.

declaration he put forth to condemn the proceedings of the ill-affected members, 'as if,' said he, kings were bound to give an account of their regal actions, and of their manner of government, to their subjects assembled in parliament.' However pride may have prevailed over policy, Charles must have been sadly ignorant of what was passing around him, to have supposed for an instant that such high doctrines would acquit him in the eyes of an exasperated kingdom.

The convocation which, according to usage, should have been dissolved with the parliament, continued to sit. The public was not more angry at the dispersion of one assembly than at the retention of the other, and the king was obliged to send a guard to protect the members from the fury of the mob. The people had expected the parliament to loosen their bonds, and they were equally persuaded that the convocation would tighten them. In this they were not deceived. The representatives of the church were kept together to vote a subsidy from the clergy, and to pass some canons devised by Laud. The king's authority was weakened; the Scotch were in arms; the canons required that the full extent of the regal power, and the sin of resistance, should be set forth once a quarter in every church. The nonconformists were encouraged by the successful insurrection of Presbyterianism; the canons enacted that redoubled severity should be used towards secretaries. The charge of popery was incessantly urged against the government, and, to remove the stigma, the canons directed that papists should be treated with unwonted rigour. As a further security, the synod framed the notorious et cætera oath, for preventing innovations in doctrine and government, and which was intended to uphold the episcopal regimen which the Convent had renounced. Every clergyman and schoolmaster, all who entered into orders, or took a degree at either university, were to swear that they would never consent to alter the government by archbishops, bishops, deans, and archdeacons, et cætera, as it stands now established.' Not only the puritanical but multitudes of the orthodox clergy manifested their intention to refuse compliance. To swear under an all-embracing et cætera never to consent to the minutest alteration was revolting to both conscience and understanding. The peace of the church,' wrote the celebrated Dr. Sanderson to Laud, is apparently in danger to be more disquieted by this one occasion than by anything that has happened within our memories.' The

king found it necessary to suspend the oath, but the mere attempt to impose it lost him the support of numbers of the 'conformable' clergy. The only result of the convocation was to add, Whitelock says, ' more fuel to the flames already burning.' Laud had no talent for government, or he must have seen that affairs had arrived at a crisis, when to forge fresh fetters would stimulate the resistance they were intended to repress. The threatened persecution of the papists, which alone seemed calculated to win popular favour, was believed to be a feint, and the subsidy, though confined to the clergy, was offensive to the people, since it assisted the king to make war upon the Scotch and dispense with parlia

ments.

The notion, however, that he could return to 'extraordinary ways' was grievous delusion. The system which served for quiet times could not support the slightest additional pressure; and it was because it had already broken down that his council had prevailed on him to call a parliament. With the people more conscious of their own strength and his weakness, with greater wants than before, and a country less disposed than ever to supply them, he set to work to raise funds and recruit his army. He increased the ship-tax, obtained loans from the royalist gentry, seized the bullion of the foreign merchants at the Mint, and bought pepper on credit that he might sell it at a loss for ready money. He hoped for aid from the merchants of London, but his former acts had made them his enemies. They could not forget that the inexorable Star-Chamber had deprived them of their plantations in Londonderry for exceeding their patent, and imposed on them a fine of 70,000l. in addition to the forfeiture. The Scots on the 20th of August crossed the Tweed, with a sword,' says May, 'in one hand, and a petition in the other.' The petition was such as a highwayman presents when, with a pistol at the head of a traveller, he demands his money or his life. Charles had contrived to assemble 20,000 troops, and it was just when his preparations were complete that the full difficulty of his task was disclosed. It then appeared that a large part of his levies were against him... They insisted upon knowing whether their captains were papists, compelled several to take the sacrament in proof of their orthodoxy, and put some of them to death. They declared their intention of not fighting to maintain the pride and power of the bishops;' and it was thought by the result that they kept their word. A portion:

