<201>On November 11 Buckingham landed at Plymouth. Although he was met by information that a plot had been formed to murder him Nov. 11.Buckingham’s return.on his way to London, he refused to take any precautions. To his young nephew, Denbigh’s son, Lord Fielding, who offered to change clothes with him in order to shield him from danger, he replied that if his enemies believed him to be afraid of danger, he should never be safe.[379]
The meeting between Buckingham and the King was extremely cordial. Charles threw the whole blame of failure upon the delay in sending supplies. Though Buckingham was well aware of the temper of his officers towards him, he had nothing but commendation to bestow upon them.[380] If he sometimes used hard language, it was directed against the officials at home, and he was even heard to charge the faithful Sir John Coke with stabbing him in the back in his absence.[381] His anger, however, soon cooled down, and the lesson of his failure was quickly forgotten in the excitement of preparation for fresh enterprises. Already he was talking of an attack upon Calais.[382] Whatever the plan finally resolved on might be, he was contemplating nothing but the active resumption of hostilities.
<202>Very different was the conclusion drawn outside the charmed circle of the Court. All through the summer news had been eagerly looked for, and Feeling in England.rumours, true or false, had spread from mouth to mouth. In spite of the general unpopularity of the Government, sympathy with the Protestants of Rochelle was not dead, and the hopes of success which had been raised from time to time caused the final blow, ‘the greatest and shamefullest overthrow,’ as one letter-writer described it, ‘since the loss of Normandy,’ to fall all the more heavily. At first it was rumoured that not a single man or gun had been brought away.[383]
Although the exaggeration of the tale was soon discovered, every tongue was loosed in criticism, and the object of every criticism was the Duke. The sins of every officer and soldier fell, as was perhaps inevitable, upon the head of the contriver of the ill-starred expedition. “The disorder and confusion,” wrote Denzil Holles to his brother-in-law Wentworth, “was so great, the truth is no man can tell what was done. This only every man knows, that since England was England it received not so dishonourable a blow. Four colonels lost, thirty-two colours in the enemy’s possession, but more lost,— God knows how many men slain,— they say not above two thousand on our side, and I think not one of the enemy’s.”[384]
After this disaster, the resistance to the loan could no longer be treated from a purely legal point of view. The reply given in the summer Effect of this feeling in stimulating resistance to the loan.by George Catesby when his contribution was demanded, “I will be master of my own purse,”[385] would have had a somewhat sordid appearance if Charles had in reality required his money on behalf of an undoubted necessity of State. It was now impossible for the King to place himself before the world as the defender of his country’s honour in the face of a factious Opposition. A disaster worse than that of Cecil in 1625, a failure worse than that of Willoughby in 1626, had crowned the efforts of an ill-advised and reckless administration. Whoever favoured <203>Buckingham and his designs stood forth, in the eyes of all but a select circle of his admirers, as the worst enemy of his country.
As if to make Charles’s difficulties yet greater, he had allowed the political strife between himself and his people to be February.Ecclesiastical difficulties.still further embittered by involving it with the ecclesiastical problem which was already hard enough to solve. As soon as the demand for the loan had been made, each theological party drew instinctively to the side of its natural supporter. The Puritan, sharing as he did in the general sentiment of the House of Commons, and asking for nothing but the exclusive maintenance of a popular form of doctrine, trusted for support to the conservative feelings of the nation. The new school of Churchmen, thirsting for change after the standard of an earlier age, looked to the Royal power as the lever with which they hoped to effect their purposes.
It is in the nature of things that the political theories and preferences of ecclesiastics should vary with the circumstances in which they find themselves, and it is easy to conceive a state of things in which Puritans would appeal to a Government for support, and their opponents would throw themselves upon popular sympathies. Yet it is difficult to imagine Churchmen of the stamp of Laud and Montague placing any confidence in the general good-will of the people. They were too scholar-like and refined, too much inclined to throw doubt on the sweeping assertions which pass current with the multitude, and at the same time too little conversant with the world, to know how to bring their influence to bear upon those who distrusted or disliked them. As their idea of Church government was the idea of a system controlled by a minority of learned men without any consideration for the feelings and prejudices either of their learned antagonists or of the ignorant multitude, they looked with fondness upon the Royal authority which was alone able to give them the strength which they lacked. “Defend thou me Nature of the Royalism of the Laudian party.with the sword and I will defend thee with the pen,” the sentence with which Montague concluded his Appello Cæsarem, expressed the common sentiment of the whole party. The predominance of Charles in the State meant the <204>predominance of their own way of thinking, and the carrying out of their own principles into action. They did not see how insufficient these principles were for purposes of government. They did not see that, even if their ideas had been all that they fancied them to be, they were pinning their faith to the mere personal prepossessions of the reigning Sovereign. If Charles was their supporter and protector, who could say that his successor might not support and protect their opponents?
The future might take care of itself. For the present, to magnify the King’s authority was the one way of safety. The King the centre of their system.The Laudian party of Charles’s reign was the least ecclesiastical of all ecclesiastical parties. The great Popes and Churchmen of the Middle Ages would have branded them as recreants to the cause of spiritual supremacy. It mattered little to them. In the King’s authority they saw their only refuge against the tyrannical domination of the multitude, the only fulcrum by the aid of which they could hope to move the world and to settle the English Church in that secure and orderly form which was the object of their aspirations.
Laud, preaching before the King when he opened his first Parliament, chose for his text, “When I shall receive the congregation, 1625.June 19.Laud’s sermon.I will judge according unto right. The earth is dissolved, and all the inhabitants thereof; I bear up the pillars of it.” The king, he declared, “is God’s immediate lieutenant upon earth; and therefore one and the same action is God’s by ordinance, and the king’s by execution. And the power which resides in the king is not any assuming to himself, nor any gift from the people, but God’s power, as well in as over him.” If the earth was not to dissolve, ‘the king must trust and endear his people; the people must honour, obey, and support their king; both king and peers and people must religiously serve and honour God.’ The king, however, could not take the whole of the burden of government upon himself. “There must be inferior judges and magistrates deputed by the king for this: men of courage, fearing God and hating covetousness. All judges, even this great congregation, this great council, now ready to sit, receive <205>influence and power from the king, and are dispensers of his justice as well as their own, both in the laws they make and in the laws they execute; in the causes which they hear, and in the sentences which they give: the king God’s high steward, and they stewards under him.”[386]
Even the Parliament then was but an instrument in the King’s hands, for ‘counsel not for control,’ as Charles afterwards said. Nature of his theory of government.Laud’s view of the constitution was no new theory evolved out of the recesses of his own mind. It was in the main the doctrine of the Tudor sovereigns, the doctrine under which England had won its national independence from Rome. The authority of the State, according to this view, did not lie in the multitude, necessarily ignorant and driven hither and thither by passion and prejudice. It lay with him whom God had placed at the helm, and who knew better what was good for the people than they could possibly know for themselves. This authority was his not that he might gratify his own will, but that he might do judgment and justice. As long as he did this he would be an instrument in God’s hands for bearing up the pillars of the world.
