It is not improbable, that the king’s intention was only to prevent inconveniencies, which arose from the bringing of every cause, from the most distant parts of the kingdom, into Westminster Hall: but the consequence, in the mean time, of this measure, was the putting of all the northern counties out of the protection of ordinary law, and subjecting them to an authority somewhat arbitrary. Some irregular acts of that council were this year complained of.[*]
1633.
The court of star chamber extended its authority; and it was matter of complaint that it encroached upon the jurisdiction of the other courts; imposing heavy fines and inflicting severe punishment, beyond the usual course of justice. Sir David Foulis was fined five thousand pounds, chiefly because he had dissuaded a friend from compounding with the commissioners of knighthood.[**]
Prynne, a barrister of Lincoln’s Inn, had written an enormous quarto of a thousand pages, which he called Histrio-Mastyx. Its professed purpose was to decry stage-plays, comedies, interludes, music, dancing; but the author likewise took occasion to declaim against hunting, public festivals, Christmas-keeping, bonfires, and may-poles. His zeal against all these levities, he says, was first moved by observing that plays sold better than the choicest sermons, and that they were frequently printed on finer paper than the Bible itself. Besides, that the players were often Papists, and desperately wicked; the play-houses, he affirms, are Satan’s chapels; the play-haunters little better than incarnate devils; and so many steps in a dance, so many paces to hell. The chief crime of Nero, he represents to have been his frequenting and acting of plays; and those who nobly conspired his death, were principally moved to it, as he affirms, by their indignation at that enormity. The rest of his thousand pages is of a like strain. He had obtained a license from Archbishop Abbot’s chaplain; yet was he indicted in the star chamber as a libeller. It was thought somewhat hard that general invectives against plays should be interpreted into satires against the king and queen, merely because they frequented these amusements, and because the queen sometimes acted a part in pastorals and interludes which were represented at court. The author, it must be owned, had, in plainer terms, blamed the hierarchy, the ceremonies, the innovations in religious worship, and the new superstitions introduced by Laud;[*] and this, probably, together with the obstinacy and petulance of his behavior before the star chamber, was the reason why his sentence was so severe. He was condemned to be put from the bar; to stand on the pillory in two places, Westminster and Cheapside; to lose both his ears, one in each place; to pay five thousand pounds’ fine to the king; and to be imprisoned during life.[**]
This same Prynne was a great hero among the Puritans; and it was chiefly with a view of mortifying that sect, that though of an honorable profession, he was condemned by the star chamber to so ignominious a punishment. The thorough-paced Puritans were distinguishable by the sourness and austerity of their manners, and by their aversion to all pleasure and society.[***] To inspire them with better humor was certainly, both for their own sake and that of the public, a laudable intention in the court; but whether pillories, fines and prisons were proper expedients for that purpose, may admit of some question.
Another expedient which the king tried, in order to infuse cheerfulness into the national devotion, was not much more successful. He renewed his father’s edict for allowing sports and recreations on Sunday to such as attended public worship; and he ordered his proclamation for that purpose to be publicly read by the clergy after divine service.[****] Those who were Puritanically affected refused obedience, and were punished by suspension or deprivation. The differences between the sects were before sufficiently great; nor was it necessary to widen them further by these inventions.
Some encouragement and protection which the king and the bishops gave to wakes, church ales, bride ales, and other cheerful festivals of the common people, were the objects of like scandal to the Puritans.[v]
The music in the churches he affirmed not to be the noise of men, but a bleating of brute beasts; choristers bellow the tenor, as it were oxen; bark a counterpart, as it were a kennel of dogs; roar out a treble, as it were a sort of bulls; and grunt out a bass, as it were a number of hogs: Christmas, as it is kept, is the devil’s Christmas: and Prynne employed a great number of pages to persuade men to affect the name of “Puritan,” as if Christ had been a Puritan; and so he saith in his index.
This year, Charles made a journey to Scotland, attended by the court, in order to hold a parliament there, and to pass through the ceremony of his coronation. The nobility and gentry of both kingdoms rivalled each other in expressing all duty and respect to the king, and in showing mutual friendship and regard to each other. No one could have suspected, from exterior appearances, that such dreadful scenes were approaching.