of the royal army was sent to hinder the Scotch from passing the Tyne on the 28th of August; and though a detachment of the cavalry, consisting chiefly of gentlemen, behaved with gallantry, the rest quickly retired. The king, perceiving that defeat was certain, summoned the peers to meet him at York on the 24th of September, and give him their assistance and advice. In the interim he learnt that nothing but a parliament would satisfy his subjects; and his first announcement to the assembled lords was that he had determined to convene one for the 3rd of November. Sixteen peers were deputed to negotiate with the Scotch, who, besides committing innumerable depredations upon individuals, levied a contribution upon the counties of Northumberland and Durham of 56007. a-week. On the 16th of October the Covenanters agreed to a truce of two months, on condition of receiving 8507. a-day for the support of their troops, and being allowed to remain in their present quarters. The English people consented to pay both armies, conceiving that their most dangerous enemy was the king, and that redress of grievances was hopeless if they adopted the only other alternative of uniting heart

and hand to drive out the invaders.

declaiming against the abuses practised by another. The true test of their superiority to the infirmities they denounce is to be found in their conduct when they themselves have got the upper hand, and the Parliamentarians failed to endure the proof. The first week was spent in appointing committees and receiving petitions. To add to the effect of the latter, several counties sent them up with processions of horsemen. The grievances of individuals were patiently heard, as well as those of the public; for to probe and redress every description of wrong was the pervading thought. Oliver Cromwell, who had been again returned for Cambridge, stood up on the 9th of November, six days after the meeting of Parliament, to demand justice for one John Lilburn, who had been pilloried, whipped, and imprisoned. The most vivid description we possess of the manner and appearance of the future Protector is the account which is given of him by Sir Philip Warwick on this subordinate occasion:

'The first time I ever took notice of him was

very plain, and not very clean, and I remember which was not much larger than his collar. His a speck or two of blood upon his little band, hat was without a hatband. His stature was of good size; his sword stuck close to his side; his countenance swoln and reddish; his voice sharp and untuneable; and his eloquence full of fervour, for the subject-matter would not bear much of reason, it being in behalf of a servant the queen for her dancing, and such like innocent of Mr. Prynne's, who had dispersed libels against and courtly sports; and he aggravated the imprisonment of this man by the council-table unto that height, that one would have believed the very government itself had been in great danger by it. I sincerely confess it lessened much my reverence unto that great council, for he was very much hearkened unto.'

in the very beginning of the parliament held in November, 1640, when I vainly thought myself a courtly young gentleman, for we courtiers valued ourselves much upon our good cloaths. The increasing disaffection of the counI came into the house one morning well clad, try showed itself at the elections. Few and perceived a gentleman speaking, whom İ of the court candidates could get returned, knew not, very ordinarily apparelled; for it was and their small band was subsequently a plain cloth suit, which seemed to have been reduced by an order of the House of Com-made by an ill country tailor. His linen was mons that none of the monopolists should retain their seats. Two, who belonged to the liberal side, were allowed to remain. The members who had sat in the previous parliament came together with altered dispositions. 'The same men,' says Clarendon, 'who six months before were observed to be of very moderate tempers, talked now in another dialect both of things and persons.' They went about with a marvellous elated countenance,' plainly perceiving that the time had arrived for the triumph of their principles. Shortly before the House assembled, Pym met Hyde, who was then opposed to the court, and remarked to him that they must go to work in a different spirit from what they had done before; that they had at last an opportunity to make the country happy by tearing up grievances by the root, and that they must not only sweep the floor, but pull down all the cobwebs which hung in the corners above. The power, in short, had passed from the king to the patriots, and it is by the use which they made of it that the popular leaders are to be judged. All men seem virtuous when they are

The little band' was, as Mr. Carlyle explains, the linen tippet, which was worn in those days, when the hair was left long, to protect the coat. That Oliver was very much hearkened unto,' in spite of his slovenly dress, his plebeian look, his harsh voice, and, what we know must have gone along with them, his diffuse, involved, and tedious language, was due to the fervour.' Popular assemblies will always listen, in

periods of excitement, to the person who | ed treatises, like the virulent invectives of gives the loudest expression to their own passions. As yet the members foresaw none of those troubles which were so soon to arise. They fondly imagined that they were to be the happy means of restoring quiet to the land; and their resentment at the past abuses they were burning to remove was gratified by the impetuosity and exaggerations of Cromwell. Sir Philip Warwick wondered at the attention which was paid to the perplexed declamation of the uncouth orator, simply because a courtly young gentleman' could not participate in the feelings which animated the majority of the audience. The powder which falls into a red-hot furnace has a different effect from that which drops upon a cold stone.

