<397>On August 1 Parliament met at Oxford. Upon the motion of Sir Edward Coke it was resolved that Aug 1.The assembling of Parliament.a Committee of the whole House should take an account of the expenditure of the subsidies granted in the last Parliament. He doubtless intended that investigation into the past should form the basis of a decision upon the course to be pursued in the future.
If religion had not been first mentioned, the omission was soon repaired. The favours granted to the Catholics on the Pardon to a Jesuit complained of.supplication of the French ambassadors were not likely to pass unnoticed, and Sir Edward Giles held up the copy of a pardon granted to a Jesuit expressed in terms of unusual latitude. The pardon, he observed, bore the date of July 12, the very day after the promise of a real compliance with their petition had been given.
The inevitable inference bore so hardly on persons high in office, if not on the King himself, that for some time no one ventured to speak. Eliot’s speech.At last Eliot rose, ever the first to throw himself into the breach. “I cannot think,” he said, “that this pardon we have seen, issued from the King; or, if it did, that he rightly understood it. I cannot believe he gave his pardon to a Jesuit, and that so soon upon his promise unto us.” Some one must have abused his confidence. Let the Lord Keeper be asked who gave the warrant for the issue of the pardon. They might then discover who procured it.
<398>The ministers present did their best to avert inquiry. Heath truly asserted that the promise of which the pardon was the fulfilment Defence of Heath.had been given before July 11, the date of the King’s answer through Williams, and explained it as a concession to the French ambassadors. They had only to wait, he said, till they heard the King’s answer to their petition on religion, which was certain to give them satisfaction.
Heath’s mode of meeting the difficulty was the more noteworthy as he was known to be possessed of Buckingham’s confidence. Buckingham, in fact, was Buckingham’s intentions.making up his mind, if he had not made it up already, to cast to the winds his engagements to France, and to throw himself upon the popular sympathies of the House, by sacrificing to them the Catholics whom Charles had promised to protect. He did not see that it was too late; that a man who plays fast and loose with every principle, and who joins each party when it suits him, is certain to be mistrusted by all parties. As the members were arriving at Oxford one of the Duke’s confidants told Sir Francis Seymour that if the Commons ‘would set upon the Lord Keeper, they should be backed by the greatest men in the kingdom.’ Seymour answered sharply, “I find nothing in the Lord Keeper but the malice of those great men.”[674] Heath’s appeal therefore met with but little response in the House. Phelips attacked the practice of complying with the Answers of Phelips and Marten.demands of foreign ambassadors, although the presence of Charles himself at Madrid had not availed to release a single prisoner from the Inquisition. A further blow came from Sir Henry Marten, who, old as he was, sat now for the first time in Parliament. As Judge of the Admiralty Court, he was often brought into collision with Buckingham, and he may perhaps have had some cause for complaining of him at this moment. Even in former times, he said, when old ambassadors were employed, England had been more skilled in fighting than in diplomacy. Marten did not go further than this allusion. But his reference to the old ambassadors of former days was understood to imply a reflection <399>upon the young ambassador who had talked so much and had done so little.[675] A petition to be prepared.The whole discussion finally resulted in a petition to the King, in which the Lords were asked to join.
The first day at Oxford had been devoted to the Catholics. The second was devoted to the holders of new opinions in the Aug. 2.Montague’s case again.Church of England. The serjeant-at-arms reported that Montague had written to say that he was too ill to surrender on his bond. Coke at once rose to warn the House of its danger. The Britons had been worsted, according to Tacitus, because there had been no unity in their mode of fighting. Coke’s attack upon liberty of printing.So it was now in matters of religion. Permission was given ‘to every particular man to put out books of all sorts.’ He wished that ‘none concerning religion might be printed but such as were allowed by Convocation.’[676]
This was at least plain speaking. It was as well to know what Eliot’s magnificent declamation about unity of religion meant in prose. Upon liberty, so far as it implied the right of each man to enjoy freedom of person and property according to the law of the land and the decision of the judges, Coke placed the highest value. For liberty, so far as it meant intellectual freedom, he cared nothing at all. If Charles had possessed a mind of a higher order he might have entered the lists against the legal intolerance of Coke and the dogmatic intolerance of the Calvinistic clergy with a fair prospect of success. If he had failed, at least he would have failed in a noble cause. <400>Unhappily Charles was not likely to take his stand upon so broad an issue; perhaps the time was not yet come when it was possible for any man to take so high a ground. At Hampton Court he had Heath declares Montague to be the King’s chaplain.claimed to save Montague from the Commons by declaring him to be his chaplain, and Heath now warned the House against touching a man in his Majesty’s service. The challenge was not allowed to pass unquestioned. “All justices of the peace, all deputy-lieutenants,” said Alford, “are the King’s servants.” No man could by any possibility commit a public offence but by colour of public employment and service to the King. If all these were to be freed from Parliamentary inquiry, what would be the condition of future Parliaments?
In spite of the tendency of some speakers to go off upon the merits of Arminianism and the doctrine of the fallibility of grace, Claims of the Commons.the leading members had sufficient influence to keep the point raised by Alford in the foreground. Coke, who was allowed to speak a second time, expressly disclaimed any right in the House to meddle with points of doctrine. They had only to deal with Montague for his contempt of the House. They would inform the Lords of his evil doctrine, and, as the Bishops had seats in the Upper House, such questions might be resolved there. At the last the sentence would come before the King, who might execute or remit it as he thought fit. There were, however, precedents of cases in which Parliament had petitioned the King not to use his prerogative of mercy. Phelips closed the debate by reminding the House that in the last Parliament James had already put forth the claim ‘that no servant of his should be questioned.’ In the end, the serjeant was ordered to bring Montague to the bar. It was, however, discovered that Montague was really too ill to attend, and the order in consequence remained unexecuted.
The question of the responsibility of the King’s officers, when once stirred, was certain to recur sooner or later. Coke might Question of responsibility.strive hard to bring the desire of the House to punish Montague within the formulas of the past; but in itself the question of responsibility was the question of sovereignty. If all official persons were liable to the censure of Parliament whether the King liked it or not, <401>Charles might still have functions to perform which would be eminently useful to the Commonwealth; but he would not be a sovereign in the sense in which Henry VIII. and Elizabeth had been sovereigns. The impeachment of Middlesex and the threatened impeachment of Montague were the signs of a great change in the relations between the King and the House of Commons. The question was raised because the House had ceased to have confidence in the King; but the innovation was none the less striking on that account.
As far as the great religious dispute by which men’s minds were agitated was concerned, it mattered little whether Montague was View taken of Montague’s book by the Bishops friendly to him.the King’s chaplain or not. On the very day on which the Commons were pronouncing strongly against his opinions, the three Bishops by whom those opinions were regarded with the greatest favour, were writing to Buckingham in their defence. “The Church of England,” said Buckeridge, Howson, and Laud, “when it was reformed from the superstitious opinions broached or maintained by the Church of Rome, refused the apparent and dangerous errors, and would not be too busy with every particular school-point. The cause why she held this moderation was because she could not be able to preserve any unity among Christians if men were forced to subscribe to curious particulars disputed in schools.” Some of the opinions for which Montague was attacked were ‘yet only for schools, and to be left at more liberty for learned men to abound in their own sense, so they keep themselves peaceable and distract not the Church; and, therefore, to make any man subscribe to school opinions may justly seem hard on the Church of Christ, and was one great fault of the Council of Trent.’
Evidently the Bishops were more liberal than the House of Commons. Beyond the region of dogmatic teaching they saw a Liberal views of the Bishops,region of mystery into which the eye of reason could hardly pierce, and which might well be reserved for reverent investigation by learned and devout men, whilst it was utterly unsuited for the violent declamation of the popular rhetorician. Unhappily it is by slow steps that the world rises to the height of a great argument. Something <402>had been done for liberty of thought when dogmatism was restricted by Laud and his fellows; but what they gave with one hand they took with the other. It is hard for men who look upon a creed from the outside to know by how many ramifications its dry propositions gather vital strength for the moral life of its believers. It was well to say that grace and predestination were fitter subjects for the schools than for the pulpit. But, for all that, the fact remained that there were thousands of men in England who thought otherwise, and who, if they were not to hear of grace and predestination, would find that their whole framework of spiritual thought had broken down. When therefore the Bishops went on to say, that they conjoined with illiberality.could not conceive what use there was ‘of civil government in the Commonwealth, or of preaching and external ministry in the Church, if such fatal opinions as some which are opposite and contrary to those delivered by Mr. Montague are and shall be publicly taught and maintained,’ they were calling upon the King to use his authority to silence opinions which had by long experience become dear to many a pious soul from one end of the land to the other. They were seeking to accomplish by force that which they might well have striven to accomplish by example. Andrewes, whom they agreed to reverence, would have taught them a better lesson.