Many months had not passed since the delivery of this sermon before everywhere men were beginning to look about for 1626.Influence of current events on him.some other theory to live by. Whatever they might think about the King, they had no longer any belief that his ministers wished to do judgment and justice. It was not in the nature of things that these views should be shared by Laud and his friends. To them the House of Commons, which attacked Montague and impeached Buckingham, had ceased to do judgment and justice, and they clung all the more closely to the only power in England which they believed to be willing to do them right.
In this temper they were found by the forced loan. Looking with admiration upon the King’s ecclesiastical policy, they cared little about 1627.his foreign policy, and were willing to take it upon trust. The victory of Parliament would be a terrible blow to them, and they threw themselves eagerly upon <206>Charles’s side. One of them, Dr. Robert Sibthorpe, preaching before the Judges Feb. 22.Sibthorpe’s sermon.at the Lent Assizes at Northampton, set forth the royal pretensions with irritating plainness of speech. It was the duty of the prince, he said, to ‘direct and make laws.’ Subjects were bound to pay active obedience to the king, except when his commands were either impossible, or contrary to the laws of God or nature. But even then they were not to resist him.[387]
Sibthorpe’s sermon was by no means remarkable for ability, but it might be useful as a manifesto in behalf of the loan, and Archbishop Abbot was ordered by the King to license it for the press. The sanction of the highest authority in the Church was thus demanded for the loan, just as the sanction of the highest authority in the law had been demanded a few weeks before. Abbot refuses to license it.Abbot, however, proved as impracticable as Crew. He had no objection to make against the ceremonies of the Church, but his austere and ungenial mind was thoroughly wedded to the Calvinistic system of doctrine, and in consequence thoroughly opposed to Laud and his ways. Something, too, of personal bitterness doubtless mingled with nobler motives. Laud had supplanted him with Charles, as Williams had supplanted him with James. Since Buckingham’s predominance had been undisputed, he had ceased to attend the Privy Council, where his word was held to be of little worth. He now fancied that the message which he had received was a trick of Buckingham’s to bring him into still further discredit with the King, if he refused to do that which his conscience forbade him to do.
Once before in his life Abbot had bearded a king, when he refused to marry Somerset to the divorced Countess of Essex. July 4.Abbot sent into confinement.He now again refused to conform to the royal orders. The consequences which he predicted were not long in coming upon him. Independence could not be suffered in the Church any more than on the Bench. <207>On July 4 Abbot was ordered to betake himself to Ford, a mansion in Kent belonging to the see of Canterbury, and there to remain in confinement. On October 9 Oct. 9.Abbot’s jurisdiction sequestered.a further indignity was placed upon him. The archbishopric could not be taken away, but he could be deprived of his jurisdiction, on the plea that he was unable to attend to his duties in person. The control of the Church courts was placed in the hands of a commission of which Laud was the leading spirit. Care would now be taken to keep in check those who, contrary to the King’s proclamation, ventured to write books against Arminianism.[388]
Laud rose higher in the King’s favour as Abbot fell. Hopes had been given to him of succeeding eventually to the Archbishopric of Canterbury, Laud strong in the King’s favour.and now, on June 17, just as Buckingham was sent to Rhé, Charles promised him the Bishopric of London as soon as a vacancy occurred.[389] As Buckingham imposed upon Charles by the romantic side of his nature, filling his mind with the promise of those great achievements upon which he loved to dwell, Laud imposed upon him by his love of external authority and his contempt for the popular will. Two such counsellors were enough to ruin any prince.
By this time a licenser had been found for Sibthorpe’s sermon in the least reputable of the prelates then living. Montaigne, May 8.Sibthorpe’s sermon licensed by Bishop Montaigne.Bishop of London, has been severely dealt with by both of the Church parties. “Which,” wrote Milton ironically of the condition of a primitive bishop, “what a plural endowment to the many-benefice-gaping mouth of a prelate, what a relish it would give to his canary-sucking and swan-eating palate, let old <208>Bishop Montaigne judge for me.”[390] Even Laud’s admiring biographer, Heylyn, spoke of him as ‘a man inactive and addicted to voluptuousness, and one that loved his ease too well to disturb himself in the concernments of the Church.”[391] The year before he had made himself notorious by the vigour with which he threw himself into the support of Buckingham’s candidature at Cambridge, and he had recently, in sending a present to the Duke, assured him that he could not live if the present were refused. For, he said, when God returns back a man’s sacrifice, it is because he is offended with him.[392]
Sibthorpe’s sermon had, indeed, done much to exasperate the popular feeling; but there were others who were prepared to go July.Manwaring’s sermons.to greater lengths than he. In two sermons preached before the King in July, Dr. Roger Manwaring asserted in the strongest possible terms the duty of obeying the King as the ordinance of God, on pain of eternal damnation. The King represented the rule of justice as opposed to that of mere numbers. He then applied the argument to the refusers of the loan. “First,” he said, after a reference to those who appealed to Parliamentary right, “if they would please to consider that though such assemblies as are the highest and greatest assemblies of a kingdom, be most sacred and honourable, and necessary also to those ends to which they were at first instituted; yet know we must, that ordained they were not to this end, to contribute any right to kings, whereby to challenge tributary aids and subsidiary helps; but for the more equal imposing and more easy exacting of that which unto kings doth appertain by natural and original law and justice, as their proper inheritance annexed to their imperial crowns from their birth. And therefore if by a magistrate that is supreme, if upon necessity extreme and urgent, such subsidiary helps be required, a proportion being held respectively to the ability of the persons charged, and the sum and quantity so required surmount not too remarkably the use and charge for which it was levied, very hard would it be for any man in the world <209>that should not accordingly satisfy such demands, to defend his conscience from that heavy prejudice of resisting the ordinance of God, and receiving to himself damnation; though every of those circumstances be not observed, which by the municipal law is required.
