J '\ iv- I A <. vx Ih-^- . /l r > V / Digitized by the Internet^fl'chive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/commentariesonre02disruoft COMMENTARIES ON THE LIFE AND REIGN or CHARLES THE FIRST, KING or ENGLAND. BY ISAAC DISRAELI. A NEW EDITION, REVISED BY THE AUTHOE, AND EDITED BY HIS SON. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. 11. LONDON : HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1851. i.oNnon: BKADBI'RT *KD KTARS PRINTERS, WHITKrBHRS. CONTENTS OF VOL. II. CHAPTER I. PAGB OF THE SABBATICAL INSTITUTIONS . . ... 1 CHAPTER II. OBSEHVATION OF THE SABBATH UPON SUNDAYS .... 8 CHAPTER III. THE CAUSE OF THE EEVIVAL BY CHARLES THE FIRST OF " THE BOOK OF sports" FOR RECREATION ON SUNDAYS . . 23 CHAPTER IV. THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEAS 35 CHAPTER V. CAUSES OF THE INACTION OF THE ENGLISH FLEETS ... 47 CHAPTER VI. OF THE COMMOTIONS OF SCOTLAND 61 CHAPTER VII. OF THE CONSPIRACIES OF THE SCOTS AGAINST CHARLES THE FIRST 77 CHAPTER VIII. THE DIFFICULTIES OF CHARLES THE FIRST IN THE FIRST INVASION OF THE SCOTS 90 i. IV CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. PAUK CHABLbS THE FIRST RESISTS THE SEDUCTIONS OF CARDINAL RICHEUEU 110 CHAPTER X. OF THE INFLUENCE OF CARDINAL RICHELIEU ON THE FATE OF CHARLES THE FIRST 115 CHAPTER XI. HISTORY AND TRIAL OF THE EARL OF STRAFFORD . . . . 121 CHAPTER XII. THE ARTS OF INSURGENCY . . . . . .151 CHAPTER XIII. THE DEATH OF STRAFFORD . . 165 CHAPTER XIV. ARMY PLOT. — HISTORY OF COLONEL GORING. — PYM's MANAGEMENT OF THE I'LOT. — DEFENCE OF LORD CLARENDON AND HUME . 107 CHAPTER XV. ■mi. MARQUFS OK HAMILTON . . . . . .215 CHAPTER XVI. THE INCIDENT 242 CHAPTER XVII. THE LETTER OF THE SCOTS TO THE FRENCH KING. A DESIGN OF THEIR SEPARATION FROM ENGLAND. BURNET's ANECDOTE OK LORD LOUDON EXAMINED 252 CONTENTS. V CHAPTER XVIII. PAGE THE SECRET MOTIVE OF CHARLES THE FIRSTS SECOND JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND. THE FORGED LETTER OF LORD SAVILLE . . 265 CHAPTER XIX. THE IRISH REBELLION 376 CHAPTER XX. THE COMMONS PERSIST IN NOT RELIEVING IRELAND . . . 288 CHAPTER XXI. THE GRAND REMONSTRANCE . 2&3 CHAPTER XXII. THE HISTORY OF LORD DIGBY 298 CHAPTER XXIII. THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL 315 CHAPTER XXIV. THE CIVIL WARS 338 CHAPTER XXV. "WHO BEGAN THE WAR, THE KING OR THE PARLIAMENT? ' . 351 CHAPTER XXVI. THE FIRST BATTLE BETWEEN THE KING AND THE PARLIAMENT . 362 CHAPTER XXVII. THE MILITARY LIFE OF CHARLES THE FIRST . . . .376 vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXVIII. PAGB JUDGE JENKINS AND THE " LAW OF THE LAND " . . . . 395 CHAPTER XXIX. SECRET ANECDOTES OF THE YEARS 1644 AND 1645 . . H)<> CHAPTER XXX. THE TWO FRENCH RESIDENTS 424 CHAPTER XXXI. FUGHT FROM OXFORD TO THE SCOTTISH CAMP .... 436 CHAPTER XXXII. THE KING IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CAMP . . ... 445 CHAPTER XXXIII. THE ARMY 456 CHAPTER XXXIV. THE king's PROGRESS WITH THE ARMY 474 CHAPTER XXXV. CROMWELL AND CHARLES THE FIRST AT HAMFTON COURT . . 486 CHAPTER XXXVI. OF THE LETTER SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN INTERCEPTED BY CROMWELL AND IRETON 504 CHAPTER XXXVII. THE SINGULAR NEGOTIATION OF HERKLKY AND ASHBURNHAM WITH THE GOVERNOR OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT .... 5 OS CONTENTS. vii CHAPTER XXXVIII. PAGE IMPRISONMENT AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT . . . . . 517 CHAPTER XXXIX. TREATY AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT . . . , . .529 CHAPTER XL. HAMMOND 540 CHAPTER XLI. HURST BLOCK-HOUSE AND WINDSOR CASTLE . . . .545 CHAPTER XLII. THE TRIAL AND THE DECAPITATION . . . . . 663 CHAPTER XLIII. CONCLUSION 575 APPKNDIX 581 LIFE AND REIGN CHARLES THE FIRST. CHAPTER I. ON THE SABBATICAL INSTITUTIONS. We have now arrived at the investigation of one of the most curious, one of the most delicate, and one of the most miscon- ceived points in the history of Charles the First — the custom of performing, at Court, plays and masques on Sundays, or, as the spirit of party afterwards emphatically designated them, on " Sabbaths." Sunday was usually fixed on for these recreations as the festival day of the week — and the revival of the memora- ble declaration of James the First for promoting lawful sports on that day, such as bowling, wrestling, dancing, distinguished from bear-baiting, cock-fighting, &c., was not one of the least causes of the civil war among the populace. The memory of Charles is still loaded by some persons, as well as by the Puritans of this day, with the popular obloquy of irreligion and profaneness in violating the Sabbath. Even his friends, startled by a profaneness, which certainly never entered into the mind of the monarch, eluded the torturing inquiry. But it is our business to enter more particularly into the motives and conduct of Charles the First; to trace out the opinions of himself and his predecessors upon this misconceived subject ; to ascertain, we should rather say, the notions and the practice of the whole Christian world with regard to it, since the establishment of the Christian faith. VOL. II. B 4 ON THE SABBATICAL INSTITUTIONS. of a Jewish Sabbath. It was a strange abandonment of all the avocations of life. They saw the fields of the Hebrews forsaken by the labourer; the ass unsaddled; the oar laid up in the boat ; tlicy marked a dead stillness pervading the habitation of the Israelite ; the fires all extinguished; the accustomed meal unprepared ; the man-servant and the maiden leave their work, and the trafficker, at least one day in the week, refusing the offered coin. The most scrupulous superstitions had long been superadded to the observance of the Mosaic institution, by the corrupting artifices of the rabbinical Pharisees. The female was not allowed to observe herself in a mirror, lest she might be tempted to pluck a hair; the Israelite might not even scrape ofl:' the dirt on his shoes, he must not lift a weight, or touch money, or ride, or bathe, or play on an instrument ; the most trivial act of domestic life connected with labour or busi- ness, was a violation of the Sabbath. Even the distance of a Sabbath-walk was not to exceed that space which lies between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives; this was the distance between the Temple and the Tabernacle; it had been nicely measured, and the Hebrew in Rome on his Sabbath was still counting his steps on a Sabbath-day's journey. The llomans too might have heard that these Hebrews, when they had armies of their own, would halt in the midst of victory, on the eve of the Sabbath ; and that on the Sabbath-day they ceased even to defend their walls from the incursions of an enemy. Had not the llomans profited by this custom in their last memorable triumph over Jerusalem ? But the interior delights of the habitation of the Hebrew were invisible to the Polytheist. He heard not the domestic greeting which cheerfully announced " the good Sabbath," nor the paternal benediction for the sons, and that of the masters for his pupils. He could not behold, in the twilight hour of the Sabbath, the female covering the fresh loaves, prepared for that sanctified day, with her whitest napkins, in perpetual remem- brance of that miraculous food which had fallen from Heaven on every day, save the Sabbath. He could not behold the mistress of the house watching the sun set, and then lighting up the seven wicks of the lamp of the Sabbath, suspended during its consecration ; a servile office performed by her own ON THE SABBATICAL INSTITUTIONS. 5 hand in atonement of the great mother of mankind. For oil to fill the Sabbath-lamp the mendicant implored an alms, which was as religiously given as it was religiously used. But the more secret illumination of the law on the Sabbath eve, as the Rabbins expressed it, bestowed a supernumerary soul on every Israelite. The sanctity felt through the Jewish abode on that day, was an unfailing renewal of the religious emotions of this pious race. Thus, in the busy circle of life, w^as there one immoveable point, where the weary rested, and the wealthy enjoyed a heavenly repose ; and it was not without some truth that Leo of Modena, a philosophical Hebrew, called this day " the Festival of the Sabbath." It is beautiful to trace the expansion of an original and vast idea in the mind of a rare character, who seems born to govern the human race. Such an awful and severe genius was the legislator of the Hebrews ! The Sabbatical institution he boldly extended to a seventh year, as well as he had appointed a seventh day. At that periodical return, the earth itself was suffered to lie fallow and at rest. In this " Sabbath of the land," the Hebrews were not permitted to plant, or to prune, to sow, or to reap ; of the spontaneous growth, no proprietor at those seasons was allowed to gather more than sufficed for the bare maintenance of his household.* In this seventh year all debtors were to be released, a law which would naturally check the facility of increasing debts at the approach of the periodical release. But what was the design of this great legislator in the extraordinary ordinance of ceasing agricultural labours ? We may conjecture that in the infant state of cultivation he considered, that in the confined territory which the Israelites occupied, far inland, among woods, and mountains, and rocks, and without any commercial intercourse with surrounding nations, for they sought none, and none came to them, their incessant industry might exhaust their soil. This law seems to have originated' in a local necessity, but the foresight which would have prevented the evil of famine, erred even in its wisdom ; for though Israel had been promised that " the sixth year should bring forth fruit for three years," and Moses would * Levit. XXV. 3, 7. 6 ON THE SABBATICAL INSTITUTIONS. calculate on that surplus to supply the Sabbatical year, yet this refractory horde too often forfeited the Divine favour. This Ordinance impoverished the wealth of this agricultural people, and the Sabbatical year was usually followed by one of scarcity and distress. Thus it happened when Alexander, on a very singular occasion,* was desirous of conceding to the Hebrews some substantial mark of his royal favour, none seemed to them of more national importance than a dispensation to pay tribute in the seventh year. A more obvious wisdom, and a more beautiful moral influence, appear in the still greater Sabbatical institution of every fifty years. Seven Sabbaths of years closed in their Jubilee, or the great year of release ; a name and a ceremony still retained in the mimicry of Judaism by Papal Christianity, though it de- generates into a ludicrous and unmeaning parade. On the eventful day which hallowed a fiftieth year, at the blowing of the horn in the Synagogue, and the horn is still blown, though no longer heard in Judea, the poor man once more ceased to want, all pledges were returned, and all lands reverted to their original proprietors. On that day the slave was emancipated ! The Lord had decreed, " The land shall not be sold, for the land is mine !"t By this Sabbatical institution of the Jubilee, no demoralised parent could entirely deprive his off'spring of the inheritance of their ancestors ; the curse of destitution no man could entail on his posterity. Equality of fortunes in the conditions of men, a political reverie in all other governments, seemed to have been realised in the small sacerdotal and agricul- tural Kcpublic of Israel ; and perhaps served as the model of that famous government which the Jesuits attempted to esta- blish in Paraguay. The sublime legislator of the Hebrews, to prevent the oppressive accumulation of wealth in individuals, and the multiplication of debts without limit, and the perpetuity of slavery, decreed that nothing should be perpetual but the religious Republic itself! This greater Sabbatical institution was an expedient to check the disorders which flow from the monopoly of property. It produced a kind of community of goods among the people, and in some respects combined the • The story is delightfully told by Josephus in his History, lib. xi., c. 8. t Levit. XXV, 23. ON THE SABBATICAL INSTITUTIONS. 7 theoretical politics of Plato and Socrates with the more practical systems of real property and personal possessions of Aristotle and Cicero. Too exquisitely benevolent for the selfishness, and the pride, and the indolence of man, the passions of mankind would revolt against this code of philanthropy, adapted to a smaller community ; it was an Agrarian law without its violence, and an Ostracism without its malignity. While Israel possessed their Holy Land, all the Sabbatical institutions were religiously observed, till the destruction of the first Temple by the Assyrians. When the captive Jews, returning from Babylon, sought their father-land, they beheld their tribes confused together, and many of their brethren were wanderers in far- distant regions. The glory of their Temple had for ever passed away, the feelings of patriotism were cold in a desolated country, — the magic had dissolved — and the Seven Sabbaths of Years for ever vanished ! Such is the history of the Sabbatic institutions of Moses. The seventh day, consecrated to the universal repose of all nature, may be said to have entirely disappeared, except among this ancient people, who still preserve it with all its rigours. Even Mahomet, iu perpetuating it among his Moslems, changed it to a weekly feast-day, and " the most excellent day on which the sun rises," as it is described, is the sixth of the week. The Mohammedans esteem it a peculiar honour to Islam that Friday has been appointed for them, and that they alone enjoy the blessing of having first observed it.* The observance of the Sabbath-day became a subject of con- troversy only among the religious of the Protestants of our country; a subject which requires oiu* investigation. * Sale's Preliminary Discourse to the Koran, 197. Lander recently, when in Africa, thus noticed this weekly festival. " Friday is the Mahommedan Sabbath, which is constantly kept as a holiday by the inhabitants for public recreation and festivities." — ii. 114. OBSERVATION OF THE CHAPTER II. OF THE OBSERVATION OF THE SABBATH UPON SUNDAYS. The superstitious discipline of the Jewish Sabbath, as practised by the tyrannical Pharisees, was one of those burthens of the okl law wliich tlic new removed. The Founder of the Christian Religion in the severe repri- mands to his rabbinical persecutors, by his words and by his actions, testified that with the abrogation of the Mosaic ritual, the ceremonial performance of the Sabbath was dissolved. Jesus announced himself to be " Lord of the Sabbath," and declared that " the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath," doubtless alluding to its arbitrary superstitions. " This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath day," said the haughty Pharisees of Jesus ; and when Jesus was accused of a breach of the Sabbath, according to the pharisaical strictness, by healing a sick man on that day, Jesus replied, " My Father worketh hitherto, and I also work." * The Apostles comprehended the intention of their Lord, otherwise they would have preferred enduring the keenest hunger rather than have plucked the ears of corn in passing through a field on the Sab- bath. This was the point of time, at which the ceremonial of the Sabb«ath was manifestly dissolved — or as Lightfoot, deep in Hebraic lore, that " Christian Rabbi " as Gibbon happily desig- nates this prodigy of erudition, quaintly expressed it, this was "the shaking of the Sabbath." Christianity was not established at once : this miracle was denied the world ; and the children of the Gospel required the indulgence of tender converts, whose consciences, and customs and imaginations could not be weaned on the sudden from those Mosaic rites which for so many ages they held as imprescrip- tible. The hfibits of these innovators, known in ecclesiastical A strong light is thrown on this expression of Jesus, as well as on our present subject, by Justin Martyr in his eccentric dialogue with Trypho the Jew—" You see that the heavens are not idle, nor do ihnj observe the Salbatlis. If before Abraham there was no need of circumcision, nor the Sabbaths, &c., so now in like manner tlicre is no need of them since Jesus Christ." Sect, xxiii. i SABBATH UPON SUNDAYS. 9 history as Judaising Christians, were still clin gin g to the ancient faith, while their convictions had embraced the new. These Jewish proselytes, who are described as " certain of the sect of Pharisees which believe" * were indulged for the first half century, in Levitical ceremonies. To these Judaising Christians the antiquated Sabbath and even the rite of circumcision was still allowed. St. Paul attended Synagogues on the Sabbath, and joined in the ceremonial part, with a view to obtain prose- lytes, and this great assertor of the Christian Faith, who had inculcated " the circumcision made without hands,^^ himself cir- cumcised Timothy to humour the rooted prejudices of these wavering Jews.f There was a moment even when the Judaising Christians attempted to reconcile the Code of Moses with the Gospel of Christ. These held a conference with the Apostles, which, like all such conferences, produced " much disputing," till Peter rising up, and having announced his successful con- version of the Gentiles, protested against a return to their obsolete rites. The Apostle rested his salvation, not on a Eitual, but " on the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ." Proceeding as they now were, with such great success, the Apostle exclaimed, " Now therefore why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor ive are able to bear?" This open confession of the Apostle is remarkable. The rites, or rather the ceremonies of Judaism, had sunk into an inextri- cable mass of the minutest and most harassing superstitions. Religion looked like witchcraft — ^d the Pharisees, ostenta- tiously austere, with inquisitorial terror, had inflicted on their people the brutallsing bondage of passive obedience. The attempt to renew these multiplied ceremonies was thwarting the spirit of the mighty Reformation of Judaism, and would have * Acts XV. 5. t The intolerant Knox was so greatly confounded at the compliance of St. Paul with the advice of St. James, in conforming with the Jewish customs, that he might not offend the converts of that nation — that Knox inveighs against what he calls " a worldly-wise council " of both the Apostles, and hardily doubts whether the com- mand of the one and the obedience of the other proceeded from the Holy Ghost, Knox discovered that the Apostolical toleration was pointed against his own un- relenting conduct to those who, however inclined to the new Reformation, yet still looked on the mass with religious emotions. How true is it that men in parallel situations necessarily move on similar principles. — Knox, Hist. Ref. of Scotland, i. 143. (Ed. 1814.) 10 OBSERVATION OF THE contracted the influence of that more beautiful system which initiated its votaries on far easier terms. A baptism of blood was changed to a baptism of water : mercy and not sacrifice was now the hope of man ; the Revelation which had remained incomplete was now accomplished by "the Saviour who had abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light." The early proselytes to Christianity unquestionably would have been diminished in number, had they been compelled to return to the old Jewish bondage. The leading object of St. PauFs reform was to do away " all the differences of days and times," such as " SabbatJis, new moons, circumcision, with distinctions of meat and drink." The whole code of Moses was repealed, the rites and ceremonies were declared to be but " a shadow of things to come," * types of the new Revelation ; Judaism was but an adumbration of Christianity. In the East, Christians chiefly of Hebrew descent still lingered in their old customs ; the Jewish Sabbath, and even the rite of circumcision were permitted as indifferent matters, that, as we are told, " the Mother Synagogue might be laid to sleep with the greater honour." f But in the West the Christian Church condemned as heretical the celebration of the Sabbath of the Hebrews ; it was mingling the Jewish leaven with the bread of life. As the Eastern Christians had been indulged with Judaic ceremonies, so the Western, consisting chiefly of Pagan converts, were favoured with more exhilarating festivals, instituted on a mythological model, for the heathen proselytes experienced the same reluctance in abandoning their own ancient ceremonies as had the Hebrews.^ Those opposite rites and ceremonies of the earliest proselytes to Christianity were imperceptibly intro- duced into the Church ; they have been deemed its corruptions ; and the famous letter on the "Conformity of Popery with Paganism " requires as large a supplement on the conformity of Popery with Judaism. • Colossians, ii. 1 7. t All expression from one of the Councils. Heylins History of the Sabbath, part ii. 21. X Moshcim's Eccles. Hist. ii. 141. Grotius, in his « Truth of Christianity," has noticed the toleration of Jewish rites by the primitive teachers of the Christiuu faith, book v. ch. 12. SABBATH UPON SUNDAYS. 11 When the Sabbath departed, no new one was substituted ; no apostolical precept enforces it; no practice of the primitive Christians warrants it. As the religious observance of the seventh day of the week declined, the first day gradually grew into some repute.* Of customs, whose beginnings only glimmer in the obscurity of ages, it is hopeless to feel about for any palpable evidence. Paley has taken an enlightened view of this subject, aware as he was of the historical difiiculties of affixing the Sabbatical character to our Sunday, or even the appellative by which it is honoured, as " The Lord^s day." St. Paul and St. Luke only call it " the first day of the week," evidently from the acknow- ledgment that the Sabbath was the seventh and last day. At first it appears to have been fixed on as a day on which Chris- tians assembled to unite in solemn prayer, perhaps as being in direct opposition to the Jewish seventh day. St. Paul distin- guished the first day of the week, and opposed the observance of the Jewish Sabbath, and it was for this reason that those Jndaising Christians, the Ebionites, rejected his writings, ac- counting the Saint to be an apostate, as we are informed by Irenseus and Epiphanius.f The primitive Christians abhorred the observance of the Jewish Sabbath, which they held was only practised by the contemners of " the Lord^s day." Justin Martyr tells Trypho the Jew, in the full spirit of the times, that " they would gladly endure thej^nost horrible tortures that men and devils could devise to inflict on them, rather than keep your Sabbath, and observe your solemn days." It is probable that Sunday, being considered as the day of the Redeemer's resurrection, was hence called "the Lord's day." The first account we find of this impressive term is in the Apocalypse, chap. i. v. 10, "I was in the spirit on the Lord's day." This was written so late as the ninety-fourth year of the Christian era. The Lord's day can only be pre- sumed to designate Sunday. The term is frequent among the * See Selden de jure naturali et Gentium juxta disciplinare Hebrceorum, lib. iii. in the 13th and following chapter. Prideaux," The Doctrine of the Sabbath, deUvered in the Act at Oxon, 1622. 4°.» Heyliu's " Hist, of the Sabbath," part ii. 30— and also " Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy," ii. 94. t Sunday no Sabbath. A sermon by John Pocklington, Doctor of Divinity, Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of Lincoln, 1636, p. 10. 12 OBSERVATION OF THE prophetical writers, as Cruden's Concordance will show at a single glance. "But," observed Paley, "we find no footsteps of any distinction of days, which could entitle any other to that appellation." So obscure is even the first introduction of the elevated designation which hallows that day. The Jewish Sabbath and the Lord's day were long wrestling for the mastery ; but while the first day in the week received the honours of the Sabbath, it bred some confusion among those whose faith lay in the seventh. The Judaising Christian, the mild Nazarene, and the fierce Ebionite, sabbathised both days ; the Saturday as the day of Creation, when all nature began to live, and the Sunday as the day of the Resurrection, when man was blessed with such certain evidence of a future existence. About the middle of the second century Justin Martyr noticed, that " upon the day called Sunday they met together to pray." He styles the first day of the week the day of the Sun, and assigns the reason for the selecting of that day for religious worship, that in it God began the work of creation, and Christ rose from the dead ; this was evidently a confused mixture of the Jewish and the Christian creeds. It was these Sunday assemblies which induced the Pagans to imagine that the Christians were worshippers of the Sun, from whom that dedicated day was named. Tertullian, who lived much later than this Father, calls Sunday Dies Soils, and considered it as a festival-day dedicated to mirth and festivity, and not wholly to devotion. He sometimes calls it "the Eighth day," and sometimes Dies Dominicus, the Lord's day. After divine service every one returned to his occupations. The apostles had never enjoined their followers to refrain from labour. Paul, who was a tent maker, must be inferred, from a passage in the New Testament, to have worked at his tents on a Sunday. During the three first centuries, the Lord's day was not con- sidered as a Sabbath, nor was it held as such in the fourth. At this period, indeed, a remarkable circumstance occurred. Constantine, called the Great, whom Eusebius characterises by a single stroke, as " making a church of his palace," enacted laws for the equal observance of Sundays and Saturdays. But Sunday became a more favourite day, for his mingled army of Christians and Pagans would willingly address on the same SABBATH UPON SUNDAYS. 