<232>On the appointed day, November 20, the Houses met. On the 21st, the Commons were called up to the House of Lords, to Nov. 20.Meeting of the Houses.hear a statement on behalf of the King, who was detained at Newmarket by real or affected illness. The proceedings were opened by Williams. He spoke, men said, ‘more like a divine than a statesman or orator.’[354] Nov. 21.Speech of Williams,He recommended the Commons “to avoid all long harangues, malicious and cunning diversions,” and to postpone all business, except the grant of a supply for the Palatinate, till their next meeting in February.[355]
Then Digby rose — the one man in England who could avert, if yet it were possible, the evil to come. Of no party, of Digby,he shared in all that was best in every party. With the Puritans, he would have resisted the encroachments of the Catholic Powers at home and abroad. With the King he was anxious to put an end to religious war, and to grant religious liberty to the English Catholics. On the Continent he would have done that unselfishly, and in the interest of the world, which Richelieu afterwards accomplished selfishly, and in the interest of France. Such designs, so vast and so far-reaching, might easily take root in the brain of a dreamer. But Digby was no dreamer. He knew that there were times when the road to peace lay through the gates of war, and that that time had <233>almost come. Now or never Spain must be made to understand that she must choose her side.
Digby’s statement was a very simple one. He spoke of the King’s efforts to maintain peace, of the hopes of success which had attended his own embassy at Vienna, of the terror inspired by Mansfeld’s army, of the change which, at the instigation of the Duke of Bavaria, had come over the Emperor’s intentions, and of the consequent renewal of the war. The King, he said, must now ‘either abandon his children, or declare himself by a war.’ The King of Spain had written ‘to the Emperor effectually for peace,’ and it was ‘the fault of the Emperor that it was not effected.’ It remained, therefore, to be considered what course was now to be pursued. The force of twenty thousand men under Vere and Mansfeld, would be sufficient to hold the Lower Palatinate during the winter. But if this were to be done, money must at once be sent. Mansfeld’s soldiers were mere mercenaries, and if they were left any longer without their pay, they would soon be in open mutiny. An additional army must be sent in the spring, and the cost of maintaining such an army for a year would not be less than 900,000l.[356]
Cranfield followed, urging a liberal supply, and of Cranfield.without naming any precise amount.
The next morning, it was arranged by the Commons that the King’s message should be taken into consideration on the 26th. Freedom of debate.In the meanwhile an objection was not unnaturally raised to some expressions which had been let fall by Williams. They had been directed, said Alford, to meddle with nothing but the supply for the Palatinate. It would be an evil precedent if the King were permitted to assume the right of prescribing the subject of their debates.[357] In the same spirit Digges, whose facile and impressionable nature made him ever ready to adopt the prevalent feeling of those with whom he was acting, drew attention to the late imprisonment of Sandys. He hoped, he said, that in the great debate to which they were <234>looking forward, no exception would be taken to anything which they might say in discharge of their consciences.
Sandys himself was not present, having been detained by illness. Calvert, however, rose to explain that he had not been imprisoned for anything that he had said or done in the House.
The statement, though literally true, was received with general incredulity, and murmurs of dissatisfaction were heard on every side. It was only upon Calvert’s agreeing that his words should be entered upon the clerk’s book, that calm was restored. It was evident, however, that a question had been raised which, unless it were speedily settled, would give rise to serious perplexities in the future.[358]
On November 26, a full House met to take part in the great debate which was to decide the Continental policy of England for Nov. 26.Debate on the demand for a supply.years to come. The zeal of the Commons, it is true, may sometimes have outrun discretion. Their knowledge of the policy and designs of the Courts of Europe was defective. On the other hand, their single-mindedness was undoubted. In their deliberations, that narrow patriotism which is only a larger selfishness, had no place. All that they asked was to devote themselves to that cause which, as they honestly believed, was the cause of God and man.
The House, it must be acknowledged, approached the question under peculiar difficulties. Digby had told them the truth, but not the whole truth. It is no wonder that there were many amongst his hearers who were incredulous when they heard of the efforts of the King of Spain in favour of peace. What they knew was that it was only by the aid of Spanish troops that the war had been possible. Yet how could Digby offer them the key by which alone the mystery could be unlocked? Even if he had thought it wise to publish to the world the follies of his master’s son-in-law, would not the blame which would deservedly be attributed to Frederick fall in part upon his master himself?
The debate was opened by Digges. He hoped, he said, that <235>the House would support the Crown, but they must not forget that Speeches of Digges;it was the King of Spain who was seeking to bring all Europe into subjection. Without a war of diversion no good would be done. Sir Benjamin Rudyerd rose next. Lately appointed, by Doncaster’s influence, Surveyor of the Court of Wards, of Rudyerd;he was at this time attached to that band of politicians who, with Pembroke at their head, hoped to reconcile a stirring foreign policy with the fullest devotion to the Crown. He took no notice of Digges’s proposal for a war of diversion, but contented himself with urging the House to grant the supply at once. of Fleetwood;In the same strain Sir Miles Fleetwood followed, adding a recommendation that the advice of the Lords should be asked not only upon the amount required, but on the manner in which it should be expended.
Perrot came next. He was for a war on a large scale — a war of diversion, as Digges had expressed it — a war, that is to say, which of Perrot;would have sought out the sources of the strength of Spain in the Indies. Let them give what was needed now, and increase their supply as soon as war had been really declared. So far he had said nothing which was in marked opposition to Digby’s proposal. The question of the mode of carrying on the war might well be left for future consideration when war was actually commenced. But in the eyes of the author of the declaration with which the House had separated in June, the crisis was fully as much religious as political. He ended, therefore, by reminding his hearers that there were those at home whose hearts were at the service of the King of Spain, and that it was necessary to take precautions against their machinations.
Sackville saw that the discussion was getting upon dangerous ground. Like Rudyerd, he had thrown himself heart and soul and of Sackville.into the cause of the German Protestants, and like Rudyerd he knew that, excepting with the good-will of James, it was impossible to put the forces of England in motion to their assistance. The passing bell, he said, was now tolling for religion. It was not dead, but it was dying. Let them consider two things: first, what was fit to be done at <236>this time; secondly, what was unfit to be now talked of. Let them give at once what was needed for the present supply of the troops. But for the present let them dismiss from their minds all consideration of the larger grant which, as the Lord Treasurer had told them, would be needed in the spring, if war were then declared.
The House would probably have been wise if it had closed with this suggestion. It is true that Feeling about the Spanish match.little confidence could be placed in the King, but unless the Commons were prepared to leave the Continent to its fate, it was necessary to trust him at least to the extent of Sackville’s proposal.
Such would no doubt have been the view which a consummate political tactician would have taken of the situation; but it is seldom that such considerations have much weight with a popular assembly, and, least of all, with an assembly with no definite leadership. There was scarcely a member there who did not sympathize from the bottom of his heart with the thoughts which had found utterance in the speeches of Digges and Perrot. No doubt their belief that the King of Spain was aiming at universal monarchy was a gross exaggeration; but it was perfectly true that he was exercising an influence over the King of England which was justly intolerable to every true-hearted English subject, and they knew that, unless a remedy were found for the mischief, it would not be long before Philip would find in the wife of the future King a representative whose soft accents would be even more persuasive than the loud tones which were so readily at Gondomar’s command.
A feeling so universal and so deeply seated could hardly fail to find expression in the debate. Gifted with an eloquent tongue, and with Speech of Phelips.every virtue except discretion, Phelips, at least, was not the man to leave unuttered the opinions which he shared with those around him. Their enemies, he reminded his hearers, were the Catholic States. There was the great wheel of Spain, and the little wheel of the German Princes. Their own natural allies were the Protestants of Europe. It had been said that the King of Spain was their <237>friend. But did not everyone know that he was the president of that council of war by which the Palatinate had been invaded. It was from his treasure that the attacking forces had been paid. The Duke of Bavaria was but a petty prince. God, he believed, was angry with them because they had not kept the crown on the head of the King of Bohemia. Phelips then turned to home affairs. Trade, he said, was ruined, and the hearts and affections of the Papists were at the disposition of the King of Spain. They had lately grown so insolent as to talk of Protestants as a faction. They had begun to dispute openly on their religion. Against such dangers the Commons were bound to guard the country. Let the bills before the House be proceeded with. Let them refuse to grant any supply for the present. At their next meeting they might grant subsidies, and prepare for a thorough war. Till that time the defence of the Palatinate might be otherwise provided for. A small sum would be sufficient to support Mansfeld during the winter.
After a short speech in the same strain from Sir Edward Giles, Calvert saw that it was time to interfere. In a few weighty words Calvert interferes.he explained the policy of the Government. “The friendship amongst princes,” he said, “is as their strength and interest is, and he would not have our King to trust to the King of Spain’s affection. As for the delaying of a supply any longer, if we do it, our supply will come too late. It is said our King’s sword hath been too long sheathed; but they who shall speak to defer a supply, seek to keep it longer in the scabbard.” It was impossible to declare more plainly that, in case of necessity, the proposed armaments would be directed against Spain. If James, instead of loitering at Newmarket, had been there to confirm his Secretary’s words, he would have carried everything before him.
