History of England, from the Accession of James II - (Volume 1, Chapter 01) — Chapter I, Part 10

The government of England was now, in all points but one, as despotic as that of France.

But that one point was all important.

There was still no standing army.

There was therefore, no security that the whole fabric of tyranny might not be subverted in a single day; and, if taxes were imposed by the royal authority for the support of an army, it was probable that there would be an immediate and irresistible explosion.

This was the difficulty which more than any other perplexed Wentworth.

The Lord Keeper Finch, in concert with other lawyers who were employed by the government, recommended an expedient which was eagerly adopted.

The ancient princes of England, as they called on the inhabitants of the counties near Scotland to arm and array themselves for the defence of the border, had sometimes called on the maritime counties to furnish ships for the defence of the coast.

In the room of ships money had sometimes been accepted.

This old practice it was now determined, after a long interval, not only to revive but to extend.

Former princes had raised shipmoney only in time of war: it was now exacted in a time of profound peace.

Former princes, even in the most perilous wars, had raised shipmoney only along the coasts: it was now exacted from the inland shires.

Former princes had raised shipmoney only for the maritime defence of the country: It was now exacted, by the admission of the Royalists themselves.

With the object, not of maintaining a navy, but of furnishing the King with supplies which might be increased at his discretion to any amount, and expended at his discretion for any purpose.

The whole nation was alarmed and incensed.

John Hampden, an opulent and well born gentleman of Buckinghamshire, highly considered in his own neighbourhood, but as yet little known to the kingdom generally, had the courage to step forward, to confront the whole power of the government, and take on himself the cost and the risk of disputing the prerogative to which the King laid claim.

The case was argued before the judges in the Exchequer Chamber.

So strong were the arguments against the pretensions of the crown that, dependent and servile as the judges were, the majority against Hampden was the smallest possible.

Still there was a majority.

The interpreters of the law had pronounced that one great and productive tax might be imposed by the royal authority.

Wentworth justly observed that it was impossible to vindicate their judgment except by reasons directly leading to a conclusion which they had not ventured to draw.

If money might legally be raised without the consent of Parliament for the support of a fleet, it was not easy to deny that money might, without consent of Parliament, be legally raised for the support of an army.

The decision of the judges increased the irritation of the people.

A

century earlier, irritation less serious would have produced a general rising.

But discontent did not now so readily as in an earlier age take the form of rebellion.

The nation had been long steadily advancing in wealth and in civilisation.

Since the great northern Earls took up arms against Elizabeth seventy years had elapsed; and during those seventy years there had been no civil war.

Never, during the whole existence of the English nation, had so long a period passed without intestine hostilities.

Men had become accustomed to the pursuits of peaceful industry, and, exasperated as they were, hesitated long before they drew the sword.

This was the conjuncture at which the liberties of the nation were in the greatest peril.

The opponents of the government began to despair of the destiny of their country; and many looked to the American wilderness as the only asylum in which they could enjoy civil and spiritual freedom.

There a few resolute Puritans, who, in the cause of their religion, feared neither the rage of the ocean nor the hardships of uncivilised life, neither the fangs of savage beasts nor the tomahawks of more savage men, had built, amidst the primeval forests, villages which are now great and opulent cities, but which have, through every change, retained some trace of the character derived from their founders.

The government regarded these infant colonies with aversion, and attempted violently to stop the stream of emigration, but could not prevent the population of New England from being largely recruited by stouthearted and Godfearing men from every part of the old England.

And now Wentworth exulted in the near prospect of Thorough.

A few years might probably suffice for the execution of his great design.

If strict economy were observed, if all collision with foreign powers were carefully avoided, the debts of the crown would be cleared off: there would be funds available for the support of a large military force; and that force would soon break the refractory spirit of the nation.

At this crisis an act of insane bigotry suddenly changed the whole face of public affairs.

Had the King been wise, he would have pursued a cautious and soothing policy towards Scotland till he was master in the South.

For Scotland was of all his kingdoms that in which there was the greatest risk that a spark might produce a flame, and that a flame might become a conflagration.

