BUCKINGHAM’S POLITICAL COQUETRY WITH THE PURITANS.

Buckingham, observes Hume, “in order to fortify himself against the resentment of James”—on the conduct of the duke in the Spanish match, when James was latterly hearing every day Buckingham against Bristol, and Bristol against Buckingham—“had affected popularity, and entered into the cabals of the puritans; but afterwards, being secure of the confidence of Charles, he had since abandoned this party; and on that account was the more exposed to their hatred and resentment.”

The political coquetry of a minister coalescing with an opposition party, when he was on the point of being disgraced, would doubtless open an involved scene of intrigue; and what one exacted, and the other was content to yield, towards the mutual accommodation, might add one more example to the large chapter of political infirmity. Both workmen attempting to convert each other into tools, by first trying their respective malleability on the anvil, are liable to be disconcerted by even a slight accident, whenever that proves, to perfect conviction, how little they can depend on each other, and that each party comes to cheat, and not to be cheated!

This piece of secret history is in part recoverable from good authority. The two great actors were the Duke of Buckingham and Dr. Preston, the master of Emmanual College, and the head of the puritan party.

Dr. Preston was an eminent character, who from his youth was not without ambition. His scholastic learning, the subtilty of his genius, and his more elegant accomplishments, had attracted the notice of James, at whose table he was perhaps more than once honoured as a guest; a suspicion of his puritanic principles was perhaps the only obstacle to his court preferment; yet Preston unquestionably designed to play a political part. He retained the favour of James by the king’s hope of withdrawing the doctor from the opposition party, and commanded the favour of Buckingham by the fears of that minister; when, to employ the quaint style of Hacket, the duke foresaw that “he might come to be tried in the furnace of the next sessions of parliament, and he had need to make the refiners his friends:” most of these “refiners” were the puritanic or opposition party. Appointed one of the chaplains of Prince Charles, Dr. Preston had the advantage of being in frequent attendance; and as Hacket tells us, “this politic man felt the pulse of the court, and wanted not the intelligence of all dark mysteries through the Scotch in his highness’s bed-chamber.” A close communication took place between the duke and Preston, who, as Hacket describes, was “a good crow to smell carrion.” He obtained an easy admission to the duke’s closet at least thrice a week, and their notable conferences Buckingham appears to have communicated to his confidential friends. Preston, intent on carrying all his points, skilfully commenced with the smaller ones. He winded the duke circuitously,—he worked at him subterraneously. This wary politician was too sagacious to propose what he had at heart—the extirpation of the hierarchy! The thunder of James’s voice, “No bishop! no king!” in the conference at Hampton Court, still echoed in the ear of the puritan. He assured the duke that the love of the people was his only anchor, which could only be secured by the most popular measures. A new sort of reformation was easy to execute. Cathedrals and collegiate churches maintained by vast wealth, and the lands of the chapter, only fed “fat, lazy, and unprofitable drones.” The dissolution of the foundations of deans and chapters would open an ample source to pay the king’s debts, and scatter the streams of patronage. “You would then become the darling of the commonwealth;” I give the words as I find them in Hacket. “If a crumb stick in the throat of any considerable man that attempts an opposition, it will be easy to wash it down with manors, woods, royalties, tythes, &c.” It would be furnishing the wants of a number of gentlemen; and he quoted a Greek proverb, “that when a great oak falls, every neighbour may scuffle for a faggot.”

Dr. Preston was willing to perform the part which Knox had acted in Scotland! He might have been certain of a party to maintain this national violation of property; for he who calls out “Plunder!” will ever find a gang. These acts of national injustice, so much desired by revolutionists, are never beneficial to the people; they never partake of the spoliation, and the whole terminates in the gratification of private rapacity.

It was not, however, easy to obtain such perpetual access to the minister, and at the same time escape from the watchful. Archbishop Williams, the lord keeper, got sufficient hints from the king; and in a tedious conference with the duke, he wished to convince him that Preston had only offered him “flitten milk, out of which he should churn nothing!” The duke was, however, smitten by the new project, and made a remarkable answer: “You lose yourself in generalities: make it out to me, in particular, if you can, that the motion you pick at will find repulse, and be baffled in the House of Commons. I know not how you bishops may struggle, but I am much deluded if a great part of the knights and burgesses would not be glad to see this alteration.” We are told on this, that Archbishop Williams took out a list of the members of the House of Commons, and convinced the minister that an overwhelming majority would oppose this projected revolution, and that in consequence the duke gave it up.

But this anterior decision of the duke may be doubtful, since Preston still retained the high favour of the minister, after the death of James. When James died at Theobalds, where Dr. Preston happened to be in attendance, he had the honour of returning to town in the new king’s coach with the Duke of Buckingham. The doctor’s servile adulation of the minister gave even great offence to the over-zealous puritans. That he was at length discarded is certain; but this was owing not to any deficient subserviency on the side of our politician, but to one of those unlucky circumstances which have often put an end to temporary political connexions, by enabling one party to discover what the other thinks of him.

