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LI.

1629.

CHAP. higher, and rather deny the first principle, than admit of conclusions which to him appeared so absurd and unreasonable. Agreeably to the ideas hitherto entertained both by natives and foreigners, the monarch he esteemed the essence and soul of the English government; and whatever other power pretended to annihilate, or even abridge, the royal authority, must necessarily, he thought, either in its nature or exercise, be deemed no better than an usurpation. Willing to preserve the ancient harmony of the constitution, he had ever intended to comply, as far as he easily could, with the ancient forms of administration but when these forms appeared to him, by the inveterate obstinacy of the Commons, to have no other tendency than to disturb that harmony, and to introduce a new constitution; he concluded that, in this violent situation, what was subordinate must necessarily yield to what was principal, and the privileges of the people, for a time, give place to royal prerogative. From the rank of a monarch, to be degraded into a slave of his insolent, ungrateful subjects, seemed, of all indignities, the greatest; and nothing in his judgment could exceed the humiliation attending such a state, but the meanness of tamely submitting to it, without making some efforts to preserve the authority transmitted to him by his predecessors.

Arminianism.

Though these were the king's reflections and resolutions before the Parliament assembled, he did not immediately break with them upon their delay in voting him this supply. He thought that he could better justify any strong measure which he might afterwards be obliged to take, if he allowed them to carry to the utmost extremities their attacks upon his government and prerogative". He contented himself, for the present, with soliciting the House by messages and speeches. But the Commons, instead of hearkening to his solicitations, proceeded to carry their scrutiny into his management of religion", which was the only grievance to which, in their opinion, they had not as yet, by their petition of right, applied a sufficient remedy.

It was not possible that this century, so fertile in religious sects and disputes, could escape the controversy concerning fatalism and free-will, which, being strongly

u Rushworth, vol. i. p. 640.

w Idem, ibid. p. 651. Whitlocke, p. 12.

interwoven both with philosophy and theology, had, in all ages, thrown every school and every church into such inextricable doubt and perplexity. The first reformers in England, as in other European countries, had embraced the most rigid tenets of predestination and absolute decrees, and had composed, upon that system, all the articles of their religious creed. But these principles having met with opposition from Arminius and his sectaries, the controversy was soon brought into this island, and began here to diffuse itself. The Arminians finding more encouragement from the superstitious spirit of the church than from the fanaticism of the puritans, gradually incorporated themselves with the former; and some of that sect, by the indulgence of James and Charles, had attained the highest preferments in the hierarchy. But their success with the public had not been altogether answerable to that which they met with in the church and the court. Throughout the nation, they still lay under the reproach of innovation and heresy. The Commons now levelled against them their formidable censures, and made them the objects of daily invective and declamation. Their protectors were stigmatized; their tenets canvassed; their views represented as dangerous and pernicious. To impartial spectators surely, if any such had been at that time in England, it must have given great entertainment, to see a popular assembly, inflamed with faction and enthusiasm, pretend to discuss questions to which the greatest philosophers, in the tranquillity of retreat, had never hitherto been able to find any satisfactory solution.

Amidst that complication of disputes in which men were then involved, we may observe, that the appellation puritan stood for three parties, which, though commonly united, were yet actuated by very different views and motives. There were the political puritans, who maintained the highest principles of civil liberty; the puritans in discipline, who were averse to the ceremonies and episcopal government of the church; and the doctrinal puritans, who rigidly defended the speculative system of the first reformers. In opposition to all these stood the court party, the hierarchy, and the Arminians; only with this distinction, that the latter sect, being introduced a

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LI.

1629.

CHAP. few years before, did not, as yet, comprehend all those who were favourable to the church and to monarchy. But, as the controversies on every subject grew daily warmer, men united themselves more intimately with their friends, and separated themselves wider from their antagonists; and the distinction gradually became quite uniform and regular.

This House of Commons, which, like all the preceding during the reigns of James and Charles, and even of Elizabeth, was much governed by the puritanical party, thought that they could not better serve their cause than by branding and punishing the Arminian sect, which, introducing an innovation in the church, were the least favoured and least powerful of all their antagonists. From this measure, it was easily foreseen that, besides gratifying the animosity of the doctrinal puritans, both the puritans in discipline, and those in politics, would reap considerable advantages. Laud, Neile, Montague, and other bishops, who were the chief supporters of episcopal government, and the most zealous partisans of the discipline and ceremonies of the church, were all supposed to be tainted with Arminianism. The same men and their disciples were the strenuous preachers of passive obedience, and of entire submission to princes; and if these could once be censured, and be expelled the church and court, it was concluded, that the hierarchy would receive a mortal blow, the ceremonies be less rigidly insisted on, and the king, deprived of his most faithful friends, be obliged to abate those high claims of prerogative, on which at present he insisted.

