Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 — Secret History of Charles the First and his first Parliaments, part 1

SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST AND HIS FIRST PARLIAMENTS.

The reign of Charles the First, succeeded by the Commonwealth of England, forms a period unparalleled by any preceding one in the annals of mankind.

It was for the English nation the great result of all former attempts to ascertain and to secure the just freedom of the subject.

The prerogative of the sovereign and the rights of the people were often imagined to be mutual encroachments, and were long involved in contradiction, in an age of unsettled opinions and disputed principles.

At length the conflicting parties of monarchy and democracy, in the weakness of their passions, discovered how much each required the other for its protector.

This age offers the finest speculations in human nature; it opens a protracted scene of glory and of infamy; all that elevates, and all that humiliates our kind, wrestling together, and expiring in a career of glorious deeds, of revolting crimes, and even of ludicrous infirmities!

The French Revolution is the commentary of the English; and a commentary at times more important than the text which it elucidates.

It has thrown a freshness over the antiquity of our own history; and, on returning to it, we seem to possess the feelings, and to be agitated by the interests, of contemporaries.

The circumstances and the persons which so many imagine had passed away, have been reproduced under our own eyes.

In other histories we accept the knowledge of the characters and the incidents on the evidence of the historian; but here we may take them from our own conviction, since to extinct names and to past events we can apply the reality which we ourselves have witnessed.

Charles the First had scarcely ascended the throne ere he discovered that in his new parliament he was married to a sullen bride: the youthful monarch, with the impatience of a lover, warm with hope and glory, was ungraciously repulsed even in the first favours!

The prediction of his father remained, like the handwriting on the wall;

but, seated on the throne, Hope was more congenial to youth than Prophecy.

As soon as Charles the First could assemble a parliament, he addressed them with an earnestness, in which the simplicity of words and thoughts strongly contrasted with the oratorical harangues of the late monarch.

It cannot be alleged against Charles the First, that he preceded the parliament in the war of words.

He courted their affections; and even in this manner of reception, amidst the dignity of the regal office, studiously showed his exterior respect by the marked solemnity of their first meeting.

As yet uncrowned, on the day on which he first addressed the Lords and Commons, he wore his crown, and vailed it at the opening, and on the close of his speech; a circumstance to which the parliament had not been accustomed.

Another ceremony gave still greater solemnity to the meeting; the king would not enter into business till they had united in prayer.

He commanded the doors to be closed, and a bishop to perform the office.

The suddenness of this unexpected command disconcerted the catholic lords, of whom the less rigid knelt, and the moderate stood: there was one startled papist who did nothing but cross himself!

[286] The speech may be found in Rushworth; the friendly tone must be shown here.

I hope that you do remember that you were pleased to employ me to advise my father to break off the treaties (with Spain).

I came into this business willingly and freely, like a young man, and consequently rashly; but it was by your interest--your engagement.

I

pray you to remember, that this being my _first action_, and begun by _your advice and entreaty_, what a great dishonour it were to you and me that it should fail for that assistance you are able to give me!

This effusion excited no sympathy in the house.

They voted not a seventh part of the expenditure necessary to proceed with a war, into which, as a popular measure, they themselves had forced the king.

At Oxford the king again reminded them that he was engaged in a war "from their desires and advice."

He expresses his disappointment at their insufficient grant, "far short to set forth the navy now preparing."

The speech preserves the same simplicity.

Still no echo of kindness responded in the house.

It was, however, asserted, in a vague and quibbling manner, that "though a former parliament did engage the king in a war, yet, (if things were managed by a contrary design, and the treasure misemployed) _this parliament is not bound by another parliament_:" and they added a cruel mockery, "that the king should help the cause of the Palatinate with _his own_ _money_!"

--this foolish war, which James and Charles had so long borne their reproaches for having avoided as hopeless, but which the puritanic party, as well as others, had continually urged as necessary for the maintenance of the protestant cause in Europe.

Still no supplies!

but protestations of duty, and petitions about grievances, which it had been difficult to specify.

In their "Declaration" they style his Majesty "Our dear and dread sovereign," and themselves "his poor Commons:" but they concede no point--they offer no aid!

