{1633.} The court of star chamber extended its authority; and it was matter of complaint that it encroached upon the jurisdiction of the other courts; imposing heavy fines and inflicting severe punishment, beyond the usual course of justice. Sir David Foulis was fined five thousand pounds, chiefly because he had dissuaded a friend from compounding with the commissioners of knighthood.[**]

* Rush. vol. ii. p. 202, 203.

** Rush, vol. ii. p. 215, 216, etc.

Prynne, a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, had written an enormous quarto of a thousand pages, which he called Histrio-Mastyx. Its professed purpose was to decry stage-plays, comedies, interludes, music, dancing; but the author likewise took occasion to declaim against hunting, public festivals, Christmas-keeping, bonfires, and may-poles. His zeal against all these levities, he says, was first moved by observing that plays sold better than the choicest sermons, and that they were frequently printed on finer paper than the Bible itself. Besides, that the players were often Papists, and desperately wicked; the play-houses, he affirms, are Satan's chapels; the play-haunters little better than incarnate devils; and so many steps in a dance, so many paces to hell. The chief crime of Nero, he represents to have been his frequenting and acting of plays; and those who nobly conspired his death, were principally moved to it, as he affirms, by their indignation at that enormity. The rest of his thousand pages is of a like strain. He had obtained a license from Archbishop Abbot's chaplain; yet was he indicted in the star chamber as a libeller. It was thought somewhat hard that general invectives against plays should be interpreted into satires against the king and queen, merely because they frequented these amusements, and because the queen sometimes acted a part in pastorals and interludes which were represented at court. The author, it must be owned, had, in plainer terms, blamed the hierarchy, the ceremonies, the innovations in religious worship, and the new superstitions introduced by Laud;[*] and this, probably, together with the obstinacy and petulance of his behavior before the star chamber, was the reason why his sentence was so severe. He was condemned to be put from the bar; to stand on the pillory in two places, Westminster and Cheapside; to lose both his ears, one in each place; to pay five thousand pounds' fine to the king; and to be imprisoned during life.[**]

This same Prynne was a great hero among the Puritans; and it was chiefly with a view of mortifying that sect, that though of an honorable profession, he was condemned by the star chamber to so ignominious a punishment. The thorough-paced Puritans were distinguishable by the sourness and austerity of their manners, and by their aversion to all pleasure and society.[***] To inspire them with better humor was certainly, both for their own sake and that of the public, a laudable intention in the court; but whether pillories, fines and prisons were proper expedients for that purpose, may admit of some question.

Another expedient which the king tried, in order to infuse cheerfulness into the national devotion, was not much more successful. He renewed his father's edict for allowing sports and recreations on Sunday to such as attended public worship; and he ordered his proclamation for that purpose to be publicly read by the clergy after divine service.[****] Those who were Puritanically affected refused obedience, and were punished by suspension or deprivation. The differences between the sects were before sufficiently great; nor was it necessary to widen them further by these inventions.

Some encouragement and protection which the king and the bishops gave to wakes, church ales, bride ales, and other cheerful festivals of the common people, were the objects of like scandal to the Puritans.[v]

* Rush. vol. ii. p. 223.

** Rush. vol. ii. p. 220, 221, etc.

*** Dugdale, p. 2.

**** Rush, vol. ii. p. 193, 459. Whitlocke, p. 16, 17. Franklyn, p. 431*.

v Rush. vol. ii. p. 191, 192. May, p. 2.

The music in the churches he affirmed not to be the noise of men, but a bleating of brute beasts; choristers bellow the tenor, as it were oxen; bark a counterpart, as it were a kennel of dogs; roar out a treble, as it were a sort of bulls; and grunt out a bass, as it were a number of hogs: Christmas, as it is kept, is the devil's Christmas: and Prynne employed a great number of pages to persuade men to affect the name of "Puritan," as if Christ had been a Puritan; and so he saith in his index.

This year, Charles made a journey to Scotland, attended by the court, in order to hold a parliament there, and to pass through the ceremony of his coronation. The nobility and gentry of both kingdoms rivalled each other in expressing all duty and respect to the king, and in showing mutual friendship and regard to each other. No one could have suspected, from exterior appearances, that such dreadful scenes were approaching.

One chief article of business, (for it deserves the name,) which the king transacted in this parliament, was, besides obtaining some supply, to procure authority for ordering the habits of clergymen.[*] The act did not pass without opposition and difficulty. The dreadful surplice was before men's eyes, and they apprehended, with some reason, that under sanction of this law, it would soon be introduced among them. Though the king believed that his prerogative entitled him to a power, in general, of directing whatever belonged to the exterior government of the church, this was deemed a matter of too great importance to be ordered without the sanction of a particular statute.

Immediately after the king's return to England, he heard of Archbishop Abbot's death; and, without delay, he conferred that dignity on his favorite, Laud; who, by this accession of authority, was now enabled to maintain ecclesiastical discipline with greater rigor, and to aggravate the general discontent of the nation.

Laud obtained the bishopric of London for his friend Juxon: and, about a year after the death of Sir Richard Weston, created earl of Portland, had interest enough to engage the king to make that prelate high treasurer. Juxon was a person of great integrity, mildness, and humanity, and endued with a good understanding.[**] Yet did this last promotion give general offence. His birth and character were deemed too obscure for a man raised to one of the highest offices of the crown. And the clergy, it was thought, were already too much elated by former instances of the king's attachment to them, and needed not this further encouragement to assume dominion over the laity.[***] The Puritans, likewise, were much dissatisfied with Juxon, notwithstanding his eminent virtues, because he was a lover of profane field sports and hunting.

* Bushworth, vol. ii. p. 183.

** Whitlocke, p. 23. Clarendon, vol. i. p. 99.

*** Clarendon, vol. i. p. 97. May, p. 23.

{1634.} Ship money was now introduced. The first writs of this kind had been directed to seaport towns only: but ship money was at this time levied on the whole kingdom; and each county was rated at a particular sum, which was after wards assessed upon individuals.[*] The amount of the whole tax was very moderate, little exceeding two hundred thousand pounds: it was levied upon the people with equality: the money was entirely expended on the navy, to the great honor and advantage of the kingdom: as England had no military force, while all the other powers of Europe were strongly armed, a fleet seemed absolutely necessary for her security; and it was obvious, that a navy must be built and equipped at leisure, during peace; nor could it possibly be fitted out on a sudden emergence, when the danger became urgent; yet all these considerations could not reconcile the people to the imposition. It was entirely arbitrary: by the same right any other tax might be imposed: and men thought a powerful fleet, though very desirable both for the credit and safety of the kingdom, but an unequal recompense for their liberties, which, they apprehended, were thus sacrificed to the obtaining of it.

England, it must be owned, was in this respect unhappy in its present situation, that the king had entertained a very different idea of the constitution, from that which began in general to prevail among his subjects. He did not regard national privileges as so sacred and inviolable, that nothing but the most extreme necessity could justify an infringement of them. He considered himself as the supreme magistrate, to whose care Heaven, by his birthright, had committed his people; whose duty it was to provide for their security and happiness, and who was vested with ample discretionary powers for that salutary purpose. If the observance of ancient laws and customs was consistent with the present convenience of government, he thought himself obliged to comply with that rule, as the easiest, the safest, and what procured the most prompt and willing obedience. But when a change of circumstances, especially if derived from the obstinacy of the people, required a new plan of administration, national privileges, he thought, must yield to supreme power; nor could any order of the state oppose any right to the will of the sovereign, directed to the good of the public.[**]

* Rush. vol. ii. p. 257, 258, etc.

** Rush. vol. iv p 535, 542.

That these principles of government were derived from the uniform tenor of the English laws, it would be rash to affirm. The fluctuating nature of the constitution, the impatient humor of the people, and the variety of events, had, no doubt, in different ages, produced exceptions and contradictions. These observations alone may be established on both sides, that the appearances were sufficiently strong in favor of the king to apologize for his following such maxims; and that public liberty must be so precarious under this exorbitant prerogative, as to render an opposition not only excusable, but laudable in the people.[*] [4]

Some laws had been enacted, during the reign of Henry VII., against depopulation, or the converting of arable lands into pasture. By a decree of the star chamber, Sir Anthony Roper was fined four thousand pounds for an offence of that nature.[**] This severe sentence was intended to terrify others into composition; and above thirty thousand pounds were levied by that expedient.[***] Like compositions, or, in default of them, heavy fines, were required for encroachments on the king's forests, whose bounds, by decrees deemed arbitrary, were extended much beyond what was usual.[****] The bounds of one forest, that of Rockingham, were increased from six miles to sixty.[v] The same refractory humor which made the people refuse to the king voluntary supplies, disposed them, with better reason, to murmur against these irregular methods of taxation.

Morley was fined ten thousand pounds for reviling, challenging, and striking, in the court of Whitehall, Sir George Theobald, one of the king's servants.v This fine was thought exorbitant; but whether it was compounded, as was usual in fines imposed by the star chamber, we are not informed.

* See note D, at the end of the volume.

