Honest Jack Stowe, the antiquarian, ought not to be overlooked, though time has long since stowed away his works among the lumber of our libraries. His Survey of London was his greatest literary labour, and he was preparing a new edition in 1605, when he was obliged to "Stow it" by an attack of illness that unhappily proved fatal.
Donne, the poet, can hardly be mentioned among the literary dons of the age; but Bacon is a luminary that must not be snuffed out in a single sentence. It has been said that his wit was far-fetched, but a thing is certainly not the less valuable for having been brought from a long way off; for if it were so, the diamond would lose much of its value in the London market. If Bacon's wit was far fetched, it was not only worth the carriage, but it has been found sufficiently valuable to warrant its being forwarded on from generation to generation: and it will, we suspect, find its way to a still remote posterity, before it arrives at the terminus of its journey.
James himself was but a contemptible writer, and would have been scarcely worth his five pounds a week in these days, as the London correspondent of a country newspaper. His imagination would not have been vigorous enough to supply him with the "latest intelligence," which must always be in type at least two days before the date on which the facts it professes to impart are stated to have happened. As an industrious chronicler of early gooseberries, new carrots, gigantic cabbages, irruptions of lady-birds, and showers of frogs, he would have been useful in his way, or he might have undertaken that branch of periodical literature which embraces the interesting recollections—or non-recollections rather—of the oldest inhabitant.
ON the afternoon of Monday, the 28th of March, 1625, Charles the First was proclaimed at Charing Cross, amid a tremendous shower of rain and hail, so that the commencement of his reign was hailed in a somewhat disagreeable manner. His first care was to turn out the fools and buffoons that his father had kept at Court, or rather, as Buckingham called it, to get rid of the comic and pantomimic company which had been established in the palace. He next determined to send over for his new bride, who appeared to have been forgotten in the hurry of business, and who was waiting at Paris, "to be left till called for." Buckingham was despatched to take charge of the precious cargo; but his behaviour at the French Court was so disreputable that he received some very broad hints as to the propriety of his speedy return to England. He made love to the young Queen Anne of Austria, and flirted with every female member of the royal family, to the extreme disgust of Cardinal Richelieu, who told him, plainly, that such conduct could not be permitted, at any price.
Buckingham took his departure, with the young Henrietta, on the 23rd of May; but there must have been pretty goings on, or dreadful standing stills, during the journey, for it was the 27th of June before they arrived at Dover. Charles, who had naturally begun to wonder what had become of his minister and his bride, set off to meet them, and having slept at Canterbury on the 27th of June, he reached Dover on the 28th, and found his intended, who had "put up" at the Castle.
The first interview was very dramatic, for Charles extended both his arms, and Henrietta, taking a hop, a skip, and a jump, tumbled gracefully into them. Finding her a little taller than he expected, he looked at her feet, when the young Princess coquettishly pulled off her shoe, to prove that there was no imposition practised, and that it was impossible there could be any deception through the medium of high heels, for she and, in reality, a sole above it. The newly married couple started for Canterbury at once, and making another day of it to Rochester, they came via Gravesend to London, where they arrived in the midst of one of those pelting showers which have been graphically compared to a mêlée of cats, dogs, and pitchforks.
Charles being in want of money had assembled a Parliament, which opened for business on the 18th of June, and he at once asked for some supplies; but as he stammered in his speech, there was a sort of hesitation in his demand, which some took for modesty. With real, or affected delicacy, he declined mentioning any specific sum, but requested his faithful Commons to give what they pleased, and they were thus placed in the embarrassing position of a gentleman, who, on asking "what's to pay?" finds it left to that dreadfully sliding scale, his "own generosity." This dishonest manouvre, for such it usually is, succeeds frequently in extracting twice the proper amount from the pockets of him whose liberality is thus artfully invoked; but the Commons, being apparently "up to the dodge," voted Charles £112,000, to meet liabilities to the tune of some £700,000 per annum, for the war, to say nothing of his father's debts and other contingencies. Pocketing this miserably inadequate contribution, he adjourned the Parliament, on account of the Plague, and having met it again at Oxford, in August of the same year, he told the Commons, plainly, that he "must have cash," for he was being dunned by the King of Denmark, who held his promissory note, and that his private creditors would allow him no peace in his own palace. He protested solemnly that he had not the means of paying his way for the subsistence of himself and his family, and, throwing a quantity of tradesmen's accounts, unsettled, before the Speaker's chair, asked, imploringly, if those were the sort of bills that could be got rid of by ordering them to be read that day six months, or by their being suffered to lie on the table? The Commons shook their heads, expressed their regret, buttoned up their pockets, and declared they could do nothing. The matter now became serious, for Charles had changed his butcher already three or four times, and was having his bread of nearly the last of a confiding batch of bakers. "Something must be done," he said, with much solemnity, to himself, and he wrote off a polite note to the Corporations of Salisbury and Southampton, requesting the loan of £3000, which was loyally granted him. Angry at being baffled and left insolvent by his Parliament, he declared that he would, at least, prove himself solvent in one respect, by dissolving the Parliament who had so rudely resisted his demands.
