an estate was sold off, the proprietor was sure to represent these losses, and obtain a diminution of his subsidy; but when rents rose, or new lands were purchased, he kept his own secret, and paid no more than formerly. The advantage, therefore, of every change was taken against the crown; and the crown could obtain the advantage of none. And to make the matter worse, the alterations which happened in property during this age, were in general unfavorable to the crown. The small proprietors, or twenty pound men, went continually to decay; and when their estates were swallowed up by a greater, the new purchaser increased not his subsidy. So loose indeed is the whole method of rating subsidies, that the wonder was not how the tax should continually diminish, but how it yielded any revenue at all. It became at last so unequal and uncertain, that the parliament was obliged to change it into a land-tax." а THE MONOPOLY GRIEVANCE. The question of monopolies is found to occupy largely the attention of the Commons during the reigns of Elizabeth, and the two succeeding monarchs. It was one of three grievances which extending itself over the entire kingdom, tended to create and foster public discontent, and to prepare the people to join with heartiness in the struggle for their liberties. In 1621, the Commons offered to prove "that the patents of gold and silver thread, of inns and alehouses, of the power to compound for obsolete laws, of the price of horse-meat, starch, cards, tobacco-pipes, salt, train-oil, and the rest were all illegal". James in a speech confessed himself ashamed that these things proved as they were reported to be, and therefore consented to recall the patents for inns, alehouses, and gold and silver lace. In the course of the debates the manner of obtaining these patents was thus explained:-" Before any patent is passed, there is first a petition to his majesty, showing what good will accrue to the Commonwealth by granting the same, and what increase of benefit to the king, and what abuses, for the want of a remedy as they propound, do abound; whereon the king ever referreth the petition to some whom his majesty thinketh fittest to consider of the petition, both for matter of law, convenience, and good of the state and commonwealth; and thereupon the referees are to certify his majesty the truth of what they think of the petition and as they certify for the lawfulness and conveniency, and good both of his majesty and his estate, and the particular good of the commonwealth, his majesty accordingly granteth". All this wise precaution seems to have resulted in but little good to the commonwealth, though it brought an "increase of benefit to the king". This may be gathered from the operation of the monopoly of inns, as described by a member of the Commons. "Every poor man that taketh in but a horse on a market day, is presently sent for up to Westminster and sued, unless he compound with these patentees; and all ancient inn-keepers, if they will not compound, are presently sued at Westminster, for enlargement of their house, if they do but set up a new post, or a little hovel more than was of ancient there. And instead of reformation of abuses, this patent doth but raise reckonings on the poor traveller." Even Noy, in his apologetic speech, admitted that monopolies were "abused by the patentees in the execution of them, who perform not the trust reposed in them by his majesty; but those that have the execution abuse it by setting up inns in forests and bye-villages, only to harbour rogues and thieves, and such as the justices of peace of the shire, who know best where inns are fittest to be, and who best deserve to have licences for them, have suppressed from keeping of alehouses; for none is now refused that will make a good composition. There are also some who have gotten a power to dispense with the statute of vagabonds, rogues, &c., &c., so make themselves dispensers of the royalties only proper for the king himself". THE BOOK OF SPORTS. 1618. James in his journey to Scotland, had observed a disposition to interfere with the Sunday games of the common people. This, with a desire on the part of the king to move in a direction opposite to the Puritanical party, led him to publish a "Declaration to encourage Recreations and Sports on the Lord's Day". In this proclamation it was announced to be the royal pleasure, for his good people's recreation-that after the end of divine service, they should not be disturbed, letted, or discharged from any lawful recreations; such as dancing either of men or women, archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any such harmless recreations; nor having of maypoles, Whitsun-ales, or morrice-dances, or setting up of maypoles, or other sports therewith used, so as the same may be done in due and convenient time, without impediment or let of divine service: and that women should have leave to carry rushes to the church for the decorating of it, according to their old customs". This, as might be expected, gave great offence to the Puritans, and many of the orthodox clergy disapproved of what was done, and were in considerable alarm lest the court should oblige them to publish it. But archbishop Abbot would not allow it to be read in the churches, as directed, and the matter was allowed to drop till revived in the next reign, CHAPTER II. CHARLES I MARCH 27, 1625-JUNE 30, 1649. PERIOD I. CHARLES'S DISSENSIONS WITH HIS FIRST THREE PARLIAMENTS. 1625-1629. SECTION I. CHARLES'S FIRST PARLIAMENT. 