With this difference of opinion on Church doctrine was necessarily connected a difference of opinion on Church government. Who is to decide on Church questions?On this head Coke had been somewhat hesitating. He would have had books prohibited by Convocation. He would have had Montague judged by the House of Lords because it had Bishops amongst its members. The view of the three Bishops was clear. “When the clergy,” they said, “submitted themselves in the time of Henry VIII., the submission was so made that if any difference, doctrinal or other, fell in the Church, the King and the Bishops were to be judges of it in a National Synod or Convocation; the King first giving leave, under his Broad Seal, to handle the points in difference.”[677]
<403>Such was the ground thus early taken up by Laud, and maintained by him through the whole of his career. It was a claim The King and Convocation.hard to be met if it were once admitted that the clergy were a body separate from the rest of the nation, and able to bind the nation to the perpetual observance of any compact to which it had once assented. If, however, this be not the case — and the whole spirit of English history is opposed to such a view — then Laud was in the wrong. What was temporary in the settlement of Henry VIII. was the position taken by the King as the head of the clergy. What was permanent was that in so doing Henry VIII. represented the state and nation. Just so long as Charles represented the state and nation would Charles and the Bishops be able to lay down the law as to what was to be taught and what was not. Already the Commons were beginning feebly and incoherently to put in their claim to be the representatives of England; though they had yet to learn that the voice of numbers will not suffice to give permanent supremacy. The question of religious differences was coming to the front. Whoever could most wisely solve it, whether King or Commons, would lead the English nation in the ages which were coming.
Immense as was the ultimate importance of these religious disputes, they did not form the immediate question of the hour. Nevertheless, the feelings roused by the discussions of the first two days were not favourable to Charles’s design of drawing fresh subsidies from the Commons. Aug. 3.The fast.The third day, kept as a fast on account of the plague, was certain to bring with it thoughts and feelings which boded no good to the King who issued pardons to Jesuits and shielded Arminians from punishment.
On August 4 Charles came in from Woodstock, where he was staying, and summoned the Houses to appear before him in Christchurch Hall. Aug. 4.The King in Christchurch Hall.He had indeed need of all the eloquence he could command. His exchequer was even at a lower ebb than it had been when he opened Parliament in June. It was only with the greatest difficulty that the necessary provisions for the Royal household <404>had been procured.[678] Now too, as in June, Charles had to balance the advantages of making a clean breast to Parliament, and telling all his plans and all his needs, or of contenting himself with asking only for as much as would be required for the equipment of the fleet, which, as it was to be directed against Spain, was more likely to stir the popular feeling than any combination in Germany.
As usual he did not say much. He again reminded the Houses of their engagement to support him in the war, and His speech.begged them to think of the reputation of the kingdom, even at the risk of danger to their own persons from the plague. His preparations had cost him large sums of money, and it would be better that half the ships should perish at sea than that they should remain at home. In two days, he ended by saying, they should have an answer to their petition on religion.
Charles had dwelt entirely on the fleet. Conway, who followed, took a wider view of the situation. Having said that Conway’s address.30,000l. or 40,000l. were wanted to enable the fleet to start, he afterwards drew a picture in the background of the Continent in flames, and hinted at the large sums needed for keeping the Protestant forces on foot in Germany and the Netherlands.
There was thus a discrepancy between the smallness of the sum named and the largeness of the expenditure hinted at. To fulfil his engagements, Charles wanted not 40,000l. but some 7,000,000l. or 8,000,000l. at the least. To make up his mind to forego this and to be content with the smaller sum would probably have been his wisest course, and if he had adopted it he might perhaps have avoided summoning Parliament at all. This, however, was precisely what he was unable to bring his mind to. He, therefore, it may be supposed, whilst authorising Conway to mention the fact that no more than 30,000l. or 40,000l. was needed for the fleet, allowed his greater expenses to be expounded in the hope of stirring the liberality of the Commons to the utmost.[679]
<405>Originally, it would seem, it had been intended to reserve all further observations for a message which Sir John Coke had been directed to deliver to the Commons in their own House.[680] But it may have been that signs of impatience were seen amongst the members, or that Charles felt that a mistake had been committed Sir J. Coke called up to the throne.in allowing Conway to say so much without saying it more plainly. At all events, he beckoned Coke to his side, and, after whispering a few words in his ear, sent him into the middle of the hall to do his work at once.
Coke at least did not start with asking for a paltry 40,000l. for the fleet. With all possible emphasis he enlarged upon the His exposition of the state of affairs.greatness of the work before them. 600,000l. a year would be wanted for Mansfeld and the King of Denmark. He argued that though Mansfeld’s armament had not been so successful as could have been wished, it had shown that the King of England was in earnest. The German princes had been encouraged. The Danes had taken the field. The King of France was aiming at Milan, and had made peace with his Huguenot subjects. It now devolved on Parliament to consider whether they would grant his Majesty a fitting supply. Yet, though he had gone thus far, Coke did not venture to ask for all that was needed, but contented himself with reminding those who dreaded such an enormous expenditure of the importance of sending out the fleet. It would not be a constant drain on the nation. When once success had been obtained, that success would help to bear the charge. When the pride of Spain had been quelled, private adventurers could follow to sweep the seas at their own expense. The spirit of the people would be roused, and the whole land would be enriched at the enemy’s cost.
Coke’s hearers were thus left in uncertainty, an uncertainty which was doubtless shared by the King himself, how much they were really expected to grant. The small sum needed for the fleet was fixed and definite. All else was hazy and impalpable. <406>The success of the fleet might perhaps enable Charles to dispense with the supplies which he needed for other purposes. His error was that he did not come forward, as Gustavus had come forward in the negotiations of the past winter, with a definite demand which he himself recognised as indispensable. He tried to influence the minds of the members without first making up his own.
Coke was not popular amongst the Commons, and it was felt as a mark of disrespect that they should be addressed in the King’s name by Feelings of the Commons.a man who was not a minister of state. Yet, as far as the fleet was concerned, he seems to have spoken the whole truth as completely as if he had been a Privy Councillor or a Secretary of State. The Prince of Orange had by this time rejected Morton’s proposal for an attack upon the ports of Flanders, and Charles had reverted to his original scheme of sending his fleet to capture the Spanish ships returning from America.[681]
The Commons were fairly puzzled. Though Coke named no sum in particular, it seemed as if he had come round again to Conway’s 40,000l. Aug. 5.The wildest conjectures were hazarded as to what was really meant. Some thought that the fleet was not to go at all, and that the blame of failure was to be thrown on the House of Commons. Others even thought that a peace had been patched up with Spain. It needed the utmost frankness of explanation on the part of the ministers of Charles to do away with the ill-will caused by the long reticence of the King, followed by the involved and almost unintelligible demands which had been made at the close of the sittings of Westminster, and which were now repeated at Oxford in a form more involved and unintelligible still.
When the House met the next morning, Whistler opened the debate by a proposal which, Proposal to confer with the Lords.if it had been met in the spirit in which it was made, might have changed the history of the reign. Let the Commons, he said, ask the opinion of the Lords upon the necessity of <407>the action proposed. If they could not get satisfaction there, let them go to the King.
Full and complete information upon the intentions of the Government was plainly the only condition upon which the Commons Objections raised to it.could be justified in acceding to the demands made upon them. It was one of the evils of the new system of government that there was no one in the House of sufficient authority to take upon himself the responsibility of meeting an unexpected proposal. It was probably from instinct rather than from any knowledge of the King’s wishes that Sir George More replied, with courtier-like facility, that it was unconstitutional to apply to the Lords on a question of subsidy. May, Weston, and Heath sat silent in their places, and before they had time to receive instructions the debate had taken another turn.
If there was a man in the House who would be consistent with himself in attacking the foreign policy of the Crown that man was Seymour attacks the foreign policy of the Crown.Sir Francis Seymour, the proposer of the restricted supply which had been granted at Westminster. In itself the fact that the Government had entered into engagements with foreign powers so extensive that it did not venture directly to ask the Commons for the means of fulfilling them was calculated to give rise to the gravest suspicions, and Seymour, the old opponent of the system of Continental wars, was not likely to treat such suspicions lightly. This meeting of Parliament, he argued, had been the work of those who sought to put dissensions between the King and his people. It was absurd to suppose that it needed a Parliament to procure 40,000l. for the fleet. As for the rest that had been said, he had no confidence in the advisers of the Crown. He did not believe that peace had been made in France, and he hoped that English ships would not be used as abettors of the French king’s violence against his Huguenot subjects. Then turning to the past, Seymour continued, “We have given three subsidies and three fifteenths to the Queen of Bohemia, for which she is nothing the better. Nothing hath been done. We know not our enemy. We have set upon and consumed our own people.” What he wished was that they might now <408>‘do somewhat for the country,’ and they would then give his Majesty a seasonable and bountiful supply.
