CHAP. IX.

(b) That none should be made to answer, or take oath, or to give attendance, or be confined, or in anywise molested for refusal thereof.

(c) That no freeman should be imprisoned in such manner as was before mentioned. (d) That the King would remove the soldiers and mariners, and not so burthen his people in time to come.

(e) That the commissions for martial law should be revoked and annulled, and no commissions of like nature issued forth in future.

(11) All which the Commons prayed of the King as their rights and liberties, according to the laws and statutes of the realm; that he would declare that the proceedings they had complained of, should not be drawn hereafter into consequence or example; and that he would be graciously pleased further to declare, that in all these things aforesaid, his officers and ministers should serve him according to the laws and statutes of the realm.

answer.

The King, fearing to lose the five subsidies, and yet resolved not to give up the right of arbitrary imprisonment and the exaction of loans, was at a loss what answer to return to this The King's petition. He determined to dissemble. The peers first endeavoured to aid him, by proposing to insert a clause saving the sovereign power;" but the Commons objected to this, observing that the laws did not recognise a sovereign power. The King then appended the following equivocal answer in lieu of the ancient form:

66

"The King willeth that right be done, according to the laws and customs of the realm, and the statutes be put in due execution; that his subjects may have no cause to complain of any wrong or oppression contrary to their just rights and liberties, to the preservation whereof, he holds himself as well obliged as of his prerogative."

The scenes which followed in the lower house, when the Commons received this answer, were most exciting. The popular leaders indulged in the most passionate invective; then a deep and mournful silence ensued; rage succeeded; and with locked doors, the Commons formed themselves into a committee, to consult on the means of saving the nation. In the midst of the tumult, the speaker went to the King secretly; fear came over the court, and the next day Charles went to the House of Lords, and subscribed the customary form of assent to the petition-" Soit fait droit comme il est desiré." The Commons immediately passed the bill granting the five subsidies, and then proceeded to deal the last blows against the government; for Buckingham, the grievance of grievances," still ruled the King, and the King still levied the customs without the sanction of parliament. The Commons, therefore, prepared a bill to grant tonnage and poundage, but first drew up a remonstrance declaring their imposition to be illegal, without the consent of parliament. They also drew up another remonstrance against the duke, and were about to present both, when the King suddenly prorogued them (June

66

1628

26th, 1628.) By this abrupt proceeding, Charles dissi- Parliament pated what little hopes might have arisen from his tardy prorogued. assent to the Petition of Right. In the remonstrance against tonnage and poundage, the Commons gently reminded him that he could not levy these of his own power, without violating the petition; but in the speech with which he dismissed them, he said that he never intended to give up these duties, and that he could not do without them. He thus terminated the session by explaining away all that he had appeared to concede. Nor was this the only instance of his insincerity. Before the Petition was passed, he had proposed three questions to the judges, concerning the most vital points, and the answers they had given had assured him that, with their base compliance, he could evade the observance of the bill. Now that it was passed, and the session was over, he gave a most lamentable instance of his falsehood and deception. He caused 1,500 copies of the Petition to be circulated through the country, with his first and illegal answer annexed to it; an attempt to deceive, without even a prospect of success. "Instances of such ill faith," remarks Hallam, "in the life of Charles, render the assertion of his sincerity (by Hume, Clarendon, and others) a proof, either of historical ignorance, or of a want of moral delicacy.*

Bucking

8. Changes in the ministry. On the same day that Buckingham was denounced as the "grievance of grievances" in the House of Commons (June 13th), his physician, Dr. Lamb, was Murder of murdered by a mob in the streets of London, and a few ham. days after, the walls were placarded with these words:-"Who rules the kingdom? The King.-Who rules the King? The duke. Who rules the duke? The devil. Let the duke look to it, or he will be served as his doctor was served." Without noticing this menace, Buckingham proceeded to Portsmouth, to take the command of an expedition which was then being fitted out for the relief of Rochelle. On the 23rd of August, as he was leaving his dressing room to go to his carriage, he was stabbed to the heart, by Lieutenant Felton. Sewn up in the assassin's hat was found a paper, in which the last remonstance of the Commons was referred to. Felton did not escape, nor attempt to defend himself; he merely said, that in murdering the duke he was serving his God, his King, and his country, and that he had no accomplices; the merit and the glory being all his own. The King, who was then staying near Portsmouth, would have had him tortured, but the judges, contrary to their usual practice at this time, decided in favour of right and justice, and informed *Const. Hist., I., 388-392; Lingard, IX., 276-281; Guizot's Eng. Rev., 22-30.

