A most crowded house now met, composed of the wealthiest men; for a lord, who probably considered that property was the true balance of power, estimated that they were able to buy the upper-house, his majesty only excepted! The aristocracy of wealth had already begun to be felt. Some ill omens of the parliament appeared. Sir Robert Philips moved for a general fast: “we had one for the plague which it pleased God to deliver us from, and we have now so many plagues of the commonwealth about his majesty’s person, that we have need of such, an act of humiliation.” Sir Edward Coke held it most necessary, “because there are, I fear, some devils that will not be cast out but by fasting and prayer.”

Many of the speeches in “this great council of the kingdom” are as admirable pieces of composition as exist in the language. Even the court-party were moderate, extenuating rather than pleading for the late necessities. But the evil spirit of party, however veiled, was walking amidst them all: a letter-writer represents the natural state of feelings: “Some of the parliament talk desperately; while others, of as high a course to enforce money if they yield not!” Such is the perpetual action and reaction of public opinion; when one side will give too little, the other is sure to desire too much!

The parliament granted subsidies.—Sir John Cooke having brought up the report to the king, Charles expressed great satisfaction, and declared that he felt now more happy than any of his predecessors. Inquiring of Sir John by how many voices he had carried it? Cooke replied, “But by one!”—at which his majesty seemed appalled, and asked how many were against him? Cooke answered, “None! the unanimity of the House made all but one voice!” at which his majesty wept!303 If Charles shed tears, or as Cooke himself expresses it, in his report to the House, “was much affected,” the emotion was profound: for on all sudden emergencies Charles displayed an almost unparalleled command over the exterior violence of his feelings.

The favourite himself sympathised with the tender joy of his royal master; and, before the king, voluntarily offered himself as a peace-sacrifice. In his speech at the council-table, he entreats the king that he, who had the honour to be his majesty’s favourite, might now give up that title to them.—A warm genuine feeling probably prompted these words:—

Buckingham added, that for the good of his country he was willing to sacrifice his honours; and since his plurality of offices had been so strongly excepted against,305 that he was content to give up the Master of the Horse to Marquess Hamilton, and the Warden of the Cinque Ports to the Earl of Carlisle; and was willing that the parliament should appoint another admiral for all services at sea.

It is as certain as human evidence can authenticate, that on the king’s side all was grateful affection; and that on Buckingham’s there was a most earnest desire to win the favours of parliament; and what are stronger than all human evidence, those unerring principles in human nature itself, which are the secret springs of the heart, were working in the breasts of the king and his minister; for neither were tyrannical. The king undoubtedly sighed to meet parliament with the love which he had at first professed; he declared that “he should now rejoice to meet with his people often.” Charles had no innate tyranny in his constitutional character; and Buckingham at times was susceptible of misery amidst his greatness, as I have elsewhere shown.306 It could not have been imagined that the luckless favourite, on the present occasion, should have served as a pretext to set again in motion the chaos of evil! Can any candid mind suppose that the king or the duke meditated the slightest insult on the patriotic party, or would in the least have disturbed the apparent reconciliation! Yet it so happened! Secretary Cooke, at the close of his report of the king’s acceptance of the subsidies, mentioned that the duke had fervently beseeched the king to grant the house all their desires! Perhaps the mention of the duke’s name was designed to ingratiate him into their toleration.

Sir John Eliot caught fire at the very name of the duke, and vehemently checked the secretary for having dared to introduce it; declaring, that “they knew of no other distinction but of king and subjects. By intermingling a subject’s speech with the king’s message, he seemed to derogate from the honour and majesty of a king. Nor would it become any subject to bear himself in such a fashion, as if no grace ought to descend from the king to the people, nor any loyalty ascend from the people to the king, but through him only.”

This speech was received by many with acclamations; some cried out, “Well spoken, Sir John Eliot!”307 It marks the heated state of the political atmosphere, where even the lightest coruscation of a hated name made it burst into flames!

I have often suspected that Sir John Eliot, by his vehement personality, must have borne a personal antipathy to Buckingham. I have never been enabled to ascertain the fact; but I find that he has left in manuscript a collection of satires, or Verses, being chiefly invectives against the Duke of Buckingham, to whom he bore a bitter and most inveterate enmity. Could we sometimes discover the motives of those who first head political revolutions, we should find how greatly personal hatreds have actuated them in deeds which have come down to us in the form of patriotism, and how often the revolutionary spirit disguises its private passions by its public conduct.308

But the supplies, which had raised tears from the fervent gratitude of Charles, though voted, were yet withheld. They resolved that grievances and supplies go hand in hand. The commons entered deeply into constitutional points of the highest magnitude. The curious erudition of Selden and Coke was combined with the ardour of patriots who merit no inferior celebrity, though not having consecrated their names by their laborious literature, we only discover them in the obscure annals of parliament. To our history, composed by writers of different principles, I refer the reader for the arguments of lawyers, and the spirit of the commons. My secret history is only its supplement.