Distrust of Buckingham’s capacity, perhaps of his integrity, was imprinted on every word of Seymour’s speech. When May May’s answer.rose to answer him, he knew that the whole foreign policy of the Government needed defence. If he could not meet all attacks he was able to tell of much that had been overlooked by Seymour. It was something that the King of Denmark was on the move. It was something that France was no longer in friendship with Spain. May then went on to relate an anecdote from his own personal knowledge. When at the end of Elizabeth’s reign Mountjoy had been sent into Ireland and was in great danger of defeat, Sir Robert Cecil had protested beforehand that, if disaster followed, no imputation could be brought against the Government at home. “My Lord Mountjoy,” he had said, “cannot complain of us. He hath wanted nothing from hence. If things miscarry, the blame must be somewhere else.” The application of the anecdote was obvious. It was the business of the House to vote supplies and to throw the responsibility off their own shoulders.
May had forgotten that the House courted responsibility, and that it was very far from feeling that confidence in Buckingham’s powers as a minister which Cecil had in Mountjoy’s powers as a soldier. He did not acknowledge that times were changed, and that those who supply the money for war must necessarily ask for a larger share in its management as soon as they have reason to think that the supplies are being squandered or misused. 200,000l. asked for by Edmondes.Nor did Edmondes, who followed, mend the position of the Government by asking directly for two subsidies and two fifteenths, about 200,000l., a sum far too great for supplying the immediate needs of the fleet, whilst altogether inadequate to meet Charles’s engagements on the Continent.[682]
<409>If Seymour had hinted at some things which he could have expressed more clearly if he had thought fit, Phelips, who rose next, was Speech of Phelips.certain to speak out all that was in his heart: and speak out he did. For his part, he told the House, he saw no reason for giving; but neither was there any reason for leaving the work to which they had been so unexpectedly called. Let them stay to do something to make his Majesty glorious. Those who were now urging them to war — so far at least the person intended was suggested rather than expressed — were those who had been foremost in urging on the Spanish marriage, and who for its sake had broken up the Parliament of 1621, and had thrown members of the House into prison, himself being one of the sufferers, for refusing to hold their tongues.
In the Parliament of 1624 three things had been desired.[683] They had asked that the Prince should marry a Protestant lady, that the Dutch Republic should be supported, and that religion in England should be preserved. Had this been done? “What the Spanish articles were,” he said, “we know. Whether those with France be any better it is doubted. There are visible articles and invisible. Those we may see, but these will be kept from us.”
Then, after touching on the sore of the impositions, and of tonnage and poundage, still levied, though the Lords had not yet passed the Bill, Phelips went to the root of the matter. “In <410>the Government,” he said plainly, “there hath wanted good advice. Want of counsel.Counsels and power have been monopolised.” Then, with an allusion to the Parliament which, meeting at Oxford, had wrested authority from Henry III., he said that he did not love the disordered proceedings of Parliaments. In all actions, he cried, ‘there is a mixture of good and ill.’ So had it been with their forefathers struggling with the prerogative. “Let us,” he cried, “avoid that which was ill, but not that which was good. They looked into the disorders of the time, and concluded with the King for a reformation. When kings are persuaded to do what they should not, subjects have been often transported to do what they ought not. Let us not come too near the heels of power; nor yet fall so low as to suffer all things under the name of the prerogative. Let us look into the right of the subject. I will not argue whether the fleet is best to go or stay, whether leagues abroad are apt to support such great actions. The match has not yet brought the French to join with us in a defensive war, or any longer than conduceth to their own ends. The French army, which they say is gone, we hear is upon return. In Germany the King of Denmark hath done nothing. The best way to secure ourselves is to suppress the Papists here… Let the fleet go on; and let us not part till his Majesty may see an ample demonstration of our affections. Let us look into the estate and government, and, finding that which is amiss, make this Parliament the reformer of the Commonwealth.”
There was more in Phelips’s words than even distrust of Buckingham’s ability or honesty. Both Buckingham and Charles had Effect of this speech.failed to recognise the importance of the fact that neither the French alliance nor the intervention in Germany had ever received the approbation of the House of Commons. It was enough for them that they judged this policy to be right, and that they promised to themselves great results in the future from it. They would tell the House what they had done, and ask for the means to carry out their designs, but they would not so far demean themselves as to consult it upon the direction which their policy was to take.
<411>To this Phelips’s somewhat ironical answer was decisive. The responsibility must fall upon those by whom that policy had been originated. The Commons would give no support to a course of action which they were unable to understand. They would confine themselves to those internal affairs which were within the compass of their intelligence, and would content themselves with criticising the administration of the laws, and the financial and political arrangements of the Government.
Such a speech was an historical event. If Charles could not make up his mind to discuss with the Commons the policy which Speeches of Weston and Coke.he had adopted with such headlong rashness, it was useless for Weston, who followed, to try to persuade them that success might still be looked for if money enough were voted, or to frighten them with a prospect of dissolution by saying that, if they refused to give, ‘beyond that day there was no place for counsel.’ Nor was the speech of Sir Edward Coke much more to the point, as he contented himself with calling attention to the minor causes of the financial embarrassment of the Treasury, without touching upon the question really at issue.
The House was all the more attentive when Heath, the Solicitor-General, rose to speak, because he had had time to receive Heath’s offers on the part of the Government.instructions from Buckingham since Phelips sat down, and because he was far too able a man, and had too good an acquaintance with the temper of the House, to fail in giving full weight to any concessions which the Government might be disposed to make. He began by placing the engagement of the Parliament of 1624 on its proper footing. The House, he argued, was bound to follow the King unless he propounded anything to which it was impossible to consent. As they were not engaged to everything, let there be no misunderstanding. Let them ask the King against what enemy he was prepared to fight. He was sure that the King was ready to take measures against the Catholics, ‘that they might not be able to do hurt.’ It had been said that places were filled by men who wanted experience. He was under great obligations to the person to whom allusion had been made, but if there was anything against him he hoped <412>that it would be examined in such a way as that the public good might not suffer. Let the blame, if blame there was, light upon the person, not upon the Commonwealth.
Heath had done his best to open the way to a better understanding; but the speaker who followed him, Edward Alford,[684] Alford says the House never promised to recover the Palatinate.struck at once at the weak point in his case, the fact that objection was taken not merely to Buckingham’s management of the war, but to the dimensions which the war was assuming in his hands. “We are not engaged,” he said, “to give for the recovery of the Palatinate. For when it was in the Act of Parliament, as it was first penned, it was struck out by the order of the House, as a thing unfit to engage the House for the recovery of the Palatinate, and if possible, yet not without great charge and difficulty.”
The full truth was out at last. The House did not mean to support Mansfeld and the King of Denmark, and Buckingham and the King would have to reconcile themselves to the fact.
That afternoon Buckingham’s agents were busy amongst the knots of members who were gathering everywhere to discuss the morning’s debate. Discussions in the afternoon.The greater part had already taken sides, the majority against the Court. Some few alone were accessible to influence. Besides the scenes whfch were passing in the streets or in the members’ lodgings, another scene, it can hardly be doubted, was passing in Buckingham’s apartments. There were men who wished him well, whilst they disliked his policy, and who were anxious to induce him to give way to the strength of Parliamentary opinion. What was said we do not know, probably shall never know; but no one who reads with attention the course of the next day’s debate can doubt that an effort was being made on the part of his friends to save him from the consequences of his own self-conceit.
The next morning, after a brisk passage on a protection accorded by Conway to a Roman Catholic lady in Dorsetshire, <413>the great debate was resumed. The course which it took was Aug. 6.Suggested reconciliation between Buckingham and the House.altogether different from that of the preceding day. The 5th had been given up to a conflict between the ministers of the Crown and the men who, in modern political language, would be termed the advanced wing of the Opposition. On the 6th all is changed. Phelips, Coke, and Seymour are as silent as Weston, Heath, and Edmondes. It looks as if both parties had come to a tacit agreement to allow a body of mediators to declare the terms on which an understanding might yet be effected.
