, they created a feeling 
 of dependence in those who were subjected to them, 
 which must have gone far to strengthen the power of 
 the nobles against the State, and which would stand in 
 the way of that distribution of equal justice which it 
 was the business of the King's government to enforce. 
 
 Charles was therefore evidently in the right in 
 desiring to change an arrangement so fraught with 
 mischief But his mode of interference was at once 
 harsh and impolitic. Acting, as he usually did, on the 
 supposition that his legal rights were identical with his 
 moral rights, he issued an act of revocation by which 
 the mass of Church property in the hands of laymen 
 was reannexed to the Crown on the ground of technical 
 flaws in the original concession.^ Not only was the 
 extreme form in which the act was couched certain to 
 raise up enemies of no despicable kind, but it sinned 
 against the principle that long possession is entitled to 
 consideration for the sake of persons totally innocent of 
 the original wrong, whose interests have grown up 
 around it. 
 
 A proclamation issued to explain the King's in- 
 tentions did nothing to remove this fundamental ob- 
 jection.^ The nobihty, with the greater part of the Privy 
 
 That when their corns are shorn, stouked, dead, and dry, 
 They cannot get them teinded ; nay, and why ? 
 Some grudge or malice moves despight to wound 
 The hopeful harvest, and rot their corns on ground. 
 This is no rare thing on their stowks that's seen, 
 Snow-covered tops, below their grass-grown green." 
 Scotland entreats Charles not to farm the tithes to the Lords : — 
 " Then let my tithes be brought to money rent, 
 For thee, from landlord and the poor tenent ; 
 So may they shear, and lead and stack their corn, 
 At midnight, midday, afternoon or morn. 
 Which shall be their advantage and my gain. 
 When barns and yards are filled with timely grain." 
 ' Acta Pari. Scot. v. 23. 
 ' Proclamation, Feb. 9, 1626. Oonnell's Treatise on Tithes, iii. 58. 
 
TITPIE-PAYERS AND TITHE-OWNERS. 349 
 
 Council, were up in arms. The Earl of. Nithsdale, a chap. 
 
 VII 
 
 Eoman Catholic peer, who had married one of Bucking- - — r-^— 
 ham's many kinswomen, and was occasionally employed ^^^ g 
 on delicate negotiations, had been sent to Scotland to 
 carry the revocation into effect. He was met by a storm 
 of opposition. If later report spoke truly,- the leading 
 tithe-owners resolved, if nothing else would serve, to 
 ' fall upon him and all his party in the old Scottish 
 fashion and knock him on the head.' ^ Another account 
 charges the interested lords with exciting the people by 
 spreading rumours that Nithsdale was coming to revoke, 
 not the grants of tithes, but the laws establishing the 
 Protestant religion, whilst they frightened Nithsdale 
 by informing him, before he had completed his journey, 
 that the people of Edinburgh had cut in pieces the 
 coach which he had prepared for his entry into the city, 
 had killed his horses, and were quite ready to do the 
 same to himself.^ 
 
 It was not often that worldly wisdom entered into July ". 
 the counsels of Charles. But the decision which he took oscers com- 
 upon hearing of the difficulties raised was admirably ''™^'' "'°" 
 suited to meet the danger. On the one hand, whilst 
 laying stress on his intention to relieve the burdens of 
 the land-owners, he offered such of the tithe-owners as 
 would make voluntary submission a reasonable com- 
 pensation for their loss. On the other hand, he suspended 
 
 ' Mr. Burton (ffist. of Scotland, vi. 358) expresses doubts, in which I 
 fully share, of the ' savage story ' told by Burnet of the blind Lord 
 Belhaven intending to murder the Earl of Dumfries. It may be added 
 that the date given by Burnet, of the third year of the King, becomes 
 1628 in Mr. Burton's history, which is too late, and that the names Bel- 
 haven and Dumfries point to the late origin of the story. There were 
 no such titles till 1633. Burnet's statement that the King purchased 
 lands for the Archbishoprics from Hamilton and Lennox ought to have 
 been referred to a later date, as is shewn by the English Exchequer 
 Books, though there is a Privy Seal for 2,000/. for the purpose in 1625. 
 
 " Heylyn, 237. 
 
350 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAP, the operation, of the Articles of Perth, so far as those 
 - — r-^-^ ministers were concerned who had been ordained before 
 ^^^^' the new rules had been admitted, on the understanding 
 iheUtt that they would refrain from arguing against the existing 
 Perth system. At the same time there was to be a general 
 suspeniied. amucsty for the ministers who had been arrested and 
 imprisoned. In this way, whilst the attack upon the 
 high nobility was softened, Charles might hope to rally 
 round him the mass of the nation in support of a wise 
 ■ul'&c' ^^^ justifiable policy.^ On August 26 the King's Ad- 
 tion begun, vocatc took the first steps to bring the legal question 
 to trial.^ The blow was followed up by an order to 
 Sept. gjj, Qeorge Hay, the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, a testy 
 and stubborn old man, who had made himself the 
 centre of resistance, to come to London to justify his 
 conduct.^ 
 jan^^' Tkis decided step was at once successful. Envoys 
 
 Commia- were Sent from Scotland to treat with the King, and, 
 
 sioners to . i t • r-t • d ' ' 
 
 treat. after considerable discussion. Commissioners were 
 
 appointed to examine the whole subject.* After a long 
 
 1629. and minute investigation, a compromise was effected. 
 
 Compro^' The Church lands were to remain in the hands of those 
 
 feJted. ' who held them, upon payment of certain rents to the 
 
 King. Tithes, on the other hand, were dealt with in a 
 
 more complicated fashion. The land-owner was to be 
 
 at hberty to extinguish the right of levying tithes on 
 
 his property by payment of a sum calculated at nine 
 
 years' purchase. If he did not choose to exercise this 
 
 option, the tithe in kind was to be commuted into a 
 
 rent-charge, from which was to be deducted the stipend 
 
 payable to the ministers, and an annuity reserved for 
 
 ' The King to the Council, July ii. Connell, iii. 64. Balfour's 
 Hist. Works, ii. 142. 
 » Cmndl, iii. 68. 
 ' Contarini's Despatch, Oct. ^. 
 * Commission, Jan. 7, 1627, Connell, iii, 71. 
 
THE NOBILITY IN OPPOSITION. 35 1 
 
 the King.^ Special regard was paid to the circumstances chap. 
 of the minister, and in many instances they received an ^- — <-^— - 
 augmentation of their stipends. In its final shape the ^^^J^'^f 
 arrangement thus made is worthy of memory as the one *'^^ com- 
 
 ^ »/ »/ promise. 
 
 successful action of Charles's reign. In money value 
 it did not bring anything to the Scottish exchequer, as 
 the King disposed of his annuity in perpetuity in pay- 
 ment of a debt of 10,000/.^ But it weakened the power 
 of the nobility, and strengthened the prerogative in the 
 only way in which the prerogative deserved to be 
 strengthened, by the popularity it gained through carry- 
 ing into effect a wise and beneficent reform. Every 
 land-owner who was freed from the perpetual annoyance 
 of the tithe-gatherer, every minister whose income had 
 been increased and rendered more certain than by 
 James's arrangement, knew well to whom the change 
 was owing. 
 