13 day, the one in their Church, the Saviour Jesus ; the other in the open field, Phoebus, the god of light. No cessation from the business of life had hitherto attended "the Lord's day." Constantino for the first time closed the courts of law, but the peasant and the artisan were seen at their work. After prayers, Sunday was held as a day of recreation, and on Wednesdays and Fridays they equally communicated together by the order of this Prince, half-Christian and half-Pagan. In the fifth and sixth centuries, when Christianity began to triumph over those anomalous sects into which Paganism had split, "the Lord's day" rose in the same esteem as other festival days. Still, however, through these and six succeeding centuries, we discover some Judaising Christians. Gregory the Great, who adopted so many popular ceremonies into the Church, yet strenuously opposed those who refused to attend to their occupations on the Saturdays or the Sundays. In their Judaising strictness, they refrained even from their baths on Sundays, on which the Pontiff observed, " If bathing be sinful, why then wash the face on that day ? " Under the Gaulish and the Northern monarchs, the barbarous Christian became more and more Judaical in the strict observ- ance of the Sabbath. The writers of these times abound with legends of miraculous punishments happening to the violators of the Sabbath, or Sundays. We seem suddenly to enter on a history of Israelites composed by doting Kabbins, rather than on the annals of Christianity, dictated by an Apostolical spirit. The Rabbinical genius, in its minute tyrannies, among their Sabbatical superstitions had forbidden their Jews even making so small a noise as that of rapping their knuckles on a table to still a child ; or tracing a letter even in sand, or cutting a cord, or breaking a stick. These pitiful superstitions appear to have been revived in the spurious Christianity of the middle ages, and were actually practised by those Puritans who emigrated to America. In 1028, Olaus, King of Norway, having one Sunday notched and whittled a stick, was reminded that he had tres- passed on the Sabbath ; the pious King gathered the chips in the palm of his hand^ and burnt them on it, that thus he might punish the member which had, as he supposed, offended the divine precept. A miller, for mending his mill on the Lord's 14 OBSERVATION OP THE day, found his hand cleaving to the hatchet. Such superstitious legends prove that the grossest Judaism was a weed not easily to be extirpated from the soil. For three hundred years after Christ, the most erudite re- searches have shown that the Christian was bound by no law to the strict Sabbatic observance of the Lord's day, nor was any sort of labour interdicted on Sundays. In a Council held at Paris in 829, it was determined that " Keeping of the Lord's day had no other ground but merely custom.''* More than a thousand years after Christ elapsed before the Lord's day became distinguished from the usual festivals appointed by the Church. In 1244, in the Synod of Lyons it was included among the holidays. At the Reformation, Calvin and Beza were anxious that the Sabbatical- Sunday, as a rest of Judaism, should be considered merely as an ecclesiastical day, originating in the appointment of the Church, but not of Divine institution. The Swiss Church in their Confession declare that one day is not more holy than another, nor do they think that a cessation from all labour is any way grateful to the Divinity. To show the world that the Church had authority to transfer the day, it was proposed to change the seventh day to Thursday ; a change which certainly would have occurred in the Church of Geneva, had the Thurs- day voters not formed the minority. This proposition, by assuming that there was no distinction of days, was designed to mark their contempt of the Romanist's crowded Calendar. Calvin and Beza accused the Church of Rome of having imbued the minds of the people with Judaism by their frequent festivals and their saints' days. At length we land at home. What had occurred on the Continent had been reflected here. The first account we find of any restraint from labour is in the reign of Edward the Third. The same argument then prevailed for establishing Sunday as a Hebrew Sabbath, and met with the same opposi- tion ; for markets were opened, public recreations allowed, and trades carried on, after the hours of prayer. At the Reforma- tion, Tyndale remarkably expresses his sentiments to Sir Thomas • Heylin, part ii. r v. p. 143, who frequently profits by the learned inquiry of Prideaux. SABBATH UPON SUNDAYS. 15 More, " As for the Sabbath we be lords over the Sabbath and may yet change it into Monday, or into any other day, as we see need ; or may make every tenth day holy-day only, if we see cause why/' — " All days are Sabbath days ! " said Bishop Hooper. Edward the Sixth, our infant Protestant, in the infancy of Protestantism, appointed Sundays among other holi- days on which the people are to refrain from their business, yet when necessity shall require, the husbandman, the fisherman, the labourer may work in harvest, or ride or fish at free will. This was but a half-measure. Elizabeth unquestionably never considered Sunday as a Sabbath, for she enjoins labour on that, as well as on other festival-days, after their common prayer — her language is observable by its indicating that we still har- boured some Judaising Christians. " And if for any scrupu- losity or grudge of conscience some should superstitiously abstain from working on those days, they shall grievously ofl'end.'' I find Elizabeth granting a licence to one John Seconton to use certain plays and games upon nine several Sundays"^ It was however in the reign of Elizabeth, during the unsettled state of the national religion, that a sect arose among those reformers of the reformed, the first Puritans, who were known by the name of Sabbatarians, These held the Decalogue as of perpetual obligation ; and according to their new creed, if the Sabbath-day had been changed, which they doubted, the Judaic rigours of its strict observance were still to sanctify it. Labour and recreation, with those persons, equally profaned the silence and the repose of the Sabbath. John Knox, the great Reformer of Scotland, was the true father of this new doctrine in England, although Knox was the bosom friend of Calvin. Calvin deemed the Sabbath to have been a Jewish ordinance, limited to that sacred people with their other ceremonial laws, and only typical of the spiritual repose of the advent of Christ, which abolished the grosser, rejected its rigours, and reproaches those whose Sabbatical superstitions were carnal and gross as the Jewish. t At Geneva a tradition exists, that when John * See T. Hearne's Preface to Camden's Elizabeth, t The passage is in the Institutes, lib. ii., c. viii., sect. 34. " Crassa, carnalique Sabbatismi Superstition e, Ter Judeos superant," or, as he has given it in his own translation of the Institute, « Ceux qui la suivent surmontent les Juifs en opinion 16 OBSERVATION OF THE Knox visited Calviu on a Sunday, he found his austere coadjutor bowhng on a green. At this day, and in that place, a Calvinist preacher after his Sunday sermon will take his seat at the card- table. Some of our early Puritans who had taken refuge in Holland, after ten years in vain pressing for the observance of the Sabbatic Sunday, resolved to leave the country where they had been kindly received and went " to the ends of the earth,'' among the wildernesses of America, to observe ''^the Lord's day " with the Jewish rigours.* When Laud was charged on his trial for the revival of the Book of Sports allowed on that day, he thought it prudent to deny that he had been the sug- gester ; he however professed his judgment in its favour, alleging the practice of their own favourite church of Geneva, t It may surprise us that two of the great friends of Calvin, closely connected with him, and with his system, should have espoused a very opposite doctrine. Knox in Scotland after Sunday having been 1554 years classed among the festival days, both in the Greek and the Latin churches, as the Anti- sabbatarians maintain, Knox no longer calling this day the Lord's day J but taking some Jew for its god-father, named it cliamello du Sabbath." Calvin would observe Sunday as a fixed day for assembling for religious communion, but divested of all Judaism ; not that there is any distinc- tion between days, but the appointment of a particular one is convenient, that all may meet together. After divine service all are free, and he reprobates those who have imbued the poor populace with Judaic opinions, and deprived the working claases of their recreations. , • Cotton Mather, Magnaha Christi Americana, fol. 5. t Thomas Wartou, in his first edition of " Milton's Juvenile Poems," observed, in a note ou tlie La50,000^., to be paid instantly, the English monarch would protect the Spanish fleet to its destination, till it was moored in some port in Spain. THE ENGLISH FLEETS. 58 powder — or masts from the King's stores, before they could stand out at sea, while the Hollander grew more insolent as they increased in number. They had now a hundred sail, besides fire-ships. When the Spaniards pleaded, as one excuse for their delay, their want of powder, that great naval hero Van Tromp sent them an offer to supply them with five hundred barrels, to be paid for at the usual rate, and if they wanted masts from Chatham, he would send his own frigates to tow them, if they would weigh and stand out to sea ! Once, favoured by the darkness of the night, and, it was supposed, under an English pilot, the Spaniards succeeded in sending off to Dunkirk fifteen vessels with three thousand men, which raised a clamour both in France and Holland, as if Charles had violated his neutrality in this instance. On this occasion Van Tromp, who appears often to have expressed himself in language as original and fiery, as was his action in combat, said that " having his hands full of flies, it was impossible but some of them would escape through his fingers.^' Secretary Windebank, who records this anecdote as a rhodomontade greater than any of the Spaniards, little knew then that the man who had delivered it could not use ideas too great to express the energy of his own deeds, and his lofty scorn of his enemy. Van Tromp was so popular with us, that several English gentlemen, no doubt of the discontented party at home, went abroad as volunteers. The Dutch Admiral told them that he imagined the Spaniards were waiting for the stormy weather, to get that by running which they despaired by fighting, and in that case, " if they keep lying so near the shore the King of England would have their guns, the country their wreck, and the devil their men.'^ Such an extraordinary state of affairs could not last ; the crisis was looked for at every hour. The Dutch asserted that a shot from a sentinel, possibly accidental, had been fired by the Spaniards at the barge of Van Tromp, and a dead body was sent to the English Admiral, as evidence that the neutrality of the King of England^s harbour had been violated. The attack soon after commenced ; few escaped of the Spanish fleet. It is said Van Tromp appointed a squadron to keep the English at a distance. The plea of the Dutch that they waited till their 54 CAUSES OF THE INACTION OF patience was exhausted, and the reluctant apology of theii- ambassador, made for the sake of form, were mere pretexts, to conceal what had been resolved on by the States- General, for we now know that Van Tromp had orders not to attack the Spaniards till he had been joined by various squadrons, and then in case the English would not remain neuter, he had positive commands to fight both one and the other. This poli- tical revelation we draw from D^Estrades' correspondence with Cardinal Richelieu. The Cardinal had desired the Prince of Orange " to give orders to his admirals to engage the Spanish fleet in the Downs, notwithstanding the protection which the King of England seemed inclined to give them." It has been a question how the English conducted themselves at that moment. Dr. Lingard says, " Pennington remained a quiet spectator." Was the Vice-Admiral kept off by the ships sent towards him? Our people seemed to have been more earnestly employed in seizing on the sinking Spaniards and saving their wrecks from the Hollanders. They, however, actu- ally fired on the Dutch from their batteries and their ships, for Van Tromp, writing to the Comte de Charost, adds, " but as far as we can judge, the fire of the EngHsh was intended rather for a feint than from passion." * Thus ingloriously for Charles terminated this singular inci- dent, which the exulting negotiator of France describes as " the most illustrious action which could be thought of, that of de- feating the fleet of Spain in an English port, though assisted by English ships." And the Infant Cardinal at Brussels told Sir Balthazar Gerbier that his Majesty of Great Britain, by this attempt of the Hollanders, had received a greater blow than the King of Spain. So lofty was the sense of Castilian honour ! In the Council of the States-General, when some objected to attack the Spaniards in an English port, whence might ensue a rupture between England and Holland, it was insolently answered that the King durst not break with them, and if he durst, they feared him not, and rather than suffer the Spanish fleet to escape, they would attack it thougli it were placed upon his Majesty's beard ! In their ancient style the States-General had formerly sued for the protection of England, under the humble designation of ♦ Griffet, xxi. 233. THE ENGLISH FLEETS. 55 " the poor distressed States/' but they had recently titled them- selves " High and Mighty/' What causes had thus fatally operated on our maritime affairs? How happened it that the great fleet of England, which had showed itself in triumph, was paralysed by inaction ? This mighty navy, which had vindicated the sovereignty of the seas, in the short period of two years we find directed to no single point, ingloriously lying in its harbours. To know these causes, we must attempt to trace what was silently operating on the mind of Charles. Early in 1637, 1 find Charles, in a confidential communication to Strafford, alluding to an approaching alteration in his foreign politics. The object is always the same eternal dream of the restoration of the Palatinate. Lord Arundel had returned from his inefficient embassy to Vienna. Charles was now convinced that all negotiations were useless. From Austria he got only civility, and from Spain promises, but from the Duke of Bavaria himself, who had taken possession of the Palatinate, the plain stern language of a soldier, who swore that what the sword had gained the sword should preserve. An English monarch who would acquire conquests on the Continent by the eloquence or the high rank of his ambassadors, without an army, is liable to incur the insults of even the petty military powers of Germany. The noble Arundel, who assumed a princely state in his embassy, was so little considered, that he thought proper to leave Vienna without taking leave, and an envoy of one of those petty princes scornfully observed, that " our English ambassadors were fit only to pick poultry.'' Our Cabinet, divided as it was into two opposite parties, was now more than ever convulsed by its fluctuating measures. A league was proposed with the Protestant Princes, the allies of France ; these coalescing with Holland, Denmark, and Sweden, were to reinstate the sister and the nephew of Charles the First in the Palatinate. But Charles acknowledges to Strafford that he is quite incompetent to join his new allies with troops. " I have professed that all my warfare must be by sea, not by land." The King proceeds, " what likelihood there is that upon this I should fall foul with Spain you now may see as well as I, and 56 CAUSES OF THE INACTION OF what great inconvenience tliis war may bring to me, now that my sea-contribution is settled, and that I am resolved not to meddle with land armies , I cannot imagine, except it be in Ire- land, and there, too, I fear not much, since I find the country so well settled as it is by your diligent care. Yet I thought it necessary to give you this watch- word, both to have the more vigilant eye over the discontented party, as also to assure you that / am as far from a Parliament as when you left me." This confidential dispatch was sent in February, 1636-7. I do not know whether we are to read the last lines as a patriotic regret, or a confirmation.of unalterable decision. Why were they written? They are not set down in passion. Strafford, as well as other ministers, we know was friendly to Parliament. Were they in reply to a suggestion of Strafford's to call a Par- liament ? I incline to think they were dictated by a sorrowful conviction according to his own notions, or from more recent knowledge, that Charles could discover no relenting animosity in the party who he concluded were his personal enemies. One point is here proved, that Parliaments at least were not utterly dismissed from the mind of Charles. From this period we may trace the indecisive measures of Charles the First. He was not yet the open friend of his new allies, nor was he yet hostile to the ally whom he was quitting ; for the treaties were sometimes retarded by the Cabinet of the Louvre, and the States- General or the Prince of Orange had conflicting interests with England. Spain was indeed alarmed at this awful conjunction, and her ambassador hastened to Charles with offers to restore the Lower Palatinate, and with a promise to procure the Upper, from the Duke of Bavaria, for a compensation in money. He further proposed that if England would join his master with twenty thousand men and her fleet, the Spaniards would take the field with as many Brabanters, and their combined army should place Languedoc and Normandy in the hands of the British monarch. This rhodomontade of the affrighted Don was an artifice intended to decompose the ele- ments of this perilous combination. The projected league of the various parties had become the subject of public attention two months after the King had written to Strafford. A famous news-letter writer of the day thus describes the state of affairs : — THE ENGLISH FLEETS. 57 " Our new patriots and statesmen here cry out, ' Let England, France, and the Low Countries join together, they will quickly bring the Spaniard on his belly/ 'Tis true these truly conjoined would do much, but upon what terms doth England stand yet with either of them ? Farther off with the Low Countries than we have been a long time, and for France things come on much slower than we expected/' This was a true statement of politi- cal affairs. Another season was suffered to elapse, which, how- ever, was interrupted by the beginning of the troubles in Scotland in July and October, 1637. It was in November of that year that Cardinal Richelieu attempted to seduce Charles by his offers to aid the King against those of his subjects whom the Cardinal called '^his rebels." But Charles's attention was now roused to his own domestic affairs. Our fleet, however, still existed, and in 1638 the sovereignty of the sea was still present in the anxious minds of the English. A well-informed writer of the day observed, " The long treaties between the French and the Spanish are now near a conclusion ; the Dutch will not be left out ; then liave at England for the dominion of the seas."^ But rapid was the approaching change, and the state of affairs is strongly painted by the Lord High Admiral in January, 1638-9 — "I assure your lordship we are altogether in as ill a posture to invade others as to defend ourselves — the discontents here at home do rather increase than lessen — the King's coffers were never emptier than at this time, and to us that, have the honour to be near about him, no way is yet known how he will find means either to maintain or begin a war without the help of his people." t One cause of the inactivity of the fleet may be traced to the change in the foreign policy of the Cabinet, which prevented any decisive measures from being adopted ; and when at length it became necessary to chastise the indignities which England was daily incurring from the encroaching Gaul, the insolent Hollander, and the haughty Spaniard, the monarch, seeing his honour was compromised, was glad to accept the futile apologies of the foreign aggressors. He who in politics accepts apologies for wrongs, only acquiesces in the evidence of his weakness. ■^ Strafford's Letters, ii. 181. + Ibid. 267. 53 CAUSES OF THE INACTION OF THE ENGLISH FLEETS. Harris on this exclaims, " A spirited prince would have had a satisfaction as puhhc as the injury itself, and thereby have shown the world that he was worthy of the sovereignty of those seas which he claimed." Thus Charles has sometimes incurred reproaches where he might rather move our sympathy. The inextricable dilemma into which Charles was now cast, by the course of events, never occurred to this writer of common-place declamation, and whose genius in all respects is mean as his style. The personal dis- tresses of the King were fast gathering on him, but the historian who does not investigate cannot perceive them. The state of his aflfairs no longer admitted of an expostulation by his own navy ; what was just and glorious in 1637 was no longer so in 1639. The mind of Charles was now too deeply engaged in military preparations against his own revolting subjects, while his Exchequer was so utterly exhausted that it became for him a direful necessity to look to the help of his people, to gather the reluctant alms of their loyalty, or to submit once more to the dubious results of those new masters of sovereignty — the Parliament ! The troubles in Scotland were pressing on the mind of the King, and to reduce that kingdom to obedience, Charles had resolved to raise an army of thirty thousand men. All foreign aflfairs became matters of secondary importance, a circumstance fatal to his character as a sovereign, and which the Cabinets of Europe soon discovered. The unpopularity of the ship-money continued a source of general discontent, although that tax was neither onerous nor useless. Even those who wished no ill to the King, allowed themselves the utmost freedom in protesting against the decree of the Judges which had legalised it. Waller, who addressed so many loyal poems to Charles, and who when the civil wars broke out, for his adherence to the King, only saved his life by the sacrifice of his fortune, delivered a very impressive speech against this obnoxious tax. Sir William Monson in his " Naval Tracts " has noticed the many factious and scandalous rumours which were invented at the time to persuade the people that aU the naval preparations were only an artifice to draw money from the subject. Those who were fined and imprisoned for their contumacy looked for revenge in the NOTE ON SHIP-MONEY. 59 North ; and the cry against ship-money, cherished and inflamed by faction, was always greatest when the monarch was in his extreme distress. A NOTE ON SHIP-MONEY AND ON THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEAS. Dh. Lingard has done justice to Charles the First in the particular instance of the King's disposal of the Ship-money. " By this contrivance the King obtained a yearly supply of 218,500^., and it should be observed that he carefully devoted it to the purposes for which it was demanded." (Lingard, x., 29.) The careful direction of that tax, Hume has justly urged as a plea for Charles the First ; even the cold Presbyter Harris nods his acquiescence. Sir Philip Warwick had stated a fact, " The King so sincerely employed the Ship-money that it was never mingled with that of his own Exche- quer, but kept apart with their accounts, and yet adding considerably of his own treasures to it." But other more popular history may show how the history of this period has often been written. Oldmixon, who has degraded history into ribaldry, and whose folio volume on the Stuarts at the day, and with a party, seems to have passed for authentic history, condemns the great enterprise of Charles as sheer foUy. Sir Philip Warwick, a distinguished gentleman and actor in the events of his time, he criticises as " a writer below reflection ; his matter, his style, and integrity are all of a piece, and 'tis ridiculous to be serious about him." ** The Critical Historian," as Oldmixon styles himself, therefore ridicules the notion that " The King kept aU the Ship-money in a bag by itself." AU the service done by the revenue from the Ship-money was " clearing the Channel of a few Turkish rovers, and the frighting our Protestant allies, the Hollanders." The great State-principle of the Sovereignty of the Sea — the tributary treaty — and the retreat of the combined fleets of France and Holland — are wholly dropped in this faithless narrative. Mrs. Macaulay was somewhat sensible to the firm and intrepid con- duct of the King ; but the meed of glory she awards is mildewed by a sneer ! Listen to her ! " Charles now seems to l3e in the meridian of what he termed glory ; he had fairly placed the yoke on the neck of his own subjects, and by the seizure of their purse had found means to humble the Hollanders, whose independent flourishing state had ever been an eye- sore to the Stuarts." With SmoUet, all these transactions, the historian sagaciously discovers, were founded on mere p'etences ! He ascribes the levying the Ship- 60 NOTE ON SHIP-MONEY. money " to ?l pretence of the nation's being in danger of a leagiie concluded between France and the United Provinces," which we have shown, and still have to show, assuredly existed. And further, " that & pretejice va\^i not be wanting for levying the tax of Ship-money all over the kingdom, Charles published a proclamation forbidding all foreigners to fish on the coasts of Britain." Doubtless the historian and his readers were satisfied that in these " pretences " they had discovered the whole secret history of these public events ! At length we reach the illumination of Mr. Brodie's history, our own contemporary, who knows far better than any of his predecessors how the Ship-money was disposed of. " The English had not the consolation of thinking that the money extorted from them was destined to any useful purpose; luxury, hungry courtiers, and the Queen's French attendants consumed the greater part of this ill-acquired treasure, while a portion of it was applied towards overturning the liberties and religion of Scotland." (ii. 401.) Had we not known the moderate supply of the Ship-money, and the heavy charges of fitting out the most formidable fleet which Eng- land had ever put to sea, and farther, on the authority of Sir Philip Warwick — though this obvious fact required no authority — that the King was often compelled to supply its deficiencies from his own Exchequer, had we not known all this, we might have congratulated Mr. Brodie on the secret sources of his history of the disposal of the Ship-money. But Mr. Brodie is only mistaken in his arithmetic ! Let Mr. Brodie deduct from the gross receipts of the Ship-money, so much for " luxury," — so much for *' hungry courtiers " — so much for " French attendants " — and place contra — " sixty ships of war " — and he will find that not an obolus will remain for *' overturning the liberties and religion of Scotland." All this is serious truth — and every item which Mr. Brodie has here enume- rated as having been furnished by Ship-money is chimerical. I cannot help adding one of Mr. Oldmixon's phrases when alluding to Clarendon, Warwick, and others — " You see what history they give us ! " Mr. Hallam will pardon the notice of an expression of his, somewhat inaccurate in regard to the subject. " There wanted not reasons in the Cabinet of Charles for placing the navy at times on a respectable footing " (i. 165.) Thus, all that I have written on the Sovereignty of the Sea; all that Selden has sent down to posterity in his immortal " Mare Clausum ; " and that miracle of our fleet, ** the Sovereign of the Seas " — the inscribed cannon — and those legacies of fame — the medals of Charles the First, with all the greatness of the noble emprise, is clouded over by " a respectable footing." It is amusing to turn to the recent Biographic Universelle,* where we * Biog. Univ. xli. 502. OF THE COMMOTIONS OF SCOTLAND. 