378

THE ELECTOR DEFEATED AT PRAGUE.

[1620.

decisive battle entirely destroyed his slight tenure of power in Bohemia. He was very shortly after driven from the Palatinate, which was handed over

Cavalier, 1620. (From a Specimen at

to the tender mercies of the conquerors. The supporters of the Elector in Bohemia, a country which had been the refuge of persecuted reformers, were trodden down by the iron heel of Austria. The Puritan party in England considered this misfortune as "the greatest blow which the Church of God had received, since the first Reformation by Martin Luther in 1517." * The union of the Protestant princes was broken up. "The Catholic principle passed with wonderful rapidity from a moment of the utmost danger, to an omnipotent sway over the south of Germany and the Austrian provinces." +

It was during the excitement of this conflict, and in the month following the victory of the Austrians at Prague, that James adopted one of those arbitrary measures which weak governments resort to in their imbecile desire to control public opinion. On the 27th of December, says D'Ewes, "I saw and perused a proclamation set out by his majesty, inhibiting or forbidding any of his subjects to discourse of state-matters, either foreign or domestic; which all men conceived to have been procured by the count of Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador." The Autobiographer holds this proclamation to be "unseasonable and harsh," Goodrich, engraved in Skelton's because the triumphs of Romanism "required Armour.) men's mutual condoling, which might prove a means to stir them up to a more zealous and earnest intercession with God by prayer." This was an innocent delusion of the young Puritan; for that Englishmen should cease to interchange their thoughts at the bidding of an insolent government was as impossible as to prevent them thinking. Their thoughts broke out in signs not to be mistaken. The Spanish ambassador, who dwelt in the bishop of Ely's house in Holborn, was obliged to have a guard of soldiers to protect him; and "when he passed at any time through London in his horse-litter, many were the curses and execrations the people bestowed upon him." The old dread of the supremacy of Popery was coming back. Round the Spanish ambassadors a vast following of English and Irish papists had been accustomed to collect. "Their house was the resort of their brethren in the faith, and, as a Venetian said, they were regarded almost in the light of legates of the apostolic see." It was in this excited temper of the nation that the king at length called a parliament, which met on the 30th of January, 1621. In his progress from Whitehall to Westminster, "he spake

* D'Ewes, "Autobiography," vol. i. p. 162. Ranke, "History of the Popes," vol. ii. p. 465.

1621.]

6

PARLIAMENT-MONOPOLISTS.

379

often and lovingly to the people, standing thick and three-fold on all sides to behold him, God bless ye! God bless ye!' contrary to his former hasty and passionate custom, which often in his sudden distemper would bid a plague on such as flocked to see him."* A little before this time he had in a proclamation directed that those who crowded upon him, in joining the royal hunt without permission, should be sent to gaol, calling their curiosity "the bold and barbarous insolency of multitudes of vulgar people." + He is now in a gracious humour. He has something to ask of the Parliament: "I have reigned eighteen years, in which time you have had peace, and I have received far less supply than hath been given to any king since the Conquest. The last queen, of famous memory, had, one year with another, above a hundred thousand pounds per annum in subsidies." James does not attempt a comparison between the manner in which the queen of famous memory spent her subsidies in the defence of her country, and in the support of Protestantism in Europe; while he was lavishing thousands upon Hay and Somerset and Villiers, impoverishing the crown and degrading the nation. Clarendon, speaking of the reigning favourite of 1621, and her host of dependants, says that the demesnes and revenues of the crown were sacrificed to the enriching of a private family; "and the expenses of the court so vast and unlimited, that they had a sad prospect of that poverty and necessity which afterwards befell the crown, almost to the ruin of it.”‡

The parliament of 1621 was in no complacent mood. James said to them, "I have often piped unto you but you have not danced." They gave him a small subsidy in return for unusually gracious speeches; and then went boldly about the redress of grievances. They revived the use of the terrible word "impeachment," which had gone out of men's mouths for nearly two centuries. Monopolists were the first attacked with this constitutional weapon. One of the greatest of them, sir Giles Mompesson, finding that the government which had granted him his patents for gold and silver thread, and for licensing inns and alehouses, would not stand up in his defence, fled beyond sea. In his licensing of alehouses, a justice of the peace, sir Francis Michell, had been the instrument of Mompesson's oppressions. His patent for gold thread was used for the purposes of fraud. "They found out a new alchymistical way to make gold and silver lace with copper and other sophistical materials." § The dramatists of the time brought the monopolists into notice upon the public stage:

The sir Giles Overreach of Massinger's "New Way to Pay Old Debts" was sir Giles Mompesson, and the justice Greedy of the same popular play was justice Michell. The real Overreach and the real Greedy were degraded from knighthood, were fined, and were banished. Higher delinquents began "Verney Papers," p. 117.

