Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 — Secret History of Charles the First and his first Parliaments, part 2
These are instances drawn from the inferior classes of society; but the same spirit actuated the country gentlemen: one instance represents many.
George Gatesby, of Northamptonshire, being committed to prison as a loan-recusant, alleged, among other reasons for his non-compliance, that "he considered that this loan might become a precedent; and that every precedent, he was told by the lord president, was a flower of the prerogative."
The lord president told him that "he lied!"
Gatesby shook his head, observing, "I come not here to contend with your lordship, but to suffer!"
Lord Suffolk then interposing, entreated the lord president would not too far urge his kinsman, Mr. Gatesby.
This country gentleman waived any kindness he might owe to kindred, declaring, that "he would remain master of his own purse."
The prisons were crowded with these loan-recusants, as well as with those who had sinned in the freedom of their opinions.
The country gentlemen insured their popularity by their committals; and many stout resistors of the loans were returned in the following parliament against their own wishes.
[297] The friends of these knights and country gentlemen flocked to their prisons; and when they petitioned for more liberty and air during the summer, it was policy to grant their request.
But it was also policy that they should not reside in their own counties: this relaxation was only granted to those who, living in the south, consented to sojourn in the north; while the dwellers in the north were to be lodged in the south!
In the country the disturbed scenes assumed even a more alarming appearance than in London.
They not only would not provide money, but when money was offered by government, the men refused to serve; a conscription was not then known: and it became a question, long debated in the privy council, whether those who would not accept press-money should not be tried by martial law.
I preserve in the note a curious piece of secret information.
[298] The great novelty and symptom of the times was the scattering of letters.
Sealed letters, addressed to the leading men of the country, were found hanging on bushes; anonymous letters were dropped in shops and streets, which gave notice that the day was fast approaching when "Such a work was to be wrought in England as never was the like, which will be for our good."
Addresses multiplied "To all true-hearted Englishmen!"
A groom detected in spreading such seditious papers, and brought into the inexorable Star-chamber, was fined three thousand pounds!
The leniency of the punishment was rather regretted by two bishops; if it was ever carried into execution, the unhappy man must have remained a groom who never after crossed a horse!
There is one difficult duty of an historian, which is too often passed over by the party-writer; it is to pause whenever he feels himself warming with the passions of the multitude, or becoming the blind apologist of arbitrary power.
An historian must transform himself into the characters which he is representing, and throw himself back into the times which he is opening; possessing himself of their feelings and tracing their actions, he may then at least hope to discover truths which may equally interest the honourable men of all parties.
This reflection has occurred from the very difficulty into which I am now brought.
Shall we at once condemn the king for these arbitrary measures?
It is, however, very possible that they were never in his contemplation!
Involved in inextricable difficulties, according to his feelings, he was betrayed by parliament; and he scorned to barter their favour by that vulgar traffic of treachery--the immolation of the single victim who had long attached his personal affections; a man at least as much envied as hated!
that hard lesson had not yet been inculcated on a British sovereign, that his bosom must be a blank for all private affection; and had that lesson been taught, the character of Charles was destitute of all aptitude for it.
To reign without a refractory parliament, and to find among the people themselves subjects more loyal than their representatives, was an experiment--and a fatal one!
Under Charles, the liberty of the subject, when the necessities of the state pressed on the sovereign, was matter of discussion, disputed as often as assumed; the divines were proclaiming as rebellious those who refused their contributions to aid the government;[299] and the law-sages alleged precedents for raising supplies in the manner which Charles had adopted.
Selden, whose learned industry was as vast as the amplitude of his mind, had to seek for the freedom of the subject in the dust of the records of the Tower--and the omnipotence of parliaments, if any human assembly may be invested with such supernatural greatness, had not yet awakened the hoar antiquity of popular liberty.
A general spirit of insurrection, rather than insurrection itself, had suddenly raised some strange appearances through the kingdom.
"The remonstrance" of parliament had unquestionably quickened the feelings of the people; but yet the lovers of peace and the reverencers of royalty were not a few; money and men were procured to send out the army and the fleet.
More concealed causes may be suspected to have been at work.
Many of the heads of the opposition were pursuing some secret machinations;
about this time I find many mysterious stories--indications of secret societies--and other evidences of the intrigues of the popular party.
Little matters, sometimes more important than they appear, are suitable to our minute sort of history.
In November, 1626, a rumour spread that the king was to be visited by an ambassador from "the President of the Society of the Rosycross."