61 may collect some instruction relative to the systematic perseverance of our Government from the days of Charles the First to those of George the Third, in maintaining the Sovereignty of the Sea. Our Gallic contemporary tells us that " the principles v/hich diaries the First avowed, were also those of Cromwell, and produced the Dutch war." Here I find an omission in his chronological view, which I shall supply. He has not told us that Charles the Second was once patriotic enough in 1675 to declare that he would risk his crown rather than his Sovereignty at Sea, and when a French squadron refused to strike to the British flag in the English Channel, the French Captain who had ofiered the insult was sent over to implore the pardon of the English monarch.* This writer proceeds with William the Third, who in a manifesto reproaches Louis the Fourteenth for having allowed his subjects to violate the rights of the sovereignty of the English crown in the Britannic seas — and George the Third in the last wars appears fully to have followed up the system of his predecessors. From these facts, which we are very ftir from denying, the result discovered by the French diplomate, is " that these facts sufii- ciently prove how these monarchs had not abandoned the doctrine of Selden ! " Our critic henceforward wHl, I hope, do us islanders the justice to observe our consistency in attending to our own interests, and commend us for the fearlessness which has defended them — it has cost more Dutch than French blood. CHAPTER VI. OF THE COMMOTIONS OF SCOTLAND. The insurrection of Scotland might have proved to Charles the First an extraordinary source of political instruction; but the limited policy of this monarch, the policy of the times, was preservative, not creative. It was to support what was estab- lished, and not to discover what was remedial. In the government of the Church and the State his principle was immutable conformity ; a principle which naturally repulsed strange innovations which to the King appeared secretly sub- verting the monarchy, while they offered no substitute for that Episcopacy which they would abolish, but another Prelacy of a meaner character, yet of a more audacious and turbulent genius. The time was at hand when this fated monarch was about to * Ralph's History of England, i. 284. 62 OF THE COMMOTIONS OP SCOTLAND. be hurried on through a dark labyrinth of factions and revolu- tions. It was to be a struggle to which the genius of the man was incompetent, uncongenial to his temper, and novel to his experience. The second Stuart was not one of those rare minds who create an epoch in the history of nations, and who, anticipating a distant posterity, discover a wisdom not of their own age. Charles the First could not, like Henry the Eighth, have passionately struck out a great revolution, or have termi- nated one with the cautious decision of Elizabeth ; in the one case Charles would have looked in vain, for a precedent of Reformation, and in the other by some hastiness of conduct he would have been thrown into situations whence he could only have extricated himself by retraction or concession. The commotions of Scotland are a prototype of the Civil War which afterwards broke out in England, and corresponded closely with all the great points of our greater struggle. From an early period the movements of the Covenanters were regulated by their confederates among the patriotic party in England. Our patriots in that secret alliance not only adopted the prin- ciples, but even the mode of proceedings of the Covenanters ; in a word the English Revolution was modelled by the Scottish Insurrection. In the complicated question of the progress of our Revolution under Charles the First, this becomes an important position, which has not fixed the attention of our historians. The Scots were our tutors in the artifices of popular de- mocracy, and those mysteries of insurgency, which afterwards were systematised by ourselves. They were the contrivers of that terrific revolutionary engine — a mobocracy; and it was from them that we learnt how to organise a people in vast masses, so as to assemble or disperse them at will. Their peti- tions and remonstrances served as our models when, in a similar submissive style of loyalty, they kept drilling throughout the whole kingdom. This subtile party even practised the arts of political flattery; at the moment they were insolent in the success of their arms, they apologised for their invasion : and his Majesty's loyal subjects of Scotland were only rebellious in their acts. In the fall of the Hierarchy, through all its stages, the English Commons were but the servile imitators of the Scottish Covenanters. The leaders of faction, both at home OF THE COMMOTIONS OP SCOTLAND. 63 and in Scotland, were indeed but few; they had, however, engaged the whole people on their side by covering their own design, which was a subversion of the government, and making religion their ostensible and national object. Fanaticism has all the characteristics which faction delights in; undismayed by peril, and most triumphant when opposed, it hurries on without sense to discover its folly, and without remorse to avert its crimes. Private interests and personal jealousies were often disguised by the Scottish insurgents in the parties which they formed. In this vast and confused struggle the principles of constitutional liberty were sometimes developed and asserted ; the first statute for triennial Parliaments originated in Scot- land: and thus the independence of Parliaments was secured by the prevention of their disuse.* Both parties alike in Eng- land and in Scotland finally succeeded in objects more concealed ; the national avarice of the Covenanters sold their Sovereign, and the remorseless republicanism of the other murdered him — and both the Presbyter and the Eepublican finally sank with their victim ! The King^s conduct, from first to last, in the Scottish Revolu- tion, was precisely similar to that which governed him in England. We discover in his first commands the same regal tone of authority ; in his measures the same indecision ; and at length in their result the same entire concessions, but all granted, however, to no purpose ! Inflexible, or yielding, the fortune of the King was alike malignant. Baillie, the able Scotch Covenanter, who possessed a personal knowledge of the Court, and of the leaders of the parties when the last great scene was approaching, has thrown out an observation which, properly understood, conveys a great truth. " It has been the King^s perpetual fault to grant his people's desires by bits, and so late he ever lost his thanks.'' We must remember, however, that "the people's desires," in the eyes of a partisan, always mean the system of that partisan. With Baillie " the people's * Laing's Hist, of Scotland, iii. Rushworth, iv. 188, where we find the Kmg's speech on passing the act for triennial Parliaments, Feb. 15, 1640. The speech in many respects is remarkable ; the King observes " This is the greatest expres- sion of my triist in Tjour affections to me, that before you do any thing for me I do put such a confidence in you." 64 OF THE COMMOTIONS OF SCOTLAND. desires" meant the unbishoping of bishops, and a Covenanting King of England ! Had Charles the First proved to be such a creature of circum- stance as to have subscribed himself a Covenanter, all Scotland, and half of England, might have been too strong for the ruling party in Parliament. The English Parliament were, indeed, early jealous of the King^s intercourse with the Scots, and Charles in his mind seems to have had some latent design of winning over his countrymen to his side ; but when the Scots insisted that the royal hand should be set to their famous national covenant, whatever might be the policy of his nego- tiations, their real object became unattainable. Charles con- ceded often reluctantly. Forced to act against his will, he could not be always sincere; but it is not less true, that his inflexibility sprang oftener from principle than from policy. The history of the Scottish commotions is neither a digrgi- sion, nor an episode, in the history of Charles the First, or in that of the causes of the revolutionary measures of his reign. The character of the monarch developed itself in its progress, as well as the arts and practices of the insurgents, till at length we discover how the Scottish insurrection terminated in the great revolution of England. To comprehend the secret motives, and the dark intrigues which prevailed in the Scottish affairs, we must rapidly review the state of Scotland from the Reformation ; the descendants of the first actors in that busy era of reform and spoliation were still performing their hereditary parts, and the same principles were operating on their conduct. The Reformation in Scotland had been mainly effected by those friars who were the popular preachers, in opposition to the regular clergy. These divine orators of the multitude at the same time instigated the people from their pulpits, and engaged in their cause those noble reformers who were first called " The Lords of the Congregation," by pandering to their passions of ambition or of avarice. These preachers were a rabid swarm of public disturbers engendered by the heat and fury of the times ; Knox himself acknowledges that they were blamed as " indiscreet persons ; yea, some called them railers, and worse. — Amongst others, peradventure, my rude plainness displeased, for OF THE COMMOTIONS OF SCOTLAND. 65 some complained that rashly I spoke of men^s faults. But alas ! my conscience accuseth me that I spoke not so plainly as my duty was to have done ; for I ought to have said to the wicked man expressly by his name, ' Thou shalt die the death ! ' For I find Jeremiah the prophet to have done so to Pashur the high-priest, and to Zedekiah the king. And not only he, but Elijah, Elisha, Micah, Amos, Daniel, Christ Jesus himself, and after him his apostles, expressly to name the blood-thirsty tyrants and abominable idolaters.^' Here we have the full- length of a saint, armed with all the terrors, if not the daggers of his " Godliness" — and a nation was to be revolutionised by a horde of fanatics, who imagined themselves to be "more pure" than their brother Protestants ; or who, as Knox himself declares, were " appointed by God to be the salt of the earth.'' In the warmth of his simplicity, Knox reproaches himself with his mildness, which he ascribes " to the bhnd love that I did bear to this my wicked carcase."* These fanatical preachers, aided by the nobles, were hurrying on the eventful revolution. The wealth and lands of the church lay before these parties, an enormous body and an easy prey I The rapacious aristocracy, profiting by the disordered state of the government, became sole masters of the soil, sharing among themselves the rich spoliations of abbeys, and monasteries, and cathedrals; and what they had found no difficulty to grasp, their arm was potent to retain. Andrew Melville brought from Geneva that model of eccle- siastical polity which Calvin had suited to his parochial republic. Knox was disposed at first to have bishops, under the novel title of Superintendents. By the revelations of these apostles of democracy the Scottish people, however, soon discovered that Episcopacy was " a great chip of the old block. Popery ;" and they were taught to exult, in the words of Knox, that in regard to " the primitive and apostolic church — no realm this day upon the face of the earth hath the like purity — for all others retain in their churches some footsteps of Anti- Christ and dregs of Popery." f And the mob of " the Kirk brake down the altars and the images ;" the lands of the * The Admonition of John Knox to the true professors of the Gospel of England, t Knox's History of the Reformation, in the opening of his fourth Boolf. VOL II. p 66 OF THE COMMOTIONS OF SCOTLAND. Ecclesiastics were reserved for the zeal of " the Lords of the Cougregation/' Gratified at first by that reforming spirit which had ejected their ancient masters, " the godly ministers " possibly did not imagine that they themselves were not to partake of that tem- poral spoil they had so spiritually spread, or, as Knox plainly ciilled it, "the rents of the Church/' The fierce disciple of Calvin lived to discover this error ; for he has himself told us that whenever he remonstrated with " the Lords of the Congre- gation," suggesting some reformation among themselves, such as more leniency in the slavery of their serfs, and more bounti- fulness for the maintenance of " the poore ministers," the gripers of abbeys and cathedrals mocked their own fiery apostle by treating these rebukes as nothing but " devout imaginations." Knox has libelled for posterity a certain Lord Erskine, '^ who had a very evil woman to his wife, and if the poor, the schools, and the ministry of the Church had their own, his kitchen would lack two parts and more of that which he unjustly possesseth." The nobility were in truth exercising the most arbitrary power ; the peasant was crushed by vassalage ; and, during the minority of James, the unprincipled conduct of one ambitious, and one avaricious Regent, had wrested from the Crown its inalienable rights in regalities and tithes which Parliament had annexed to it ; all which this usurping aristocracy had silently shared among themselves. It was observed that these lords exacted the tithes with a rigour and wantonness of oppression to which the people had never been exposed from the Catholic clergy.* The Scottish nobles considered that it was their great interest to continue their patronage to the popular preachers; and, indeed, neither party could exist, with any security, independently of the other. While Presbytery flourished, it kept out the claims of the ancient owners of the church-land's, whose present possessors dreaded the horror of a returning Hierarchy ; and the Mar-prelates themselves, although they had resigned to the no- bility the spoils of the Church, because they were not suffered to be partakers, were not, however, insensible that they possessed no * Even by the Confession of Mr. Brodie, Hist, of the British Empire, ii. 409. See Malcohn Laing's luminous statement, iii. 89—04. OF THE COMMOTIONS OP SCOTLAND. 67 inferior dominion in leading the understandings, and rousing at will the passions of a people, whose rudeness, just emerging from the blindest superstition, was so favourable to the wildest impulses of the fanatical spiiit. This democracy of priests assumed a power, absolute as that Papal supremacy which, while it formed the perpetual object of their clamorous invectives, they secretly aspired to transfer to themselves. These denunciators of Popery were themselves Popes to a man. It was the dangerous principle of this novel community that the Ecclesiastical was totally separated from, and independent of, the Civil power; and that these oracles of Heaven were not accountable for any treason which they preached before the tribunals of man, but only to an ecclesiastical judicature, where the most obnoxious were sure to receive only a gentle rebuke. Nor were these the only tenets which they held, incon- sistent with good government ; all which, though but a vulgar mimicry of the system which they had abrogated, the rude people looked on with indulgence, or rather with pleasure, as excesses of holy zeal.* We have shown, in the history of the Puritans, that there were among these political Rabbins some whose doc- trines soared even much higher, and who secretly aimed at esta- blishing no less than the supremacy of the ecclesiastical power over the civil magistrate. These men of Parity, the Ministers of Scotland, continued to be a turbulent race, and particularly the junior apostles of sedi- tion. These dehghted the populace with their juvenile audacity ; their stinging personahties were libels on the Court ; and while they were ringing alarums of Popery, they were rebuking the Royal Council. James the First seems to have known their designs as well as their pride. His naive description of these demagogues was thrown out in the warmth of his feelings at the famous conference at Hampton Court, where, assuming his rank as sovereign, James reiterated to the political rabble of " Jack and Tom, and Will and Dick," that '' Le Hoy s'avisera." This government the Scottish monarch had patiently endured through his minority, and his early reign — the sovereign power rested among the aristocracy; the people remained under the influence of their ministers ; the monarchy itself was but a * ]5urnet's Memoirs of the Hamiltons, 28. f2 68 OF THE COMMOTIONS OF SCOTLAND. shadow in this half-feudal and half-popular government. Hence James, at a later day, exclaimed " No Bishop ! No King ! " Episcopacy had been condemned, as contrary to the word of God, in 1580, and when James discovered some disposition to restore it, the party raised an army, and the King, to preserve peace, established Presbyterianism by law in 1592. By one of those eruptions to which democracy is perpetually inclining, the genius of its followers betrayed itself. A minister had been prosecuted, and the privileges of their " discipline " they insisted had been violated. An armed multitude congre- gated, and these warlike apostles, impatient at the absence of their generals, for they had their elected commanders, had furi- ously leaped to their weapons with the fanatical cry of " The sword of the Lord and of Gideon ! It shall be either theirs or ours ! " This mob streamed along the streets, and surrounding the Sessions House, where the young King sat in council, had nearly forced the gates. A company of musketeers secretly introduced by the ba^k stairs, protected the King and the Council in their escape to the palace of Holyrood. On the fol- lowing day the King left Edinburgh. This headless multitude dispersed at the intreaty of the Provost, in the same confused way they had assembled. This open violence gave a fatal blow to the audacity of these democratic assemblies ; they were even deserted by their former patrons, the nobles, who cared not to espouse a quarrel which tended to strengthen a licentious predominance in the state.* James, on his side, again attempted to break down this over- grown power of the people by taking advantage of the odium the party had incurred. This rebellion, as many considered it to be, was somewhat favourable to the revival of Episcopacy. When James ascended the throne of England, he found many of their own party, to curb the insolence of these pugnacious saints, ready to admit the establishment of Episcopacy, without, however, abolishing the Presbytery itself. Two opposing parties thus divided the coun- try ; the one maintaining the Presbytcrial Kirk of Scotland, and the other advocating the Episcopal Church of England. * Bishop 'Guthry»8ay8, in hia Scottish Gallic idiom, that "this meschant business " was called " the seventeenth of December,'" to mai'k their detestation of the day. OF THE COMMOTIONS OF SCOTLAND. 69 An uniformity in religion prompted James the First to require an uniformity in worship, that both the great Churches of his two nations might constitute an unity in their govern- ment. The Marquis of Hamilton, father to him who is soon to come forward on the scene, with greater prudence and greater dexterity, consequently procured the passing of the five articles of Perth : these turned on certain customs, or Eites of the Anglican Church, as innocent as may be, and the sole object of which was to produce an uniformity in the Church service. These acts of Parliament did not, however, pass without consi- derable opposition, and were accompanied by the protests of the Presbyters. James was still anxious to press on the Scots a Liturgy on the model of the Church of England ; but Hamilton deemed it more prudent to secure what he had already obtained, by assuring the Scottish Parliament that " the King would not in his days press any more change, or alteration, without their consent.^^ In all this the pacific monarch had acted with cautious policy ; he had exercised no severity, and had adopted a legal form in wrestling with the stubborn Kirk. James relinquished the future attempt at conformity, a favourite object with the statesmen of that age. Bishop Guthry, a warm votary for Episcopacy, seems surprised that the Bishops waived the royal motion, and proceeded no further in establishing the uniformity of their ecclesiastical discipline; but this Bishop was not so well acquainted as ourselves with the King's feelings on this occasion. James, convinced that he could not obtain all that was desirable, with prescient sagacity observed on Laud, who was urging him to a stricter union of the two Churches, by introducing the Anglican Liturgy and drawing up the Canons, that " he was a restless spirit who could not see when matters are well, but loves to toss and change, and to bring things to a pitch of reformation floating in his own brain, which may en- danger the steadfastness of that which is in a good pass, God be praised ! I speak not at random, for he hath made himself known to me." "When three years since,'' continued the King, " I had obtained of the Assembly of Perth to consent to five articles of order and decency in correspondence with this Church of England, I promised that I would try their obedience 70 OF THE COMMOTIONS OF SCOTLAND. no farther anent ecclesiastical affairs, nor put them out of their own way which custom has made pleasing unto them." A second project of Laud, was equally resisted by the prudential policy of James, who observed, " Laud knows not the stomach of that people, but I ken the story of my grandmother, the Queen Regent, that, after she was inveigled to break her pro- mise made at Perth meeting, never saw good day, and being much beloved before, was despised by all the people."* Charles renewed his father's scheme, and listened to Laud, urged on by his conscience — his policy — or his fate. To plant the Hierarchy in a land of Presbyters ; to establish that mo- narchical institution among a fierce democracy; to exact con- formity with the Anglican Church from the sullen sons of Calvin, proud of their opposition to England, not only from a religious but a national feeling, was now to be the perilous labour of Charles the First. The King does not appear to have been aware that he had to extirpate the nation, ere he could abrogate its Presbytery, and he proceeded unconscious of the conspiracies and disaffections around him. On his first visit to Scotland, Charles had left no doubts of his adherence to Episcopacy. The Presbyters, baffled in their last hopes, propagated their discontents, backed by a jealous nobility, who looked on the Bishops either as encroachers on their aristocratic power in the State, or as possible reclaimers of their ancient patrimonies. Charles, as he had done in England, to aggrandise the Bishops in dignity and power, conferred on them offices in the administration, which the nobility had considered as the appor- tioned objects of their ambition. Those who had sought and missed preferment, saw themselves supplanted by a new race of intruders ; and those who occupied the highest places cast an evil eye on the Churchmen who were designing their fall. The Lord of Lorn, afterwards the famous Argyle who became the head of the Covenanters, had largely partaken of honours and * This remarkable conversation of James the First with the Lord Keeper Williams discovers that shrewdness and sagacity were often prevalent in his thoughtful hours. His prediction of Laud's own character is a very remarkable instance of political foresight. When solicited for his promotion — " Take him," said James, « since you will have him, but ye will surely repent it." — Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams, 64. OF THE COMMOTIONS OF SCOTLAND. 71 emoluments ; yet lie was long a secret Covenanter, till at length lie threw off the mask, either from displeasure at the King's refusal of the Chancellorship conferred on the Archbishop of St. Andrews, or from a knowledge that his wiles had been detected, and that it had been resolved by the Court, that the Earl of Antrim should be allowed his claims on some of Argyle^s lands. At the bottom of this burst of patriotism, as is too usual, there lies no small share of private feeling.* The Earl of Traquair, though openly professing friendship for the Bishops, and conforming himself to the schemes of his royal master, was also their secret enemy. Traquair imagined that these ecclesi- astics were colleaguing with Maxwell the Bishop of Ross, and that this person, the most able of the order, and the most ambitious, was grasping at the Treasurer's staff which the Earl held. The Bishops, however, were divided among themselves; the body was composed of an old and new party, acting on contrary" principles. The election of the Scottish Bishops had been wisely managed by James, who had appointed the Archbishop of St. Andrew's to convene the Bishops, and name three or four, from whom the King reserved to himself the power of nomi- nating to the vacant see, and during his reign, according to Bishop Guthry, none but men well qualified were advanced. Charles had changed this system, and transferred to his own Court at London the seat of Scottish preferment. Bishops were now the children of court-favour, the creatures of patronage; and it is not surprising that, in the day of trial, several of these, when patronage wa^^ to be sought elsewhere, hurried to apostasy. Buckingham's recommendation made Lesley a Bishop of the Isles; Maxwell of the bed-chamber procured his relative the bishopric of Boss. Archbishop Laud made others, and the Earl of Sterling, Secretary of Scotland, had a mitre for his friend. These younger Bishops, not being indebted to their elder brethren for their preferment, kept themselves apart, * Bishop Guthry, p. 12, assigns the one motive, but whether "ill-naturedly," as the Presbyter Woodrow would say, who shall determine ? The other we positively discover in a letter of the Earl of Strafford, ii. 325. It had been resolved in council in England before Argyle declared for the Covenanters. It was probably not un- known to Argyle. Malcolm Laing inclines to this supposition. It is probable that both motives combined with an equal impulse. 