The king was not yet disposed to quarrel, though he had in vain pressed for dispatch of business, lest the season should be lost for the navy; again reminding them, that "it was the _first request_ that he ever made unto them!"

On the pretence of the plague at Oxford, Charles prorogued parliament, with a promise to reassemble in the winter.

There were a few whose hearts had still a pulse to vibrate with the distresses of a youthful monarch, perplexed by a war which they themselves had raised.

But others, of a more republican complexion, rejected "_Necessity_, as a dangerous counsellor, which would be always furnishing arguments for supplies.

If the king was in danger and necessity, those ought to answer for it who have put both king and kingdom into this peril: and if the state of things would not admit a redress of grievances, there cannot be so much _necessity for money_."

The first parliament abandoned the king!

Charles now had no other means to despatch the army and fleet, in a bad season, but by borrowing money on privy seals: these were letters, where the loan exacted was as small as the style was humble.

They specified, "that this loan, without inconvenience to any, is only intended for the service of the public.

Such private helps for public services which cannot be deferred," the king premises, had been often resorted to; but this "being the _first time_ that we have required anything in this kind, we require but _that sum which few men would deny a friend_."

As far as I can discover, the highest sum assessed from great personages was twenty pounds!

The king was willing to suffer any mortification, even that of a charitable solicitation, rather than endure the obdurate insults of parliament!

All donations were received, from ten pounds to five shillings: this was the mockery of an alms-basket!

Yet with contributions and savings so trivial, and exacted with such a warm appeal to their feelings, was the king to send out a fleet with ten thousand men--to take Cadiz!

This expedition, like so many similar attempts from the days of Charles the First to those of the great Lord Chatham, and to our own--concluded in a nullity!

Charles, disappointed in this predatory attempt, in despair called his _second_ parliament--as he says, "in the midst of his necessities--and to learn from them how he was to frame his course and counsels."

The Commons, as duteously as ever, profess that "No king was ever dearer to his people, and that they really intend to assist his majesty in such a way as may make him safe at home and feared abroad"--but it was to be on condition that he would be graciously pleased to accept "the information and advice of parliament in discovering the causes of the great evils, and redress their grievances."

The king accepted this "as a satisfactory answer;" but Charles comprehended their drift--"You specially aim at the Duke of Buckingham; what he hath done to change your minds I wot not."

The style of the king now first betrays angered feelings; the secret cause of the uncomplying conduct of the Commons was hatred of the favourite--but the king saw that they designed to control the executive government, and he could ascribe their antipathy to Buckingham but to the capriciousness of popular favour; for not long ago he had heard Buckingham hailed as "their saviour."

In the zeal and firmness of his affections, Charles always considered that he himself was aimed at in the person of his confidant, his companion, and his minister!

Some of "the bold speakers," as the heads of the opposition are frequently designated in the manuscript letters, have now risen into notice.

Sir John Eliot, Dr. Turner, Sir Dudley Digges, Mr. Clement Coke, poured themselves forth in a vehement, not to say seditious style, with invectives more daring than had ever before thundered in the House of Commons!

The king now told them--"I come to show your errors, and, as I may call it, _unparliamentary proceedings of parliament_."

The lord keeper then assured them, that "when the irregular humours of _some particular persons_ were settled, the king would hear and answer all just grievances; but the king would have them also to know that he was equally jealous to the contempt of his royal rights, which his majesty would not suffer to be violated by any pretended course of parliamentary liberty.

The king considered the parliament as his council; but there was a difference between councilling and controlling, and between liberty and the abuse of liberty."

He finished by noticing their extraordinary proceedings in their impeachment of Buckingham.

The king, resuming his speech, remarkably reproached the parliament-- Now that you have all things according to your wishes, and that _I am so far engaged that you think there is no retreat, now you begin to set the dice, and make your own game_.

But I pray you be not deceived; it is not a parliamentary way, nor is it a way to deal with a king.

Mr. Clement Coke told you, "It was better to be eaten up by a foreign enemy than to be destroyed at home!"