Finding that he had got nothing by begging, and very little by borrowing, he was thrown upon the expedient of stealing, as a last resort. With the money lent him by some of his subjects he resolved on fitting out a fleet, under Cecil, to attack some Spanish ships, which he understood were lying at Cadiz, with some valuable cargoes on board. He reached the bay, and being kept at bay by the enemy for a short time, he at last landed very silently, the leaders exclaiming, "Piano, Piano," and took a fort. The troops, finding a quantity of wine in the garrison, partook so freely of it that they lost all their ammunition, and spoiled several pounds of best canister, by making too free with the juice of the grape. Cecil, finding that the longer they remained the more intoxicated they got, resolved on re-shipping as many as could be got to stand upon their legs, and to return to England. The British sailors were, however, in those days, such delicate creatures that half of them died of sea-sickness, and a very few of them returned home alive.
Charles, having been foiled in his last hope of recruiting his exhausted resources by plunder, resolved to try another Parliament, and a new one was manufactured with a view to give every chance to the experiment. He endeavoured to weaken the opposition by putting several of its members into offices which would prevent them from sitting in the House of Commons; but, this artful manouvre having been seen through, only served to put the people more on their guard.
The new Parliament was in its principles the fac simile of its predecessor, and on the 6th of February, 1626, voted to Charles just about one-tenth of what he really wanted, and one-twentieth of what he asked. Notwithstanding the smallness of the subsidy, he took it, and resolved to pay his creditors something on account, as far as the money would go, and trust to the future to enable him to make up the deficiency. Having shown a pretty resolute disposition in dealing with the king, it is not surprising that the Commons should at length have determined to take a turn at the minister. Buckingham had long been very obnoxious, and one Dr. Turner—remarkable for his straightforward conduct, and his determination not to turn—moved a question, "Whether Common Report was a good ground of proceeding?" Though Common Report has generally been accounted a common story-teller, she had been tolerably right about the Duke of Buckingham, and the resolution to proceed against him on the faith of Common Report was at once approved.
On the 8th of May a still more resolute step was taken with reference to the "favourite," as this generally detested person was absurdly called, by articles of impeachment being preferred against him. The duke and his master seemed to treat the matter rather as a joke, and Charles even went down to the House of Lords to speak in favour of Buckingham. These proceedings were so clearly unconstitutional and irregular, that if the British Lion had taken to roaring, and only roared out in time, he might have saved many of the disagreeable consequences that unhappily followed. Considering how very intrusive this animal has sometimes been on occasions when he really was not wanted, it is lamentable to think that "the squeak in time," which might have saved nine times nine hundred and ninety-nine, was not forthcoming at the exact moment when its value would have been extreme.
Notwithstanding the impeachment of Buckingham, he was still loaded with fresh honours, and he became Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, at which the Commons vainly expressed their disgust. They nevertheless continued boldly enough remonstrating against this, and that, and the other, until the king regularly shut them up by a dissolution, without their having passed a single act.
Charles, sympathising with nature in an utter abhorrence of a vacuum, which he found in the royal treasury, devoted all his energies to filling it. "Must have cash," was the motto adopted by his majesty; who was not particular whether he begged, borrowed, or stole, so that he succeeded in replenishing his pockets. He looked up every outstanding liability, and routed out a lot of recusants who had fallen into arrear with their penalties.
He borrowed money from the nobility—if it can be called borrowing to go up to a person, exclaiming, "Lend me your money," and at the same time take it forcibly away from him. But the most tremendous swindle of all was the demand of ship-money; a tax he laid upon all seaports, under the pretence of their contributing a certain number of ships to the defence of the country. He, of course, pocketed the proceeds without supplying the ships, so that, if the country had been attacked, there would not have been a sail to resist the assailants. Charles and his favourite, Buckingham, declared, with disreputable frivolity, that the ship-money was appropriately applied; for it was, in fact, floating capital, and helped to keep them above water just as much as if it had been devoted to the purchase of a navy.
Something having been said during the sitting of Parliament about a subsidy, which had never been granted, Charles thought he might as well collect it at any rate, though the Commons had declined voting it. Promises were held out that it should all be paid back out of the next supplies, or, in fact, that though the king helped himself from the right-hand pockets of his subjects, he would return the money out of their left-hand pockets—some day or another. A great many of the people, who objected to this remote reversionary interest, were thrown into prison, or sent to serve in the navy, where they became British Tars in spite of themselves, and some of them having received a classical education, introduced, no doubt, the College Hornpipe into the fleet, as an elegant and scholarly pastime.