“Secondly, if they would consider the importunities that often may be urgent, and pressing necessities of State that cannot stay without certain and apparent danger for the motion and revolution of so great and vast a body as such assemblies are, nor yet abide their long and pausing deliberation when they are assembled, nor stand upon the answering of those jealous and over-wary cautions and objections made by some who, wedded overmuch to the love of epidemical and popular errors, and bent to cross the most just and lawful designs of their wise and gracious sovereign, and that under plausible shows of singular liberty and freedom, which, if their conscience might speak, would appear nothing more than the satisfying either of private humours, passions, or purposes.”[393]
Such was the argument which Charles wished to see printed for the instruction of his subjects. Even Laud remonstrated. There were things in the sermon, he said, ‘which would be very distasteful to the people.’ Charles was, however, resolute. Montaigne was ordered to license the book, and Montaigne once more did as he was bid.[394]
Posterity has wisely decided against the principles advocated by Manwaring. Whatever the evils were which he attacked, the remedy which he proposed was undoubtedly worse than the disease. Yet it would be unfair to deny that the germ of much that was evil existed in the pretensions of the House of Commons. In defending the rights of the individual against arbitrary taxation, words were sometimes spoken which might be used to countenance that undue reverence for property and vested rights which was the bane of <210>a later period, and to discountenance that higher ideal according to which each man is called to justify his claims upon society by arguments founded upon the welfare of the society in which he lives. Nor is it possible to deny that the growing ascendency of the House of Commons, desirable as it was, had yet its ugly side; that it might come to represent the interests rather than the wisdom of the nation, and that, unless the national mind were aroused to reverence for justice, it might be as arbitrary as Charles had ever been, and as little inclined to deal justly with those who were from any cause regarded with detestation or contempt by any considerable majority of its members.
It may reasonably be allowed that Parliaments no more approach ideal perfection than kings are likely to approach it. It was Manwaring’s mistake that he exaggerated that which was worst in the House of Commons, and that he exaggerated still more that which was best in Charles. What he saw in the Royal authority was that which enthusiastic dreamers always imagine that they see in the government of their preference. Royalty was to him what the Republic has been to many a republican. What he sighed for was a ruler who would look beyond the wants of the moment, beyond the petty exigencies of partisan and private objects, to that ideal justice to which the influence of wealth would be no seduction and the clamour of ignorance no hindrance. The authority of kings, he asserts, rising almost into poetic fervour as he utters the words, is derived directly from God. It has no dependence even upon angels. Nothing in the world, nothing in the hierarchy of the Church can restrain them. “No parts within their dominions, no persons under their jurisdictions, be they never so great, can be privileged from their power, nor be exempted from their care be they never so mean. To this power the highest and greatest peer must stoop, and cast down his coronet at the footstool of his sovereign. The poorest creature which lieth by the wall or goes by the highway-side, is not without sundry and sensible tokens of that sweet and royal care and providence which extendeth itself to the lowest of his subjects. The way they pass by is the king’s highway. The laws which make <211>provision for their relief take their binding force from the supreme will of their liege lord. The bread that feeds their hungry souls, the poor rags which hide their nakedness, all are the fruit and superfluity of that happy plenty and abundance caused by a wise and peaceable government.”
The time would come when a triumphant Parliament would be forced to hear from the lips of Cromwell that a great country Objections to the theory.cannot be ruled by mere law and custom, whilst those who are entrusted with its guidance are fattening upon the abuses which they have neither the will nor the understanding to remove. In 1627 the immediate danger did not lie here. Whatever Laud or Manwaring might think, Charles’s government was in no sense of the word a national government, able to appeal to the higher needs of the people, and to take its stand above disputing factions. How such a government would rise upon the basis of the Parliamentary institutions of the seventeenth century was the secret of the future. The claim of Parliament to predominance had yet to be rendered otherwise than intolerable by the admission of the air of liberty and publicity within its walls to an extent which the foremost men of Charles’s reign found it impossible to conceive. Yet even as it was, with all its faults, the hope of England was in the House of Commons and not in Charles. The Commons, it is true, had failed in apprehending the full meaning of religious liberty; they had made mistakes in their mode of dealing with this or that action of the Crown; but the great principle that, when new circumstances call for new modes of action, the course to be pursued must be resolved upon in concurrence with those men whom the nation chooses or allows to represent it, was the principle upon which the greatness of England had rested in past ages, and the vindication of which was the business upon which the Parliaments of Charles’s day employed themselves for the benefit of posterity.
It was fitting that the first answer — if not to Manwaring’s sermons, at least to the spirit by which those sermons were prompted — should proceed from Eliot, the man to whom the House of Commons was the representative of as high a wisdom as the King was to Manwaring, and to whom the old laws of <212>England were not records of the dead past, telling a mingled tale of wisdom and folly, but words fraught with stern resolve and prophetic hope, in which a mighty nation had recorded for all future time the conditions on which alone it would deign to live, and from which no subsequent generation, on pain of degradation, might dare to depart.
From his prison in the Gatehouse Eliot’s petition was sent to the King,[395] humble in outward form, unbending in its firm reliance on Eliot’s petition from the Gatehouse.the strength of the position it assumed. “The rule of justice,” he declared, “he takes to be the law; the impartial arbiter of government and obedience; the support and strength of majesty; the observation of that justice by which subjection is commanded; whereto religion, adding to these a power not to be resisted, binds up the conscience in an obligation to that rule, which, without open prejudice and violation to those duties, may not be impeached.”
Then came a string of quotations from statutes of the first and third Edward directed against taxation without the consent of Parliament, Precedents affecting the loan.followed by the one clause which bore directly upon the question of the loan. In the reign of Edward III., on the petition of the Commons, it had been ‘established that the loans which are granted to the King by divers persons be released, and that none from henceforth be compelled to make such loans against their wills, because it is against reason and the franchises of the land; and that restitution be made to such as made such loans.’
Looked at narrowly, it may perhaps be doubted how far these words will bear the interpretation placed upon them. The case in the time of Edward III. appears to have been that the Royal officers first compelled certain merchants to advance beforehand customs which were not due for some months to come, and subsequently refused repayment of the money thus <213>obtained.[396] An advocate of the prerogative might perhaps ask what this had to do with a demand made generally in a case of pressing necessity, when the House of Commons had, as he would say, taken advantage of the King’s circumstances to impose its will upon the Crown, in defiance of the constitution of the kingdom. It is, however, needless to pursue further such investigations. The strength of Eliot’s case lay precisely in that which even he did not venture to say, that the necessity, so far as it was a necessity at all, had arisen from sheer misgovernment, and that the appeal to a higher law than that of the realm, which Charles was continually making, needed no discussion, because no case had really arisen making such an appeal needful.