One chief article of business, (for it deserves the name,) which the king transacted in this parliament, was, besides obtaining some supply, to procure authority for ordering the habits of clergymen.[*] The act did not pass without opposition and difficulty. The dreadful surplice was before men’s eyes, and they apprehended, with some reason, that under sanction of this law, it would soon be introduced among them. Though the king believed that his prerogative entitled him to a power, in general, of directing whatever belonged to the exterior government of the church, this was deemed a matter of too great importance to be ordered without the sanction of a particular statute.
Immediately after the king’s return to England, he heard of Archbishop Abbot’s death; and, without delay, he conferred that dignity on his favorite, Laud; who, by this accession of authority, was now enabled to maintain ecclesiastical discipline with greater rigor, and to aggravate the general discontent of the nation.
Laud obtained the bishopric of London for his friend Juxon: and, about a year after the death of Sir Richard Weston, created earl of Portland, had interest enough to engage the king to make that prelate high treasurer. Juxon was a person of great integrity, mildness, and humanity, and endued with a good understanding.[**] Yet did this last promotion give general offence. His birth and character were deemed too obscure for a man raised to one of the highest offices of the crown. And the clergy, it was thought, were already too much elated by former instances of the king’s attachment to them, and needed not this further encouragement to assume dominion over the laity.[***] The Puritans, likewise, were much dissatisfied with Juxon, notwithstanding his eminent virtues, because he was a lover of profane field sports and hunting.
1634.
Ship money was now introduced. The first writs of this kind had been directed to seaport towns only: but ship money was at this time levied on the whole kingdom; and each county was rated at a particular sum, which was after wards assessed upon individuals.[*] The amount of the whole tax was very moderate, little exceeding two hundred thousand pounds: it was levied upon the people with equality: the money was entirely expended on the navy, to the great honor and advantage of the kingdom: as England had no military force, while all the other powers of Europe were strongly armed, a fleet seemed absolutely necessary for her security; and it was obvious, that a navy must be built and equipped at leisure, during peace; nor could it possibly be fitted out on a sudden emergence, when the danger became urgent; yet all these considerations could not reconcile the people to the imposition. It was entirely arbitrary: by the same right any other tax might be imposed: and men thought a powerful fleet, though very desirable both for the credit and safety of the kingdom, but an unequal recompense for their liberties, which, they apprehended, were thus sacrificed to the obtaining of it.
England, it must be owned, was in this respect unhappy in its present situation, that the king had entertained a very different idea of the constitution, from that which began in general to prevail among his subjects. He did not regard national privileges as so sacred and inviolable, that nothing but the most extreme necessity could justify an infringement of them. He considered himself as the supreme magistrate, to whose care Heaven, by his birthright, had committed his people; whose duty it was to provide for their security and happiness, and who was vested with ample discretionary powers for that salutary purpose. If the observance of ancient laws and customs was consistent with the present convenience of government, he thought himself obliged to comply with that rule, as the easiest, the safest, and what procured the most prompt and willing obedience. But when a change of circumstances, especially if derived from the obstinacy of the people, required a new plan of administration, national privileges, he thought, must yield to supreme power; nor could any order of the state oppose any right to the will of the sovereign, directed to the good of the public.[**]
That these principles of government were derived from the uniform tenor of the English laws, it would be rash to affirm. The fluctuating nature of the constitution, the impatient humor of the people, and the variety of events, had, no doubt, in different ages, produced exceptions and contradictions. These observations alone may be established on both sides, that the appearances were sufficiently strong in favor of the king to apologize for his following such maxims; and that public liberty must be so precarious under this exorbitant prerogative, as to render an opposition not only excusable, but laudable in the people.[*] 4
Some laws had been enacted, during the reign of Henry VII., against depopulation, or the converting of arable lands into pasture. By a decree of the star chamber, Sir Anthony Roper was fined four thousand pounds for an offence of that nature.[**] This severe sentence was intended to terrify others into composition; and above thirty thousand pounds were levied by that expedient.[***] Like compositions, or, in default of them, heavy fines, were required for encroachments on the king’s forests, whose bounds, by decrees deemed arbitrary, were extended much beyond what was usual.[****] The bounds of one forest, that of Rockingham, were increased from six miles to sixty.[v] The same refractory humor which made the people refuse to the king voluntary supplies, disposed them, with better reason, to murmur against these irregular methods of taxation.