The king’s prerogative, and the subject’s liberty, were points hard to distinguish, and were established but by contest. Sometimes the king imagined that “the house pressed not upon the abuses of power, but only upon power itself.” Sometimes the commons doubted whether they had anything of their own to give; while their property and their persons seemed equally insecure. Despotism seemed to stand on one side, and Faction on the other—Liberty trembled!

The conference of the commons before the lords, on the freedom and person of the subject, was admirably conducted by Selden and by Coke. When the king’s attorney affected to slight the learned arguments and precedents, pretending to consider them as mutilated out of the records, and as proving rather against the commons than for them, Sir Edward Coke rose, affirming to the house, upon his skill in the law, that “it lay not under Mr. Attorney’s cap to answer any one of their arguments.” Selden declared that he had written out all the records from the Tower, the Exchequer, and the King’s Bench, with his own hand; and “would engage his head, Mr. Attorney should not find in all these archives a single precedent omitted.” Mr. Littleton said, that he had examined every one syllabatim, and whoever said they were mutilated spoke false! Of so ambiguous and delicate a nature was then the liberty of the subject, that it seems they considered it to depend on precedents!

A startling message, on the 12th of April, was sent by the king for despatch of business. The house, struck with astonishment, desired to have it repeated. They remained sad and silent. No one cared to open the debate. A whimsical politician, Sir Francis Nethersole,309 suddenly started up, entreating leave to tell his last night’s dream. Some laughing at him, he observed, that “kingdoms had been saved by dreams!” Allowed to proceed, he said, “he saw two good pastures; a flock of sheep was in the one, and a bell-wether alone in the other; a great ditch was between them, and a narrow bridge over the ditch.”

He was interrupted by the Speaker, who told him that it stood not with the gravity of the house to listen to dreams; but the house was inclined to hear him out.

“The sheep would sometimes go over to the bell-wether, or the bell-wether to the sheep. Once both met on the narrow bridge, and the question was who should go back, since both could not go on without danger. One sheep gave counsel that the sheep on the bridge should lie on their bellies, and let the bell-wether go over their backs. The application of this dilemma he left to the house.”310 It must be confessed that the bearing of the point was more ambiguous than some of the important ones that formed the matters of their debates. Davus sum, non Œdipus! It is probable that this fantastical politician did not vote with the opposition; for Eliot, Wentworth, and Coke, protested against the interpretation of dreams in the house!

When the attorney-general moved that the liberties of the subject might be moderated, to reconcile the differences between themselves and the sovereign, Sir Edward Coke observed, that “the true mother would never consent to the dividing of her child.” On this, Buckingham swore that Coke intimated that the king, his master, was the prostitute of the state. Coke protested against the misinterpretation. The dream of Nethersole, and the metaphor of Coke, were alike dangerous in parliamentary discussion.

In a manuscript letter it is said that the House of Commons sat four days without speaking or doing anything. On the first of May, Secretary Cooke delivered a message, asking whether they would rely upon the king’s word? This question was followed by a long silence. Several speeches are reported in the letters of the times, which are not in Rushworth. Sir Nathaniel Rich observed that, “confident as he was of the royal word, what did any indefinite word ascertain?” Pym said, “We have his majesty’s coronation oath to maintain the laws of England; what need we then take his word?” He proposed to move “Whether we should take the king’s word or no.” This was resisted by Secretary Cooke; “What would they say in foreign parts, if the people of England would not trust their king?” He desired the house to call Pym to order; on which Pym replied, “Truly, Mr. Speaker, I am just of the same opinion I was; viz., that the king’s oath was as powerful as his word.” Sir John Eliot moved that it be put to the question, “because they that would have it, do urge us to that point.” Sir Edward Coke on this occasion made a memorable speech, of which the following passage is not given in Rushworth:—

In this speech of Sir Edward Coke we find the first mention, in the legal style, of the ever-memorable “Petition of Right,” which two days after was finished. The reader must pursue its history among the writers of opposite parties.

