who had seized Rolle's goods sum- to be ques- ordered. The officers of privilege in Rolle's case, and accordingly summoned the custom-house officers who had seized that member's goods to appear and answer for their contempt. The King refused to allow his officers to be questioned for obedience to his orders, and directed the House to adjourn for a few days until the 2nd of March.1 During the short recess attempts were made to come to some private arrangement with the leaders of the Commons, but these failing, the House, at its re-assembling on March 2, was informed by the Speaker, Sir John Finch, that the King again required adjournment them to adjourn, this time to the 10th. The right of the King to order an adjournment, which had always been admitted by the Lords in reference to their own house, had never been acquiesced in by the Commons, who, while complying with the King's wishes, had always been careful The Com- to make their adjournment their own formal act. When mons refuse. the question of adjournment was now put by the Speaker, a chorus of Noes resounded from every side. Sir John Eliot, who, anticipating the adjournment and speedy dissolution of Parliament by the King, had prepared a protestation on the subjects of religion and taxation, which, if only passed by the House before its adjournment, would go forth to the country as an appeal against the King's arbitrary Tumult in proceedings, rose to speak. He was interrupted by the Speaker, who, saying he had the absolute command of the King to leave the chair if any one should attempt to address the House, rose also, but was at once thrust back into his seat by Holles and Valentine. The whole House was now in an uproar. Some of the privy councillors present rushed to the assistance of the Speaker, who broke away for a moment, but only to be again seized and forced into the chair. 'God's wounds,' exclaimed Holles, 'you shall sit till we please to rise.' At the order of the House the door was locked by Sir Miles Hobart, who placed the key in his pocket. Eliot proposed that three resolutions, the substance of which he explained, should be formally put to the House. 1 Gardiner, Pers. Gov. of Ch. I., i. 89. the vote. Both the Speaker and the clerk refused. A confused and stormy debate ensued, and Eliot, despairing of getting the resolutions passed, had thrown them into the fire, when, just as the king's guard was approaching the House to effect a forcible entry, Holles, who had hastily rewritten the resolutions from memory, read them to the House. They were carried by acclamation, and the House, having voted its own adjournment, the door was thrown open.1 Resolutions. The three resolutions declared: (1) that the introducers The three of innovation in religion, or of Popery, or Arminianism, or other opinions disagreeing from the true and orthodox Church; and (2) all who should counsel or advise the taking and levying of the subsidies of tonnage and poundage, not being granted by Parliament, or should be actors or instruments therein, should be reputed capital enemies to the Kingdom and Commonwealth; and (3) that all merchants or others who should voluntarily pay the said subsidies, should be reputed betrayers of the liberties of England, and enemies to the same. The House at its rising had adjourned to the 10th of Parliament dissolved, March. On that day the King dissolved Parliament in 10 March, person, with an angry reference to the 'disobedient carriage [1628-9]. of the Lower House,' and a threat that 'the vipers amongst them should meet with their reward.' 2 1 Nicholas' Notes of the Session of 1629; State Papers, Dom. [1628-9, p. 485], cxxxviii. 5, 6, 7. [Of the Papers here cited, No. 5 contains Notes concerning adjournments of the House of Commons by Royal command, extracted out of the Journals of that House No. 6 is a relation of what passed in the House of Commons on delivering his Majesty's message for adjourning the House, and No. 7 is another account of the same occurrences. The proclamation of 2nd March, 1629, in which Charles announces his intention to dissolve Parliament is couched in language substantially identical with that actually spoken at the dissolution on the 10th March, the grounds alleged for the dissolution being the 'disobedient and seditious carriage of certain ill-affected persons of the House of Commons,' whereby the King and his regal authority and commandment have been 'so highly contemned as our Kingly office cannot bear, nor any former age parallel.' State Papers, loc. cit. No.2, Proc. Car. I., 203.-ED.] 2 Parl. or Const. Hist. viii. 333. 560 Determina tion of CHAPTER XIV. THE STUART PERIOD. II. FROM THE PETITION OF RIGHT TO THE RESTORATION. (A.D. 1629-1660.) ON the dissolution of his third Parliament, Charles I. Charles I. to appears to have come to a settled determination to overgovern with throw the old Parliamentary Constitution of England by ment, governing, for the future, without the intervention of the out a Parlia 1629. National Council, so long as that Council should presume to claim an independent, and, as the representative of the collective Nation in opposition to the individual King, a preponderating, voice in the government of the State. intimated in In an arrogant Proclamation, referring to certain false a proclamation, 27 Mar. rumours that he was about again to call a Parliament, he announced that 'the late abuse having for the present driven him unwillingly out of that course, he should account it presumption for any to prescribe any time unto him for Parliaments, the calling, continuing, and dissolving of which was always in his own power. He should be more inclinable to meet a Parliament again, when his people should see more clearly into his intents and actions, and when such as had bred this interruption should have received their condign punishment.'1 Even before the actual dissolution, the King had hastened to take vengeance on the Opposition 'vipers.' Sir John ment of Sir Eliot, Selden, Holles, Long, Valentine, Strode, and other John Eliot, Selden, and eminent members of the Commons, were summoned before other mem- the Council and committed to prison. Against Eliot, Holles, and Valentine an information was filed in the Imprison bers of the Commons. 