For a short time it seemed as if Calvert’s words had not been without effect. Although, of the three speakers who rose after him, Crew asks who is the enemy.not one recurred to Phelips’s proposal to withhold supplies, the distrust was too deeply seated to be easily removed. Phelips found a supporter in Thomas Crew, a lawyer of reputation for ability and <238>honesty. Before they gave anything, he said, they ought to know who was their enemy. If at their next meeting they could be assured that their money was to be used against Spain, and if hope was given them that the Prince would marry one of his own religion, they might then grant a liberal supply.
Amongst the few who listened with dissatisfaction to the introduction of this irritating topic was Sir Thomas Wentworth, Calvert’s Sir T. Wentworth.youthful colleague in the representation of Yorkshire. Gifted with a clear and commanding intellect, he looked with apprehension upon the renewal of the religious wars of the past century, and he believed with Digby that, if the King could make it clear that the nation was at his back, Spain would be certain to give way to any reasonable demand.[359] Yet there were many reasons why, at this juncture, His character and policy.Wentworth should have carried but little weight in the House. He would, it is true, have gone as far as Phelips or Perrot in opposing the miserable system by which the first place in the counsels of an English Sovereign was held by the ambassador of a foreign prince. But in the wide European sympathies of the leading members he had no share. His policy was purely English, and it was nothing more. In matters of domestic legislation he took the deepest interest. He seldom rose without urging the importance of pushing on the bills before the House without loss of time. Puritanism, and everything that savoured of Puritanism, he regarded with loathing. For him religion must be decorous and stately. Yet if he bitterly hated the restlessness of the champions of liberty, he hated still more bitterly opposition to his own will. Proud of his ancient lineage, and of the princely fortune which had descended to him from his ancestors, his fierce resolute spirit brooked no resistance. The clash of thought, the conflict of opinion out of which lasting progress springs, was to him an object of detestation. Even when, a few years later, he was throwing in his lot with the Commons in their struggle against Buckingham, he was never <239>one in feeling with those with whom he was, for the time, politically associated. The value which he set upon Parliamentary discussion may be gathered from a curious passage in a letter to a friend. He had just seen, he said, a statue representing Samson in the act of killing a Philistine with the jaw-bone of an ass. “The moral and meaning whereof,” he adds, “may be yourself standing at the bar, and there, with all your weighty, curiously-spun arguments, beaten down by some such silly instrument as that; and so the bill, in conclusion, passed, sir, in spite of your nose.”[360]
Such was the man who now attempted to stem the tide which was running strongly against the Government. He proposed, He proposes an adjournment.with the evident intention of giving time to communicate with the King, that the debate should be adjourned for some days. It was not an unwise suggestion, and if it had come from one with whom the House could sympathize, it might perhaps have been adopted. As it was, its rejection was certain. The renewal of the discussion was fixed for the following morning.
The next day, therefore, the debate was resumed. Member after member rose to urge the necessity of engaging in war with Spain, and of Nov. 27.Sackville’s argument.putting in force the laws against the Papists, who were the chief supporters of Spanish influence in England. Once more Sackville rose to advocate compliance with the King’s demands. “The King of Spain,” he said, “hath laid out his money to gain from us the Palatinate. Let us, therefore, give some present supply towards the keeping of that which is left us in the Palatinate; and it will not be long before we discover plainly whether the King of Spain be our enemy or no; which if he be, then will the King, without question, understanding of our affections and inclinations, proclaim a general war against him, and then shall we have our desires.”
Every hour the question was becoming more evidently than before a question of confidence in the King. James had <240>placed his supporters at a terrible disadvantage. He had asked for a supply, but he had not disclosed his policy. Was there any reason to believe, it might well be argued, that it was worth while to make a fresh application to Spain? And if such a reason existed, why had it not been communicated to the House? James could hardly indeed have been brought to set forth in detail to his own condemnation all the blunders of the past year. But it can scarcely be doubted that if he had produced in substance the terms which he had submitted to Frederick for his acceptance, and had declared that the refusal of those terms, whether by Spain or by any other power, would be followed by an immediate declaration of war, he would have carried the House with him, and would have given a support to his diplomacy which could be obtained in no other quarter.
James, however, was far away at Newmarket, and, whatever his partisans might say, it was plain that they were speaking without authority. Wentworth supports Sackville.For a time, indeed, Sackville seemed to have made an impression. He was seconded by Wentworth, who recommended an immediate grant, leaving to the King the choice of a fit time for declaring war. Weston and Heath followed on the same side.
The speeches which had hitherto been made in opposition to the Crown may, in some particulars, have been indiscreet and exaggerated; Coke’s ill-humour.but they struck at real evils, and they had been expressed in language which it became the leaders of the English Commons to utter. Very different was the tone assumed by the speaker who now rose to address the House. On ordinary occasions Coke’s rugged independence was apt to degenerate into coarseness of thought and language, and he had been too long accustomed to pour out the vials of his wrath, amidst popular applause, upon Jesuits and Papists, to approach the subject under discussion with any degree of calmness. Nor were special causes of irritation wanting. During the recess an attempt had been made to Affair of Lepton and Goldsmith.punish him indirectly for the uncourtly part which he had taken in the House. Two men, named Lepton and Goldsmith, considered themselves to have been wronged by the decision of a committee of <241>which Coke had been the chairman. They applied to Lady Hatton for advice as to the best mode of revenging themselves upon her husband. The result of their machinations was that a bill was filed in the Star Chamber containing numerous charges against him for misconduct in the days long past when he was still upon the Bench. The affair had recently been brought before the notice of the Commons, and a committee had been appointed to inquire into what looked very like a conspiracy to inflict punishment upon a member of the House for the discharge of his duty.[361]
It was therefore under the influence of a not unnatural feeling of indignation that Coke now rose. He went at length over the old quarrel between Elizabeth and the Pope. The Pope, he said, had discharged the Queen’s subjects from their allegiance. The Jesuits had never ceased to provoke her by their conspiracies. They had practised to kill her; they had attempted to poison her. At the moment when English commissioners were treating for peace, Spain had sent the Armada. The scab which was so destructive to sheep in England came from Spain. The foulest disease by which mankind was afflicted spread over Europe from Naples, and Naples belonged to the King of Spain. From Spain nothing but evil was to be expected. The Papists flocked to the house of the Spanish ambassador, and England was in danger as long as she nourished Papists in her bosom. Let the House, therefore turn its attention to the legislation before it. The sudden grant of supply would do no good. He had heard nothing to make him think that there was any necessity for giving money at present.
Overjoyed at finding so thoroughgoing a supporter, Phelips rose once more to reiterate the arguments which he had used on Resolution of the House.the preceding day, but neither he nor Coke could lead the House astray from the point at issue. As before the adjournment, the vast majority were determined that, if by any means it could be avoided, there should be no breach with the King. It was resolved that <242>the supply for which James had asked should be granted.[362] The precise amount to be given, and the manner in which it was to be raised, should be considered in committee. To this resolution, which in itself was everything which the King could desire, two instructions to the committee were appended at which he might possibly take umbrage. The committee was directed by the one to prepare a petition asking him to end the session at Christmas, by passing the bills to which, in spite of the Lord Keeper’s intimation, they intended to devote their attention; and by the other to take into consideration the state of religion, and to draw up a petition for the due execution of the laws against the Papists.[363]
The next morning, accordingly, the House went into committee. The debate which ensued is memorable for the speech in which Nov. 28.Pym’s speech in the Committee on religion.John Pym placed himself beyond question in the first rank amongst the leaders of the House. Of the King he spoke with the utmost respect; but he feared lest his goodness had been abused by the Papists. It was his Majesty’s piety which had led him to be tender of other men’s consciences. Yet it must not be forgotten that whilst there were errors ‘seated in the understanding,’ <243>misguiding ‘practice and devotion in the manner of worshipping God,’ there were others which produced effects ‘to the distemper of the State.’ It was for this reason that it had always ‘belonged to the outward and coercive power of magistrates to restrain not only the fruit but even the seeds of sedition, though buried under the pretences of religion.’ By ‘the same rules of faith from whence the Papists received the superstitious part of their religion,’ they were bound to opinions and practices dangerous to all princes and states which did ‘not allow of their superstitions.’ It was therefore to be understood that ‘the aim of the laws in the penalties and restraint of Papists, was not to punish them for believing and thinking, but that they might be disabled to do that which they think and believe they ought to do.’