Indeed, I think it more honour for a king to be invaded and almost destroyed by a foreign enemy than to _be despised by his own subjects_.

The king concluded by asserting his privilege to call or to forbid parliaments.

The style of "the bold speakers" appeared at least as early as in April;

I trace their spirit in letters of the times, which furnish facts and expressions that do not appear in our printed documents.

Among the earliest of our patriots, and finally the great victim of his exertions, was Sir John Eliot, vice-admiral of Devonshire.

He, in a tone which "rolled back to Jove his own bolts," and startled even the writer, who was himself biassed to the popular party, "made a resolute, I doubt whether a timely, speech."

He adds Eliot asserted that "They came not thither either to do what the king should command them, nor to abstain when he forbade them; they came to continue constant, and to maintain their privileges.

They would not give their posterity a cause to curse them for losing their privileges by restraint, which their forefathers had left them."

[287] On the 8th of May the impeachment of the duke was opened by Sir Dudley Digges, who compared the duke to a meteor exhaled out of putrid matter.

He was followed by Glanville, Selden, and others.

On this first day the duke sat out-facing his accusers and out-braving their accusations, which the more highly exasperated the house.

[288] On the following day the duke was absent, when the epilogue to this mighty piece was elaborately delivered by Sir John Eliot, with a force of declamation and a boldness of personal allusion which have not been surpassed in the invectives of the modern Junius.

Eliot, after expatiating on the favourite's ambition in procuring and getting into his hands the greatest offices of strength and power in the kingdom, and the means by which he had obtained them, drew a picture of "the inward character of the duke's mind."

The duke's plurality of offices reminded him "of a chimerical beast called by the ancients _Stellionatus_, so blurred, so spotted, so full of foul lines that they knew not what to make of it!

In setting up himself he hath set upon the kingdom's revenues, the fountain of supply, and the nerves of the land.

He intercepts, consumes, and exhausts the revenues of the crown; and, by emptying the veins the blood should run in, he hath cast the kingdom into a high consumption."

He descends to criminate the duke's magnificent tastes; he who had something of a congenial nature; for Eliot was a man of fine literature.

"Infinite sums of money, and mass of land exceeding the value of money, contributions in parliament have been heaped upon him; and how have they been employed?

Upon costly furniture, sumptuous feasting, and magnificent building, _the visible evidence of the express exhausting of the state_!"

Eliot eloquently closes-- Your lordships have an _idea_ of the man, what he is in himself, what in his affections!

You have seen his power, and some, I fear, have felt it.

You have known his practice, and have heard the effects.

Being such, what is he in reference to king and state; how compatible or incompatible with either?

In reference to the king, he must be styled the canker in his treasure; in reference to the state the moth of all goodness.

I can hardly find him a parallel; but none were so like him as Sejanus, who is described by Tacitus, _Audax; sui obtegens, in alios criminator; juxta adulatio et superbia_.

Sejanus's pride was so excessive, as Tacitus saith, that he neglected all councils, mixed his business and service with the prince, seeming to confound their actions, and was often styled _Imperatoris laborum socius_.

Doth not this man the like?

Ask England, Scotland, and Ireland--and they will tell you!

How lately and how often hath this man commixed his actions in discourses with actions of the king's!

My lords!

I have done--you see the man!

The parallel of the duke with Sejanus electrified the house; and, as we shall see, touched Charles on a convulsive nerve.

The king's conduct on this speech was the beginning of his troubles, and the first of his more open attempts to crush the popular party.

In the House of Lords the king defended the duke, and informed them, "I have thought fit to take order for the _punishing some insolent speeches_ lately spoken."

I find a piece of secret history enclosed in a letter, with a solemn injunction that it might be burnt.

"The king this morning complained of Sir John Eliot for comparing the duke to _Sejanus_, in which he said implicitly he must intend _me_ for _Tiberius_!"

On that day the prologue and the epilogue orators--Sir Dudley Digges, who had opened the impeachment against the duke, and Sir John Eliot, who had closed it--were called out of the house by two messengers, who showed their warrants for committing them to the Tower.