** Rush. vol. ii. p. 270; vol. iii. App. p. 106.

*** Rush. vol. iii. p. 333. Franklyn, p. 478.

**** May, p. 16.

v Strafford's Letters and Despatches, vol. ii. p. 117.

v* Rush. vol. ii. p. 270.

Allison had reported, that the archbishop of York had incurred the king's displeasure, by asking a limited toleration for the Catholics, and an allowance to build some churches for the exercise of their religion. For this slander against the archbishop, he was condemned in the star chamber to be fined one thousand pounds, to be committed to prison, to be bound to his good behavior during life, to be whipped, and to be set on the pillory at Westminster, and in three other towns in England. Robins, who had been an accomplice in the guilt, was condemned by a sentence equally severe.[*] Such events are rather to be considered as rare and detached incidents, collected by the severe scrutiny of historians, than as proofs of the prevailing genius of the king's administration which seems to have been more gentle and equitable than, that of most of his predecessors: there were, on the whole, only five or six such instances of rigor during the course of fifteen years, which elapsed before the meeting of the long parliament. And it is also certain, that scandal against the great, though seldom prosecuted at present, is, however, in the eye of the law, a great crime, and subjects the offender to very heavy penalties.

There are other instances of the high respect paid to the nobility and to the great in that age, when the powers of monarchy, though disputed, still maintained themselves in their pristine vigor. Clarendon[**] tells us a pleasant incident to this purpose: a waterman, belonging to a man of quality, having a squabble with a citizen about his fare, showed his badge, the crest of his master, which happened to be a swan; and thence insisted on better treatment from the citizen. But the other replied carelessly, that he did not trouble his head about that goose. For this offence, he was summoned before the marshal's court; was fined, as having opprobriously defamed the nobleman's crest, by calling the swan a goose; and was in effect reduced to beggary.

Sir Richard Granville had thought himself ill used by the earl of Suffolk in a lawsuit; and he was accused before the star chamber of having said of that nobleman, that he was a base lord. The evidence against him was somewhat lame; yet for this slight offence, insufficiently proved, he was condemned to pay a fine of eight thousand pounds; one half to the earl, the other to the king.[***]

* Bush. vol. u. p, 269.

** Life of Clarendon, vol. i. p. 72.

*** Lord Lansdown, p. 514.

Sir George Markham, following a chase where Lord Darcy's huntsman was exercising his hounds, kept closer to the dogs than was thought proper by the huntsman, who, besides other rudeness, gave him foul language, which Sir George returned with a stroke of his whip. The fellow threatened to complain to his master: the knight replied, "If his master should justify such insolence, he would serve him in the same manner;" or words to that effect. Sir George was summoned before the Star chamber, and fined ten thousand pounds: "So fine a thing was it in those days to be a lord!"—a natural reflection of Lord Lansdown's in relating this incident.[*] The people, in vindicating their liberties from the authority of the crown, threw off also the yoke of the nobility. It is proper to remark that this last incident happened early in the reign of James. The present practice of the star chamber was far from being an innovation; though the present dispositions of the people made them repine more at this servitude.

{1635.} Charles had imitated the example of Elizabeth and James, and had issued proclamations forbidding the landed gentlemen and the nobility to live idly in London, and ordering them to retire to their country seats.[**] For disobedience to this edict, many were indicted by the attorney-general, and were fined in the star chamber.[***] This occasioned discontents; and the sentences were complained of as illegal. But if proclamations had authority, of which nobody pretended to doubt, must they not be put in execution? In no instance I must confess, does it more evidently appear, what confused and uncertain ideas were during that age entertained concerning the English constitution.

Ray, having exported fuller's earth, contrary to the king's proclamation, was, besides the pillory, condemned in the star chamber to a fine of two thousand pounds.[****] Like fines were levied on Terry, Eman, and others, for disobeying a proclamation which forbade the exportation of gold.[v] In order to account for the subsequent convulsions, even these incidents are not to be overlooked as frivolous or contemptible. Such severities were afterwards magnified into the greatest enormities.

There remains a proclamation of this year, prohibiting hackney coaches from standing in the street.v We are told, that there were not above twenty coaches of that kind in London. There are at present near eight hundred.

* Lord Lansdown, p. 515. This story is told differently in Hobart's Reports, p. 120. It there appears, that Markham was fined only five hundred pounds, and very deservedly; for he gave the lie and wrote a challenge to Lord Darcy. James was anxious to discourage the practice of duelling, which was then very prevalent.

** Rush. vol. ii. p. 144.

*** Rush. vol. ii, p. 288.

**** Rush. vol. ii. p. 348.

v Rush. vol. ii. p. 360.

v* Rush. vol. ii. p. 316.

{1636.} The effects of ship money began now to appear. A formidable fleet of sixty sail, the greatest that England had ever known, was equipped under the earl of Northumberland, who had orders to attack the herring busses of the Dutch, which fished in what were called the British seas. The Dutch were content to pay thirty thousand pounds for a license during this year. They openly denied, however, the claim of dominion in the seas beyond the friths, bays, and shores; and it may be questioned whether the laws of nations warrant any further pretensions.

This year, the king sent a squadron against Sallee; and, with the assistance of the emperor of Morocco, destroyed that receptacle of pirates, by whom the English commerce, and even the English coasts, had long been infested.

{1637.} Burton, a divine, and Bastwick, a physician, were tried in the star chamber for seditious and schismatical libels, and were condemned to the same punishment that had been inflicted on Prynne. Prynne himself was tried for a new offence; and, together with another fine of five thousand pounds, was condemned to lose what remained of his ears. Besides that these writers had attacked with great severity, and even an intemperate zeal, the ceremonies, rites, and government of the church, the very answers which they gave in to the court were so full of contumacy and of invectives against the prelates, that no lawyer could be prevailed on to sign them.[*] The rigors, however, which they underwent, being so unworthy men of their profession, gave general offence; and the patience, or rather alacrity, with which they suffered, increased still further the indignation of the public.[**]

* Rush. vol. ii. p. 381, 382, etc. State Trials, vol. v. p. 66.

** State Trials, vol. v. p. 80.

The severity of the star chamber, which was generally ascribed to Laud's passionate disposition, was, perhaps, in itself somewhat blamable; but will naturally, to us, appear enormous, who enjoy, in the utmost latitude, that liberty of the press, which is esteemed so necessary in every monarchy, confined by strict legal limitations. But as these limitations were not regularly fixed during the age of Charles, nor at any time before, so was this liberty totally unknown, and was generally deemed, as well as religious toleration, incompatible with all good government. No age or nation among the moderns had ever set an example of such an indulgence; and it seems unreasonable to judge of the measures embraced during one period by the maxims which prevail in another.

Burton, in his book where he complained of innovations mentioned, among others, that a certain Wednesday had been appointed for a fast, and that the fast was ordered to be celebrated without any sermons.[*] The intention, as he pretended, of that novelty was, by the example of a fast without sermons, to suppress all the Wednesday's lectures in London. It is observable, that the church of Rome and that of England, being both of them lovers of form, and ceremony, and order, are more friends to prayer than preaching; while the Puritanical sectaries, who find that the latter method of address, being directed to a numerous audience present and visible, is more inflaming and animating, have always regarded it as the chief part of divine service. Such circumstances, though minute, it may not be improper to transmit to posterity; and those who are curious of tracing the history of the human mind, may remark how far its several singularities coincide in different ages.

Certain zealots had erected themselves into a society for buying in of impropriations, and transferring them to the church; and great sums of money had been bequeathed to the society for these purposes. But it was soon observed, that the only use which they made of their funds was to establish lecturers in all the considerable churches; men who, without being subjected to Episcopal authority, employed themselves entirely in preaching and spreading the fire of Puritanism. Laud took care, by a decree which was passed in the court of exchequer, and which was much complained of, to abolish this society, and to stop their progress.[**] It was, however, still observed, that throughout England the lecturers were all of them Puritanically affected; and from them the clergymen, who contented themselves with reading prayers and homilies to the people, commonly received the reproachful appellation of "dumb dogs."

* State Trials, vol. v. p. 74. Franklyn, p. 839.

** Rush. vol. ii. p. 150, 151. Whitlocke, p. 15. History of the Life Sufferings of Laud, p. 211, 212.

The Puritans, restrained in England, shipped themselves off for America, and laid there the foundations of a government which possessed all the liberty, both civil and religious, of which they found themselves bereaved in their native country.

But their enemies, unwilling that they should any where enjoy ease and contentment, and dreading, perhaps, the dangerous consequences of so disaffected a colony, prevailed on the king to issue a proclamation, debarring these devotees access even into those inhospitable deserts.[*] Eight ships, lying in the Thames, and ready to sail, were detained by order of the council; and in these were embarked Sir Arthur Hazelrig, John Hambden, John Pym, and Oliver Cromwell,[**] who had resolved forever to abandon their native country, and fly to the other extremity of the globe; where they might enjoy lectures and discourses of any length or form which pleased them. The king had afterwards full leisure to repent this exercise of his authority.

The bishop of Norwich, by rigorously insisting on uniformity, had banished many industrious tradesmen from that city, and chased them into Holland.[***] The Dutch began to be more intent on commerce than on orthodoxy; and thought that the knowledge of useful arts and obedience to the laws formed a good citizen; though attended with errors in subjects where it is not allowable for human nature to expect any positive truth or certainty.