Morley was fined ten thousand pounds for reviling, challenging, and striking, in the court of Whitehall, Sir George Theobald, one of the king’s servants.[v*] This fine was thought exorbitant; but whether it was compounded, as was usual in fines imposed by the star chamber, we are not informed.
Allison had reported, that the archbishop of York had incurred the king’s displeasure, by asking a limited toleration for the Catholics, and an allowance to build some churches for the exercise of their religion. For this slander against the archbishop, he was condemned in the star chamber to be fined one thousand pounds, to be committed to prison, to be bound to his good behavior during life, to be whipped, and to be set on the pillory at Westminster, and in three other towns in England. Robins, who had been an accomplice in the guilt, was condemned by a sentence equally severe.[*] Such events are rather to be considered as rare and detached incidents, collected by the severe scrutiny of historians, than as proofs of the prevailing genius of the king’s administration which seems to have been more gentle and equitable than, that of most of his predecessors: there were, on the whole, only five or six such instances of rigor during the course of fifteen years, which elapsed before the meeting of the long parliament. And it is also certain, that scandal against the great, though seldom prosecuted at present, is, however, in the eye of the law, a great crime, and subjects the offender to very heavy penalties.
There are other instances of the high respect paid to the nobility and to the great in that age, when the powers of monarchy, though disputed, still maintained themselves in their pristine vigor. Clarendon[**] tells us a pleasant incident to this purpose: a waterman, belonging to a man of quality, having a squabble with a citizen about his fare, showed his badge, the crest of his master, which happened to be a swan; and thence insisted on better treatment from the citizen. But the other replied carelessly, that he did not trouble his head about that goose. For this offence, he was summoned before the marshal’s court; was fined, as having opprobriously defamed the nobleman’s crest, by calling the swan a goose; and was in effect reduced to beggary.
Sir Richard Granville had thought himself ill used by the earl of Suffolk in a lawsuit; and he was accused before the star chamber of having said of that nobleman, that he was a base lord. The evidence against him was somewhat lame; yet for this slight offence, insufficiently proved, he was condemned to pay a fine of eight thousand pounds; one half to the earl, the other to the king.[***]
Sir George Markham, following a chase where Lord Darcy’s huntsman was exercising his hounds, kept closer to the dogs than was thought proper by the huntsman, who, besides other rudeness, gave him foul language, which Sir George returned with a stroke of his whip. The fellow threatened to complain to his master: the knight replied, “If his master should justify such insolence, he would serve him in the same manner;” or words to that effect. Sir George was summoned before the Star chamber, and fined ten thousand pounds: “So fine a thing was it in those days to be a lord!”—a natural reflection of Lord Lansdown’s in relating this incident.[*] The people, in vindicating their liberties from the authority of the crown, threw off also the yoke of the nobility. It is proper to remark that this last incident happened early in the reign of James. The present practice of the star chamber was far from being an innovation; though the present dispositions of the people made them repine more at this servitude.
1635.
Charles had imitated the example of Elizabeth and James, and had issued proclamations forbidding the landed gentlemen and the nobility to live idly in London, and ordering them to retire to their country seats.[**] For disobedience to this edict, many were indicted by the attorney-general, and were fined in the star chamber.[***] This occasioned discontents; and the sentences were complained of as illegal. But if proclamations had authority, of which nobody pretended to doubt, must they not be put in execution? In no instance I must confess, does it more evidently appear, what confused and uncertain ideas were during that age entertained concerning the English constitution.
Ray, having exported fuller’s earth, contrary to the king’s proclamation, was, besides the pillory, condemned in the star chamber to a fine of two thousand pounds.[****] Like fines were levied on Terry, Eman, and others, for disobeying a proclamation which forbade the exportation of gold.[v] In order to account for the subsequent convulsions, even these incidents are not to be overlooked as frivolous or contemptible. Such severities were afterwards magnified into the greatest enormities.
There remains a proclamation of this year, prohibiting hackney coaches from standing in the street.[v*] We are told, that there were not above twenty coaches of that kind in London. There are at present near eight hundred.