I draw this curious fact from a manuscript narrative in the handwriting of the learned William Wotton. When the puritanic party foolishly became jealous of the man who seemed to be working at root and branch for their purposes, they addressed a letter to Preston, remonstrating with him for his servile attachment to the minister; on which he confidently returned an answer, assuring them that he was as fully convinced of the vileness and profligacy of the Duke of Buckingham’s character as any man could be, but that there was no way to come at him but by the lowest flattery, and that it was necessary for the glory of God that such instruments should be made use of as could be had; and for that reason, and that alone, he showed that respect to the reigning favourite, and not for any real honour that he had for him. This letter proved fatal; some officious hand conveyed it to the duke! When Preston came, as usual, the duke took his opportunity of asking him what he had ever done to disoblige him, that he should describe him in such black characters to his own party? Preston, in amazement, denied the fact, and poured forth professions of honour and gratitude. The duke showed him his own letter. Dr. Preston instantaneously felt a political apoplexy; the labours of some years were lost in a single morning. The baffled politician was turned out of Wallingford House, never more to see the enraged minister! And from that moment Buckingham wholly abandoned the puritans, and cultivated the friendship of Laud. This happened soon after James the First’s death. Wotton adds, “This story I had from one who was extremely well versed in the secret history of the time.”284

SIR EDWARD COKE’S EXCEPTIONS AGAINST THE HIGH SHERIFF’S OATH.

A curious fact will show the revolutionary nature of human events, and the necessity of correcting our ancient statutes, which so frequently hold out punishments and penalties for objects which have long ceased to be criminal; as well as for persons against whom it would be barbarous to allow some unrepealed statute to operate.

When a political stratagem was practised by Charles the First to keep certain members out of the House of Commons, by pricking them down as sheriffs in their different counties, among them was the celebrated Sir Edward Coke, whom the government had made High Sheriff for Bucks. It was necessary, perhaps, to be a learned and practised lawyer to discover the means he took, in the height of his resentment, to elude the insult. This great lawyer, who himself, perhaps, had often administered the oath to the sheriffs, which had, century after century, been usual for them to take, to the surprise of all persons drew up Exceptions against the Sheriff’s Oath, declaring that no one could take it. Coke sent his Exceptions to the attorney-general, who, by an immediate order in council, submitted them to “all the judges of England.” Our legal luminary had condescended only to some ingenious cavilling in three of his exceptions; but the fourth was of a nature which could not be overcome. All the judges of England assented, and declared, that there was one part of this ancient oath which was perfectly irreligious, and must ever hereafter be left out! This article was, “That you shall do all your pain and diligence to destroy and make to cease all manner of heresies, commonly called Lollaries, within your bailiwick, &c.”285 The Lollards were the most ancient of protestants, and had practised Luther’s sentiments; it was, in fact, condemning the established religion of the country! An order was issued from Hampton Court, for the abrogation of this part of the oath; and at present all high sheriffs owe this obligation to the resentment of Sir Edward Coke, for having been pricked down as Sheriff of Bucks, to be kept out of parliament! The merit of having the oath changed, instanter, he was allowed; but he was not excused taking it, after it was accommodated to the conscientious and lynx-eyed detection of our enraged lawyer.

SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST AND HIS FIRST PARLIAMENTS.

The reign of Charles the First, succeeded by the Commonwealth of England, forms a period unparalleled by any preceding one in the annals of mankind. It was for the English nation the great result of all former attempts to ascertain and to secure the just freedom of the subject. The prerogative of the sovereign and the rights of the people were often imagined to be mutual encroachments, and were long involved in contradiction, in an age of unsettled opinions and disputed principles. At length the conflicting parties of monarchy and democracy, in the weakness of their passions, discovered how much each required the other for its protector. This age offers the finest speculations in human nature; it opens a protracted scene of glory and of infamy; all that elevates, and all that humiliates our kind, wrestling together, and expiring in a career of glorious deeds, of revolting crimes, and even of ludicrous infirmities!

The French Revolution is the commentary of the English; and a commentary at times more important than the text which it elucidates. It has thrown a freshness over the antiquity of our own history; and, on returning to it, we seem to possess the feelings, and to be agitated by the interests, of contemporaries. The circumstances and the persons which so many imagine had passed away, have been reproduced under our own eyes. In other histories we accept the knowledge of the characters and the incidents on the evidence of the historian; but here we may take them from our own conviction, since to extinct names and to past events we can apply the reality which we ourselves have witnessed.

Charles the First had scarcely ascended the throne ere he discovered that in his new parliament he was married to a sullen bride: the youthful monarch, with the impatience of a lover, warm with hope and glory, was ungraciously repulsed even in the first favours! The prediction of his father remained, like the handwriting on the wall; but, seated on the throne, Hope was more congenial to youth than Prophecy.