 To obiect to the change thus effected because it TheCrowu 
 
 n 1 1 c 1 • • • against the 
 
 favoured the growth 01 the prerogative is mere constitu- ansto- 
 tional pedantry. The stage of civilisation at which 
 Scotland had arrived was one in which it still was desir- 
 able that the prerogative should be extended. The 
 nobility were still, with some brilliant exceptions, self- 
 seeking and unruly,^ and the time for the development 
 of a full Parliamentary system only arrives when all 
 members of a State are equally submissive to the laws 
 of the State. 
 
 In Scotland therefore Charles had but to persevere 
 in the course upon which he had already entered. If 
 he could satisfy the temporal requirements of the mass 
 
 ' Connell, Book iii.-iv. Forbes. A Treatise of Church Lands and 
 Tithes, 258. See also the oTMervations of Mr. Burton (vi. 353-368). 
 
 ' Forbes, 264. 
 
 ' The beginning of Spalding's nistory of the Troubles, and the 
 latter part of Mr. Burton's sixty-fourth chapter, headed ' Sufferings of 
 the Bishops ' (vi. 246) should be studied by all who doubt this. 
 
 cracy. 
 
552 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAP, of the nation, if he could avoid irritating their religious 
 
 1629. 
 
 sentiments or their religious prejudices, he might still 
 grasp firmly the nettle of aristocratic discontent. 
 
 Aristocratic discontent there was sure to be. It is 
 hard to say that the nobility had any real ground for dis- 
 satisfaction. They had exchanged an income irregularly 
 gained, and obtained by oppressive means, for one which 
 was indeed less in amount, but which was to be secured 
 not only by an indefeasible title, but by the cessation 
 of the irritation caused by their former proceedings. 
 But large bodies of men are never very reasonable in 
 their view of changes which cause them apparent 
 damage, and the circumstances under which the original 
 confiscatory act of revocation had been issued were 
 such as to make them suspicious of Charles's future 
 action. The withdrawal of the means of indirectly in- 
 fluencing the conduct of the land-owners, which was a 
 pure gain to the community, naturally left them sore, 
 as the English land-owners were left sore by the destruc- 
 tion of the rotten boroughs. 
 Question of Nor wcre the nobles without apprehension that 
 
 hentable ^^ ^ i t i f ^ 
 
 jurisdic- Charlcs would take a further step in the same direc- 
 tion. , , PI 1 . 
 
 tion. The question of the heritable jurisdictions had 
 
 been again mooted in the course of the controversy, 
 and though the King had restricted himself to the ex- 
 pression of a wish to buy them up whenever he was 
 rich enough to do so,^ it was always possible that a blow 
 might be struck against them as sudden and unex- 
 pected as the act of revocation. 
 Pnvited to "^^ "^^^ therefore certain that for some time to come 
 
 Scotland. Charlcs would have to confront the tacit hostility of the 
 Scottish nobihty. For the present, however, it was 
 certain to be no more than a tacit hostihty. Now that 
 the legality of the act of revocation had been acknow- 
 
 ' Oontarini's Despatch, Jan. §§, 1627. Heylyn, 238. 
 
CHAELES IN SCOTLAND. 353 
 
 ledged, they were anxious that the compromise to which chap. 
 they had consented should receive a Parliamentary ^^ — r-^ 
 sanction, which would save them from a more extreme ' ^'^' 
 danger in the future. Charles was therefore entreated 
 to visit Scotland to be crowned, and to hold a Parlia- 
 ment in which the sanction of law might be given to 
 the late arrangements. 
 
 Various circumstances delaved the Eoyal visit, and J^°^ 'S- 
 
 ■^ ' The King's 
 
 it was not till 16^^ that Charles crossed the border, coronation 
 
 T -riT 1 1 -1 P atEdin- 
 
 On June 1 5 he entered Edmburgh amidst a storm of burgh. 
 loyal welcome. On the 18th he was crowned at 
 Holyrood. 
 
 As a political ceremony there can be little doubt 
 that Charles's coronation was greeted with genuine 
 enthusiasm. But it was a religious ceremony as well, 
 and the form which it took would therefore go far to 
 indicate whether Charles meant to make the ideas of 
 his letter for the suspension of the Perth Articles the 
 leading principle of his ecclesiastical policy, or whether 
 that suspension was only extorted from him by the 
 immediate -necessities of the situation, to be revoked as 
 soon as the danger appeared to be at an end. It was 
 a momentous question for Charles, for the decision of 
 it in the wrong way would throw the whole force of 
 popular religious enthusiasm on the side of the nobility 
 if they should at any time find it advisable to renew 
 the struggle which they had for the moment renounced 
 as hopeless. 
 
 The Prayer-book, the preparation of which had 1619. 
 been enjoined by the Assembly which had met at Aber- pJayer- 
 deen three years before, was completed early in 1619. Scottish*''* 
 Hewat's version had been thrust aside, and another, of bishops. 
 which the chief part of the composition has been 
 ascribed to Cowper, Bishop of Galloway, was revised 
 by Spottiswoode and the Dean of Winchester, a Scotch- 
 
 VOL. I. A A 
 
554 
 
 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAP. 
 VII. 
 
 1621. 
 
 1629. 
 
 Sept. 
 Charles 
 revives the 
 project. 
 
 Laud pre- 
 fers the 
 English 
 Book. 
 
 man of the name of Young. But it was not brought into 
 use. James was alarmed at the outburst of resistance 
 to the Perth Articles, and in 162 1 he allowed his Com- 
 missioners to promise the Scottish Parliament that if 
 those Articles were confirmed there should be no further 
 innovation in matters of religion. 
 
 The question of a Liturgy was allowed to sleep for 
 eight years. In 1629 the proceedings of the English 
 Parliament had rivetted the ascendancy of Laud upon 
 Charles's mind, and his success in the business of tithes 
 in Scotland may have induced him to think that he had 
 no reason to keep terms with Puritanism in thatkingdom'. 
 Whatever the motive may have been, he sent for the 
 draft of the Prayer-book. It was brought to England 
 by Dr. James Maxwell, one of the Edinburgh ministers, 
 a man unlikely to give offence from any undue sym- 
 pathy with Puritanism, and was by him submitted to 
 Laud, in obedience to Charles's orders. 
 
 Laud's judgment could hardly be doubtful. In 
 itself uniformity was dehghtful to him as the prop and 
 stay of spiritual unity, and the mere fact that the pro- 
 posed draft for Scotland differed from the existing 
 English version would dispose him unfavourably to- 
 Avards it. In itself, too, the new Prayer-book must 
 have seemed to him to differ for the worse from the 
 forms to which he was accustomed. Though it 
 followed to a great extent the Book of Common Prayer, 
 it had large portions inserted from Knox's Book of 
 Common Order, and yas, on the whole, such a recen- 
 sion of the Prayer-book as would commend itself to the 
 feelings of %n English low churchman of the present 
 time.^ Laud therefore declined to give his approbation 
 
 • Thus, in the Baptismal Service, the use of the sign of the cross, and 
 the declaration after baptism ' that this child is regenerate,' were omitted. 
 At the Oommunion Service, the table was to stand ' in that part of the 
 church which the minister flndeth most convenient,' The double form 
 
THE NEW SCOTTISH PRAYER-BOOK. 355 
 
 1629. 
 