Such is the point of view which the modern reader should keep resolutely before his eyes. If the gentry who closed their purses Point of view from which the question is to be regarded.against the loan had believed that a real danger existed, or that Buckingham’s policy was really calculated to advance the cause of Protestantism, they would surely not have been extreme to mark any deviation from the strict laws of constitutional propriety. Many of them were the same men who in 1621 and in 1624 had kept silence on the subject of the impositions, deeply as they felt the wrong which had been done to them. Their belief that the whole argument from necessity was based upon a fiction must be taken for granted; but it was none the less present to their minds because they veiled it in silence before that sovereign whom they longed to honour and reverence above all human beings.
At last five of the prisoners — Sir Thomas Darnel, Sir John Corbet, Sir Walter Erle, Sir John Heveningham, and Sir Edmund Hampden — Five of the prisoners demand their habeas corpus.appealed to the Court of King’s Bench for a habeas corpus, in order that they might know what their offence had been. On November 15 they were brought to the bar, and the 22nd was appointed for the argument of their counsel.
Four notable lawyers, Bramston, Noy, Selden, and <214>Calthrop appeared for the defence. It was admitted on both sides that Nov. 22.The defence.the King and the Council had a right to commit to prison; but it was held on the part of the defendants that the cause of committal must be expressed in order that the case might come before the Court of King’s Bench, which would proceed to bail the prisoner or to remand him to prison, if it saw fit, till the day of trial came. From this point of view the King and the Privy Council would be reduced to the position occupied in less important cases by ordinary justices of the peace. They would merely prepare the case for the King’s Bench, and if they were too long in their preparations, the judges, on being appealed to, would set the prisoner at liberty on bail.
Whether this theory were right or wrong, it is certain that for many years it had not been in accordance with the practice. The Privy Council had again and again kept persons in prison, as dangerous to the State, without attempting to bring them to trial,[397] and those so imprisoned had patiently awaited their deliverance from the King’s mercy, without venturing an appeal to a court of justice. On their side the Privy Councillors had taken their own time in preparing accusations, sometimes because fresh evidence was expected, sometimes because they had reasons for keeping the prisoner shut up as long as possible.
Inspired by the indignation which had blazed up everywhere on the imposition of the loan, these four lawyers now stood forward to plead that Argument from Magna Carta,all this was utterly illegal. They had much to say in defence of their position. The Great Charter, they urged, declared that ‘no man should be imprisoned except by the legal judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land,’ and these latter words, they said, were interpreted by certain statutes of the time of Edward III, to mean ‘due process of law,’ which an examination before the Privy Council was not. They then drew attention to the consequences which would result from any other interpretation. <215>If the Privy Council could imprison without showing a cause upon which the Court of King’s Bench could act, a man might never leave his prison till he was released by death. The argument was and from precedents.followed by a long string of precedents in which persons committed by the Privy Council had been brought before the King’s Bench to be bailed as a preparation for trial.
When the argument was concluded, the decorum of the place was startled by unusual sounds. Men shouted out their approval and Effect of the argument.clapped their hands for joy.[398] Even the judges themselves were shaken. “Mr. Attorney,” said Jones, “if it be so that the law of Magna Carta and other statutes be now in force, and the gentlemen be not delivered by this Court, how shall they be delivered? Apply yourselves to show us any other way to deliver them.” “Or else,” said Doderidge, “they shall have a perpetual imprisonment.”
Heath was not likely to startle the Court by placing his argument for the Crown in an extravagant form. The precedents on Nov. 26.Heath’s argument for the Crown.the other side he met by showing, at least to his own satisfaction, that they were all cases in which the King had voluntarily handed over the prisoners to be dealt with in the King’s Bench, and that they therefore proved nothing as to the course which the Court ought to take if the King refused to do so. Further, he urged that due process of law extended to committals by the King, just as it extended to committals by the House of Commons, and that therefore the Court of King’s Bench had no right to interfere. In Queen Elizabeth’s time the judges, as was proved by a statement alleged — incorrectly as it afterwards appeared — to have been drawn up by Chief Justice Anderson, had decided after due consultation, that the King was not bound in all cases to show cause. For, as Heath argued, one of two things might happen. There might be persons who had committed no crime which would bring them under the ordinary penalties of the law, but whose liberty would be dangerous to the State. In support of this theory he referred to the children of an Irish chieftain, <216>who had themselves done no wrong, but who had been condemned to a lifelong imprisonment in the Tower, lest their liberation should be the signal for a revolution in Ireland. Upon this branch of his argument, however, the Attorney-General did not lay much stress. The days were long passed — when in England at least — any individual was likely to be dangerous from his social position, and Heath had more to say on the other branch of his argument. It was the duty of the Privy Council to prepare matters for trial. These matters, often involving the discovery of deeply laid plots, frequently demanded a long time to disentangle their intricacies. If the cause of committal were at once signified, and the trial hurried on, accomplices would escape and the ends of justice would be frustrated. All that the judges were asked to do was to trust the King so far as to take it for granted that he had good reasons for withholding the case for the present from their knowledge.
The next day judgment was delivered. If Coke had been upon the Bench he would probably have seized the opportunity of asserting Nov. 28.The judgment.the supremacy of the Court over all causes whatever. But Hyde was not a Coke; and though the other judges — Whitelocke, Doderidge, and Jones — were honourable men, they were not likely to see their way clearly in so difficult a path. The judges took a middle course.[399] Adopting Heath’s view of the statutes and <217>precedents, they held that it would be impertinence on their part to hasten the King’s proceedings. They therefore refused to admit the prisoners to bail; but, on the other hand, they refused to leave any evidence on the records of the Court that they held that the Crown might persistently refuse to show cause.[400]
It was perhaps best as it was. The question in debate opened up so many issues too wide to be determined by the decision of The question not settled.a purely legal tribunal, that it was well that it should be discussed in an assembly more competent to rise to the height of the great argument. For it is evident that Heath’s strongest point as a lawyer would be his weakest when he came to appeal to statesmen. The judges might hesitate to sanction a doctrine which might allow a wily Pretender to the crown to wander about untouched on English soil, or might force on the premature disclosure of the clue by which the Government hoped to come upon the traces of some second Gunpowder Plot. The multitude, which had broken through the stern rules of etiquette by applauding the popular lawyers a week before, knew full well that nothing of the kind was really at issue at the moment. Eliot and Hampden had no influence in England beyond that of the principles which they professed. It was a matter of notoriety that there was no fresh evidence to be collected, no deep conspiracy to be tracked in its secret windings. If all that Charles wanted was to obtain the decision of the Court of King’s Bench upon the legality of the loan, he might have sent every one of the prisoners to trial months before as easily as he could now.