Sir Henry Mildmay, who spoke first, was Master of the King’s Jewel House, and was on friendly terms with Buckingham. Mildmay’s proposal.He proposed that the House should ask what sum would be sufficient to complete the equipment of the fleet, and that that sum should be granted, not by way of subsidy, but by some other mode of collection, apparently in order that it might be at once brought into the Exchequer. Such a course of raising money, he added, being taken in Parliament, will be a Parliamentary course.[685]
Mildmay had quietly thrown overboard all the King’s Continental alliances. He was followed by Coryton, Eliot’s friend, Coryton’s speech.who was ready to supply the King, ‘if there was a necessity,’ but suggested that the state of the King’s revenue should be examined, the question of impositions sifted, and a committee appointed to debate of these things,[686] ‘and especially for religion.’
Eliot followed. It was his last appearance as a mediator. It is plain that he had already ceased as completely as Eliot’s argument.Phelips and Seymour to feel any confidence in Buckingham. The war, he said, ‘extendeth to Denmark, Savoy, Germany, and France.’ “If he shall deal truly, he is diffident and distrustful of these things, and we have had no fruit yet but shame and dishonour over all the world. This <414>great preparation is now on the way; he prayeth it may have a prosperous going forth, and a more prosperous return.” He did not believe there was any necessity for more money than had been voted at Westminster, and he could not see why, if the seamen were pressed in April and the landsmen in May, the fleet had not been at sea long ago. That the delay had been caused, in part at least, by Buckingham’s project of diverting the enterprise to the coast of Flanders, was of course unknown to Eliot. But though he had spoken thus strongly of the proceedings of the Government, he went on to acquit Buckingham of all personal blame about the fleet. If anything had gone wrong it was the fault of the Commissioners of the Navy.
The attack upon the Commissioners called up Sir John Coke, who protested loudly against this imputation upon the office which he held. Strode then followed, supporting[687] Mildmay’s proposal that the money should be raised in some other way than by subsidy, by asking how subsidies payable more than a year hence could supply a fleet which was to go out in a fortnight. After a few words from Sir John Stradling, Rich’s five propositions.Sir Nathaniel Rich, who even more than Mildmay represented in the House that section of the Duke’s friends which objected to his late proceedings, rose to put Mildmay’s proposal in a more definite form. He proceeded to lay down five propositions, which had probably been accepted by Buckingham the evening before. In the first place, he said, they must ask the King for an answer to their petition on religion. In the second place, his Majesty must declare the enemy against whom he meant to fight, so that the object of the war might be openly discussed, though the special design ought properly to be kept secret. Further, he wished that ‘when His Majesty doth make a war, it may be debated and advised by his grave council’ — a proposal which in the most courteous terms expressed the general wish that the opinion of others than Buckingham should be heard. Besides these <415>three demands, Rich asked that the King’s revenue should be examined with a view to its increase, and that a permanent settlement of the vexed question of the impositions should be arrived at.[688]
Thus far the House had listened to men who, if they were friends of Buckingham, could speak in an independent tone. Other voices were now raised. Before we give more money, said some one, let us take account from Buckingham of the subsidies voted the year before.[689] Edward Clarke, a man trusted by the Duke as his agent in affairs of questionable propriety, rose to defend his patron. “Bitter invectives,” he began, “are unseasonable for this time.” There was at once an outcry from Incident of Clarke’s imprisonment.all parts of the House, and Clarke was committed to the custody of the serjeant-at-arms. With this scene ended the day’s debate. The House was adjourned at Seymour’s motion, in order that at the next sitting they might Rich’s scheme approved by Phelips.go into committee on the great business. But the members did not separate before Phelips had expressed his decided approbation of ‘the platform of Sir Nathaniel Rich.’[690]
Thus ended the discussions of this memorable week. That Saturday afternoon pressure was put upon Buckingham to Arguments used with Buckingham.accept the terms offered by Rich, which would then without doubt be adopted by the House. “The advice he had,” writes Eliot, “was much to endeavour an accommodation with the Parliament. The errors most insisted on were said to be excusable if retracted. That the disorders of the navy might be imputed to the officers; that the want of counsels might be satisfied by an admission of popular <416>members to the Council Board. The greatest difficulty was conceived to rest in religion and the fleet. For the first, the jealousy being derived from his protection given to Montague; for the latter, that it had so unnecessary preparation and expense; and yet in both there might be a reconciliation for himself. Sending the fleet to sea and giving others the command, was propounded as a remedy for the one; having these reasons to support it, that the design could not be known, nor, if there wanted one, that judged by the success, and the success was answerable but by those that had the action. For the other, it was said that the leaving of Montague to his punishment, and the withdrawing that protection, would be a satisfaction for the present, with some public declaration in the point, and a fair parting of that meeting. That the danger of the time[691] was a great cause of dislike; that the dislike had ushered in most of those questions that had been raised. Therefore to free them from that danger would dissolve the present difficulties, and facilitate the way to a future temper for agreement. The fleet must needs go forth to colour the preparation, and the return might yield something to justify the work, at least in excuse and apology for himself, by translation of the fault.”[692]
If this account of the language used to Buckingham has not been distorted in its passage through the medium of other men’s minds, How they would sound to Buckingham.it must have been beyond measure annoying to him. To have it hinted that the fleet which had been for so many months the object of his solicitude was never intended to sail, was not a suggestion to which he was likely to listen with equanimity. The wonder is not that the proposal of referring everything to the Council was ultimately rejected by him, but that he should, even for a moment, have given any hope to his advisers. He was called not merely to admit himself to be incapable of directing the state, by consenting to place himself under the control of a Council reinforced by men who looked upon him with distrust, but to renounce all those long-considered plans which he regarded as of such importance. Already war had broken out in Germany, and the King of Denmark, depending on English premises, was holding <417>out with difficulty against Tilly. From France every post brought news of preparations for war, and a day or two, he firmly believed, would tell the world that the internal struggle with the Huguenots was at an end. Were Buckingham and his master, in the face of one adverse debate, to fling their engagements to the winds? Were they to tell Christian that in building on the word of an English king he had been building on the sand? Were they, by teaching Richelieu that English co-operation was unattainable, to throw France back into the arms of Spain, and to force her to pass once more into the bondage from which she had with such difficulty emancipated herself?[693]
What wonder therefore if Buckingham resolved to make one more effort to win the Commons to his side? There was He determines to make one more effort.one point at least on which he was ready to give them satisfaction. Neither he nor the King cared really for the principle of religious toleration. They were The Catholics to be abandoned.both of them as ready to execute the penal laws against the Catholics, if anything could be gained by so doing, as they had been to remit the penalties. Yet how could this be done without risk to the French alliance? Would Louis help Charles to recover the Palatinate, if Charles’s promise to protect the English Catholics were treated as if it had never been given? That Charles and Buckingham should have found excuses for breaking their engagements is no matter for surprise; but no better proof can be found of their incapacity to understand human nature than the ease with which they persuaded themselves that the King of France would be quite content that the engagements, by which he set such store, should be openly broken.
On Sunday, August 7, there was high debate Aug. 7.The promise to France explained away.at Court. From La Vieuville’s unguarded language, and from Richelieu’s polite phraseology, Buckingham, with Carlisle and Holland to back him, drew the astounding inference that the promise, so solemnly signed <418>and attested at Cambridge, had never been anything more than a mere form, adopted with the approval of the French Government to deceive the Pope.[694] For impartial judges it is enough to condemn so monstrous a proposition, that it was now heard of for the first time, and that Charles had already acknowledged by his actions, when his wife was on her way to England, that he considered his engagement to her brother as a reality.
From this time forward it became a cardinal principle at the English Court to disavow all obligation to the King of France This view accepted by the Council.in the matter of the Catholics, and to appeal to words spoken in conversation by the French ministers; as if, even supposing that they had meant all that Buckingham asserted them to mean, they could outweigh an obligation formally contracted. The members of the Privy Council had not a word to say in opposition to Buckingham’s view, when the revelation, as they supposed it to be, was suddenly made. Williams, and perhaps Arundel, may have been displeased at the rashness of the affront offered to the King of France, but they were powerless to resist. Of the others, Pembroke and Abbot were probably in communication with the leaders of the Commons, and doubtless shared to a great extent the general dissatisfaction. But whatever their exact feeling may have been, when once Buckingham had, with the King’s support, taken his stand it was useless to raise further questions.
On Monday morning therefore Buckingham appeared, radiant with self-confidence, in Christchurch Hall, and the Commons were Buckingham in Christchurch Hall.summoned to hear from his lips a communication from the King. After a short preamble from Williams, the Duke stood up as he had stood up at Whitehall eighteen months before, to answer for the Government which was in reality centred in his person.