 to the liturgy which was stamped Avith the recommen- chap. 
 dation of the Scottish Bishops. " I told him," he said 
 long afterwards, in giving an account of his conversation 
 with Maxwell, "I was clear of opinion that if his 
 Majesty would have a liturgy settled there, it were best 
 to take the English liturgy without any variation, that 
 so the same Service Book might be established in all 
 his Majesty's dominions." Maxwell's reply was a 
 warning of coming evil. That the Scotch were Puritans 
 was only one side of the danger. They were also 
 Scotchmen proud of their ancient nationality, and 
 jealous, as only small communities are jealous, of any 
 invasion of their special modes of action at the dictation 
 of foreigners. " To this," says Laud, " he replied that 
 he was of a contrary opinion, and that not only he, but 
 the Bishops of that kingdom thought their countrymen 
 would be much better satisfied if a liturgy were formed 
 by their own clergy, than to have the English liturgy 
 put upon them ; yet, he added, that it might be 
 according to the form of our English Service Book." 
 Even the hope held out of large modifications did not 
 satisfy Laud. He reported the conversation to Charles, 
 and Charles, as blind as Laud to the dangers in his 
 
 derived from the two Prayer-boolis of Edward VI. was preserved in the 
 administration of the Communion to the people on their knees. But it 
 was prefaced by a short address adopted from Knox : — " Let us lift up 
 our hearts unto the Lord, and by faith lay hold upon Jesus, whom God 
 the Father, by his Spirit, offereth to us in this holy sacrament, that we maf 
 draw virtue from the Lord to quicken and conceive our souls and bodies 
 unto eternal life." The whole subject is treated of at length in Mr. 
 Sprott's Appendix to the Scottish Liturgies of the reign of Jmnes VI. 
 One point which confirms his argument that the Prayer for the Queen 
 was introduced in the autumn of 1629 has escaped his notice. The petition 
 to ' make her a happy mother of successful children ' must, almost certainly, 
 have been written, not only before the birth of Prince Charles, but after 
 the Queen's miscarriage of her first child. I have not quoted the original 
 authorities for this part of my narrative, as the reader will find them 
 all referred to in Mr. Sprott's excellent Introduction. 
 
 i. i. 3 
 
356 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAP, path, approved Laud's proposal for the introduction of 
 ■ — • — ' the Enghsh Prayer-book. 
 
 1629. r^^^ Scottish Bishops were reaping in their humi- 
 
 fhe siot"'^ liation the seed which they had sown in their apparent 
 sho ?'" triumph at Perth. They had preached the acceptance 
 of an order of things which they themselves held to be 
 unadvisable, in order to please the King, and they now 
 found that that King's successor cast aside their advice 
 and their warnings as unworthy of a moment's notice. 
 It is not required of those whose work it is to govern 
 that they should be possessed of the highest spiritual 
 insight, or that they should be constantly promulgating 
 some new discovery in politics or theology. But if 
 they are to retain the respect of contemporaries or of 
 posterity, it is absolutely necessary that they should 
 place some reasonable limits upon the extent to which 
 they allow their own judgments to be overruled by 
 considerations of expediency. It was not mere ob- 
 sequiousness or ambition which had dictated the readi- 
 ness of the Bishops to accept, against their better 
 judgment, the Articles of Perth. It was owing to the 
 kingly authority that the Scottish clergy were able to 
 carry out the work of their ministry in the face of the 
 hungry and grasping owners of the soil, and it may well 
 have seemed to the Bishops that to oppose tlie King, 
 except upon some question on which their own con- 
 science was at stake, would throw back the Church 
 into the clutches of the nobility. Since the Articles at 
 Perth had been put in practice, however, some expe- 
 rience had been gained. The risk of placing the King's 
 rule in opposition to the religious consciousness of the 
 nation was becoming plain to all who had eyes to see 
 To withstand the King at Perth in 1618 would have 
 been, if they had only known it, the best service that 
 the Bishops could have rendered to James. To with- 
 
THE SCOTTISH BISHOPS. 357 
 
 stand the King at Edinburgh in 1633 would be the best chap. 
 service that they could render to Charles. It was 
 
 because the Scottish Bishops had no word to speak in ' ^^' 
 the great contest which was arising, because, being 
 neither strong partisans nor wise mediators, they 
 drifted helplessly like logs on the current of afiairs, that 
 the very name stank in the nostrils of the Scottish 
 nation, and they were credited with all the mischief 
 which they had done nothing to remedy. The great 
 Italian poet would have condemned them without 
 appeal to an endless comradeship with those who were 
 alike displeasing to God and to His enemies. The moral 
 strength which is based on the conviction that a man 
 ought to think and speak independently of the dictation 
 of the King was passing over, if it had not already passed 
 over, to their opponents. 
 
 What the Bishops did not say was said by William 1631- , 
 Struthers, one of the Edinburgh ministers, himself a letter, 
 conformist, though a most unwilling conformist, to the 
 Articles of Perth. " There is some surmises," he wrote 
 in a letter intended for the King's eyes, " of further 
 novation of organs, liturgies, and such like, which 
 greatly augments the grief of the people." The Church, 
 he said, lay groaning under two wounds, the erection 
 of bishoprics and the order to kneel at the reception of 
 the sacrament. If a third were added, and the con- 
 gregations were ' forced to suffer novelties ' in ' the 
 whole body of pubhc worship,' nothing short of general 
 confusion would be the result.^ 
 
 Charles had, when at last he visited Scotland, come 1633. 
 with the resolution to override such remonstrances. chariM's 
 By his side was Laud, prepared to renew at Edinburgh '"""p*"^- 
 the recommendations which he had given in London. 
 
 > Balfmr, ii. 181. Tlie Earl of Airth, to whom the letter is said to 
 have heen addressed, was known at that time as Earl of Menteith. 
 
358 THE laNG'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAP. On the day of the coronation the final decision .had 
 
 ■ — -^— yet to be taken. But the ceremonies observed in 
 ^^' Holyrood chapel were not such as gave hope that much 
 Ceremoniea regard would be paid to the feelings of Scotchmen, 
 nation. The Archblshop of St. Andrews and the other four 
 Bishops who took part in the service were attired in 
 ' white rochets and white sleeves, and copes of gold 
 having blue silk to their foot.' The Oommuuion-table 
 was prepared after a fashion which must have re- 
 called to all educated Scotchmen the famous epigram 
 of Andrew Melville. One who was by no means a 
 stickler for extreme Puritanism remarked that a table 
 was placed in the church ' after the manner of an altar, 
 having thereupon two books, with two wax chandeliers, 
 and two wax candles which were unhghted, and a basin 
 wherein there was nothing.' At the back of this altar, 
 " covered with tapestry," he added, " there was a rich 
 tapestry wherein the crucifix was curiously wrought ; 
 and as these Bishops who were in service passed by 
 this crucifix they were seen to bow the knee and beck, 
 which, with their habit, was noticed, and bred great 
 fear of inbringing of Popery." ^ 
 