He was indeed an heteroclite ambassador, for he is described "as a youth with never a hair on his face;" in fact, a child who was to conceal the mysterious personage which he was for a moment to represent.
He appointed Sunday afternoon to come to court, attended by thirteen coaches.
He was to proffer to his majesty, provided the king accepted his advice, three millions to put into his coffers;
and by his secret councils he was to unfold matters of moment and secrecy.
A Latin letter was delivered to "David Ramsey of the clock," to hand over to the king: a copy of it has been preserved in a letter of the times; but it is so unmeaning, that it could have had no effect on the king, who, however, declared that he would not admit him to an audience, and that if he could tell where "the President of the Rosycross" was to be found, unless he made good his offer, he would hang him at the court-gates.
This served the town and country for talk till the appointed Sunday had passed over, and no ambassador was visible!
Some considered this as the plotting of crazy brains, but others imagined it to be an attempt to speak with the king in private, on matters respecting the duke.
There was also discovered, by letters received from Rome, "a whole parliament of Jesuits sitting" in "a fair-hanged vault" in Clerkenwell.
[300] Sir John Cooke would have alarmed the parliament, that on St. Joseph's day these were to have occupied their places; ministers are supposed sometimes to have conspirators for "the nonce;" Sir Dudley Digges, in the opposition, as usual, would not believe in any such political necromancers; but such a party were discovered; Cooke would have insinuated that the French ambassador had persuaded Louis that the divisions between Charles and his people had been raised by his ingenuity, and was rewarded for the intelligence; this is not unlikely.
After all, the parliament of Jesuits might have been a secret college of the order; for, among other things seized on, was a considerable library.
When the parliament was sitting, a sealed letter was thrown under the door, with this superscription, _Cursed be the man that finds this letter, and delivers it not to the House of Commons_.
The Serjeant-at-Arms delivered it to the Speaker, who would not open it till the house had chosen a committee of twelve members to inform them whether it was fit to be read.
Sir Edward Coke, after having read two or three lines, stopped, and according to my authority, "durst read no further, but immediately sealing it, the committee thought fit to send it to the king, who they say, on reading it through, cast it into the fire, and sent the House of Commons thanks for their wisdom in not publishing it, and for the discretion of the committee in so far tendering his honour, as not to read it out, when they once perceived that it touched his majesty."
[301] Others, besides the freedom of speech, introduced another form, "A speech without doors," which was distributed to the members of the house.
It is in all respects a remarkable one, occupying ten folio pages in the first volume of Rushworth.
Some in office appear to have employed extraordinary proceedings of a similar nature.
An intercepted letter written from the archduchess to the King of Spain, was delivered by Sir H. Martyn at the council-board on New Year's-day, who found in it some papers relating to the navy.
The duke immediately said he would show it to the king; and, accompanied by several lords, went into his majesty's closet.
The letter was written in French; it advised the Spanish court to make a sudden war with England, for several reasons; his majesty's want of skill to govern of himself;
the weakness of his council in not daring to acquaint him with the truth; want of money; disunion of the subjects' hearts from their prince, &c. The king only observed, that the writer forgot that the archduchess writes to the King of Spain in Spanish, and sends her letters overland.
I have to add an important fact.
I find certain evidence that the heads of the opposition were busily active in thwarting the measures of government.
Dr. Samuel Turner, the member for Shrewsbury, called on Sir John Cage, and desired to speak to him privately; his errand was to entreat him to resist the loan, and to use his power with others to obtain this purpose.
The following information comes from Sir John Cage himself.
Dr. Turner "being desired to stay, he would not a minute, but instantly took horse, saying he had more places to go to, and time pressed; _that there was a company of them had divided themselves into all parts, every one having had a quarter assigned to him, to perform this service for the commonwealth_."
This was written in November, 1626. This unquestionably amounts to a secret confederacy watching out of parliament as well as in; and those strange appearances of popular defection exhibited in the country, which I have described, were in great part the consequences of the machinations and active intrigues of the popular party.
[302] The king was not disposed to try a _third_ parliament.
The favourite, perhaps to regain that popular favour which his greatness had lost him, is said in private letters to have been twice on his knees to intercede for a new one.
The elections, however, foreboded no good; and a letter-writer connected with the court, in giving an account of them, prophetically declared, "we are without question undone!"
The king's speech opens with the spirit which he himself felt, but which he could not communicate:-- "The times are for action: wherefore, for example's sake, I mean not to spend much time in words!