Prynne and his companions, he was summoned to the bar of the House, and sentenced by the Speaker to pay a fine of 100 marks, to stand in the pillory twice, to be whipped the first day from Westminster to the Fleet, and the second day from Cheapside to Bridewell. This was his final destination; for he was to be imprisoned and kept at work there for the rest of his life. The decrees of the Star-Chamber, regard being had to the extent of the offences, were merciful by comparison. To complete the metamorphose, which was reserved for the future, Lilburn, then a lieutenant-colonel in the insurgent army, was thrown into jail for abuse of his former master, Prynne, and both master and man were subsequently imprisoned for their attacks on Cromwell or the parliament.

Séveral sentences were remitted besides those of Prynne and his confederates. The persons who had had a share in harsh proceedings, for many of them were not illegal, were ordered to be prosecuted, and to pay damages to their victims. In their indiscriminate resentment the Commons committed more injustice than they rectified. The church engaged their special attention. Scarce a minister,' says Baxter, had been silenced, but it was put into a petition.' On the other hand, the people were invited to bring up complaints against every clergyman who was not to their mind, and if anything appeared against his competency, doctrine, or morals, he was censured, deprived of his preferment, or imprisoned, according to the nature of his offence and the humour of the Commons. The patriots gave them the name of Scandalous Ministers,' and all who had concurred in the in

Lilburn was released. His master, Prynne, together with Burton and Bastwick, had already been summoned from their respective prisons in the isles of Scilly, Guernsey, and Jersey, where they had been debarred the use of pen and ink, and were not allowed to be visited by relation or friend. Prynne and Burton landed at Southampton, and their journey to London was one continuous triumphal procession. On the 28th of November they entered the city, and were met by thousands of persons wearing rosemary and bay in their hats, and carrying boughs in their hands. The women strewed the streets with flowers and herbs, and the air resounded with the joyful acclamations of the crowd. A few days later Bastwick landed at Dover, and the same reception attended him throughout his progress to the capital. There was nothing in the men or their writings to excite this wide-spread enthusiasm. Prynne, by far the most respectable of the three, after-novations of Laud were included in the opwards confessed that if the king had cut off his head instead of his ears, he had done no more than justice, and had done God and the nation good service.' But the delight of the people was in reality at the victory gained over an obnoxious tribunal

a victory which was personified in the liberated prisoners. Before we praise too highly the righteous indignation of the patriots, we must observe their conduct when they, in their turn, became the objects of abuse. Eighteen months afterwards a London tailor was said to have called the Earl of Essex, the Earl of Warwick, and the parliament, traitors-to have cursed the parliament, wished the Earl of Warwick's heart in his boots, and King Pym and Sir John Hotham both hanged.' For these ludicrous expressions, which were uttered in conversation, and not circulated in print

probrious denomination. After a short pleasure,' says May exultingly, they were brought to their torment,' while the puritanic nonconformists were restored and encouraged. The same spirit was manifested in the order made by the House in January, 1641, directing commissioners to be sent throughout England to remove all images, altars, tables placed altar-wise, crucifixes, superstitious pictures, and other monuments and relics of idolatry.' The Vandal, Sir Robert Harlow, who was entrusted with the execution of the measure, took away numberless exquisite remains of antiquity, and, among the rest, the beautiful crosses at Charing and Cheap, to the lasting injury of art, without the slightest compensation to religion. But what is to be especially noted in the resolution of the Commons is, that they had no more right to carry it into

effect by their sole authority than the king had to levy taxes without the consent of parliament. Outrageous against every other power in the state which exceeded its functions, they had already the confidence, in a multiplicity of cases, to transgress their own.