Constitutional opposition, indeed, such as he had encountered at Westminster, he had not to apprehend at Edinburgh.

The Parliament of his northern kingdom was a very different body from that which bore the same name in England.

It was ill constituted: it was little considered; and it had never imposed any serious restraint on any of his predecessors.

The three Estates sate in one house.

The commissioners of the burghs were considered merely as retainers of the great nobles.

No act could be introduced till it had been approved by the Lords of Articles, a committee which was really, though not in form, nominated by the crown.

But, though the Scottish Parliament was obsequious, the Scottish people had always been singularly turbulent and ungovernable.

They had butchered their first James in his bedchamber: they had repeatedly arrayed themselves in arms against James the Second; they had slain James the Third on the field of battle: their disobedience had broken the heart of James the Fifth: they had deposed and imprisoned Mary: they had led her son captive; and their temper was still as intractable as ever.

Their habits were rude and martial.

All along the southern border, and all along the line between the highlands and the lowlands, raged an incessant predatory war.

In every part of the country men were accustomed to redress their wrongs by the strong hand.

Whatever loyalty the nation had anciently felt to the Stuarts had cooled during their long absence.

The supreme influence over the public mind was divided between two classes of malecontents, the lords of the soil and the preachers; lords animated by the same spirit which had often impelled the old Douglasses to withstand the royal house, and preachers who had inherited the republican opinions and the unconquerable spirit of Knox.

Both the national and religious feelings of the population had been wounded.

All orders of men complained that their country, that country which had, with so much glory, defended her independence against the ablest and bravest Plantagenets, had, through the instrumentality of her native princes, become in effect, though not in name, a province of England.

In no part of Europe had the Calvinistic doctrine and discipline taken so strong a hold on the public mind.

The Church of Rome was regarded by the great body of the people with a hatred which might justly be called ferocious; and the Church of England, which seemed to be every day becoming more and more like the Church of Rome, was an object of scarcely less aversion.

The government had long wished to extend the Anglican system over the whole island, and had already, with this view, made several changes highly distasteful to every Presbyterian.

One innovation, however, the most hazardous of all, because it was directly cognisable by the senses of the common people, had not yet been attempted.

The public worship of God was still conducted in the manner acceptable to the nation.

Now, however, Charles and Laud determined to force on the Scots the English liturgy, or rather a liturgy which, wherever it differed from that of England, differed, in the judgment of all rigid Protestants, for the worse.

To this step, taken in the mere wantonness of tyranny, and in criminal ignorance or more criminal contempt of public feeling, our country owes her freedom.

The first performance of the foreign ceremonies produced a riot.

The riot rapidly became a revolution.

Ambition, patriotism, fanaticism, were mingled in one headlong torrent.

The whole nation was in arms.

The power of England was indeed, as appeared some years later, sufficient to coerce Scotland: but a large part of the English people sympathised with the religious feelings of the insurgents; and many Englishmen who had no scruple about antiphonies and genuflexions, altars and surplices, saw with pleasure the progress of a rebellion which seemed likely to confound the arbitrary projects of the court, and to make the calling of a Parliament necessary.

For the senseless freak which had produced these effects Wentworth is not responsible.

[15] It had, in fact, thrown all his plans into confusion.

To counsel submission, however, was not in his nature.

An attempt was made to put down the insurrection by the sword: but the King's military means and military talents were unequal to the task.

To impose fresh taxes on England in defiance of law, would, at this conjuncture, have been madness.

No resource was left but a Parliament;

and in the spring of 1640 a Parliament was convoked.

The nation had been put into good humour by the prospect of seeing constitutional government restored, and grievances redressed.

The new House of Commons was more temperate and more respectful to the throne than any which had sate since the death of Elizabeth.

The moderation of this assembly has been highly extolled by the most distinguished Royalists and seems to have caused no small vexation and disappointment to the chiefs of the opposition: but it was the uniform practice of Charles, a practice equally impolitic and ungenerous, to refuse all compliance with the desires of his people, till those desires were expressed in a menacing tone.

As soon as the Commons showed a disposition to take into consideration the grievances under which the country had suffered during eleven years, the King dissolved the Parliament with every mark of displeasure.