As soon as Charles the First could assemble a parliament, he addressed them with an earnestness, in which the simplicity of words and thoughts strongly contrasted with the oratorical harangues of the late monarch. It cannot be alleged against Charles the First, that he preceded the parliament in the war of words. He courted their affections; and even in this manner of reception, amidst the dignity of the regal office, studiously showed his exterior respect by the marked solemnity of their first meeting. As yet uncrowned, on the day on which he first addressed the Lords and Commons, he wore his crown, and vailed it at the opening, and on the close of his speech; a circumstance to which the parliament had not been accustomed. Another ceremony gave still greater solemnity to the meeting; the king would not enter into business till they had united in prayer. He commanded the doors to be closed, and a bishop to perform the office. The suddenness of this unexpected command disconcerted the catholic lords, of whom the less rigid knelt, and the moderate stood: there was one startled papist who did nothing but cross himself!286

The speech may be found in Rushworth; the friendly tone must be shown here.

This effusion excited no sympathy in the house. They voted not a seventh part of the expenditure necessary to proceed with a war, into which, as a popular measure, they themselves had forced the king.

At Oxford the king again reminded them that he was engaged in a war “from their desires and advice.” He expresses his disappointment at their insufficient grant, “far short to set forth the navy now preparing.” The speech preserves the same simplicity.

Still no echo of kindness responded in the house. It was, however, asserted, in a vague and quibbling manner, that “though a former parliament did engage the king in a war, yet, (if things were managed by a contrary design, and the treasure misemployed) this parliament is not bound by another parliament:” and they added a cruel mockery, “that the king should help the cause of the Palatinate with his own money!”—this foolish war, which James and Charles had so long borne their reproaches for having avoided as hopeless, but which the puritanic party, as well as others, had continually urged as necessary for the maintenance of the protestant cause in Europe.

Still no supplies! but protestations of duty, and petitions about grievances, which it had been difficult to specify. In their “Declaration” they style his Majesty “Our dear and dread sovereign,” and themselves “his poor Commons:” but they concede no point—they offer no aid! The king was not yet disposed to quarrel, though he had in vain pressed for dispatch of business, lest the season should be lost for the navy; again reminding them, that “it was the first request that he ever made unto them!” On the pretence of the plague at Oxford, Charles prorogued parliament, with a promise to reassemble in the winter.

There were a few whose hearts had still a pulse to vibrate with the distresses of a youthful monarch, perplexed by a war which they themselves had raised. But others, of a more republican complexion, rejected “Necessity, as a dangerous counsellor, which would be always furnishing arguments for supplies. If the king was in danger and necessity, those ought to answer for it who have put both king and kingdom into this peril: and if the state of things would not admit a redress of grievances, there cannot be so much necessity for money.”

The first parliament abandoned the king!

Charles now had no other means to despatch the army and fleet, in a bad season, but by borrowing money on privy seals: these were letters, where the loan exacted was as small as the style was humble. They specified, “that this loan, without inconvenience to any, is only intended for the service of the public. Such private helps for public services which cannot be deferred,” the king premises, had been often resorted to; but this “being the first time that we have required anything in this kind, we require but that sum which few men would deny a friend.” As far as I can discover, the highest sum assessed from great personages was twenty pounds! The king was willing to suffer any mortification, even that of a charitable solicitation, rather than endure the obdurate insults of parliament! All donations were received, from ten pounds to five shillings: this was the mockery of an alms-basket! Yet with contributions and savings so trivial, and exacted with such a warm appeal to their feelings, was the king to send out a fleet with ten thousand men—to take Cadiz!

This expedition, like so many similar attempts from the days of Charles the First to those of the great Lord Chatham, and to our own—concluded in a nullity! Charles, disappointed in this predatory attempt, in despair called his second parliament—as he says, “in the midst of his necessities—and to learn from them how he was to frame his course and counsels.”

The Commons, as duteously as ever, profess that “No king was ever dearer to his people, and that they really intend to assist his majesty in such a way as may make him safe at home and feared abroad”—but it was to be on condition that he would be graciously pleased to accept “the information and advice of parliament in discovering the causes of the great evils, and redress their grievances.” The king accepted this “as a satisfactory answer;” but Charles comprehended their drift—“You specially aim at the Duke of Buckingham; what he hath done to change your minds I wot not.” The style of the king now first betrays angered feelings; the secret cause of the uncomplying conduct of the Commons was hatred of the favourite—but the king saw that they designed to control the executive government, and he could ascribe their antipathy to Buckingham but to the capriciousness of popular favour; for not long ago he had heard Buckingham hailed as “their saviour.” In the zeal and firmness of his affections, Charles always considered that he himself was aimed at in the person of his confidant, his companion, and his minister!