Yet the prospect of seeing the legality of the King’s proceedings discussed in Parliament seemed more distant than ever. The Duke talked confidently of ruining French commerce, and of carrying on the war for many years.[401] He argued that <218>what had happened was no fault of his. His honour was safe. He had been deserted by those who ought to have succoured him at home. But, The Duke’s difficulties.whatever the explanation might be, there was no turn in the tide of his mishaps. In the beginning of December it was settled that Carlisle should go upon the Continent, to take up the web of intrigue which Walter Montague had spun.[402] In a few days news arrived that W. Montague seized by the French.an officer commissioned by Richelieu had swooped down upon Montague as he was passing through Lorraine, and, in spite of the protection of neutral territory, had carried him and his despatches to Paris. Montague was lodged in the Bastille. His papers, with all they had to tell of intrigues with the Dukes of Savoy and Lorraine and with the French aristocracy, were under the cold, penetrating eyes of the Cardinal.[403]
At home matters were in the greatest possible confusion. Before the end of November Buckingham had gone to Portsmouth, and Want of money at home.had distributed money in his affable way amongst the soldiers and sailors;[404] but he could do no more than satisfy them for a time. His back was hardly turned when letter after letter came to assure him that everything was in disorder.[405] At Plymouth the sailors were stealing and selling the soldiers’ arms; all were without Misery of the sailors.sufficient clothes in the wintry weather; the ships were leaky, and there were scarcely sailors enough on board to carry them round to the Medway to be docked at Chatham.[406] The soldiers were paid till the 10th of December, but there was no means of doing anything more.[407] Captain Mason was sent down to set matters straight, but he reported that Sir James Bagg, whose business it had been to pay the <219>men, had received large sums for which he was unable or unwilling to account.[408] At Portsmouth matters were even worse. Many of the ships’ companies prepared to desert in a body, and to march up to Whitehall with their complaints. It was only upon a false assurance that money was coming to relieve them at Christmas, that they consented to remain on board. They had not, they said, been paid for ten months. Their clothes were worn out, and they knew not what to do.[409]
If the sailors were in evil plight no one suffered but themselves. The soldiers billeted about the country spread the The soldiers’ outrages.mischief in all directions. It was bad enough for a quiet countryman to be forced to entertain, for due payment, a number of rough young men whose character before they were pressed into the service was probably none of the best; but when payment did not come the burden threatened to become utterly unendurable. The Irish quartered in Essex were especially obnoxious to the peasant. They treated him and his family as the dust beneath their feet. They flung about the goodwife’s household utensils. They broke the furniture, and threw the meat into the fire if it did not suit their tastes.[410] A German peasant would perhaps have wondered at their gentleness, and would have thanked God that they did not proceed to graver outrages still. In England, what was done was enough to rouse public indignation in classes which the loan had hardly reached.
At all costs money must be had. The loan had brought in on the whole 236,000l., only 52,000l. less than the sum originally expected.[411] Means proposed for raising money.There was a talk, if rumour might be believed, of recurring to a fresh loan;[412] but the idea, if it was ever seriously entertained, was soon abandoned, excepting so far as 10,000l. were extracted on some pretence or other from the Six Clerks of the Court of Chancery. <220>The only resource left was the mortgage or sale of Crown lands. In this way 143,000l. were obtained in the half-year beginning at Michaelmas, and on December 17 the City of London agreed to pay 120,000l. by instalments on the security of the King’s rents from landed property.[413]
The whole sum thus obtained was 263,000l.; but even this amount, large as it was, did not cover the deficit of the past year, Pressing necessities.the anticipations on the revenue on December 29 amounting to 319,000l.,[414] or little less than two-thirds of the whole ordinary revenue of the Crown. Even if this could be paid off, the pressure of the preparations for war was enormous. Together with the recruits which had been levied to reinforce Buckingham at Rhé, there were now 7,557 land soldiers and 4,000 seamen, entitled to pay at the rate of 200,000l. a year. If fifty sail were to be sent out in the spring, 110,000l. more would be needed for repairs and munitions,[415] and there was besides the immediate necessity of providing and sending out the provisions urgently wanted by Rochelle before its supplies were cut off by the besieging forces.
The one thing needed was to make peace. Peace, however, was the last thing of which either Buckingham or Charles thought. The dislike of the French war, which was universal in the nation, had settled down even upon the Privy Council. Some of its members were less outspoken than others; but those who had the best opportunities of judging were of opinion that Charles and the Lord High Admiral stood alone in their resolution to resist all reasonable overtures of peace.
Not, indeed, that Charles and Buckingham acknowledged the case to be so in their own minds. When the King of France Charles determined on carrying on the war.sent back the prisoners taken at Rhé without demanding a ransom,[416] the Venetian ambassador thought it a fair opportunity to urge Charles to meet these advances in a conciliatory spirit. “I will not say,” was the King’s <221>reply, “that the retreat was fortunate, but neither can I assert that it was ruinous. My intentions were always directed towards the common cause, without the remotest thought of ever gaining a span of territory from France, knowing that circumstances were unsuited to such a design. Had not the King my brother allowed me to give a guarantee for the Huguenots, I should never have stirred. But as his intentions were always false and feigned, as appeared by his actions in the employment of Mansfeld, in the league for the Valtelline, and in the affair of the edicts he promised to the Huguenots, I deemed it a lesser evil to have him for an open enemy than to have him for a false friend, in order that I might prevent his corrupt policy from taking effect. I am aware that this is not the moment for calling him to account for the lesser injuries he has done me. Whenever he makes me think he is of the same mind with myself, I shall readily join him in the relief of Germany.
“But he is determined to destroy Rochelle, and I am determined to support it; for I will never allow my word to be forfeited.
“I believe that the safest plan would be to recommence operations, and to send an army of 20,000 men to Rochelle, from which point succour could be given to the whole Huguenot body. I am convinced that in this way I and the King of France will be the sooner friends.”