Between the dissolution of this shortlived assembly and the meeting of that ever memorable body known by the name of the Long Parliament, intervened a few months, during which the yoke was pressed down more severely than ever on the nation, while the spirit of the nation rose up more angrily than ever against the yoke.

Members of the House of Commons were questioned by the Privy Council touching their parliamentary conduct, and thrown into prison for refusing to reply.

Shipmoney was levied with increased rigour.

The Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs of London were threatened with imprisonment for remissness in collecting the payments.

Soldiers were enlisted by force.

Money for their support was exacted from their counties.

Torture, which had always been illegal, and which had recently been declared illegal even by the servile judges of that age, was inflicted for the last time in England in the month of May, 1610. Everything now depended on the event of the King's military operations against the Scots.

Among his troops there was little of that feeling which separates professional soldiers from the mass of a nation, and attaches them to their leaders.

His army, composed for the most part of recruits, who regretted the plough from which they had been violently taken, and who were imbued with the religious and political sentiments then prevalent throughout the country, was more formidable to himself than to the enemy.

The Scots, encouraged by the heads of the English opposition, and feebly resisted by the English forces, marched across the Tweed and the Tyne, and encamped on the borders of Yorkshire.

And now the murmurs of discontent swelled into an uproar by which all spirits save one were overawed.

But the voice of Strafford was still for Thorough; and he even, in this extremity, showed a nature so cruel and despotic, that his own pikemen were ready to tear him in pieces.

There was yet one last expedient which, as the King flattered himself, might save him from the misery of facing another House of Commons.

To the House of Lords he was less averse.

The Bishops were devoted to him; and though the temporal peers were generally dissatisfied with his administration, they were, as a class, so deeply interested in the maintenance of order, and in the stability of ancient institutions, that they were not likely to call for extensive reforms.

Departing from the uninterrupted practice of centuries, he called a Great Council consisting of Lords alone.

But the Lords were too prudent to assume the unconstitutional functions with which he wished to invest them.

Without money, without credit, without authority even in his own camp, he yielded to the pressure of necessity.

The Houses were convoked; and the elections proved that, since the spring, the distrust and hatred with which the government was regarded had made fearful progress.

In November, 1640, met that renowned Parliament which, in spite of many errors and disasters, is justly entitled to the reverence and gratitude of all who, in any part of the world enjoy the blessings of constitutional government.

During the year which followed, no very important division of opinion appeared in the Houses.

The civil and ecclesiastical administration had, through a period of nearly twelve years, been so oppressive and so unconstitutional that even those classes of which the inclinations are generally on the side of order and authority were eager to promote popular reforms and to bring the instruments of tyranny to justice.

It was enacted that no interval of more than three years should ever elapse between Parliament and Parliament, and that, if writs under the Great Seal were not issued at the proper time, the returning officers should, without such writs, call the constituent bodies together for the choice of representatives.

The Star Chamber, the High Commission, the Council of York were swept away.

Men who, after suffering cruel mutilations, had been confined in remote dungeons, regained their liberty.

On the chief ministers of the crown the vengeance of the nation was unsparingly wreaked.

The Lord Keeper, the Primate, the Lord Lieutenant were impeached.

Finch saved himself by flight.

Laud was flung into the Tower.

Strafford was put to death by act of attainder.

On the day on which this act passed, the King gave his assent to a law by which he bound himself not to adjourn, prorogue, or dissolve the existing Parliament without its own consent.

After ten months of assiduous toil, the Houses, in September 1641, adjourned for a short vacation; and the King visited Scotland.

He with difficulty pacified that kingdom by consenting, not only to relinquish his plans of ecclesiastical reform, but even to pass, with a very bad grace, an act declaring that episcopacy was contrary to the word of God.

The recess of the English Parliament lasted six weeks.

The day on which the Houses met again is one of the most remarkable epochs in our history.

From that day dates the corporate existence of the two great parties which have ever since alternately governed the country.

In one sense, indeed, the distinction which then became obvious had always existed, and always must exist.