 The work of exasperating the religious feelings of 
 
 ' Spalding, i. 36. Mr. Grub, in his Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, 
 ii. 345, throws doubt on the usually accepted story told by Rush-worth, 
 that the Archbishop of St. Andrews being placed on the King's right 
 hand, and the Archbishop of Glasgow on the left, Laud ' took Glasgow 
 and thrust him from the King in these words : — " Are you a churchman, 
 and wants the coat of your order." ' He argues that ' in Sir J. Balfour's 
 minute narrative of the coronation it does not appear that any special 
 place was assigned to Archbishop Lindsay,' and that Spalding says that 
 ' the Archbishop of Glasgow and the remanent of the Bishops there pre- 
 sent, who were not in the service, changed not their habit, but wore 
 their black gowns without rochets or white sleeves.' It may be added 
 that the details of the ceremony must have been ai-ranged lieforehand, 
 and if the Archbishop objected to appear in a cope, the question would 
 not have been left to be settled in the church. It should be remem- 
 bered that during this period Eushworth is no safe authority. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTAEY OPPOSITION. 359 
 
 the greater part of those who had any religious feehng chap. 
 at all in Scotland was thus successfully begun. The ^ — r-^— - 
 pressure put upon congregations to kneel at the Com- ^ ^^" 
 munion was only felt once or twice a year. The offence 
 given by the white garment and the reverence paid in 
 passing before the crucifix would be an offence of 
 weekly, if not of daily repetition, in the eyes of men 
 who were sensitive above all other Protestants to the 
 danger of relapsing into a system which they counted 
 irreligious and antichristian. 
 
 That which had been done in the King's chapel June 20. 
 
 • 1 • rr. -r^ T ^ x Meeting of 
 
 was not without its enect upon rarliament. On June Pariia- 
 20 that body met for despatch of business. Unhke the 
 English Parhament, it was not divided into two Houses. 
 Out of 183 members, the non-official lords present in 
 person or by proxy could number only sixty-six votes, 
 and resistance to the King was therefore too hopeless to 
 be attempted on a question in which, as in that of the 
 compromise on tithes, he would have at his disposal the 
 ninety-six votes of the representatives of the boroughs 
 and of the untitled gentry. The ecclesiastical bills 
 offered a better rallying ground for opposition. It 
 would be invidious to bring a charge of deliberate 
 insincerity against those of the lords who perceived 
 this. Some of them perhaps may have looked upon 
 the opportunity offered them as merely an occasion for 
 a clever piece of political tactics. Others were doubt- 
 less inspired with a conscientious dislike of the new 
 ceremonies. But it is probable that there were many 
 whose eyes were opened to the duty of opposing the 
 ceremonies by the attack made on their own property 
 and interests by the now withdrawn act of revocation. 
 
 Opposition to the Crown, however, was never very Difficulties 
 easy in a Scottish Parliament excepting when the sitiSi?^^"" 
 whole of those present were substantially agreed. A 
 
360 THE KENQ'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND, 
 
 chap; Committee named the Lords of the Articles was pos- 
 sessed of the exclusive right of examining and amend- 
 ing Bills, the whole House beiug compelled to 
 accept or reject in their entirety the Bills which came 
 down to them from that Committee. By a series of 
 changes, permitted or condoned by the Scottish Parha- 
 ment, never so alive as the English Parliament to the 
 The Lords valuc of forms, the Lords of the Articles were so con- 
 Articles. stituted as to represent as far as possible the wishes of 
 the King. The nobility had first of all to select eight 
 of the twelve Bishops, and it would have been hard 
 to find a single Bishop opposed to the Crown. The 
 Bishops had then to choose eight out of the sixty-six 
 nobles, and it would have been strange if eight nobles 
 could not be found to vote as the King wished. The 
 Bishops and nobles together then chose eight of the 
 untitled gentry and eight of the commissioners for 
 boroughs, and even if every one of these sixteen had 
 joined in opposition, they would be helpless to turn the 
 scale. For the King had the further right of adding 
 eight officers of state to the Committee thus consti- 
 tuted,^ and of appointing his Chancellor as its president. 
 As if this were not enough, he might himself be present 
 at the deliberations of the body thus formed. 
 June 28. When at last the Bills were laid before the whole 
 
 Tiie^sitting 2Qygg^ there was found to be one which confirmed all 
 HoMe. acts of the late reign relating to the Church, and 
 another which mixed up the confirmation of an act 
 made in 1606 in acknowledgment of the Royal pre- 
 rogative with another act giving power to the King to 
 settle the apparel in which judges, magistrates, and the 
 clergy were to appear in public. It would thus be 
 impossible for any one to vote against the latter clause 
 without declaring himself the opponent of the King's 
 
 ' Burton, vi. 369. Acts of Pari, of Scotl. v. 10. 
 
THE SURPLICE IN EDINBURGH. S^I 
 
 prerogative.^ Nor was any one left in doubt that the ^^ap. 
 Bill, if carried, would be used by Charles in a way very — -> — ■' 
 different from that in which the former Act had been ^^^^ ^^ 
 used by James. Hitherto the use of English forms 
 had been confined to the Eoyal chapel at Holyrood. 
 But on the Sunday before the day on which the vote 
 was to be taken, Charles had attended St. Giles's ' and 
 after he was set down in his own place, the ordinary 
 reader being reading the word and singing psalms, — as 
 the ordinary custom was then, — before sermon, Mr. John 
 Maxwell . . . came down from the King's loft, caused 
 the reader remove from his place, set down there 
 two English chaplains clad with surplices, and they 
 with the help of other chaplains and Bishops there 
 present, acted their English service. That being ended, 
 in came Mr. John Guthrie, Bishop of Moray, clad also 
 with a surplice,' or rather a rochet, 'went up so to 
 pulpit, and taught a sermon.' ^ Another authority bears 
 witness to the results. " The people of Edinburgh, 
 seeing the Bishop preach in his rochet, which was never 
 seen in Giles' kirk since the Reformation, and by him 
 who was sometime one of their own town's Puritan 
 ministers, they were grieved and grudged hereat, think- 
 ing the same smelt of Popery." ^ 
 
 The leaders of the opposition had already prepared There- 
 a petition which showed that they knew how to meet tion."* ^^^' 
 the King with his own tactics. In complaining against 
 the acts relating to the Church they took care to com- 
 plain also of a proposed new taxation which weighed 
 upon all land owners in Scotland.* 
 
 * The powers conferred on James had been to the effect that ' every 
 preacher of God's word shaU. hereafter wear black grave and comely 
 apparel,' and that as the King was ' godly, wise, and religious, hating 
 all erroneous and vain superstition,' he might settle what the apparel of 
 the clergy was to be. 
 
 * Row, 363. ' Spcdding, i. 20. 
 
 * Row, Hist, of the Kirk of Scotland, 364, 
 
3^2 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 c"AP. Charles refused to receive the petition. In all the 
 
 ■ — • opposition which was surging up suddenly around him, 
 
 , „ he doubtless saw nothing else than a factious and un- 
 
 June 28. . _ o 
 
 ac' e tei" P^^'incipled attempt to take vengeance upon him for the 
 act of revocation. He threw himself into the strug- 
 gle with all the heat of a party leader. When the 
 Earl of Loudon stood up to question the propriety of 
 joining the confirmation of two acts in one bill, the 
 King sharply told him that ' the orders of the house ' were 
 ' not to dispute there but to vote.' ^ The whole assembly 
 felt the importance of the contest which the King had 
 challenged. When the division was taken there was 
 scarcely a man present who did not anxiously note 
 down the votes as they were given. Charles was too 
 much interested in the result to maintain a dignified 
 bearing ; he too jotted down the names, not without 
 expressions of dissatisfaction with those who voted in 
 the negative. This time he was saved from defeat. A 
 majority, probably only a slight majority, was on his 
 side.''' 
 