1636.
The effects of ship money began now to appear. A formidable fleet of sixty sail, the greatest that England had ever known, was equipped under the earl of Northumberland, who had orders to attack the herring busses of the Dutch, which fished in what were called the British seas. The Dutch were content to pay thirty thousand pounds for a license during this year. They openly denied, however, the claim of dominion in the seas beyond the friths, bays, and shores; and it may be questioned whether the laws of nations warrant any further pretensions.
This year, the king sent a squadron against Sallee; and, with the assistance of the emperor of Morocco, destroyed that receptacle of pirates, by whom the English commerce, and even the English coasts, had long been infested.
1637.
Burton, a divine, and Bastwick, a physician, were tried in the star chamber for seditious and schismatical libels, and were condemned to the same punishment that had been inflicted on Prynne. Prynne himself was tried for a new offence; and, together with another fine of five thousand pounds, was condemned to lose what remained of his ears. Besides that these writers had attacked with great severity, and even an intemperate zeal, the ceremonies, rites, and government of the church, the very answers which they gave in to the court were so full of contumacy and of invectives against the prelates, that no lawyer could be prevailed on to sign them.[*] The rigors, however, which they underwent, being so unworthy men of their profession, gave general offence; and the patience, or rather alacrity, with which they suffered, increased still further the indignation of the public.[**]
The severity of the star chamber, which was generally ascribed to Laud’s passionate disposition, was, perhaps, in itself somewhat blamable; but will naturally, to us, appear enormous, who enjoy, in the utmost latitude, that liberty of the press, which is esteemed so necessary in every monarchy, confined by strict legal limitations. But as these limitations were not regularly fixed during the age of Charles, nor at any time before, so was this liberty totally unknown, and was generally deemed, as well as religious toleration, incompatible with all good government. No age or nation among the moderns had ever set an example of such an indulgence; and it seems unreasonable to judge of the measures embraced during one period by the maxims which prevail in another.
Burton, in his book where he complained of innovations mentioned, among others, that a certain Wednesday had been appointed for a fast, and that the fast was ordered to be celebrated without any sermons.[*] The intention, as he pretended, of that novelty was, by the example of a fast without sermons, to suppress all the Wednesday’s lectures in London. It is observable, that the church of Rome and that of England, being both of them lovers of form, and ceremony, and order, are more friends to prayer than preaching; while the Puritanical sectaries, who find that the latter method of address, being directed to a numerous audience present and visible, is more inflaming and animating, have always regarded it as the chief part of divine service. Such circumstances, though minute, it may not be improper to transmit to posterity; and those who are curious of tracing the history of the human mind, may remark how far its several singularities coincide in different ages.
Certain zealots had erected themselves into a society for buying in of impropriations, and transferring them to the church; and great sums of money had been bequeathed to the society for these purposes. But it was soon observed, that the only use which they made of their funds was to establish lecturers in all the considerable churches; men who, without being subjected to Episcopal authority, employed themselves entirely in preaching and spreading the fire of Puritanism. Laud took care, by a decree which was passed in the court of exchequer, and which was much complained of, to abolish this society, and to stop their progress.[**] It was, however, still observed, that throughout England the lecturers were all of them Puritanically affected; and from them the clergymen, who contented themselves with reading prayers and homilies to the people, commonly received the reproachful appellation of “dumb dogs.”
The bishop of Norwich, by rigorously insisting on uniformity, had banished many industrious tradesmen from that city, and chased them into Holland.[***] The Dutch began to be more intent on commerce than on orthodoxy; and thought that the knowledge of useful arts and obedience to the laws formed a good citizen; though attended with errors in subjects where it is not allowable for human nature to expect any positive truth or certainty.
Complaints about this time were made, that the petition of right was in some instances violated; and that, upon a commitment by the king and council, bail or releasement had been refused to Jennings, Pargiter, and Danvers.[****]
Williams, bishop of Lincoln, a man of spirit and learning, a popular prelate, and who had been lord keeper, was fined ten thousand pounds by the star chamber, committed to the Tower during the king’s pleasure, and suspended from his office. This severe sentence was founded on frivolous pretences, and was more ascribed to Laud’s vengeance, than to any guilt of the bishop.[v] Laud, however, had owed his first promotion to the good offices of that prelate with King James. But so implacable was the haughty primate, that he raised up a new prosecution against Williams, on the strangest pretence imaginable.