* D'Ewes, vol. i. p. 170.

"History of the Rebellion," book i.

Massinger, "The Bondman," Act II., sc. 3.

S Wilson.

380

LORD BACON IMPEACHED.

[1621. to tremble. Yelverton, the attorney-general, was connected with the prevailing corruption, and when detected denounced Villiers as his enemy. The judge of the Prerogative Court was impeached for venality; and the bishop of Landaff for being accessory to a matter of bribery. It was an age of universal abuses. Local magistrates were influenced by the pettiest gifts, and were called "basket-justices,"-a name which in the next century was applied to the stipendiary justices of Bow-street. Upon the highest branch of this rotten tree sat Francis Bacon, viscount St. Alban's, the great lord Chancellor. His contemporaries were impressed with his versatile abilities and his majestic eloquence; but they were disgusted by his profusion, and they had little confidence in his honesty. The greatness of his intellect was to be appreciated in other ages; and his faults were then to be slightly regarded while the eyes of all men were to be dazzled by the splendour of his genius. His contemporaries, with one accord, resolved that no excuse should interfere with his degradation, for what he himself called his frailty in partaking of "the abuses of the times." He was charged by the Commons, before the Lords, with twenty-two acts of bribery and corruption. He attempted no defence. He saw that the court would not shield him, even if it had the power. He made a distinct confession in writing of the charges brought against him; and when a deputation from the peers asked if that confession was his own voluntary act, he replied, "It is my act, my hand, my heart. Oh, my lords, spare a broken reed." The sentence of the parliament was that the viscount St. Alban's, late Lord Chancellor, be fined £40,000; be imprisoned in the Tower during the king's pleasure; made incapable to bear office in the commonwealth, never to sit in parliament; nor to come within the verge of the court. The king remitted the fine, and released the fallen man after an imprisonment of a few days. It is vain to attribute Bacon's fall to the malevolence of Coke or the intrigues of Villiers. The House of Commons saw that the time had come for striking at the root of some of the most flagrant of official corruptions; and Bacon, though perhaps not more guilty than many others, was struck down as a signal example to lesser offenders. The latest editor of Bacon's Philosophical Works, pointing out that the Chancellor admitted the taking of presents, as he himself had taken them, to be indefensible, adds that he always denied he had been an unjust judge; or, to use his own words, "had ever had bribe or reward in his eye or thought when he pronounced any sentence or order." With regard to the degree of moral criminality, these questions are proposed: "1. What was the understanding, open or secret, upon which the present was given or taken ? 2. To what extent the practice was prevalent at the time? 3. How far it was tolerated? 4. How it stood with regard to other abuses prevailing at the same time."* If these points could be satisfactorily ascertained the most merciful conclusion at which we could arrive would be the opinion of Bacon himself, as recorded by Dr. Rawley: "I was the justest judge that was in England these fifty years; but it was the justest censure in parliament that was there these two hundred years."

If the stern severity of the House of Commons, in which the peers went

"Works of Francis Bacon," collected and edited by James Spedding, vol. i. Note to Life by Rawley.

1857.

1621.]

CONDUCT OF PARLIAMENT IN FLOYD'S CASE:

381

along with them, towards every order of delinquents, from the griping usurer to the prodigal chancellor, demands our respect, we must regard with equal abhorrence the same popular assembly when carried away by a passionate fanaticism into an act of vindictive cruelty. The House was in a fever about the Palatinate; and when it became known that a Roman Catholic barrister, Edward Floyd, had expressed his joy that "goodman Palsgrave and goodwife Palsgrave" had been driven from Prague, there was no punishment too terrible to be inflicted upon the delinquent-whipping, the pillory, boring of his tongue, nailing of his ears, were small justice for such an offence. The House went beyond its powers in passing a heavy sentence upon Floyd, without hearing him. He appealed to the king, denying the accusation against him; and the Commons were asked by the Council how they took upon them to judge offences which did not interfere with their privileges. The House paused; and Floyd was arraigned before the Lords, who confirmed the sentence, with additional severities. Whipping, which was a part of this sentence, was remitted on the motion of prince Charles. unhappy man underwent the other unjust punishment,-to pay a fine of 5000l., and to be imprisoned for life. "There is surely no instance," says Mr. Hallam, "in the annals of our own, and hardly of any civilised country, where a trifling offence, if it were one, has been visited with such outrageous cruelty." Let us not forget, as we proceed in tracing the history of this nation, that the passions of a parliament have been as marked, if not as frequent, a source of injustice as the despotic tendencies of a king; and let us feel that a due balance of the powers of the respective estates cannot be so happily preserved that prerogative and privilege may be kept equally innoxious, except under the guidance of an enlightened public opinion.