 Rothes and The uamcs of those who composed the minority are 
 lost to us with scarcely an exception, and rumour has 
 been so busy in swelling the original grain of truth till 
 it is no longer distinguishable from falsehood, that it is 
 impossible to reproduce the scene with any distinctness. 
 But it can hardly be doubted that the Earls of Eothes 
 and Loudon took a leading part in the opposition, and 
 Eothes and Loudon were two of three commissioners 
 who had come to England in 1626 on behalf of the 
 tithe-holding nobility. 
 
 ' Sanderson's History, 194. That discussion was stopped is stated in 
 the Humble supplication for connection with which Balmerino was after- 
 wards tried. 
 
 ' Mr. Napier (Montrose and the Covenanters, i. 521) seems to mo to 
 have completely disposed of the story that there was a real majority the 
 other way, concealed by Charles. Its antecedent improbability is glaring. 
 But it was believed soon after the time. 
 
THE NEW PKAYEE-BOOK DISCUSSED. 36 
 
 o"o 
 
 How was this opposition to be met by Charles? chap. 
 On June 30 Laud preached at Holjo-ood on the bless- --^ — r-^— 
 ings of conformity, and a meeting of Bishops and other j^^^ '^ 
 ministers was held to discuss with Laud and the King The intro- 
 
 . ,., ,, duction of 
 
 the proposed introduction of the English Prayer-book. thcPiayer- 
 Some of those present, Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin, the poned. 
 historian and defender of the Articles of Perth, Maxwell, 
 who had just become Bishop of Eoss, Sydserf, an Edin- 
 burgh minister, and Wedderburn, a Scotchman who had 
 been a professor at St. Andrews, and was now a bene- 
 ficed clergyman in the English Church, gave their voices 
 in favour of Laud's unwise proposal. The mass of the 
 Bishops were still of the same mind that they had been 
 in in 1629. Yet so far as information reaches us, they 
 did not speak plainly out. They did not say that they 
 could not go one step further than the liturgy which they 
 had prepared. They talked of the objection which would 
 be taken in Scotland to a liturgy precisely similar to that 
 used on the south of the Tweed. They complained of 
 a few unimportant errors, mistakes in the translation of 
 the Psalms, and the like. Every Scotchman knew that 
 the real objection did not lie here. Charles did not care 
 to see it. He gave way so far as to agree that some 
 of the Scotch Bishops should set to work ' to draw up a 
 liturgy ^ as near that of England as might be.' The Book 
 of 1 6 1 9 was tacitly allowed to drop out of sight. It had 
 itself been more obnoxious than the Book of 1617. 
 Its successor might weU be more obnoxious still. 
 
 The next day Charles set out for a progress in the juiy 18. 
 country, which he enjoyed extremely. In spite of all f^^^t 
 that had passed, he was received with every demonstra- ^"''*°^- 
 
 ^ Laud!s Works, iii. 278. Crawford, Lives of the Officers of the Crown, 
 177. He founds his narrative on MSS. of Spottiswoode which have been 
 lost, and upon Clarendon, who had doubtless a good opportunity of 
 hearing what passed. Crawford anticipates by caUiag Sydserf and 
 Wedderburn Bishops. 
 
564 
 
 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAP. 
 VII. 
 
 1633- 
 
 Oct. IS. 
 The sur- 
 plice 
 ordered. 
 
 Sept. 29. 
 New 
 
 Bishopric 
 of Edin- 
 burgh. 
 
 1634. 
 
 Jan. 
 W. Forbes 
 the first 
 Bishop. 
 
 tion of affection. In the whole course of his wanderings 
 he met with only one mishap. On his way back to 
 Edinburgh he was nearly drowned in crossing from 
 Burntisland, and on July 18 he left his northern 
 capital on his journey home. 
 
 The composition of a Prayer-book was for the pre- 
 sent suspended. But Charles had not long been in 
 England before he discharged a Parthian shot upon 
 Scotland. In virtue of the powers conferred on hirn 
 by the recent Act, he directed that at the time of 
 service the clergy should appear in ' whites.' ^ Such an 
 order could not be enforced. But Chaiies had thrown 
 up one more barrier between himself and the hearts of 
 his loyal subjects in Scotland. 
 
 Another step taken in the same direction showed 
 whither Charles was tending. During his visit he 
 arranged for the establishment of a new Bishopric of 
 Edinburgh, the city and the country around having up 
 to that time formed part of the diocese of St. Andrews. 
 The first Bishop appointed by Charles was William 
 Forbes, a distant cousin of the Bishop of Aberdeen. A 
 man more worthy of respect for wide theological 
 learning, for gentleness of spirit, and for earnestness 
 and simplicity of life, it would have been difficult to 
 find. And yet a more indiscreet selection could hardly 
 have been made. In his dislike of contention and 
 strife, Forbes was inclined to overlook the realities 
 which divided the Church into parties, and his theology, 
 derived from a study of the Fathers, led him to admit 
 possibilities of reconciliation by which the most radical 
 diversities of opinion were to be merged in the white 
 light of undefined and impalpable truth. 
 
 Least of all were the citizens of Edinburgh likely 
 to give ear to a teacher who placed his ideal in a 
 
 • Acts of Pari, of Scotl. v. 21. 
 
THE FIRST BISHOP OF EDINBURGH. 365 
 
 scheme of Christian thought which should enable the chap. 
 disciples of a Protestant Church to join hands with the ^ — r^— ' 
 disciples of the Pope. Even in Aberdeen, where a school ^ ^^' 
 adverse to the Puritan ideas of the South had arisen 
 in the University, Forbes stood to a certain extent 
 alone. In James's reign he had been settled as one of 
 the Edinburgh ministers. But he had found the place 
 uncongenial, and he had shrunk back to Aberdeen from 
 the atmosphere of strife into which he had been plunged. 
 But if Forbes did not satisfy the Scotch, he satisfied 
 Charles. In a sermon preached before the King he ^^33- 
 had taken for his text, " My peace I leave with you." 
 As disturbers of peace he arraigned before his pulpit 
 on the one hand the Pope as the claimant of infallibility 
 and the promulgator of new doctrines, and on the other 
 hand the Protestant theologians who contentiously pro- 
 claimed that which was not fundamental to be funda- 
 mental, and who took needless offence at ecclesiastical 
 rites which were anciently in use with the universal 
 consent of the Christian Church. Three things he, said, 
 were needed to restore order ; ' one liturgy, one cate- 
 chism, one confession of faith.' The Church too 
 needed external protection as well as inward unity. 
 There were those who had stripped God of his 
 portion, the Church of her patrimony, the pastors 
 of their necessary food, the people of God of their 
 spiritual bread, the poor of the maintenance of their 
 bodies. When will the good Samaritan come to relieve 
 the Scottish Church which had fallen among thieves ? ^ 
 
 Charles was encom-aged to come forward as the ,624 
 good Samaritan. Forbes himself was not long to be Dtath'o"' 
 exposed to the contentions of the world. After an ^"''*'- 
 episcopate of three months he passed away, and gained 
 
 » Sermon preached June 25, 1633, in Garden's Life of J. Forbes, 290 
 prefixed to J. Fwhem Opera. ' 
 
3^6 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAP, that peace which was not to be found in the Seotland 
 
 VII 
 
 of his day. His successor was Lindsay of Brechin, who 
 '^^' was in turn succeeded by Sydserf. Lindsay and Sydserf 
 had been two of the four who had advised the intro- 
 duction of tlie English liturgy. A third was already a 
 Bishop, and the fourth, Wedderburn, would not have 
 long to wait. 
 