Even the church was made the medium of extortion, for the popular preachers recommended from their pulpits the propriety of cashing up to any extent that the sovereign might require. By way of economising at home, Charles went one afternoon to the queen's apartments and dismissed every one of her tribe of French servants, who were dancing and curvetting in the presence of their mistress. This ballet of private life was summarily brought to a close by a general chassez of the whole crew, who had been dancing attendance on her majesty since her marriage, and she was so enraged at their dismissal that she broke the windows with her fist, which shows the panes she was at to mark her displeasure. The French women howled very piteously, so that, between their lamentations in broken English, and the queen's expostulations in broken glass, the hubbub was truly terrible. These disturbances fomented the ill-feeling between France and England, which Buckingham desired to increase, and he actually had the excessive vanity to put himself at the head of a fleet, which sailed to Rochelle, where he "carried himself nobly," to use the words of the king, but where, in fact, he carried himself off as speedily as his legs would allow, for he ran away after having made a desperate failure. Charles was now, once more, as completely cleaned out as a young scamp in a farce, who arrives "without sixpence in his pocket," just like "love among the roses;" and Buckingham was the roguish valet who is usually in attendance on the eccentric light comedian under the circumstances alluded to. The worthy couple discussed the best method of raising the wind, and it was agreed that there was nothing left but to try it on again with a Parliament. "We shall have writs out against ourselves," said Charles, "if we do not get the writs out for summoning the Commons." They met on the 17th of March, 1628, and several of the most determined opponents to ship-money were found in the new house, which included Bradshaw, the brewer, who was ready to brew the storm of revolution, as well as Maurice, a grocer, who suited the times to a T with his liberal sentiments. The king made a haughty speech, but the Parliament determined to proceed with address, and, upon the grand piscatorial principle of throwing a sprat to catch a herring, five subsidies were hinted at for the purpose of securing concessions of the utmost value to English liberty. The Petition of Right was accordingly drawn up, which declared the illegality of collecting money except by the authority of Parliament. It next referred to our old friend, your old friend, and everybody else's old friend, Magna Charta, or Carter, as some people call it—perhaps because a broad-wheeled waggon has been frequently driven through it—and this document was recited to prove that people could not be imprisoned without cause; though, unfortunately for them, they had been imprisoned very frequently, in spite of the arrangement that made such a circumstance quite impossible. The Petition of Right next alluded to the billeting of soldiers on private houses, which had grown into such an abuse, that scarcely a family could sit down to tea without half a dozen troopers dropping in during the meal, and pocketing the spoons, cribbing the cups, or saucily appropriating the saucers, when the entertainment was concluded.
The Bill of Rights, having been drawn by the Commons, and endorsed by the Lords, was offered to Charles for his acceptance. Without either rejecting it or adopting it, he wrote under the petition a few vague generalities, which meant nothing at all, and the Commons, retiring to their Chamber, vented their indignation in a very spirited manner. Sir Robert Phillips uttered several severe Philippics against the sovereign; Sir D. Digges followed, with some tremendous digs at the throne, declaring it was quite infra dig. for the Commons to sit still and do nothing; while Mr. Kurton, or, as that miscreant Strype calls him, Curtain, * threw off the veil; and even old Coke gave symptoms of having caught the revolutionary flame. Selden, whose table-talk is much more amusing than his talk at the table of the House of Commons, proposed a strong declaration under four heads, and was in the midst of a powerful harangue, when Finch, the Speaker, who had got the name of Chaff-Finch, from the badinage in which he indulged, ran breathless into the House with a message from the king, recommending, as well as his puffing and blowing would permit, an adjournment until the next morning. Notwithstanding the valour that had been displayed in words, the Commons had not yet learned how to act with courage, and they quietly adjourned at the suggestion of the sovereign. The next day, however, they met again, and having plucked up all their pluck, they continued to demand an explicit answer to the Petition of Right, to which the assent of Charles was, one fine afternoon in June, 1628, somewhat unexpectedly given. Buckingham, who could never keep quiet, resolved to make another warlike venture at Rochelle, and had got as far as Portsmouth, where, on the 23rd of August, says Howell, "he got out of bed in good-humour, and cut a caper or two" in his nightcap and dressing-gown. These capers were soon destined to be cut very short, for as the duke was passing to his carriage in the course of the day, he received a stab from somebody in a crowd of gesticulating Frenchmen, who were all suspected of being the assassins, and instead of being taken into custody were, oddly enough, kicked down stairs. Buckingham was as dead as the British and Foreign Institute, when a number of captains and gentlemen rushed into the kitchen of the house, exclaiming—"Where is the villain?"
"Ou est le boucher!" Upon this a gentleman of the name of Felton, who had been screening himself in the meat-screen, stood forth, and struck an attitude, vociferating "Here I am."
He then handed over his hat, in the crown of which he had stitched the full and true particulars of his own crime, which he requested might be read out, while he did the appropriate pantomime to the confession in the centre of a group of listeners. Felton gloried in the act he had committed, and when put upon his trial there was a good deal of badinage between himself and Judge Jones, whom the prisoner politely thanked for the announcement that he was to be hanged until he was dead, at Tyburn.
The king was greatly affected on hearing of Buckingham's death.
On the 30th of January, 1629, the Parliament met once more, and Charles turning out both his pockets, urged the necessity of supplies. He declared that as to his balance at his bankers, it had become like "linked sweetness," for it had been "long drawn out," and the public treasury had been swept up several times, in the hope of finding an odd coin or two; but there was not a shilling to be found, and Charles was running up bills in all directions with his tradespeople. The Commons, instead of giving him the money to pay his debts, brought against him all their own old scores, and there were several stormy discussions, the storminess of which may be accounted for by the long-windedness of many of the orators.
Among those who took part in these debates, was a clownish-looking person of about thirty years of age, with a slovenly coat, and a hat so bad that Strype hints it was perhaps without a crown, to mark the republican objection to crowns which was entertained by the owner. This individual was Mr. Oliver Cromwell, the new member for Huntingdon, who brewed beer and political storms until the country itself became Cromwell's entire, the Crown his butt, and the Constitution his mash-tub.