6

A more conspicuous punishment was designed for the principal agents of the king. The Earl of Strafford was impeached of high treason on the 11th of November; Archbishop Laud on the 18th of December; and Lord-Keeper Finch on the 21st. The Lord-Keeper contrived to escape, and fled to Holland. Secretary Windebank had got away with his head a few days before, and took refuge in France. On the 13th of February, 1641, Sir Robert Berkeley, one of the judges who pronounced ship money legal, was accused of treason before the Lords, and was taken from the bench in full court, which struck,' says Whitelock, a great terror in the rest of his brethren, and in all his profession.' The effect was what the patriots designed. They wished the judges to feel that they would be responsible to the country for their decisions as well as to the Crown, and that perversions of law in favour of the prerogative and against the people would not henceforth go unpunished. This was the principle upon which they doubtless proceed ed in many of their prosecutions of inferior agents, whose hard fate was to suffer for doing acts which, without incurring an equal penalty, they could not have refused to per

together, it could not be adjourned or dissolved without its own consent under fifty. days. These wise and sober measures deserved and have obtained the gratitude of posterity.

None of the proceedings excited equal interest with the trial of Strafford, which was commenced in Westminster Hall on the 23rd of March. Three whole kingdoms,' says May, were his accusers, and eagerly sought, in one death, a recompense of all their sufferings.' His scene of action had been chiefly in Ireland, of which he was the Lord-Lieutenant; but his vast abilities had been called into requisition in England when the recent troubles broke out, and nothing was thought impossible for his great genuis to overcome. Charles, as anxious to protect as the patriots to destroy him, consented with this view to introduce into his ministry the leaders of the Opposition, -the Earl of Bedford, Lord Say, Hollis, Hampden, and Pym. Partly from the lukewarmness of the king, who was reluc tant to put his affairs into the hands of his enemies, and partly from the backwardness of the parliamentarians to assent to his terms, the negotiation fell to the ground. From that hour the accusers of Strafford pushed on the impeachment with increased virulence; for when an attempt at a compromise has been made and failed, it usually leaves more bitterness than it found. There is no need to assume, as has been sometimes alleged, that the patriots were animated by a passion for place, and that, from disappointment at missing promotion, In the midst of the rage for chastising they were determined to wreak their venand rewarding individuals-which made geance on a dreaded rival. Filling the the beginning of this parliament,' to use great offices of the state, they could prethe language of its historian, May, 'seem a vent a return to the former policy, and, little Doomsday'-the members were not losing this security, they might fairly, on unmindful of general measures. They public grounds, return to the prosecution of passed bills declaring ship-money illegal, the potent enemy whom they believed to and enacting that tonnage and poundage be dangerous to the commonwealth. But could not be levied without the consent of if they were warranted in bringing to trial, both Houses. The power over the purses as a warning to future ministers, a man of his subjects was by these statutes for whom they conceived to have been guilty ever lost to the king. In February, 1641, towards his country, the manner in which his consent was obtained to another law, of they conducted the case is one of the inthe highest importance-the act for trien- famies of history. The witnesses whom nial parliaments. If none had been sum- Strafford intended to call in his defence, moned within three years, writs were to be were nominally impeached either here or issued by the Chancellor at the expiration in Ireland, and it is supposed, since the of the period; and if he failed to perform charges were never pressed, with the sole the duty, which he was to swear to fulfil, it intention of depriving him of their testidevolved upon the peers. If the peers mony. His papers were seized, and none neglected to discharge the office, the sheriffs were to act of their own accord; and if the sheriffs were refractory, the people themselves could meet and elect their members. When the parliament had come

form.