For it has its origin in diversities of temper, of understanding, and of interest, which are found in all societies, and which will be found till the human mind ceases to be drawn in opposite directions by the charm of habit and by the charm of novelty.

Not only in politics but in literature, in art, in science, in surgery and mechanics, in navigation and agriculture, nay, even in mathematics, we find this distinction.

Everywhere there is a class of men who cling with fondness to whatever is ancient, and who, even when convinced by overpowering reasons that innovation would be beneficial, consent to it with many misgivings and forebodings.

We find also everywhere another class of men, sanguine in hope, bold in speculation, always pressing forward, quick to discern the imperfections of whatever exists, disposed to think lightly of the risks and inconveniences which attend improvements and disposed to give every change credit for being an improvement.

In the sentiments of both classes there is something to approve.

But of both the best specimens will be found not far from the common frontier.

The extreme section of one class consists of bigoted dotards: the extreme section of the other consists of shallow and reckless empirics.

There can be no doubt that in our very first Parliaments might have been discerned a body of members anxious to preserve, and a body eager to reform.

But, while the sessions of the legislature were short, these bodies did not take definite and permanent forms, array themselves under recognised leaders, or assume distinguishing names, badges, and war cries.

During the first months of the Long Parliament, the indignation excited by many years of lawless oppression was so strong and general that the House of Commons acted as one man.

Abuse after abuse disappeared without a struggle.

If a small minority of the representative body wished to retain the Star Chamber and the High Commission, that minority, overawed by the enthusiasm and by the numerical superiority of the reformers, contented itself with secretly regretting institutions which could not, with any hope of success, be openly defended.

At a later period the Royalists found it convenient to antedate the separation between themselves and their opponents, and to attribute the Act which restrained the King from dissolving or proroguing the Parliament, the Triennial Act, the impeachment of the ministers, and the attainder of Strafford, to the faction which afterwards made war on the King.

But no artifice could be more disingenuous.

Every one of those strong measures was actively promoted by the men who were afterward foremost among the Cavaliers.

No republican spoke of the long misgovernment of Charles more severely than Colepepper.

The most remarkable speech in favour of the Triennial Bill was made by Digby.

The impeachment of the Lord Keeper was moved by Falkland.

The demand that the Lord Lieutenant should be kept close prisoner was made at the bar of the Lords by Hyde.

Not till the law attainting Strafford was proposed did the signs of serious disunion become visible.

Even against that law, a law which nothing but extreme necessity could justify, only about sixty members of the House of Commons voted.

It is certain that Hyde was not in the minority, and that Falkland not only voted with the majority, but spoke strongly for the bill.

Even the few who entertained a scruple about inflicting death by a retrospective enactment thought it necessary to express the utmost abhorrence of Strafford's character and administration.

But under this apparent concord a great schism was latent; and when, in October, 1641, the Parliament reassembled after a short recess, two hostile parties, essentially the same with those which, under different names, have ever since contended, and are still contending, for the direction of public affairs, appeared confronting each other.

During some years they were designated as Cavaliers and Roundheads.

They were subsequently called Tories and Whigs; nor does it seem that these appellations are likely soon to become obsolete.

It would not be difficult to compose a lampoon or panegyric on either of these renowned factions.

For no man not utterly destitute of judgment and candor will deny that there are many deep stains on the fame of the party to which he belongs, or that the party to which he is opposed may justly boast of many illustrious names, of many heroic actions, and of many great services rendered to the state.

The truth is that, though both parties have often seriously erred, England could have spared neither.

If, in her institutions, freedom and order, the advantages arising from innovation and the advantages arising from prescription, have been combined to an extent elsewhere unknown, we may attribute this happy peculiarity to the strenuous conflicts and alternate victories of two rival confederacies of statesmen, a confederacy zealous for authority and antiquity, and a confederacy zealous for liberty and progress.

It ought to be remembered that the difference between the two great sections of English politicians has always been a difference rather of degree than of principle.

There were certain limits on the right and on the left, which were very rarely overstepped.

A few enthusiasts on one side were ready to lay all our laws and franchises at the feet of our Kings.