On Tuesday, June 5, a royal message announced that on the 11th the present sessions would close. This utterly disconcerted the commons. Religious men considered it as a judicial visitation for the sins of the people; others raged with suppressed feelings; they counted up all the disasters which had of late occurred, all which were charged to one man: they knew not, at a moment so urgent, when all their liberties seemed at stake, whether the commons should fly to the lords, or to the king. Sir John Eliot said, that as they intended to furnish his majesty with money, it was proper that he should give them time to supply him with counsel: he was renewing his old attacks on the duke, when he was suddenly interrupted by the Speaker, who, starting from the chair, declared that he was commanded not to suffer him to proceed; Eliot sat down in sullen silence. On Wednesday, Sir Edward Coke broke the ice of debate. “That man,” said he of the duke, “is the grievance of grievances! As for going to the lords,” he added, “that is not via regia; our liberties are impeached—it is our concern!”

On Thursday, the vehement cry of Coke against Buckingham was followed up; as, says a letter-writer, when one good hound recovers the scent, the rest come in with a full cry.312 A sudden message from the king absolutely forbade them to asperse any of his majesty’s ministers, otherwise his majesty would instantly dissolve them.

This fell like a thunderbolt; it struck terror and alarm; and at the instant the House of Commons was changed into a scene of tragical melancholy! All the opposite passions of human nature—all the national evils which were one day to burst on the country seemed, on a sudden, concentrated in this single spot! Some were seen weeping, some were expostulating, and some, in awful prophecy, were contemplating the future ruin of the kingdom; while others, of more ardent daring, were reproaching the timid, quieting the terrified, and infusing resolution into the despairing. Many attempted to speak, but were so strongly affected that their very utterance failed them. The venerable Coke, overcome by his feelings when he rose to speak, found his learned eloquence falter on his tongue; he sat down, and tears were seen on his aged cheeks. The name of the public enemy of the kingdom was repeated, till the Speaker, with tears covering his face, declared he could no longer witness such a spectacle of woe in the commons of England, and requested leave of absence for half an hour. The speaker hastened to the king to inform him of the state of the house. They were preparing a vote against the duke, for being an arch-traitor and arch-enemy to king and kingdom, and were busied on their “Remonstrance,” when the Speaker, on his return, after an absence of two hours, delivered his majesty’s message, that they should adjourn till the next day.

This was an awful interval of time; many trembled for the issue of the next morning: one letter-writer calls it “that black and doleful Thursday!” and another, writing before the house met, observes, “What we shall expect this morning, God of heaven knows; we shall meet timely.”313

Charles probably had been greatly affected by the report of the Speaker, on the extraordinary state into which the whole house had been thrown; for on Friday the royal message imported that the king had never any intention of “barring them from their right, but only to avoid scandal, that his ministers should not be accused for their counsel to him; and still he hoped that all Christendom might notice a sweet parting between him and his people.” This message quieted the house, but did not suspend their preparations for a “Remonstrance,” which they had begun on the day they were threatened with a dissolution.

On Saturday, while they were still occupied on the “Remonstrance,” unexpectedly, at four o’clock, the king came to parliament, and the commons were called up. Charles spontaneously came to reconcile himself to parliament. The king now gave his second answer to the “Petition of Right.” He said—“My maxim is, that the people’s liberties strengthen the king’s prerogative; and the king’s prerogative is to defend the people’s liberties. Read your petition, and you shall have an answer that I am sure will please you.”314 They desired to have the ancient form of their ancestors, “Soit droit fait come il est desyré,” and not as the king had before given it, with any observation on it. Charles now granted this; declaring that his second answer to the petition in nowise differed from his first; “but you now see how ready I have shown myself to satisfy your demands; I have done my part; wherefore, if this parliament have not a happy conclusion, the sin is yours,—I am free from it!”

Popular gratitude is at least as vociferous as it is sudden. Both houses returned the king acclamations of joy; everyone seemed to exult at the happy change which a few days had effected in the fate of the kingdom. Everywhere the bells rung, bonfires were kindled, an universal holiday was kept through the town, and spread to the country: but an ominous circumstance has been registered by a letter-writer; the common people, who had caught the contagious happiness, imagined that all this public joy was occasioned by the king’s consenting to commit the duke to the Tower!