First he directed that the King’s answer to the petition of <419>religion should be read. All, he said, that the Commons had demanded was The petition of religion granted.fully and freely granted. If they thought that the execution of the penal laws against the Catholics was an object worth striving for, they were to have their wishes.
Buckingham then proceeded to defend his foreign policy. He contrasted the disintegration of the anti-Spanish party in Europe Buckingham defends his foreign policy.when he came back from Spain with its present condition. “Now,” he said, “the Valtelline is at liberty, the war is in Italy; the King of Denmark hath an army of 17,000 foot and 6,000 horse, and commissions out to make them 30,000; the King of Sweden declares himself; the Princes of the Union take heart; the King of France is engaged in a war against the King of Spain, hath peace with his subjects, and is joined in a league with Savoy and Venice. This being the state of things then and now, I hope to have from you the same success of being well construed which then I had; for since that time I have not had a thought, nor entered into any action, but what might tend to the advancement of the business and please your desires. But if I should give ear and credit, which I do not, to rumours, then I might speak with some confusion, fearing not to hold so good a place in your opinion as then you gave me, whereof I have still the same ambition, and I hope to deserve it. When I consider the integrity of mine own soul and heart to the King and State, I receive courage and confidence; whereupon I make this request, that you will believe that if any amongst you, in discharge of their opinion and conscience, say anything that may reflect upon particular persons, that I shall be the last in the world to make application of it to myself, being so well assured of your justice, that without cause you will not fall on him that was so lately approved by you, and who will never do anything to irritate any man to have other opinion of me than of a faithful, true-hearted Englishman.”
Then turning to the demand for more counsel and advice, he declared that he had never acted without counsel. All that he had done or proposed to do had been submitted to the <420>Council of War or to the Privy Council. He himself, when he went to France, Declares he has acted by counsel.had advised the institution of a committee to give advice on foreign affairs. If therefore the Commons thought that he took too much on himself, they were mistaken. The Council which they demanded was already in existence.
Of the suggestion that the fleet was not intended to sail, Buckingham spoke scornfully. “For my part,” he said, “I know not The necessity of the fleet.what policy my master should have, to set out a fleet with the charge of 400,000l. only to abuse the world and lessen his people, and to put you to such hazard. What should my master gain? Would he do an act never to meet with you again? Certainly he would never have employed so great a sum of money but that he saw the necessity of the affairs of Christendom require it; and it was done with an intention to set it out with all the speed that may be.”
After touching on other less important points, Buckingham spoke of his plans for the future. “Hitherto,” he said, “I have What was intended?spoken nothing but of immense charge which the kingdom is not well able to bear if it should continue: the King of Denmark, 30,000l. a month; Mansfeld’s army, 20,000l.; the army of the Low Countries, 8,000l.;[695] Ireland, 2,600l.; besides twelve ships preparing to second the fleet.
“Make my master chief of this war, and by that you shall give his allies better assistance than if you gave them 100,000l. a month. What is it for his allies to scratch with the King of Spain, to win a battle to-day and lose one on the morrow, and to get or lose a town by snatches? But to go with a conquest by land, the King of Spain is so strong, it is impossible to do. But let my master be chief of the war and make a diversion, the enemy spends the more; he must draw from other places, and so you give to them.”[696]
If they wished to know who was They might name their enemy.their enemy they might name him themselves. Let them put the sword into the King’s hands, and he would maintain the war.[697]
<421>Buckingham’s declaration was followed by a statement by the Lord Treasurer, in which the King’s debts and engagements The Lord Treasurer’s statement.were plainly stated. The main interest of the proceedings, however, lay in the reception which would be accorded to Buckingham’s vindication of himself. That there was intentional deception about his words it is impossible to imagine. Buckingham’s sincerity.There is a ring of sincerity about them which cannot be mistaken, and those who are best acquainted with the facts will probably acknowledge that he said exactly what, under the circumstances, he might reasonably be expected to say. But it is one thing to hold that he was sincere; it is another thing to hold that what he said ought But his statement unsatisfactory.to have given satisfaction. Doubtless it was perfectly true that he had appealed from time to time to the Privy Council and to the Council of War. But had he done his best to fill the Privy Council with men of independent judgment? Had he not rather given away places at the Board to men who had risen by obsequiousness rather than by merit? In politics, as in all other actions of life, one or two questions, decided one way or another, carry with them the settlement of all other points at issue. Buckingham may have asked advice whether the fleet was to sail against Cadiz or Dunkirk, but he had not asked advice whether the secret engagement about the French Catholics should be signed, or whether the King of Denmark should be encouraged to take part in a fresh war in Germany by offers of aid from England.
If Buckingham’s defence against the charge of despising counsel was unsatisfactory, his account of his own future designs was His aim probably not clear to himself.more unsatisfactory still. The Commons wished him to abandon his Continental alliances, and to be content with attacking Spain. It was no matter for surprise that he should be unwilling so lightly to turn his back upon the efforts of the past year; but when he proceeded to sum up the King’s engagements, and allowed the Lord Treasurer to re-state them in fuller detail, it was only natural to expect that he would urge upon the Commons the absolute necessity of furnishing money to enable the King to carry out his undertakings. He did nothing of the sort. He suggested <422>that if the fleet were successful it would do more good to the common cause than if 100,000l. a month were paid to the allies of England on the Continent. By so doing he fell back on the policy of carrying on the war at sea alone, which had been approved by the Commons in 1624, without frankly abandoning his own more far-reaching schemes.
The explanation doubtless is that, whilst Buckingham could not abandon the world of alliances and subsidies in which he had been living and moving during the past year without speaking a word in their favour, his sanguine mind seized upon the chance that the success of the fleet might make all these subsidies unnecessary. After all, why should he not pay Mansfeld and Christian with gold from the mines of Spanish America rather than from the purses of English citizens and landowners? Such a solution would rid him of his difficulty. It would satisfy the King’s allies and satisfy the House of Commons as well.
Buckingham’s explanation, taken at its best, is fatal to his claims to statesmanship. Either he had promised too much before, or The Commons not likely to be satisfied.he was asking too little now. Was it likely that it would allay the suspicions which were so rife amongst the Commons?
If Buckingham did not succeed in gaining the good-will of the House of Commons his position would be indeed deplorable. By French protests.his cynical disregard of Charles’s plighted word he was alienating a powerful sovereign and an influential Church. As soon as his declaration against the Catholics was known, the Bishop of Mende, who was the Queen’s almoner, and Father Berulle pleaded the cause of their co-religionists. The Duke gave them no hope that the promises made at the time of the marriage treaty would be fulfilled; but he made light of Charles’s breach of faith. The Catholics, he said, would be moderately dealt with. Their troubles, which would only last for a time, were necessary to give satisfaction to the people. Berulle replied that, as he was about to return to France, he would acquaint his own sovereign with all that he had seen and heard. Buckingham begged him not to put a worse colour on the proceedings in England than they would bear, and repeated his plea of necessity. Only <423>in this way, he said, could be made sure of the affections of the English people. Berulle was not likely to be satisfied with such an explanation. “If you mean,” he said, “to put the laws into execution, I neither can nor will endure it, whatever sauce you may be pleased to add.” “Begone!” replied Buckingham angrily, “I know that you are only at home in your breviary and your mass.” Simple regard for principle was always unintelligible to Buckingham. He was never able to understand that a shifty accommodation to the mere needs of the present moment rouses more enemies than it conciliates. By his conduct now he was converting the Catholics into enemies, without overcoming the growing distrust of the House of Commons.[698]
On Wednesday morning the Lower House was to go into committee on Buckingham’s explanation of the King’s demands. Aug. 10.The King’s message.Before the Speaker left the chair a message from the King had been delivered by Weston, pressing for an immediate answer, which was demanded alike by the necessity of the case and by the danger to the health of the members. If the Commons would vote a supply at once, he would pledge his royal word that they should meet in the winter, and should not separate till they had considered the plans which had been suggested for the reformation of the Commonwealth. He hoped that they would remember that this was the first request which he had ever made to them.