Complaints about this time were made, that the petition of right was in some instances violated; and that, upon a commitment by the king and council, bail or releasement had been refused to Jennings, Pargiter, and Danvers.[****]

Williams, bishop of Lincoln, a man of spirit and learning, a popular prelate, and who had been lord keeper, was fined ten thousand pounds by the star chamber, committed to the Tower during the king's pleasure, and suspended from his office. This severe sentence was founded on frivolous pretences, and was more ascribed to Laud's vengeance, than to any guilt of the bishop.[v] Laud, however, had owed his first promotion to the good offices of that prelate with King James. But so implacable was the haughty primate, that he raised up a new prosecution against Williams, on the strangest pretence imaginable.

* Rush. vol. ii. p. 409, 418.

** Mather's History of New England, book i. Dugdale. Bates Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay, vol. i. p. 42. This last quoted author puts the fact beyond controversy. And it is a curious fact, as well with regard to the characters of the men, as of the times. Can any one doubt that the ensuing quarrel was almost entirety theological, not political? What might be expected of the populace when such was the character of the most enlightened Readers?

*** May, p. 82.

**** Rush. vol. ii. p. 414.

v Rush. vol. ii. p. 416, etc.

In order to levy the fine above mentioned, some officers had been sent to seize all the furniture and books of his episcopal palace of Lincoln; and in rummaging the house, they found in a corner some neglected letters, which had been thrown by as useless. These letters were written by one Osbaldistone, a schoolmaster, and were directed to Williams. Mention was there made of "a little great man;" and in another passage, the same person was denominated "a little urchin." By inferences and constructions, these epithets were applied to Laud; and on no better foundation was Williams tried anew, as having received scandalous letters, and not discovering that private correspondence. For this offence, another fine of eight thousand pounds was levied on him: Osbaldistone was likewise brought to trial, and condemned to pay a fine of five thousand pounds, and to have his ears nailed to the pillory before his own school. He saved himself by flight; and left a note in his study, wherein he said, "that he was gone beyond Canterbury."[*]

These prosecutions of Williams seem to have been the most iniquitous measure pursued by the court during the time that the use of parliaments was suspended. Williams had been indebted for all his fortune to the favor of James; but having quarrelled, first with Buckingham, then with Laud, he threw himself into the country party; and with great firmness and vigor opposed all the measures of the king. A creature of the court to become its obstinate enemy, a bishop to countenance Puritans; these circumstances excited indignation, and engaged the ministers in those severe measures. Not to mention, what some writers relate, that, before the sentence was pronounced against him, Williams was offered a pardon upon his submission, which he refused to make; the court was apt to think, that so refractory a spirit must by any expedient be broken and subdued.

In a former trial which Williams underwent,[**] (for these were not the first,) there was mentioned in court a story, which, as it discovers the genius of parties, may be worth relating. Sir John Lambe urging him to prosecute the Puritans, the prelate asked what sort of people these same Puritans were. Sir John replied, "that to the world they seemed to be such as would not swear, whore, or be drunk; out they would lie, cozen, and deceive; that they would frequently hear two sermons a day, and repeat them too, and that some, times they would fast all day long." This character must be conceived to be satirical; yet it may be allowed, that that sect was more averse to such irregularities as proceed from the excess of gayety and pleasure, than to those enormities which are the most destructive of society, The former were opposite to the very genius and spirit of their religion; the latter were only a transgression of its precepts: and it was not difficult for a gloomy enthusiast to convince himself, that a strict observance of the one would atone for any violation of the other.

* Rush. voL ii. p. 803, etc. Whittocke, p. 25.

** Rush. vol. ii. p. 416.

In 1632, the treasurer Portland had insisted with the vintners, that they should submit to a tax of a penny a quart upon all the wine which they retailed; but they rejected the demand, In order to punish them, a decree suddenly, without much inquiry or examination, passed in the star chamber, prohibiting them to sell or dress victuals in their houses.[*] Two years after, they were questioned for the breach of this decree; and in order to avoid punishment, they agreed to lend the king six thousand pounds. Being threatened, during the subsequent years, with fines and prosecutions, they at last compounded the matter, and submitted to pay half of that duty which was at first demanded of them.[**] It required little foresight to perceive, that the king's right of issuing proclamations must, if prosecuted, draw on a power of taxation.

* Rash. vol. ii p. 197.

** Rush. vol. ii, p. 45.

Lilburne was accused before the star chamber of publishing and dispersing seditious pamphlets. He was ordered to be examined; but refused to take the oath usual in that court that he would answer interrogatories, even though they might lead him to accuse himself. For this contempt, as it was interpreted, he was condemned to be whipped, pilloried, and imprisoned. While he was whipped at the cart, and stood on the pillory, he harangued the populace, and declaimed violently against the tyranny of bishops. From his pockets also he scattered pamphlets, said to be seditious, because they attacked the hierarchy. The star chamber, which was sitting at that very time, ordered him immediately to be gagged. He ceased not, however, though both gagged and pilloried, to stamp with his foot and gesticulate, in order to show the people that, if he had it in his power, he would still harangue them. This behavior gave fresh provocation to the star chamber; and they condemned him to be imprisoned in a dungeon, and to be loaded with irons.[*] It was found difficult to break the spirits of men who placed both their honor and their conscience in suffering.

The jealousy of the church appeared in another instance less tragical. Archy, the king's fool, who by his office had the privilege of jesting on his master and the whole court, happened unluckily to try his wit upon Laud, who was too sacred a person to be played with. News having arrived from Scotland of the first commotions excited by the liturgy, Archy, seeing the primate pass by, called to him, "Who's fool now, my lord?" For this offence Archy was ordered, by sentence of the council, to have his coat pulled over his head and to be dismissed the king's service.[**]

Here is another instance of that rigorous subjection in which all men were held by Laud. Some young gentlemen of Lincoln's Inn, heated by their cups, having drunk confusion to the archbishop, were at his instigation cited before the star chamber. They applied to the earl of Dorset for protection. "Who bears witness against you?" said Dorset. "One of the drawers," they said. "Where did he stand when you were supposed to drink this health?" subjoined the earl, "He was at the door," they replied, "going out of the room." "Tush!" cried he, "the drawer must be mistaken: you drank confusion to the archbishop of Canterbury's enemies and the fellow was gone before you pronounced the last word." This hint supplied the young gentlemen with a new method of defence: and being advised by Dorset to behave with great humility and great submission to the primate, the modesty of their carriage, the ingenuity of their apology, with the patronage of that noble lord, saved them from any severer punishment than a reproof and admonition, with which they were dismissed.[***]

* Rush. vol. ii. p. 465, 466, 467.

** Rush. voL ii. p. 470. Welwood, p. 278.

*** Rush. vol. iii. p. 180.

This year, John Hambden acquired, by his spirit and courage, universal popularity throughout the nation, and has merited great renown with posterity, for the bold stand which he made in defence of the laws and liberties of his country. After the imposing of ship money, Charles, in order to discourage all opposition, had proposed this question to the judges: "Whether, in a case of necessity, for the defence of the kingdom, he might not impose this taxation; and whether he were not sole judge of the necessity." These guardians of law and liberty replied, with great complaisance, "that in a case of necessity he might impose that taxation, and that he was sole judge of the necessity."[*] Hambden had been rated at twenty shillings for an estate which he possessed in the county of Buckingham: yet, notwithstanding this declared opinion of the judges, notwithstanding the great power and sometimes rigorous maxims of the crown, notwithstanding the small prospect of relief from parliament, he resolved, rather than tamely submit to so illegal an imposition, to stand a legal prosecution, and expose himself to all the indignation of the court. The case was argued during twelve days, in the exchequer chamber, before all the judges of England; and the nation regarded, with the utmost anxiety, every circumstance of this celebrated trial. The event was easily foreseen: but the principles, and reasonings, and behavior of the parties engaged in the trial, were much canvassed and inquired into; and nothing could equal the favor paid to the one side, except the hatred which attended the other.

* Rush. vol. ii. p. 355. Whitlocke, p. 24.

It was urged by Hambden's counsel, and by his partisans in the nation, that the plea of necessity was in vain introduced into a trial of law; since it was the nature of necessity to abolish all law, and, by irresistible violence, to dissolve all the weaker and more artificial ties of human society. Not only the prince, in cases of extreme distress, is exempted from the ordinary rules of administration: all orders of men are then levelled; and any individual may consult the public safety by any expedient which his situation enables him to employ. But to produce so violent an effect, and so hazardous to every community, an ordinary danger or difficulty is not sufficient; much less a necessity which is merely fictitious and pretended. Where the peril is urgent and extreme, it will be palpable to every member of the society; and though all ancient rules of government are in that case abrogated, men will readily, of themselves, submit to that irregular authority which is exerted for their preservation. But what is there in common between such suppositions and the present condition of the nation? England enjoys a profound peace with al her neighbors; and what is more, all her neighbors are engaged in furious and bloody wars among themselves, and by their mutual enmities further insure their tranquillity. The very writs themselves, which are issued for the levying of ship money, contradict the supposition of necessity, and pretend only that the seas are infested with pirates; a slight and temporary inconvenience, which may well await a legal supply from parliament. The writs likewise allow several months for equipping the ships; which proves a very calm and deliberate species of necessity, and one that admits of delay much beyond the forty days requisite for summoning that assembly. It is strange, too, that an extreme necessity, which is always apparent, and usually comes to a sudden crisis, should now have continued without interruption for near four years, and should have remained during so long a time invisible to the whole kingdom. And as to the pretension, that the king is sole judge of the necessity, what is this but to subject all the privileges of the nation to his arbitrary will and pleasure? To expect that the public will be convinced by such reasoning, must aggravate the general indignation, by adding to violence against men's persons, and their property, so cruel a mockery of their understanding.