In order to levy the fine above mentioned, some officers had been sent to seize all the furniture and books of his episcopal palace of Lincoln; and in rummaging the house, they found in a corner some neglected letters, which had been thrown by as useless. These letters were written by one Osbaldistone, a schoolmaster, and were directed to Williams. Mention was there made of “a little great man;” and in another passage, the same person was denominated “a little urchin.” By inferences and constructions, these epithets were applied to Laud; and on no better foundation was Williams tried anew, as having received scandalous letters, and not discovering that private correspondence. For this offence, another fine of eight thousand pounds was levied on him: Osbaldistone was likewise brought to trial, and condemned to pay a fine of five thousand pounds, and to have his ears nailed to the pillory before his own school. He saved himself by flight; and left a note in his study, wherein he said, “that he was gone beyond Canterbury.”[*]
These prosecutions of Williams seem to have been the most iniquitous measure pursued by the court during the time that the use of parliaments was suspended. Williams had been indebted for all his fortune to the favor of James; but having quarrelled, first with Buckingham, then with Laud, he threw himself into the country party; and with great firmness and vigor opposed all the measures of the king. A creature of the court to become its obstinate enemy, a bishop to countenance Puritans; these circumstances excited indignation, and engaged the ministers in those severe measures. Not to mention, what some writers relate, that, before the sentence was pronounced against him, Williams was offered a pardon upon his submission, which he refused to make; the court was apt to think, that so refractory a spirit must by any expedient be broken and subdued.
In a former trial which Williams underwent,[**] (for these were not the first,) there was mentioned in court a story, which, as it discovers the genius of parties, may be worth relating. Sir John Lambe urging him to prosecute the Puritans, the prelate asked what sort of people these same Puritans were. Sir John replied, “that to the world they seemed to be such as would not swear, whore, or be drunk; out they would lie, cozen, and deceive; that they would frequently hear two sermons a day, and repeat them too, and that some, times they would fast all day long.” This character must be conceived to be satirical; yet it may be allowed, that that sect was more averse to such irregularities as proceed from the excess of gayety and pleasure, than to those enormities which are the most destructive of society, The former were opposite to the very genius and spirit of their religion; the latter were only a transgression of its precepts: and it was not difficult for a gloomy enthusiast to convince himself, that a strict observance of the one would atone for any violation of the other.
In 1632, the treasurer Portland had insisted with the vintners, that they should submit to a tax of a penny a quart upon all the wine which they retailed; but they rejected the demand, In order to punish them, a decree suddenly, without much inquiry or examination, passed in the star chamber, prohibiting them to sell or dress victuals in their houses.[*] Two years after, they were questioned for the breach of this decree; and in order to avoid punishment, they agreed to lend the king six thousand pounds. Being threatened, during the subsequent years, with fines and prosecutions, they at last compounded the matter, and submitted to pay half of that duty which was at first demanded of them.[**] It required little foresight to perceive, that the king’s right of issuing proclamations must, if prosecuted, draw on a power of taxation.
Lilburne was accused before the star chamber of publishing and dispersing seditious pamphlets. He was ordered to be examined; but refused to take the oath usual in that court that he would answer interrogatories, even though they might lead him to accuse himself. For this contempt, as it was interpreted, he was condemned to be whipped, pilloried, and imprisoned. While he was whipped at the cart, and stood on the pillory, he harangued the populace, and declaimed violently against the tyranny of bishops. From his pockets also he scattered pamphlets, said to be seditious, because they attacked the hierarchy. The star chamber, which was sitting at that very time, ordered him immediately to be gagged. He ceased not, however, though both gagged and pilloried, to stamp with his foot and gesticulate, in order to show the people that, if he had it in his power, he would still harangue them. This behavior gave fresh provocation to the star chamber; and they condemned him to be imprisoned in a dungeon, and to be loaded with irons.[*] It was found difficult to break the spirits of men who placed both their honor and their conscience in suffering.
