272

SHIP-MONEY.

CHAP. VIII. writs for ship-money were executed with greater difficulty, several sheriff's willingly acquiescing in the excuses made by their counties. The Scots were enthusiastic, nearly unanimous, and entire masters of their country. The English nobility in general detested the archbishop, to whose passion they ascribed the whole mischief, and feared to see the king become despotic in Scotland. If the terms of Charles's treaty with his revolted subjects were unsatisfactory and indefinite, enormous in concession, and yet affording a pretext for new encroachments, this is no more than the common lot of the weaker side.

There was one possible, though not under all the circumstances very likely, method of obtaining the sinews of warthe convocation of parliament. This many, at least, of the king's advisers appear to have long desired, could they but have vanquished his obstinate reluctance. This is an important observation: Charles, and he perhaps alone, unless we reckon the queen, seems to have taken a resolution of superseding absolutely and forever the legal constitution of England. The judges, the peers, lord Strafford, nay, if we believe his dying speech, the primate himself, retained enough of respect for the ancient laws to desire that parliaments should be summoned whenever they might be expected to second the views of the monarch. They felt that the new scheme of governing by proclamations and writs of ship-money could not and ought not to be permanent in England. The king reasoned more royally, and indeed much better. He well perceived that it was vain to hope for another parliament so constituted as those under the Tudors. He was ashamed that his brothers of France and Spain should have achieved a work which the sovereign of England, though called an absolute king by his courtiers, had scarcely begun. All mention, therefore, of calling parliament grated on his ear. The declaration published at the dissolution of the last, that he should account it presumption for any one to prescribe a time to him for calling parliaments, was meant to extend even to his own counselors. He rated severely lordkeeper Coventry for a suggestion of this kind. This repugnance to meet his people, and his inability to carry on the war by any other methods, produced the ignominious pacification at Berwick. But as the Scots, grown bolder by success, had, after this treaty, almost thrown off all subjection, and the renewal of the war, or loss of the sovereignty over that kingdom, appeared necessary alternatives, overpowered by the concurrent advice of his council, and especially of

Strafford, he issued writs for that parliament which met in April, 1640. They told him that, making trial once more of the ancient and ordinary way, he would leave his people without excuse if that should fail; and have wherewithal to justify himself to God and the world, if he should be forced contrary to his inclinations to use extraordinary means, rather than through the peevishness of some factious spirit to suffer his state and government to be lost.

§ 25. It has been universally admitted that the parliament which met on the 13th of April, 1640, was as favorably disposed toward the king's service, and as little influenced by their many wrongs, as any man of ordinary judgment could expect. But though cautiously abstaining from any intemperance, so much as to reprove a member for calling shipmoney an abomination (no very outrageous expression), they sufficiently manifested a determination not to leave their. grievances unredressed. Petitions against the manifold abuses in church and state covered their table; Pym, Rudyard, Waller, lord Digby, and others more conspicuous afterward, excited them by vigorous speeches; they appointed a committee to confer with the lords, according to some precedents of the last reign, on a long list of grievances, divided into ecclesiastical innovations, infringements of the propriety of goods, and breaches of the privilege of parliament. They voted a request of the peers, who, Clarendon says, were more entirely at the king's disposal, that they would begin with the business of supply, and not proceed to debate on grievances till afterward, to be a high breach of privilege. There is not the smallest reason to doubt that they would have insisted on redress in all those particulars with at least as much zeal as any former parliament, and that the king, after obtaining his subsidies, would have put an end to their remonstrances, as he had done before. In order to obtain the supply he demanded, namely, twelve subsidies, to be paid in three years, which, though unusual, was certainly not beyond his exigencies, he offered to release his claim to ship-money in any manner they should point out. But this the commons indignantly repelled. They deemed ship-money the great crime of his administration, and the judgment against Mr. Hampden the infamy of those who pronounced it. Till that judgment should be annulled, and those judges punished, the national liberties must be as precarious as ever.

While the commons were deliberating whether to promise any supply before the redress of grievances, and in what measure, sir Henry Vane, the secretary, told them that the

274

DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT.

CHAP. VIII.