Charles finding the Parliament in a very unaccommodating humour, desired Sir John Finch, the Speaker, to adjourn the House, but the House refused to be adjourned, and when he was about to leave the chair, he found himself suddenly knocked back into it, with his arms pinioned, which rendered him incapable of putting any motion whatever, for he was quite motionless. A few privy councillors rushing in, endeavoured to release him, but the opposite party bound him again to the chair, and the trial of strength between the two factions ended in a tie—as far as poor Finch was concerned—for he remained fastened in the seat of dignity. At length the Speaker, who could not dissolve the House, began dissolving himself in tears, and the king who had been waiting for him to come and tell the news, was so impatient, that messengers were dispatched to know what had become of him. Hearing that Finch was caged, or in other words locked in, the king could only leave the poor bird to his fate; but he despatched a messenger to tell the sergeant to slip out of the House quietly with his mace, which would dissolve the sitting. The sergeant may perhaps have forgotten the right cue, but he had got the right mace, and had walked nearly to the door, when he was stopped and pushed back, the key of the House taken from him and placed in the hands of one of the members, who promised to keep tight hold of it.
Charles, hearing that the door was bolted, went down, determined to force it open; but happily, he found the Commons had bolted instead of the door, or at least, they were on the point of doing so. The king, nevertheless, ordered several of the ringleaders to be arrested, and he intimated pretty plainly to the Commons that he would not trouble them again for a very considerable period. He had, in fact, resolved to take all matters of Government entirely into his own hands; and though Magna Charta, with a few other trifles of the kind, stood in his way, he did not scrapie to trample on rights and liberties, which he knew were being continually renewed, as occasion required.
On the 10th of March, 1629, the day to which the Commons had adjourned themselves, Charles came down to the House of Lords with the proclamation of dissolution in his pocket. His majesty began by saying, that this was "really a very unpleasant business," that "he had no fault to find with the Lords," but "there were some vipers among the Commons"; whom, according to the unhappy Strype, he expressed his determination of "viping out"—observe the paltry evasion of the W for the sake of the pun—"with the utmost energy." Thus, by flattering the Lords and threatening the Commons, or, to continue the language of Strype, "soaping the Upper House, and lathering the Lower," did Charles dissolve his Parliament. Several members had already been placed in custody, among whom were Eliot, Holies, and Selden, the last of whom was such an inveterate table-talker, that his tongue was always getting him into scrapes of the most serious character. An information was exhibited against them in the Star-Chamber, but they were subsequently offered their release, on promising to be of good behaviour, which they refused to do, for they felt they would have been good for nothing had they entered into such a disgraceful compact. Eliot died in prison, and the rest were adjudged to be detained during the pleasure of the king, and as he took great pleasure in persecuting his refractory Commons, there was every chance that their "durance vile" would be unpleasantly durable.
The 29th of May, 1630, was signalised by the birth of Prince Charles, and it is said that a bright star shone in the east at midday, which some have considered ominous. To us, the appearance of the star by daylight, on the birth of this dissolute scapegrace, denotes nothing more than a propensity for not going home till morning, or till daylight did appear. About the same time that severities were being practised on the Commons, one Richard Chambers refused to pay more than legal duty on a bale of silk, and the Custom-house officers going at him rather fiercely, he declared that "merchants were more screwed in England than they were in Turkey." His audience hearing him use the word "screwed," at once nailed him to the expression, and he was fined £2000 for the lapsus lingua he had fallen into. Unhappily, political martyrdom was not, in those days, so good a trade as it has subsequently become, and poor Chambers had neither a subscription opened to pay his fine, nor a testimonial to reimburse him for the expense of resistance. A struggle for principle was then a struggle indeed, and not an eligible medium for advertisements. A Chambers of the present day would have made his principles pay him an enormous percentage, and would have made a handsome fortune for himself by what he would have termed his exertions for the happiness and liberty of the people. Poor Chambers, however—the real martyr of 1630—died in a prison at last, after waiting for redress from the Long Parliament, which was a little too long in making reparation to the victim of oppression, Charles had apparently made up his mind to get on as well as he could without any Parliament at all, and having bribed some of the cleverest fellows in the kingdom, he thought that as one fool proverbially makes many, one or two knaves would also be found to fructify. Among the shameless apostates of that day were of course many who had been mouthing most energetically on the popular side; and Wentworth, who had been originally one of the very noisiest of the people's friends, became the meanest and most inveterate of the people's enemies. Having brawled for some years against aristocracy, his purpose at length peeped out in his acceptance of a peerage for himself, and the man who had been continually bullying the Court, became its fawning favourite. Digges, who had been, as we have already intimated, digging away most energetically at the constituted authorities, accepted the post of Master of the Bolls, for he had, as he said, made the discovery on which side his bread was buttered.