The jealousy of the church appeared in another instance less tragical. Archy, the king’s fool, who by his office had the privilege of jesting on his master and the whole court, happened unluckily to try his wit upon Laud, who was too sacred a person to be played with. News having arrived from Scotland of the first commotions excited by the liturgy, Archy, seeing the primate pass by, called to him, “Who’s fool now, my lord?” For this offence Archy was ordered, by sentence of the council, to have his coat pulled over his head and to be dismissed the king’s service.[**]
Here is another instance of that rigorous subjection in which all men were held by Laud. Some young gentlemen of Lincoln’s Inn, heated by their cups, having drunk confusion to the archbishop, were at his instigation cited before the star chamber. They applied to the earl of Dorset for protection. “Who bears witness against you?” said Dorset. “One of the drawers,” they said. “Where did he stand when you were supposed to drink this health?” subjoined the earl, “He was at the door,” they replied, “going out of the room.” “Tush!” cried he, “the drawer must be mistaken: you drank confusion to the archbishop of Canterbury’s enemies and the fellow was gone before you pronounced the last word.” This hint supplied the young gentlemen with a new method of defence: and being advised by Dorset to behave with great humility and great submission to the primate, the modesty of their carriage, the ingenuity of their apology, with the patronage of that noble lord, saved them from any severer punishment than a reproof and admonition, with which they were dismissed.[***]
This year, John Hambden acquired, by his spirit and courage, universal popularity throughout the nation, and has merited great renown with posterity, for the bold stand which he made in defence of the laws and liberties of his country. After the imposing of ship money, Charles, in order to discourage all opposition, had proposed this question to the judges: “Whether, in a case of necessity, for the defence of the kingdom, he might not impose this taxation; and whether he were not sole judge of the necessity.” These guardians of law and liberty replied, with great complaisance, “that in a case of necessity he might impose that taxation, and that he was sole judge of the necessity.”[*] Hambden had been rated at twenty shillings for an estate which he possessed in the county of Buckingham: yet, notwithstanding this declared opinion of the judges, notwithstanding the great power and sometimes rigorous maxims of the crown, notwithstanding the small prospect of relief from parliament, he resolved, rather than tamely submit to so illegal an imposition, to stand a legal prosecution, and expose himself to all the indignation of the court. The case was argued during twelve days, in the exchequer chamber, before all the judges of England; and the nation regarded, with the utmost anxiety, every circumstance of this celebrated trial. The event was easily foreseen: but the principles, and reasonings, and behavior of the parties engaged in the trial, were much canvassed and inquired into; and nothing could equal the favor paid to the one side, except the hatred which attended the other.
It was urged by Hambden’s counsel, and by his partisans in the nation, that the plea of necessity was in vain introduced into a trial of law; since it was the nature of necessity to abolish all law, and, by irresistible violence, to dissolve all the weaker and more artificial ties of human society. Not only the prince, in cases of extreme distress, is exempted from the ordinary rules of administration: all orders of men are then levelled; and any individual may consult the public safety by any expedient which his situation enables him to employ. But to produce so violent an effect, and so hazardous to every community, an ordinary danger or difficulty is not sufficient; much less a necessity which is merely fictitious and pretended. Where the peril is urgent and extreme, it will be palpable to every member of the society; and though all ancient rules of government are in that case abrogated, men will readily, of themselves, submit to that irregular authority which is exerted for their preservation. But what is there in common between such suppositions and the present condition of the nation? England enjoys a profound peace with all her neighbors; and what is more, all her neighbors are engaged in furious and bloody wars among themselves, and by their mutual enmities further insure their tranquillity. The very writs themselves, which are issued for the levying of ship money, contradict the supposition of necessity, and pretend only that the seas are infested with pirates; a slight and temporary inconvenience, which may well await a legal supply from parliament. The writs likewise allow several months for equipping the ships; which proves a very calm and deliberate species of necessity, and one that admits of delay much beyond the forty days requisite for summoning that assembly. It is strange, too, that an extreme necessity, which is always apparent, and usually comes to a sudden crisis, should now have continued without interruption for near four years, and should have remained during so long a time invisible to the whole kingdom. And as to the pretension, that the king is sole judge of the necessity, what is this but to subject all the privileges of the nation to his arbitrary will and pleasure? To expect that the public will be convinced by such reasoning, must aggravate the general indignation, by adding to violence against men’s persons, and their property, so cruel a mockery of their understanding.