72 OP THE COMMOTIONS OF SCOTLAND. more constant in their correspondence "wdth Laud, than in con- certing measures among themselves, their sole object being to keep up their interest at Court. More fiery, being young in office, than the elder Bishops, they were prompt at any enter- prise suggested to them; and with the impolicy of heedless authority, were irritating the Presbyterian Ministry with a haughtiness which the elder Bishops had ever avoided. Laud at Court was easily misled by the ardent correspondence of the younger Bishops. The prudent Archbishop of St. Andrew^s and the elder ecclesiastics persisted in their advice to suppress " the Buke," as the Scotch called the Liturgy, till a happier juncture ; a counsel which probably would have been accepted had the Scotch Bishops been unanimous in their opinion ; but the younger mitres were more stirring and more sanguine. When a corporate body differ so widely in their sentiments, it is only a great minister whose penetrating genius can discern the secret motives of the men; the statesman of routine will usually adopt the opinion suitable to his own design. The great coming evil was chiefly accomplished, as it appears, by the malicious manoeuvre of the Earl of Traquair, who, intent on the ruin of the Scottish Hierarchy, concurred with Laud and his party in promoting the most decisive measures ; talking to them in their own language ; blaming the phlegmatic Bishops as timorous creatures, whose sees required to be filled by more active spirits, and pledging " his life " to carry them through the business were he entrusted with its execution. Laud con- fided in his young Bishops ; the young Bishops in the Earl of Traquair. The Earl was appointed ; and finally the Earl him- self actually signed the Covenant which abolished Episcopacy ! During the preparations for the approaching day, the public mind was heated by the most malicious reports respecting the Bishops. Tales flew about from all quarters against their worldly spirit. — It was said that they were heaping estates for their children; that they dealt in simoniacal practices; and that these remnants of Popery were furbishing up the old mass. These were the rumours of Presbyters ; there were others from another class ; the Bishops, it seems, were not only trampling on the Church, but they were domineering in the State. An ecclesiastical spy, in gathering the secret intelligence OF THE COMMOTIONS OF SCOTLAND. 73 which occupies such men, seems to have opened one of the great sources of the enmity of the majority of the nobihty who had now concluded on the removal of Bishops from the third order of the State. It appears that these ecclesiastics had obtained a singular predominance in Parliament ; eight being Lords of the Articles, chose eight of the nobility known to be friendly to the Crown, and these sixteen the rest ; so that all depended on them, and they upon the King.* The same spirit had travelled from England, and was cordially embraced by the Scottish malcontents. The recent prosecutions in the Star-Chamber against Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton, and the Declaration of the Book of Sports, had at this unlucky moment kindled new flames of discord. There was an active Scotch party at London in close connection with the great one at Edinburgh; and their sagacious and active agent, on his return from England, in giving an account of his successful negotiations with the English Nonconformists, in politics as much as in Church discipline, assured his masters that "the English had the same design of reformation in their Church," — he might have added in their State—" as soon as the work should begin here." f At length approached the evil day. It had been deferred by the advice of the Earl of Traquair, on the plea that some pre- paratory methods might render the people more cheerful on this eventful occasion; this had also furnished the Opposition with full time to concert their measures. It was proclaimed from all the pulpits, that on Sunday the 23rd of July "the Service-Book " wonld be read in all the churches. But surely it never was ! though for that reading came in solemn procession the Chancellor, the Prelates, the Lords of the Sessions, the Provost, and the whole Council of the city. Scarcely had the Dean of Edinburgh opened " The Buke," than opened that memorable scene in which the confusion was so sudden, and so various, that all the accounts give different particulars.^ The universal hubbub may be imagined, but the language of *■ Sir David Dalrymple, 47, observes that this is very rational and intelligible, and yet it seems to have escaped the observation of eminent historians, t Bishop Guthry, i. 3. J The memorable scene has been more minutely related by Mr. Brodie in a col- lection of curious extracts from contemporary vouchers. 74 OF THE COMMOTIONS OF SCOTLAND. the individuals can only be conceived in its Doric naivete, which best shows the sort of people here congregated. The popular axiom, that the voice of the people is the voice of God, was happily illustrated on the present occasion of this mobocrac}^, when they were afterwards compared to Balaam's ass; an animal in itself stupid and senseless, but whose mouth had been opened by the Lord. A terrible yelling and clapping, intermingled with curses and groans, and when they could be heard, the sobbings of the soft- hearted gentlewomen as they sighed that "Baal was in the Church,'' and the broad nicknames of the insolent viragos, calling the Dean " One of the witches' breeding, and the De'il's gette (child)" shook the church, in vain designed to be raised into a cathedral ! Fearless awhile, the stout-hearted Dean, suddenly panic- struck, slipped through his surplice, leaving behind this white trophy of the future Covenanters. Then the Bishop showed himself in the pulpit; a portly personage, who might have urged a better excuse than the Dean for an " alacrity in sink- ing." The vocabulary of the mob, prompt as it is copious, instantly saluted the Anti-Christian wolf — "the beastly belly-god — the crafty fox ! " The echo reverberated " a Pape ! a Pape ! " to be stoned — or " to get the thrapple out of him," — that is, to cut his wind-pipe. Hardly escaped the Bishop with a tremu- lous life, conveyed away in the coach of the Earl of Roxburgh, himself suspected of raising this mobocracy ; showers of stones we're flung, and the Bishop narrowly escaped the martyrdom of St. Stephen.* This revolutionary outrage originated with females. The High-Church, now presumed to be a cathedral, it was observed was crowded with women, chiefly of the lower orders; old wives and servant-lasses, otherwise " the godly females," were the indomitable champions of the Kirk. Of these an irascible crone — more heroine than she who damaged her Bible by thumping " the false thief," as she called the young man who unluckily responded " Amen" to " the Buke" — launched from her withered hand " the thunderbolt of her zeal," in the stool * This tumult was called in Scotland " Stony Sunday," and Sir James Balfour has entitled his narrative " Stoniefield Day." OF THE COMMOTIONS OP SCOTLAND. 73 she sate on. Averted by some friendly hand, it flew whizzing by the Bishop's ear. This set the example of an universal rout. After a conflict, the insurgents were dislodged from the interior — the service was hurried over — amidst the rapping of the doors, the stones flying in at the windows, and the reverberating shouts of an infuriated multitude storming the High-Church. It seems that this old wife, Janet Geddes, has secured her respectabiUty in Scottish history ; and she who the week before, as tells the scandalous chronicle, had sate upon the stool of repentance, is sainted by throwing one at the Bishop's head. Her name has been immortalised by Burns, and the glorious attitude of this testy crone, hurling her stool at the Bishop in the pulpit, is triumphantly perpetuated in a vignette of one of the volumes of the magician of the north. For the strength of the patriotism, we may forgive the grossness of the taste, which by a rhyme and a print thus gratifies the passions of the populace, which it demoralises, by confounding an act of inso- lence, done by a base hand, with a deed which merits the admiration of a people. The story of a furious beldame beginning the fray, by casting her stool at the Bishop's head, who then retreated from the pulpit, Mr. Brodie seems to doubt, for he could only trace it to De Foe's memorial of the Scottish Church, and surmises that the tale originated in the woman who beat " the false thief" with her Bible. I have, however, discovered a manuscript document of the time — it is a warrant from Secretary Winde- bank to Rushworth riding post to Berwick, authorising him to procure horses on the road. On this warrant our great noter of the history of his times has set down various memoranda, as seems to have been his habit. The present is one. — " Md'"- I was born at Edenborough presently after the first disturbance by the woman throwing a stoole at the Bishop's head ; a small thing to be the beginning of a war."* This reflection of our great historical collector conveys to us no favourable idea of his poHtical sagacity. It was, however, the prevalent notion of the times. The truth, however, is, that this was no unpremeditated riot — it was a concerted measure — and the names of the plotters of * Sloane MSB. 1519. 70 OF THE COMMOTIONS OF SCOTLAND. this memorable scene have been recorded with particulars which sufficiently authenticate the fact. So early as in April, the famous Alexander Henderson, and another minister, schemed the whole, and having consulted Lord Balmerino, a zealous Scotch patriot, whose zeal had once put his head in peril, and Sir Thomas Hope, who was the King's advocate by office, but much more the Kirk's advocate in heart, the whole affair was arranged at a house in the Cowgate among a senate of matrons. To encourage these heroines and their associates to this valorous onset, they were assured that the men would afterwards take the business out of their hands.* Having organised this odd conspiracy, the plotters themselves left the city, and their interference escaped detection by their cunning absence. No one seemed to countenance this unex- pected sedition, which was considered as a mere ebullition of the rabble — ceasing with the hour it passed away. It, however, excited surprise, that not even a single person of the lower orders was brought forward to undergo even a mockery of punishment; and such was the silent understanding of the parties, that when the Bishops were in personal danger, they knew to what popular nobleman to apply for protection, at whose presence they were conscious these raging waves of the people would ebb and subside. To us, who are better ac- quainted with the secret history of the times than contem- poraries, this tumult assumes a higher importance than to those who witnessed it. Some of these women had been tutored by persons of superior rank and intelligence. When one of these viragos, worthy to have flourished in the sanguinary streets of Paris or Lyons, expressed her ardent wish to cut the Bishop's wind-pipe, and was told that a much worse man might come in his stead, " No ! " she exclaimed, " when Cardinal Beaton was sticked, we had never another Cardinal sin syne.f" Such an incident and such a reflection could not have sprung from the mind of the lowest of the rabble, particularly of those times. That such a memorable scene of an universal movement of • Guthry, 20. t This curious fact is given by Mr. Brodie, from Sir James Balfour's " Stonie- field Day," ii. 455. CONSPIRACIES AGAINST CHARLES THE FIRST. 77 public opiniou should have passed away as a transient ebullition of popular feeling may surprise us, who view in it the awful pre- lude to the great insurrection, when "the four tables," of nobility, of gentry, of ministers, and of burghers, were to con- vulse the whole Government with a democracy, and the shout of rebellion was to be echoed as a hundred thousand hands were to be lifted to Heaven to ratify " the Covenant." But when we consider the complicated intrigues which had been silently pre- paring, unmarked and unsuspected by the Scottish Bishops, we find how men in power are not the most lively observers, and often stand insulated and unconnected with the more active spirits of the times. One only among them saw at once the results ; the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, Primate and Chancel- lor, wofully exclaimed, " The labour of thirty years is lost for ever in one day ! " The Bishops reposed on the wisdom and the strength of the King's far distant Council, writing up to London for advice, and never advising themselves. They only discovered the true state of affairs at the moment of their con- sternation and their flight, when they were summoned to "the Tables," not to take their equal seats, but to hear their con- demnation, and to learn their perpetual ejection from the State. CHAPTER VII. OF THE CONSPIRACIES OF THE SCOTS AGAINST CHARLES THE FIRST. Hume closes a luminous view of the discontents in Scotland by a philosophical observation on the King's inflexibility in this great revolution. " In his whole conduct of this affair there appeared no mark 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 im- prudence. Men's views of things are the result of their under- standings alone ; their conduct is regulated by their understand- ing, their temper, and their passions." The almost daily correspondence of Charles with the Marquis 78 CONSPIRACIES OP THE SCOTS of Hamilton, during the Scottish commotions, betrays no deficient energy of mind at this period ; indeed the reverse is true. These numerous letters are a striking evidence not only of the unwearied activity of the monarch, but of the prompt acuteness of the man. These are not official dispatches, under- signed by a secretary, where mechanical forms often cover a vacuity of thought ; but with the conciseness of a man of busi- ness, regardless of all ornament, Charles often expresses himself with great force, and with too much earnestness to indulge in an idle page.* Doubtlessly the strangely concerted opposition which burst out at the reading of the Liturgy came unexpected to Charles, who seems never to have suspected the existence of that public opinion which so long had been creating in the Scottish metro- polis, that it had reached even to the remoter provinces. Per- suaded that he could accomplish that national conformity which his father had perhaps designed, but had avoided with prudence, in the establishment of Episcopacy in his native kingdom, and amidst delusions raised up by the interests and passions of so many, when Hamilton once imparted his fears and his doubts, Charles replied that his information led him to conclude that * Since writing this, we have the opinion of one whose practised skill in the con- struction of artificial periods is too apparent in his criticism on the Letters of Charles the First. Mr. Godwin has recently thus described them : " They are written in royal style ; no attention is afforded by the writer to what are regarded as the artifices of composition. They have nothing in them of circumlocution or ceremony ; no colouring of the craft of authorship. The sceptered penman pro- ceeds somewhat impatiently to his point ; he is blunt and brief : we see plainly that he thinks it would be some sacrifice of his dignity, if he were careful of auxiliaries and expletives, and used words other than were barely necessary to convey an unambiguous meaning." This criticism is the most imjust, and therefore tlic most erroneous, that ever a partisan adopted in order to depreciate what in itself is commendable. We have many hundreds of letters of Charles the First. The King was his own secretary, but it was not therefore incumbent on " the sceptered pen- man " to use a secretary's style. He was to command, not to discuss. Most of his letters were written on urgent and even immediate occasions — not always in the calm of his cabinet, but often in the hurry of a moveable camp — more frequently in vexation and trouble ; with the cares of Sovereignty weighing on the spirits, in- volved in the most complex intrigues, and at times distracted by opposite interests. Wliatever may have been the extent of his capacity, it was always in a state of tension, and perhaps there are few men who could have written with the promptness of thought and the earnestness of feeling which mark the correspondence of Charles the First. AGAINST CHARLES THE FIRST. 79 the Episcopalians did not constitute the inferior party in Scotland. In the Scottish affairs Charles always proceeded unconscious of the conspiracies and disaffection around, him ; could he sus- pect the creatures of his favour, or the associates of his leisure ? Many who were not with him, were known to be his friends, and more who had largely participated of his favours, he had a right to imagine were such. And indeed it is only by a due observation of this very circumstance of their personal regard for the King, that we can lift the veil which hangs over every part of the conduct of the mysterious ministers of Charles throughout the whole of the Scottish transactions. To this personal regard was often opposed their national feeling. In the degree that their loyalty executed their master^s design, they felt that they were betraying their own cause ; and when they sacrificed the royal interests for that cause, they were hurried into popular compliances which threatened even a greater danger. ,The father and the son, from affection or from policy, had studied to reconcile their ancient and native kingdom, to the absence of their Court, by every royal indulgence. That the national pride of Scotia, too often wounded by the gibes and taunts of their Southern brethren, should not be further morti- fied by any sense of dependance on England, Charles had placed the whole conduct of affairs among two or three Scotchmen who attended at the Court for this purpose. There they held their councils, so that the affairs of Scotland were never brought before the Privy Council.* But the consequence of this tender- ness for their privileges was, that Scotland and its affairs excited no curiosity in the English public ; and while the Court and country were alive to any weekly news they received from Ger- many and Poland, no one ever inquired after any event which occurred in so considerable a portion of their own kingdom. The result of the system which the Stuart dynasty had adopted was unfortunate also in another point. The numerous Scottish residents at the English Court, on whom these monarchs doubt- less relied for their zealous exertions with their countrymen, entirely lost their personal influence over their distant brothers, * This fact is ascertained by Clarendon, i. 195. 80 CONSPIRACIES OP THE SCOTS nor were the honours lavished on these absentees valued by the Scottish people at large. These absentees, however, remained Scottish in their hearts, and found as little compunction in betraying the secrets of their master, as the nation afterwards experienced in selling him. Nor did the English people sym- pathise with their new friends, whom they looked on as intruders on their interests, and who perpetually were the burthen of a ballad, or the jest of a tale. Thirty years could not indeed allay the ancient prejudices of two nations, since even a century and a half have not extinguished them ; so long can last the idiosyncrasy of manners, and so long it is ere popular malice becomes obsolete. The presence-chamber, and the privy-chamber, and the bed- chamber, were crowded with Scotchmen, who formed a vast disproportion to the Englishmen at Court. Carte has given a list of officers of state all Scotch. The Marquis of Hamilton was Master of the Horse, and had filled the stables with Scots ; the Earl of Morton was Captain of the Band of Pensioners ; the Duke of Lennox was Warden of the Cinque Ports ; the Earl of Ancram, Keeper of the Privy-purse; Sir William Balfour, Keeper of the Tower; Wemyss, Master-gunner of the Navy, and in the Civil War " Master-gunner of England," a consider- able employment.* Numberless were the gentlemen ushers, the grooms, and the carvers, and the cup-bearers — who, creatures of the bounties of the father and the son, and prospering in the wealth of England, were betraying their sovereign in continued intelligence with their distant compatriots, and with malcontents nearer at hand. There existed a Scottish faction at Court closely connected with the nobility, and with the commoners, Puritans or Patriots. The Earl of Haddington, brother-in-law to the Earl of Rothes, who was the first conspicuous leader of the Covenanters, and whom Haddington afterwards joined — remained at Whitehall. This lord was busily intriguing with some of our peers, such as the Earl of Holland, who was the visible head of the Puritans in * Of this Scotchman a remarkable anecdote is recorded by Sir Richard Bulstrode. At Cropredy bridge, Wemyss, once a sworn servant of the King's, was taken prisoner, and being bi-ought before Charles the First, the fawning and impudent Scot, in his broad tone, told the King, "In gude faitli, my heart was always towai-ds your Majesty !" AGAINST CHARLES THE FIRST. 81 London, as his brother, the Earl of Warwick, afterwards the High Admiral of the Parliamentarians, was considered the chief of the Oppositionists in the country, and with Lords Say, Brook, and Wharton ; while Mr. Eleazer Borthwick, the able and states- manlike agent of the Covenanters, and who passed twelve years in London, held daily communication with the good citizens of the Puritanic party, and with Hampden, Pym, and other patriots. The intercourse seems to have been mutual. There is a remark- able passage in the preface to Burnet's Memoir of the Hamil- tons, where he tells us that " a gentleman of quality of the English nation, who was afterwards a great Parliament-man, went and lived some time in Scotland before the troubles broke out, and represented to the men that had then the greatest interest there, that the business of the ship-money and the habeas corpus, &c. had so irritated the English nation, that if they made sure work at home they needed fear nothing from England." Burnet, it is to be regretted, has not preserved the name of this " English gentleman of quahty." This " great Parliament-man" appears to have been Hampden ; Echard mentions that he paid an annual visit to Scotland to concert measures with his friends. We find by Nalson that this celebrated person alluded to, whoever he was, and " other principal men of the faction," as Nalson calls them, " made frequent journeys into Scotland, and had many meetings and consultations how to carry on their combinations."* Waris- ton, in CromwelFs time, valued himself on these intrigues, which had confused the counsels and nullified the actions of the King, and ruined the Stuarts. The recent publication of Secre- tary Nicholas's letters to the King confirms these accounts of the * Nalson, ii. 427. Dalrymple, 124, on this very point observes, on the confession of Wariston, that the Scots had kept up an intelligence with the English. " This is a very remarkable circumstance," he adds ; " it cannot be fully explained unless we were certain what persons of the English nation corresponded with the Scots and incited and encouraged their measures. He who can explain and illustrate this particular from ox'igiual papers, will greatly serve the cause of truth." We are not so entirely deprived of this knowledge as Dalrymple supposed, but we still want more original papers, which in this age of unburying manuscripts may yet be dis- covered, I have sometimes fancied that Hampden and Pym must have left some manuscripts and correspondence ; but as no trace remains in the library at Hamp- den, it has been suggested that on the Restoration it was considered prudent to destroy any memorial of the past which might implicate their possessors. Pym must necessarily have received a number of State-papers. VOL. II. G 82 CONSPIRACIES OP THE SCOTS private meetings of the Opposition to concert measures ; and in writing to the King, then at Edinburgh, he remarkably observes, that " they were of late very jocund and cheerful by some adver- tisements out of Scotland, from whose actions and successes they intend, as I hear, to take a pattern for their proceedings here."* In fact, the party were holding a little parliament of their own, with their own lords and their own commoners. At London, and in the country, they had their committees. Accounts have reached us of what passed at the seat of Lord Say, in Oxford- shire, where company, unobserved by the house, often assembled in a particular apartment, which they entered by a secret passage in which no servant was allowed to appear, but their discussions were often loud. The same secret assemblies were held at Mr. Knightley's, in Northamptonshire. In these and other places, the party had their council-chambers and leading speakers. In the metropolis some places have been particularised where they met to terminate their more important decisions ; Secretary Nicholas has noticed Lord Mandeville's house at Chelsea ; Echard one in Gray's-inn-lane ;t and Clarendon indicates a kind of fra- ternity where the members of this party seem to have lived and boarded as in a private family. J We are told that Pym rode through different counties, and others did the same, to procure elections of members, and for other purposes. We may at least admire their diligence, but we rather perceive its spirit when the Earl of Warwick wrote from York to his friends in Essex " that the game was well begun ; " and another leader, whose name has not come down to us, observed that " their party was then strong enough to pull the King's crown from his head, but the Gospel would not suffer them." It is lamentable to observe that patriots should be constrained to assume the characters of conspirators, and to leave the open and honourable path for dark and intricate plots ; the mind becomes degraded by the artifices it practises, and cunning and subtlety are substituted for those generous emo- tions and that nobler wisdom, which separate at a vast interval the true patriot from the intriguing partisan. We know too little of the secret history of the parties who were so conspicuous in the Civil War. Such active spirits as Hampden * Evelyn, ii. 28. + Echanl, 485. + Clarendon, i. 319. AGAINST CHARLES THE FIRST. 83 and Pym, though they lived in the age of diaries, appear to have left no memorial of themselves, or of their transactions. They were probably too deeply busied in the plans and schemes of the day. One great man among them. Lord Kimbolton, afterwards Viscount Mandeville, and, finally, the second Earl of Manches- ter, wrote memoirs relating to this very party with whom he had acted many years. Even this authentic source of secret history remains imperfect, and is only known by a few important extracts in Nalson^s collection.* The simultaneous movements of these parties, the Scotch and the English, sometimes betrayed their secret connection. On the day the King received the Scottish petition, there was also presented another, signed by twelve English peers, for calling a Parliament, and the shrewd politi- cians of Edinburgh on this occasion surmised that Haddington and Borthwick had not laboured in vain, and that " the work would shortly begin in that kingdom.