Some of “the bold speakers,” as the heads of the opposition are frequently designated in the manuscript letters, have now risen into notice. Sir John Eliot, Dr. Turner, Sir Dudley Digges, Mr. Clement Coke, poured themselves forth in a vehement, not to say seditious style, with invectives more daring than had ever before thundered in the House of Commons! The king now told them—“I come to show your errors, and, as I may call it, unparliamentary proceedings of parliament.” The lord keeper then assured them, that “when the irregular humours of some particular persons were settled, the king would hear and answer all just grievances; but the king would have them also to know that he was equally jealous to the contempt of his royal rights, which his majesty would not suffer to be violated by any pretended course of parliamentary liberty. The king considered the parliament as his council; but there was a difference between councilling and controlling, and between liberty and the abuse of liberty.” He finished by noticing their extraordinary proceedings in their impeachment of Buckingham. The king, resuming his speech, remarkably reproached the parliament—

The king concluded by asserting his privilege to call or to forbid parliaments.

The style of “the bold speakers” appeared at least as early as in April; I trace their spirit in letters of the times, which furnish facts and expressions that do not appear in our printed documents.

Among the earliest of our patriots, and finally the great victim of his exertions, was Sir John Eliot, vice-admiral of Devonshire. He, in a tone which “rolled back to Jove his own bolts,” and startled even the writer, who was himself biassed to the popular party, “made a resolute, I doubt whether a timely, speech.” He adds Eliot asserted that “They came not thither either to do what the king should command them, nor to abstain when he forbade them; they came to continue constant, and to maintain their privileges. They would not give their posterity a cause to curse them for losing their privileges by restraint, which their forefathers had left them.”287

On the 8th of May the impeachment of the duke was opened by Sir Dudley Digges, who compared the duke to a meteor exhaled out of putrid matter. He was followed by Glanville, Selden, and others. On this first day the duke sat out-facing his accusers and out-braving their accusations, which the more highly exasperated the house.288 On the following day the duke was absent, when the epilogue to this mighty piece was elaborately delivered by Sir John Eliot, with a force of declamation and a boldness of personal allusion which have not been surpassed in the invectives of the modern Junius.

Eliot, after expatiating on the favourite’s ambition in procuring and getting into his hands the greatest offices of strength and power in the kingdom, and the means by which he had obtained them, drew a picture of “the inward character of the duke’s mind.” The duke’s plurality of offices reminded him “of a chimerical beast called by the ancients Stellionatus, so blurred, so spotted, so full of foul lines that they knew not what to make of it! In setting up himself he hath set upon the kingdom’s revenues, the fountain of supply, and the nerves of the land. He intercepts, consumes, and exhausts the revenues of the crown; and, by emptying the veins the blood should run in, he hath cast the kingdom into a high consumption.” He descends to criminate the duke’s magnificent tastes; he who had something of a congenial nature; for Eliot was a man of fine literature. “Infinite sums of money, and mass of land exceeding the value of money, contributions in parliament have been heaped upon him; and how have they been employed? Upon costly furniture, sumptuous feasting, and magnificent building, the visible evidence of the express exhausting of the state!”

Eliot eloquently closes—

The parallel of the duke with Sejanus electrified the house; and, as we shall see, touched Charles on a convulsive nerve.

The king’s conduct on this speech was the beginning of his troubles, and the first of his more open attempts to crush the popular party. In the House of Lords the king defended the duke, and informed them, “I have thought fit to take order for the punishing some insolent speeches lately spoken.” I find a piece of secret history enclosed in a letter, with a solemn injunction that it might be burnt. “The king this morning complained of Sir John Eliot for comparing the duke to Sejanus, in which he said implicitly he must intend me for Tiberius!” On that day the prologue and the epilogue orators—Sir Dudley Digges, who had opened the impeachment against the duke, and Sir John Eliot, who had closed it—were called out of the house by two messengers, who showed their warrants for committing them to the Tower.289

On this memorable day a philosophical politician might have presciently marked the seed-plots of events, which not many years afterwards were apparent to all men. The passions of kings are often expatiated on; but, in the present anti-monarchical period, the passions of parliaments are not imaginable! The democratic party in our constitution, from the meanest of motives, from their egotism, their vanity, and their audacity, hate kings; they would have an abstract being, a chimerical sovereign on the throne—like a statue, the mere ornament of the place it fills,—and insensible, like a statue, to the invectives they would heap on its pedestal!