1. Of the causes which influenced Charles's course of government. The following remarks by Guizot, fittingly introduce this reign, during which the Revolution was preparing, was put forth, and took its stand", and which that writer therefore makes the first grand period of the Revolution in England. "Charles and the English nation did not know to what a degree they were already antagonistic one to the other, nor the causes which, long since at work, and growing each day more powerful, would soon prevent the possibility of their understanding and agreeing with each other. Two revolutions, the one visible and even glaring, the other internal, unperceived, but not the less certain, were being accomplished at this epoch: the first in the kingly power of Europe; the second in the social states and manners of the English people. It was just at this time, that on the continent, royalty freed from its ancient trammels, was becoming everywhere well nigh absolute. In France, in Spain, in most of the States of the German Empire, it had quelled the fuedal aristocracy, and was ceasing to protect the liberty of the commons, having no longer need of them to oppose to their enemies. The higher nobility, as if it had lost even the feeling of its defeat, crowded around the throne, almost proud of the brilliant display of its conquerors. The burghers, dispersed, and of a timid nature, rejoicing in the order now beginning to prevail, productive of a happiness till then unknown to them, labored to enrich themselves, without aspiring as yet to any place in the government of the state. Everywhere the pomp of courts, the dispatch of administrative business, the extent and regularity of wars, proclaimed the preponderance of royal power. The maxims of divine right and passive obedience prevailed, feebly contested even where not recognised. In a word, the progress of civilisa tion, of letters and arts, of internal peace and prosperity, embellishing this triumph of pure monarchy, inspired princes with a presumptuous confidence, and people with admiring compliance. "The Stuarts could not fail to advance in the path which since the accession of the Tudors, English royalty had entered upon. A Scotchman and of the blood of Guise, James I. by his family reminiscences and the habits of his country, was attached to France, and accustomed to seek his allies and his models on the continent, where ordinarily an English prince only saw enemies : accordingly, he soon showed himself still more profoundly imbued than Elizabeth, and even than Henry VIII. himself, with the maxims which at that time were in Europe the basis of pure monarchy; he professed them with the pride of a theologian and the complacency of a king, protesting on every occasion by the pomp of his declarations, against the timidity of his acts and the limits of his power. Compelled sometimes to defend, by more direct and simpler arguments, the measures of his government, arbitrary imprisonment or illegal taxes, James at such times alleged the example of the king of France or of Spain. The king of England,' said his ministers to the House of Commons, 'must not be worse off than his equals'. And such even in England, was the influence of the revolution lately accomplished in continental monarchy, that the adversaries of the court were embarrassed by this language, almost convinced themselves, that the inherent dignity of princes, required that all should enjoy the same rights, and at a loss how to reconcile this necessary equality among kings with the liberties of their country. "Nurtured from his infancy in these pretensions and these maxims, prince Charles upon arriving at manhood, was still nearer exposed to their contagion. Charles was received at Madrid with great honors (March 1623) and there saw in all its splendour, majesty majestic, supreme, receiving from its servants a devotion, and from the people a respect, almost religious; rarely contradicted, and even then, always sure of ultimately getting the better of all opposition, by its mere will. The match with the Infanta was broken off; so Charles married instead of her, Henrietta Maria, princess of France; for his father had made up his mind, that beyond these two courts, there was no alliance suitable to the dignity of his throne. The influence of this union on the English prince was precisely the same which he had felt in Spain; and the monarchy of Paris or Madrid became in his eyes the very image of the natural and legitimate condition of a king. "Thus English monarchy, at least in the monarch, his counsellors, and his court, followed the same direction as the monarchies of the continent. Here also everything manifested the symptoms and effects of the revolution already accomplished elsewhere, and which, in its most moderate pretensions, only allowed the liberties of subjects to exist as subordinate rights, as concessions by the sovereign's generosity. But while on the continent, this revolution found the people as yet incapable of resisting it, perhaps even disposed to receive it, in England a counter-revolution, secretly at work in society, had already mined away the ground under the feet of pure monarchy, and prepared its ruin amid its fancied progress". 2. The power and purposes of the Country Party. During the preceding reign the House of Commons divided itself into two well defined parties, one favourable to the prerogative claims of the court, the other to the liberties of the people; the latter was named the country party, the former the court party, names which afterwards gave way to those of Whig and Tory. The country party being about to exercise so important an influence on the destinies of the English nation, the following account by Hume, a writer not particularly favorable to the opponents of the court, may be read with advantage. "The House of Commons, we may observe, was almost entirely governed by a set of men of the most uncommon capacity and the largest views; men who were now formed into a regular party, and united, as well by fixed aims and projects, as by the hardships which some of them had undergone in prosecution of them. Among these, we may mention the names of Sir Edward Coke, Sir Edwin Sandys, Sir Robert Philips, Sir Francis Seymour, Sir Dudley Digges, Sir Thomas Wentworth, Mr. Selden, and Mr. Pym. Animated with a warm regard to liberty, these generous patriots saw with regret an unbounded power exercised by the crown, and were resolved to seize the opportunity which the king's necessity offered them, of reducing the prerogative within more reasonable compass. "Though their ancestors had blindly given way to practices and precedents favorable to kingly power, and had been able, notwithstanding, to preserve some small remains of liberty; it would be impossible, they thought, when all these pretensions were methodised and prosecuted by the increasing knowledge of the age, to maintain any shadow of popular government, in opposition to such unlimited authority in the sovereign. It was necessary to fix a choice; either to abandon entirely the privileges of the people, or to secure them by firmer and more precise barriers than the constitution had hitherto provided for them. In this dilemma, men of such aspiring geniuses and such independent fortunes could not long deliberate; they boldly embraced |