[289] On this memorable day a philosophical politician might have presciently marked the seed-plots of events, which not many years afterwards were apparent to all men.

The passions of kings are often expatiated on; but, in the present anti-monarchical period, the passions of parliaments are not imaginable!

The democratic party in our constitution, from the meanest of motives, from their egotism, their vanity, and their audacity, hate kings; they would have an abstract being, a chimerical sovereign on the throne--like a statue, the mere ornament of the place it fills,--and insensible, like a statue, to the invectives they would heap on its pedestal!

The commons, with a fierce spirit of reaction for the king's "punishing some insolent speeches," at once sent up to the lords for the commitment of the duke!

[290] But when they learnt the fate of the patriots, they instantaneously broke up!

In the afternoon they assembled in Westminster-hall, to interchange their private sentiments on the fate of the two imprisoned members, in sadness and indignation.

[291] The following day the commons met in their own house.

When the speaker reminded them of the usual business, they all cried out, "Sit down!

sit down!"

They would touch on no business till they were "righted in their liberties!"

[292] An open committee of the whole house was formed, and no member suffered to quit the house; but either they were at a loss how to commence this solemn conference, or expressed their indignation by a sullen silence.

To soothe and subdue "the bold speakers" was the unfortunate attempt of the vice-chamberlain, Sir Dudley Carleton, who had long been one of our foreign ambassadors; and who, having witnessed the despotic governments on the continent, imagined that there was no deficiency of liberty at home.

"I find," said the vice-chamberlain, "by the great silence in this house, that it is a fit time to be heard, if you will grant me the patience."

Alluding to one of the king's messages, where it was hinted that, if there was "no correspondency between him and the parliament, he should be forced to _use new counsels_," "I pray you consider what these new counsels are, and may be: I fear to declare those I conceive!"

However, Sir Dudley plainly hinted at them, when he went on observing, that "when monarchs began to know their own strength, and saw the turbulent spirit of their _parliaments_, they had overthrown them in all Europe, except here only with us."

Our old ambassador drew an amusing picture of the effects of despotic governments, in that of France--"If you knew the subjects in foreign countries as well as myself, to see them look, not like our nation, with store of flesh on their backs, but like so many ghosts and not men, being nothing but skin and bones, with some thin cover to their nakedness, and wearing only wooden shoes on their feet, so that they cannot eat meat, or wear good clothes, but they must pay the king for it; this is a misery beyond expression, and that which we are yet free from!"

A long residence abroad had deprived Sir Dudley Carleton of any sympathy with the high tone of freedom, and the proud jealousy of their privileges, which, though yet unascertained, undefined, and still often contested, was breaking forth among the commons of England.

It was fated that the celestial spirit of our national freedom should not descend among us in the form of the mystical dove!

Hume observes on this speech, that "these imprudent suggestions rather gave warning than struck terror."

It was evident that the event, which implied "new counsels," meant what subsequently was practised--the king governing without a parliament!

As for "the ghosts who wore wooden shoes," to which the house was congratulated that they had not _yet_ been reduced, they would infer that it was the more necessary to provide against the possibility of such strange apparitions!

Hume truly observes, "The king reaped no further benefit from this attempt than to exasperate the house still further."

Some words, which the duke persisted in asserting had dropped from Digges, were explained away, Digges declaring that they had not been used by him; and it seems probable that he was suffered to eat his words.

Eliot was made of "sterner stuff;" he abated not a jot of whatever he had spoken of "that man," as he affected to call Buckingham.

The commons, whatever might be their patriotism, seem at first to have been chiefly moved by a personal hatred of the favourite;[293] and their real charges against him amounted to little more than pretences and aggravations.

The king, whose personal affections were always strong, considered his friend innocent; and there was a warm, romantic feature in the character of the youthful monarch, which scorned to sacrifice his faithful companion to his own interests, and to immolate the minister to the clamours of the commons.

Subsequently, when the king did this in the memorable case of the guiltless Strafford, it was the only circumstance which weighed on his mind at the hour of his own sacrifice!

Sir Robert Cotton told a friend, on the day on which the king went down to the house of lords, and committed the two patriots, that "he had of late been often sent for to the king and duke, and that the king's affection towards him was very admirable, and no whit lessened.