The commons, with a fierce spirit of reaction for the king’s “punishing some insolent speeches,” at once sent up to the lords for the commitment of the duke!290 But when they learnt the fate of the patriots, they instantaneously broke up! In the afternoon they assembled in Westminster-hall, to interchange their private sentiments on the fate of the two imprisoned members, in sadness and indignation.291

The following day the commons met in their own house. When the speaker reminded them of the usual business, they all cried out, “Sit down! sit down!” They would touch on no business till they were “righted in their liberties!”292 An open committee of the whole house was formed, and no member suffered to quit the house; but either they were at a loss how to commence this solemn conference, or expressed their indignation by a sullen silence. To soothe and subdue “the bold speakers” was the unfortunate attempt of the vice-chamberlain, Sir Dudley Carleton, who had long been one of our foreign ambassadors; and who, having witnessed the despotic governments on the continent, imagined that there was no deficiency of liberty at home. “I find,” said the vice-chamberlain, “by the great silence in this house, that it is a fit time to be heard, if you will grant me the patience.” Alluding to one of the king’s messages, where it was hinted that, if there was “no correspondency between him and the parliament, he should be forced to use new counsels,” “I pray you consider what these new counsels are, and may be: I fear to declare those I conceive!” However, Sir Dudley plainly hinted at them, when he went on observing, that “when monarchs began to know their own strength, and saw the turbulent spirit of their parliaments, they had overthrown them in all Europe, except here only with us.” Our old ambassador drew an amusing picture of the effects of despotic governments, in that of France—“If you knew the subjects in foreign countries as well as myself, to see them look, not like our nation, with store of flesh on their backs, but like so many ghosts and not men, being nothing but skin and bones, with some thin cover to their nakedness, and wearing only wooden shoes on their feet, so that they cannot eat meat, or wear good clothes, but they must pay the king for it; this is a misery beyond expression, and that which we are yet free from!” A long residence abroad had deprived Sir Dudley Carleton of any sympathy with the high tone of freedom, and the proud jealousy of their privileges, which, though yet unascertained, undefined, and still often contested, was breaking forth among the commons of England. It was fated that the celestial spirit of our national freedom should not descend among us in the form of the mystical dove!

Hume observes on this speech, that “these imprudent suggestions rather gave warning than struck terror.” It was evident that the event, which implied “new counsels,” meant what subsequently was practised—the king governing without a parliament! As for “the ghosts who wore wooden shoes,” to which the house was congratulated that they had not yet been reduced, they would infer that it was the more necessary to provide against the possibility of such strange apparitions! Hume truly observes, “The king reaped no further benefit from this attempt than to exasperate the house still further.” Some words, which the duke persisted in asserting had dropped from Digges, were explained away, Digges declaring that they had not been used by him; and it seems probable that he was suffered to eat his words. Eliot was made of “sterner stuff;” he abated not a jot of whatever he had spoken of “that man,” as he affected to call Buckingham.

The commons, whatever might be their patriotism, seem at first to have been chiefly moved by a personal hatred of the favourite;293 and their real charges against him amounted to little more than pretences and aggravations. The king, whose personal affections were always strong, considered his friend innocent; and there was a warm, romantic feature in the character of the youthful monarch, which scorned to sacrifice his faithful companion to his own interests, and to immolate the minister to the clamours of the commons. Subsequently, when the king did this in the memorable case of the guiltless Strafford, it was the only circumstance which weighed on his mind at the hour of his own sacrifice! Sir Robert Cotton told a friend, on the day on which the king went down to the house of lords, and committed the two patriots, that “he had of late been often sent for to the king and duke, and that the king’s affection towards him was very admirable, and no whit lessened. Certainly,” he added, “the king will never yield to the duke’s fall, being a young man, resolute, magnanimous, and tenderly and firmly affectionate where he takes.”294 This authentic character of Charles the First, by that intelligent and learned man, to whom the nation owes the treasures of its antiquities, is remarkable. Sir Robert Cotton, though holding no rank at court, and in no respect of the duke’s party, was often consulted by the king, and much in his secrets. How the king valued the judgment of this acute and able adviser, acting on it in direct contradiction and to the mortification of the favourite, I shall probably have occasion to show.

The commons did not decline in the subtle spirit with which they had begun; they covertly aimed at once to subjugate the sovereign, and to expel the minister! A remonstrance was prepared against the levying of tonnage and poundage, which constituted half of the crown revenues; and a petition, “equivalent to a command,” for removing Buckingham from his majesty’s person and councils.295 The remonstrance is wrought up with a high spirit of invective against “the unbridled ambition of the duke,” whom they class “among those vipers and pests to their king and commonwealth, as so expressly styled by your most royal father.” They request that “he would be pleased to remove this person from access to his sacred presence, and that he would not balance this one man with all these things, and with the affairs of the Christian world.”

The king hastily dissolved this second parliament; and when the lords petitioned for its continuance, he warmly and angrily exclaimed, “Not a moment longer!” It was dissolved in June, 1626.

The patriots abandoned their sovereign to his fate, and retreated home sullen, indignant, and ready to conspire among themselves for the assumption of their disputed or their defrauded liberties. They industriously dispersed their remonstrance, and the king replied by a declaration; but an attack is always more vigorous than a defence. The declaration is spiritless, and evidently composed under suppressed feelings, which, perhaps, knew not how to shape themselves. The “Remonstrance” was commanded everywhere to be burnt; and the effect which it produced on the people we shall shortly witness.