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

26. This dissolution of parliament in May, 1640, appears to have been a very fatal crisis for the king's popularity. Those who, with the loyalty natural to Englishmen, had willingly ascribed his previous misgovernment to evil counsels, could not any longer avoid perceiving his mortal antipathy to any parliament that should not be as subservient as the cortes of Castile. The necessity of some great change became the common theme. "It is impossible," says lord Northumberland, at that time a courtier," that things can long con

tinue in the condition they are now in; so general a defection in this kingdom hath not been known in the memory of any." Several of those who thought most deeply on public affairs now entered into a private communication with the Scots insurgents. The king meanwhile experienced aggravated misfortune and ignominy in his military operations. Ship-money indeed was enforced with greater rigor than before, several sheriffs and the lord mayor of London being persecuted in the star-chamber for neglecting to levy it. Some citizens were imprisoned for refusing a loan. A new imposition was laid on the counties, under the name of coat-and-conductmoney, for clothing and defraying the traveling charges of the new levies. A state of actual invasion, the Scots having passed the Tweed, might excuse some of these irregularities, if it could have been forgotten that the war itself was produced by the king's impolicy, and if the nation had not been prone to see friends and deliverers rather than enemies in the Scottish army. They were at the best, indeed, troublesome and expensive guests to the northern counties which they occupied; but the cost of their visit was justly laid at the king's door. Various arbitrary resources having been suggested in the council, and abandoned as inefficient and impracticable-such as the seizing the merchants' bullion in the Mint, or issuing a debased coin-the unhappy king adopted the hopeless scheme of convening a great council of all the peers at York, as the only alternative of a parliament. It was foreseen that this assembly would only advise the king to meet his people in a legal way. The public voice could no longer be suppressed. The citizens of London presented a petition to the king, complaining of grievances, and asking for a parliament. This was speedily followed by one signed by twelve peers of popular character. The lords assembled at York almost unanimously concurred in the same advice, to which the king, after some hesitation, gave his assent. They had more difficulty in bringing about a settlement with the Scots: the English army, disaffected and undisciplined, had already made an inglorious retreat; and even Strafford, though passionately against a treaty, did not venture to advise an engagement. The majority of the peers, however, overruled all opposition; and in the alarming posture of his affairs, Charles had no resource but the dishonorable pacification of Ripon. Anticipating the desertion of some who had partaken in his councils, and conscious that others would more stand in need of his support than be capable of affording any, he awaited in fearful suspense the meeting of parliament.

276

CHARACTER OF LONG PARLIAMENT. CHAP. IX.

CHAPTER IX.

FROM THE MEETING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT TO THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR.

§ 1. Character of Long Parliament. § 2. Its salutary Measures. Triennial Bill. 3. Other beneficial Laws. Abolition of Star-Chamber and High-Commission Courts. Observations. 4. Impeachment of Strafford. Discussion of its Justice. § 5. Act against Dissolution of Parliament without its Consent. § 6. Innovations meditated in the Church. § 7. Schism in the Constitutional Party. Remonstrance of November, 1641. S. Suspicions of the King's Sincerity. Attempt to seize the Five Members. 9. Question of the Militia. § 10. Historical Sketch of Military Force in England. 11. Encroachments of the Parliament. § 12. Nineteen Propositions. 13. Discussion of the respective Claims of the two Parties to Support. Faults of both.

§ 1. WE are now arrived at that momentous period in our history which no Englishman ever regards without interest, and few without prejudice; the period from which the factions of modern times trace their divergence, which, after the lapse of almost two centuries, still calls forth the warm emotions of party spirit, and affords a test of political principles; at that famous parliament, the theme of so much eulogy and of so much reproach; that synod of inflexible patriots with some, that conclave of traitorous rebels with others; that assembly, we may more truly say, of unequal virtue and checkered fame, which, after having acquired a higher claim to our gratitude, and effected more for our liberties, than any that had gone before or that has followed, ended by subverting the constitution it had strengthened, and by sinking in its decrepitude, and amidst public contempt, beneath a usurper it had blindly elevated to power.

§ 2. It seems agreeable to our plan, first to bring together those admirable provisions by which this parliament restored and consolidated the shattered fabric of our constitution, before we advert to its measures of more equivocal benefit, or its fatal errors; an arrangement not very remote from that of mere chronology, since the former were chiefly completed within the first nine months of its session, before the king's journey to Scotland in the summer of 1641.

It must, I think, be admitted by every one who concurs in the representation given in this work, and especially in the last chapter, of the practical state of our government, that some new securities of a more powerful efficacy than any which the existing laws held forth were absolutely indis