For some time the debate wavered to and fro. There were some who had been carried away by Buckingham’s evident zeal in Feeling in the House.the cause which was their own; but there were others who disliked his assumption of almost regal dignity, and who mistrusted him too much to repose in him the confidence which he required. Even his concession of the execution of the penal laws offended some who had been displeased at the countenance before shown to the recusants. Men whose religion, if of a somewhat narrow and uncharitable nature, was a reality very dear to their hearts, had no respect for the minister who had attempted to prostitute a thing so <424>high and holy to considerations of State policy, and had made use of religion to support a tottering policy.[699]
Such men, and they were doubtless many, found an apt spokesman in Phelips. He treated the question as altogether Phelips puts the question as one of confidence.one of confidence. Reputation, he said, is a great advantage to a king, but it is not built on every action, but only on such as have a sure ground of advice preceding, and a constant application of good counsel, leaving as little as possible to chance. It was no honour to send forth the fleet, if it was exposed to so hazardous a return. It was easy to say there was necessity. It was for those who had brought the King to such a necessity to take upon themselves the burden of their own counsels. In old days there had been Parliaments which had demanded the reformation of abuses and the dismissal of favourites. “We,” he said with striking force, “are the last monarchy in Christendom that retain our original rights and constitutions. Either his Majesty is able to set out this fleet, or it is not fit to go at all. We ought neither to fear nor to contemn our enemy. If we provide to set it out, we must provide to second it too, for without a second it will do nothing but stir a powerful king to invade us.”
Everything, as Phelips clearly saw, turned on the question of confidence. Forty thousand pounds might be a little sum for them to give, but it was no light matter to embark on a war with a leader who could not be trusted. Nor was Phelips content with mere declamation. He had a practical solution of the difficulty to recommend. Though Buckingham had declared that the Council of War had authorised his proceedings, not Mansell to be examined.one of its members had come forward to confirm his statement. One of them, Sir Robert Mansell, was a member of the House. Let Mansell be asked ‘to declare his knowledge with what deliberation and counsel this design hath been managed.’ A committee might also be appointed to inform his Majesty that, though supply would not at once be granted, the House would in due time ‘supply all his honourable and well grounded actions.’[700]
<425>The King’s claim to be judge of the grounds upon which he demanded supply was thus met by the counterclaim of the House Continuance of the debate.to judge the sufficiency of those grounds before they gave the money. Mansell, in spite of the appeal made to him, held his peace, and the debate went on. The King’s cause was feebly defended by May. No one had been authorised to join issue with Phelips. Then came Seymour, still more personal in his attack than Phelips, complaining of peculation in high places, and of the sale of honourable preferments at Court.[701]
<426>The debate was kept up for some time longer. Amongst the speakers was Wentworth, who had been re-elected for Yorkshire during the vacation. He had promised to take no part in <427>any personal attack upon the Duke,[702] but he took no interest in his projects, and the slight put upon the House of which he was a member stung him to the quick. “I am not,” he said, “against giving, but against the manner.” Wentworth did not like to hear the threat that they must either give or adjourn. “The engagement of a former Parliament,” he added, “bindeth not this.” Not that he seems to have cared much whether the House had confidence in the Duke or not. So far as he was concerned, we may safely conjecture, if the subsidies were to be spent in war with Spain, it mattered little whether Buckingham or some more trusted counsellors were to have the disposal of them. The internal affairs of England were the prime object of his solicitude from the first day on which he opened his mouth in Parliament. “Let us first,” he said, “do the business of the Commonwealth, appoint a committee for petitions, and afterwards, for my part, I will consent to do as much for the King as any other.”[703]
Other speakers followed with various opinions, Coke strangely enough suggesting a benevolence as A benevolence suggested by Coke.the best way out of the difficulty. As a private man he was ready to give 1,000l., and that willingly, notwithstanding all his crosses. He hoped those of the King’s council would <428>do as much. Then at last Mansell rose. Since February, he said, Mansell says he had not approved of Buckingham’s scheme.he had not been at any debate of the Council of War. When the proposition had been made for the levy of 10,000 landsmen to go on board the fleet, he ‘thought that proposition to no purpose, being such as would gall the enemy rather than hurt him.’ He had a plan of his own which would have been far more useful. Conway had told him that the resolution would admit no debate. The advice of the Council was asked only concerning the arms for 2,000 men. He had answered that he protested against the business itself.
Upon this the committee was adjourned to the next morning. It would be hard for Buckingham to wipe away the Adjournment.impression made by Mansell’s words. By this time, too, Pennington and his sailors were back in England. The tale of the delivery of the ships by special orders from Buckingham must have been in every mouth. It was known that the French boasted that they would use them against Rochelle. The unconfirmed assertion of Buckingham that there was peace in France was entirely disbelieved.
Before the debate recommenced on Thursday morning a letter was read from William Legg, a prisoner to the Moorish The Sallee rovers.pirates at Sallee. He was one, he said, of eight hundred Englishmen captured at sea. Enormous ransoms had been demanded, and those who refused or had been unable to pay had been treated with the utmost cruelty. Some of them had been tortured by fire, some were almost starved, and one poor wretch had been compelled to eat his own ears. Witnesses, too, who had escaped from the pirates were actually in attendance. One had been captured but eight leagues from the Land’s End. It appeared that great spoil had been committed on the English coast, so that vessels scarcely ventured from port to port. If the West of England cried out against the rovers of Sallee, the East cried out against the Dunkirk privateers. Even the Huguenots of Rochelle had forgotten the respect due to English commerce. They had seized some Bristol ships for service against the King of France, and had turned the sailors adrift on shore without money or provisions.
<429>Indignation was fast coming to a head. It was known that orders given by the Council for the employment of some of the King’s ships Anger of the House.against the pirates had been countermanded by the Navy Commissioners. It was replied that the Duke had given directions to Sir Francis Steward, one of the commanders of the fleet, to clear the seas of pirates. The answer was that Sir Francis Steward had looked calmly on whilst a capture was being made near the French coast, on the plea that he had no orders to act in foreign waters. At last Seymour spoke out what was in the mind of all. “Let us lay the fault where it is,” he said. “The Duke of Buckingham is trusted, and Buckingham named.it must needs be either in him or his agents.” “It is not fit,” cried Phelips, “to repose the safety of the kingdom upon those that have not parts answerable to their places.” A committee was appointed to frame a petition embodying these complaints.
For the first time the Duke had been attacked by name. It was a fitting answer to his assumption of almost regal dignity in Christchurch Hall. The man who had assumed to direct all things must bear the responsibility of all things.
When the House at last went into committee, Sir Henry Marten[704] made one more effort to obtain a grant of supply. Marten urges supply.He, at least, was not likely to make much impression on the House. Rightly or wrongly, it was believed that he was trying to wipe off the offence given by his reference to Buckingham as a young ambassador. He produced so little effect that Seymour, in repeating his advice not to give, did not care to put forward any fresh reasons. After a few more words on both sides. Sir Robert Killigrew advised that the question should not be put. It would be a greater disgrace to the King to be in a minority than to have the whole House against him.[705]
That afternoon[706] the Council met to consider whether the <430>House should be allowed to sit any longer. Once more Williams Dissolution resolved on.pleaded hard against the fatal error of opening a new reign with a quarrel with the House of Commons. For once Buckingham was on the same side. Throwing himself on his knees he entreated the King to allow the Parliament to continue; but Charles was immovable, and the dissolution was irrevocably determined on.
Buckingham’s petition was naturally described by his opponents as a mere piece of acting.[707] It may have been so, but it was not in his nature to shrink from opposition. His temper always led him to meet his detractors face to face, certain of the justice of his own cause and of his own ability to defend it. In truth it was Charles’s authority as much as Buckingham’s which was at stake. The course which the Commons were taking led surely, if indirectly, to the responsibility of ministers to Parliament, and the responsibility of ministers to Parliament meant just as surely the transference of sovereignty from the Crown to the Parliament.
The next morning, before the fatal hour arrived, an attempt was made by Heath to answer Mansell. The Council of War, he said, Heath replies to Mansell.had often been consulted. Chichester, who was dead, had left papers to show how far he agreed with the plans proposed. Carew was absent from Oxford; Harvey had only recently joined the Council; but Lords Grandison and Brooke, the Sir Oliver St. John and Sir Fulk Greville of earlier days, would come, if they were invited, to tell the House what they knew. As for Mansell, he had a scheme of his own to which no one else would listen, and had consequently refused to attend the Council.
Though this account of what had taken place was very likely true, Heath had not met Mansell’s assertion that he had been told that Mansell’s answer.he was not to speak on the scheme itself, but only on its exccution. Mansell, who rose in self-defence, did not deny that there had been personal ill-will between himself and Buckingham, but he said that when he laid his own proposal before the Council, he was told that <431>he must go to Buckingham, ‘who only had permission from the King to consider of new propositions.’ To this, which was only what the Commons suspected, no reply was vouchsafed; the testimony of Brooke and Grandison was neither demanded on one side nor pressed on the other.[708]
By this time it was known in the House that they had but a few minutes more to sit. The Black Rod was already at the door Proposed petition for delay.to summon them to dissolution. Some wished to petition for delay. But what good would delay do them unless they were prepared to abandon their ground? “Rumours,” said Phelips, “are no warrant for such a message. Let them go on with business. When they had notice of the King’s pleasure, it was their duty to obey it.”