In vain are precedents of ancient writs produced: these writs, when examined, are only found to require the seaports, sometimes at their own charge, sometimes at the charge of the counties, to send their ships for the defence of the nation. Even the prerogative which empowered the crown to issue such writs is abolished, and its exercise almost entirely discontinued from the time of Edward III.;[*] and all the authority which remained, or was afterwards exercised, was to press ships into the public service, to be paid for by the public.
How wide are these precedents from a power of obliging the people, at their own charge, to build new ships, to victual and pay them, for the public; nay, to furnish money to the crown for that purpose? What security either against the further extension of this claim, or against diverting to other purposes the public money so levied? The plea of necessity would warrant any other taxation as well as that of ship money; wherever any difficulty shall occur, the administration, instead of endeavoring to elude or overcome it by gentle and prudent measures, will instantly represent it as a reason for infringing all ancient laws and institutions: and if such maxims and such practices prevail, what has become of national liberty? What authority is left to the Great Charter, to the statutes, and to the very petition of right, which in the present reign had been so solemnly enacted by the concurrence of the whole legislature?
The defenceless condition of the kingdom while unprovided with a navy; the inability of the king, from his established revenues, with the utmost care and frugality, to equip and maintain one; the impossibility of obtaining, on reasonable terms, any voluntary supply from parliament; all these are reasons of state, not topics of law. If these reasons appear to the king so urgent as to dispense with the legal rules of government, let him enforce his edicts by his court of star chamber, the proper instrument of irregular and absolute power, not prostitute the character of his judges by a decree which is not, and cannot possibly be legal. By this means, the boundaries, at least, will be kept more distinct between ordinary law and extraordinary exertions of prerogative; and men will know, that the national constitution is only suspended during a present and difficult emergence, but has not under gone a total and fundamental alteration.
Notwithstanding these reasons, the prejudiced judges, four[*] excepted, gave sentence in favor of the crown. Hambden, however, obtained by the trial the end for which he had so generously sacrificed his safety and his quiet: the people were roused from their lethargy, and became sensible of the danger to which their liberties were exposed.
These national questions were canvassed in every company; and the more they were examined, the more evidently did it appear to many, that liberty was totally subverted, and an unusual and arbitrary authority exercised over the kingdom. Slavish principles they said, concur with illegal practices; ecclesiastical tyranny gives aid to civil usurpation; iniquitous taxes are supported by arbitrary punishments; and all the privileges of the nation, transmitted through so many ages, secured by so many laws and purchased by the blood of so many heroes and patriots, now lie prostrate at the feet of the monarch. What though public peace and national industry increased the commerce and opulence of the kingdom? This advantage was temporary, and due alone, not to any encouragement given by the crown, but to the spirit of the English, the remains of their ancient freedom. What though the personal character of the king amidst all his misguided counsels, might merit indulgence, or even praise? He was but one man; and the privileges of the people, the inheritance of millions, were too valuable to be sacrificed to his prejudices and mistakes. Such, or more severe, were the sentiments promoted by a great party in the nation: no excuse on the king’s part, or alleviation, how reasonable soever, could be hearkened to or admitted: and to redress these grievances, a parliament was impatiently longed for; or any other incident, however calamitous, that might secure the people against these oppressions which they felt, or the greater ills which they apprehended from the combined encroachments of church and state.
1637.
The grievances under which the English labored when considered in themselves, without regard to the constitution, scarcely deserve the name; nor were they either burdensome on the people’s properties, or anywise shocking to the natural humanity of mankind. Even the imposition of ship money, independent of the consequences, was a great and evident advantage to the public, by the judicious use which the king made of the money levied by that expedient. And though it was justly apprehended, that such precedents, if patiently submitted to, would end in a total disuse of parliaments, and in the establishment of arbitrary authority, Charles dreaded no opposition from the people, who are not commonly much affected with consequences, and require some striking motive to engage them in a resistance of established government. All ecclesiastical affairs were settled by law and uninterrupted precedent; and the church was become a considerable barrier to the power, both legal and illegal, of the crown. Peace too, industry, commerce, opulence; nay, even justice and lenity of administration, notwithstanding some very few exceptions; all these were enjoyed by the people; and every other blessing of government, except liberty, or rather the present exercise of liberty and its proper security.[*] It seemed probable, therefore, that affairs might long have continued on the same footing in England, had it not been for the neighborhood of Scotland; a country more turbulent, and less disposed to submission and obedience. It was thence the commotions first arose; and is therefore time for us to return thither, and to give an account of the state of affairs in that kingdom.