Certainly," he added, "the king will never yield to the duke's fall, being a young man, resolute, magnanimous, and tenderly and firmly affectionate where he takes."

[294] This authentic character of Charles the First, by that intelligent and learned man, to whom the nation owes the treasures of its antiquities, is remarkable.

Sir Robert Cotton, though holding no rank at court, and in no respect of the duke's party, was often consulted by the king, and much in his secrets.

How the king valued the judgment of this acute and able adviser, acting on it in direct contradiction and to the mortification of the favourite, I shall probably have occasion to show.

The commons did not decline in the subtle spirit with which they had begun; they covertly aimed at once to subjugate the sovereign, and to expel the minister!

A remonstrance was prepared against the levying of tonnage and poundage, which constituted half of the crown revenues; and a petition, "equivalent to a command," for removing Buckingham from his majesty's person and councils.

[295] The remonstrance is wrought up with a high spirit of invective against "the unbridled ambition of the duke," whom they class "among those vipers and pests to their king and commonwealth, as so expressly styled by your most royal father."

They request that "he would be pleased to remove this person from access to his sacred presence, and that he would not balance this one man with all these things, and with the affairs of the Christian world."

The king hastily dissolved this _second_ parliament; and when the lords petitioned for its continuance, he warmly and angrily exclaimed, "Not a moment longer!"

It was dissolved in June, 1626. The patriots abandoned their sovereign to his fate, and retreated home sullen, indignant, and ready to conspire among themselves for the assumption of their disputed or their defrauded liberties.

They industriously dispersed their remonstrance, and the king replied by a declaration; but an attack is always more vigorous than a defence.

The declaration is spiritless, and evidently composed under suppressed feelings, which, perhaps, knew not how to shape themselves.

The "Remonstrance" was commanded everywhere to be burnt; and the effect which it produced on the people we shall shortly witness.

The king was left amidst the most pressing exigencies.

At the dissolution of the first parliament he had been compelled to practise a humiliating economy.

Hume has alluded to the numerous wants of the young monarch; but he certainly was not acquainted with the king's extreme necessities.

His coronation seemed rather a private than a public ceremony.

To save the expenses of the procession from the Tower through the city to Whitehall, that customary pomp was omitted; and the reason alleged was "to save the charge for more noble undertakings!"

that is, for means to carry on the Spanish war without supplies!

But now the most extraordinary changes appeared at court.

The king mortgaged his lands in Cornwall to the aldermen and companies of London.

A rumour spread that the small pension list must be revoked; and the royal distress was carried so far, that all the tables at court were laid down, and the courtiers put on board-wages!

I have seen a letter which gives an account of "the funeral supper at Whitehall, whereat twenty-three tables were buried, being from henceforth converted to board-wages;" and there I learn, that "since this dissolving of house-keeping, his majesty is but slenderly attended."

Another writer, who describes himself to be only a looker-on, regrets, that while the men of the law spent ten thousand pounds on a single masque, they did not rather make the king rich; and adds, "I see a rich commonwealth, a rich people, and the crown poor!"

This strange poverty of the court of Charles seems to have escaped the notice of our general historians.

Charles was now to victual his fleet with the savings of the board-wages!

for this "surplusage" was taken into account!

The fatal descent on the Isle of Rhe sent home Buckingham discomfited, and spread dismay through the nation.

The best blood had been shed from the wanton bravery of an unskilful and romantic commander, who, forced to retreat, would march, but not fly, and was the very last man to quit the ground which he could not occupy.

In the eagerness of his hopes, Buckingham had once dropped, as I learn, that "before Midsummer he should be more honoured and beloved by the commons than ever was the Earl of Essex:" and thus he rocked his own and his master's imagination in cradling fancies.

This volatile hero, who had felt the capriciousness of popularity, thought that it was as easily regained as it was easily lost; and that a chivalric adventure would return to him that favour which at this moment might have been denied to all the wisdom, the policy, and the arts of an experienced statesman.