CHAP. IX.

Charles that the use of the rack, under any circumstance, was contrary to the law of England. Felton underwent the usual punishment.

The murdered duke was only in his thirty-sixth year. Although he had retained the affections of two succeeding monarchs, his abilities were not equal to his fortune. He was one of those men who seem born to shine in courts, and to displease nations. Proud of the attachment of his sovereign, he scorned to seek a friend among his equals, and hence persevered in the same course to the end; urging the King to trample on the liberties of the people, himself braving their indignation. Frivolous passions were the sole aim of his intrigues; to seduce a woman, to ruin a rival, he compromised with arrogant carelessness, now the King, now the country. The empire of such a man, therefore, became daily more insulting and calamitous to the people, and so keenly did the Commons watch his actions, that, if he had escaped the knife of the assassin, he would probably have fallen by the axe of the executioner.*

The service of despotism which Charles lost by the death of The King's Buckingham was soon replaced by more dangerous,

advisers

after Buckingham's

death.

because more able, counsellors. At the close of the late session, Sir Thomas Wentworth and Sir John Savile, men of considerable property in Yorkshire, and who, by their influence, divided the county between them, went over to the court. Both these men had incurred the royal resentment; but Wentworth had more deeply offended. He had been appointed sheriff to prevent his sitting in the house, had been deprived of the office of custos rotulorum, and had been imprisoned for refusing to subscribe to the loan. But his attachment to the popular party was never sincere; his ambition soared higher than the admiration of his country; and, although he began to negotiate with the court before the death of Buckingham, yet it was not till after that event that he threw aside all hesitation, and openly deserted his former friends; by the end of the year 1628, he had obtained, with the rank of viscount, the office of lord president of the north.f Other deserters followed: Sir Dudley Digges, Sir Edward Lyttleton, Noy, and Wandesford; with which accession of councillors Charles made several changes in the court. Sir Richard Weston, a creature of the late duke's, became lord treasurer; Dr. Montague, whom the Commons had prosecuted, was promoted to the bishopric of Chichester; Dr. Mainwaring, whom the House of Lords had condemned, received a rich living; and Bishop Laud, already famous for passionate devotion to the principle of high power in King and church, passed to the see of London. The King's public conduct corresponded with these court favours;

* Lingard, IX., 287; Guizot's Eng. Rev., 15; see also Clarendon's Rebellion, Book I. + See Hallam, I,, 459-473. Lingard. IX.. 295-299.

1629

tonnage and poundage were levied with rigour, and merchants who refused to pay had their goods distrained, and, on suing writs of replevin, were told by the judges that the King's right to levy these duties could not be disputed. Those irregular tribunals, the Star Chamber and the High Commission Court, still suspended the course of law; and to crown the whole, all the expeditions which had been sent to relieve Rochelle had miserably failed, and the place had been compelled to surrender at discretion. Thus the Commons re-assembled for the second session (January 20th, 1629), by no means less inflamed against the King's administration thau at the commencement of the preceding session.

9. Second session of the third parliament. The Commons immediately betrayed their spirit, by carrying a motion Religious to ascertain what effect had been given to the Petition of matters. Right. The King's duplicity was fully verified; but a resolution being passed, that "the business of the King of this earth should give place to the business of the King of heaven," the house first entered into the subject of religious grievances. The religious disputes which furnished such unceasing food to political discontent during the reigns of the first two Stuarts, arose out of these four causes :

(1) The deprivation of Puritan clergymen by Bancroft, Neile, and Laud, who studiously aggravated every difference between them and the high churchmen.