If you, which God forbid, should not do your duties in contributing what the state at this time needs, I must, in discharge of my conscience, _use those other means_ which God hath put into my hands, to save that, which the follies of some particular men may otherwise hazard to lose."
He added, with the loftiness of ideal majesty--"Take not this as a threatening, for I scorn to threaten any but my equals; but as an admonition from him, that, both out of nature and duty, hath most care of your preservations and prosperities:" and in a more friendly tone he requested them "To remember a thing to the end that we may forget it.
You may imagine that I come here with a doubt of success, remembering the distractions of the last meeting; but I assure you that I shall very easily forget and forgive what is past."
A most crowded house now met, composed of the wealthiest men; for a lord, who probably considered that property was the true balance of power, estimated that they were able to buy the upper-house, his majesty only excepted!
The aristocracy of wealth had already begun to be felt.
Some ill omens of the parliament appeared.
Sir Robert Philips moved for a general fast: "we had one for the plague which it pleased God to deliver us from, and we have now so many plagues of the commonwealth about his majesty's person, that we have need of such, an act of humiliation."
Sir Edward Coke held it most necessary, "because there are, I fear, some devils that will not be cast out but by fasting and prayer."
Many of the speeches in "this great council of the kingdom" are as admirable pieces of composition as exist in the language.
Even the court-party were moderate, extenuating rather than pleading for the late necessities.
But the evil spirit of party, however veiled, was walking amidst them all: a letter-writer represents the natural state of feelings: "Some of the parliament talk desperately; while others, of as high a course to enforce money if they yield not!"
Such is the perpetual action and reaction of public opinion; when one side will give too little, the other is sure to desire too much!
The parliament granted subsidies.
--Sir John Cooke having brought up the report to the king, Charles expressed great satisfaction, and declared that he felt now more happy than any of his predecessors.
Inquiring of Sir John by how many voices he had carried it?
Cooke replied, "But by one!"
--at which his majesty seemed appalled, and asked how many were against him?
Cooke answered, "None!
the unanimity of the House made all but _one voice_!"
at which his majesty wept!
[303] If Charles shed tears, or as Cooke himself expresses it, in his report to the House, "was much affected," the emotion was profound: for on all sudden emergencies Charles displayed an almost unparalleled command over the exterior violence of his feelings.
The favourite himself sympathised with the tender joy of his royal master; and, before the king, voluntarily offered himself as a peace-sacrifice.
In his speech at the council-table, he entreats the king that he, who had the honour to be his majesty's favourite, might now give up that title to them.
--A warm genuine feeling probably prompted these words:-- "To open my heart, please to pardon me a word more; I must confess I have long lived in pain, sleep hath given me no rest, favours and fortune no content; such have been my secret sorrows, to be thought the man of separation, and that divided the king from his people, and them from him; but I hope it shall appear they were some mistaken minds that would have made me the evil spirit that walketh between a good master and a loyal people."
[304] Buckingham added, that for the good of his country he was willing to sacrifice his honours; and since his plurality of offices had been so strongly excepted against,[305] that he was content to give up the Master of the Horse to Marquess Hamilton, and the Warden of the Cinque Ports to the Earl of Carlisle; and was willing that the parliament should appoint another admiral for all services at sea.
It is as certain as human evidence can authenticate, that on the king's side all was grateful affection; and that on Buckingham's there was a most earnest desire to win the favours of parliament; and what are stronger than all human evidence, those unerring principles in human nature itself, which are the secret springs of the heart, were working in the breasts of the king and his minister; for neither were tyrannical.
The king undoubtedly sighed to meet parliament with the love which he had at first professed; he declared that "he should now rejoice to meet with his people often."
Charles had no innate tyranny in his constitutional character; and Buckingham at times was susceptible of misery amidst his greatness, as I have elsewhere shown.
[306] It could not have been imagined that the luckless favourite, on the present occasion, should have served as a pretext to set again in motion the chaos of evil!
Can any candid mind suppose that the king or the duke meditated the slightest insult on the patriotic party, or would in the least have disturbed the apparent reconciliation!
Yet it so happened!
Secretary Cooke, at the close of his report of the king's acceptance of the subsidies, mentioned that the duke had fervently beseeched the king to grant the house all their desires!
Perhaps the mention of the duke's name was designed to ingratiate him into their toleration.
Sir John Eliot caught fire at the very name of the duke, and vehemently checked the secretary for having dared to introduce it; declaring, that "they knew of no other distinction but of king and subjects.