of them were restored to him, though he considered many of them essential to his cause. The king thoughtlessly released the members of his cabinet from their oath not to reveal what passed in council, which en

us presently, the point to be proved by the scattered accusations was that Strafford had engaged in an attempt to subvert the fundamental laws of the realm.' The evidence was inadequate to sustain the proposition; but, if it had been established beyond dispute, the Commons were no nearer their end; for a statute of Edward III. defined treason with accuracy; another statute, of the reign of Henry IV., enacted that nothing should be held treasonable unless it was literally comprehended in the bill of Edward, and the charge against Strafford. was not in the list. The patriots were not to be baffled. A forced construction had sometimes been put upon the phrases of the act to stretch it beyond its legitimate limits, and the inveterate enemies of arbitrary monarchs determined to imitate their illegal

excesses.

abled the managers to bring against the prisoner every hasty word they could extract from the memories of his colleaguesa permission which proved of infinite damage to Charles, for no one afterwards would speak with freedom at consultations where advice delivered in privacy and confidence was liable to be converted into a capital crime. The Commons had early appointed a secret committee, which sat constantly to draw up the articles and to collect evidence in support of them; they had all the talent and learning their assembly could supply with which to enforce them; and they imparted to them the authority of the most numerous, the most powerful, and the wealthiest estate in the realm. Strafford, in addition to his other difficulties, stood alone, bowed down with a mortal disease; and, such being the relative advantages of accusers and accused, The managers, according to Clarendon, the picked gentlemen of England, the re-pressed the evidence with great license dressers of wrongs, the indignant denounc- and sharpness of language.' There were ers of every arbitrary act which had been two exceptions. Glynne and Maynard,' committed by anybody under any pretence, Strafford said, 'used him like advocates, positively opposed his having the assistance but Palmer and Whitelock used him like of counsel, on the plea that it was not al- gentlemen.' For this courtesy of demeanour lowable in cases of high treason. The Palmer lost his credit with his party, and more terrible the penalty, the less, accord- never recovered it. In spite of violence ing to their doctrine, were to be the means and injustice, there was one benefit of which of defence. I have as much right, I sup- the Commons could not divest their prisoner pose,' said Strafford, to defend my life as -the use of his own incomparable talents any other can have to attack it. The dis--and this single possession proved more ciples of liberty were not of this opinion; they thought that those who attacked it had a right to advantages, which, in defiance of the commonest rules of justice, they denied to himself. The Lords, in spite of the resistance of the Commons, decided that the usage was to allow counsel to plead questions of law, but he was denied the aid in the more important department of examining witnesses.

The rest was of a piece with the beginning. The articles exhibited against him were twenty-eight, of which three only were alleged to be treasonable, but the rest, though not treasonable, when taken separately, assumed, it was maintained, that character by accumulation. This was a doctrine new to our jurisprudence, and invented by those who boasted that they were the guardians of the law and the zealous punishers of persons who dared to strain it to purposes of oppression. How,' asked Strafford, can that be treasonable in the lump which is not so in any of the parts? No more,' answered Herne, when he defended Laud, 'than two hundred black rabbits can make black horse.'

Apart from the charge of levying war against the King, which will come before

than a counterpoise to all the other inequalities of the contest. As each charge was concluded, he turned round to confer with his secretaries and counsel, which was the only preparation he was allowed, and amid the distracting Babel of tongues which broke forth in these intervals, and the fearful torments of gout and stone, he settled his defence. Nothing could subdue his unconquerable spirit, nothing cloud his penetrating mind. With an infinite readiness which could dispense with reflection-with a singular quickness which overlooked no advantage-with a judgment still more uncommon which committed no mistakewith an eloquence in which none of his contemporaries could pretend to be his rivalwith a beauty of action and elocution which were worthy of his language-with a mingled dignity and modesty which seemed happily to reconcile his past elevation and his present downfall-with these qualities, separately rare and almost unparalleled in their combination, he continued day by day to confront his accusers and to baffle their vengeance. Every one was against him at the commencement. The very courtiers disliked him, for his aims went far beyond their petty interests, and his imperious na