The speaker then proceeded to enumerate the dangers which were impending over the country. “If the Papists,” he said, “once obtain a connivance, they will press for a toleration; from thence to an equality; from an equality to a superiority; from a superiority to an extirpation of all contrary religions.” He therefore advised that an oath of association for the defence of his Majesty’s person, and for the execution of the laws made for the establishing of religion, should be taken by all loyal subjects;[364] and that the King should be asked to issue a special commission for the suppression of recusancy.[365]
Such was the language which, as we can well believe, ‘had great attention, and was exceedingly commended, both in matter and manner.’[366] Pym’s political position.Even those who are unable to find much to commend in its conclusions, may well find in it grounds upon which to base their respect for the speaker.
It is evident that such a speech stands in striking contrast with the gushing impetuosity of Phelips and with the snarl of Coke. He who spoke these words was born to be a leader of men. He was not a philosopher like Bacon, with <244>anticipations crowding upon his brain of a world which would not come into existence for generations. His mind teemed with the thoughts, the beliefs, the prejudices of his age. He was strong with the strength, and weak with the weakness of the generation around him. But if his ideas were the ideas of ordinary men, he gave to them a brighter lustre as they passed through his calm and thoughtful intellect. Men learned to hang upon his lips with delight as they heard him converting their crudities into well-reasoned arguments. By listening to him they made the discovery that their own opinions — the result of passion or of unintelligent feeling — were better and wiser than they had ever dreamed. Nor was it by a mere dry intellectual logic that he touched his hearers. For if there is little trace in his speeches of that fertility of imagination which in a great orator charms and enthrals the most careless of listeners, they were all aglow with that sacred fire which changes the roughest ore into gold, which springs from the highest faith in the Divine laws by which earthly life is guided, and from the profoundest sense of man’s duty to choose good and to eschew evil. Thus it came about that between this man and that great assembly a strong sympathy grew up — a sympathy which it has always refused to flashes of wisdom beyond its comprehension, but which it grants ungrudgingly to him who can lead it worthily by reflecting its thoughts with increased nobility of expression, and by shaping to practical ends its fluctuating and unformed desires.
In the speech which he had just concluded, Pym had placed the duty of persecution upon a plain and intelligible basis. Tolerance and intolerance.No one had ever expressed so clearly the idea which had vaguely taken possession of his generation, and which was common to men whose minds were so differently constituted as those of James of England and Ferdinand of Austria — the idea, namely, that religious error was not so much to be attacked because it was hurtful to the soul and conscience, as because it undermined the constitution of the State. It is true that, except as an indication of the direction in which the current was setting, there was very little importance in the distinction. To a man who was led to the <245>scaffold, or immured in a prison, it was a matter of supreme indifference whether he was told that he was suffering for an offence against religion or for an offence against civil order. There can, however, be no doubt that, unsatisfactory as it was in itself, the indirect results of the new phase thus taken by persecution were most salutary. It served to impress upon men the truth, that religious persecution was a bad thing; and before long they would open their eyes to the further truth that the recusancy laws were only religious persecution under a more subtle form.
If, indeed, Pym’s lot had been cast in ordinary times, he might have learned to oppose the precautions which he was now advocating. The Spanish match.But, in truth, the times were not ordinary. It was indeed certain that a nation like England, in which Protestantism had taken deep root, would never voluntarily throw itself back into the stifling embraces of the Church of Rome. The human mind does not work at random, and no such backward course is possible so long as liberty of choice remains. But how long would such liberty be left? If no European people which had once heartily embraced Protestantism had ever abandoned it but by compulsion, there had been many examples in which a forcible conversion had been effected by the power of the sword. When the leading minds of a people had been silenced, when thought and speech were no longer free, it would be impossible to answer for the constancy of those who were left desolate in the face of temptation.
Who could tell how soon England might be exposed to such a fate? We are perhaps inclined to think hardly of Pym and Its effect on opinion.the House of Commons for seeking, as Wentworth once expressed it, to put a ‘ring in the nose of Leviathan’[367] by fining the Catholic laity for their religion, by dragging their children from the care of their parents, and by mewing up within prison walls the devotion of the Catholic missionaries: but, before we condemn, let us remember that it was James who was encumbering the path of tolerance with obstacles. As if it were a light thing that the Spanish ambassador was consulted <246>and trusted above all other men, a Spanish Infanta was to become the future Queen of England, and the mother of a stock of English kings. In the course of nature her child would within forty or fifty years be seated on the throne of Henry and Elizabeth. A Roman Catholic sovereign — for what else could he be?— would have the power of loosing the tongues of the Jesuits, of stopping the mouths of the defenders of the faith. All Court favour, all power of lulling men’s consciences to sleep by the soporific potion of place or pension, would be in his hands. It was he who would make the judges; it was he who would make the bishops; and who might, therefore, in the language which has sometimes been attributed to James, make both law and gospel. If all other means failed, he would have at his disposal Nov. 29.the arms of his Spanish kinsman — the lord, it might be feared, by right of England’s cowardice, of half of Germany, and of the territory that had once been held by the Dutch Republic.
Such must have been the thoughts which strove for utterance in the hearts of the men who looked to Pym with visible A petition on religion.tokens of approbation. They ordered that a petition should be drawn up for presentation to the King, and at the same time resolved without a dissentient voice, that a subsidy should be granted for the support of the troops in the Palatinate. To this subsidy recusants were to be assessed at double rates, as if they had been aliens.[368]
On December 1 the petition was brought in by the subcommittee which had been directed to prepare it. It began by Dec. 1.Mischiefs complained of.representing the causes of the apprehended danger. Abroad, the King of Spain was aiming at an exclusive temporal monarchy; the Pope at an exclusive spiritual supremacy. Popery was built upon devilish positions and doctrines. The professors of the Protestant religion were in a miserable plight. His Majesty’s children were treated with contempt, and the confederacy of their Popish enemies was backed by all the armies of the King of Spain. At home matters were as bad. The expectation of the Spanish marriage and the favour of the Spanish ambassador had elated <247>the spirits of the recusants. They resorted openly to the chapels of foreign ambassadors; they were thronging up in large numbers to London; they sent their children to the Continent, to be educated in Popish seminaries. The property which had been forfeited by law was frequently restored to them; their licentious and seditious books were allowed to circulate freely; their priests were to be found in every part of the kingdom. If something were not done they would soon place themselves in opposition to the laws, and, strong in the support of foreign princes, they would carry all before them till they had succeeded in the utter subversion of the true religion.
Let his Majesty then take his sword in his hand; let him gather round him the Protestant States upon the Continent; Remedies proposed.let him direct the operations of war by diversion or otherwise, as to his deep wisdom should seem fittest, and not rest upon a war in those parts only which would consume his treasure and discourage the hearts of his subjects. Let the point of his sword be against that prince who first diverted and hath since maintained the war in the Palatinate; let a commission be appointed to see to the execution of the laws against the recusants; and for the frustration of their hopes, and for the security of succeeding ages, let the Prince be timely and happily married to one of his own religion. Let the Papists’ children be educated by Protestant schoolmasters, and prohibited from crossing the seas; let the restoration of their forfeited lands be absolutely prohibited.[369]
The petition accepted by the Committee was taken into consideration by the House on the 3rd. The debate turned The petition accepted by the Committee was taken into consideration by the House on the 3rd. The debate turned almost entirely upon the clause relating to the Prince’s marriage. It was opened by Sackville, who, though his hatred of Rome was undoubted, urged that any interference with the King’s prerogative on a point so delicate would give offence. As a matter of political tactics, Sackville was undoubtedly in the right. If James could be brought to declare war with Spain, the marriage treaty would give no further trouble. It would be far better, therefore, to avoid for two or three months longer a topic by the introduction of which the King’s touchy nature would be wounded to the quick. Still it was hardly likely that the House would allow its course to be determined on these grounds. A great evil was impending over the nation, and it was the duty of its representatives to discharge their consciences by protesting against it. They had granted a subsidy unconditionally. Even now they had no wish to impose terms on the King. One member after another rose to point out that their petition did not even require an answer. No man, during the whole course of a long and active life, showed himself a stouter champion of the prerogative than Heath, the Solicitor-General. Yet Heath expressed his approval of the petition on this very ground. He contented himself with moving that an explanatory clause should be added to convey what was evidently the general sense of the House. Phelips and Digges rose to support the proposal, and it was at once adopted without a dissentient voice.almost entirely upon the clause relating to the Prince’s marriage. It was opened by Sackville, who, though his hatred of Rome was undoubted, urged that any interference with the King’s prerogative on a point so delicate would give offence. As a matter of political tactics, Sackville was undoubtedly in the right. If James could be brought to declare war with Spain, the marriage treaty would give no further trouble. It would be far better, <248>therefore, to avoid for two or three months longer a topic by the introduction of which the King’s touchy nature would be wounded to the quick. Still it was hardly likely that the House would allow its course to be determined on these grounds. A great evil was impending over the nation, and it was the duty of its representatives to discharge their consciences by protesting against it. They had granted a subsidy unconditionally. Even now they had no wish to impose terms on the King. One member after another rose to point out that their petition did not even require an answer. No man, during the whole course of a long and active life, showed himself a stouter champion of the prerogative than Heath, the Solicitor-General. Yet Heath expressed his approval of the petition on It is adopted with an additional clause.this very ground. He contented himself with moving that an explanatory clause should be added to convey what was evidently the general sense of the House. Phelips and Digges rose to support the proposal, and it was at once adopted without a dissentient voice.