Though the pacific, and not unskilful government of James, and the great authority which he had acquired, had much allayed the feuds among the great families, and had established law and order throughout the kingdom, the Scottish nobility were still possessed of the chief power and influence over the people. Their property was extensive; their hereditary jurisdictions and the feudal tenures increased their authority; and the attachment of the gentry to the heads of families established a kind of voluntary servitude under the chieftains. Besides that long absence had much loosened the King’s connections with the nobility, who resided chiefly at their country seats, they were in general, at this time, though from slight causes, much disgusted with the court. Charles, from the natural piety or superstition of his temper, was extremely attached to the ecclesiastics; and as it is natural for men to persuade themselves that their interest coincides with their inclination, he had established it as a fixed maxim of policy, to increase the power and authority of that order. The prelates, he thought, established regularity and discipline among the clergy; the clergy inculcated obedience and loyalty among the people; and as that rank of men had no separate authority and no dependence but on the crown, the royal power, it would seem, might with the greater safety be intrusted in their hands. Many of the prelates, therefore, were raised to the chief dignities of the state;[*] Spotswood, archbishop of St. Andrews, was created chancellor: nine of the bishops were privy councillors: the bishop of Ross aspired to the office of treasurer: some of the prelates possessed places in the exchequer: and it was even endeavored to revive the first institution of the college of justice, and to share equally between the clergy and laity the whole judicial authority.[**]
These advantages, possessed by the church, and which the bishops did not always enjoy with suitable modesty, disgusted the haughty nobility, who, deeming themselves much superior in rank and quality to this new order of men, were displeased to find themselves inferior in power and influence. Interest joined itself to ambition, and begat a jealousy lest the episcopal sees, which at the reformation had been pillaged by the nobles, should again be enriched at the expense of that order. By a most useful and beneficial law, the impropriations had already been ravished from the great men: competent salaries had been assigned to the impoverished clergy from the tithes of each parish: and what remained, the proprietor of the land was empowered to purchase at a low valuation.[*] The king likewise, warranted by ancient law and practice, had declared for a general resumption of all crown lands alienated by his predecessors; and though he took no step towards the execution of this project, the very pretension to such power had excited jealousy and discontent.[**]
Notwithstanding the tender regard which Charles bore to the whole church, he had been able in Scotland to acquire only the affection of the superior rank among the clergy. The ministers in general equalled, if not exceeded, the nobility in their prejudices against the court, against the prelates, and against episcopal authority.[***] Though the establishment of the hierarchy might seem advantageous to the inferior clergy, both as it erected dignities to which all of them might aspire, and as it bestowed a lustre on the whole body, and allured men of family into it, these views had no influence on the Scottish ecclesiastics. In the present disposition of men’s minds, there was another circumstance which drew consideration, and counterbalanced power and riches, the usual foundations of distinction among men; and that was the fervor of piety, and the rhetoric, however barbarous, of religious lectures and discourses. Checked by the prelates in the license of preaching, the clergy regarded episcopal jurisdiction both as a tyranny and a usurpation, and maintained a parity among ecclesiastics to be a divine privilege, which no human law could alter or infringe. While such ideas prevailed, the most moderate exercise of authority would have given disgust; much more, that extensive power which the king’s indulgence encouraged the prelates to assume. The jurisdiction of presbyteries, synods, and other democratical courts, was in a manner abolished by the bishops; and the general assembly itself had not been summoned for several years.[****] A new oath was arbitrarily imposed on intrants, by which they swore to observe the articles of Perth, and submit to the liturgy and canons. And in a word, the whole system of church government, during a course of thirty years, had been changed by means of the innovations introduced by James and Charles.