^'t There is not wanting certain evidence that the King was surrounded by spies, prying into his movements, watching his unguarded hours, and chronicling his accidental expressions. Even in his sleep the King could not elude their scrutiny ; his pockets were ransacked for letters to transmit copies to the Covenanters. This treachery was so well known, that Arch- bishop Laud, on delivering some important communications, requested the King not to trust the papers to his pocket. J We find Secretary Nicholas complaining that his own letters are seen by other eyes than the King's ; and, on one occasion, that the secret orders which he received from the King were known before he could convey them to the Lord Keeper. § This low degradation of eminent men betraying the secret councils of their royal master by such humiliating means, is not so rare a circumstance in secret history as one might imagine. The difficulty of procuring a private audience with James the First induced the Spanish ambassador to watch his opportunity * Nalson acknowledges receiving from " Sir Francis North, now Lord Keeper of the great seal of England, a transcript of some memoirs of the late Earl of Man- chester, the originals being written with the Earl's own hand," ii. 206. May not these memoirs be recovered ? t Bishop Guthry's Memoirs, 74. See the Petition in Nalson, ii. 437. t L'Estrange, Charles I., 196. § Evelyn, 42, Correspondence. g2 84 CONSPIRACIES OP THE SCOTS of slipping into his Majesty's pocket those extraordinary charges against Buckingham, which alarmed the King, and probal)ly would have ended in the ruin of the favourite. Anecdotes are related of the Jesuits, respecting their discoveries, picked out of the very foulest papers which a great personage used, and which when he had used he imagined that he had destroyed. A remarkable fact of this kind has not, as far as I know, been published ; and as it relates to two illustrious personages, and the transaction is itself as ingenious as it appears authentic, the reader may be interested by its preservation. De Witt, having taken the Prince of Orange (our William the Third) under his government and tuition, in order to be master of all his actions and motions, surrounded him by his own creatures. A valet de chambre, who had constantly at- tended the Prince from a child, was, at the Prince's earnest request, suffered to continue in his service. The Prince had then a constant and very secret correspondence with the Eng- lish Court ; and on the receipt of these letters, usually put them in his waistcoat pocket. One day De Witt in conversation with the Prince, warning him against intrigues dangerous to his highness, let fall expressions, from which the Prince inferred that the pensioner had seen some of his secret letters from England. The Prince, however, with his usual caution, took no notice to any one of his embarrassment, but pondering on the circum- stance, when he went to bed feigned sleep \ and after due time, detected the faithful operations of his valet, who taking out the letters, copied them for the pensionary, and then carefully re- placed the originals. The Prince still continued to conceal the discovery, but took care in his subsequent letters from England to receive such answers as he wished to have conveyed to De Witt. These by degrees changed the face of affairs, removed the pensioner's jealousies, and ever after kept him in a false security with regard to his pupil's transactions and correspon- dences. When the Prince had overcome all his difficulties, and was made Stadt-holder, he confounded his valet by revealing one secret of the English correspondence which he had not yet copied ; and complimenting him on the great service he had so unintentionally done his master, by his dexterous secretaryship AGAINST CHAKLES THE FIRST. 85 of the waistcoat-pocket, he dismissed the traitor, not without the charity of a small pension.* The Marquis of Hamilton was a person not less illustrious than the Pensionary De Witt, and he stands accused of prac- tices not less insidious, actuated perhaps, too, by a less pardonable motive, the ruin of a rival, and that rival one as great as him- self. The famous Earl of Montrose, whom we at first find among the Covenanters, himself acquainted the King with the real occasion of his having joined them. On his return from the Court of France, where he had been a Captain in the Scottish guards, Montrose intended to enter into the King's service, and was advised to make his way through the means of his countryman, the Marquis of Hamilton. Hamilton professed every good will, admiring that romantic gallantry which Cardinal de Retz has so forcibly and so classically described ; but Hamil- ton cunningly insinuated, that the King was so wholly attached to the English, and so systematically slighted the Scotch, that were it not for his country, he himself would not longer submit to the indignities he endured. To the King, Hamilton, in noticing the return of Montrose, and his purpose to wait on his Majesty, insinuated that this Earl was so popular among the Scots by an ancient descent from the royal family, that if he were not nipped in the bud, he was one who might occasion much future trouble. When the Earl of Montrose was intro- duced to the King by Hamilton with great demonstration of affection, Charles, too recently tutored to forget his lesson, gave Montrose his hand formally to kiss, but ungraciously turned away in silence. The slighted and romantic hero, indig- nant at the coldness of that royalty which best suited his spirit, hastened to Scotland, and threw himself in anger and despair into the hands of the Covenanters.t But the heart of Montrose remained secretly attached to his sovereign — and at length he opened a correspondence with Charles. A letter of Montrose was taken out of the King's pocket, and the copy * This anecdote was told by D'Allone, Secretary to Queen Mary, and long in the confidence of King William, to Lord , " the great friend " of the Rev. Henry Etough, who communicated it in a letter to Dr. Birch. + This story is told by Heylin in his little curious volume of ^' Observations on the Histoi'y of King Charles, by Hamon L'Estrange," p. 205. It is confii'med from other quarters. The subsequent conduct of Hamilton is itself a confirmation. 86 CONSPIRACIES OF THE SCOTS transmitted to the Covenanters, which put an end to his influ- ence with that party. The report was current, and the fact has been sanctioned by history, that the Marquis of Hamilton had done, or procured to be done, this " foul and midnight deed." Burnet, in whose folio Memoir of the Hamiltons we never dis- cover a single ambiguous act, or one political tergiversation — has attempted to strike out even this blot from the scutcheon of his hero. He tells us that the letter to the King was inclosed by Montrose in one he addressed to Sir Richard Graham, who, opening the letter, carelessly dropped the inclosure, when Sir James Mercer, the bearer of these letters from Scotland, civilly stooping to take up the letter, silently marked the royal address, and hastened to the Scottish camp to tell the tale. This acci- dent, resting on Sir James Mercer's testimony, may be true, but it would not account for the knowledge of the contents of the letter. For this purpose Burnet adds, on his own authority, for I find none given, that the council of war insisted that Montrose himself should furnish a copy of his own letter. If this were done, we may be sure it contained no treason. Mont- rose in his defence showed that others were corresponding with the Court, and when Lesley accused him of having corresponded with the enemy, the dauntless Montrose in his chivalric manner asked, "Who is he who durst reckon the King an enemy?" The affair at that moment had no result. Investigation would have implicated other leaders of the Covenanters. From other quarters, indeed, we learn that copies of letters addressed by Montrose to the King were transmitted to the Scotch by some bed-chamber men, who searched the King's pockets when he was asleep.* It is probable that the Marquis of Hamilton w^as not the only Scotchman who thus served his country's cause at the cost of his honour. Whether it were love of country, or concealed ambition, or some motive less honourable, the insincerity of the Scotch about the person of Charles is very remarkable, from the nobleman to the domestic. The loyal Earl of Argyle advised Charles to keep his son, the Earl of Lorn (afterwards the famous Argyle), at Court, and not allow him to return to Scotland, predicting to the King, with an honest naivete, that if Lorn once left him " he • Bishop Guthry, p. 75, This circumstance rests on other authorities. AGAINST CHARLES THE FIKST. 87 would wind him a pin." Charles thanked the father for the counsel, but, as the son had been called up by his warrant, he considered that he ought not forcibly to retain him, for Charles added that it behoved him " to be a king of his word." * Charles, it appears, had conferred many substantial honours on Argyle — in places — in titles — and even in donations of money. As we advance in the investigation of the Scottish affairs, and particu- larly in a following chapter on the Hamiltons, we shall find an unparalleled scene of involved intrigues, of which many can never be elucidated. But hardly any surpasses the faithlessness of the son of Argyle, who, on more than one occasion, displayed an absolute recklessness of his honour and his word. It was in one of those ebullitions when the heart of the perfidious, from its fulness, utters what it would at another time conceal, and gains nothing by the avowal, that we discover his profound dissimula- tion. When at length the Earl openly joined the Covenanters, in his maiden speech he assured them that " from the beginning he had been theirs — and would have held to the cause as soon as any did, had it not been that he conceived that, by attach- ing himself to the King, and going along with his Council, he was more useful to them than had he from the first declared himself." f Of the loose notions of Scottish gratitude, and of the solemn asseverations of its perpetuity, we have a remarkable instance in the great Scotch general, Lesley, who was created Earl of Leven, by the favour or the policy of Charles. At this unexpected honour the old soldier was so transported that once on his knees he swore " that he would not only never bear arms against the King, but would serve him without asking the cause." This was the inebriation of his loyalty, for in less than two years after, he led the Scotch army against the creator of his honours. Charles offended his English subjects by conferring on a Scotchman, Sir William Balfour, the Lieutenancy of the Tower. The Parliamentary party were not certain that this hardy Scot was staunch to their cause, and once obtained his removal. They needed not to have been jealous of the passive obedience of the devoted Lieutenant-Governor of the Tower; for Sir William Balfour took an early part with the Parliament; zealously * Bishop Guthry, 31. f Bishop Guthry's Memoirs, 41. 88 CONSPIRACIES OF THE SCOTS rendered the captivity of Strafford inexorably severe, and resisted the most considerable bribe ever oftered to a Governor, to con- nive at the escape of a State-prisoner. Having thus manifested himself to be worthy of the confidence of the party, he became one of their ablest commanders, when he had the satisfaction of encountering his royal master in arms. Among the inferior Scots we find frequent notices of this personal ingratitude to the monarch. Even the menials of Whitehall defamed the Sovereign and the Court. Even the common feelings of humanity were ahen to the hearts of Scotch- men ; for they had all drawn from the breasts of their nnrses the sour milk of Presbytery and democracy. " Little William Murray," as Charles aftectionately called him, of the bed- chamber, had from his childhood enjoyed the particular confi- dence of Charles, and transacted his most delicate affairs. Yet on several occasions this mysterious man raised suspicions of his conduct. It is not only from Clarendon that we learn the faith- lessness of this domestic companion and confidential agent of the manhood of the monarch ; we draw it from an impartial witness in De Montreuil, the French Ambassador, who accompanied Charles in the last critical period of his life. At a moment when the unhappy monarch was meditating to emigrate, the plan was entirely left to the care of AVilliam Murray, who was ever flat- tering the King of its safety ; yet, adds De Montreuil, Murray is very careful to hinder the King from employing those who certainly are as able as himself, and far more sincere. Murray persisted in reiterating his doubts that Ashburnham would deceive the King. The impartial Frenchman sarcastically con- cludes, " Thus I perceive that these honest persons, as zealous for their Prince, had two displeasures ; the one, that their master is betrayed, and the other that it is not they who betray him." * The Scottish Archbishop, Spotiswood, was so sensible of the infidelity of his countrymen, that he oflfered himself as a personal sacrifice, advising Charles to have a list prepared of all his coun- sellors, his household officers and domestic servants, and with his own pen expunge all the Scots, beginning with the Archbishop himself, which at least would prevent any complaint of partiality. The State secrets of the privy-councils of Charles were betrayed. * Thurloe's State Papere, i. 85, B8, 92. AGAINST CHARLES THE FIRST. 89 A Royal Commission for " the discovery of revealers of secrets in council" is surely an anomalous State paper. One such^ however, we have from Charles, when the dissolution or con- tinuance of Parliament was agitated in May, 1640, with the simple confession that *^by what ways or means they were revealed and disclosed, is not yet manifested to us."* In Scotland, the Scotch were even less to be trusted. The King^s Advocate, Sir Thomas Hope, was much more the advo- cate of the Covenanters. This subtle lawyer had great command over Charles. Having undertaken the restitution of those Church lands of which the nobles had formerly defrauded the Crown, none doubted that by his delays and evasions he was acting in concert with the nobility.t Hamilton, when High Commissioner, complained that all the skill of the King^s AdvO" cate only perplexed his resolutions. The King's Advocate could not appear openly in the cause he had secretly espoused, but he failed not to supply the legal points on which Lord Balmerino and Henderson proceeded in their opposition. Most of the Lords of the Council, and Officers of State, were unques- tionably Covenanters, though openly acting contrary to their principles. The faithlessness of the Scots in their own country may not be difficult to account for — " The Cause," as it was emphati- cally called, was national ; and the appearance of liberty was on their side — though often disgraced by the mutual intrigues of rivals, and above all by that religious fanaticism which enabled the crafty insurgents to kindle a war which can never terminate by a peace — a holy war ! It is more difficult to satisfy our curiosity on the infidelity of the Scots about the person of the King, and who were residents at the Court of Whitehall. Their ingratitude or their treachery could not originate in any contemptuous or unkind treatment of Charles, for we discover only his entire confidence and his con- firmed partialities — and the best we can say in favour of these domestic treasons is, that the Scots at London were the same as the Scots at Edinburgh. Malcolm Laing, enlightened and acute, acknowledged that " seldom were the Scotch distinguished * This singular commission is preserved in Nalson's collection, i. 344. t Burnet's History of his own Time, i. 39. Guthrys Memoirs, 71 — 89. 90 DIFFICULTIES OF CHARLES THE FIRST for their loyalty." * Did the feudal tyranny of their haughty aristocracy seem more tolerable than the rule of a sovereign ? Was not the establishment of the Presbytery the true origin of the spirit of their modern democracy ? There remains a paradox in this history. The devotion of the following generations of Scotchmen to their Stuarts has been as romantic as that conduct which we have noticed was crafty and treacherous ; it seems a problem in human nature and in Scottish history. Thus surrounded by great and by minor conspiracies, and betrayed in his most secret councils — we shall hereafter see how the King himself became the secret object of the contests between the rival and involved intrigues of Scotchmen. The unfortunate King of England now proceeded on principles of State which appeared to him irrefragable — and for some time imagined that the show of his regal authority would put down the insurgency of a whole people. CHAPTER VIII. THE DIFFICULTIES OF CHARLES THE FIRST IN THE FIRST INVASION OF THE SCOTS. The system of these commentaries is to pursue our inquiries, independent of the chronological arrangement of events, with which every history of England will furnish the reader. It therefore sometimes happens that we have not only to allude to incidents already noticed, but must necessarily anticipate others which have not yet been told. One art of discovering Truth in history is that of joining its dispersed, but connected facts ; facts which were furnished at the time by those who were often unconscious of this secret relation. Thus the horizon of history expands, and a brighter gleam darts through that hazy atmo- sphere in which past events are necessarily enveloped. We have shown how the Scottish intrigues were closely con- nected with those in England ; we shall find that our own revolu- • Laing, iii. 187. IN THE FIRST INVASION OF THE SCOTS. 91 tionary measures were entirely modelled on those of the Scots. This principle of discovery is of the utmost importance for the proper comprehension of the history of this period ; and it is surprising, that none of the writers of our history have yet struck into this vein. In detecting the secret intercourse which existed between the parties at Edinburgh and at London, we shall obtain the most striking evidence of the true origin of many obscure and mysterious incidents in the reign of Charles the First ; and in comparing the proceedings of the Commons in England with those of the Scottish leaders, we shall find that the same designs became their common object. When we come to develope the character of the Marquis of Hamilton we shall allude to those great events in the Scottish commotions in which he bore so conspicuous a part ; at present we turn our attention to the King himself, from the beginning and through the pro- gress of that great revolution, for such indeed it was, and the model which a party at home servilely copied. His motives and his perplexities may sometimes be ascertained ; and some inci- dents which historians have erroneously denied, or have miscon- ceived, and others which time only has revealed, become revelations of Truth. The personal character of Charles the First, accompanied by all his misfortunes and his errors, is of itself a study for the painter of man. The inextricable dilem- mas, the delusive designs, the wavering hopes and fears in which this unhappy sovereign was inclosed as in a magical circle, may excite the sympathy of those who wish not to extenuate the errors of his policy, and yet who would not at the same time be ignorant of tha passions of his age. The history of the man is not less interesting than the history of the monarch, and a tale of human nature is not less precious than a history of England. The moment the solemn " Covenant" was taken, a term drawn from the inspiration of the Judaic history, and every true Scotch- man became a good Israelite — the moment that "the Tables," as the Scots meanly called their assemblies of the four great classes of their people, or, as they are ably dignified in the Mercure Franqois, perhaps by Eichelieu himself, "the four Chambers," constituted a national Convention, holding itself independent of the Royal Council, and assuming the office of 92 DIFFICULTIES OF CHARLES THE FIRST Sovereignty, the revolution became necessarily political. This moment had been anticipated by the Marquis of Hamilton in the preceding year. Addressing the King, he observed, " Probably this people have somewhat else in their thoughts than religion. But that must serve for a cloak to rebellion, wherein for a time they may prevail ; but to make them miserable, and bring them again to a dutiful obedience, I am confident your Majesty will not find it a work of long time, nor of great difficulty, as they have foolishly fancied to themselves."* In July, 1637, the Liturgy was first read at Edinburgh, and six months afterwards, in February, 1638, the Scots entered into their Covenant. We detect in the warm historian of the great Presbyterial revolution all the triumph and exultation of the mihtant saint. " Our second and glorious Reformation in 1638, when this Church was again settled upon her own base, and the rights she claimed from the time of the Reformation, were restored, so that she became ' fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners.' It is hard to manage a full cup, and I shall not take upon me to defend every step in that happy period." t In January, 1639, orders were issued by the Covenanters for a general drilling throughout the kingdom. " Terrible as an army with banners," which appears only a metaphorical expres- sion in the zealot, was in truth a simple historical fact. They divided and subdivided the kingdom. The Earl of Traquair writes from Edinburgh : — " The writers and advocates are the only men busy here, in this time of drilling ; and of the writers I dare say the most of them spend more upon powder than they have gained these six months bygone with the pen." % They had secretly supplied themselves abroad by the purchase of ammunition and arms, and had engaged experienced officers and commanders, from their absent countrymen Avho had been trained to arms in the school of the great military genius of the age. A small sum, and busy agents from Richelieu, had served to kindle the flame of insurgency, but such was the national * Lord Ilardwicke's State Papers, ii. 1 1 8. + Wodrow's Introduction to History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, p. ii. X The Earl of Traquair to the Mai'quis of Hamilton. Hardwicke State Papers, ii. 125. IN THE FIRST INVASION OF THE SCOTS. 93 poverty that it could never have maintained its army. The spirit of the people, long unused to war, was roused by those great leaders of democracy, the Presbyters in their pulpits, who pronounced the curse of Meros on those who came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty. The enthusiasm flew from rank to rank ; all men pressed forward as volunteers. When the Marquis of Hamilton anchored before Leith, he witnessed the gentry labouring on a bastion, and ladies of the first condi- tion busied in the trenches. But if this enthusiasm had been caught by the people, the leaders of the Covenant, and their wary general, Alexander Lesley, were proceeding with a more human policy. Conscious of their feeble resources in case of a defeat, or, what would have proved as fatal, a prolonged campaign, they studied to avoid the appearance of an offensive war. They held out no menace, but they urged a plea ; they had armed, not to invade England, but to defend themselves from an English invasion. When the King issued a proclamation that they should not approach nearer the royal camp than ten miles, it was dexterously obeyed. Such was the infant strength of the Rebellion ! The Scots had taken the precaution to disperse by their pedlars in their packs " an Information to all good Christians,^^ about '^the true Religion" and " the Lord's own cause,'' which were made palatable to the English Puritans with sprinklings of Scriptural allusions, where the Sanballats " and such like " were pointed at, who opposed the building of the New Jerusalem by Ezra and Nehemiah.* Such was the style of those Scotch patriots, and such, not long afterwards, was to be that of the English. Letters had also been dispatched to some at Court vindicating their proceedings, solemnly protesting that they designed no harm to England, and expecting no hostility from them ; letters not ill received among some eminent persons at Court.f The Scots, in their first invasion, were long influenced by motives of delicacy from venturing to cross the Tweed. The insurgents contented themselves in exercising their tactics at home, possessing themselves of the forts of their own country. * This State paper is preserved in Frankland, 739. t Burnet's Memoirs of the Hamiltons, 1 1 6. 94 DTPPICULTIES OF CHARLES THE FIRST They only made war by acts of peace, and renewed their " humble desires" only by petitions, armed at once to strike or to sign. An unpublished letter, which is in the State-paper oflSce, from Edward Norgate, who followed the English army, exhibits the misery of the country, and the consequent confusion which pre- vailed in a disorderly army : — " Barwick, 29th May, 1639. " The King made a halt at Alnwick, upon some alarm that was in the camp, whereof he received information from my Lord General, so that persons of great quality lay in their coaches, carts from the town being little and company great. So at Morpeth I staid, but the next day went on to Alnwick, whence the King was gone that morning to the army at Gaswick, five miles short of Barwick, for the alarm was false. " The next morning passing through Belfort (nothing like the name either in strength or beauty, it being the most miserable beggarly sodden town, or town of sods, that ever was made in an afternoon of loam and sticks), there I stumbled upon Mr. Mur- ray, one of the cup-bearers to his Majesty, who had taken up the very and only room in the only alehouse. Thither he kindly invited me, to a place as good as a death's head or memento for mortality, top and sides being all earth, and the beds no bigger than so many coffins. Indeed, it was for beauty and conveniency like a covered saw-pit. Our host was a moving uncleanly skele- ton ; I asked him who had condemned him thither. He said, durum telum necessitas : that he, with fourscore other gentle- men of quality (a horse troop), being billeted the night before at a little village three miles further, coming to the place after a long and weary march, found no other accommodation than a dark and rainy night ; in all the town not one loaf of bread nor quart of beer, not a lock of hay nor peck of oats, and little shelter for horse or man ; only a few hens they roasted and eat without bread, but not without water. Their horses had nothing. He told me I should find the army in little better condition, the first companies having stood in water up to the ancles by reason of the rain ; that in forty-eight hours they had no bread, nor other lodging but on the wet ground, the camp being low near the sea-side, nor any shelter but the fair heavens. After dinner I IN THE FIRST INVASION OF THE SCOTS. 