“This,” such were the phrases with which the Commons fondly hoped to sweeten the bitter medicine which they were offering, “this is the sum and effect of our humble declaration, which — no ways intending to press on your Majesty’s most undoubted and regal prerogative — we do with the fulness of all duty and obedience humbly submit to your princely consideration.”[370]
Already, before the petition had been actually adopted, some one had placed a copy in the hands of Gondomar. The Gondomar’s letter to the King.astute Spaniard had been invited by the King to Newmarket,[371] but had preferred to watch events in London. He now saw that his time was come. Long experience had taught him how to deal with James. The letter which he wrote was one the like of which had never before been placed in the hands of an English sovereign. Incredible as it might seem, even his own past audacity was now outdone.
<249>If it were not, he said, that he depended upon the King’s goodness to punish the seditious insolence of the House of Commons, he would have left the kingdom already. “This,” he added, “it would have been my duty to do, as you would have ceased to be a king here, and as I have no army here at present to punish these people myself.”[372]
For such insolence as this James had no sensitiveness. His annoyance with the Commons had for some days been on the increase. He had already heard with displeasure that they had resumed their investigation into the affair of Lepton and Goldsmith, and had ordered Sandys to be questioned on the reasons of his imprisonment.[373] He now, without waiting for the formal presentation of the petition, dashed off an angry letter to the Speaker.
He had heard, he said, that his absence from his Parliament had ‘emboldened some fiery and popular spirits to debate and His letter to the Speaker.argue publicly in matters far beyond their reach or capacity, and so tending to’ his ‘high dishonour and to the trenching upon’ his ‘prerogative royal.’ The House was, therefore, to be informed that its members were not to be permitted to meddle with matters of government or ‘with mysteries of state.’ There was to be no speech of the Prince’s ‘match with the daughter of Spain,’ or anything said against ‘the honour of that king.’ They must also forbear from interfering in private suits ‘which have their due motion in the ordinary courts of justice.’ As for Sandys, he would inform them himself that his imprisonment had not been caused by any misdemeanour in Parliament. He would have them, <250>however, to understand that he thought himself very ‘free and able to punish any man’s dismeanours in Parliament, as well during their sitting as after,’ and that hereafter he should not be sparing in his use of this power ‘upon any occasion of any man’s insolent behaviour there.’ If they had touched in their petition upon any of the topics which he had forbidden they were to be told that, ‘except they reform it,’ he would ‘not deign the hearing or the answering it.’ Finally, he was willing to end the session at Christmas, and to give his assent to any Bills which were really for the good of the commonwealth. If the Bills were not good, it would be their fault and not his.[374]
On the morning of December 4 this letter was read in the House. A peremptory refusal to accept the advice tendered Dec. 4.It is read in the House.would have created incomparably less consternation. Even the denial of the right of the Commons to meddle with matters of foreign policy, unless their attention had been specially directed to them, might perhaps have been passed over in silence, but it was intolerable that the question of immunity from punishment for speeches uttered <251>in the House should be thus reopened. Practically, it was a point of far greater importance than the other. If the King were in need of money, he would always be obliged to listen to anything that they might choose to say to him. If he were not in need of money, he could always close their mouths by a prorogation or a dissolution. But it was not to be borne that they should have the semblance of freedom without its reality, and that each member as he rose to speak should be weighted with the knowledge that he might soon be called upon to expiate in the Tower any uncourtly phrase which might fall from his lips.
Such a letter, it was at once felt, must not be answered in haste in a moment of irritation. Never, said Phelips, had any Adjournment of the House.matter of such consequence been before them. The members who had been despatched to lay the petition before the King were at once recalled, and the House rose for the day, in order that full consideration might be given in private to the King’s demands. “Let us rise,” said Digges, “but not as in discontent. Rather let us resort to our prayers, and then to consider of this great business.”[375]
The next morning, after a long debate, a committee was appointed to draw up Dec. 5.Explanatory petition.an explanatory petition, and the House again adjourned, refusing to enter upon any further business till their privileges had been defended from further attack.
On the 8th, a second petition was ready to be despatched to the King. It presented a marvellous contrast to the Dec. 8.imperious tones of the royal rescript. It pushed concession to the verge of imprudence. Touching but lightly upon the claim put forward by the Commons to take into consideration matters of general interest, it offered James a loophole of escape from the position which he had rashly assumed, by resting their right to discuss questions connected with the penal laws and the Spanish marriage upon the simple ground that they were involved in the question of the defence of the Palatinate, which he had himself commended to their consideration. They acknowledged distinctly that it was the King’s <252>business, and not theirs, to resolve on peace and war, and to choose a wife for his son. They merely asked him to read their petition. It was only to the clauses which related to the recusancy laws and to the passing of bills that they expected an answer. “And whereas,” they added, touching at last, as if with reluctance, upon the burning point of their own privileges, “your Majesty, by the general words of your letter, seemeth to restrain us from intermeddling with matters of government, or particulars which have their motion in courts of justice, the generality of which words in the largeness of the extent thereof, — as we hope beyond your Majesty’s intentions, — might involve those things which are the proper subjects of parliamentary action and discourse; and whereas your Majesty’s letter doth seem to abridge us of the ancient liberty of parliament for freedom of speech, jurisdiction, and just censure of the House, and other proceedings there; wherein, we trust in God, we shall never transgress the bounds of loyal and dutiful subjects; a liberty which we assure ourselves so wise and just a King will not infringe, the same being our undoubted right and inheritance received from our ancestors, and without which we cannot freely debate nor clearly discern of things in question before us, nor truly inform your Majesty, wherein we have been confirmed by your Majesty’s former gracious speeches and messages; we are, therefore, now again enforced humbly to beseech your Majesty to renew and allow the same, and thereby take away the doubts and scruples your Majesty’s late letter to our Speaker hath brought upon us.”[376]
The reception accorded to the members of the deputation which carried this petition to Newmarket was far better than they expected. Dec. 11.Deputation of the House received by the King.The King, they found, had recovered his temper, and it was only by a jest that he showed his deeply-rooted suspicion of the claims put forward by the House. “Bring stools for the ambassadors!” he cried out to the attendants as soon as the members were introduced, so as to give them to understand that he looked upon the body from which they had come as asserting nothing less <253>than a right to sovereign power.[377] He treated them with great familiarity, and sent them away with a long rambling letter, which he probably supposed to be sufficient to settle the question at issue.
On the 14th the King’s letter was read in the House. He had expected, he said, to hear nothing but thanks for all his care to Dec. 14.His answer read in the House.meet their wishes; but he must tell them that the clause which they had added to their petition was contrary to the facts of the case. Whatever they might say, there could be no doubt that they had usurped upon his prerogative, and had meddled with matters beyond their reach. Their protestation that they did not intend to do this was like the protest of the robber who took a man’s purse, and then said that he did not mean to rob him. Their excuse that he had virtually invited them to discuss all questions bearing upon a war in the Palatinate was ridiculous. Because he had asked for money to keep up an army at present, and to raise another army in the spring, it no more followed that he was bound at once to declare war against Spain, and to break off the marriage treaty, than it followed that, if he borrowed money from a merchant to pay his troops, he was bound to take his advice on the conduct of the war. It was all very well for them to say that the welfare of religion and the state of the kingdom were matters not unfit for consideration in Parliament; but to allow this would be to invest them with all power on earth, and they would want nothing but the Pope’s authority to give them the keys of heaven and purgatory as well.