The king was now involved in more intricate and desperate measures; and the nation was thrown into a state of agitation, of which the page of popular history yields but a faint impression.

The spirit of insurrection was stalking forth in the metropolis and in the country.

The scenes which I am about to describe occurred at the close of 1626: an inattentive reader might easily mistake them for the revolutionary scenes of 1640. It was an unarmed rebellion.

An army and a navy had returned unpaid, and sore with defeat.

The town was scoured by mutinous seamen and soldiers, roving even into the palace of the sovereign.

Soldiers without pay form a society without laws.

A

band of captains rushed into the duke's apartment as he sat at dinner;

and when reminded by the duke of a late proclamation, forbidding all soldiers coming to court in troops, on pain of hanging, they replied, that "Whole companies were ready to be hanged with them!

that the king might do as he pleased with their lives; for that their reputation was lost, and their honour forfeited, for want of their salary to pay their debts."

When a petition was once presented, and it was inquired who was the composer of it, a vast body tremendously shouted "All!

all!"

A

multitude, composed of seamen, met at Tower-hill, and set a lad on a scaffold, who, with an "O yes!"

proclaimed that King Charles had promised their pay, or the duke had been on the scaffold himself!

These, at least, were grievances more apparent to the sovereign than those vague ones so perpetually repeated by his unfaithful commons.

But what remained to be done?

It was only a choice of difficulties between the disorder and the remedy.

At the moment, the duke got up what he called "The council of the sea;" was punctual at its first meeting, and appointed three days in a week to sit--but broke his appointment the second day--they found him always otherwise engaged; and "the council of the sea" turned out to be one of those shadowy expedients which only lasts while it acts on the imagination.

It is said that thirty thousand pounds would have quieted these disorganised troops; but the exchequer could not supply so mean a sum.

Buckingham in despair, and profuse of life, was planning a fresh expedition for the siege of Rochelle; a new army was required.

He swore, "if there was money in the kingdom it should be had!"

Now began that series of contrivances, and artifices, and persecutions to levy money.

Forced loans, or pretended free-gifts, kindled a resisting spirit.

It was urged by the court party, that the sums required were, in fact, much less in amount than the usual grants of subsidies; but the cry, in return for "a subsidy," was always "a Parliament!"

Many were heavily fined for declaring that "they knew no law, besides that of Parliament, to compel men to give away their own goods."

The king ordered that those who would not subscribe to the loans should not be forced; but it seems there were orders in council to specify those householders' names who would not subscribe; and it further appears that those who would not pay in purse should in person.

Those who were pressed were sent to the _depot_; but either the soldiers would not receive these good citizens, or they found easy means to return.

Every mode which the government invented seems to have been easily frustrated, either by the intrepidity of the parties themselves, or by that general understanding which enabled the people to play into one another's hands.

When the common council had consented that an imposition should be laid, the citizens called the Guildhall the _Yield-all_!

And whenever they levied a distress, in consequence of a refusal to pay it, nothing was to be found but "Old ends, such as nobody cared for."

Or if a severer officer seized on commodities, it was in vain to offer pennyworths where no customer was to be had.

A wealthy merchant, who had formerly been a cheesemonger, was summoned to appear before the privy council, and required to lend the king two hundred pounds, or else to go himself to the army, and serve it with cheese.

It was not supposed that a merchant, so aged and wealthy, would submit to resume his former mean trade; but the old man, in the spirit of the times, preferred the hard alternative, and balked the new project of finance, by shipping himself with his cheese.

At Hicks's Hall the duke and the Earl of Dorset sat to receive the loans; but the duke threatened, and the earl affected to treat with levity, men who came before them with all the suppressed feelings of popular indignation.

The Earl of Dorset asking a fellow who pleaded inability to lend money, of what trade he was, and being answered "a tailor," said: "Put down your name for such a sum; one snip will make amends for all!"

The tailor quoted scripture abundantly, and shook the bench with laughter or with rage by his anathemas, till he was put fast into a messenger's hands.

This was one Ball, renowned through the parish of St. Clement's; and not only a tailor, but a prophet.

Twenty years after, tailors and prophets employed messengers themselves!

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