The House went at once into committee, and adopted a protestation prepared by Glanville, who had taken a prominent part The protestation.in the debates of the past days. In the following fashion the Commons approached the King:—
“We, the knights, citizens, and burgesses of the Commons’ House of Parliament, being the representative body of the whole commons of this realm, abundantly comforted in his Majesty’s late gracious answer touching religion, and his message for the care of our healths, do solemnly protest and vow before God and the world with one heart and voice, that we will ever continue most loyal and obedient subjects to our most gracious sovereign King Charles, and that we will be ready in convenient time and in a parliamentary way freely and dutifully to do our utmost endeavour to discover and reform the abuses and grievances of the realm and State, and in the like sort to afford all necessary supply to his Majesty upon his present and all other his just occasions and designs; most humbly beseeching our ever dear and dread sovereign, in his princely wisdom and goodness, to rest assured of the true and hearty affections of his poor Commons, and to esteem the same — as we conceive it indeed — the greatest worldly reputation and security a just king can have, and to account all such as slanderers of the people’s affections and enemies of the Commonweath that shall dare to say the contrary.”
<432>One last effort was made by Sir Edward Villiers to induce the House to reconsider its determination. “We are under the rod,” The last scene.answered Wentworth, “and we cannot with credit or safety yield. Since we sat here, the subjects have lost a subsidy at sea.”[709]
The protestation was hurried through the necessary forms. Whilst Black Rod was knocking at the door, some one moved that there should be a declaration ‘for the acquitting of those who were likely to be questioned for that which they had spoken.’ If anyone was likely to be questioned it was Phelips. But Phelips would hear nothing of it. “There hath been little effect of such declarations,” he said. “The last Parliament but one[710] some went to the Tower, some were banished to Ireland, notwithstanding just acquittals. For my part, if I am questioned, I desire no other certificate but the testimony of my conscience, in confidence whereof I will appeal from King Charles misinformed to King Charles rightly informed.”
At last the doors were opened. The Commons were summoned Dissolution.to the Upper House, and in a few minutes the first Parliament of Charles I. had ceased to exist.
Such was the end of this memorable Parliament — a Parliament which opened the floodgates of that long contention with the Crown which was never, except for one brief moment, to be closed again till the Revolution of 1688 came to change the conditions of government in England. As far as the history of such an assembly can be summed up in the name of any single man, the history of the Parliament of 1625 is summed up in the name of Phelips. At the opening of the session his hasty advocacy of an immediate adjournment met with little response. Leadership of Phelips.The House, however, under the pressure of events came gradually round to his side, and at Oxford he virtually assumed that unacknowledged leadership which was all that the traditions of Parliament at that time permitted. It was Phelips who placed the true issue of want of confidence before <433>the House, and who, by the question which he addressed to Mansell, pointed out the means of testing the value of Buckingham’s assertions.
It is not necessary to defend all that was said, still less all that was thought, in the House about Buckingham. No one who has Justification of his want of confidence in Buckingham.studied the facts of the history in a candid spirit can deny that the speeches of the popular members were full of unfounded suspicions and unreasonable demands. But, for all that, it is impossible to assert that Buckingham could show any sufficient ground for reposing confidence in him. The account which he gave of his proceedings was singularly confused. By his own confession he had entered into engagements which he was unable to meet, and which he did not venture to ask the Commons to assist him in meeting. Besides this, the terrible failure of Mansfeld’s expedition, costing thousands of innocent lives, could not be explained away. Nor is Buckingham’s a case in which further publicity than he was able to appeal to would present his ability in a better light. For some time he had been occupied in undoing the results of his own mistakes. The engagement about the Catholics and the loan of the ships to the King of France had been mainly his work. The manner in which he had extricated himself from those entanglements was not known to the House of Commons; but it is known to us; and we may be sure that if the Commons had known what we know they would have been even more indignant than they were. As it was, the general opinion of moderate Englishmen was probably well expressed by a foreign diplomatist who took Rusdorf’s opinion.but little interest in the Parliamentary conflict. Since he had come to England, he said, he had learned the truth of two paradoxes. Under James, he found that it was better to take a bad resolution than none at all; under Charles, that it was better to give effect to a bad resolution with prudence and ability, than to give effect to a good resolution without forethought and consideration.[711]
The attitude which Charles would take towards this declared <434>want of confidence in his minister would evidently depend upon Attitude of the King.the amount of confidence which he himself continued to feel in him. Unfortunately there was no chance that his reliance on Buckingham would be shaken. His own mind had nothing originative about it. When once the brilliant schemes of Buckingham had dazzled his understanding, he adopted them as his own, and from that moment all chance of inducing him to abandon them was at an end. He had no power of stepping out of himself to see how his actions looked to other people, especially when, as was certain to be the case, the real objections to his policy were mixed up with offensive imputations which he knew to be unfounded in fact.
The difference of opinion between the King and the House of Commons was thus reduced to a contest for power. The two Conflict between Crown and Parliament.great elements of the constitution which had worked harmoniously together were brought at last into open conflict. The right of inquiry before subsidies were voted would, if once it were admitted, place the destinies of England in the hands of the House from which subsidies proceeded. Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that either party in the quarrel was grasping at power for its own sake. Charles believed that he was defending a wise and energetic minister against factious opposition. The Commons believed that they were hindering a rash and self-seeking favourite from doing more injury than he had done already. If neither was completely in the right, the view taken by the Commons was far nearer to the truth than the view taken by Charles.
So far as the difference between the King and the House went beyond the mere question of confidence, the Commons stood upon a purely conservative ground. We look in vain amongst their leaders for any sign of openness to the reception Conservatism of the House.of new ideas, or for any notion that the generation in which they lived was not to be as the generation which had preceded it. Their conception of the war was more suited to 1588 than to 1625, and the mazes of European politics formed for them a labyrinth without a thread. In all they had to say about the affairs of the Continent it is <435>hard to find a single word which betrays any real knowledge of the wants and difficulties of the Protestants of Germany. In home politics, too, their eyes were equally directed to the past. The form of religion which had grown up under the influence of the Elizabethan struggle with Spain was to be stereotyped. Differences of opinion were to be prohibited, and the Calvinistic creed was to be imposed for ever upon the English nation.
If the temper of the Commons was thus purely conservative, their conservatism was to some extent justified by the nature of the alternative offered to them. Charles’s foreign policy was as ignorant as that of the Commons, and far more hazardous. His ecclesiastical policy had hardly yet had time to develop itself; but signs were not wanting that it would be even more dangerous than that which was secure of the popular favour. If the Commons were ready to proscribe the religious opinions of the few, the men whom the King honoured with his preference were ready to proscribe the religious practices of the many.
End of the fifth volume.
[674] Statement made by Williams to the King, Aug. 14, Hacket, ii. 18.
[675] Mr. Forster makes Marten draw the contrast himself. “In former times (Sir J. Eliot, i. 199), when old ambassadors of wisdom and experience were employed, our treaties had not been unsuccessful,” &c. The Negotium, however, makes Marten say that they had been unsuccessful. “He showed that in former times, when old ambassadors were employed, where wisdom and experience might give a promise for their works, success did prove it not the propriety of their nation,” &c.
Success, as I understand it, here means ‘the result,’ not ‘success’ in the modern acceptation of the word. ‘Propriety’ is ‘proprietas,’ i.e. ‘property.’
I may add that Eliot’s description of Carlisle which follows, as ‘so ceremonious and affected that his judgment and reality were in doubt,’ is unfair to Carlisle. But then Eliot had not read Carlisle’s despatches.
[676] Fawsley Debates, 69.
[677] Buckeridge, Howson, and Laud to Buckingham, Aug. 2, Laud’s Works, vi. 244.
[678] Conway to Ley, July 24, S. P. Dom., Addenda.
[679] Conway’s speech seems to be very fully given in the Fawsley Debates, <405>73. I gather from it that there is no ground for saying that the King only asked for 40,000l. Conway seems simply to have spoken of that sum as that which was immediately needed for the fleet.
[680] Instructions for a message, S. P. Dom. v. 14.
[681] The Prince’s answer is unknown, as it was given by word of mouth (Morton to Conway, July 13, S. P. Holland), but it may be gathered from that officially made by the States-General. Morton and Carleton to Conway, July 4, S. P. Holland.