95 rode to the army, where I think there was not above seven thousand foot ; the horse elsewhere dispersed into villages, about three thousand. Here I found the cause of the late want was for want of carriages to bring bread to the army, but now they were better accommodated, yet lay sub dio. The King was in his tent, about where some of the Lords had pitched theirs. I think none that loves him but must wish the army ten times doubled, and those ten fifteen times better accommodated ; espe- cially seeing this town as ill provided as the other, and the hourly reports of the Scots advancing ten thousand in one place and fifteen thousand in another to second their fellows. Yet are we told they come with a petition, but it seems they mean to dic- tate the reference to themselves, wherein I believe Sir Edward Powell will have little to do. " To this town (Barwick) I came last night, when Sir John Borrowes and I could hardly get a loaf of bread to our supper ; a black cake we got scarce edible. I went to Mr. Secretary's (Sir John Coke) to beg one, and had it given me with much difficulty, Mr. May protesting that his master was glad to send to my Lord Governor for bread for him and his, the day before, and that he got but two half-penny loaves. This day our host fetching us some dinner, had it snatched from him by a soldier, who much complain. The people here say, that if some present and speedy order be not taken, they shall want bread for their families, the soldiers devouring what can be got, and the Scots, by whom it seems the town was formerly supplied with victual of all kinds, and that in a plentiful manner and cheap, having declared they fear e:itremely the want of provisions, the country in Northumberland side being very barren, but plentiful beyond the boundary towards Scotland.^' * Both the armies at length were encamped opposite to each other, and found themselves in an extraordinary situation. At the time, the causes of the unexpected results of this formidable appearance on both sides were not known, and were therefore misrepresented. The royal army had been hastily formed by the King ; * The writer, Edward Norgate, was secretary to Windebank. Birch transcribed this letter from one in the State-paper office. Sloane MSS. 4176. 90 DIFFICULTIES OF CHARLES THE FIRST Charles relied on the imposing pomp of his splendid cavalry, the flower of the English nobility and gentry, and on the number of his troops, to awe the Scots into submission. Ludlow aptly describes this army as " raised rather out of compliment than affection;" and Clarendon, evidently with pain to himself, has confirmed tliis opinion. " The King summoned most of the nobility of the kingdom, without any consideration of their affections, how they stood disposed to that service, presuming that the glory of such a visible appearance of the whole nobility would at once terrify and reduce the Scots." Clarendon adds one of those profound reflections, which we rarely find but in this " Lord Chancellor of Human Nature," that " such kinds of uniting do often produce the greatest confusions ; when more and greater men are called together than can be united in affections or interests in the necessary differences which arise from thence, they quickly come to know each other so well, as they rather break into several divisions than join any one public interest, and from hence have always arisen the most dangerous factions."* But a royal care, unknown to Clarendon, lay hidden in the King^s breast. Charles was aware of the moral condition of his army. The Marquis of Hamilton had in the gallery at Whitehall confidentially revealed to the King the fatal secret, that the English nobility and general officers were far from being heartily engaged in this war. They were not to be trusted ; the Scots at Court had succeeded in impressing on the minds of some that they were little interested in a helium Bpiscopale ; nor was it probably unknown to Charles, that the officers and privates in his army on their march had openly declared that they would not fight to maintain the pride and power of the Bishops.f Many also, who took no interest in the factions of the day, but consulted their own quiet and the King's happiness, vented their contempt on the poverty of Scotland ; and as May tell us, the young courtiers were usually heard to wish Scotland under water, or that the old wall of Severus was re-edified. Others of graver thoughts, as Comines was then a favourite historian, pointed out the story of Charles the Duke of Burgundy's war with the Swiss, who, had he taken them all prisoners, could not have paid a ransom to the value of * Clarendon, i. 206. t Whitelocke's Memorials, 33. IN THE FIRST INVASION OF THE SCOTS. 97 the spurs and bridles in his camp. And a verse of Juvenal was frequent in their mouths : Curandum in primis ne magna injuria fiat Fortibus et miseris.* It is certain that Charles was aware of the neutrality of some, and of the treachery of others of his commanders ; for when the infidelity of the Earl of Holland, at a subsequent day, was noticed to him, the King replied, " Had that army been in earnest, he would have chosen other commanders. ^^ It is evi- dent, therefore, that the King depended entirely on " the glory of such a visible appearance." Charles, in fact, was leading only the phantom of an army. Charles betrayed his alarm at the distempered condition of his army when he was reduced to the extraordinary expedient of requiring a Sacramentum militare. This was a subscription to a solemn profession of loyalty and obedience, and at the same time disclaiming any correspondence, with the insurgents. '' The Scots," sarcastically observes Lord Clarendon, " took it to a man without grieving their conscience, or reforming their manners." But an open refusal came from a quarter whence, perhaps, it was not expected, however it might be suspected. Two English noblemen, afterwards well known in the Civil War, Lord Say and Sele and Lord Brooke, in the King^s presence, sullenly refused their signatures. These lords ingeniously averred that it was against law to impose oaths not enjoined by law; and further, being ignorant of the laws of Scotland, neither could they decide whether the Covenanters were rebels. The King, indignant at this studied insult, ofifered in the face of his whole army, and doubtless dreading that the example of these lords might prove infectious, immediately ordered them to be put under restraint. Charles desired that the Attorney and the Solicitor should be privately consulted, whether these lords could be proceeded against criminally, but the King found that " the cunning and Jesuitical answers," as Secretary Windebank calls them, " only concealed their malig- nity and aversion to his Majesty^s service." The sturdy refusal of these lords threatened alarming consequences at that critical moment — they, indeed, had only anticipated the unhappy day * Sat. 8—121. VOL. II. H 98 DIFFICULTIES OF CHARLES THE FIRST that was shortly to befall England ; and their conduct had instantly operated, for those who had willingly subscribed this bond of loyalty now signed another paper, declaring the. sense in which they had accepted it. This vain expedient of securing the fidelity of the faithless was thrown aside. While the mind of the perplexed monarch was suspended between doubt and fear, amidst the disaffection and reluctant duty which prevailed in the royal camp, a far different scene broke forth among the joyous tents of a people, who once more beheld their native hills covered with a national army. There a veteran and unlettered soldier, aged and weather-beaten, de- formed and diminutive in his person, but renowned for his skill in aU military affairs, was recalled from foreign campaigns to the land of his fathers. His sagacity was prompt to master difficulties, and his enterprise was too prudent, ever to have failed in good fortune. But the mihtary virtue now most to be valued — the knowledge of the human heart — was eminently his own. Lesley was a Scotchman who in foreign lands had never forgotten the native humours of his countrymen, and now marched with them as if he had long been their neighbour and their companion. In the plain simplicity of his language, he told the noble and the meanest gentleman, that "volunteers were not to be commanded like soldiers of fortune. Brothers they were all, and engaged in one cause." He flattered to command. Even the haughty nobles, whose rivalries had been dreaded, loved the wisdom and authority of "the old little crooked soldier," as Baillie naturally paints him — and his undis- ciplined levies acquired at least that great result of all discipline, a love of obedience. The gentleman was nothing the worse lying weeks together on the ground, or standing all night in arms in the storm, and the lusty peasantry raised their hearts as they mingled with the nobles of the land, and their own " Men of God." Their eyes watched this " Captain of Israel." Lesley had called on his country in the name of God, and the Scottish camp seemed the tabernacle of the Lord of Hosts. Crowded with spiritual pastors, these sent forth their heralds to all their Presbyteries, exhorting the absent, or reproaching the loiterer. . As the army advanced, its numbers multiplied. Every company had a new banner waving before the tent-door of its I m THE FIRST INVASION OF THE SCOTS. 99 captain, blazoned by the Scottish arms, and inscribed "For Christ's Crown and Covenant/' The reveil called them to solemn prayer at the dawn ; the drum beat to a sermon under the roof of Heaven, which twice a-day convinced them of the righteousness of their cause ; and as the sun went down in the still repose of evening, the melody of psalmody — the extem- poraneous inspiration of some prophesying pietist, or exhorta- tions from some folded page of the sacred volume, refreshed the spirits of these patriotic enthusiasts, who, in combating on earth, seemed to be possessing themselves of Heaven itself. "True," says Baillie, "there was swearing and cursing and brawling, whereat we grieved,'' but as the good Principal walked through their tents, he caught the contagious fervour of this singular union of insurrection and religion. "I found the favour of God shining upon me, and a sweet, meek, humble, yet strong and vehement spirit leading me all along." The^ valiant Saint was ready either to start to battle, or to chorus a psalm. The assumed humility in the supplications of the Covenanters induced Charles to imagine that they were intimidated at the view of the English army. A second proclamation more autho- ritatively commanded their submission ; but one day when a very inferior Scotch force put to a shameful flight the whole cavalry of Lord Holland, the determined spirit of the Scots was confirmed, as well as the suspicions and the dread of the King of the disposition of his own troops. The Marquis of Hamilton lay inactive at sea, and Lord Holland was a fugitive on land. At London the King was censured for not more vigorously quelling the Scotch revolt. Those indeed who were distant from the scene, and knew little or nothing of the state of both armies, wondered at the King losing this opportunity of chas- tising his rebels. Contemporaries rarely possess the secrets reserved for their posterity. The Covenanters were alike sur- prised at the inactivity of the English, which they ascribed to a refined policy designed to waste by delay their limited resources. They were acquainted at that moment neither with the indif- ference of the whole army, nor the disappointments of Charles in a foreign negotiation for Spanish troops, who, it was rumoured, had landed in England, and also in some expected H 2 100 DIFFICULTIES OF CHARLES THE FIRST levies from Ireland. The Scots in this first excursion were awed, too, by the fear of rousing the jealousy of the English people. A secret intercourse indeed had already been opened with some English friends, but no party, however, had yet risen in strength openly to espouse their cause. We learn this from Baillie — " the hope of England's conjunction is but small, for all the good words we heard long ago from our friends." This is a pointed allusion to the earliest intercourse of the Covenanters with some of our own patriots. He proceeds — " all this time when the occasion was great to have kythed their affections both to us and their own liberties, there was nought among them but either a deep sleep or silence.''* They knew they wanted not for friends at Court, nor among the citizens, who were not dis- pleased to see the Scots in arms against the King, and who were not desirous of an English victory, supposing, says May, that *' the sword which subdued the Scots must destroy their own liberties." But these friendships of the parties were yet callow, and not to be too roughly handled. So jealous was our Parlia- ment at times of their invading friends, that when the Scottish army, after the pacification of Berwick, intended to march through this garrison town, a wooden bridge was ordered to be thrown over the Tweed at some distance from the town, that they might be separated from the townsmen. The day had not yet come, although it was fast approaching, when the English Parliamentarians were to vote their Scottish invaders " a friendly assistance," and that the Scots were to return their solemn thanks for the style of " brethren " given to them in the vote of the House.t As the King from the first had never contemplated a war, and as the Scots did not know whether they might begin one, both armies were precisely at that point which would admit of a treaty. Lesley decided on a great movement. " He gave out obscurely his purpose to approach the English camp," says Baillie. The enthusiasm of the people had daily augmented his forces, but, destitute of the resources to support a defensive war, this sagacious general foresaw that his forces would have dispersed as rapidly as they had assembled, in the inactivity of a prolonged campaign ; and that even his numerical strength • BaUlie, i. 183. t Rushworth, iv. 152. IN THE FIRST INVASION OF THE SCOTS. 101 might be fatal in an impoverished land. The approach of Lesley excited an alarm in the royal camp. At this critical moment an ancient page of the King^s was permitted to pass over to the Scottish camp on a visit to his friends. There he hinted that if they would please to supplicate the King, the happiness of peace might yet be obtained. This light motion was not neglected — an intercourse was granted, and the King^s honour was thus saved. Some English historians have pre- sumed that the Scots were the first who solicited the peace, but Baillie has preserved the name of the old page who doubtless was the messenger of the pacific overture. Four Scotch Commissioners, among whom was the Earl of Rothes, a voluptuary, and Lord Loudon, an able intriguer and necessitous man, both long afterwards gained over by Charles — met in the tent of the Earl of Arundel, the English general, to confer on the adjustment of the minuter points in dispute. An extraordinary scene opened. Unexpectedly, at least to the^ Scottish Commissioners, the King himself entered — and taking his seat at the end of the table, the others then standing up, a remarkable conversation ensued. It was taken down at the time in notes, and sent by the Earl of Arundel to Laud. This is a very dramatic narrative, and in some respects leads us to an intimate acquaintance with the manners of Charles the First. The propriety of the King's appearance at this confer- ence may be doubtful ; it would check the necessary freedom of discussion ; but Charles on various critical occasions too easily flattered himself that he could compose all differences by his own presence ; his sincerity might be greater than his prudence. On the present occasion the King seems not to have been more peremptory than a man who delivers himself without reserve, patient though dignified ; and since we know that this meeting was not concerted, the spontaneous language of the King will show that his capacity was no ordinary one, and that his earnest- ness was not a mere form and show of obtruding royalty, designed more to gratify its own vanity than inspired by any deeper interest in the affairs of the people. Dr. Lingard truly observes that " Charles for several days debated every point with an earnestness of argument and a tone of superiority which seems to have imposed on the hearers of 102 DIFFICULTIES OF CHARLES THE FIRST both nations." This penurious commendation hardly does justice to Charles. We have a warmer account from Baillie. " The King was very sober, meek and patient to hear all. The King missed Henderson " — (with whom Charles at a distant day was to hold a famous controversy on ecclesiastical polity) — " and Johnston " — (afterwards the hot Covenanter Wariston.) " The King was much delighted with Henderson's discourse, but not so with Johnston's. Much and most free communing there was of the highest matters of State. It is likely his Majesty's ears had never been tickled with such discourses, yet he was most patient of them all, and loving of clear reason. His Majesty was ever the longer the better loved of all that heard him, as one of the most just, reasonable, sweet persons they ever had seen." Of this remarkable conference which occurred on the first day, unknown to Clarendon and Hume, I shall select such passages as most enter into the character of Charles the First: — The King. — ^My Lords, you cannot but wonder at my unex- pected coming hither ; which I would myself have spared, were it not to clear myself of that notorious slander laid upon me, that I shut my ears from the just complaints of my people in Scot- land, which I never did, nor shall. But, on the other side, I shall expect from them, to do as subjects ought ; and upon these terms I shall never be wanting to them. Rothes. — The Earl of Rothes answered but with a low voice, that his sentences could hardly at any distance be understood. The effect of his speech was a justification of all their actions. The King. — My Lord, you go the wrong way in seeking to justify yourselves and actions; for though I am not come hither with any purpose to aggravate your ofi'ences, but to make the fairest construction of them that they may bear, and lay aside all differences, yet if you stand on your justification, 1 shall not command but where I am sure to be obeyed. Rothes. — Our coming is not to justify our actions, or to capitu- late, but to submit ourselves to the censure (judgment) of your Majesty, if so be we have committed any thing contrary to the laws and customs of our country. The King. — I never took upon me to give end to any differ- m THE FIRST INVASION OF THE SCOTS. 103 ence, but where both parties first submitted themselves unto my censure ( judgment), which if you will do, I shall do you justice to the utmost of my knowledge, without partiality. Rothes. — Our religion and conscience is now in question, which ought to receive another trial. Besides, neither have we power of ourselves to conclude any thing, but to represent it to our fellows. The King. — If you have no power to submit it to my judg- ment, go on with your justification. Rothes. — This is it which we desired, that thereby the sub- jects of both kingdoms may come to the truth of our actions ; for ye know not the reason of our actions, nor we of yours. The Kino. — Sure I am, you are never able to justify all your actions ; the best way, therefore, were to take my word, and to submit all to my judgment. Rothes. — We have reason to desire liberty for our pubHc justification, seeing our cause hath received so much wrong, both in the foundation, relation, and the whole carriage of the business. Loudon. — Since your Majesty is pleased to dislike the way of justification, we therefore will desert it; for our purpose is no other but to enjoy the freedom of that religion which we know your Majesty and your kingdom do profess ; and to prevent all alterations of that religion which we profess, which, finding our- selves likely to be deprived of, we have taken this course, wherein we have not behaved ourselves any otherwise than becometh loyal subjects. Our sole desires are, that what is point of religion may be judged by the practice of the church established in that kingdom. The King. — Here his Majesty interrupted this long intended declaration, saying that he would not answer any proposition which they made, nor receive any, but in writing. They with- drew themselves to a side-table, and wrote a supplication — to ratify the acts of the assembly at Glasgow, that all ecclesiastical matters be determined by the Kirk, and that a peace be granted, and all incendiaries suffer punishment. This supplication having been read, his Majesty said he could give no sudden answer to it ; in fact, it included the great point of the abolishment of Episcopacy. 104 DIFFICULTIES OP CHARLES THE FIRST The King. — Here you have presented your desires, as much as to say, "Give us all we desire;" which, if no other than set- tling of your religion and laws established, I never had other intentions than to settle them. His Majesty withal told them that their propositions were a little too rude at the first. (Charles alluded to the ratifying the democratic acts of the Glasgow assembly.) Loudon. — We desire your Majesty that our grounds laid down may receive the most favourable construction. The King. — I protest I have no intention to surprise you, but I withal desire you to consider how you stand too strictly upon your propositions. I intend not to alter any thing in your laws or religion which has been settled by sovereign authority. Neither will I at all encroach upon your laws by my preroga- tive ; but the question will be at last, Who shall be the judge of the meaning of those laws ? His Majesty then further told them that their pretences were fair, but their actions otherwise. Rothes. — We desire to be judged by the written word of the laws. (Here he proceeded in justifying the assembly at Glasgow.) The King. — You cannot expect the ratification of that assem- bly, seeing the election of the members of it was not lawful, nOr was there any free choice of them. E-othes. — There is no other way for settling differences in religion but by such an assembly of the Kirk. The King. — That assembly was neither free nor lawful, and so, consequently, the proceedings could not be lawful. But when I say one thing, and you another, who shall judge ? The Earl of Rothes offered to bring the book of the assembly to the King, to prove its legality. — Lord Loudon explained the nature of the Presbyterial government by the book of discipline — the work of the earlier Puritans. The King. — The book of discipline was never ratified by King or Parliament ; but ever rejected by them. Besides this, there were never in any assembly so many lay elders as in this. Rothes. — In some assemblies there have been more lay elders than of the clergy. In this assembly every lay elder was so well instructed as that he could give judgment of any one point which should be called in question before them. IN THE FIRST INVASION OF THE SCOTS. 105 The King. — To affirm thus much in truth, seems very ridicu- lous ; namely, that every illiterate person should be able to be a fit judge of faith and religion. This, indeed, is very convenient and agreeable to their disposition, for, by that means, they might choose their own religion. The King, in closing the present conference, observed — " I have all this while discoursed with disadvantage, seeing what I say I am obliged to make good ; but ye are men of honour too, and therefore whatever ye assent unto, if others refuse, ye are also obliged to make it good.^' Lord Loudon once affirmed the power of the Glasgow assem- bly to punish any offences. Rothes, at a later conference, in plain terms affirmed the power of the assembly to be so great that, were he the King, it had authority to excommunicate him also.* Against this principle, perfectly papal, the note-writer observes that his Majesty excellently disputed, could reason have satisfied them. Charles here had certainly the strongest argu- ment. It is curious to observe the advocates for popular free- dom, eagerly contending for passive obedience ; and a monarch, supposed to be a stickler for arbitrary government, exposing the absurdity and injustice of a dangerous despotism. So contra- dictory" seems human nature, when man acts on his own tempo- rary views or individual interests. We may regret that we have no notes of the conference of the fierce Republican, Wariston, with Charles, though at a distant day we have the King's senti- ments on Republics in a conversation with Harrington, the author of the " Oceana," and which at the time impressed that singular Commonwealth's man with a high notion of the King's character. The peculiarity of this state of warfare was terminated by a treaty as peculiar ; a treaty consisting more of verbal explana- tions in vague conversations, than of written agreements, or articles afterwards ratified. The Scots desired to have their * This was no oratorical flourish of the Earl of Rothes, but the avowed prmciple of the Presbytery. Our first English Puritans under Cartwright had maintained, not only that " the Church could inflict its censures on Royalty," but that it pos- sessed a supremacy of power. Calvm's policy was to make the Church an inde- pendent power in the state, but this seems to have been but a first step ; there are passages in his " Institution " which have an evident tendency to Cai'twright's and Knox's system. 106 DIFFICULTIES OF CHARLES THE FIRST religion and liberty according to the laws of the kingdom — intending those that were in force before James's accession to the crown of England, and Charles, such as had been enacted since that time. Both sides must have perceived the ambiguity, but both were desirous of not coming to extremities. The Scots, with twelve thousand men, had not imagined that Charles could have raised an army of twenty thousand; but Charles was in no less perplexity than themselves, as he feared treachery among his own troops. The Scots wished delay in their nego- tiation, and the King hoped the day would come when he could explain the terms. The Scots would only swear to the true religion of 1580 ; Charles insisted that the true religion was in 160G, and was more manifest in the present year of 1638. The King would not acknowledge, and the Scots would not disclaim, the Glasgow assembly. This difficulty was obviated by the King consenting to call another assembly to decide on ecclesiastical affairs. From that tender subject, the removal of Episcopacy, Charles convulsively shrunk; while the Scottish Commissioners on their knees in vain implored that great boon, it was evaded on the plea that the King would not forestall the decision of the future assembly. Some harsh expressions in the King's declaration were softened, but when the Scots com- plained that it represented them as if they had struck at the monarchy, they were answered that so much was due to the royal honour, and that the King's reputation abroad required that his style should preserve the regal authority. Ambiguous sentences were explained in conference, and the Scots on their return to their camp set them down in writing, which in due time, says Baillie, " shall see the light in their own royal and noble phrase." " There were not two present," says Clarendon, " who did agree in the same relation of what was said and done, and which was worse, not in the same interpretation. An agreement was made, in which nobody meant what others believed he did." Malcolm Laing has severely charged the King with dissimula- tion in this treaty ;* but he does not lay the same charge on his own countrymen. When the treaty was signed, if treaty it can be called, an intercourse took place between all parties, and ♦ Laing's History of Scotland, iii. 171. IN THE FIRST INVASION OF THE SCOTS. 