By intermingling a subject's speech with the king's message, he seemed to derogate from the honour and majesty of a king.
Nor would it become any subject to bear himself in such a fashion, as if no grace ought to descend from the king to the people, nor any loyalty ascend from the people to the king, but through him only."
This speech was received by many with acclamations; some cried out, "Well spoken, Sir John Eliot!"
[307] It marks the heated state of the political atmosphere, where even the lightest coruscation of a hated name made it burst into flames!
I have often suspected that Sir John Eliot, by his vehement personality, must have borne a personal antipathy to Buckingham.
I have never been enabled to ascertain the fact; but I find that he has left in manuscript a collection of satires, or Verses, being chiefly invectives against the Duke of Buckingham, to whom he bore a bitter and most inveterate enmity.
Could we sometimes discover the motives of those who first head political revolutions, we should find how greatly personal hatreds have actuated them in deeds which have come down to us in the form of patriotism, and how often the revolutionary spirit disguises its private passions by its public conduct.
[308] But the supplies, which had raised tears from the fervent gratitude of Charles, though voted, were yet withheld.
They resolved that grievances and supplies go hand in hand.
The commons entered deeply into constitutional points of the highest magnitude.
The curious erudition of Selden and Coke was combined with the ardour of patriots who merit no inferior celebrity, though not having consecrated their names by their laborious literature, we only discover them in the obscure annals of parliament.
To our history, composed by writers of different principles, I refer the reader for the arguments of lawyers, and the spirit of the commons.
My secret history is only its supplement.
The king's prerogative, and the subject's liberty, were points hard to distinguish, and were established but by contest.
Sometimes the king imagined that "the house pressed not upon the abuses of power, but only upon power itself."
Sometimes the commons doubted whether they had anything of their own to give; while their property and their persons seemed equally insecure.
Despotism seemed to stand on one side, and Faction on the other--Liberty trembled!
The conference of the commons before the lords, on the freedom and person of the subject, was admirably conducted by Selden and by Coke.
When the king's attorney affected to slight the learned arguments and precedents, pretending to consider them as mutilated out of the records, and as proving rather against the commons than for them, Sir Edward Coke rose, affirming to the house, upon his skill in the law, that "it lay not under Mr. Attorney's cap to answer any one of their arguments."
Selden declared that he had written out all the records from the Tower, the Exchequer, and the King's Bench, with his own hand; and "would engage his head, Mr. Attorney should not find in all these archives a single precedent omitted."
Mr. Littleton said, that he had examined every one _syllabatim_, and whoever said they were mutilated spoke false!
Of so ambiguous and delicate a nature was then the liberty of the subject, that it seems they considered it to depend on precedents!
A startling message, on the 12th of April, was sent by the king for despatch of business.
The house, struck with astonishment, desired to have it repeated.
They remained sad and silent.
No one cared to open the debate.
A whimsical politician, Sir Francis Nethersole,[309] suddenly started up, entreating leave to tell his last night's dream.
Some laughing at him, he observed, that "kingdoms had been saved by dreams!"
Allowed to proceed, he said, "he saw two good pastures; a flock of sheep was in the one, and a bell-wether alone in the other; a great ditch was between them, and a narrow bridge over the ditch."
He was interrupted by the Speaker, who told him that it stood not with the gravity of the house to listen to dreams; but the house was inclined to hear him out.
"The sheep would sometimes go over to the bell-wether, or the bell-wether to the sheep.
Once both met on the narrow bridge, and the question was who should go back, since both could not go on without danger.
One sheep gave counsel that the sheep on the bridge should lie on their bellies, and let the bell-wether go over their backs.
The application of this dilemma he left to the house."
[310] It must be confessed that the bearing of the point was more ambiguous than some of the important ones that formed the matters of their debates.
_Davus sum, non Oedipus!
_ It is probable that this fantastical politician did not vote with the opposition; for Eliot, Wentworth, and Coke, protested against the interpretation of dreams in the house!
When the attorney-general moved that the liberties of the subject might be moderated, to reconcile the differences between themselves and the sovereign, Sir Edward Coke observed, that "the true mother would never consent to the dividing of her child."
On this, Buckingham swore that Coke intimated that the king, his master, was the prostitute of the state.
Coke protested against the misinterpretation.
The dream of Nethersole, and the metaphor of Coke, were alike dangerous in parliamentary discussion.