It would be tedious to the reader, and difficult to ourselves, to give a catalogue of the exactions and impositions which were practised by Charles between the years 1629, when the Parliament was dissolved, and 1640, the year marked by the assembly of a new one. He revived, among other cruelties, the old practice of making knights of all persons possessing forty pounds a year, and either charging ruinous fees for imposing the so-called honour, or imposing a heavy fine for declining it. Knighthood became such a fearful drug in the market of dignities, that it is not surprising it should even up to this day have failed to recover its position. The cry of "Dilly, dilly," was never more ferociously addressed to the ducks who were invited to "come and be killed," than was the command to "come and be knighted," enforced against the unwilling victims, who were selected either to pay the penalty for declining, or the fees on receiving this unenviable distinction.
While guilty of wholesale persecution, Charles did not, however, neglect the retail branch, and a Puritan preacher named Leighton—a blind fanatic, but, notwithstanding his blindness, no relation we believe to Leighton Buzzard—was exposed to the utmost cruelty for writing some ad captandum trash against the queen and the bishops; a bombastic little work, which neither repaid perusal, nor repaid the printer who brought it forward. Poor Leighton was fined for his coarseness, and flogged for his flagellation of the authorities, besides being compelled to undergo a variety of other barbarisms, the narration of which we would have attempted, but we found our very ink turning pale at the bare prospect of our doing so. The Puritans now began to emigrate in great numbers to America, and they no doubt laid the foundation of that drawl which has ever since distinguished the tone of the model republicans.
We now arrive at the tragical story of poor Mr. William Prynne, a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, who, in the utter absence of briefs, finding himself at a dead stand-still for want of a motion, had started a trumpery little work with one Sparkes, a publisher. The volume had the unattractive title of "Histrio Mastric, the Players' Scourge, or Actors' Tragedie," in which he made an attempt to write down the stage in particular, and all amusements in general. He denounced all who went to the play as irredeemably lost, and he neither exempted the free list, the half-price, or those who went in with the orders of the Press, from the anathema, which he hurled indiscriminately against the "brilliant and crowded audiences" nightly honouring such-and-such an establishment with a succession of overflows. The queen not only patronised the drama, but sometimes appeared herself as a distinguished amateur, and the whole of Prynne's book was taken to apply to her, though she was not even mentioned in any part of it. Poor Prynne was declared to be a wolf in sheep's clothing, and, considering that he was a barrister who had turned author, the alleged mixture of wolfishness and sheepishness may be fairly attributed to his character. He was found guilty, of course, and upon sentence being passed, the Chief Justice expressed his regret that a gentleman, who had handed in on two or three occasions a compute, and was a promising junior of twenty years' standing—without ever being on his legs—should have brought himself into such an unpleasant predicament.
He was condemned to be degraded from the profession, or in fact to be dishonoured; to pay a fine of £5000, which was by no means feasible, when we consider his fees, and to be kept from the use of pen, ink, and paper, which was perhaps the most humane part of the sentence, for he was thus prevented from proceeding with his wretched trade of authorship. The poor fellow, however, contrived to write humorous articles on the soles of his boots; and "Prynne on the Understanding," though it was rubbed out as mere rubbish by the man who cleaned his boots, might have taken its place by the side of many more lofty productions of the period. His sentence was exceedingly cruel, and comprised "branding on the forehead," as if his enemies would have it believed "there was nothing inside to hurt," while his nose was savagely maltreated, to prevent its being again poked into that which did not concern its owner. His ears were cropped under the pretext of their being a great deal too long, and indeed Prynne was so altered, as a punishment for rushing into print, that his own clerk would not have known him again in the abridged edition which the Government reduced him to.
We have now to treat of the great civil war; but the magnitude of the subject requires us to take breath, which we cannot do unless we break off and begin a fresh chapter.
HE great civil war was brought on by a series of incidents we will now briefly explain; but we must premise that the turncoat Noy had been long hunting for precedents to justify Charles in any course of despotism that he might resolve upon. It never was very difficult to find precedents in the legal records for anything, however cruel, tyrannical, or absurd, and Noy was not the man to be over nice in putting upon the case in "the books" whatever construction would be most favourable to the views of his master. The ingenious Noy took care to discover that the supplying of ship-money by sea ports was a custom as old as the hills, and giving a large interpretation to the word hills, he assumed that land as well as water should supply ships, and that inland places as well as those on the coast were consequently liable to the impost. He argued that almost every town, however far from the shore, had marine interests, for there was always a dealer in marine stores, and in fact he urged that a town being unable to float a ship, might nevertheless be made to build or at least to pay for one.