In vain are precedents of ancient writs produced: these writs, when examined, are only found to require the seaports, sometimes at their own charge, sometimes at the charge of the counties, to send their ships for the defence of the nation. Even the prerogative which empowered the crown to issue such writs is abolished, and its exercise almost entirely discontinued from the time of Edward III.;[*] and all the authority which remained, or was afterwards exercised, was to press ships into the public service, to be paid for by the public.

* State Trials, vol. v. p. 245, 255.

How wide are these precedents from a power of obliging the people, at their own charge, to build new ships, to victual and pay them, for the public; nay, to furnish money to the crown for that purpose? What security either against the further extension of this claim, or against diverting to other purposes the public money so levied? The plea of necessity would warrant any other taxation as well as that of ship money; wherever any difficulty shall occur, the administration, instead of endeavoring to elude or overcome it by gentle and prudent measures, will instantly represent it as a reason for infringing all ancient laws and institutions: and if such maxims and such practices prevail, what has become of national liberty? What authority is left to the Great Charter, to the statutes, and to the very petition of right, which in the present reign had been so solemnly enacted by the concurrence of the whole legislature?

The defenceless condition of the kingdom while unprovided with a navy; the inability of the king, from his established revenues, with the utmost care and frugality, to equip and maintain one; the impossibility of obtaining, on reasonable terms, any voluntary supply from parliament; all these are reasons of state, not topics of law. If these reasons appear to the king so urgent as to dispense with the legal rules of government, let him enforce his edicts by his court of star chamber, the proper instrument of irregular and absolute power, not prostitute the character of his judges by a decree which is not, and cannot possibly be legal. By this means, the boundaries, at least, will be kept more distinct between ordinary law and extraordinary exertions of prerogative; and men will know, that the national constitution is only suspended during a present and difficult emergence, but has not under gone a total and fundamental alteration.

Notwithstanding these reasons, the prejudiced judges, four[*] excepted, gave sentence in favor of the crown. Hambden, however, obtained by the trial the end for which he had so generously sacrificed his safety and his quiet: the people were roused from their lethargy, and became sensible of the danger to which their liberties were exposed.

* See State Trials, article, Ship Money, which contains the speeches of four judges in favor of Hambden.

These national questions were canvassed in every company; and the more they were examined, the more evidently did it appear to many, that liberty was totally subverted, and an unusual and arbitrary authority exercised over the kingdom. Slavish principles they said, concur with illegal practices; ecclesiastical tyranny gives aid to civil usurpation; iniquitous taxes are supported by arbitrary punishments; and all the privileges of the nation, transmitted through so many ages, secured by so many laws and purchased by the blood of so many heroes and patriots, now lie prostrate at the feet of the monarch. What though public peace and national industry increased the commerce and opulence of the kingdom? This advantage was temporary, and due alone, not to any encouragement given by the crown, but to the spirit of the English, the remains of their ancient freedom. What though the personal character of the king amidst all his misguided counsels, might merit indulgence, or even praise? He was but one man; and the privileges of the people, the inheritance of millions, were too valuable to be sacrificed to his prejudices and mistakes. Such, or more severe, were the sentiments promoted by a great party in the nation: no excuse on the king's part, or alleviation, how reasonable soever, could be hearkened to or admitted: and to redress these grievances, a parliament was impatiently longed for; or any other incident, however calamitous, that might secure the people against these oppressions which they felt, or the greater ills which they apprehended from the combined encroachments of church and state.



CHAPTER LIII



CHARLES I.

{1637.} The grievances under which the English labored when considered in themselves, without regard to the constitution, scarcely deserve the name; nor were they either burdensome on the people's properties, or anywise shocking to the natural humanity of mankind. Even the imposition of ship money, independent of the consequences, was a great and evident advantage to the public, by the judicious use which the king made of the money levied by that expedient. And though it was justly apprehended, that such precedents, if patiently submitted to, would end in a total disuse of parliaments, and in the establishment of arbitrary authority, Charles dreaded no opposition from the people, who are not commonly much affected with consequences, and require some striking motive to engage them in a resistance of established government. All ecclesiastical affairs were settled by law and uninterrupted precedent; and the church was become a considerable barrier to the power, both legal and illegal, of the crown. Peace too, industry, commerce, opulence; nay, even justice and lenity of administration, notwithstanding some very few exceptions; all these were enjoyed by the people; and every other blessing of government, except liberty, or rather the present exercise of liberty and its proper security.[*] It seemed probable, therefore, that affairs might long have continued on the same footing in England, had it not been for the neighborhood of Scotland; a country more turbulent, and less disposed to submission and obedience. It was thence the commotions first arose; and is therefore time for us to return thither, and to give an account of the state of affairs in that kingdom.

* Clarendon, p. 74, 75. May, p. 18. Warwick, p. 62.

Though the pacific, and not unskilful government of James, and the great authority which he had acquired, had much allayed the feuds among the great families, and had established law and order throughout the kingdom, the Scottish nobility were still possessed of the chief power and influence over the people. Their property was extensive; their hereditary jurisdictions and the feudal tenures increased their authority; and the attachment of the gentry to the heads of families established a kind of voluntary servitude under the chieftains. Besides that long absence had much loosened the King's connections with the nobility, who resided chiefly at their country seats, they were in general, at this time, though from slight causes, much disgusted with the court. Charles, from the natural piety or superstition of his temper, was extremely attached to the ecclesiastics; and as it is natural for men to persuade themselves that their interest coincides with their inclination, he had established it as a fixed maxim of policy, to increase the power and authority of that order. The prelates, he thought, established regularity and discipline among the clergy; the clergy inculcated obedience and loyalty among the people; and as that rank of men had no separate authority and no dependence but on the crown, the royal power, it would seem, might with the greater safety be intrusted in their hands. Many of the prelates, therefore, were raised to the chief dignities of the state;[*] Spotswood, archbishop of St. Andrews, was created chancellor: nine of the bishops were privy councillors: the bishop of Ross aspired to the office of treasurer: some of the prelates possessed places in the exchequer: and it was even endeavored to revive the first institution of the college of justice, and to share equally between the clergy and laity the whole judicial authority.[**]

* Rush. vol. ii. p. 386. May, p. 29.

** Guthry's Memoirs, p. 14 Burnet's Mem. p. 29, 30.

These advantages, possessed by the church, and which the bishops did not always enjoy with suitable modesty, disgusted the haughty nobility, who, deeming themselves much superior in rank and quality to this new order of men, were displeased to find themselves inferior in power and influence. Interest joined itself to ambition, and begat a jealousy lest the episcopal sees, which at the reformation had been pillaged by the nobles, should again be enriched at the expense of that order. By a most useful and beneficial law, the impropriations had already been ravished from the great men: competent salaries had been assigned to the impoverished clergy from the tithes of each parish: and what remained, the proprietor of the land was empowered to purchase at a low valuation.[*] The king likewise, warranted by ancient law and practice, had declared for a general resumption of all crown lands alienated by his predecessors; and though he took no step towards the execution of this project, the very pretension to such power had excited jealousy and discontent.[**]

Notwithstanding the tender regard which Charles bore to the whole church, he had been able in Scotland to acquire only the affection of the superior rank among the clergy. The ministers in general equalled, if not exceeded, the nobility in their prejudices against the court, against the prelates, and against episcopal authority.[***] Though the establishment of the hierarchy might seem advantageous to the inferior clergy, both as it erected dignities to which all of them might aspire, and as it bestowed a lustre on the whole body, and allured men of family into it, these views had no influence on the Scottish ecclesiastics. In the present disposition of men's minds, there was another circumstance which drew consideration, and counterbalanced power and riches, the usual foundations of distinction among men; and that was the fervor of piety, and the rhetoric, however barbarous, of religious lectures and discourses. Checked by the prelates in the license of preaching, the clergy regarded episcopal jurisdiction both as a tyranny and a usurpation, and maintained a parity among ecclesiastics to be a divine privilege, which no human law could alter or infringe. While such ideas prevailed, the most moderate exercise of authority would have given disgust; much more, that extensive power which the king's indulgence encouraged the prelates to assume. The jurisdiction of presbyteries, synods, and other democratical courts, was in a manner abolished by the bishops; and the general assembly itself had not been summoned for several years.[****] A new oath was arbitrarily imposed on intrants, by which they swore to observe the articles of Perth, and submit to the liturgy and canons. And in a word, the whole system of church government, during a course of thirty years, had been changed by means of the innovations introduced by James and Charles.