The king was left amidst the most pressing exigencies. At the dissolution of the first parliament he had been compelled to practise a humiliating economy. Hume has alluded to the numerous wants of the young monarch; but he certainly was not acquainted with the king’s extreme necessities. His coronation seemed rather a private than a public ceremony. To save the expenses of the procession from the Tower through the city to Whitehall, that customary pomp was omitted; and the reason alleged was “to save the charge for more noble undertakings!” that is, for means to carry on the Spanish war without supplies! But now the most extraordinary changes appeared at court. The king mortgaged his lands in Cornwall to the aldermen and companies of London. A rumour spread that the small pension list must be revoked; and the royal distress was carried so far, that all the tables at court were laid down, and the courtiers put on board-wages! I have seen a letter which gives an account of “the funeral supper at Whitehall, whereat twenty-three tables were buried, being from henceforth converted to board-wages;” and there I learn, that “since this dissolving of house-keeping, his majesty is but slenderly attended.” Another writer, who describes himself to be only a looker-on, regrets, that while the men of the law spent ten thousand pounds on a single masque, they did not rather make the king rich; and adds, “I see a rich commonwealth, a rich people, and the crown poor!” This strange poverty of the court of Charles seems to have escaped the notice of our general historians. Charles was now to victual his fleet with the savings of the board-wages! for this “surplusage” was taken into account!

The fatal descent on the Isle of Rhé sent home Buckingham discomfited, and spread dismay through the nation. The best blood had been shed from the wanton bravery of an unskilful and romantic commander, who, forced to retreat, would march, but not fly, and was the very last man to quit the ground which he could not occupy. In the eagerness of his hopes, Buckingham had once dropped, as I learn, that “before Midsummer he should be more honoured and beloved by the commons than ever was the Earl of Essex:” and thus he rocked his own and his master’s imagination in cradling fancies. This volatile hero, who had felt the capriciousness of popularity, thought that it was as easily regained as it was easily lost; and that a chivalric adventure would return to him that favour which at this moment might have been denied to all the wisdom, the policy, and the arts of an experienced statesman.

The king was now involved in more intricate and desperate measures; and the nation was thrown into a state of agitation, of which the page of popular history yields but a faint impression.

The spirit of insurrection was stalking forth in the metropolis and in the country. The scenes which I am about to describe occurred at the close of 1626: an inattentive reader might easily mistake them for the revolutionary scenes of 1640. It was an unarmed rebellion.

An army and a navy had returned unpaid, and sore with defeat. The town was scoured by mutinous seamen and soldiers, roving even into the palace of the sovereign. Soldiers without pay form a society without laws. A band of captains rushed into the duke’s apartment as he sat at dinner; and when reminded by the duke of a late proclamation, forbidding all soldiers coming to court in troops, on pain of hanging, they replied, that “Whole companies were ready to be hanged with them! that the king might do as he pleased with their lives; for that their reputation was lost, and their honour forfeited, for want of their salary to pay their debts.” When a petition was once presented, and it was inquired who was the composer of it, a vast body tremendously shouted “All! all!” A multitude, composed of seamen, met at Tower-hill, and set a lad on a scaffold, who, with an “O yes!” proclaimed that King Charles had promised their pay, or the duke had been on the scaffold himself! These, at least, were grievances more apparent to the sovereign than those vague ones so perpetually repeated by his unfaithful commons. But what remained to be done? It was only a choice of difficulties between the disorder and the remedy. At the moment, the duke got up what he called “The council of the sea;” was punctual at its first meeting, and appointed three days in a week to sit—but broke his appointment the second day—they found him always otherwise engaged; and “the council of the sea” turned out to be one of those shadowy expedients which only lasts while it acts on the imagination. It is said that thirty thousand pounds would have quieted these disorganised troops; but the exchequer could not supply so mean a sum. Buckingham in despair, and profuse of life, was planning a fresh expedition for the siege of Rochelle; a new army was required. He swore, “if there was money in the kingdom it should be had!”