In much the same way Buckingham spoke. “The French,” he said, “have vowed to destroy Rochelle, and we to preserve it. As long as Buckingham’s views.this punctilio exists there is no use in treating or speaking of peace. Let all men beware of dealing with Frenchmen, for they are thoroughly false.”[417]
With such sentiments as these peace was hopeless. Yet how were the growing expenses of the war to be met? Buckingham, audacious as ever, advocated the calling of a Parliament. The last of all men to believe that his actions would not stand the light, he threw himself on his knees before the <222>King. If he were found worthy of death, he said, let them not spare him.[418] After Christmas he made the same proposal in open council, but the King would not hear of such a measure. The Councillors knew not what to think when they heard the great Duke pleading for once in vain. They fancied there was some collusion, and that the scene had been prearranged for the purpose of winning popularity for the favourite. Then was seen the effect of such predominance as Buckingham’s upon the men whom he had trained to flatter, not to counsel. Not a man ventured to open his mouth to give advice. The sovereign and the favourite were isolated at the council board as they were in the nation.[419]
It is far more likely that Buckingham expressed his real opinions. The Council, however, had to obey the King, and they were Debate in the Council on taxation.called upon to discuss the best means of filling up the deficiency irregularly.[420] They were first asked to declare whether they would themselves render obedience to any resolution which might be taken. Proposed excise.Upon their answering in the affirmative, they came to the conclusion that some excise upon commodities — beer or wine to begin with — would be necessary. And yet how was it to be done? Persuasion, it was generally recognised, would be of no avail. Any attempt to impose the new taxes by force would be met by an appeal to the courts of law, and the courts of law were certain to decide against the Crown. The only resort from this difficulty would be a proclamation, the contravention of which would be punishable in the Star Chamber.
<223>It would be interesting to know from whom the last recommendation proceeded; but the brief notes which alone have reached us are silent on this head. Whoever the bold man may have been, the King felt himself called upon once more to justify so unheard-of a proceeding. “If there were any other way,” he said, “I would tarry for your advices. I can find no other real way. For the particulars, I have thought of some. If you can find any easier, I will hearken to it. To call a Parliament, the occasion will not let me tarry so long.”
Was it really only the want of time which hindered the calling of a Parliament? At all events the courtiers were bound to believe that it was so. When the King proceeded to support the plan for an excise upon beer and wine, they all assented to the wisdom of the proposal. Suffolk, Laud, and Weston agreed that something of the kind must be done. Buckingham spoke at greater length. In obedience to Charles he had by this time abandoned the idea of a Parliament, and he fell back upon the idea of strengthening the throne by military force, which he had entertained in 1624.[421] “Had you not spent all your own means,” he is reported to have said, addressing the King, “and yet your friends lost, I would not have advised this way. But being raised to defend religion, your kingdoms, and your friends, I see no other way but this. Neighbour kings are now beyond you in revenue … therefore, not I, but necessity of affairs.” The army, he went on to say, would require 200,000l., and 300,000l. would be needed for the navy. The army would be A standing force proposed.kept at home as a standing force of 11,000 men, in readiness to be employed in the relief of Rochelle or of the King of Denmark, as the case might require. On December 29 it was formally resolved that a fleet of 100 sail should be got ready in the ensuing summer.[422] To the demand for an army, apart from any expeditionary force to be actually employed for a definite purpose, all who spoke, with the single exception of Sir John Savile, gave their approbation. As a military measure it would be an admirable precaution to have a standing depôt at home; but what would <224>be its effect upon the civil constitution? Were the armed men, in the intervals of fighting at Rochelle or in Denmark, to force the new taxes upon England in defiance of courts of law and universal indignation?[423] Nor was this the only danger. Dulbier, now 1628January.German horse sent for.Buckingham’s chief military adviser, was to be sent over to Germany with Sir William Balfour to levy a thousand German horse, who were to form the cavalry of this force. It would probably be hard to convince those who heard the news that nothing more than a mere measure of military precaution was intended. That Dulbier’s horsemen were intended as a threat to the English opponents of the Government is a belief which has been frequently adopted by modern writers. But, after all, there is one circumstance which militates against this interpretation. Already, on December 29, the King had declared his intention of reviewing the cavalry of the militia of the ten counties nearest London;[424] and it seems incredible that, if Charles had really intended to suppress resistance by the sword, he should think of calling out a body of armed men who, as drawn from a class whose possessions were larger than those of the foot militia, were hardly likely to stand by in silence whilst their countrymen were being trodden down by a handful of German horse. Probably, after all, nothing more was meant by Balfour and Dulbier’s commission than met the eye. It would only be one more example of Charles’s extreme ignorance of the people amongst whom he lived if he fancied that he could summon <225>them to his defence at the same time that he was pressing them down with illegal taxation, and flaunting in their eyes the banners of his foreign mercenaries.
The deliberations of the Council about raising money dragged on more slowly than their deliberations about raising men. The more the subject was discussed the less easy it must have seemed to venture upon so flagrant a breach of the law as The proposed excise abandoned.the scheme which had been mooted. Avowedly or tacitly the proposed excise was abandoned for a time. The next scheme which rose and died away was one to compel every parish to keep three armed men in readiness at its own cost, thus producing a force of rather more than 30,000 men. Towards the end of January the Council assembled daily. One plan after another was discussed, and some even took heart to maintain, in the face of the King and the Duke, that it would be better to withdraw altogether from the Continent, and to be content with maintaining a strong defence at home. No names are given, but the counsel is attributed to the Spanish faction, the old opponents of the war, of whom Weston was the sole remaining Privy Councillor, though he may possibly have been supported by other voices at such a time.[425]
Nor was this the only unpalatable advice to which Charles was compelled to listen. Those who were disinclined to withdraw altogether from interference on the Continent told him plainly that the only alternative was a Parliament.[426] One obstacle, indeed, no longer stood in the way. On January 2 orders[427] had been given that Release of the prisoners in confinement about the loan.the prison doors should be opened to those who had been confined for their refusal to pay the loan. Seventy-six persons in all, some imprisoned, some in banishment in different counties, were permitted to return home, but we may be certain that not one of the whole number felt the slightest gratitude for <226>the word which had unbarred the doors closed upon them by the decree of arbitrary power.