* King's Declaration, p. 7. Franklyn, p, 611.

** King's Declaration, p. 6.

*** Burnet's Mem., p. 29, 30.

**** May, p. 29.

The people, under the influence of the nobility and clergy, could not fail to partake of the discontents which prevailed among these two orders; and where real grounds of complaint were wanting, they greedily laid hold of imaginary ones. The same horror against Popery with which the English Puritans were possessed, was observable among the populace in Scotland; and among these, as being more uncultivated and uncivilized, seemed rather to be inflamed into a higher degree of ferocity. The genius of religion which prevailed in the court and among the prelates, was of an opposite nature; and having some affinity to the Romish worship, led them to mollify, as much as possible, these severe prejudices, and to speak of the Catholics in more charitable language, and with more reconciling expressions. From this foundation a panic fear of Popery was easily raised; and every new ceremony or ornament introduced into divine service, was part of that great mystery of iniquity, which, from the encouragement of the king and the bishops, was to overspread the nation.[*] The few innovations which James had made, were considered as preparatives to this grand design; and the further alterations attempted by Charles, were represented as a plain declaration of his intentions. Through the whole course of this reign, nothing had more fatal influence, in both kingdoms, than this groundless apprehension, which with so much industry was propagated, and with so much credulity was embraced, by all ranks of men.

* Burnet's Mem. p. 29, 30, 31.

Amidst these dangerous complaints and terrors of religious innovation, the civil and ecclesiastical liberties of the nation were imagined, and with some reason, not to be altogether free from invasion.

The establishment of the high commission by James, without any authority of law, seemed a considerable encroachment of the crown, and erected the most dangerous and arbitrary of all courts, by a method equally dangerous and arbitrary. All the steps towards the settlement of Episcopacy had indeed been taken with consent of parliament: the articles of Perth were confirmed in 1621: in 1633, the king had obtained a general ratification of every ecclesiastical establishment: but these laws had less authority with the nation, as they were known to have passed contrary to the sentiments even of those who voted for them, and were in reality extorted by the authority and importunity of the sovereign. The means, however, which both James and Charles had employed, in order to influence the parliament, were entirely regular, and no reasonable pretence had been afforded for representing these laws as null or invalid.

But there prevailed among the greater part of the nation another principle, of the most important and most dangerous nature; and which, if admitted, destroyed entirely the validity of all such statutes. The ecclesiastical authority was supposed totally independent of the civil; and no act of parliament, nothing but the consent of the church itself, was represented as sufficient ground for the introduction of any change in religious worship or discipline. And though James had obtained the vote of assemblies for receiving Episcopacy and his new rites; it must be confessed, that such irregularities had prevailed in constituting these ecclesiastical courts, and such violence in conducting them, that there were some grounds for denying the authority of all their acts. Charles, sensible that an extorted consent, attended with such invidious circumstances, would rather be prejudicial to his measures, had wholly laid aside the use of assemblies, and was resolved, in conjunction with the bishops, to govern the church by an authority to which he thought himself fully entitled, and which he believed inherent in the crown.

The king's great aim was to complete the work so happily begun by his father; to establish discipline upon a regular system of canons, to introduce a liturgy into public worship, and to render the ecclesiastical government of all his kingdoms regular and uniform. Some views of policy might move him to this undertaking; but his chief motives were derived from principles of zeal and conscience.

The canons for establishing ecclesiastical jurisdiction were promulgated in 1635; and were received by the nation, though without much appearing opposition, yet with great inward apprehension and discontent. Men felt displeasure at seeing the royal authority highly exalted by them, and represented as absolute and uncontrollable. They saw these speculative principles reduced to practice, and a whole body of ecclesiastical laws established without any previous consent either of church or state.[*]

* Clarendon, vol. i. p. 106.

They dreaded lest, by a parity of reason, like arbitrary authority, from like pretences and principles, would be assumed in civil matters: they remarked, that the delicate boundaries which separate church and state were already passed, and many civil ordinances established by the canons, under color of ecclesiastical institutions: and they were apt to deride the negligence with which these important edicts had been compiled, when they found that the new liturgy or service-book was every where, under severe penalties, enjoined by them, though it had not yet been composed or published.[*] It was, however, soon expected; and in the reception of it, as the people are always most affected by what is external and exposed to the senses, it was apprehended that the chief difficulty would consist.

The liturgy which the king, from his own authority, imposed on Scotland, was copied from that of England: but, lest a servile imitation might shock the pride of his ancient kingdom, a few alterations, in order to save appearances, were made in it; and in that shape it was transmitted to the bishops at Edinburgh.[**] But the Scots had universally entertained a notion, that, though riches and worldly glory had been shared out to them with a sparing hand, they could boast of spiritual treasures more abundant and more genuine than were enjoyed by any nation under heaven. Even their southern neighbors, they thought, though separated from Rome, still retained a great tincture of the primitive pollution; and their liturgy was represented as a species of mass, though with some less show and embroidery.[***] Great prejudices, therefore, were entertained against it, even considered in itself; much more when regarded as a preparative, which was soon to introduce into Scotland all the abominations of Popery. And as the very few alterations which distinguished the new liturgy from the English, seemed to approach nearer to the doctrine of the real presence, this circumstance was deemed an undoubted confirmation of every suspicion with which the people were possessed.[****]

* Clarendon, vol. i. p. 105.

** King's Decl. p. 18. May, p. 32.

*** King's Decl. p. 20.

**** Burnet's Mem. p. *8*1. Rush. vol. ii. p. 396. May, p. 31.

Easter-day was, by proclamation, appointed for the first reading of the service in Edinburgh: but in order to judge more surely of men's dispositions, the council delayed the matter till the twenty-third of July; and they even gave notice, the Sunday before, of their intention to commence the use of the new liturgy. As no considerable symptoms of discontent appeared, they thought that they might safely proceed in their purpose; and accordingly, in the cathedral church of St. Giles, the dean of Edinburgh, arrayed in his surplice, began the service; the bishop himself and many of the privy council being present. But no sooner had the dean opened the book than a multitude of the meanest sort, most of them women, clapping their hands, cursing, and crying out, "A pope, a pope! Antichrist! stone him!" raised such a tumult that it was impossible to proceed with the service. The bishop, mounting the pulpit in order to appease the populace, had a stool thrown at him; the council was insulted: and it was with difficulty that the magistrates were able, partly by authority, partly by force, to expel the rabble, and to shut the doors against them. The tumult, however, still continued without: stones were thrown at the doors and windows: and when the service was ended, the bishop, going home, was attacked, and narrowly escaped from the hands of the enraged multitude. In the afternoon, the privy seal, because he carried the bishop in his coach, was so pelted with stones, and hooted at with execrations, and pressed upon by the eager populace, that if his servants with drawn swords had not kept them off, the bishop's life had been exposed to the utmost danger.[*]

Though it was violently suspected that the low populace, who alone appeared, had been instigated by some of higher condition, yet no proof of it could be produced; and every one spake with disapprobation of the licentiousness of the giddy multitude.[**] It was not thought safe, however, to hazard a new insult by any new attempt to read the liturgy; and the people seemed for the time to be appeased and satisfied. But it being known that the king still persevered in his intentions of imposing that mode of worship, men fortified themselves still further in their prejudices against it; and great multitudes resorted to Edinburgh, in order to oppose the introduction of so hated a novelty.[***]

* King's Decl. p. 22. Clarendon, vol. i. p. 108. Rush, vol. ii. p. 387.

** King's Decl. p. 23, 24, 25. Rush. vol. ii. p. 388.

*** King's Decl. p. 26, 30. Clarendon, vol. i. p. 109.

It was not long before they broke, out in the most violent disorder. The bishop of Galloway was attacked in the streets, and chased into the chamber where the privy council was sitting. The council itself was besieged and violently attacked: the town council met with the same fate: and nothing could have saved the lives of all of them, but their application to some popular lords, who protected them, and dispersed the multitude. In this sedition, the actors were of some better condition than in the former; though nobody of rank seemed as yet to countenance them.[*]

All men, however, began to unice and to encourage each other in opposition to the religious innovations introduced into the kingdom. Petitions to the council were signed and presented by persons of the highest quality: the women took part, and, as was usual, with violence: the clergy every where loudly declaimed against Popery and the liturgy, which they represented as the same: the pulpits resounded with vehement invectives against Antichrist: and the populace, who first opposed the service, was often compared to Balaam's ass, an animal in itself stupid and senseless, but whose mouth had been opened by the Lord, to the admiration of the whole world. In short, fanaticism mingling with faction, private interest with the spirit of liberty, symptoms appeared on all hands of the most dangerous insurrection and disorder.

* King's Decl. p. 35, 36 etc. Rush. vol. ii. p. 404.