Charles has been censured, even by Hume, for his “evasions and delays” in granting his assent to the “Petition of Right;” but now, either the parliament had conquered the royal unwillingness, or the king was zealously inclined on reconciliation. Yet the joy of the commons did not outlast the bonfires in the streets; they resumed their debates as if they had never before touched on the subjects: they did not account for the feelings of the man whom they addressed as the sovereign. They sent up a “Remonstrance” against the duke,315 and introduced his mother into it, as a patroness of popery. Charles declared, that after having granted the famous “Petition,” he had not expected such a return as this “Remonstrance.” “How acceptable it is,” he afterwards said, “every man may judge; no wise man can justify it.” After the reading of the Remonstrance, the duke fell on his knees, desiring to answer for himself; but Charles no way relaxed in showing his personal favour.316

The duke was often charged with actions and with expressions of which, unquestionably, he was not always guilty; and we can more fairly decide on some points relating to Charles and the favourite, for we have a clearer notion of them than his contemporaries. The active spirits in the commons were resolved to hunt down the game to the death: for they now struck at, as the king calls it, “one of the chief maintenances of my crown,” in tonnage and poundage, the levying of which, they now declared, was a violation of the liberties of the people. This subject again involved legal discussions, and another “Remonstrance.” They were in the act of reading it, when the king suddenly came down to the house, sent for the Speaker, and prorogued the parliament. “I am forced to end this session,” said Charles, “some few hours before I meant, being not willing to receive any more Remonstrances, to which I must give a harsh answer.” There was at least as much of sorrow as of anger in this closing speech.

Buckingham once more was to offer his life for the honour of his master—and to court popularity! It is well known with what exterior fortitude Charles received the news of the duke’s assassination; this imperturbable majesty of his mind—insensibility it was not—never deserted him on many similar occasions. There was no indecision—no feebleness in his conduct; and that extraordinary event was not suffered to delay the expedition. The king’s personal industry astonished all the men in office. One writes that the king had done more in six weeks than in the duke’s time had been done in six months. The death of Buckingham caused no change; the king left every man to his own charge, but took the general direction into his own hands.317 In private, Charles deeply mourned the loss of Buckingham; he gave no encouragement to his enemies: the king called him “his martyr,” and declared “the world was greatly mistaken in him; for it was thought that the favourite had ruled his majesty, but it was far otherwise; for that the duke had been to him a faithful and an obedient servant.”318 Such were the feelings and ideas of the unfortunate Charles the First, which it is necessary to become acquainted with to judge of; few have possessed the leisure or the disposition to perform this historical duty, involved as it is in the history of our passions. If ever the man shall be viewed, as well as the monarch, the private history of Charles the First will form one of the most pathetic of biographies.319

All the foreign expeditions of Charles the First were alike disastrous: the vast genius of Richelieu, at its meridian, had paled our ineffectual star! The dreadful surrender of Rochelle had sent back our army and navy baffled and disgraced; and Buckingham had timely perished, to save one more reproach, one more political crime, attached to his name. Such failures did not improve the temper of the times; but the most brilliant victory would not have changed the fate of Charles, nor allayed the fiery spirits in the commons, who, as Charles said, “not satisfied in hearing complainers, had erected themselves into inquisitors after complaints.”

Parliament met. The king’s speech was conciliatory. He acknowledged that the exaction of the duties of the customs was not a right which he derived from his hereditary prerogative, but one which he enjoyed as the gift of his people. These duties as yet had not indeed been formally confirmed by parliament, but they had never been refused to the sovereign. The king closed with a fervent ejaculation that the session, begun with confidence, might end with a mutual good understanding.320

The shade of Buckingham was no longer cast between Charles the First and the commons. And yet we find that “their dread and dear sovereign” was not allowed any repose on the throne.

A new demon of national discord, Religion, in a metaphysical garb, reared its distracted head. This evil spirit had been raised by the conduct of the court divines, whose political sermons, with their attempts to return to the more solemn ceremonies of the Romish church, alarmed some tender consciences; it served as a masked battery for the patriotic party to change their ground at will, without slackening their fire. When the king urged for the duties of his customs, he found that he was addressing a committee sitting for religion. Sir John Eliot threw out a singular expression. Alluding to some of the bishops, whom he called “masters of ceremonies,” he confessed that some ceremonies were commendable, such as “that we should stand up at the repetition of the creed, to testify the resolution of our hearts to defend the religion we profess, and in some churches they did not only stand upright, but with their swords drawn.” His speech was a spark that fell into a well-laid train; scarcely can we conceive the enthusiastic temper of the House of Commons at that moment, when, after some debate, they entered into a vow to preserve “the articles of religion established by parliament in the thirteenth year of our late Queen Elizabeth!” and this vow was immediately followed up by a petition to the king for a fast for the increasing miseries of the reformed churches abroad. Parliaments are liable to have their passions! Some of these enthusiasts were struck by a panic, not perhaps warranted by the danger, of “Jesuits and Armenians.” The king answered them in good-humour; observing, however, on the state of the reformed abroad; “that fighting would do them more good than fasting.” He granted them their fast, but they would now grant no return; for now they presented “a Declaration” to the king, that tonnage and poundage must give precedency to religion! The king’s answer still betrays no ill temper. He confessed that he did not think that “religion was in so much danger as they affirmed.” He reminds them of tonnage and poundage; “I do not so much desire it out of greediness of the thing, as out of a desire to put an end to those questions that arise between me and some of my subjects.”