Now began that series of contrivances, and artifices, and persecutions to levy money. Forced loans, or pretended free-gifts, kindled a resisting spirit. It was urged by the court party, that the sums required were, in fact, much less in amount than the usual grants of subsidies; but the cry, in return for “a subsidy,” was always “a Parliament!” Many were heavily fined for declaring that “they knew no law, besides that of Parliament, to compel men to give away their own goods.” The king ordered that those who would not subscribe to the loans should not be forced; but it seems there were orders in council to specify those householders’ names who would not subscribe; and it further appears that those who would not pay in purse should in person. Those who were pressed were sent to the dépôt; but either the soldiers would not receive these good citizens, or they found easy means to return. Every mode which the government invented seems to have been easily frustrated, either by the intrepidity of the parties themselves, or by that general understanding which enabled the people to play into one another’s hands. When the common council had consented that an imposition should be laid, the citizens called the Guildhall the Yield-all! And whenever they levied a distress, in consequence of a refusal to pay it, nothing was to be found but “Old ends, such as nobody cared for.” Or if a severer officer seized on commodities, it was in vain to offer pennyworths where no customer was to be had. A wealthy merchant, who had formerly been a cheesemonger, was summoned to appear before the privy council, and required to lend the king two hundred pounds, or else to go himself to the army, and serve it with cheese. It was not supposed that a merchant, so aged and wealthy, would submit to resume his former mean trade; but the old man, in the spirit of the times, preferred the hard alternative, and balked the new project of finance, by shipping himself with his cheese. At Hicks’s Hall the duke and the Earl of Dorset sat to receive the loans; but the duke threatened, and the earl affected to treat with levity, men who came before them with all the suppressed feelings of popular indignation. The Earl of Dorset asking a fellow who pleaded inability to lend money, of what trade he was, and being answered “a tailor,” said: “Put down your name for such a sum; one snip will make amends for all!” The tailor quoted scripture abundantly, and shook the bench with laughter or with rage by his anathemas, till he was put fast into a messenger’s hands. This was one Ball, renowned through the parish of St. Clement’s; and not only a tailor, but a prophet. Twenty years after, tailors and prophets employed messengers themselves!296

These are instances drawn from the inferior classes of society; but the same spirit actuated the country gentlemen: one instance represents many. George Gatesby, of Northamptonshire, being committed to prison as a loan-recusant, alleged, among other reasons for his non-compliance, that “he considered that this loan might become a precedent; and that every precedent, he was told by the lord president, was a flower of the prerogative.” The lord president told him that “he lied!” Gatesby shook his head, observing, “I come not here to contend with your lordship, but to suffer!” Lord Suffolk then interposing, entreated the lord president would not too far urge his kinsman, Mr. Gatesby. This country gentleman waived any kindness he might owe to kindred, declaring, that “he would remain master of his own purse.” The prisons were crowded with these loan-recusants, as well as with those who had sinned in the freedom of their opinions. The country gentlemen insured their popularity by their committals; and many stout resistors of the loans were returned in the following parliament against their own wishes.297 The friends of these knights and country gentlemen flocked to their prisons; and when they petitioned for more liberty and air during the summer, it was policy to grant their request. But it was also policy that they should not reside in their own counties: this relaxation was only granted to those who, living in the south, consented to sojourn in the north; while the dwellers in the north were to be lodged in the south!

In the country the disturbed scenes assumed even a more alarming appearance than in London. They not only would not provide money, but when money was offered by government, the men refused to serve; a conscription was not then known: and it became a question, long debated in the privy council, whether those who would not accept press-money should not be tried by martial law. I preserve in the note a curious piece of secret information.298 The great novelty and symptom of the times was the scattering of letters. Sealed letters, addressed to the leading men of the country, were found hanging on bushes; anonymous letters were dropped in shops and streets, which gave notice that the day was fast approaching when “Such a work was to be wrought in England as never was the like, which will be for our good.” Addresses multiplied “To all true-hearted Englishmen!” A groom detected in spreading such seditious papers, and brought into the inexorable Star-chamber, was fined three thousand pounds! The leniency of the punishment was rather regretted by two bishops; if it was ever carried into execution, the unhappy man must have remained a groom who never after crossed a horse!

There is one difficult duty of an historian, which is too often passed over by the party-writer; it is to pause whenever he feels himself warming with the passions of the multitude, or becoming the blind apologist of arbitrary power. An historian must transform himself into the characters which he is representing, and throw himself back into the times which he is opening; possessing himself of their feelings and tracing their actions, he may then at least hope to discover truths which may equally interest the honourable men of all parties.

This reflection has occurred from the very difficulty into which I am now brought. Shall we at once condemn the king for these arbitrary measures? It is, however, very possible that they were never in his contemplation! Involved in inextricable difficulties, according to his feelings, he was betrayed by parliament; and he scorned to barter their favour by that vulgar traffic of treachery—the immolation of the single victim who had long attached his personal affections; a man at least as much envied as hated! that hard lesson had not yet been inculcated on a British sovereign, that his bosom must be a blank for all private affection; and had that lesson been taught, the character of Charles was destitute of all aptitude for it. To reign without a refractory parliament, and to find among the people themselves subjects more loyal than their representatives, was an experiment—and a fatal one! Under Charles, the liberty of the subject, when the necessities of the state pressed on the sovereign, was matter of discussion, disputed as often as assumed; the divines were proclaiming as rebellious those who refused their contributions to aid the government;299 and the law-sages alleged precedents for raising supplies in the manner which Charles had adopted. Selden, whose learned industry was as vast as the amplitude of his mind, had to seek for the freedom of the subject in the dust of the records of the Tower—and the omnipotence of parliaments, if any human assembly may be invested with such supernatural greatness, had not yet awakened the hoar antiquity of popular liberty.