On January 25 the King, who had not yet consented to summon Parliament, ordered a fresh issue of Privy seals, the Jan. 25.Privy seals proposed.old resource of the forced loan under another form. The next few days were spent in urging upon the unwilling Charles the necessity of calling a Parliament. The leading personages at Court[428] — their names have not reached us — gave their personal guarantee that no attempt Jan. 30.Parliament to meet.should be made to renew the Duke’s impeachment. At a late hour on the night of the 30th Charles gave way, and orders were given that writs should be issued for a new Parliament.[429]
Nothing, however, was further from Charles’s intention than to place himself without conditions in the hands of the House of Commons. As sheriffs were chosen in November, it was too late to have recourse in January to the manœuvre which had been practised two years before; but various schemes were canvassed for making the Lower House pliable. It is even said that it was proposed to issue a proclamation excluding all lawyers from sitting, and it was decided that any attempt to touch the Duke should be followed by an immediate dissolution. In that case the King would consider himself no longer bound by the laws and customs of the realm.[430]
Parliament was not even to be allowed the option of giving or refusing. It was to meet on March 17, and the fleet was to put to sea on the 1st. A scheme for levying subsidies before they were granted approved itself highly to Charles’s mind. His fleets since 1625 had been largely composed of vessels demanded from the port towns and the maritime counties. The idea of a universal ship-money to be levied in every county in England seemed to him to be merely a further extension of <227>the old principle. On February 11 letters were issued to all the shires. Feb. 11.Ship-money to be collected.The distress of the King of Denmark, the ruin of English commerce in Germany and the Baltic, the danger to Rochelle and the Protestant religion, and the possibility of invasion from France and Spain were made the most of. It was asserted that the fleet must go to sea before Parliament could be brought together, and it was stated that if the money were paid at once the King would allow Parliament to meet; if not, he would think of some other way. The sum assessed upon each county must be levied and paid into the Exchequer by March 1. The whole sum demanded in England was 173,000l.[431] On the 15th the clergy were ordered to pay 20,000l. as a free gift.[432]
A few days brought wiser counsels. Lord Northampton, when he made the unheard-of demand in Warwickshire, of which county he was Lord Lieutenant, was told to his face that he had promised that the last loan should be repaid, and was asked how he could expect to draw more money from the subjects’ purses. In Berkshire the Earl of Banbury, the honest Wallingford of James’s reign, refused to raise his voice in favour of ship-money, on the ground that he had engaged, if the loan were paid, never to ask anything unparliamentary again. Such words were doubtless but samples of others uttered all over England. The orders revoked.Charles swiftly drew back, revoked his letters, and hung up ship-money in the Royal armoury of projects to be used as occasion might require.[433]
Charles, however, could not understand that the insuperable objection which his subjects appeared to entertain towards the Feb. 29.Commission for excise.payment of ship-money extended to all unparliamentary taxation whatever. On February 29 he issued a commission to the leading members of the Privy Council, directing them to consider all the best and speediest ways and means of raising money ‘by impositions or <228>otherwise’ as they might think best, ‘in a case of this inevitable necessity, wherein form and circumstance must be dispensed with rather than the substance be lost or hazarded.’[434]
That Charles should have imagined it to be possible that he could raise money in such a manner is indeed strange. The blockade of Rochelle.All that can be said is that he was in desperate straits. While he was racking his brains Rochelle was perishing. Ever since November the city had been blockaded. A line of entrenchments cut it off from all communication with the country around, and the Cardinal, in the midst of the winter storms, restlessly superintended the erection of two vast piers projecting from either side of the long harbour to bar the passage of succours from without. The Rochellese, bold seamen as they were, had not force enough to resist the Royal fleet. Their deputies reminded Charles that they had deprived themselves of provisions to supply Buckingham’s wants, and Charles felt it a point of honour to restore the means of subsistence of which he had stripped them.
Denbigh was to take command of the convoy which was to protect the store-ships laden with supplies for Rochelle; but Denbigh at Plymouth.the same causes which had hindered Holland stood in the way of his departure. The convoy was not ready, and the bread, beer, and cheese were spoiling in harbour.[435] On March 15 March 15.everything was in disorder. The ships needed repairs. Men ran away as soon as they were pressed. The 26th was talked of as the day on which all would be ready. But unless six hundred men could be pressed and kept from deserting, the fleet could not sail.[436]
On land matters were as bad. At Banbury, encouraged perhaps by the near neighbourhood of Lord Saye, men refused to contribute to the billeting of the soldiers. In Dorsetshire, when the promised payments from the Exchequer were not forthcoming, the men were turned out of doors to steal or <229>starve.[437] It might be feared that, unless money could be found speedily, all England would be in an uproar.
All this while the elections were going on, and with a few rare exceptions they went against the Crown. Those who had refused the loan were sure of seats. The House when it met would be as stern in its opposition to illegal measures as the Parliament of 1626.
[379] Rel. Wottonianæ, i. 229.
[380] Conway to Sir E. Conway, Nov. 20, S. P. Dom. lxxxv. 11.
[381] Contarini to the Doge, Nov. 22⁄Dec. 2, Ven. Transcripts.
[382] The King to Buckingham, Nov. 14; misdated in Hardwicke S. P. ii. 21.
[383] Letters to Meade, Nov. 16, Court and Times, i. 285.
[384] Holles to Wentworth, Nov. 19, Strafford Letters, i. 41.
[385] Letter to Meade, Feb. 23, Court and Times, i. 196.
[386] Laud’s Works, i. 93.
[387] Through the kindness of Mr. Wilson, of King William Street, Charing Cross, I was able to obtain a sight of this sermon, Apostolical Obedience, which I could not find in the Museum Library.
[388] Commission, Oct. 9, State Trials, ii. 1451. Abbot’s narrative in Rushworth, i. 434. Fuller’s blunder (vi. 42), that Abbot was suspended for his ‘casual homicide,’ has been exposed by Heylyn, Examen, 206. But it has probably done more than anything else to keep alive the belief that Abbot’s retirement from affairs was owing to that cause. The part which he took in the Parliament of 1628, and which is only known by the revelations of Elsing’s Notes, shows that he did not shrink from public activity when he expected any good to come of it.
[389] Heylyn, Life of Laud, 174; Laud’s Diary, Works, iii. 196.
[390] On Reformation in England.
[391] Heylyn, Life of Laud, 174.
[392] Montaigne to Buckingham, March (?), 1627, S. P. Dom.
[393] This extract, brought before the Lords by Pym, is printed in State Trials, iii. 346. A copy of the two sermons, printed under the title ‘Religion and Allegiance,’ is in the Library of Sion College.
[394] State Trials, iii. 351. Books might be licensed by the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London.