The primate, a man of wisdom and prudence, who was all along averse to the introduction of the liturgy, represented to the king the state of the nation: the earl of Traquaire, the treasurer, set out for London, in order to lay the matter more fully before him: every circumstance, whether the condition of England or of Scotland were considered, should have engaged him to desist from so hazardous an attempt: yet was Charles inflexible. In his whole conduct of this affair, there appear no marks of the good sense with which he was endowed: a lively instance of that species of character so frequently to be met with; where there are found parts and judgment in every discourse and opinion; in many actions, indiscretion and imprudence. Men's views of things are the result of their understanding alone: their conduct is regulated by their understanding, their temper, and their passions.

{1638.} To so violent a combination of a whole kingdom, Charles had nothing to oppose but a proclamation; in which he pardoned all past offences, and exhorted the people to be more obedient for the future, and to submit peaceably to the use of the liturgy. This proclamation was instantly encountered with a public protestation, presented by the earl of Hume and Lindesey: and this was the first time that men of quality had appeared in any violent act of opposition.[*] But this proved a crisis. The insurrection, which had been advancing by a gradual and slow progress, now blazed up at once. No disorder, however, attended it. On the contrary, a new order immediately took place. Four "tables," as they were called, were formed in Edinburgh. One consisted of nobility, another of gentry, a third of ministers, a fourth of burgesses. The table of gentry was divided into many subordinate tables, according to their different counties. In the hands of the four tables the whole authority of the kingdom was placed. Orders were issued by them, and every where obeyed with the utmost regularity.[**] And among the first acts of their government was the production of the "Covenant."

This famous covenant consisted first of a renunciation of Popery, formerly signed by James in his youth, and composed of many invectives, fitted to inflame the minds of men against their fellow-creatures, whom Heaven has enjoined them to cherish and to love. There followed a bond of union, by which the subscribers obliged themselves to resist religious innovations, and to defend each other against all opposition whatsoever: and all this, for the greater glory of God, and the greater honor and advantage of their king and country.[***] The people, without distinction of rank or condition, of age or sex, flocked to the subscription of this covenant: few in their judgment disapproved of it; and still fewer durst openly condemn it. The king's ministers and counsellors themselves were most of them seized by the general contagion. And none but rebels to God, and traitors to their country, it was thought, would withdraw themselves from so salutary and so pious a combination.

* King's Decl. p. 47, 48, etc. Guthry, p. 28. May, p. 37.

** Clarendon, vol. i. p. 111. Rush. vol. ii. p. 734.

*** King's Decl. p. 57, 58. Rush. vol. ii. p. 734. May, p. 38.

The treacherous, the cruel, the unrelenting Philip, accompanied with all the terrors of a Spanish inquisition, was scarcely, during the preceding century, opposed in the Low Countries with more determined fury, than was now, by the Scots, the mild, the humane Charles, attended with his inoffensive liturgy.

The king began to apprehend the consequences. He sent the marquis of Hamilton, as commissioner, with authority to treat with the Covenanters. He required the covenant to be renounced and recalled: and he thought, that on his part he had made very satisfactory concessions, when he offered to suspend the canons and the liturgy, till in a fair and legal way they could be received; and so to model the high commission, that it should no longer give offence to his subjects.[*] Such general declarations could not well give content to any, much less to those who carried so much higher their pretensions. The Covenanters found themselves seconded by the zeal of the whole nation. Above sixty thousand people were assembled in a tumultuous manner in Edinburgh and the neighborhood. Charles possessed no regular forces in either of his kingdoms. And the discontents in England, though secret, were believed so violent, that the king, it was thought, would find it very difficult to employ in such a cause the power of that kingdom. The more, therefore, the popular leaders in Scotland considered their situation, the less apprehension did they entertain of royal power, and the more rigorously did they insist on entire satisfaction. In answer to Hamilton's demand of renouncing the covenant, they plainly told him that they would sooner renounce their baptism.[**] And the clergy invited the commissioner himself to subscribe it, by informing him "with what peace and comfort it had filled the hearts of all God's people; what resolutions and beginnings of reformation of manners were sensibly perceived in all parts of the nation, above any measure they had ever before found or could have expected; how great glory the Lord had received thereby; and what confidence they had that God would make Scotland a blessed kingdom."[***]

Hamilton returned to London; made another fruitless journey, with new concessions, to Edinburgh; returned again to London; and was immediately sent back with still more satisfactory concessions. The king was now willing entirely to abolish the canons, the liturgy, and the high commission court. He was even resolved to limit extremely the power of the bishops, and was content if on any terms he could retain that order in the church of Scotland.[****] And to insure all these gracious offers, he gave Hamilton authority to summon first an assembly, then a parliament, where every national grievance might be redressed and remedied.

* Rush, vol. ii. p. 137, etc.

** King's Decl. p. 87.

*** King's Decl. p. 88. Rush, vol. ii. p. 751.

**** King's Decl. p. 137. Rush, vol. ii. p. 762.

These successive concessions of the king, which yet came still short of the rising demands of the malecontents, discovered his own weakness, encouraged their insolence, and gave no satisfaction. The offer, however, of an assembly and a parliament, in which they expected to be entirely masters, was willingly embraced by the Covenanters.

Charles, perceiving what advantage his enemies had reaped from their covenant, resolved to have a covenant on his side; and he ordered one to be drawn up for that purpose. It consisted of the same violent renunciation of Popery above mentioned; which, though the king did not approve of it, he thought it safest to adopt, in order to remove all the suspicions entertained against him. As the Covenanters, in their bond of mutual defence against all opposition, had been careful not to except the king, Charles had formed a bond, which was annexed to this renunciation, and which expressed the duty and loyalty of the subscribers to his majesty.[*] But the Covenanters, perceiving that this new covenant was only meant to weaken and divide them, received it with the utmost scorn and detestation. And without delay they proceeded to model the future assembly, from which such great achievments were expected.[**]

The genius of that religion which prevailed in Scotland, and which every day was secretly gaining ground in England, was far front inculcating deference and submission to the ecclesiastics, merely as such; or rather, by nourishing in every individual the highest raptures and ecstasies of devotion, it consecrated, in a manner, every individual, and in his own eyes bestowed a character on him much superior to what forms and ceremonious institutions could alone confer. The clergy of Scotland, though such tumult was excited about religious worship and discipline, were both poor and in small numbers; nor are they in general to be considered, at least in the beginning, as the ringleaders of the sedition which was raised on their account. On the contrary, the laity, apprehending, from several instances which occurred, a spirit of moderation in that order, resolved to domineer entirely in the assembly which was summoned, and to hurry on the ecclesiastics by the same furious zeal with which they were themselves transported.[***]

* King's Decl. p. 140, etc.

** Rush. vol. ii. p. 772.

*** King's Decl. p. 188, 189. Rush. voL ii. p. 761.

It had been usual, before the establishment of prelacy, for each presbytery to send to the assembly, besides two or three ministers, one lay commissioner;[*] and, as all the boroughs and universities sent likewise commissioners, the lay members in that ecclesiastical court nearly equalled the ecclesiastics. Not only this institution, which James, apprehensive of zeal in the laity, had abolished, was now revived by the Covenanters; they also introduced an innovation, which served still further to reduce the clergy to subjection. By an edict of the tables, whose authority was supreme, an elder from each parish was ordered to attend the presbytery, and to give his vote in the choice both of the commissioners and ministers who should be deputed to the assembly. As it is not usual for the ministers, who are put in the list of candidates, to claim a vote, all the elections by that means fell into the hands of the laity: the most furious of all ranks were chosen: and the more to overawe the clergy, a new device was fallen upon, of choosing to every commissioner four or five lay assessors, who, though they could have no vote, might yet interpose with their advice and authority in the assembly.[**]

The assembly met at Glasgow; and, besides a great concourse of the people, all the nobility and gentry of any family or interest were present, either as members, assessors, or spectators; and it was apparent that the resolutions taken by the Covenanters could here meet with no manner of opposition. A firm determination had been entered into of utterly abolishing episcopacy; and as a preparative to it, there was laid before the presbytery of Edinburgh, and solemnly read in all the churches of the kingdom, an accusation against the bishops, as guilty, all of them, of heresy, simony, bribery, perjury, cheating, incest, adultery, fornication, common swearing, drunkenness, gaming, breach of the Sabbath, and every other crime that had occurred to the accusers.[***] The bishops sent a protest, declining the authority of the assembly: the commissioner, too, protested against the court, as illegally constituted and elected; and, in his majesty's name, dissolved it. This measure was foreseen, and little regarded. The court still continued to sit, and to finish their business.[****]

* A presbytery in Scotland is an inferior ecclesiastical court, the same that was afterwards called a classis in England, and is composed of the clergy of the neighboring parishes, to the number commonly of between twelve and twenty.

** King's Decl. p. 190, 191, 290. Guthry, p. 39, etc.

*** King's Decl. p. 218. Rush. vol. ii p. 787.

**** May, p. 44.

All the acts of assembly, since the accession of James to the crown of England, were, upon pretty reasonable grounds, declared null and invalid. The acts of parliament which affected ecclesiastical affairs were supposed, on that very account, to have no manner of authority. And thus episcopacy, the high commission, the articles of Perth, the canons, and the liturgy, were abolished and declared unlawful; and the whole fabric which Jamas and Charles, in a long course of years, had been rearing with so much care and policy, fell at once to the ground.