A few enthusiasts on the other side were bent on pursuing, through endless civil troubles, their darling phantom of a republic.

But the great majority of those who fought for the crown were averse to despotism; and the great majority of the champions of popular rights were averse to anarchy.

Twice, in the course of the seventeenth century, the two parties suspended their dissensions, and united their strength in a common cause.

Their first coalition restored hereditary monarchy.

Their second coalition rescued constitutional freedom.

It is also to be noted that these two parties have never been the whole nation, nay, that they have never, taken together, made up a majority of the nation.

Between them has always been a great mass, which has not steadfastly adhered to either, which has sometimes remained inertly neutral, and which has sometimes oscillated to and fro.

That mass has more than once passed in a few years from one extreme to the other, and back again.

Sometimes it has changed sides, merely because it was tired of supporting the same men, sometimes because it was dismayed by its own excesses, sometimes because it had expected impossibilities, and had been disappointed.

But whenever it has leaned with its whole weight in either direction, that weight has, for the time, been irresistible.

When the rival parties first appeared in a distinct form, they seemed to be not unequally matched.

On the side of the government was a large majority of the nobles, and of those opulent and well descended gentlemen to whom nothing was wanting of nobility but the name.

These, with the dependents whose support they could command, were no small power in the state.

On the same side were the great body of the clergy, both the Universities, and all those laymen who were strongly attached to episcopal government and to the Anglican ritual.

These respectable classes found themselves in the company of some allies much less decorous than themselves.

The Puritan austerity drove to the king's faction all who made pleasure their business, who affected gallantry, splendour of dress, or taste in the higher arts.

With these went all who live by amusing the leisure of others, from the painter and the comic poet, down to the ropedancer and the Merry Andrew.

For these artists well knew that they might thrive under a superb and luxurious despotism, but must starve under the rigid rule of the precisians.

In the same interest were the Roman Catholics to a man.

The Queen, a daughter of France, was of their own faith.

Her husband was known to be strongly attached to her, and not a little in awe of her.

Though undoubtedly a Protestant on conviction, he regarded the professors of the old religion with no ill-will, and would gladly have granted them a much larger toleration than he was disposed to concede to the Presbyterians.

If the opposition obtained the mastery, it was probable that the sanguinary laws enacted against Papists in the reign of Elizabeth, would be severely enforced.

The Roman Catholics were therefore induced by the strongest motives to espouse the cause of the court.

They in general acted with a caution which brought on them the reproach of cowardice and lukewarmness; but it is probable that, in maintaining great reserve, they consulted the King's interest as well as their own.

It was not for his service that they should be conspicuous among his friends.

The main strength of the opposition lay among the small freeholders in the country, and among the merchants and shopkeepers of the towns.

But these were headed by a formidable minority of the aristocracy, a minority which included the rich and powerful Earls of Northumberland, Bedford, Warwick, Stamford, and Essex, and several other Lords of great wealth and influence.

In the same ranks was found the whole body of Protestant Nonconformists, and most of those members of the Established Church who still adhered to the Calvinistic opinions which, forty years before, had been generally held by the prelates and clergy.

The municipal corporations took, with few exceptions, the same side.

In the House of Commons the opposition preponderated, but not very decidedly.

Neither party wanted strong arguments for the course which it was disposed to take.

The reasonings of the most enlightened Royalists may be summed up thus:--"It is true that great abuses have existed; but they have been redressed.

It is true that precious rights have been invaded;

but they have been vindicated and surrounded with new securities.

The sittings of the Estates of the realm have been, in defiance of all precedent and of the spirit of the constitution, intermitted during eleven years; but it has now been provided that henceforth three years shall never elapse without a Parliament.

The Star Chamber the High Commission, the Council of York, oppressed and plundered us; but those hateful courts have now ceased to exist.

The Lord Lieutenant aimed at establishing military despotism; but he has answered for his treason with his head.

The Primate tainted our worship with Popish rites and punished our scruples with Popish cruelty; but he is awaiting in the Tower the judgment of his peers.

The Lord Keeper sanctioned a plan by which the property of every man in England was placed at the mercy of the Crown; but he has been disgraced, ruined, and compelled to take refuge in a foreign land.