In the midst of these ingenious theories and perplexing points of law, Noy died, which is no matter of astonishment to us, for the idea of looking up such a subject as ship-money, and having "case for opinion" continually on his desk, is sufficiently formidable to reconcile with it the decease of the barrister to whom the business had been confided. London was selected as the first place on which the demand for ship-money was made, and an attempt to excite the fears of the citizens, by getting up a cry very like that of "Old Bogie" was resorted to. A proclamation was issued declaring that a set of "thieves, pirates, robbers of the sea, and Turks," were expected by an early boat, though a sharp look-out along the offing at Gravesend and Richmond, through one of which the pirates must pass, would have convinced the greenest of the green that a corsair was not likely to be eating his white-bait at Blackwall, nor was England in danger of an invasion by a horde of ruffians coming up from the other side of the world at the Chelsea end of the metropolis. Several ships were ordered, but the citizens would have been quite at sea had they attempted to supply a ship, and a composition in money was demanded as an easier method of satisfying the wants of the Government. Considerable resistance was made to this gigantic swindle, and the celebrated John Hampden immortalised himself by the part he took in the struggle. This true patriot had consulted his legal advisers on the subject of ship-money, and hearing from them that it could not be justly claimed, he determined that he would resist the impost at any sacrifice. The matter came on for argument upon demurrer, in the Court of Exchequer, on the 6th of November, 1637, and lasted till the 18th of December, when their lordships were unable to agree in their judgment. The majority, however, ultimately decided against Hampden, but two of the judges continuing to differ from the rest, it was felt that the imposition was seen through, and that the public would have the sanction of at least some of the legal dignitaries for resisting it. Wentworth would have whipped Hampden like poor Prynne, but not all the black rods, white rods, and rods in pickle the Court could muster, would have been sufficient for the flagellation of so great a character.
The dissatisfaction of the people, and the unconstitutional practices of the king, were not confined to England, for Scotland, after having been taken—or rather having been merged in the English monarchy—was destined to be well shaken by political convulsions. The proximate cause of the dissatisfaction of the Scotch, who are not a remarkably excitable race unless their pockets are threatened, was the introduction of the English service into their churches; and when the Dean of Edinburgh began to read it on Sunday, the 23rd of July, 1637, he was assailed with shouts of the most indecorous character. The populace clapped with their hands, kicked with their heels, and bellowed with their lungs till the Bishop of Edinburgh, who had ascended the pulpit to entreat that order might be preserved, was compelled to bob down his head to avoid a three-legged stool that was thrown with savage force by one of the assembled multitude.
The Scotch congregation continued to evince their zeal for their religion by throwing sticks, stones, and dirt (of which they had a good deal always on their hands) at the unprotected prelate, and cries of "stone him!" "at him again!" "give it him!" "throw him over!" "turn him out!" resounded through the sacred edifice. The religious ruffians kept up their ferocity without intermission wherever the new service was commenced, and thus, though they might easily have satisfied their consciences by abstaining from attendance at the churches where innovation had been introduced, they preferred to intimidate and brutally attack the inoffensive ministers. This was another of the innumerable instances history has to record of the name of religion being desecrated by its being applied to acts utterly at variance with every religious principle.
Charles, who in this instance evinced a keen perception of Scotch character, resolved to punish the people of Edinburgh in a manner they would be sure to feel; and by threatening to remove the council of government from that city to Linlithgow, he touched them in what is the Scotchman's tenderest point—his pocket. Whether it was from fear of a general stoppage to business, and the consequent loss of its profits, or from some more exalted cause, the Scotch desisted from physical violence, and took a great moral resolution, which is in every way respectable. A document, called the Covenant, was drawn up, and its sentiments were put forth with the eloquence of enthusiasm from the home of John O'Groat—by-the-by, who was this Jack Fourpence, Esq., of whom we have heard so much?—to the hills of Cheviot. The Covenanters had exchanged the brickbat and bludgeon style of argument for the lighter but more pointed and effective weapon—the pen—though they still acted in the most unchristian spirit of intolerance and persecution towards those who would not adopt their sentiments.
The Marquis of Hamilton was sent to Scotland with instructions to do all he could, and a great deal that he couldn't. He was to apprehend all the rebels, if possible; but not being of a very lively apprehension, it was not likely he would succeed greatly in this portion of his enterprise. He was to overturn the Covenant in six weeks, if he found it convenient to do so, or in less if he found it otherwise. In fact, his instructions might be summed up into an order to go and make the best of a bad job—an attempt which frequently ends in leaving the matter much worse than one originally found it.
On his arrival at Holyrood his first effort to persuade the people to give up the Covenant was met by an attempt to cram it down his own throat, but he refused the proffered dose, and finding himself in a very awkward fix, he could only hope to temporise. Charles wrote to him to say, "he would rather die than give in," but Hamilton, knowing his master would have to die by deputy, and that the deputy would be no other than himself, entreated his majesty not to be too open in his demonstrations of force against his Scotch subjects. The Covenanters on the other hand declared they meant nothing disrespectful to the throne, and that their pelting, shouting, bullying, stoning, and protesting, were all to be considered as acts performed in the most loyal spirit, and without the smallest idea of disobedience to the royal mandate.
Some negotiations ensued between the two parties, and it was resolved that a General Assembly should be held in Glasgow forthwith, while a proclamation was issued for a Parliament to meet at Edinburgh a few months afterwards. Hamilton knew the Assembly would do no good, and wrote to the king to say so; but Charles answered, that it would at all events gain time, and the Scotch might perhaps, if they met together in large numbers, come to the scratch among themselves—a result that was exceedingly probable.
The Marquis of Hamilton reached Glasgow on the 17th of November, 1638; and the General Assembly commenced on the 21st with a sermon of such tremendous length, that the audience were pretty well exhausted by the time it was concluded. The Assembly would have then chosen a moderator; but Hamilton starting up with a polite "I beg your pardon," told them there was a little Commission to read in order to explain by what authority he was sitting there. The Commission was exceedingly long, and all in Latin, which enabled the officer entrusted with the commission of reading the Commission, to extemporise rather extensively, by adding to the original Latin a considerable quantity of Dog, which spun out the time amazingly. The Assembly then again prepared to choose a moderator, when Hamilton starting up, exclaimed—"I'm very sorry to be so troublesome, but I must interrupt you again, for I wish you to hear this letter from his majesty."