Having thus disposed of the pretensions of the House, James proceeded to give his own account of the crisis on the Continent, an account in which, to say the least of it, there was as much truth as in that which had been accepted by the Commons. It was Frederick, he said, who, by usurping the <254>Bohemian crown, had given too fair an excuse to the Emperor and the Pope to ill-treat the Protestants. He denied that it was true that the King of Spain was aiming at universal monarchy. As to the Spanish marriage, he would take care that the Protestant religion received no prejudice, but he was so far engaged in it, that he could not in honour go back, unless Spain refused to fulfil her obligations. It was a calumny to say that he was cold in religion. It was impossible for them to handle such high matters. Of the details of his diplomacy, and of the intentions of the various Courts of Europe, they were necessarily ignorant. If he were hampered by their interference, foreign princes would cease to put any confidence in his word. They must therefore be satisfied with his engagement that he would do everything in his power to propagate his own religion, and to repress Popery. The manner and form must be left to him. If he accepted their advice, and began a hot persecution of the Catholics, they would soon hear of reprisals upon the Protestants abroad; but no Papist who was insolent should escape punishment, and he would do all that was in his power to prevent the education of the children of the English Catholics in foreign seminaries. Let them, therefore, betake themselves to the consideration of the bills before them. As to their privileges, he added, although he could not allow of their speaking of them as ‘their ancient and undoubted right and inheritance,’ but had rather that they had said that they were derived from the grace and permission of his ancestors and himself; ‘for most of them grew from precedents, which shows rather a toleration than inheritance; yet’ as long as they contained themselves within the bounds of their duty, he would be as careful as any of his predecessors to protect their lawful liberties and privileges. All that they needed, therefore, was to beware how they trenched on his prerogative, so as to enforce him to retrench of their privileges those ‘that would pare his prerogative and flowers of the crown.’ “But of this,” he concluded by saying, “we hope there shall never be cause given.”[378]
<255>It was indeed a hard matter to alienate the loyalty of the Commons. “If the King’s answer,” said Phelips, “doth not Reception of the King’s answer.strike the affection and soul of every member of this House, I know not what will.” “If anyone,” exclaimed Digges, “be of opinion that our privileges are yet touched, let us first clear that; but my own opinion is that our privileges are not touched.” It was finally resolved to take the King’s answer into consideration on the following morning.
Night, however, brought to many the belief that the crisis was more serious than had been at first supposed. In the Dec. 15.Debate upon it.debate which ensued, indeed, all opposition to James’s foreign policy was deliberately abandoned. His declaration that he would maintain the Protestant religion was singled out for special praise. Perrot’s suggestion that the King should be asked for fresh guarantees against Popery, found no echo in the House. “If we had known sooner,” said Phelips, “how far his Majesty had proceeded in the match of Spain, we should not, as I think, have touched that string.” If the House, however, was of one mind in its resolution to trust the King to the end as far as actual questions of policy were concerned, it was no less unanimous in its feeling that to acknowledge his theory about their privileges would be to surrender everything which made them worthy of the name of a parliament. Henceforth they would be, as James had roughly expressed it, like merchants who were asked for money, but who had no voice in its disposal. The more moderate their wishes were, the more intolerable was the King’s interference; for they did not ask him even to explain his policy to them, unless he chose, much less to become in any way responsible to them for his actions. All they wanted was that he should recognise their right to lay their opinions humbly at the foot of the throne, leaving him to deal with them as he pleased, and that he should acknowledge the right of individual members to freedom of speech, without which it would be impossible for them as a body to come to an unbiassed conclusion as to the advice which they were to render.
The points thus at issue were, like so many other <256>difficulties, a legacy bequeathed by Elizabeth to her successor. Precedents on the question.In the Middle Ages the Commons had never carried with them sufficient weight to make the sovereign think of imposing restrictions upon debates which he had no reason to fear. With one exception in the distracted times of Richard II., and another in the equally distracted times of Henry VI.,[379] no attack had been made upon the House’s right of free speech in political affairs. The object at which the Commons had been aiming was freedom from arrest upon civil process before the ordinary courts; and it was this that was finally conceded to them in the reign of Henry VIII.[380]
If, however, the question of freedom of speech in affairs of state was not openly discussed at the same time, it was simply because the members of the House did not venture to enter into a contest with the self-willed monarch. “Tell that varlet, Gostwick,” Henry was once heard to say of a member who had ventured to criticize the conduct of Cranmer, “that if he do not acknowledge his fault unto my Lord of Canterbury, and so reconcile himself towards him that he may become his good lord, I will sure both make him a poor Gostwick, and otherwise punish him to the example of others.” The threatened member trembled and obeyed.[381]
It was by Elizabeth that the first serious attempt was made to restrain liberty of debate upon principle. In 1562 Elizabeth’s proceedings.she contented herself with intimating her dislike of a proposal to settle the succession. In 1566 she sent a message directing the House to lay aside an address on the subject of her marriage. On this occasion, however, she thought it prudent to give way, and the debate was suffered to proceed. In 1571 she made use of fresh tactics. Instead of issuing her commands to the House itself, she ordered a member who had brought in an obnoxious Bill, to refrain from <257>attending the sittings. Again the House protested, and again the Queen gave way. In 1588 the tide turned. Two members were committed to the Tower, where they remained till after the dissolution, and in 1593 the same measure was dealt out to a larger number.[382]
To an historian, the dates of these transactions speak for themselves. In ordinary times the House had protested against the Queen’s assumptions, and the protestation had not remained without effect. In times of excitement, as in 1588, when the ports of Spain were swarming with the vessels of which the Armada was to be composed, and in 1593, when the shouts of triumph were still ringing in the ears of her subjects, she had had her way. Such a view of the case, however, was not likely to be taken by James. The right to interfere had been maintained by his predecessor. His dignity would suffer if he abandoned it on any pretext whatever. The Commons, on the other hand, fell back on the necessities of their position, and the almost uninterrupted practice of earlier generations.
During the debates on the vote of supply, and on the petition for the execution of the recusancy laws, differences of opinion Unanimity of the House.had not failed to show themselves in the House; but on the question which James had now unwisely raised, there was no difference of opinion whatever. It was no longer left to Phelips and Perrot to point out the weak points in the policy of the Crown. The staunchest supporters of the Government were of one mind with the popular majority. During the whole of the session, Wentworth and Sackville had distinguished themselves by the ability with which they had enforced the necessity of keeping on good terms with the King. Yet Wentworth and Sackville now stood forth to declare that the liberties of Parliament were the inheritance of Parliament; and so strong was the current, that even a mere courtier like Sir Henry Vane was carried away by it. He had no doubt, he said, that their liberties were their inheritance. Even Heath declared himself to be of the same opinion. But if the House was of one mind in its refusal to sacrifice its own independence, and the independence <258>of future generations, it was no less of one mind in its desire that a quarrel with the King should, if it were still possible, be avoided. Wentworth threw out a suggestion that, instead of carrying on an endless controversy with James, the House should content itself with entering a protestation upon its own journals.[383] Coke said that perhaps the offensive words were a mere slip of the pen, excusable at the end of so long a letter, and the explanation thus offered was thankfully accepted by Calvert. It was finally resolved that the House should go into committee at its next sitting, in order to take its privileges into consideration.[384]
The following day was a Sunday, and James had thus sufficient time to consider his position calmly. From his present difficulties Dec. 16.Advice of Williams.Williams’s ready tact might even now have saved him, if he would have listened to reason. The privileges of the House, wrote the Lord Keeper, were originally granted by the favour of princes. But they were now inherent in the persons of its members. Let his Majesty declare as much, and let him add that he had no wish to impair or diminish them, and all controversy would be at an end.[385]
It was too late. Far away from such counsellors as Williams and Digby, with Buckingham ever pouring poison into his ear,[386] The King’s letter to Calvert.James was incapable of adopting frankly the good advice which had been offered.[387] It was not in his nature to look a difficulty fairly in the face, and though he had no wish to enter upon a quarrel with the <259>Commons, he could not make up his mind either to define distinctly the rights which he claimed, or to abandon a phraseology which he considered to contribute to his dignity.
He had heard, he wrote to Calvert, of the intention of the Commons to appoint a committee, and he therefore wished him to tell them not to misspend their time. He was quite ready to give an explanation of his words. The plain truth was that he could not endure to hear his subjects using such an anti-monarchical expression as when they called their liberties their ancient right and inheritance, without adding that they had been granted by the grace and favour of his ancestors. “But as for our intention therein,” he went on to say, “God knows we never meant to deny them any lawful privileges that ever that House enjoyed in our predecessors’ times, as we expected our said answer should have sufficiently cleared them; neither, in justice, Dec. 17.whatever they have undoubted right unto, nor, in grace, whatever our predecessors or we have graciously permitted unto them; and therefore we made that distinction of the most part; for whatsoever liberties or privileges they enjoy by any law or statute shall be ever inviolably preserved by us; and we hope our posterity will imitate our footsteps therein; and whatsoever privileges they enjoy by long custom and uncontrolled and lawful precedents, we will likewise be as careful to preserve them, and transmit the care thereof to our posterity; neither was it any way in our mind to think of any particular point wherein we meant to disallow of their liberties, so as in justice we confess ourselves to be bound to maintain them in their rights; and in grace we are rather minded to increase than infringe any of them, if they shall so deserve at our hands.”[388]
Evidently, James fancied that he had made every <260>reasonable concession. He had, at Williams’s suggestion, lowered his demands till he asked for nothing more than a mere polite acknowledgment of a historical fact. But he had not adopted Williams’s suggestion that he should himself acknowledge that time had converted privileges which were once precarious into rights inherent in the persons of the members of the House. He allowed it to be seen that, though he had no intention of putting forth his powers of interference with the present House, he refused to abandon the rights which he supposed himself to possess. What those rights precisely were he did not think fit to state, and it is probable that if he had attempted to do so it would have appeared at once that his pretensions were incompatible with those of the House. Now that the question had been stirred, the Commons, with every desire to make their peace with the King, were driven to ask for more than this.