Never had the king been more moderate in his claims, or more tender in his style; and never had the commons been more fierce, and never, in truth, so utterly inexorable! Often kings are tyrannical, and sometimes are parliaments! A body corporate, with the infection of passion, may perform acts of injustice equally with the individual who abuses the power with which he is invested. It was insisted that Charles should give up the receivers of the customs, who were denounced as capital enemies to the king and kingdom; while those who submitted to the duties were declared guilty as accessories. When Sir John Eliot was pouring forth invectives against some courtiers—however they may have merited the blast of his eloquence—he was sometimes interrupted and sometimes cheered, for the stinging personalities. The timid Speaker, refusing to put the question, suffered a severe reprimand from Selden: “If you will not put it, we must sit still, and thus we shall never be able to do anything!” The house adjourned in great heat; the dark prognostic of their next meeting, which Sir Symonds D’Ewes has remarked in his Diary as “the most gloomy, sad, and dismal day for England that happened for five hundred years!”

On this fatal day,321 the Speaker still refusing to put the question, and announcing the king’s command for an adjournment, Sir John Eliot stood up! The Speaker attempted to leave the chair, but two members, who had placed themselves on each side, forcibly kept him down—Eliot, who had prepared “a short declaration,” flung down a paper on the floor, crying out that it might be read! His party vociferated for the reading—others that it should not. A sudden tumult broke out; Coriton, a fervent patriot, struck another member, and many laid their hands on their swords.322 “Shall we,” said one, “be sent home as we were last sessions, turned off like scattered sheep?” The weeping, trembling Speaker, still persisting in what he held to be his duty, was dragged to and fro by opposite parties; but neither he nor the clerk would read the paper, though the Speaker was bitterly reproached by his kinsman, Sir Peter Hayman, “as the disgrace of his country, and a blot to a noble family.” Eliot, finding the house so strongly divided, undauntedly snatching up the paper, said, “I shall then express that by my tongue which this paper should have done.” Denzil Holles assumed the character of Speaker, putting the question: it was returned by the acclamations of the party. The doors were locked and the keys laid on the table. The king sent for the serjeant and mace, but the messenger could obtain no admittance—the usher of the black rod met no more regard. The king then ordered out his guard—in the meanwhile the protest was completed. The door was flung open, the rush of the members was so impetuous that the crowd carried away among them the serjeant and the usher in the confusion and riot. Many of the members were struck by horror amidst this conflict, it was a sad image of the future! Several of the patriots were committed to the Tower. The king on dissolving this parliament, which was the last till the memorable “Long Parliament,” gives us, at least, his idea of it:—“It is far from me to judge all the House alike guilty, for there are there as dutiful subjects as any in the world; it being but some few vipers among them that did cast this mist of undutifulness over most of their eyes.”323

Thus have I traced, step by step, the secret history of Charles the First and his early Parliaments. I have entered into their feelings, while I have supplied new facts, to make everything as present and as true as my faithful diligence could repeat the tale. It was necessary that I should sometimes judge of the first race of our patriots as some of their contemporaries did; but it was impossible to avoid correcting these notions by the more enlarged views of their posterity. This is the privilege of an historian and the philosophy of his art. There is no apology for the king, nor any declamation for the subject. Were we only to decide by the final results of this great conflict, of which what we have here narrated is but the faint beginning, we should confess that Sir John Eliot and his party were the first fathers of our political existence; and we should not withhold from them the inexpressible gratitude of a nation’s freedom! But human infirmity mortifies us in the noblest pursuits of man; and we must be taught this penitential and chastising wisdom. The story of our patriots is involved; Charles appears to have been lowering those high notions of his prerogative, which were not peculiar to him, and was throwing himself on the bosom of his people. The severe and unrelenting conduct of Sir John Eliot, his prompt eloquence and bold invective, well fitted him for the leader of a party. He was the lodestone, drawing together the looser particles of iron. Never sparing, in the monarch, the errors of the man, never relinquishing his royal prey, which he had fastened on, Eliot, with Dr. Turner and some others, contributed to make Charles disgusted with all parliaments. Without any dangerous concessions, there was more than one moment when they might have reconciled the sovereign to themselves, and not have driven him to the fatal resource of attempting to reign without a parliament!324