107 the result shortly appeared on both sides. The Scots cemented their secret friendships, and excited the sympathy of many new ones ; and under the tents where they had signed the peace, they concerted future plans of more successful invasion; a clearer understanding between some of the English and them- selves appeared to all the world on their second incursion. Nor was the King less active in his accessions ; Montrose now first discovered himself to Charles ; several of the Scottish lords were mollified by royal condescensions, and the ambiguous Hamilton had so adroitly insinuated himself into the favour of the Covenanters, that he had slid into their secrets, and with admirable fidelity betrayed them to the King. It is evident that the pacification of Berwick was as little sincere on one side as on the other ; and as is not uncommon, the parties with great truth reciprocally accuse each other. Equally impatient for peace, both dreaded the dubious issue of a battle, and both were alike unprovided with the means of maintaining their strength, even at the cost of a victory. The exhausted exchequer of Charles had levelled him to the poverty of the Scots. The determination to combat, rather than to retreat, was probably as strong on one side as the other. The language of the ingenuous Baillie is afl'ecting, — though a Covenanter, he had a great reverence for Majesty. "Many secret motives there were on all hands that spurred on to this quick peace. What to have done when we came to Tweeffl-side we were very uncertain. The King would rather have hazarded his person than have raised his camp. Had he incurred any skaith (harm), or been disgraced with a shameful flight, our hearts had been broken for it ; and likely all England behoved to have risen in revenge.^^ The Scots, it is evident, at that moment feared the English nation as much as the King. This " quick peace" leaving unsettled the great contending points, and every condition ambiguous or indefinite, could only be one of those delusive treaties which serve to prepare the strongest party for war. It was a breathing space for two armies who could not separate without a determination to con- quer ; it was a pacification, but it was not a peace. A treaty in which more was explained verbally than was written could be but a patched-up peace, not made to hold long together. 108 DIFFICULTIES OF CHARLES THE FIKST The ink was scarce dry ere the treaty was broken. At Edin- burgh they reproached their chiefs with apostasy; at London they lamented the disgrace incurred by an inglorious campaign. At this moment we may be curious to discover the real feelings of Charles. They may be deemed romantic ! Pleased probably with his partial interviews with Montrose and other Scottish lords, he fancied that the presence of Majesty had not lost its charm over the people. In the warmth of his emotions, Charles, often hasty in his resolves, proposed to accompany his Scottish subjects on their return to Edinburgh — to hold the Parliament in person. He imagined a popular triumph to awaken the affections of a whole people. Charles becomes a self-painter in writing to Went worth from Berwick. " As for my affairs here, I am far from thinking that at this time I shall get half of my will, though I mean, by the grace of God, to be in person both at Assembly and Parliament ; for which I know many wise men blame me, and it may be you among the rest. And I confess not without many weighty and considerable arguments, which I have neither time to repeat or to confute — only this believe me, nothing but my presence at this time in that country can save it from irreparable con- fusion ; yet I will not be so vain as absolutely to say that I can. Wherefore my conclusion is, that if I see a great probability, I go ; otherwise not, but return to London, or take other counsels." * There is no dissimulation in this confidential communication. The sorrowful and perplexed state of a mind so variously agi- tated ; the impulse that hurries him in his own person to pacify the troubles of a people, and above all the modest check which his own judgment imposes on his sanguine hopes, are the cha- racteristics of the man — and when we pause on many similar effusions, we may at least wonder how it was possible for such a man ever to have been the absolute despot, which the injustice of party and historical calumnies so often set before us. Charles did not pursue his romantic progress to fill Fergus* chair in the palace of his ancestors. A fresh revolt had broken out in the streets of Edinburgh on the surrender of the Castle to the former royalist governor. "The devout wives," as * Stmfford's Lcttei-s, ii. 362. m THE FIRST INVASION OF THE SCOTS. 109 Guthry calls them, who were not apt to go on these messages without being sent, again opened their campaign of Presbytery, by an onset upon the E-oyal Commissioner, the Earl of Traquair, with " their neaves" (fists). They broke my Lord Treasurer's white staff in pieces before his face ; a circumstance which more endeared him to the King, says Baillie, at the moment his credit was cracking. When the representative of Majesty appealed for the chastisement of the ringleaders, the magistracy solemnly voted the Treasurer a new staff! — thus estimating the indignity the Crown had suffered — at the damage of sixpence ! The King, still intent to open the Scottish Parliament in person, required fourteen of the Scottish leaders to attend him at Berwick. Rothes, Montrose, and Johnston came, but the rest with Argyle contrived to raise a mob at the moment of their pretended departure. At the water-gate they were stopped on the pretence that the King would detain them. The King repeated his summons, but he foimd himself distrusted. These Lords feared that Charles knew more of them than probably at this moment the King did. The ministers of Charles were alarmed at these continued tumults ; Secretary Windebank could not think without horror of the King exposing himself to the mercy of a people weary of monarchical Government, " who know your Majesty's sacred person is the only impediment to" the Republic, liberty, and con- fusion which they have designed themselves." Went worth's caution had perhaps more weight. " So total a defection in that people is not to be trusted with your sacred person over early, if at all." The distrust of the Scottish Lords was indignantly felt, and Charles could no longer confide in them who had no confidence in him. The King returned home from the dream of the pacification of Berwick, melancholy and unsatisfied, con- vinced that he had carried no single point, while from Hamilton and Montrose he was but too well informed of the dark designs of his enemies. The triumphal march which he had once pro- mised himself had only closed in an interview of two hostile armies ; but it had shown the world, at home and abroad, that the Scottish insurgents were a nation. Charles seems to have vented his disappointment in the no CHARLES THE FIRST RESISTS THE graceless manner with which he disbanded his own army ; he suddenly dismissed the gentry without any acknowledgment of their loyalty in leaving their homes at his call ; nor did he scatter honours on those who had aspired to them. This impolitic conduct of the King was not forgotten when in the following year he had another army to collect — few cared to attend, and many abandoned him in the Civil War. If Charles be often accused of dissimulation, it must also be acknowledged that he too often acted from spontaneous feelings, hasty and undisguised. CHAPTER IX. CHARLES THE FIRST RESISTS THE SEDUCTIONS OF CARDINAL RICHELIEU. The vindication of the maritime rights of England formed the most glorious period in the reign of Charles the First. The King seems to have found himself more master of events, fol- lowing only his own dispositions in asserting the independence of the British Crown and the security of his people. From 1630 to 1637 he probably anticipated none of those dark evils which lay brooding among his northern subjects and his dismissed Parliamentarians. Before the troubles broke out in Scotland, perhaps the most secret agents in the approaching revolu- tion possessed as little foresight as Charles the First and his ministers. It was at this period, in 1637, that another political event occurred of not inferior importance than the sovereignty of the sea; it was an event in which Charles the First maintained the independence of his Crown among foreign powers, guided by the true interests of England. Those State-interests, I pre- sume, must ever be an unremitting watchfulness over the growth of her neighbour's influence, and the secret intrigues of their Cabinets ; hence to keep down the stronger, and to strengthen the weaker, but above all things to preserve England from becoming a passive instrument of the dangerous projects of an ambitious rival, or a seductive enemy. SEDUCTIONS OP CARDINAL RICHELIEU. Ill In the present case, Charles the First performed the duty of an EngHsh monarch, however fatally the event terminated for his own happiness. Our popular historians, some of whom, it must be granted, were not supplied with the copious materials we now possess, and some of whom would certainly have wanted both the neces- sary diligence and candour, had they possessed them, have accused Charles the First of a blind and sometimes of a '^Popish" inclination towards Spain. On this prejudiced principle, they have not hesitated to charge as " a mere pretence" the danger into which Charles considered the nation was thrown by a secret league between France and the United Provinces. Of the reality of this secret league we can no longer doubt. We find it was discovered to Charles by the Spanish resident in Jidy, 1634. France, however, had been busily intriguing with the States-General two years earlier, in 1632. It was, however, not before five years afterwards, in 1637, that the project matured by Cardinal Richelieu assumed a tangible shape, presenting itself openly to the English King. The ges- tation of a great political design is sometimes painfully slow, the birth is delayed by its secresy, and the pangs seem proportioned to its magnitude. The plan of Richelieu, which we saw at work by the inter- cepted dispatches in 1634, and which was now settled in 1637, was, in concert with the Prince of Orange, to seize the maritime towns of the Spanish Netherlands, the last remains of the ancient dominion of Spain, from which important conquest resulted nothing short of the annihilation of the Spanish name and influence among the Flemings. But before this bold enter- prise could be opened, and even before it could be well resolved by the Prince of Orange, the Cardinal deemed it necessary to secure the neutrality of England ; and to ascertain the disposi- tion of the Cabinet of Whitehall, the Cardinal dispatched the Count D^Estrades with very particular instructions. Richelieu, aware that he stood not in the good graces of the Queen of England, whose mother, Mary of Medicis, he had abandoned to her destiny, commissioned the Count D^Estrades to offer Henrietta every possible proof of his devotion to her, and entreating immediately to be put to the test, he desired the 112 CHARLES THE FIRST RESISTS THE honour of being made acquainted with her wishes, that they might be instantly accomplished. Should the Count find the Queen favourable, he was to deliver the CardinaFs letter written by his own hand — but should Henrietta continue unfriendly to the Cardinal, D'Estrades in that case was to present the letter of her brother, the King of France. D'Estrades, who on his arrival in England had to execute with the utmost promptitude, as we shall see, affairs of the most opposite nature, hastened without a day's loss to the Queen. He found Henrietta greatly indisposed against the Cardinal. The letter of his Eminence was therefore suppressed, but her brother's referred her to Count D'Estrades, who acquainted her with the object of his mission, requesting the Queen would use all her influence to persuade her royal husband to preserve a strict neutrality. Henrietta declared that "she never inter- meddled in affairs of this nature," but in compliance with her brother's wish she would mention the subject to the King her husband, appointing the ambassador, who pressed for time, to return at five o'clock. When D'Estrades came, he found the Queen in ill-humour ; she complained that he had been the occasion of her suffering a severe reprimand for having proposed to the King to remain neuter while the sea-ports of Flanders were to be attacked, but the King himself would expect the Count at six o'clock. The Queen's reception was no favourable prognostic. The Ambassador was, however, graciously received by Charles. D'Estrades having opened his negotiation, laid great stress on the numerous advantages the King of England would derive from preserving a rigid neutrality. Masters of the sea, the English would have the whole commerce of Flanders at their disposal, and the supply of all the armies, both the Allied and the Spanish, which could only be carried on by English shipping. But his Eminence offered apparently a less resistible seduction ; for the Cardinal not only assured Charles that he was most desirous of preserving an union of interests with the two Courts, but that his Eminence would pledge himself to persuade his royal master to aid and support Charles against any of his rebellious subjects. Charles's reply to the French Ambassador was prompt and SEDUCTIONS OF CARDINAL RICHELIEU. 113 decisive. " He wished for the friendship of his brother, but friendship there could be none if it were prejudicial to his honour, or injurious to the interest of his people. Should the ports of Planders be attacked by France and Holland, the English fleet would be in the Downs ready for action, and with an army of fifteen thousand men.^^ Charles thanked his Eminence for the offer of his aid, " but he required no other assistance to punish rebels, than his own regal authority and the laws of England ! " Such was the noble answer of Charles the First to the political seduction of E-ichelieu ; such was the strength of character which at critical conjunctures he invariably displayed ; and such was his fortune and his fate that the greater his personal distresses rose on him, the greater the energy which he seemed to derive from their excitement. On this incident even the sullen Pres- byter, Harris, felt a transient glow, exclaiming, " This answer was worthy a British monarch ! ^' We must also recollect that this off'er from the Cardinal was made in November, and that Charles had already in June been menaced by the rising troubles in Scotland. His own personal condition strangely contrasted with his magnanimity; to be plunged into a war with France while he was preparing a northern army to act against his own malcontents, required in the spirited monarch that fortitude and moral courage, which in truth never failed him in his " hour of need." But Charles probably did not know that D'Estrades, who remained here but a few weeks, and then hastened to the Prince of Orange, had a double commission in coming to England. He was to offer the King of England the aid of France, or rather of Cardinal Bichelieu, should Charles be disposed to act as his Eminence desired; but should Charles prove adverse to his scheme, the ambidextrous agent was to address himself secretly to the heads of the Scotch party. The fact is, that D'Estrades had not been five days in London, ere he had already opened a commimication with two Scotchmen, and in his dispatches con- gratulates the Cardinal on "this favourable conjuncture for embarrassing the King of England's affairs.'^ Such, then, was the great coup d'etat. The neutrality of the King was to be bribed by the destruction of the rebellious Scots, or enforced by the necessity of devoting his whole powers to their suppression. VOL. II. I 114 CHARLES THE FIRST RESISTS RICHELIEU. The reply of the Cardinal to D'Estrades is very remarkable. Sarcastically approving of the openness of the King and Queen of England in their conduct towards him, he owns " that France might have been embarrassed, had- the royal couple had the address of concealing their sentiments — but now the year should not close before both should repent of their refusal of his pro- posals. It shall soon be known that I am not to be despised." He desired D'Estrades to assure the two Scotch deputies of his friendship and protection, and that in a few days he will dispatch one of his chaplains, the Abbe Chambres, who was their fellow- countryman, to hasten to Edinburgh and open a negotiation with their party. This wily statesman would have Scotchmen appear to govern Scotchmen. The Abbe Chambres, whom Whitelocke calls Chamberlain, and who had probably Gallicised his name, was accompanied by a confidential page of his Eminence, also a Scot, of the name of Hepburn — and probably serving, in the present instance, in the capacity of a spy on the other spy. To mortify the haughty Henrietta, and to inconvenience Charles, by rendering the English Court stiU more unpopular, the vindic- tive Cardinal, within a few months of the interview of D'Estrades with Henrietta, drove, by his persecutions, the exiled Mary of Medicis to her daughter. In vain had Charles repeatedly urged his foreign agents to prevent the Queen-mother directing her flight to England — there seemed to be no other resting-place for the royal fugitive. The fortunes of Richelieu had been the creation of this hapless princess; but he never forgave, as is usual with great politicians, the patroness, who was herself alarmed at the mighty being her own feeble hand had formed. Mary of Medicis was the weakest of women, but she was a Queen of sorrows ; the daughter of Tuscany, the wife of Henry the Fourth, the mother of Louis the Thirteenth and of the Queens of England and Spain, and the Duchess of Savoy. She it was whom, on her landing in England, Waller addressed — " Great Queen of Europe ! where thy offspring wears All the chief crowns ; whose Princes are thy heirs." This eminent personage, the victim of political intrigue, was now, whejever she came, a wandering spectacle of melancholy, — the presence of the ill-starred woman was looked on as a prog- - INFLUENCE OP EICHELIEU. 115 nostic of public calamity. Here the sight of her person inflamed the popular prejudice against her daughter, and the season in which she arrived turning out wet and stormy, the common people called it " Queen-mother weather/^ Charles the First thus incurred the vindictive artifices of Richelieu ; and it is unquestionable that the royal fortunes were greatly influenced by the mysterious policy of this hardy and inventive statesman. The Cardinal accomplished his prediction or malediction on Charleses head about the period assigned. We have found Richelieu instigating the Hollanders to violate the neutrality of the British ports, at the very moment Richelieu was holding a secret intercourse with the Scottish Covenanters, and, subse- quently, with the English Parliamentarians. Thus, by an extra- ordinary combination in his Cabinet, the hand of Richelieu was directing the fate of Charles the First at once in his maritime sovereignty and his Scottish dominions. It would seem that Charles the First had yet no notion that the disgrace of having incurred an insult in his own ports was the work of the Cardinal, nor did he probably imagine that the Papistical prelate could ever coalesce with the Calvinistical Pres- byters, or that the Minister of an absolute monarchy could ever cordially blend with the Commonwealth-men of England in the abolition of monarchy itself. The influence of Cardinal Richelieu over the fortunes of Charles the First is a subject not unworthy of our inquiry. CHAPTER X. OF THE INFLUENCE OF CARDINAL RICHELIEU ON THE FATE OF CHARLES THE FIRST. The famous Cardinal-Duke de Richelieu was one of those great ministers on whom panegyrics and satires equally abound. It is hard to say of Richelieu, that in his passion for glory he would have sacrificed his own France to that of Europe, if by that fatal pledge Europe had prostrated herself to the Cardinal- Duke. In his political imagination he had contemplated on i2 116 INFLUENCE OP RICHELIEU ON THE vast designs, which the ordinary date of human life only had interrupted, for when Richelieu was no more, a youthful monarch and a minister trained in Richelieu's schools, asto- nished and alarmed the world by the sparks which had fallen from his forge. The master-genius of Richelieu had wrestled with domestic factions, and trodden down rivals. His mightier despotism had annihilated the multiplied tyrannies of a haughty aristocracy, who had usurped an authority over the laws. Richelieu must not be classed among those rare and patriotic statesmen, who are the fathers of their country. He first con- quered his own people — crushed his own nobility — and concen- trated in his sovereign the despotism he himself required. Louis XIII. was jealous even of the minister, in the absence of whose genius he would probably have ceased to reign; but though the Prince was weak, the majesty of the throne was greater than it had ever been. It was indeed an iron rule — state-prisons, scaffolds, and garrisoned towns deformed the fair face of " pleasant France." It is said to have been a state-maxim of this famed politician, who we must candidly remember lived in troubled times, that to keep the people in subjection it is necessary to depress them. An anecdote has come down to us, which in some respects describes the actual state of the French people during his for- midable ministry. An Englishman was declaiming against the tyranny of this minister. " Don't talk so loud,'' said his friend, " lest some of his creatures there should hear you" — pointing to a crowd of beggars in their sabots. At his death there were public rejoicings in the more distant provinces, and the people by their fireworks, and their dances, proclaimed to the world that the death of the tyrannical ruler gives a holiday to the people. Yet when the Czar Peter the Great visited the magnificent tomb of Richelieu, contemplating the statue, he enthusiastically exclaimed, " Great man ! wert thou living I would give thee half of my empire, wouldst thou teach me to govern the other." Must we therefore consider that one of the arts of government may consist in making a nation great, at the cost of its happiness ? By the strength and unity of his government, Richelieu PATE OF CHARLES THE FIRST. 117 made the nation tremble, while he secured its power. A general rumour prevailed, and it was the favourite topic of con- versation, as I learn by a manuscript letter of the times, with *^ the brave Monsieurs in France," that "their King must be Emperor," and it appears that to have ventured to contradict them would have been at the hazard of a duel. So early had the national egotism anticipated its glorious infirmity ! * Thus while France bowed under its severe master, with secret pride she looked on her ascendancy in the great family of European governments. A nation, like an individual, has often sacrificed its happiness to its splendour. Eichelieu conquered France — the greater conquest was in view. Force, remorseless force had mastered his native land; subtle intrigues were to awaken every other European king- dom. This great minister was now to strike out, amidst the most complicate obstacles and cabals, the elements of grandeur and prosperity, to create a political Cabinet, which was to survive its creator, and to hold Europe itself in an equilibrium, to be guided by the arm of France. His recruited armies were to encounter the Imperialist and the Spaniard, his miserable marine was one day to meet the fleets of England and Holland : and his silent genius was at the same time busied in Spain, till he struck out from its dominion an independent kingdom in Portugal; and in England, whose alliance with the French Huguenots, and whose invasion of Rhe were indelible on his implacable memory, till he subdued its independent monarch by a revolution which he lived to witness, and, we are told, long enough to regret ; foi De Brienne, his confidential secretary of state, acknowledges that matters went further than the Cardinal had designed, and than he desired. The confession of Brienne was sincere. Pere d'Orleans, who had access to the papers of the Marquis de la Ferte-Imbault, who was the French ambassador in England in 1642, informs us " that Bichelieu began to be alarmed at the consequences of his own successful intrigues, which menaced the destruction of a monarch whom France was only desirous of embarrassing, to wean him from his inclination to unite with Spain. The French monarch off'ered to become a mediator between the * Haxl. MSS. From a letter of the times. 118 INFLUENCE OF RICHELIEU ON THE parties; after three or four journeys to Windsor, the French ambassador found that the offer of the French Cabinet was received with equal suspicion by the King and by the Parlia- ment/^* Cardinal Mazarine, in his correspondence with Sabran, the French agent in England in 1644, whose papers I have examined, was earnestly desirous of pacifying the English troubles. This is confirmed, too, by a conversation of Mazarine with Lord Digby, in which the Cardinal told him that " France found too late their own error, that they had been well content to see the King's great puissance weakened by his domestic troubles, which they wished only should keep him from being able to hurt his neighbours/' f Such has ever been the human policy of political Cabinets, who have sought for their own security by inflaming the intestine disorders of their neighbour ; or, to obtain some temporary advantage, provoked a lasting evil. Eichelieu, by the Covenanters of Scotland and the Parliament- arians of England, recruited his armies against Austria, and neutralised the ally Spain possessed in Charles. When the revolution burst forth, it was too late to undo the web of his own subtle work. How far, or if at all, the conduct of England towards the French Revolution in its early stage affords a parallel case, I know not. Accusations were raised by some of the French against Pitt. Pitt, like Richelieu, had his recollections, and our American Colonies might have been to Louis the Sixteenth what the Isle of Rhe and La Rochelle were to Charles the First. The politics of Richelieu may be paralleled with the system of Napoleon. Richelieu was forming an invisible alliance with the disaffected of every government ; thus his own genius pre- sided in their councils, and all the members of his diplomacy served as the active agents of the revolutions of his age. We are struck by the parallel of Richelieu and Napoleon in their secret principles. Pliant, as well as unbending, the Prelate of the Papacy could confirm the edict of Nantes for his own Huguenots, granting toleration at the moment he meditated their extermination; J to check the House of Austria, the * Pere d'Orleans, Kdvolutiona d'Angleterro, iii. 34. f Clarendon's State Papera, Suppt. iii. lix. X It is a curious fact exhibiting tlie awkward dilemma into which great politicians sometimes tlirust themselves, that at the moment the articles of peace with the FATE OF CHARLES THE FIRST. 