No sooner, therefore, was the letter read in the House on Monday morning, than Coke rose. Rugged and irascible as he was, Dec. 17.Coke’s proposal.he had an ingrained reverence for his Sovereign, and from the very commencement of the session he had aimed at bringing about a close union between the King and the Houses, by the simple process of inducing both to accept the doctrines which he himself pronounced to be right. He now stood forth as a peacemaker, by giving his support to the proposition which had been made by Wentworth at the last meeting. The King’s message, he said, contained an allowance of all their privileges. For they claimed nothing but what was theirs already by law, by prececedent, and by Act of Parliament. What was needed now was to know precisely what those privileges were. If they were to set them down in writing, it would clear them of all these rubs.[389]
The next morning, just as the members were preparing to take Coke’s proposal into consideration, they were met by Dec. 18.The King’s offer to relinquish the subsidy.one more letter from the King. If they wished, he said, to have the session ended at Christmas, they must go to business at once. If they did that, he would be willing to postpone the passing of the Subsidy Bill till the next session.[390]
<261>Such a letter was a direct insult to the Commons. James, it seemed, was prepared to bribe them into a surrender of their privileges by relinquishing a grant of money which his ministers, speaking again and again in his name, had declared to be absolutely needed for the defence of the Palatinate. Yet such was the temper of these loyal subjects, that they refused to see what the King meant. They sent a deputation to thank him for his gracious letter, and, after intimating that they would prefer a simple adjournment, proceeded to appoint a sub-committee to draw up the protestation suggested by Wentworth and Coke.
Those who were entrusted with the duty knew that their time was short. The next morning the Parliament might be adjourned or prorogued, and the opportunity would be gone. It was, therefore, ordered that the House should meet in the afternoon to receive the protestation.
By the dim candle-light in the gloom of that December afternoon, the Commons — ready as they were, in the warmth of their inflexible loyalty, to trust their King with everything save with those liberties which, handed down to them from generations, had been sometimes infringed, but never, save in a moment of thoughtlessness, relinquished — laid claim to the rights which, for the sake of themselves and their posterity, they dared not abandon.
“The Commons now assembled in Parliament,” so ran this The Protestation.memorable protest, “being justly occasioned thereunto, concerning sundry liberties, franchises, and privileges of Parliament, amongst others not herein mentioned, do make this protestation following:—
“That the liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of Parliament are the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England; and that the arduous and urgent affairs concerning the King, state, and defence of the realm and of the Church of England, and the making and maintenance of laws, and redress of grievances, which daily happen within this realm, are proper subjects and matter of counsel and debate in Parliament; and that in the handling and proceeding of those businesses every member <262>of the House hath, and of right ought to have, freedom of speech, to propound, treat, reason, and bring to conclusion the same:—
“That the Commons in Parliament have like liberty and freedom to treat of those matters, in such order as in their judgments shall seem fittest, and that every such member of the said House hath like freedom from all impeachment, imprisonment, and molestation other than by the censure of the House itself, for or concerning any bill, speaking, reasoning, or declaring of any matter or matters, touching the Parliament or Parliament business; and that, if any of the said members be complained of and questioned for anything said or done in Parliament, the same is to be shewed to the King by the advice and assent of all the Commons assembled in Parliament, before the King give credence to any private information.”[391]
In the preceding debates, it had been suggested by some speakers that the protestation should be laid before the King. It is entered on the journals.The House would not hear of it. There was to be no attempt to bandy words with their Sovereign any further. He might, if he pleased, consider that nothing more had been done than to carry out the suggestions of his own letter. He should not be asked to retract or to explain away his words. The protestation was simply to be entered on their Journals, there to remain as of record.[392]
The House by which this protestation was adopted was, as James afterwards contemptuously asserted, not a full one. Its value.Some may have stayed away through fear of offending the Court; but there may well have been others whose minds were distracted by opposing duties. There can have been few who really expected anything else than a rupture with the King after the step which was being taken, and it was certain that a rupture with the King would cloud the prospects of an English intervention in the Palatinate. Yet, much as we must sympathize with the feeling which urged these men to risk the loss of their own privileges in the defence of the <263>Continental Protestants, it is indubitable that those who saw their first duty in the needs of their own country, chose the better part. Even if there had been more chance than there was that anything worthy of England would be effected by James upon the Continent, the cause of political liberty at home was at least as worth struggling for as the cause of such religious liberty as was represented by Frederick abroad. It is, indeed, true, that to us who look upon the dispute with the assistance of a long series of historical investigations, there is something unreal in the weapons which were used on both sides. The privileges of the House, growing up as they did in the midst of the living forces by which the constitution was moulded, and swaying backwards and forwards with the fortunes of contending parties, were certainly not acquired, as James asserted, by the mere grace and permission of the Crown. Nor can they be said, at least to the extent to which they were claimed by the House of Commons, to be the ancient and undoubted inheritance of Englishmen. There had been times when the Lower House had been far too weak to take up the prominent position to which it was now entitled; but in its spirit, at least, the assertion made by the House of Commons was true to the fullest extent. By the old constitution of England, long before the Norman Conquest placed its mark for good and for evil upon our polity, the burden of government had been shared between the kings of English race and that free assembly which was formed promiscuously, and as it were by hazard, out of all classes of the community. Nor had the change which followed upon the defeat of Hastings effected any permanent alteration. If the voice of the ordinary freeman was no longer to be heard, still the Great Council gathered round the Sovereign, ready to vindicate, sword in hand, any attempt to crush down into silence the voice of the Norman Baronage. When once more the Commons appeared by representation on the scene, it was not at first to take the government of the nation into their hands, but to add weight by their voices either to the Crown or to the nobility in turn. That the position which they now claimed was in some respects new it is impossible to deny. They, and not the <264>lords, stepped forth as the representatives and the leaders of the English nation. All precedents of ancient freedom and right now centred in them. It was nothing to them that their predecessors in the Plantagenet reigns had sometimes spoken with bated breath, and had often been reluctant to meddle with affairs of state. It was for them to take up the part which had been plaved by the barons who had resisted John, and by the earls who had resisted Edward. Here and there, it might be, their case was not without a flaw; but the spirit of the old constitution was upon their side. The rights which they demanded had been sometimes in abeyance, but had never been formally abandoned. What was more to the purpose, it was absolutely necessary that they should be vindicated if England was any longer to be a land of freemen. If they were lost, the last refuge of free speech was gone. At the will of the King the clergy could be disciplined, and the judges could be dismissed. At the will of the King, books could be suppressed, and their authors imprisoned. Within the walls of Parliament alone could words be spoken which must reach his ears, and not only did he refuse to listen to those words, but he claimed the right of punishing those by whom they were uttered. If this claim were allowed, all other liberties were at an end. If it were successfully resisted, all other liberties, civil and religious, would revive and flourish.
To lead his subjects, or to be thrust aside by them, is the choice set before every man who attempts to govern men. James, at his very best — and in listening to Digby’s counsel he was at his very best — could never govern England. All that he could do was to set up barricades, by which to thwart and hamper the onward march of those who were stepping into his place.
The last sitting of the House on the morning of the 19th passed off quietly. The Commons were told that in compliance with their request, Dec. 19.The last sitting.Parliament would be adjourned till February. They were able to separate with a dim hope that their efforts to serve both their King and their country had not been thrown away.[393]
James took some days to consider what he would do. At <265>last, when the Christmas festivities were over, he made up his mind. He would be every inch a king. No tongue should move in England but by his permission. On the 30th of December he came to Whitehall, sent for the journals of the House, and in the presence of the Council and of the Judges, tore out with his own hands the obnoxious page on which the protestation was written.[394] Seven years before he had presided over the operation of burning the written arguments with which the leaders of the Commons were prepared to assail his claim to levy impositions without consent of Parliament, and he had heard no more about the impositions. He hoped now that he would hear no more about liberty of speech.