 A new element was thus introduced into the Scottish 
 episcopate. The old Bishops who had followed falter- 
 ingly in Jamos's steps would soon die out, and others 
 whose thoughts answered to those of Laud would 
 take their places. The life, the vigour of Puritanism 
 was to be repressed, and a scholarlike uniformity was 
 to smother all rude and violent clamour. Eeligion and 
 morality were expected to flourish when zeal and the 
 disorders which accompany zeal had been put to silence. 
 The old It was terribly dangerous. The old Bishops at 
 
 and new t • i . i • 
 
 Bishops, least represented a movement m the Scottish mmd, a 
 weariness of ecclesiastical janglings and of clerical 
 domination. The new Bishops represented Laud and 
 Charles and England, or what seemed to be England 
 to those who did not know where the heart of England 
 was. The moral instincts which refused to be smothered 
 by a catechism, a liturgy, and a confession prepared with- 
 out reference to the beliefs of those for whom they are 
 intended, would combine with the national indignation 
 at those who sought to forge in a foreign country the 
 bonds which they were preparing for their own. 
 Charles Till difficulties actually stared Charles in the face, 
 
 position"''" he did not know that they existed. Still less did he 
 °'^' perceive how much he was doing to increase them. He 
 did not know that his Church policy was raising such 
 men as Loudon and Eothes from insignificance. He 
 fancied that to overwhelm those selfish and unprincipled 
 adventurers, as he regarded them, he had but to testify 
 
THE SUPPLICATION OF THE NOBILITY. 367 
 
 his displeasure. Before his arrival in Scotland he had chap. 
 
 VII 
 
 created some new peers, and had raised many Barons - — ^^-' 
 to a higher rank. He now gave orders that the grants ^ •^4' 
 which had not been formally made out should be 
 suspended in the cases of those who had joined in the 
 opposition in Parliament. When he returned to Eng- 
 land, he heard to his annoyance that untrue rumours 
 were floating about, and that Scotchmen were whisper- 
 ing to one another that the majority for the ecclesiastical 
 acts had been a fictitious one, and that he had himself 
 interfered to conceal the fraud. 
 
 Charles had thus gone back to England in no good 1633- 
 
 .,, ".. r-, . ° . , °, June. 
 
 temper with the opposition, ireating it as altogether ThesuppH- 
 factious, he had refused, whilst yet in Scotland, to look 
 at a paper which had been drawn up by a certain 
 William Haig, as embodying the sentiments of those 
 who had voted against the acts. This paper had 
 been approved of by Lord Balmerino, and had been 
 passed on by him to Eothes to be shown to the King 
 as a ' supplication of a great number of the nobility and 
 other commissioners in the late Parliament.' Eothes 
 knew what the King's temper was, and began by 
 sounding him before he ventured to deliver the paper. 
 ' My lord,' was the reply, ' ye know what is fit for you 
 to represent, and I know what is fit to me to hear and 
 consider ; and therefore do or do not upon your peril.' 
 After another attempt Eothes put the document in his 
 pocket and made no further eSbrt to obtain a hearing. 
 
 Balmerino could not rest satisfied with this con- ™ ■*^"s- 
 
 I he paper 
 
 elusion. He showed the paper in the strictest secrecy f^^-^*", 
 
 to his notary, and the notary took a copy which he i"'°<Js- 
 
 showedj also in the strictest secrecy, to a friend, who 
 
 carried it to Spottiswoode. Spottiswoode forwarded it 
 
 to the King. 
 
 The supplication, humble enough in outward form, its charac- 
 ter. 
 
368 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 ^vn!"' "^"^* ^^^6 ^^^° ™ost irritating to Charles. The sting 
 jg' of the paper is to be found rather in its general tone 
 Aug. than in any particular charge brought in it. On the 
 one hand, it tacitly treated the whole existing Church 
 system, and still more the changes which were known 
 to be impending, as illegal. Nothing lawfully rejected 
 at the Eeformation could be reintroduced without con- 
 sent of the ' clergy lawfully assembled,' that is to say, 
 in plain words, without the consent of a Presbyterian 
 Assembly. The recent ecclesiastical legislation was 
 rejected as ' importing a servitude upon this Church 
 unpractised before.' 
 KioRand The framers of the supplication must have been 
 
 th6 £iSt&t6S 
 
 of the aware that Charles might answer, as it had been again 
 and again answered in England, that it was for the King 
 and the nation expressing their will in an Act of Parlia- 
 ment to impose these resolutions upon the clergy. They 
 therefore proceeded to point out the obstacles which had 
 been thrown in the way of that previous discussion 
 without which Parliamentary proceedings are valueless. 
 The Lords of the Articles had been chosen so as to make 
 them merely the representatives of a party. The dis- 
 sentient nobles had been hindered from representing 
 their views to them in conference, and when the final 
 vote was taken the King had forbidden that any one 
 should state the reasons of the vote which he was about 
 to give, and finally, by marking down the votes given, 
 had shown that those who persisted in opposition were 
 regarded by him as out of favour.^ 
 
 The supplication, in short, discursively, and under 
 forms of the highest respect, touched boldly on the sore 
 point in Charles's government. His own will was pre- 
 dominant. The general opinion of the clergy had long 
 
 ' These ideas are expressed in different parts of the supplication, but 
 they are all there. 
 
BALMEEINO'S TRIAL. 369 
 
 been neglected. The general opinion of the laity had 
 not yet completely turned against him. But it required 
 tender handling, and it might at any day become 
 adverse in the process. Those who pointed out this to 
 Charles were doing him a real service. 
 
 Charles did not perceive the service, but he did 1634- 
 
 Pro 066(3."" 
 
 perceive that his whole system of government was ings 
 threatened. Haig had prudently escaped to Holland, slamerino. 
 and Balmerino was selected as the victim. By giving 
 the paper to his notary he had published a seditious 
 libel, and was liable to the penalty of death under the 
 Scottish law of ' leasing-making,' for stirring up enmity 
 between the King and his subjects by false and malicious 
 statements. It was not till March 1 6^ s that the trial , '^3S- 
 
 ^ ^ March 20. 
 
 actually came on.^ The jury acquitted Balmerino of His trial, 
 every charge brought against him but one. They found 
 that he was not the author of the libel, and had not 
 divulged or dispersed it. But by a bare majority of eight 
 to seven they found that he was guilty of concealing his 
 knowledge of its existence.^ 
 
 Already, before the day of trial, a remonstrance had Marcu 2. 
 been addressed to the King by a man of whom Scotland mond's ap- 
 was deservedly proud. William Drummond of Haw- ^^^ ' 
 thornden did not rise above the second rank of literary 
 greatness. But he was a man of varied culture, and 
 his writings in poetry and prose were widely read. He 
 was the foremost of that band of men which broke the 
 tradition that Scottish literature ought to be written in 
 the Scottish national tongue, and which strove to express 
 their thoughts in the language which had served the 
 piu-poses of Shakspere and Jonson, and was one day to 
 
 ' Mr. Burton, Hist, of Scot. yi. 384, suggests that this delay was 
 caused by the hesitation of those entrusted with the conduct of the pro- 
 secution. 
 