1 Rymer, xix. 62 [viii. pt. iii. 36, in the Hague ed.—ED.] King's Bench. On suing out their writ of habeas corpus they were by the King's order removed to the Tower, so as to elude the judgment of the court. On being required to plead to the information, they demurred to the jurisdiction of the court on the ground that as their alleged offences had been committed in Parliament, they were not punishable in any other place. This demurrer, which raised the great question of Parliamentary privilege, was overruled; and as the defendants persisted in their refusal to plead, judgment was given that they should be imprisoned during the king's pleasure, and not released until each had given surety for good behaviour and had made submission. In addition, Eliot, as the ringleader, was fined £2,000, Holles, £1,000, and Valentine, £500.1 Other distinguished leaders Some of the of the Opposition had been brought over to the king's side popular by the gift of office. Sir Dudley Digges was made Master office. of the Rolls; Noy, Attorney-General; and Littleton, Solicitor-General; Wentworth, created first a baron, then a viscount, and subsequently Earl of Strafford, was made President of the Council of the North, and afterwards Lord Deputy of Ireland. party accept Surrounded by these new counsellors, and guided chiefly Eleven years of despotic by the advice of Laud and Wentworth, Charles now government. entered upon a career of despotism which he maintained for eleven years. This period of Personal government, during which the King governed without the Parliament, was, Constitutionally speaking, as much a revolutionary period as that during which, later on, Parliament governed without the King. It should always be borne in mind that it was the aggression of Charles which provoked the counter aggression of the Parliament. To raise a revenue, Charles had recourse to various Expedients exactions, many of which were clearly illegal, and nearly 1 Eliot died in prison some years afterwards (27 Nov. 1632), universally regarded as a martyr in the cause of liberty. (See supra, p. 327, and Forster's Life of Sir John Eliot.) The animosity of Charles was continued even after Eliot's death. He refused permission to transport his body to Port Eliot. Let Sir John Eliot,' was the King's reply, 'be buried in the church of that parish where he died.' S. R. Gardiner, Pers. Gov. of Charles I., i. 274. to raise a revenue. all odious and vexatious. 'Obsolete laws,' says Clarendon, 'were revived and rigorously executed,' and 'unjust projects of all kinds, many ridiculous, many scandalous, all Tonnage and very grievous, were set on foot.' Tonnage and poundage poundage. and other duties were rigorously enforced by the Royal Monopolies. authority alone. Monopolies, abolished by Act of Parlia ment in the last reign, were re-established and applied to Compulsory almost every article of ordinary consumption. The ancient knighthood. prerogative of compelling tenants in chivalry to receive the order of knighthood or pay a fine was revived, and extended to all men of full age seised of lands or rents (by whatever tenure) of the annual value of £40 or more. By this expedient,' says Clarendon, which, though it had a foundation in right, yet in the circumstances of proceeding was very grievous, the King received a vast sum of money from persons of quality, or of any reasonable conInquisition dition, throughout the kingdom.'1 Commissioners were estates. appointed to search out and compound for defects in titles Forest laws to estates; and an attempt was even made to revive the into titles to revived. Royal proclamations. ancient and odious Forest Laws. Under cover of the rule of law that no length of prescription could be pleaded in bar of the king's title, the boundaries of the Royal forests were so extended that the forest of Rockingham alone was increased from six to sixty miles in circuit at the expense of the neighbouring landowners, who, at the same time, were mulcted in enormous fines for alleged encroachments, some of which were from three to four hundred years' standing. This burthen,' says Clarendon, 'lighted most upon people of quality and honour, who thought themselves above ordinary oppression, and were like to remember it with more sharpness.' 3 In lieu of Acts of Parliament, Royal proclamations, more numerous and oppressive than those which had ex 1 Hist. Rebellion, i. 67; supra, p. 154. On this ground Lord Salisbury was fined £20,000; Lord Westmoreland, £19,000; Sir Christopher Hatton, £12,000; Sir Lewis Watson, £4000; and many other persons in smaller amounts.—Strafford's Letters, ii. 117. Cobbett's Parl. Hist. ii. 642. 3 Clarendon, Hist. i. 16. |