{1639.} The covenant, likewise, was ordered to be signed by every one, under pain of excommunication.[*]

The independency of the ecclesiastical upon the civil power, was the old Presbyterian principle, which had been zealously adopted at the reformation, and which, though James and Charles had obliged the church publicly to disclaim it, had secretly been adhered to by all ranks of people. It was commonly asked whether Christ or the king were superior; and as the answer seemed obvious, it was inferred, that the assembly, being Christ's council, was superior in all spiritual matters to the parliament, which was only the king's. But as the Covenanters were sensible that this consequence, though it seemed to them irrefragable, would not be assented to by the king, it became necessary to maintain their religious tenets by military force, and not to trust entirely to supernatural assistance, of which, however, they held themselves well assured. They cast their eyes on all sides, abroad and at home, whence ever they could expect any aid or support.

After France and Holland had entered into a league against Spain, and framed a treaty of partition, by which they were to conquer and to divide between them the Low Country provinces, England was invited to preserve a neutrality between the contending parties, while the French and Dutch should attack the maritime towns of Flanders. But the king replied to D'Estrades, the French ambassador, who opened the proposal, that he had a squadron ready, and would cross the seas, if necessary, with an army of fifteen thousand men, in order to prevent these projected conquests.[**] This answer, which proves that Charles though he expressed his mind with an imprudent candor, had at last acquired a just idea of national interest irritated Cardinal Richelieu; and, in revenge, that politic and enterprising minister carefully fomented the first commotions in Scotland, and secretly supplied the Covenanters with money and arms, in order to encourage them in their opposition against their sovereign.

* King's Decl. p. 317.

** Mem. D'Estrades, vol. i.

But the chief resource of the Scottish malecontents was in themselves, and in their own vigor and abilities. No regular established commonwealth could take juster measures, or execute them with greater promptitude, than did this tumultuous combination, inflamed with bigotry for religious trifles, and faction without a reasonable object. The whole kingdom was in a manner engaged, and the men of greatest abilities soon acquired the ascendant, which their family interest enabled them to maintain. The earl of Argyle, though he long seemed to temporize, had at last embraced the covenant; and he became the chief leader of that party; a man equally supple and inflexible, cautious and determined, and entirely qualified to make a figure during a factious and turbulent period. The earls of Rothes, Cassils, Montrose, Lothian, the lords Lindesey, Louden, Yester, Balmerino, distinguished themselves in that party. Many Scotch officers had acquired reputation in the German wars, particularly under Gustavus; and these were invited over to assist their country in her present necessity. The command was intrusted to Lesley, a soldier of experience and abilities. Forces were regularly enlisted and disciplined. Arms were commissioned and imported from foreign countries. A few castles which belonged to the king, being unprovided with victuals, ammunition, and garrisons, were soon seized. And the whole country, except a small part, where the marquis of Huntley still adhered to the king, being in the hands of the Covenanters, was in a very little time put in a tolerable posture of defence.[*]

The fortifications of Leith were begun and carried on with great rapidity. Besides the inferior sort, and those who labored for pay, incredible numbers of volunteers, even noblemen and gentlemen, put their hand to the work, and deemed the most abject employment to be dignified by the sanctity of the cause. Women, too, of rank and condition, forgetting the delicacy of their sex and the decorum of their character were intermingled with the lowest rabble, and carried on their shoulders the rubbish requisite for completing the fortifications.[**]

* May, p. 49.

** Guthry's Memoirs, p. 46.

We must not omit another auxiliary of the Covenanters and no inconsiderable one; a prophetess, who was much followed and admired by all ranks of people. Her name Michelson, a woman full of whimseys partly hysterical, partly religious; and inflamed with a zealous concern for the ecclesiastical discipline of the Presbyterians. She spoke at certain times only, and had often interruptions of days and weeks: but when she began to renew her ecstasies, warning of the happy event was conveyed over the whole country; thousands crowded about her house; and every word which she uttered was received with veneration, as the most sacred oracles. The covenant was her perpetual theme. The true, genuine covenant, she said, was ratified in heaven: the king's covenant was an invention of Satan: when she spoke of Christ, she usually gave him the name of the Covenanting Jesus. Rollo, a popular preacher, and zealous Covenanter, was her great favorite, and paid her, on his part, no less veneration. Being desired by the spectators to pray with her, and speak to her, he answered, "that he durst not; and that it would be ill manners in him to speak while his master, Christ, was speaking in her."[*]

* King's Declaration at large, p. 227. Burnet's Memoirs of Hamilton.

Charles had agreed to reduce episcopal authority so much, that it would no longer have been of any service to support the crown; and this sacrifice of his own interests he was willing to make, in order to attain public peace and tranquillity. But he could not consent entirely to abolish an order which he thought as essential to the being of a Christian church, as his Scottish subjects deemed it incompatible with that sacred institution. This narrowness of mind, if we would be impartial, we must either blame or excuse equally on both sides; and thereby anticipate, by a little reflection, that judgment which time, by introducing new subjects of controversy, will undoubtedly render quite familiar to posterity.

So great was Charles's aversion to violent and sanguinary measures, and so strong his affection to his native kingdom that it is probable the contest in his breast would be nearly equal between these laudable passions and his attachment to the hierarchy. The latter affection, however, prevailed for the time, and made him hasten those military preparations which he had projected for subduing the refractory spirit of the Scottish nation. By regular economy, he had not only paid all the debts contracted during the Spanish and French wars, but had amassed a sum of two hundred thousand pounds, which he reserved for any sudden exigency. The queen had great interest with the Catholics, both from the sympathy of religion, and from the favors and indulgences which she had been able to procure to them. She now employed her credit, and persuaded them that it was reasonable to give large contributions, as a mark of their duty to the king, during this urgent necessity.[*] A considerable supply was obtained by this means; to the great scandal of the Puritans, who were offended at seeing the king on such good terms with the Papists, and repined that others should give what they themselves were disposed to refuse him.

Charles's fleet was formidable and well supplied. Having put five thousand land forces on board, he intrusted it to the marquis of Hamilton, who had orders to sail to the Frith of Forth, and to cause a diversion in the forces of the malecontents. An army was levied of near twenty thousand foot, and above three thousand horse; and was put under the command of the earl of Arundel, a nobleman of great family, but celebrated neither for military nor political abilities. The earl of Essex, a man of strict honor, and extremely popular, especially among the soldiery, was appointed lieutenant-general: the earl of Holland was general of the horse. The king himself joined the army, and he summoned all the peers of England to attend him. The whole had the appearance of a splendid court, rather than of a military armament; and in this situation, carrying more show than real force with it, the camp arrived at Berwick.[**]

The Scottish army was as numerous as that of the king, but inferior in cavalry. The officers had more reputation and experience; and the soldiers, though undisciplined and ill armed, were animated, as well by the national aversion to England, and the dread of becoming a province to their old enemy, as by an unsurmountable fervor of religion. The pulpits had extremely assisted the officers in levying recruits, and had thundered out anathemas against all those "who went not out to assist the Lord against the mighty."[***] Yet so prudent were the leaders of the malecontents, that they immediately sent submissive messages to the king, and craved to be admitted to a treaty.

* Rush. vol. iii. p. 1329. Franklyn, p. 767.

** Clarendon, vol. i p. 115, 116, 117.

*** Burnet's Memoirs of Hamilton.

Charles knew that the force of the Covenanters was considerable, their spirits high, their zeal furious; and that, as they were not yet daunted by any ill success, no reasonable terms could be expected from them. With regard therefore to a treaty, great difficulties occurred on both sides. Should he submit to the pretensions of the malecontents, (besides that the prelacy must be sacrificed to their religious prejudices,) such a check would be given to royal authority, which had very lately, and with much difficulty, been thoroughly established in Scotland, that he must expect ever after to retain in that kingdom no more than the appearance of majesty. The great men, having proved by so sensible a trial the impotence of law and prerogative, would return to their former licentiousness: the preachers would retain their innate arrogance: and the people, unprotected by justice, would recognize no other authority than that which they found to domineer over them. England also, it was much to be feared, would imitate so bad an example; and having already a strong propensity towards republican and Puritanical factions, would expect, by the same seditious practices, to attain the same indulgence. To advance so far, without bringing the rebels to a total submission, at least to reasonable concessions, was to promise them, in all future time, an impunity for rebellion.

On the other hand, Charles considered that Scotland was never before, under any of his ancestors, so united and so animated in its own defence; yet had often been able to foil or elude the force of England, combined heartily in one cause, and inured by long practice to the use of arms. How much greater difficulty should he find, at present, to subdue by violence a people inflamed with religious prejudices; while he could only oppose to them a nation enervated by long peace, and lukewarm in his service; or, what was more to be dreaded, many of them engaged in the same party with the rebels?[*]

* Rush. vol. iii. p. 936.