A general spirit of insurrection, rather than insurrection itself, had suddenly raised some strange appearances through the kingdom. “The remonstrance” of parliament had unquestionably quickened the feelings of the people; but yet the lovers of peace and the reverencers of royalty were not a few; money and men were procured to send out the army and the fleet. More concealed causes may be suspected to have been at work. Many of the heads of the opposition were pursuing some secret machinations; about this time I find many mysterious stories—indications of secret societies—and other evidences of the intrigues of the popular party.

Little matters, sometimes more important than they appear, are suitable to our minute sort of history. In November, 1626, a rumour spread that the king was to be visited by an ambassador from “the President of the Society of the Rosycross.” He was indeed an heteroclite ambassador, for he is described “as a youth with never a hair on his face;” in fact, a child who was to conceal the mysterious personage which he was for a moment to represent. He appointed Sunday afternoon to come to court, attended by thirteen coaches. He was to proffer to his majesty, provided the king accepted his advice, three millions to put into his coffers; and by his secret councils he was to unfold matters of moment and secrecy. A Latin letter was delivered to “David Ramsey of the clock,” to hand over to the king: a copy of it has been preserved in a letter of the times; but it is so unmeaning, that it could have had no effect on the king, who, however, declared that he would not admit him to an audience, and that if he could tell where “the President of the Rosycross” was to be found, unless he made good his offer, he would hang him at the court-gates. This served the town and country for talk till the appointed Sunday had passed over, and no ambassador was visible! Some considered this as the plotting of crazy brains, but others imagined it to be an attempt to speak with the king in private, on matters respecting the duke.

There was also discovered, by letters received from Rome, “a whole parliament of Jesuits sitting” in “a fair-hanged vault” in Clerkenwell.300 Sir John Cooke would have alarmed the parliament, that on St. Joseph’s day these were to have occupied their places; ministers are supposed sometimes to have conspirators for “the nonce;” Sir Dudley Digges, in the opposition, as usual, would not believe in any such political necromancers; but such a party were discovered; Cooke would have insinuated that the French ambassador had persuaded Louis that the divisions between Charles and his people had been raised by his ingenuity, and was rewarded for the intelligence; this is not unlikely. After all, the parliament of Jesuits might have been a secret college of the order; for, among other things seized on, was a considerable library.

When the parliament was sitting, a sealed letter was thrown under the door, with this superscription, Cursed be the man that finds this letter, and delivers it not to the House of Commons. The Serjeant-at-Arms delivered it to the Speaker, who would not open it till the house had chosen a committee of twelve members to inform them whether it was fit to be read. Sir Edward Coke, after having read two or three lines, stopped, and according to my authority, “durst read no further, but immediately sealing it, the committee thought fit to send it to the king, who they say, on reading it through, cast it into the fire, and sent the House of Commons thanks for their wisdom in not publishing it, and for the discretion of the committee in so far tendering his honour, as not to read it out, when they once perceived that it touched his majesty.”301

Others, besides the freedom of speech, introduced another form, “A speech without doors,” which was distributed to the members of the house. It is in all respects a remarkable one, occupying ten folio pages in the first volume of Rushworth.

Some in office appear to have employed extraordinary proceedings of a similar nature. An intercepted letter written from the archduchess to the King of Spain, was delivered by Sir H. Martyn at the council-board on New Year’s-day, who found in it some papers relating to the navy. The duke immediately said he would show it to the king; and, accompanied by several lords, went into his majesty’s closet. The letter was written in French; it advised the Spanish court to make a sudden war with England, for several reasons; his majesty’s want of skill to govern of himself; the weakness of his council in not daring to acquaint him with the truth; want of money; disunion of the subjects’ hearts from their prince, &c. The king only observed, that the writer forgot that the archduchess writes to the King of Spain in Spanish, and sends her letters overland.

I have to add an important fact. I find certain evidence that the heads of the opposition were busily active in thwarting the measures of government. Dr. Samuel Turner, the member for Shrewsbury, called on Sir John Cage, and desired to speak to him privately; his errand was to entreat him to resist the loan, and to use his power with others to obtain this purpose. The following information comes from Sir John Cage himself. Dr. Turner “being desired to stay, he would not a minute, but instantly took horse, saying he had more places to go to, and time pressed; that there was a company of them had divided themselves into all parts, every one having had a quarter assigned to him, to perform this service for the commonwealth.” This was written in November, 1626. This unquestionably amounts to a secret confederacy watching out of parliament as well as in; and those strange appearances of popular defection exhibited in the country, which I have described, were in great part the consequences of the machinations and active intrigues of the popular party.302

The king was not disposed to try a third parliament. The favourite, perhaps to regain that popular favour which his greatness had lost him, is said in private letters to have been twice on his knees to intercede for a new one. The elections, however, foreboded no good; and a letter-writer connected with the court, in giving an account of them, prophetically declared, “we are without question undone!”

The king’s speech opens with the spirit which he himself felt, but which he could not communicate:—