[682] Eliot, as is well known, believed that Buckingham wanted to be denied. I am quite unable to take this view of the case after a full consideration of Buckingham’s whole proceedings, of which an historian is now able to know much of which Eliot knew nothing. It is likely enough, as I have before said, that he expected to be denied, and that he intended to make use of the impression caused by his being in the right and the Commons in the wrong, when success came. Nor can I see that he only asked for 40,000l. at first. I fancy he simply wanted that at least, and would take as much more as he could get — a frame of mind the very opposite to that of Gustavus, who at once refused to engage in war except on his own terms.
[683] Eliot makes Phelips say that they had been ‘desired and promised.’ Phelips was an impetuous orator, and may have said this. But as it is not true that Charles promised to marry a Protestant lady, I have followed the Fawsley Debates, 81, giving Phelips the benefit of the doubt.
It was, indeed, not strictly true that the House had asked for a Protestant marriage. But the desire of the members can hardly have been a matter of doubt, and may have been taken oratorically as equivalent to an actual demand.
[684] Fawsley Debates, 88, 135.
[685] This speech is substantially the same in the Journals and in the Fawsley Debates; but see especially the report in the Appendix to the latter, 136.
[686] “And everyone may contribute his reasons, which may do much good,” probably means this. Fawsley Debates, 139.
[687] This at least seems to me to be the obvious interpretation of Strode’s question. Mr. Forster, if I understand him rightly (Sir J. Eliot, i. 226), regarded it as an argument against the grant of supply.
[688] I would refer those who doubt my view of this debate to what I have said in the Preface to the Fawsley Debates, p. xiii.
[689] This speech, which gave rise to Clarke’s unlucky words, is mentioned in a letter from the Bishop of Mende, King’s MSS. 137, fol. 84.
[690] Fawsley Debates, 140. Rich is mentioned by Williams in a paper given in to the King on Aug. 14, as one of those who were ‘never out my Lord Duke’s chamber and bosom.’ Hacket, ii. 18. There may have been some exaggeration, but unless there had been friendship, Williams would not have said this to the King.
[691] i.e. from the plague.
[692] Eliot, Neg. Posterorum.
[693] All these considerations arise out of the facts as we know them, and as Buckingham knew them. Eliot’s picture of Buckingham is drawn not merely in ignorance of them, but in the belief that things were true which we know to have been untrue.
[694] The Bishop of Mende to Richelieu, received Aug. 19⁄29, King’s MSS. 137, fol. 84. The meeting of the Council is here by mistake dated Aug. 9, if this is more than a copyist’s error. But the 7th is meant, as it is said to have taken place the day before Buckingham’s speech at Christchurch.
[695] 8,500l., according to the Lord Treasurer.
[696] i.e. to the King’s allies.
[697] Lords’ Journals, iii. 479; Fawsley Debates, 95.
[698] Description of the state of the Catholics. Roman Transcripts. R.O.
[699] This seems to have been Eliot’s view.
[700] Fawsley Debates, 109; Commons’ Journals, i. 814
[701] With respect to the alleged speech of Eliot I had better repeat what I have said in the preface to the Fawsley Debates:—
“In the first place I shall have to ask my readers to abandon the notion that the great speech prepared by Eliot in conjunction with Cotton for the debate of the 10th of August, was ever really spoken. Mr. Forster was, indeed, perfectly justified in inserting the speech, for not only does it bear throughout the impress of Eliot’s mind, but Eliot has inserted it both in the Negotium and in his own collection of speeches, and though he does not use his name, he says after reporting May’s speech:—
But the esteem of precedents did remain with those that knew the true value of antiquity, whereof a larger collection was in store to direct the resolution in that case, which thus contained both reason and authority.
“Then after giving the speech in the Eliot, not in the Cotton form, he goes on:—
This inflamed the affection of the House, and pitched it wholly on the imitation of their fathers; the clear demonstrations that were made of the likeness of the times gave them like reasons who had like interests and freedom. But the courtiers did not relish it, who at once forsook both their reason and their eloquence; all their hopes consisting but in prayers and some light excuses that were framed, but no more justification was once heard of, in which soft way the Chancellor of the Exchequer did discourse, &c.
“This certainly is strong evidence, and in the face of it Mr. Forster was quite justified in treating with disdain the fact that nothing of this speech is to be found in the Journals. But the Journals do not now stand alone. We have three reports completely independent of one another, but all agreeing in omitting Eliot’s speech, and in substituting one spoken by Sir Francis Seymour. If this were all, those who think Eliot’s statement enough to counterbalance those of three independent witnesses might still hold that it had not been rebutted. But there is another argument far stronger. Sir Richard Weston, according to all four authorities, followed. He does not even allude to one of the arguments which are supposed to <426>have been pouring out from Eliot. He utters no word of remonstrance against his tremendous personal attack upon Buckingham; but he applies himself very closely to Seymour’s argument, and carefully answers it. I cannot believe that anyone who will take the trouble of reading Weston’s speech, at p. 112, can doubt that Seymour really spoke before him. And if so, where is there any room for Eliot’s speech, which is substituted for his in the Negotium?
“The two forms of the speech which have come down to us are, as Mr. Forster has pointed out, substantially the same, but the one is the speech of an orator, the other of an antiquary. Mr. Forster argues, that in the case of Cotton’s speech, ‘some one finding at the same time,’ i.e. after 1651, when the speech was published by Howell in his Cottoni Posthuma, ‘a manuscript copy of the speech purporting to have been spoken by Eliot, was misled by Howell into a marginal indorsement of it as “not spoken but intended by Sir John Eliot,” and the preservation of the copy in the Lansdowne MSS., so endorsed, adds to the confusion.’
“The argument is probably based upon the fact that, at the head of the speech (Lansd. MSS. 491, fol. 138) is written in a different hand from the rest of the paper, ‘Sir John Eliot’s: this speech was not spoken but intended.’ But any argument drawn from the difference of hand-writing falls to the ground when it is observed that this is merely a copy of a heading which was originally at the top of the page, and the greater part of which has been cut off in the process of binding; enough, however, remains to show that the heading was originally in the same writing as the body of the document. My own belief is that it was a copy taken from Cotton’s notes at the very time by some one who knew that Eliot intended to use them but did not. For, in after years, who was likely to call to mind the mere intention to deliver a speech, especially as it was known amongst Cotton’s friends as his production? In a letter written by Sir S. D’Ewes, on the 4th of February, 1626 (Ellis, ser. 1. iii. 214), the writer, speaking of the omission of the King to land on his way to his coronation at Sir R. Cotton’s stairs, says:— ‘I conceived the Duke had prevented that act of grace to be done him, by reason of that piece I shewed you, which began, “Soe long as thou attendedst our master, now with God,” framed by him. You may remember how I told you that I doubted him the author, by reason of the style and gravity of it.’
“Curiously enough, the first words here given are not the first words of Cotton’s work as it stands in the Cottoni Posthuma and the Lansdowne MSS. The paper which D’Ewes saw must have omitted the introduction relating to Clerke’s censure by the House. On the other hand it was <427>Cotton’s, not Eliot’s work which he saw. For Eliot began with a verbal difference: ‘While thou remainedst in the service of King James.’
“The most probable explanation is that the speech is by Cotton; that Cotton shrank from making use of it, and that Eliot, catching it up, breathed into it the fire of his own magnificent imagination, and with his pen converted the result of the antiquary’s laborious investigation into words inspired with life.
“It is easy to find reasons why, after all, Eliot should have preferred silence. In the first burst of his indignation at finding Buckingham had broken away from his compact, nothing would seem too hard to say. But when it came to the point, we should only be inclined to think more highly of Eliot if he shrank back and refused to strike the first blow.”
Since these words were written I have an additional witness to call, and that is no other than Eliot himself. In the notes in his own hand-writing which, through Lord St. Germans’ kindness, I have before me, Seymour’s speech is given, and not a word is said of any speech of Eliot’s own.
[702] Wentworth to Weston, Strafford Letters, i. 34.
[703] Fawsley Debates, 113; Eliot Notes.
[704] He, and not Sir J. Coke, is the ‘old artist’ of the Negotium, as appears from what Eliot says, ‘Some did imagine that an act of expiation for the former trespass he had done.’
[705] Fawsley Debates, 120.
[706] Bishop of Mende to Richelieu, received Aug. 19⁄29, King’s MSS. 137, 99. Nethersole to Carleton, Aug. 14, Fawsley Debates, 162.
[707] Eliot’s Negotium.
[708] Fawsley Debates, 122.
[709] The exposure of English commerce to pirates was always a reproach to which Wentworth was extremely sensitive.
[710] The words “but one” are wanting in the report. Fawsley Debates, 127.
[711] Rusdorf to Camerarius, Sept. 6⁄16, Consilia et Negotia, 69.