The ministers of tyranny have expiated their crimes.

The victims of tyranny have been compensated for their sufferings.

It would therefore be most unwise to persevere further in that course which was justifiable and necessary when we first met, after a long interval, and found the whole administration one mass of abuses.

It is time to take heed that we do not so pursue our victory over despotism as to run into anarchy.

It was not in our power to overturn the bad institutions which lately afflicted our country, without shocks which have loosened the foundations of government.

Now that those institutions have fallen, we must hasten to prop the edifice which it was lately our duty to batter.

Henceforth it will be our wisdom to look with jealousy on schemes of innovation, and to guard from encroachment all the prerogatives with which the law has, for the public good, armed the sovereign."

Such were the views of those men of whom the excellent Falkland may be regarded as the leader.

It was contended on the other side with not less force, by men of not less ability and virtue, that the safety which the liberties of the English people enjoyed was rather apparent than real, and that the arbitrary projects of the court would be resumed as soon as the vigilance of the Commons was relaxed.

True it was,--such was the reasoning of Pym, of Hollis, and of Hampden--that many good laws had been passed: but, if good laws had been sufficient to restrain the King, his subjects would have had little reason ever to complain of his administration.

The recent statutes were surely not of more authority than the Great Charter or the Petition of Right.

Yet neither the Great Charter, hallowed by the veneration of four centuries, nor the Petition of Right, sanctioned, after mature reflection, and for valuable consideration, by Charles himself, had been found effectual for the protection of the people.

If once the check of fear were withdrawn, if once the spirit of opposition were suffered to slumber, all the securities for English freedom resolved themselves into a single one, the royal word; and it had been proved by a long and severe experience that the royal word could not be trusted.

The two parties were still regarding each other with cautious hostility, and had not yet measured their strength, when news arrived which inflamed the passions and confirmed the opinions of both.

The great chieftains of Ulster, who, at the time of the accession of James, had, after a long struggle, submitted to the royal authority, had not long brooked the humiliation of dependence.

They had conspired against the English government, and had been attainted of treason.

Their immense domains had been forfeited to the crown, and had soon been peopled by thousands of English and Scotch emigrants.

The new settlers were, in civilisation and intelligence, far superior to the native population, and sometimes abused their superiority.

The animosity produced by difference of race was increased by difference of religion.

Under the iron rule of Wentworth, scarcely a murmur was heard: but, when that strong pressure was withdrawn, when Scotland had set the example of successful resistance, when England was distracted by internal quarrels, the smothered rage of the Irish broke forth into acts of fearful violence.

On a sudden, the aboriginal population rose on the colonists.

A war, to which national and theological hatred gave a character of peculiar ferocity, desolated Ulster, and spread to the neighbouring provinces.

The castle of Dublin was scarcely thought secure.

Every post brought to London exaggerated accounts of outrages which, without any exaggeration were sufficient to move pity end horror.

These evil tidings roused to the height the zeal of both the great parties which were marshalled against each other at Westminster.

The Royalists maintained that it was the first duty of every good Englishman and Protestant, at such a crisis, to strengthen the hands of the sovereign.

To the opposition it seemed that there were now stronger reasons than ever for thwarting and restraining him.

That the commonwealth was in danger was undoubtedly a good reason for giving large powers to a trustworthy magistrate: but it was a good reason for taking away powers from a magistrate who was at heart a public enemy.

To raise a great army had always been the King's first object.

A great army must now be raised.

It was to be feared that, unless some new securities were devised, the forces levied for the reduction of Ireland would be employed against the liberties of England.

Nor was this all.

A horrible suspicion, unjust indeed, but not altogether unnatural, had arisen in many minds.

The Queen was an avowed Roman Catholic: the King was not regarded by the Puritans, whom he had mercilessly persecuted, as a sincere Protestant;

and so notorious was his duplicity, that there was no treachery of which his subjects might not, with some show of reason, believe him capable.

It was soon whispered that the rebellion of the Roman Catholics of Ulster was part of a vast work of darkness which had been planned at Whitehall.