Should the war be only protracted beyond a campaign, (and who could expect to finish it in that period?) his treasures would fail him; and for supply he must have recourse to an English parliament, which, by fatal experience, he had ever found more ready to encroach on the prerogatives, than to supply the necessities of the crown. And what if he receive a defeat from the rebel army? This misfortune was far from being impossible. They were engaged in a national cause, and strongly actuated by mistaken principles. His army was retained entirely by pay, and looked on the quarrel with the same indifference which naturally belongs to mercenary troops without possessing the discipline by which such troops are commonly distinguished. And the consequences of a defeat, while Scotland was enraged and England discontented, were so dreadful, that no motive should persuade him to hazard it.

It is evident, that Charles had fallen into such a situation, that whichever side he embraced, his errors must be dangerous. No wonder, therefore, he was in great perplexity. But he did worse than embrace the worst side; for, properly speaking, he embraced no side at all. He concluded a sudden pacification, in which it was stipulated, that he should withdraw his fleet and army; that within eight and forty hours the Scots should dismiss their forces; that the king's forts should be restored to him; his authority be acknowledged; and a general assembly and a parliament be immediately summoned, in order to compose all differences.[*] What were the reasons which engaged the king to admit such strange articles of peace, it is in vain to inquire; for there scarcely could be any. The causes of that event may admit of a more easy explication.

* Rush vol. iii. p. 945.

The malecontents had been very industrious in representing to the English the grievances under which Scotland labored, and the ill counsels which had been suggested to their sovereign. Their liberties, they said, were invaded; the prerogatives of the crown extended beyond all former precedent; illegal courts erected; the hierarchy exalted at the expense of national privileges; and so many new superstitions introduced by the haughty, tyrannical prelates, as begat a just suspicion that a project was seriously formed for the restoration of Popery. The king's conduct, surely, in Scotland, had been in every thing, except in establishing the ecclesiastical canons, more legal than in England; yet was there such a general resemblance in the complaints of both kingdoms, that the English readily assented to all the representations of the Scottish malecontents, and believed that nation to have been driven by oppression into the violent counsels which they had embraced. So far, therefore, from being willing to second the king in subduing the free spirit of the Scots, they rather pitied that unhappy people, who had been pushed to those extremities; and they thought, that the example of such neighbors, as well as their assistance, might some time be advantageous to England, and encourage her to recover, by a vigorous effort, her violated laws and liberties. The gentry and nobility, who, without attachment to the court, without command in the army, attended in great numbers the English camp, greedily seized, and propagated, and gave authority to these sentiments: a retreat, very little honorable, which the earl of Holland, with a considerable detachment of the English forces, had made before a detachment of the Scottish, caused all these humors to blaze up at once: and the king, whose character was not sufficiently vigorous or decisive, and who was apt from facility to embrace hasty counsels, suddenly assented to a measure which was recommended by all about him, and which favored his natural propension towards the misguided subjects of his native kingdom.[*]

Charles, having so far advanced in pacific measures, ought, with a steady resolution, to have prosecuted them, and have submitted to every tolerable condition demanded by the assembly and parliament; nor should he have recommenced hostilities, but on account of such enormous and unexpected pretensions as would have justified his cause, if possible, to the whole English nation. So far, indeed, he adopted this plan, that he agreed, not only to confirm his former concessions, of abrogating the canons, the liturgy, the high commission, and the articles of Perth, but also to abolish the order itself of bishops, for which he had so zealously contended.[**] But this concession was gained by the utmost violence which he could impose on his disposition and prejudices: he even secretly retained an intention of seizing favorable opportunities, in order to: recover the ground which he had lost.[***] And one step farther he could not prevail with himself to advance. The assembly, when it met, paid no deference to the king's prepossessions, but gave full indulgence to their own. They voted episcopacy to be unlawful in the church of Scotland: he was willing to allow it contrary to the constitutions of that church. They stigmatized the liturgy and canons as Popish: he agreed simply to abolish them. They denominated the high commission, tyranny: he was content to set it aside.[****]

* Clarendon, vol. i. p. 122, 123. May, p. 46.

** Rush. vol. iii. p. 946.

*** Burnet's Memoirs, p. 154 Rush. vol. iii. p. 951.

**** Rush. vol. iii. p. 958, etc.

The parliament, which sat after the assembly, advanced pretensions which tended to diminish the civil power of the monarch; and, what probably affected Charles still more, they were proceeding to ratify the acts of assembly, when, by the king's instructions,[*] Traquaire, the commissioner, prorogued them. And on account of these claims, which might have been foreseen, was the war renewed; with great advantages on the side of the Covenanters and disadvantages on that of the king.

No sooner had Charles concluded the pacification without conditions than the necessity of his affairs and his want of money obliged him to disband his army; and as the soldiers had been held together solely by mercenary views, it was not possible, without great trouble, and expense, and loss of time, again to assemble them. The more prudent Covenanters had concluded, that their pretensions being so contrary to the interests, and still more to the inclinations, of the king, it was likely that they should again be obliged to support their cause by arms; and they were therefore careful, in dismissing their troops, to preserve nothing but the appearance of a pacific disposition. The officers had orders to be ready on the first summons: the soldiers were warned not to think the nation secure from an English invasion: and the religious zeal which animated all ranks of men, made them immediately fly to their standards as soon as the trumpet was sounded by their spiritual and temporal leaders. The credit which in their last expedition they had acquired, by obliging their sovereign to depart from all his pretensions, gave courage to every one in undertaking this new enterprise.[**]

* Rush vol. iii. p. 955.

** Clarendon, vol. i. p. 125. Rush vol. iii. p. 1023.

{1640.} The king, with great difficulty, found means to draw together an army; but soon discovered that all savings being gone, and great debts contracted, his revenue would be insufficient to support them. An English parliament, therefore, formerly so unkind and intractable, must now, after above eleven years' intermission, after the king had tried many irregular methods of taxation, after multiplied disgusts given to the Puritanical party, be summoned to assemble, amidst the must pressing necessities of the crown.

As the king resolved to try whether this house of commons would be more compliant than their predecessors, and grant him supply on any reasonable terms, the time appointed for the meeting of parliament was late, and very near the time allotted for opening the campaign against the Scots. After the past experience of their ill humor, and of their encroaching disposition, he thought that he could not in prudence trust them with a long session, till he had seen some better proofs of their good intentions: the urgency of the occasion, and the little time allowed for debate, were reasons which he reserved against the malecontents in the house; and an incident had happened, which, he believed, had now furnished him with still more cogent arguments.

The earl of Traquaire had intercepted a letter written to the king of France by the Scottish malecontents, and had conveyed this letter to the king. Charles, partly repenting of the large concessions made to the Scots, partly disgusted at their fresh insolence and pretensions, seized this opportunity of breaking with them. He had thrown into the Tower Lord Loudon, commissioner from the Covenanters, one of the persons who had signed the treasonable letter.[*] And he now laid the matter before the parliament, whom he hoped to inflame by the resentment, and alarm by the danger, of this application to a foreign power.

* Clarendon, vol. i. p. 129. Rush. vol. iii. p 956. May, p. 56.

By the mouth of the lord keeper Finch, he discovered his wants, and informed them, that he had been able to assemble his army, and to subsist them, not by any revenue which he possessed, but by means of a large debt of above three hundred thousand pounds, which he had contracted, and for which he had given security upon the crown lands. He represented, that it was necessary to grant supplies for the immediate and urgent demands of his military armaments: that the season was far advanced, the time precious, and none of it must be lost in deliberation; that though his coffers were empty, they had not been exhausted by unnecessary pomp, or sumptuous buildings, or any other kind of magnificence: that whatever supplies had been levied on his subjects, had been employed for their advantage and preservation; and, like vapors rising out of the earth, and gathered into a cloud, had fallen in sweet and refreshing showers on the same fields from which they had at first been exhaled: that though he desired such immediate assistance as might prevent for the time a total disorder in the government he was far from any intention of precluding them from their right to inquire into the state of the kingdom, and to offer his petitions for the redress of their grievances: that as much as was possible of this season should afterwards be allowed them for that purpose: that as he expected only such supply at present as the current service necessarily required, it would be requisite to assemble them again next winter, when they should have full leisure to conclude whatever business had this session been left imperfect and unfinished: that the parliament of Ireland had twice put such trust in his good intentions as to grant him, in the beginning of the session, a large supply, and had ever experienced good effects from the confidence reposed in him: and that; in every circumstance, his people should find his conduct suitable to a just, pious, and gracious king; and such as was calculated to promote an entire harmony between prince and parliament.[*]

* Rush. vol. iii. p. 1114.

However plausible these topics, they made small impression on the house of commons. By some illegal, and several suspicious measures of the crown, and by the courageous opposition which particular persons, amidst dangers and hardships, had made to them, the minds of men, throughout the nation, had taken such a turn, as to ascribe every honor to the refractory opposers of the king and the ministers. These were the only patriots, the only lovers of their country, the only heroes, and perhaps, too, the only true Christians. A reasonable compliance with the court was slavish dependence; a regard to the king, servile flattery; a confidence in his promises, shameful prostitution. This general cast of thought, which has more or less prevailed in England during near a century and a half, and which has been the cause of much good and much ill in public affairs, never predominated more than during the reign of Charles. The present house of commons, being entirely composed of country gentlemen, who came into parliament with all their native prejudices about them, and whom the crown had no means of influencing, could not fail to contain a majority of these stubborn patriots.