 " State Ti-inls, in. Sgi. iJow, 386. 
 
 VOL. I. 13 « 
 
370 
 
 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 1635- 
 
 March 2. 
 
 July. 
 Balmerino 
 pardoned. 
 
 serve the purposes of Scott and Campbell, He was 
 withal an upright and honest man, craving for philo- 
 sophic and literary culture rather than for Calvinistic 
 orthodoxy, and fearing the inquisitive meddling of the 
 Presbyterian clergy who would be sure to bear hard 
 upon one of his tastes and opinions. He was one who, 
 like Patrick Forbes, had formed part of that wave of 
 liberal reaction, which, through the blunders of James 
 and Charles, had already spent its force. As Forbes had 
 warned James against his ecclesiastical mistakes, Drum- 
 mond now warned Charles against his political mistakes. 
 In a letter, evidently intended to be shewn to the King, 
 he pointed out that it was impossible to secure popularity 
 by muzzling men's tongues and pens. In so doing the 
 King was shutting his eyes to that which it most im- 
 ported him to know. " Sometimes it is great wisdom 
 in a Prince not to reject and disdain those who freely 
 teU him his duty, and open to him his misdemeanors to 
 the commonwealth, and the surmises and umbrages of 
 his people and council for the amending disorders and 
 bettering the form of his government." The best way 
 to treat political libels was to scorn them or answer 
 them. " Wise Princes have never troubled themselves 
 much about talkers ; weak spirits cannot suffer the 
 liberty of judgments nor the indiscretion of tongues." ^ 
 
 Drummond's letter was even a more impressive 
 condemnation of Charles's system of government than 
 the supplication had been. The tone is different, but 
 
 ' Dnimmond's Apologetical Letter [to the Earl of Ancram], Works, 
 132. I need not refer the reader to Professor Mssson's Drummond of 
 Hawthwnden, which should be in every one's hands who wishes to under- 
 stand these times in Scotland. Unluckily he has passed over the affair 
 of the tithes, without which no completely fair judgment can he formed. 
 Mr. Napier, on the other hand, in his various wox'ks on the life of Mont- 
 rose, is totally unable to see anything except the commutation of tithes 
 and Presbyterian intolerance. 
 
BALMEEINO PARDONED. 37 1 
 
 the fault complained of is the same. One man, how- chap. 
 ever highly placed, cannot govern a nation from which ■ — r— 
 he stands apart. It was because Charles could never ^^^^' 
 learn this lesson that he fell at last. It was indeed mor- 
 ally impossible for him to send Balmerino to the scaffold. 
 Even Laud told him that a man must be pardoned who 
 had been acquitted by seven jurymen out of fifteen.^ 
 But the impression of the trial and the events which had 
 preceded it could not be so easily wiped away. Charles 
 had gone far to blot out the memory of the services 
 which he had rendered to Scotland in enforcing the 
 commutation of tithes. 
 
 When great national errors have been committed, Difficulty 
 smaller personal mistakes are certain to follow in their Gov°rn- 
 wake, and to obtain an importance which they would 
 not otherwise have had. There can be no doubt that 
 the absence of the King was an enormous difficulty in 
 the way of governing Scotland. Not only was the King 
 himself liable to be filled with ideas which were not 
 Scottish ideas, but the Privy Council which ruled in his 
 name was sure to deteriorate into the worst possible 
 form of government. It was a Committee in which there 
 was no master mind. Personal objects swayed its 
 members, and those men who should have stood as the 
 leaders of the nation became known as men jostling 
 against one another for power or pelf One great blow 
 had been wisely struck at their supremacy by Charles 
 at the beginning of his reign. He had ordained that, 
 with the exception of the Chancellor, men who sat in 
 the Privy Council as administrators of the Government, 
 should not also sit in the Court of Session as Judges.^ 
 From time to time he had done his best to moderate 
 the quarrels of his representatives at Edinburgh. But 
 he had not sufficient knowledge of men to choose 
 
 ' Rotv, 389, ^ Balfour, ji. 129. 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 
 
 THE KING'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 Ilnmilton 
 in favour. 
 
 The 
 Bishops 
 promoted 
 in Scotland, 
 
 counsellors who were really worthy to govern, and his 
 gradual alienation from the national feeling on the sub- 
 ject of religion made those who were really worthy 
 shrink from his side. 
 
 Gradually Charles saw fit to take for his counsellor 
 in England the Marquis of Hamilton. He chose him 
 as he had chosen Buckingham and Weston, and resolved 
 to support him against all complaints. It was not a 
 wise choice. Hamilton was a weak and inefficient man, 
 with just enough remembrance of his relationship to the 
 Eoyal dynasty to keep him perpetually on the watch for 
 occasions which might increase his credit in Scotland, 
 whilst his double-dealing, springing from an anxiety to 
 stand well with every party, deprived him of all value 
 as an adviser. 
 
 Charles's choice of representatives at Edinburgh was 
 even worse than his choice of a confidant in England. 
 When nobles were grasping and lawyers intriguing, 
 there was one body of men who had never crossed his 
 path, and who had given him every reason to assure 
 himself of their devotion. If the Bishops had given him 
 full satisfaction when employed in Church affairs, why 
 should they not give him full satisfaction when em- 
 ployed in political affairs? Man for man, there was 
 in aU probability more chance that a Bishop would 
 be honest and self-denying than an Earl or a Baron 
 would be. Charles at least thought so. Step by step 
 he had pushed forward the Bishops into temporal 
 rank and office. At his coronation he had been vexed 
 by the refusal of Lord Chancellor Hay, whom he had 
 just created Earl of Kinnoid, to allow Spottiswoode to 
 take precedence of him. Kinnoul declared his readiness 
 to lay the Chancellorship at his Majesty's feet. But 
 whilst he kept it, 'never a priest in Scotland should set 
 
THE BISHOPS IN THE PRIVY COUNCIL. 373 
 
 afoot before him as long as his blood was hot.' ^ In chap. 
 
 VII 
 
 December 1634 the 'old cankered goutish man,' as .^— 
 
 Charles called him, died. In January 1635 the Arch- ^^^' 
 bishop of St. Andrews was appointed Chancellor in his Spottis- 
 place. Seven other Bishops had been gradually admit- chancellor. 
 ted to the Privy Council. 
 
 It was all natural enough. But it was none the less 
 a fatal step. It was a distinct challenge to aU orders 
 and classes of men. Those who were thus promoted 
 were obnoxious to the Presbyterians because they were 
 Bishops, and to the mass of rehgious Scotchmen who 
 were not distinctly Presbyterians, because they sup- 
 ported the ceremonies, and were incorrectly believed to 
 have been the authors of all the innovations which had 
 had their real origin in England. The nobles hated 
 them as intruders upon the dignities which they claimed 
 by birth. The lawyers were j ealous of them as intruders 
 upon the dignities which they claimed by virtue of pro- 
 fessional knowledge. They stood alone in Scotland as 
 Charles stood almost alone in England. 
 
 In the summer of 1635 every element of a great Dangers in 
 conflagration was present in Scotland. Only the spark 
 was wanting to set the country ablaze. 
 