[395] Printed in Forster’s Eliot, i. 410. The petition seems to have been generally adopted by others in like circumstances (Forster, 408, note 4); but the language seems characteristic of Eliot, and I have no doubt that he had at least a main hand in drawing it up, doubtless after consultation with lawyers.
[396] 25 Edw. III., Rolls of Parliament, ii. 239, compared with ii. 230.
[397] Arabella Stuart, for instance, and more recently the Earl of Arundel, for whom no claim had been put forward, except when Parliament was sitting.
[398] ——— to Meade, Nov. 23, Court and Times, i. 292.
[399] Whitelocke, when examined in the House of Lords, declared that the prisoners might have had a fresh habeas corpus the next day, and that the Judges only took time to advise. “I did never see nor know,” he said, “by any record that upon such a return as this a man was bailed, the King not first consulted with in such a case as this. The Commons’ House do not know what letters and commands we receive, for these remain in our Court and are not viewed by them.” I do not understand these last words as implying that there were private solicitations and threats addressed to the Judges, for these could not be said to remain in court. I fancy the argument is that the Judges had a right to decide whether they would liberate or no, and that they ought to decide in favour of liberty if the prisoner remained in prison too long; but that the special mandate of the King was a primâ facie argument that there was a good cause, though it was not expressed. All that was needed was that the Judges should be convinced that there was a good cause, and for this it was not necessary to have the case argued in open court. This information they would derive from ‘letters and commands,’ and would exercise the discretion which a police magistrate now exercises when he grants a remand upon application in open court, on the ground that the evidence is not complete. Rushworth, i. 560.
[400] State Trials, iii. 1.
[401] Contarini to the Doge, Dec. 4⁄14, Ven. Transcripts, R. O.
[403] Contarini to the Doge, Dec. 4⁄14; Beaulieu to Puckering, Dec. 12, 19. Meade to Stuteville, Dec. 15, Court and Times, i. 303–307. Richelieu, Mémoires.
[404] Contarini to the Doge, Nov. 22⁄Dec. 2, Ven. Transcripts, R. O.
[405] Bagg to Buckingham, Nov. 29; Courtney to Buckingham, Nov. 29, S. P. Dom. lxxxv. 61, 64.
[406] Holland to Buckingham, Dec. 5, ibid. lxxxvi. 15.
[407] Bagg to Buckingham, Dec. 7, ibid. lxxxvi. 27.
[408] Mason to Buckingham, Dec. 13, S. P. Dom. lxxxvi. 70, 75.
[409] Watts to Buckingham, Dec. 16, ibid. lxxxvi. 83, 86.
[410] The inhabitants of Maldon to the Council, with inclosures, Feb. 10 (?), S. P. Dom. xcii. 85.
[411] State of the loan up to Nov. 30, ibid. lxxxv. 77.
[412] ——— to Meade, Nov. 30, Court and Times, i. 296.
[413] Proceedings of the Common Council, Dec. 17, S. P. Dom. lxxxvi. 97.
[414] List of anticipations, Dec. 29, ibid. lxxxvii. 63.
[415] Note of charges, Dec. 22, S. P. Dom. lxxxvii. 35.
[416] Contarini to the Doge, Dec. 18⁄28, Ven. Transcripts, R. O.
[417] Contarini to the Doge, Dec. 23⁄Jan. 2, Ven. Transcripts, R. O. As I have merely a translation of a translation to give, I have altered some of the less important words, so as to bring out the sense more clearly.
[418] Meade to Stuteville, Dec. 15, Court and Times, i. 304.
[419] Contarini to the Doge, Jan. 1⁄11, Ven. Transcripts, R. O.
[420] This debate in the Council is from a paper which was used by Hallam (Hargrave MSS. 321, p. 300). It is a modern copy taken by some one who could not properly read the original, and is in some parts unintelligible. Its date is not given; but from a statement in Contarini’s despatch last quoted, that the Council had been occupied with schemes for laying impositions on commodities, I have no doubt that the discussion took place in the last week of the year. At all events, as the King’s last words show, it must have been before Jan. 30.
[421] See Vol. V. p. 195.
[422] Council Register, Dec. 29.
[423] Conway to the Clerk of the Signet, Jan. 14, S. P. Dom. xc. 80. The last suspicion was strongly entertained by Contarini in his despatch of Jan. 28⁄Feb. 7. Mr. Forster (Sir J. Eliot, i. 417) has suggested that they were intended to overawe the Parliament. But the arrangements were made before a Parliament was determined on. Still there may have been some eventual intention of this kind. Mr. Forster was aware that the order for the money for Balfour and Dulbier was signed on the 30th of January. But he does not seem to have noticed Conway’s letter for its preparation as early as the 14th. That Dulbier’s horsemen were to be Roman Catholics is a later invention. They were levied in North Germany, and were subsequently transferred to the army of Gustavus. Dulbier was taken prisoner by Tilly at New Brandenburg. Charles wrote in vain to request his liberation.
[424] Council Register, Dec. 20.
[425] Contarini to the Doge, Jan. 10, 20⁄20, 30, Jan. 28⁄Feb. 7, Ven. Transcripts, R. O.
[426] Council Register, Jan. 2.
[427] The King to the Council; the King to Worcester, Jan. 25, S. P. Dom. xci. 52. Docquet Book.
[428] Pembroke, one would guess a likely man.
[429] The date, with the rest of the facts, I get from Contarini’s despatch of Jan. 31⁄Feb. 10. He is more likely to know than Meade, who gives Jan. 28.
[430] Contarini to the Doge, Jan. 21⁄Feb. 10, Ven. Transcripts, R. O.
[431] The King to the Sheriffs of Anglesea, Feb. 11; List of the sums levied on the counties (Feb. 11), S. P. Dom. xcii. 88, 93.
[432] The King to Archbishop Abbot, Feb. 15, S. P. Dom. xciii. 39.
[433] Beaulieu to Puckering, Feb. 20; Meade to Stuteville, Feb. 22, Court and Times, i. 322, 324.
[434] Commission, Feb. 29. Parl. Hist. ii. 417.
[435] Burlamachi to Conway, Feb. (?), S. P. Dom. xciv. 103.
[436] Denbigh to Buckingham, March 15; Manwaring to Buckingham, March 16, S. P. Dom. xcvi. 3, 11.
[437] Banbury to Manchester, Feb. 28; Deputy Lieutenants of Dorsetshire to Suffolk, March 1, S. P. Dom. xciv. 73, xcv. 8.