But Charles, besides a view of the political consequences which must result from a compliance with such pretensions, was strongly determined, from principles of piety and conscience, to oppose them. Neither the dissipation incident to youth, nor the pleasures attending a high fortune, had been able to prevent this virtuous prince from embracing the most sincere sentiments of religion; and that character which, in that religious age, should have been of infinite advantage to him, proved in the end the chief cause of his ruin; merely because the religion adopted by him was not of that precise mode and sect which began to prevail among his subjects. His

piety, though remote from popery, had a tincture of superstition in it; and, being averse to the gloomy spirit of the puritans, was represented by them as tending towards the abominations of antichrist. Laud also had unfortunately acquired a great ascendant over him: and as all those prelates, obnoxious to the Commons, were regarded as his chief friends and most favourite courtiers, he was resolved not to disarm and dishonour himself, by abandoning them to the resentment of his enemies. Being totally unprovided with military force, and finding a refractory independent spirit to prevail among the people, the most solid basis of his authority, he thought, consisted in the support which he received from the hierarchy.

In the debates of the Commons, which are transmitted to us, it is easy to discern so early some sparks of that enthusiastic fire which afterwards set the whole nation in combustion. One Rouse made use of an allusion, which, though familiar, seems to have been borrowed from the writings of Lord Bacon. "If a man meet a dog alone," said he, "the dog is fearful, though ever so fierce by nature: but if the dog have his master with him, he will set upon that man from whom he fled before. This shows, that lower natures, being backed by higher, increase in courage and strength; and certainly man, being backed with Omnipotency, is a kind of omnipotent creature. All things are possible to him that believes, and where all things are possible, there is a kind of omnipotency. Wherefore, let it be the unanimous consent and resolution of us all to make a vow and covenant henceforth to hold fast our God and our religion; and then shall we henceforth expect with certainty, happiness in this world"."

Oliver Cromwell, at that time a young man of no account in the nation, is mentioned in these debates as complaining of one, who, he was told, preached flat popery. It is amusing to observe the first words of this fanatical hypocrite correspond so exactly to his character.

The inquiries and debates concerning tonnage and poundage went hand in hand with these theological or

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CHAP.

LI.

1629.

LI.

1629.

CHAP. metaphysical controversies. The officers of the customhouse were summoned before the Commons, to give an account by what authority they had seized the goods of merchants who had refused to pay these duties: the barons of the exchequer were questioned concerning their decrees on that head". One of the sheriffs of London was committed to the Tower for his activity in supporting the officers of the custom-house: the goods of Rolles, a merchant and member of the House, being seized for his refusal to pay the duties, complaints were made of this violence, as if it were a breach of privilege". Charles supported his officers in all these measures; and the quarrel grew every day higher between him and the Commons. Mention was made in the House of impeaching Sir Richard Weston, the treasurer; and the king began to entertain thoughts of finishing the session by a dissolution.

Sir John Elliot framed a remonstrance against levying tonnage and poundage without consent of Parliament, and offered it to the clerk to read. It was refused. He read it himself. The question being then called for, the speaker, Sir John Finch, said, That he had a command from the king to adjourn, and to put no question. Upon which he rose and left the chair. The whole House was in an uproar. The speaker was pushed back into the chair, and forcibly held in it by Hollis and Valentine, till a short remonstrance was framed, and was passed by acclamation rather than by vote. Papists and Arminians were there declared capital enemies to the commonwealth. Those who levied tonnage and poundage were branded with the same epithet; and even the merchants who should voluntarily pay these duties were denominated betrayers of English liberty, and public enemies. The doors being locked, the gentleman usher of the House of Lords, who was sent by the king, could not get admittance till

a Rushworth, vol. i. p. 654. Parl. Hist. vol. viii. p. 301.
b Rushworth, vol. i. p. 653.

d Parl. Hist. vol. viii. P. 326.

e Idem, ibid. p. 658.

The king's power of adjourning, as well as proroguing the Parliament, was and is never questioned. In the 19th of the late king, the judges determined that the adjournment by the king kept the Parliament in statu quo until the next sitting; but that then no committees were to meet but if the adjournment be by the House, then the committees and other matters do continue. Parl. Hist. vol. v. p. 466.

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