 ' Balfour, ii. 141. 
 
 END OP THE PIKST VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON : PRISTKD BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODB AND CO., NEW-STKRET SQCAHH 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 
By the same Author. 
 
 THE FIRST TWO STUARTS AND THE PURITAN 
 REVOLUTION, A.D. 1603-1660. 
 
 (IN 'EPOCHS OF MODERN HISTORY.') 
 With Four Coloured Maps. Fcp 8vo. price 25. M, 
 
 THE interest of English history in the seven- 
 teentlL century lies in the efforts made to 
 secure a double object — the control of the nation 
 over its own destinies, and the liberty of the 
 public expression of thought, without which par- 
 liamentary government is only a refined form of 
 tyranny. In England, happier than France or 
 Germany, the problem of religious liberty was 
 worked out in close connexion with the problem 
 of parliamentary gOTernment. England did not, 
 even temporarily, cease to be a nation, as Germany 
 did ; nor did it, like Fi'ance, surrender its power 
 to control events into the hands of a single man. 
 
 The present volume recounts that portion of 
 the struggle for parliamentary freedom and intel- 
 lectual liberty which ended with the fall of the 
 Commonwealth and the restoration of Monarchy; 
 it concludes with a sketch of the state of things 
 which followed the return of Chahuss II. and of 
 the main principles which actuated the statesmen 
 of his reign. 
 
 The maps have been constructed from Clahen- 
 noN and other familiar sources, and it is hoped 
 that they may give a clearer idea of the course of 
 the war than is to be gathered from any written 
 narrative. The first wUl shew how far the state- 
 ment is true that the wealthiest portion of England 
 attached itself to the Parliament, and brings out 
 
 distinctly the enormous comparative wealth of 
 London. The calculations on which it is founded 
 are dei-ived from a statement in Rush worth, cor- 
 rected, in the instance of the county of Durham, 
 from the original entry in the Privy Council 
 Register, The second map may be said to express 
 the natural strength of the King's party ; for, 
 though Oxford was not held by him at the actual 
 commencement of the war, it took his side too 
 vigorously to be counted as a mere enforced 
 accession of strength. The third map shews the 
 Kjn&'s fortunes at their highest point, just before 
 the Scottish army invafied England ; and the 
 fourth gives the position just before the New 
 Model Army set out to combat the King. 
 
 List of the Maps : — 
 
 1. England and Wales— shewing the incidence of 
 
 Ship-money in 1636. 
 
 2. England and Wales — shewing the districts held 
 
 by the King and the Parliament on January 
 1, 1643. 
 
 3. England and Wales— shewingthe districts held 
 
 by the King and the Parliament on January 
 ] , 1644. 
 
 4. England and Wales— shewingthe disti-icts held 
 
 by the King and the Parliament on Mayl, 
 1645. 
 
 THE ATHEN-^TTM. 
 
 ' The simple, dignified tone of thought so inherent in the Author, the natural 
 expression of his refined and conscientious judgment, confers on this little treatise the 
 position and worth of a high literary achievement. The general argument selected 
 by Mr. Gardiner as his leading theme imparts to his story continuity and force of 
 purpose. In order to infuse that human interest which alone confers a living interest, 
 he skilfully presses Milton into his service, and adopts the poet's thoughts and 
 quotations from his noble verse as the best exponents of the sentiments of Milton's 
 time. The reader is also refreshed in his progress through the book by passages of much 
 truth, and of much beauty of language.' 
 
 THE ACADEMY. 
 
 ' It is the distinguishing merit of Mr. Gardiner's volume that it has been written 
 by one who combines with a thorough knowledge of the facts the faculty of under- 
 standing the different points of view from which the leading controversies were 
 regarded by the chief actors of the period. His aim, accordingly, has been not so 
 much to narrate what may seem of most importance when estimated from a nineteenth- . 
 century standpoint, as to explain the true connexion between seventeenth-century 
 theorisation and scventeenth-cenUiry events. Nothing will better enable us to 
 estimate the value of his work than a comparison of its treatment with that adopted 
 in the 146 pages relating to the same period in Mr. Green's History of the English 
 People.^ ^ 
 
 London, I^ONGMANS & CO. 
 
By the same Author. 
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR, 
 
 A.D. 1618-1648. 
 
 (IN * EPOCHS OF MODERlSr HISTORY.') 
 
 With a Coloured Map of Germany at the commencement of the Thirty 
 
 Yeara* War. 
 
 Fcp. 8vo. price 2s, 6d. 
 
 BY treating the Thirty Years' AVar as part of 
 the History of Prance as well as of Germany, 
 the Author hopes not merely to have complied 
 with the conditions of the series in which the 
 ^vo^k ajjpears, but to have given a higher interest 
 to his book. The reader is no longer asked merely 
 to contemplate the melancholy failm-e of Germany 
 to find a national solution of its diflloulties ; he is 
 call^ upon to take a wider view, and to look in 
 the face the difficulties which in the 17th century 
 met those who attempted to establish religions 
 liberty. Such a mode of ti-eatment, he believes, 
 is no obstacle to a lively and popular narrative. 
 Men like MAXimLiAN of Bavaria, Gl.stavus 
 Adolphus, "Wallenstein, and Eichklikt;, stand 
 out the more clearly as their words and deeds 
 cease to be weighed in the balance of religions or 
 political party, and are regarded with reference 
 to the work before them. 
 
 What that work was may be clearly stated. 
 It was to find a political basis of order which 
 fihould save religious liberty from degenerating 
 into anarchy. One by one the gi-eat leaders of the 
 war step forward to try their hands at the task. 
 Within the last few years German industry has 
 
 done much to enable us to understand their aims. 
 The existing histories are now obsolete, and it has 
 become possible for us to perceive what each man 
 wanted, and why he wanted it. Within ttiis 
 framework the old biographical narratives take 
 their due place. We can dwell with greater 
 knowledge, but with no less interest, upon Tilly's 
 stern repression of the party which he r^arded as 
 anarchical, upon the mingled heroism and wis- 
 dom of the Swedish King, upon, the calculating 
 strategy and endless intrigue of Wallenstein, 
 and upon the cool prudence and large statesman- 
 ship of BlCHELIEtJ. 
 
 In one respect this work will be found to differ 
 from most of the series of * Epochs of History.' 
 Except incidentally it has nothing to say abont 
 England, but it may well serve as anlntrodnction 
 to English History in the I7th century. When 
 we come to understand how it was that Con- 
 tinental nations came so far short of complete 
 success, we are in a better position to excuse the 
 shortcomings, and to congratulate ourselves on 
 the successes of our own ancestors who were 
 engaged upon a similar task. 
 
 THE aLOBE. 
 
 'The vohime by Mr. Gaedinbr on the Thirty Years' War is extremely well 
 executed, and thU be foimd of interest and valne by students much more advanced 
 than schoolboys.' 
 
 THE EXAMINER. 
 
 * Mr. Gardiner's narrative is written with remarkable clearness. The Author has 
 succeeded in presenting a life-like portraiture of the chief men and events in the 
 memorable struggle for religious toleration known as the Thirty Years' "War between 
 Germany and France. Mr. Gardiner has read much, and assimilated the information 
 gained from every available source, which has enabled him to stamp -with his own 
 individuality every page of his little book.' 
 
 London, LONGMANS & CO. 
 
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