passive

(2) The growth of high church tenets, especially the divine right or absolute indispensability of bishops, by which doctrine the high churchmen denied the name of a Christian society to the Presbyterians, yet, with ostentatious charity, acknowledged the Church of Rome as a part of the catholic church. But it was the political teaching of the high churchmen which rendered them so obnoxious to the Commons. They inculcated that resistance to the commands of rulers The was, in every conceivable instance, a heinous sin; a tenet utterly sub- doctrine of versive of civil liberty, and incompatible with the possession of any rights obedience. or privileges by the subject. This doctrine was laid down both in the homilies and in the canons; the court preachers were constantly affirming it, even while Elizabeth and James were actively supporting the Dutch and the Huguenots in their rebellions; and, in the present reign, they had gone so far as to say that the subject had no positive rights. Mainwaring and Sibthorpe, eager for promotion, expressly affirmed, in two sermons, that the King might take the subject's money at his pleasure, and that no one might refuse his demand on penalty of damnation. The government gave these men the most indecent encouragement; and Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, refusing to license Sibthorpe's sermon, was sequestered, and confined to a country house in Kent. The House of Commons finally proceeded against Mainwaring, and he was fined, suspended, and made incapable of preferment; but the King pardoned him, and promoted both of them.

(3) A third dispute arose out of the differences as to the observance of Sunday, which the Puritans placed on the same footing, almost, as the Jewish Sabbath, while they refused to observe saints' days, and other holidays, because they were of human appointment. The high churchmen derided this extravagance, and, under

CHAP. IX.

their influence, James I. published a declaration, to be read in churches, authorising The book of all lawful recreations after service on Sunday, such as dancing, archery, sports. May games, and Morris-dancers, games which the Puritan would hardly allow at any time. From this time, the use of the word Sabbath instead of Sunday, became a distinctive mark of the Puritan party.

Arminianism.

(4) The controversy concerning Arminianism, which arose about the end of James's reign, afforded a new pretext for intolerance, and a more permanent source of hatred. The doctrines of original sin and free will, grace, predestination, and universal redemption, were the points in dispute; the Augustinian or Calvinistic view of which appears to have been first received by the early reformers, and, certainly by their successors, under Elizabeth and James. The latter not only sent English divines to the synod of Dort, to oppose the views of Arminius, pastor of the great church at Amsterdam, and afterwards professor at Leyden, but he instigated the Dutch authorities to persecute the holders of them;* yet, within a few years, the open profession of Arminian opinions became almost a sure means of preferment in the church. What rendered Arminianism obnoxious to the Commons was, its connection with the doctrines of absolute power; the essential principle of which was, said Sir John Eliot, in the House of Commons,— that they claimed for the King, as absolute head of the church, a power resembling the Pope's infallibility; an independent state supremacy; a power over the liberty and property of the subject † Charles, as supreme governor of the church, had lately published an edition of the articles containing the much disputed clause which declared, that the church had power to decree rites and ceremonies, and had authority in matters of faith; and he had ordered that no doctrines should be taught which differed from those articles, which were to be taken in their literal and grammatical sense, especially the one on justification. Eliot made one of his stirring speeches on this publication, and the Commons entered a " vow" on the journals, in which they denounced the articles, and the Arminian and Jesuitical views which they contained.

Political

The question of religion was surrendered to a sub-committee, and the patriot leaders then proceeded to inquire into the matters. late seizure of merchants' goods. The King, meanwhile, was sending repeated messages to hasten the tonnage and poundage bill; but the Commons demanded, as a previous condition, reparation to those merchants whose goods had been seized; and they summoned before them the officers of the customs who had seized the goods. On this Charles sent them word that he was the delinquent, because the officers had acted by his orders. This message produced a crisis, and the house adjourned for two days. On the 25th of February, when they re-assembled, the committee on religion brought in their report, and a long list of formidable charges against Laud was agreed to be presented to the King. Charles again ordered the house to adjourn to the 2nd of March. At the next meeting, Eliot began a most passionate invective against the whole system of government. He was interrupted by the speaker, who said that the King had again ordered him to adjourn. But Eliot produced a

* Lingard, IX., 126-130. + Forster's Lives, II., 88.

Hallam, I., 394-404.