Charles had purposely despatched a most unintelligible scrawl, and the functionary employed to read it prolonged the painful operation of deciphering it as long as he could, until at length the reading of the letter was concluded. The Assembly being again about to proceed to elect a moderator, Hamilton once more was upon his legs, with a "Dear me, you'll think me very tiresome, but I have really something very particular to say;" and off he went into a speech which seemed almost interminable, from its excessive wordiness.
As all things must come to a conclusion, if not to an end—Hamilton's speech, for example, came to no end at all—the oration of the marquis was terminated at last, and for the fourth time the Assembly had begun to choose a moderator, when Hamilton interfered with a "Stop! stop! stop! Before you go any further, remember that I protest against anything you may do that will be prejudicial to the king's prerogative."
At length he was formally asked if he had quite done with his interruptions, and having exhausted all his resources, he was constrained to admit that he had no further remark to make, when the election of a moderator was proceeded with. Alexander Henderson, a minister of Fife,—which might well have been called, in the strong language of Shakespeare, the "ear-piercing Fife," for it was determined to make itself heard,—was chosen to the office, and Hamilton was again on his legs to read a protest, but a general cry of "Down! down! Come! come! we've had enough of that," prevented the marquis from proceeding further in his obstructive policy. The Assembly then chose one Archibald Johnston as clerk, and Hamilton, determined to give the Covenanters one more lesson on the Hamiltonian system, commenced protesting against the last appointment they had made. The marquis was, however, most unceremoniously pooh-poohed, and the Assembly adjourned.
On the next day Hamilton began the old game of entering more protests against the return of lay elders to the Assembly, but he was treated with no more respect than if he had been a lay figure, and was compelled to hold his tongue. Being checked in every attempt to enter a protest on his own account, he insisted on patronising ana adopting a protest of the bishops who denied the jurisdiction of the Assembly, but one of the clerks of session thundering out a declaration that they would go on with the proceedings, Hamilton started up once more, "begging pardon for being so very troublesome, but adding that he really must protest to that." Finding his protestations utterly useless, he thought it better to protest to the whole thing en masse, and he accordingly dissolved the General Assembly on the ensuing day. Henderson, the moderator—so called, on the lucus a non lucendo principle, from his being no moderator at all—declared he was sorry they were going to lose the pleasure of Hamilton's company, but the Assembly, being assembled, had no intention to disperse. The marquis, who had gone about muttering to himself "Oh, you know, this is quite absurd! I'm no use here," made the best of his way to England. He urged Charles to take military measures against the Scotch, but they were very active in making warlike preparations, and had already got up a magazine at Edinburgh—no relation to Blackwood or Tait—which was full of pikes, muskets, halberts, and other striking but very offensive articles. In the meantime the coffers of Charles were standing perfectly empty, nobody in the city would take his paper upon any terms, and indeed he could accept no bills, for there was no Parliament in existence to draw the documents. He called upon the judges, the clergy, and even the humbler servants of the crown, to contribute part of their salaries to his necessities—a process very like borrowing a portion of the wages of one's cook to pay one's butcher.
The Covenanters had got together a tolerably large number of troops, under General Leslie, and Hamilton was sent with five thousand men to take Leith, but by the time he got into the waters of Leith(e) his soldiers seemed to be oblivious of their duties, for they all deserted him.
Charles now thought it high time to go and see about the Scotch business himself, and he started, per coach, for York, with the Duke of Lennox and the Earl of Holland as inside passengers. He was met at that city by the recorder, as the coach drew up to the inn door, and that functionary, in a fulsome speech, told him he had built his throne on two columns of diamond—the parasite forgetting that the old notion of "diamond cut diamond" might unpleasantly suggest itself. At York Charles enacted an oath of fidelity from the nobles, which was taken by all but Lord Saye and Brook, the former declaring he should be a mere do if he consented to say what he did not mean, and the latter intimating that he was far too deep a Brook to commit himself in the manner that the king required.
On the 29th of April Charles left York and repaired to Durham, where the bishop feasted him famously, giving him Durham mustard every day, as a condiment to the delicious dishes that were prepared for him. He next advanced to Newcastle, where the mayor entertained him sumptuously; but while the king went to dinner he heard that many of his troops were going to desert, and by the time he got to Berwick he was glad to listen to a proposition for a truce, which, after a good deal of trumpeting on both sides, was arranged without a blow—except those conveyed through the trumpet—on either.