Although after such an act as this there could hardly be any further question whether Parliament should be dissolved or not, Dissolution of Parliament decided on.James affected to seek the advice of his Council. There was, indeed, one argument against a dissolution by which the King was touched most nearly. The Subsidy Bill had not passed, and the Exchequer would be the poorer by 70,000l. Yet so decidedly had James declared his wishes, that no one ventured openly to oppose them. For some time the Councillors sat gloomily regarding one another in silence. At last Pembroke’s voice was heard. “The King,” he said, “has declared his will; it is therefore our business not to dispute but to vote.” “If you wish to contradict the King,” replied Buckingham, tauntingly, “you are at liberty to do so, and to give your reasons. If I could find any reasons I would do so myself, even though the King is present.” Pembroke held his tongue. The assent of the Council was given in silence to a measure which they justly felt to be now inevitable. As soon as the decision had been taken, Buckingham hurried to Gondomar, to congratulate him on the result.[395]
With mingled scorn and exultation, the Spaniard had <266>been watching day by day this pitiable exhibition. “It is certain,” Gondomar’s triumph.he wrote, a day or two after the adjournment, “that the King will never summon another Parliament as long as he lives, or at least not another composed as this one was. It is the best thing that has happened in the interests of Spain and the Catholic religion since Luther began to preach heresy a hundred years ago. The King will no longer be able to succour his son-in-law, or to hinder the advance of the Catholics. It is true that this wretched people are desperately offended against him; but they are without union amongst themselves, and have neither leaders nor strong places to lean upon. Besides, they are rich and live comfortably in their houses; so that it is not likely that there will be any disturbance.” “The King,” he wrote, a day or two later, “seems at times deeply distressed at the resolution which he has taken to leave all and to attach himself to Spain. Yet he sighs deeply, and says that if he acts otherwise these Puritan malcontents will cause him to die miserably.”[396]
Even now James could not make up his mind to issue the proclamation dissolving Parliament. As the critical moment approached, he himself perhaps felt more keenly the importance of the step which he was about to take. Gondomar took good care to widen the breach between the King and the leaders of the House.[397] He had lost no opportunity of urging <267>James to punish them for their insolence, and his efforts were unhappily crowned with success.
Coke was the first to be sent for. That a Privy Councillor should have done what he had done was a special cause Imprisonment of Coke,for irritation. On December 27 he was committed a close prisoner to the Tower, and Sir Robert Cotton and two other persons were commissioned to search his papers. It was given out at first that he was not questioned for anything that he had done in Parliament, but it was 1622.January.of Phelips and Mallory.impossible long to keep up the deception. In a few days two other members of the House, Phelips, who had been foremost in the onslaught upon Spain, and Mallory, of whose special offence we are ignorant, followed Coke to the Tower.[398] Pym was also ordered to place himself Treatment of Pym,in confinement in his own house in London. Three months later he was allowed, on the plea of ill health, to exchange the place of his restraint for his country house in Somerset.[399]
For Sir Dudley Digges and one or two others a punishment was invented against which they would find it difficult to complain. of Digges, and others.They were named members of a commission which was about to be sent over to investigate the grievances of Ireland. It is true that their expenses were to be paid; but James judged rightly that they would prefer keeping Christmas amongst their families, at their own expense, to a compulsory tour in the depth of winter amongst the Irish bogs.
After the imprisonment of Phelips and Mallory all James’s hesitation was at an end. In spite of Pembroke’s renewed entreaties, Parliament dissolved.the proclamation dissolving Parliament appeared on January 6. That day had almost been the last of James’s reign. Riding in the park at Theobalds in the afternoon, his horse threw him into the New River, so that ‘nothing but his boots were seen.’ Sir Richard Young jumped <268>into the water and pulled him out. He was well enough to ride home, was put into a warm bed, and got up the next day none the worse for the accident.
In the proclamation now issued, James attempted to throw the blame of what had happened on a few of the leaders James’s defence of his conduct.of the Commons. “Some particular members,” he said, “took such inordinate liberty not only to treat of our high prerogative, and of sundry things that without our special direction were no fit subjects to be treated of in Parliament, but also to speak with less respect of foreign princes, our allies, than was fit for any subject to do of any anointed king though in enmity and hostility with us.” They had disputed on ‘words and syllables of’ his letters, and they had claimed, ‘in ambiguous and general words,’ privileges which derogated from the rights of the Crown, possessed not only in the times of earlier kings, ‘but in the blessed reign of’ his ‘late predecessor, that renowned Queen, Elizabeth.’[400]
This at least must be conceded to James, that the rights which he claimed were rights of which, as he said, ‘he found his crown actually possessed.’ Unfortunately for him, he could not see that the legacy which Elizabeth had left him was one of a nature to do him more harm than good.
Of all to whom the dissolution of Parliament brought anxiety and grief, there was not one who was more competent to estimate Digby’s policy.the ruinous consequences of James’s blunder than Digby. When he first returned from the Continent he soon discovered that his great designs would find no favour with Buckingham. One day, it is said, as he was speaking in the Council of the courtesy which he had received from the Emperor, the favourite expressed his astonishment that he had repaid it so ill. “When I receive courtesy as a private man,” answered Digby, with that quiet dignity which never left him, “I strive to repay it by personal services; but, as a man of honour, I will never repay it at my master’s cost.”[401]
<269>One attempt Digby had made to avert the catastrophe which he dreaded. On December 14 he had entreated the Lords to demand a conference with the Commons, with the object of pleading once more the imminence of the danger in Germany. If money, he said, had been sent liberally to the Palatinate, immediately upon his return, the whole face of affairs would have been changed. The Princes of the late Union, the Elector of Saxony, the Kings of Denmark and Sweden would have rallied to the standard set up in opposition to the encroachments of the Emperor. In the request thus urged the Lords at once acquiesced. It was now, however, too late, as Parliament had been adjourned before Digby could find an opportunity of stating his case to the Lower House.[402]
The dissolution of Parliament was a crushing blow to Digby. He at least knew better than to cherish the delusion His vexation.which had imposed upon James. In conversation with those friends in whose secrecy he could confide, his language was most desponding. It had pleased the King, he said, to quarrel with his subjects, and not even to argue with them on the offers which they had made, with the intention of doing him all the service that he could desire. If he had listened to his Parliament, he might have laid down the law in Europe. As it was, he would have to obey the King of Spain; and he must not be surprised if, now that he had no other arms in his hands than supplications, his diplomacy turned out as badly at Madrid as it had done at Vienna. To James himself Digby conveyed the same lesson in a more courtly form. As long as there had been any doubt, he said, of the turn which affairs would take, he had recommended that England should remain on good terms with the enemies of Spain. Now, however, he must tell him that he would ruin himself if he did not place himself altogether in the hands of the Spanish Government.[403]
<270>Whatever face he might put upon the matter in public, Digby knew that he had failed, and that the victory had been Comparison between Digby and Gondomar.won by his Spanish rival. So signal, indeed, was his defeat, that, but for the credit which he subsequently acquired by his resistance to the arrogance of an unpopular favourite, his name would probably have passed out of the memory of all but a few diligent students of the bye-paths of history. Yet if the worth of a statesman be judged rather by that which he is than by that which he is permitted by circumstances to accomplish, it is absurd to think of a man like Gondomar as entering into competition with him for a moment. If it be the true test of statesmanship to know the wants of the age, and to remove gently and firmly the impediments which stand in the way of their satisfaction, then are all Gondomar’s momentary triumphs beneath contempt. With great knowledge of human nature, and with a transcendent power of playing upon the hopes and passions of his instruments, he gained from fortune the fatal boon of success. He wrested the solution of the great European problem from the hands of the King of England, to transfer it to the hands of his own master. But that was all. In the unreal atmosphere in which he lived, in his utter blindness, not merely to the religious strength of Protestantism, but to the physical forces which it could command, he did his best to urge on the Spanish Government and nation to an impossible enterprise — to the conversion, half by force and half by cajolery, of all that remained Protestant in Europe. With what results to Spain the effort was attended it is unnecessary to say.
To Digby’s clear eye such a blunder was impossible. Weighing each element in the European crisis at its just value, detecting the strength and the weakness alike of friend and foe with singular impartiality, he turned neither to the right nor to the left, from love of popular sympathy or from the hope of royal favour. No statesman of his age held opinions so little in harmony with the theories which prevailed in the House of Commons. No minister of James refused so utterly to compromise his dignity by stooping to flatter Buckingham. And now, in 1621, the chance was <271>offered him, a chance which was never to return, of settling European society upon a permanent basis, whilst it was still unexhausted by the prolonged agony of the impending conflict. By fixing a territorial limitation to the two religions, he would have removed the causes of religious war. That he would have placed his own country at the head of European nations is indubitable. But he would have done more than that. He would have woven closely the bonds which still attached the hearts of the people to the throne of the Stuarts. James’s love of peace, and the warlike zeal of the Lower House, would equally have served his purpose; for he would have taught the Sovereign and his subjects to work together for a common end, and to learn to bear each with the other’s weakness, and to understand each the other’s strength.
It may be that in any case all this would have been but a dream. Even Digby could hardly have hoped to bend all the opposing elements of the strife to his will. It was, perhaps, not merely James’s petulant vanity which ruined his hopes; but at least he deserved success as few have ever done. When England looks around her for guides in the thorny path of foreign policy, it would be well for her to think for a moment of the forgotten statesman who, in more propitious times, would have graven his name upon the tablets of history in lines as firm as any which have been drawn by the Pitts and the Cannings whose names have become amongst us as household words.
[354] Chamberlain to Carleton, Nov. 24, S. P. Dom. cxxiii. 122.
[355] Proceedings and Debates, ii. 183.