The

The king and the parliament had been proceeding in apparent harmony, when they were adjourned over the summer. The court had manifested no zeal about the question of the Palatinate; but the Commons made a solemn protestation, which was entered in the Journals, that they would spend their lives and fortunes in the defence of their religion, and of the cause of the Elector. Their pledge 66 was sounded forth with the voices of them all, withal lifting up their hats in their hands as high as they could hold them, as a visible testimony of their unanimous consent, in such sort that the like had scarce ever been seen in parliament." The Houses met again, after an interval of five months, on the 20th of November. It was announced that troops had been sent for the defence of the Palatinate under sir Horace Vere. The Commons voted a small subsidy, which was totally inadequate to any vigorous exertions. The clamour for warlike operations was not seconded by any liberality which could rouse James to exertion. The Parliament had no confidence in a king who shuddered at a drawn sword. His natural temperament and his policy were in complete accord; and it was perhaps well for the country that they were so. Had his son Henry been on the throne, who proposed the Black Prince and Henry the Fifth as his models, England might have put herself at the head of a great religious war; but she would have wasted that strength which enabled her, in another quarter of a century, to wage a greater battle at home for civil and religious liberty, without losing her power of commanding the respect of every government in Europe.

382

THE KING AND THE PARLIAMENT AT ISSUE.

[1621.

England had in this year an opportunity to draw the sword in a necessary quarrel the suppression of the outrages of the Barbary pirates. Spain had agreed to co-operate in an attack upon Algiers; but she sent a very insufficient force to join the English flag. James went about this salutary work in his timid and parsimonious way. He directed the commander of his fleet, sir James Mansell, not to risk his ships. The Algerines, having had only a few boats burnt, defended their harbour, and Mansell came home with nothing achieved. The English merchantmen were now the prey of the African pirates, and the country bitterly complained of the national losses and the national dishonour. When the parliament re-assembled, it was in no conciliating humour. Lords Essex and Oxford had returned from the Palatinate, and proclaimed that the country of the Elector and the Protestant cause were lost for want of timely aid. As we have seen, the two Houses were afraid to trust the expenditure of money in uncapable hands. They could not understand how James was affecting a desire to contend against the power of Spain and Austria, when he was negotiating, in secret as he believed, for the marriage of his son to the daughter of the Most Catholic king. During the recess, a leading member of the Commons, sir Edwin Sandys, had been committed to the Tower; but it was protested that the commitment was unconnected with the privileges of the House. His bold manner of speaking in parliament was undoubtedly his offence. The Commons passed over this matter; but they drew up a petition, prepared by

James P

Autograph of James I.

Coke, against the growth of Popery, urging that prince Charles should marry one of his own religion, and that the king should turn his attention towards that power which had first carried on the war in the Palatinate. That power was Spain. James had heard of this motion; and he anticipated the receipt of the petition by sending a violent letter to the Speaker, commanding the House not to meddle with any matter which concerned his government, or the mysteries of state. He informed them also that he meant not to spare any man's insolent behaviour in parliament. The Commons returned a temperate answer, in which the king was told that their liberty of speech was their ancient and undoubted right. James replied that their privileges were derived from the grace and permission of his ancestors and himself. Some excuses were made for the expressions of the king, which were called a slip of the pen. The Commons deliberately recorded their opinions, in a memorable protestation, on the 18th of December, 1621, in which they solemnly affirmed, that the liberties and jurisdictions of parliament are the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England; that the affairs of the king and the state, of the defence of the realm, and of the Church of England, the making of laws, the redress of grievances, are proper subjects of debate in parliament; that in handling such business every member of the House hath, and of right ought to have, freedom of speech and that every member hath like freedom from all impeachment, imprisonment, and molestation, except by the censure of the House itself. There were great men concerned in this protestation,-Coke, Pym, Selden. Eminent peers, for almost the first time in the history of the country, took part with