A conference was next agreed upon, between the deputies of the Covenanters and the Commissioners of the king; but, just as they were commencing business, Charles walked in, saying, "I am told you complain that you can't be heard! Now then, fire away, for I am here to hear you." Lord Loudon, who was loud without being effective, began to make a speech, but the king cut him short, and Loudon, with all his loudness, remained inaudible during the rest of the sitting. The parties to the negotiation were pretty well matched, for royal roguery had to contend with Scotch cunning. "We must give and take," said Charles. "Yes, that's all very well, but you want us to do nothing but give, that you may do nothing but take," was the keen reply of the Caledonians. The assemblies of the Kirk were to be legalised, and an act of oblivion was to be passed, which was very unnecessary on the king's side, at least, for he was very apt to forget himself. Castles, forts, ammunition, and even money, were to be delivered up to the king, but part of the money having been spent, the cunning Scotchmen accounted for the deficiency by saying to his majesty, "You can't eat your cake and have it—that is very well known; and as we have eaten your cake, that you can't have it is a natural consequence."
Charles was puzzled, though not quite convinced, by this reasoning; but he thought it best to acquiesce for the sake of peace and quietness in all the proposed arrangements. The two armies were disbanded on the 24th of June, and Charles having stopped at Berwick to buy a Tweedish wrapper, returned to England. The king was now seized very seriously with a fit of his old complaint—the want of money—and he called in Laud and Hamilton to consult with Wentworth about a cure for the distressing malady. It was agreed, after some hesitation, to try another Parliament, and Wentworth suggested that an Irish Parliament might be tried first, upon which he was named Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with the title of Earl of Strafford, to give him more weight in making the experiment. The Irish Parliament promised four subsidies off-hand, and two more if required; but an Irish promise to pay, is little better than a bill without a stamp, a promissory note without a date, or an I O U without a signature.
At length on the 13th of April, 1640, the English Parliament met, and it contained many eminent men, among whom Hampden, who sat for the town of Buckingham, was one of the most conspicuous. Finch, who had been formerly Speaker, was now Lord Keeper, a position he was most anxious to keep, and Mr. Serjeant Glanvil was chosen to fill the Speaker's chair, upon which he made a long tedious speech that annoyed everyone by its premises, as much as it gratified every one by its conclusion. The debates very soon assumed a most important air; and Pym—who, from his effeminate voice, had got the name of Niminy Pyminy from some parasites of the king—held forth with wondrous power, on the subject of national grievances. Charles, who hated the word grievance—it is a pity he did not abhor and avoid the act—ordered Parliament to attend him next day in the Banqueting Hall, not to give them an opportunity of filling their mouths, but for the purpose of stopping them. Charles said nothing himself, but set Finch at them, who told them that they must first vote the supplies, and that then they might luxuriate in their grievances to their hearts' content, and having given the king his cash, they would be at liberty to look out for their own consolation. The Commons were not to be so cajoled, and on the 30th of April resolved themselves into a committee of the whole House on the question of ship-money.
The Lords, who were servile to the king, no sooner heard of this than they sent down to request a conference, but the Commons, who could get no satisfactory answer to the questions "why?" and "what about?" of course, on seeing the trap, declined tumbling into it. In vain did Charles send down to say he had a large amount to make up, and would be glad to know when it would be convenient to let him have "that subsidy," and even Sir Henry Vane, his treasurer, came—it can't be helped, the wretched pun must out—Yes! even Vane presented himself in vain to know when the supplies would be ready. The usual mode of getting rid of a pertinacious dun was resorted to by saying that an answer should be sent; and on the 5th of May, 1640, Charles, having asked the Speaker to breakfast, and as some say, made him exceedingly drunk, ran down to the House of Lords and dissolved the Parliament.
The state of the money-market was now truly frightful, and the emissaries of Charles ran about in all directions crying out "Cash! Cash! We must have Cash!"
Bullion was got from the Tower by bullying the people who had charge of it, and when no more good money was to be got, a proposition for coining four hundred thousand pounds' worth of bad was coolly suggested. "By Jove!" said the king, "when we can't snow white, we must snow brown, and if we can't snow silver, we must snow copper." Such snow would, however, have been equivalent tobits Latin appellation of nix, and the merchants foreseeing the danger of depreciating the coinage, prevented the uttering of base money, which would have been a source of unutterable confusion. The swindling resorted to for supplying the necessities of the king was something quite unsurpassed even in the annals of the most modern of fraudulent bankruptcies. Charles got goods on credit at a high price, and sold them for ready from the Tower by bullying money at a low one; horses were lugged out of carriages or carts, leaving the owners to draw their own vehicles and their own conclusions; and indeed the king's emissaries went about like a clown in a pantomime, appropriating and pocketing everything they could lay their hands upon. "See what I have found!" was a common cry at the snatching of a purse or anything else for the use of the king, and the example of robbery being set in high quarters, was sure to be followed in low with the utmost activity. The London apprentices were invited by a posting-bill stuck upon the Royal Exchange to a soirée at Lambeth, for the purpose of sacking the palace of the archbishop, but Laud was ready with cannon, loaded with grape, and the apprentices muttering that the grapes were sour, abandoned their formidable intention.
Hostilities with Scotland having again broken out, Charles had his hands quite full, and his pockets quite empty. The disputants on both sides were ultimately glad to come to another truce, for they found themselves after a great deal of fighting exactly where they were before they began, except some of the killed and wounded, who, unfortunately for them, were anything but just as they were at the commencement of the contest. The Scots were to receive, according to treaty, the sum of £850 per day for two months, and Charles, wondering where the money was to come from, recollected that the Commons had the glorious privilege of voting the supplies, together with the glorious privilege of raising the money.