[356] Proceedings and Debates, ii. 186; Lords’ Journals, iii. 167.
[357] Proceedings and Debates, ii. 197.
[358] Proceedings and Debates, ii. 198.
[359] Wentworth to Darcy, Jan. 9, 1622, Strafford Letters, i. 15.
[360] Wentworth to Wandesford, June 17, 1624, Strafford Letters, i. 21. The characteristic story of the Yorkshire election petition will be well known to every reader of Mr. Forster’s Life of Sir J. Eliot.
[361] Proceedings and Debates, ii. 201, 248.
[362] “The Commons,” says Mr. Hallam (Const. Hist. of England, ed. 1854, i. 364), “had no reason, perhaps, to suspect that the charge of keeping 30,000 men in the heart of Germany would fall much short of the estimate. Yet, after long haggling, they voted only one subsidy, amounting to 70,000l., a sum manifestly insufficient for the first equipment of such a force. This parsimony could hardly be excused by their suspicion of the King’s unwillingness to undertake the war, for which it afforded the best justification.” That such a sentence should have been penned by such a writer would be truly astonishing, if it related to any other period of history than one which has never hitherto been thoroughly investigated. Every word is altogether at variance with the facts of the case. The subsidy was not meant to have anything to do with the army of 30,000 men. When the answer had come from Spain and the Emperor, it would be time enough to consider how to provide for that force which might never be levied after all. What was now needed was to devote a special fund for the pay of Mansfeld’s men for one or two months, in addition to the money which Frederick drew from the Dutch.
[363] Proceedings and Debates, ii. 206–226; Commons’ Journals, i. 644–649.
[364] This was exactly what Pym afterwards carried into effect, by the Protestation of 1641.
[365] Proceedings and Debates, ii. 210.
[366] Chamberlain to Carleton, Dec. 1, S. P. Dom. cxxiv. 2.
[367] Wentworth to Wandesford, June 17, 1624, Strafford Letters, i. 21.
[368] Proceedings and Debates, ii. 241; Commons’ Journals, i. 650.
[369] Proceedings and Debates, ii. 261.
[370] Commons’ Journals, i. 655; Proceedings and Debates, ii. 265, 269.
[371] Gondomar to the Infanta Isabella, Dec. 6⁄16, Simancas MSS. 2558, fol. 9.
[372] “Yo avia escrito al Rey y al Marques de Boquinguam, quatro dias antes, la sedicion y maldad que pasaba en este Parlamento, y que, sino estuviera tan seguro de la palabra y bondad del Rey que lo castigaria y remediaria con la brevedad y exemplo que convenia, me huviera salido de sus Reynos sin aguardar á tercero dia; deviendo hazello assí cumpliendo con mi obligacion, si el no fuera Rey de estas gentes, pues al presente yo no tenia aquí exercito con que castigarlos.” — Gondomar to the Infanta Isabella, Dec. 6⁄16, ibid.
[373] Proceedings and Debates, ii. 248, 259.
[374] The King to the Speaker, Dec. 3, Proceedings and Debates, ii. 277. There is a letter from the Prince of Wales to Buckingham amongst the Tanner MSS. printed in Goodman’s Court of King James (ii. 209), which seems to show that Charles went even beyond his father in his dislike of the proceedings of the Commons.
“The Lower House this day,” he wrote, “has been a little unruly, but I hope it will turn to the best, for before they rose they began to be ashamed of it; yet I could wish that the King would send down a commissioner for that, if need were, such seditious fellows might be made an example to others by Monday next, and till then I would let them alone; it will be seen whether they mean to do good or persist in their follies, so that the King needs to be patient but a little while. I have spoken with so many of the Council as the King trusts most, and they [are] all of this mind; only the sending of authority to set seditious fellows fast is of my adding.” The letter is plainly dated, “Fryday 3 No. 1621,” without erasure or tear, as I am informed, by the kindness of Mr. Hackman, to whom I applied in order that I might be quite sure that there was no mistake. The date is of course impossible, as Parliament was not sitting at the time, and I do not find any Friday during the debates to which the Prince’s remarks apply. The most likely day would be Dec. 3. But that was a Monday.
[375] Proceedings and Debates, ii. 278.
[376] Proceedings and Debates, ii. 289–300.
[377] “It seems they had a favourable reception, and the King played with them, calling for stools for the ambassadors to sit down.”— Chamberlain to Carleton, Dec. 15, S. P. Dom. cxxiv. 40. Wilson makes James say, “Here are twelve kings come to me!” and, as usual, the joke thus spoiled has been repeated again and again by historians. James was shrewd enough to ascribe the claim of royal power to the collective body, not to individual members.
[378] The King to the House of Commons, Dec. 11, Proceedings and Debates, ii. 317.
[379] Cases of Haxey and Young, Hallam, Middle Ages (1853), iii. 75, 102.
[380] 4 Henry VIII. cap. 8.
[381] Morice’s Anecdotes of Cranmer; Narratives of the Reformation, (Camden Society), 254.
[382] Hallam, Const. Hist. of England, i. ch. 5.
[383] So I understand the Notes in the Commons’ Journals, and this interpretation would be placed beyond doubt if a speech, which has been preserved in Edmondes’s handwriting (S. P. Dom. cxxiv. 22) be, as I suppose, the one which Wentworth uttered on this occasion.
[384] Commons’ Journals, i. 664; Proceedings and Debates, ii. 330.
[385] Williams to Buckingham, Dec. 16, Cabala, 263.
[386] Gondomar to the Infanta Isabella, Dec. 22⁄Jan. 1, Simancas MSS. 2558, fol. 8.
[387] “Miss Aikin,” says Mr. Forster (Life of Pym, 24, note 2), “is in error in supposing that this was written before the despatch of the King’s letter.” It is not a point of any great importance, but the internal evidence is in favour of the supposition that the King, in writing to the House, had Williams’s letter before his eyes. Nor is there any difficulty in supposing that this was the case, excepting that Williams refers to something which had passed in the afternoon. The King, however, was now at Royston, only <259>thirty-eight miles from London, and if Williams despatched his messenger at three o’clock the letter would be delivered at least by nine. That the King’s letter was written late, there is a piece of evidence which Mr. Forster appears not to have seen. In a letter to Buckingham, written on the following day (Harl MSS. 1580, fol. 120), Calvert speaks of it as ‘that gracious letter which I received from his Majesty this morning,’ and it was therefore, without doubt, written the preceding evening.
[388] The King to Calvert, Dec. 16, Proceedings and Debates, ii. 339.
[389] Proceedings and Debates, ii. 341.
[390] The King to the Speaker, Dec. 17, Proceedings and Debates, ii. 350.
[391] Proceedings and Debates, ii. 359.
[392] Ibid. ii. 360.
[393] Proceedings and Debates, ii. 361.
[394] Parliamentary History, i. 1362.
[395] After the King had declared his intention, ‘ninguno se atrebió á contradizelle, mas de que el Conde de Pembruc, Comerero Mayor, gran Puritano, dijo que havia que votar no disputar, pues el Rey havia declarado <266>su voluntad, á que el Marques de Boquinguam replicó que, si queria contradezir á la voluntad del Rey, lo hiziese, y diese razones para ello;— que él hiziera lo mismo si las hallara, aunque su Magestad se hallava ally presente; con que el Conde calló, y lo aprobó, y los demas; y luego vino el Marques a darme quenta de todo con gran gozo del subceso, y con razon, porque a sido la llave para abrir y obrar todo lo bueno que de aquí se puede esperar en servicio de Dios y de Vuestra Majestad sin oposicion, en que el Marques de Boquinguam á tenido gran parte, y merece muchas gracias.’ Gondomar to Philip IV., Jan. 21⁄31, Simancas MSS. 2518, fol. 20.
[396] Gondomar to the Infanta Isabella, Dec. 22, 23⁄Jan. 1, 2, 1621⁄2, Simancas MSS. 2558, fol. 7, 11.
[397] Gondomar to Philip IV., Jan. 21⁄31, 1622, Simancas MSS. 2518, fol. 29.
[398] Chamberlain to Carleton, Jan. 4, 1622. Locke to Carleton, Jan. 12, S. P. Dom. cxxvii. 8, 26. The three prisoners, as will be seen, were released in the following August.
[399] Council Register, April 20, 1622.
[400] Mead to Stuteville, Jan. 10. Meddus to Mead, Jan. 11, Harl. MSS. 389, fol. 127, 129.
[401] Tillières’ despatch, Nov. 15⁄25, 1621, Raumer, ii. 319.
[402] Parliamentary History, i. 1365. Gondomar to the Infanta Isabella, Dec. 22⁄Jan. 1, 1621⁄2, Simancas MSS. 2558, fol. 8.
[403] Gondomar to the Infanta Isabella, Dec. 22⁄Jan. 1, 1621⁄2, Simancas MSS. 2558, fol. 8.