119 Eomish Cardinal could confederate with the Protestant princes to maintain the Protestant cause; and the minister of an absolute monarchy was the faithful ally of the new Republicans of Holland. The intrigues of this politic statesman could not pass untraced amidst the gathering troubles of Charles the First — the serpent,, however wary, still leaves the trail of his crooked motions in the dust he passes over. The Irish insurgents were supplied with arms by the Cardinal ; the agents of the Covenanters were at Paris, as well as the agents of the French at Edinburgh. Besides the political influence of Cardinal Richelieu over the fortunes of Charles the First, I think there was a more latent one, the result of which was not less important in the affairs of the English monarch. Charles admired Richelieu, and many of the interior transactions which had occurred in France, the dis- orders composed, the difficulties overcome, often presented an image of the state of England. The disaffected princes appeared, to Charles, greatly to resemble some of our Patriots; the remonstrances of the French Parliaments, though these are but courts of law, had sometimes approached the lofty tone of our Commons, and the strong republican party of the Huguenots could not well be separated in their conduct and their principles from our own Puritans. Charles had a mind too reflective, and too personally interested in these events, to pass over regard- lessly the conduct and success of the great French minister. Charles the First, and Strafford, and possibly Laud, who has been idly compared with Richelieu, were close observers of the Cardinal-Duke ; and Richelieu, unquestionably, of them. Minis- ters, like jealous traders, keep an observant eye on each other. Olivarez, the great Spanish minister, when some Frenchmen complained of the libels and satires on Richelieu profusely spread in Flanders, declared that as a Minister of State it was his own interest not to countenance such unworthy methods, French Protestants were to be signed at the council-table, both the Cardinals RicheUeu and de la Rochefoucault withdrew, that they might not appear publicly to sanction a truce with heretics — although this very peace was the favourite work of the great Cardinal himself. It may possibly be alleged that the departure of the Cardinals at signing this treaty with heretics might have been a mere form which grew out of their priestly character. Le Clerc unquestionably gives the anecdote in the spirit of a Protestant. It was certainly a dilemma. 120 INFLUENCE OP RICHELIEU. but he had himself often told his master that his greatest mis- fortune was that the King of France possessed the most skilful minister who for a thousand years had appeared in Christendom; as for himself he would willingly submit to have whole libraries printed every day against himself, provided that the affairs of his master were as well conducted as those of France ! This secret sympathy, or this mutual influence among these great parties, was often indicated by circumstances accidentally preserved. That Charles the First had long admired the genius of Richelieu, appeared on the famous day of the Dupes, when news arrived of the dismission and fall of the French minister. Henrietta rejoicing at the CardinaFs removal from power, which had been so long desired by the Queen-Mother, Charles the First checked the feminine petulance, expressing his highest admiration of the unrivalled capacity of the minister. " Your mother is wrong,'^ he observed to the Queen ; " the Cardinal has performed the greatest services for his master. Had I been the Cardinal I would have listened tranquilly to the accusations of the Queen your mother, and remembered those against Scipio before the Roman people, who, instead of replying, led them to the Capitol to return thanks to the gods, for having defeated the Carthaginians. The Cardinal might have told the King, within these two years Rochelle has been taken, more than thirty towns of the Huguenots have submitted, and their fortifications arc demolished; Cazal has been twice succoured. Savoy and a great part of Piedmont are in your hands : these advantages which your arms have acquired by my cares, answer for my industry and my fidelity .^^* That Strafford was attentive to the proceedings of the French minister, appears by his alleging the conduct of the Cardinal in appointing commissioners to enter the merchants' houses at Paris to examine their accounts and to cess every man accord- ing to his ability to furnish the King^s army. And that Richelieu * Griffet, Hist, de Louis XIII. ii. 77. From Richelieu's Journal. That Charles had expressed himself to this purpose we cannot well doubt ; it would not otherwise have been entered into the Cardinal's Journal. But I suspect that the latter part, where the Cardinal enumerates such a variety of his own memoi'able acts, was added by himself as an illustration. Had Charles detailed such a sei'ies of events, it would show a more particular attention than was necessary ; in speaking to the Queen he would mcrel}* have alluded to the general results of Richelieu's administration. HISTOEY AND TEIAL OF THE EAEL OF STEAFFOED. 121 was well acquainted with English affairs is evident from the remarkable circumstance mentioned in our previous volume, of the minute and secret correspondence the French minister held with some courtiers at Whitehall. Had the political personages of the Court of England not been well known to Richelieu, he would not have thrown out that striking observation, when, hearing of the fate of Strafford, he remarked that " the Eng- lish had been foolish enough to take off the ablest head among them/'* Charles the Eirst, driven by his necessities and the perpetual opposition of his Parliaments, could hardly avoid admiring the energies, which for some time he seems to me to have fatally imitated. English lawyers, in their vague and florid style, had declared that no monarch was so absolute as an English sove- reign, and " the right divine " of kings was not only upheld by kings themselves, but by the divines of Christian Europe. I have often thought that by the vain struggle and confusion of the principles of the absolute monarchy of France under Richelieu, with those of the constitutional forms of England, Charles the First fell a victim to strong measures in a weak Government. CHAPTER XI. HISTORY AND TRIAL OF THE EARL OF STRAFFORD. Sir Thomas Wentworth, as we have already noticed, was an independent country-gentleman, who opened his political career by a patriotic opposition to the measures of Buckingham ; he spoke seldom, but always with effect, and the ability which awed the minister taught him also the strength of its support. Severe scrutinisers into Wentworth's conduct have considered that there was a political coquetry in his patriotism, which rather sought to be won than cared to be obdurate. Wentworth, however, endured with magnanimity the petty persecutions of the day. He suffered confinement as a loan- recusant, but when, having enlisted in the ranks of Opposition, * Trial of Strafford, pp. 30, 592. 122 HISTORY AND TRIAL OP lie suddenly hesitated in the march, when his opinions wavered, and he began to discuss rather than to act with those whose confidence he possessed, whose designs he comprehended, and whose artifices of faction were not unknown to him, in a word, when Wentworth gave signs of what in the modern political cant is called ratting, he incurred the hatred of the impetuous and the sorrows of the gentle. Noy had deserted the popular cause, but he had crept out like a groveling lawyer, calculating on the most advantageous client ; but Strafford (for the Earl is best known in history by his title), great and independent, what- ever might be his motive, was about to devote the most elevated efforts of his nature, and ascend into the highest sphere of action ; his wisdom was to govern the royal councils, and his heroism to maintain the public safety. Pym, in parting from Strafford, did not shed the generous tear which Eox is reported to have let fall for Burke. The enraged leader of Opposition vowed perpetual enmity, and, as if he had already contemplated, in the long perspective of his political vision, that axe which was so often to be raised, declared that " he would never quit him while Strafford kept a head on his shoulders." And when the fatal hour arrived, Pym, the Patriot, indulged his personal rancour, and flew with indecent haste to denounce Strafford as " the apostate who was the greatest enemy to the liberties of his country that any age had produced." Charles at first urged his new minister to take his seat in the House. The presence of Strafford in Parliament inspired the King with confidence, but the Earl himself foresaw that it would irritate the Parliamentary party, and their secret allies the Scots; out of their sight he would less occupy their thoughts, and should they persecute the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, at that safe dis- tance he would be found at the head of his army. The states- man observed, prescient of his fate, " If any difference should happen between your Majesty and the ParHament, it would disturb your Majesty's affairs, and in that case I should prefer suffering myself than them." But Charles professed that " as King of England he was able to protect his minister ; whatever danger might happen, not a hair of his head should be touched." At that moment, Chai'les the Eirst unquestionably deemed THE EARL OF STRAFFOJRD. 123 himself possessing more independent power tlian by the sequel appeared. It is no rare case in political history, that when men are reduced to great weakness, they exist on the remembrance of the power they once possessed. The magnanimous Strafford resigned the army, who were devoted to him, to attend in Parliament. Warned, indeed, by his friends at Whitehall, of some impending design, he came not unprepared with evidence to impeach some of " the Scotising- English^^ in both houses of Parliament, whose intrigues with the Covenanters had already brought an invading army into England. Strafford particularly intended to impeach Lord Say. But the party more vigilant than he, who yet had never failed in vigilance, hurried to strike the first blow.* This act, at least, would exhaust the talents, the temper, and the industry of their dreaded adversary. Buckingham had crushed his enemy, Bristol, by the great advantage of reducing his accuser first to defend himself. Whenever a political storm happens, an observer often recol- lects the prognostics of the horizon. Some days before the meeting of Parliament, " Mr. Hyde " (as Clarendon then de- signates himself) noticed " a marvellous elated countenance in many of the members.^^ The conversation of Pym startled the young politician. Now Pym avowed that "they must be of another temper — they must not only sweep the House clean below, but must pull down all the cobwebs which hung in the top and corners — and, to remove all grievances, they must pull up the causes of them by the roots." A radical reform hardly seems the coinage of our own days. On the first day of the opening of Parliament, Pym, preluding with an awful solemnity, declared that he had a business of great weight to impart, and desired that the lobby should be cleared. * There is no doubt that it depended but on the turn of a moment that the pohtical game would have been reversed. I shall quote, as a proof, the most partial and uncandid of all our historical writers, Oldmixon, whose style debases even his perpetual misrepresentations. He makes the avowal. " Strafford had prepared matters for an impeachment against those Lords and gentlemen who had encouraged the Scots to march into England, but Mr. Pym was beforehand with him, and not many hours after he arrived in town, carried up to the House of Lords an accusation of high treason against Strafford," 157. This is a material fact, to which we shall again have occasion to allude. It is authenticated by Rush worth in his Introduction to Strafford's Trial, 2. 124 HISTORY AND TRIAL OF This unusual proceeding in tlie Commons reached the Lords, who dispatched a message to desire a meeting in the painted chamber to consult on the Scotch treaty. The messengers appear to have been sent on an errand of discovery respecting the impending debate. The House returned an answer by the same messengers, that they were in agitation of very weighty and important affairs, and they doubted whether they could give a meeting to the Lords as early as was desired. The debate proceeded with closed doors. The key of the House was ordered to be laid on the table. Pym, whose educa- tion had been chiefly in the office of the Exchequer, accustomed to business, with nervous compressed sense, and acute argu- ment, displayed an austere eloquence in his invective, different from the elevated appeals to their imagination with which the Ciceronian Eliot had formerly thundered in the Senate against the favourite Buckingham. Our orator had discovered the cause of the calamities which had fallen upon the nation in " the reign of a pious and virtuous King who loved his people." He opened the fountain whence flowed these waters of bitter- ness— the very person who had perverted the King's excellent judgment — he named ! But surely the declared enemy of Strafford sunk from the dignity of the patriot into the malice of the libeller when a British Senate listened to the volatile rumours of a scandalous chronicle, and personal malignity touched on the lighter vanities of a great man, and even on his secret amours ! The party orator aggrandised his victim into colossal power to alarm the true patriot — while he shrunk him into a diminutive object of familiar contempt to gratify the meaner spirits. But the plot was concerted — the parts were prepared — the actors followed each other. A knight who had posted from Ireland, delivered a confused tale of the tyrannical measures of the Lord-Lieutenant; another from Yorkshire alleged an arbitrary expression which had fallen from the Earl, that " they should find the little finger of the King's preroga- tive heavier than the loins of the law." At this, the flame burst around — passion, prejudice, and patriotism spoke but with one voice, and raised but one hand ! An instant impeachment was moved and carried. Even " Mr. Hyde " did not oppose it, and when the immaculate Lord Falkland, who felt no personal THE EAEL OF STRAFFORD. 125 kindness for the Earl, and who agreed on the propriety of the measure, conceived, however, that they should pause till they had digested the articles against the accused, his lordship was silenced by an argument of Pym, that were the moment lost, a dissolution would follow. To those who were doubtful whether the charges could amount to high treason, Pym replied that the House of Commons were not judges, but simply accusers. It proved, however, in the result that they were to be both. But the principle itself, that they were not judges but merely accusers, seems to expose any individual to sequestration on the charge of any party who are bold enough to lay the imputation.. Was not the impeachment of Hastings a persecution of many years ? Pym, that ^' ancient gentleman of great experience in parlia- mentary affairs and no less fidelity to his country," as " the Secretary of the Parliament " describes him ; Pym, the declared enemy of Strafford, accompanied by his friends, hurried to the ' Lords, and abruptly " in the name of all the Commons of Eng- land accused Thomas Earl of Strafford, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, of high treason." The Lords, it appears, were startled by this unexpected intelligence, unexpected at least by most of them. The indecent haste which Pym betrayed on this occa- sion is said to have been occasioned by some knowledge that Strafford would have anticipated him in an impeachment, and we shall find hereafter that the subsequent attempted arrest of the five members of the Commons, which proved so fatal to Charles, was probably connected with the presumed con- spiracy of which Strafford imagined that he possessed sufficient evidence. The impeachment having been communicated to the Earl, who was at that moment with the King, he hastened to the House : finding the doors closed, he struck it impetuously, and inattentive to the remonstrance of Maxwell, the Usher of the Black Rod, Strafford passed on to his seat. At his entrance his eye glanced around with the accustomed haughty contraction of his brow — but his fate was before him ! A clamour rose " which suited not the gravity of that supreme Court." The Earl was already a fallen minister ! Called on to withdraw, Strafford in confusion retreated to the door, and there awaited their 120 IIISTOEY .OD TRIAL OF summons to learn their decision. Wlien recalled, lie stood before them, but was commanded to the bar of the House to kneel as an accused man. The Earl protested against a general charge without the specification of a single act of treason. He was silenced, till he should clear himself of the charges laid on him, and was consigned to the custody of the Usher of the Black Rod. The impeachment originally consisted of nine articles, but their eager diligence set to work in every obscure corner, and their encouraging invitation of grievances made to every mal- content, had accumulated twenty-eight charges, involving the conduct of the accused minister during the long interval of fourteen years.* The trial of the Earl of Strafford presented a more imposing spectacle than had ever been exhibited to the nation. Never had a greater actor appeared on the stage of public justice. " The pompous circumstances and stately manner of the trial," as May describes them, were not here the only awful splendour; it was not merely the outward solemnity of judicial forms which affected the public imagination ; the passions of every class of citizens, from the sovereign himself to the humblest of the people, were alike agitated in the cause of this great minister. The trial of the Earl of Strafford seemed no longer the trial of an individual — it was the trial of the sovereign's affections, and the sovereign's influence — it was the trial of the kindled spirits of three rival nations — it was the trial of a great man, whose • After the charges had been delivered to the House of Lords, Strafford was con- scious that they contained no act of treason. This appears by a letter which the Earl addressed to his lady on that occasion. This letter having fallen into the hands of a print-seller, he engraved a facsimile, and sold the original to some col- lector, and no doubt it still exists. I shall preserve it here, both as an historical document, and as a remarkable evidence of the sagacity and the feelings of the eminent personage : — " SwEKT IIarte, " It 18 long since I writt unto you, for I am here in such a trouble, as gives me little or no respett (respite). The charge is now cum in, and I am now able, I prayse God, to tell you, that I conceave ther is nothing capital!, and for the rest I knowc at the worste his Ma*?" will pardon all, without hurting my fortune, and then we shall be happy by God's grace. Therefore comfort your self, for I trust thes cloudes will away, and that wee shall have faire weather afterwardes. Farewell. " Your lovinge husband, « Tldmixon, not at all aware that they are not the property of the laborious compiler, "attacks them with ferocious criticism. " Mr. Echard's similes are extremely natural : nothing in the world is so like a triumph as to have one's head cut off." The Arch- deacon had stolen another on Laud's fainting in taking leave of Straflford, " as if his soul would have forced its way to have joined the Earl's in its passage to eternity." Oldmixon exclaims, " He plays with eternity as flies do with the flame." t Nalson, ii. 195. I 182 THE DEATH OF STEAFFORD. unnatural; but if we reflect what of late he had undergone, and what, had he lived, he could not escape from, Death offered a relief to such a man which life could no longer afford. There are some remarkable passages in his speech. Strafford doubtless had meditated in his imprisonment on the fate of other illustrious men — and some, too, Ministers of State, who like him had been cast forth as a sacrifice to the people, and not always more criminal than himself. To these he seems to have alluded. " Although it be my ill-hap to be misconstrued, I am not the first man that hath suffered in this kind ; it is a common portion that befalls men in this life. Righteous judg- ments shall be hereafter. Here we are subject to error, and misjudging one another. I was so far from being against Par- liaments, that I did always think Parliaments in England to be the happy constitution of the kingdom, and the best means to make the King and his people happy.'' Strafford, kneeling down, made a solemn protestation — " I am now in the very door, going out, and my next step must be from time to eternity, either of peace or pain — I solemnly call God to witness I am not guilty, so far as I can understand, of the great crime laid to my charge, nor ever had the least inclinatioif to injure the King, the State, the Laws, or the Religion of this kingdom." This solemn acknowledgment, this address to the God whom he feared, at the moment of death, seems intolerable to some ; yet there may be much more truth in the confession than they , choose to allow, or with their prejudices are capable to conceive. Strafford, in the legacy of his words to the people, paid a tribute to the Constitution :* — that " he was ignorant of the nature of * Mr. Brodie informs us that certain draughts of speeches of the Earl are not genuine. Ceiiainly those are not which are full of contrition for his past conduct. Mr. Brodie perceived that they were at variance with that which Ilushworth took from his lips on the scaffold, — *' though charity," continues Mr. Brodie, " would induce all who arc acquainted with his correspondence, &c., to wish that it had been otherwise, or at all events that tliat portion at least of the speech actually delivered on the scaffold, in which he declares himself to have been always a friend to Parliaments were not authentic, for it is deplorable to believe that his last moments were polluted with an untruth." Brodie, Brit. Empire, iii. 124. Who is polluted with an untruth ? Those passages which Mr. Brodie might point out as inimical to Parliaments, the Earl would probably have defended as being only hostile, not to Parliaments, for which he was an advocate, but to EUot, to Pym to Prynne, to Hampden, to Vane and their friends, whom he marked out as a faction. THE DEATH OF STRAFFORD. 183 that Constition," as Mrs. Macaulay asserts^ was no ignorance peculiar to Strafford. With the prescience of a statesman, Strafford professed his apprehension of future evils, recommending to every man to lay his hand on his heart, and seriously consider whether the beginning of the people^s happiness should be written in letters of blood ? "I fear," he added, '^ they are in a wrong way ! " Strafford foresaw the approaching ruin of the Church, and solemnly forbade his son, from a religious motive, ever to pur- chase Church-lands. It was Strafford^s notion that the revenues of the Church would be seized on by the nobility and the gentry. He was not far from the truth in the result ; but he could not yet have imagined that a baser class of adventurers were to become lords over lords, and masters over gentlemen. He passed half an hour at prayers. In rising to approach the block he gave his last reminiscences to his family — naming them endearingly to his brother. He concluded, " Now I have nigh done; one stroke will make my wife husbandless, my dear children fatherless, my poor servants masterless, and sepa- rate me from my dear brother, and all my friends ; but let God be to you and them all in all." He took his solemn leave of the noblemen and others about him, offering his hand. There was a copy of the heads of notes for his speech written by his own hand, and found on the scaffold ; among them were these — " Submit to what is voted justice, but my intentions innocent from subverting, &c. ; acquit the King constrained — strange way to write the beginning of Keformation and settle- ment of a Kingdom in blood." When Archbishop Usher gave an account to the King of the calm majesty of Strafford^s death, adding that he had seen many die, but never so white a soul return to its Maker, Charles, turning aside, could not forbear those emotions of ten- derness, of grief, and of remorse, which his tears could not efface, and which haunted his memory, and embittered his last hour. In the whole compass of English history, no incident offers more critical difficulties in its narrative, than the trial of Straf- ford, and no character seems more tender to touch on than that of this able minister. Even among his own contemporaries the I 184 THE DEATH OP STRAFFORD. opinions of men were strongly opposed, and more particularly on the mortal sentence. The passions of those days being involved in the principles of a free constitution, have been trans- ferred to our own, and Strafford remains still a name which kindles the vindictive spirit of those who view nothing but un- deviating despotism on one side, and nothing but the holiest devotion of patriotism on the other. One of the most acute investigators of legal evidence, in his elaborate review of the present subject, after the keenest scrutiny, to bring Strafford within the letter of the law, has ingenuously confessed that these legal points may be still open to every sort of legal objec- tion. In truth, those writers who have denounced this minister, hardly pretend that he was amenable to any existing law ; it was for this reason that the baffled Commons desisted from the trial of a man, whose presumed and undefinable crime of an intention to subvert the fundamental laws of the realm had yet never en- tered into the code of our jurisprudence. Yet the philosophical historian to whom we have referred, has not hesitated to pro- nounce that "he died justly before God and man;" but Mr. Hallam adds — so strong is his love of truth, and so firm is his attachment to party — " In condemning the bill of attainder we cannot look upon it as a crime." Such was the hard fate of Strafford ! He was tried for a supposititious crime, and stands condemned by a paradox ! This is in the nature of things where party is prevalent and justice is violated. Were it possible to discover a philosopher so ignorant and so innocent of traditional prejudices and vulgar opinions as first to have learnt the tale of Strafford only by his trial, he would hardly hesitate to acquit the illustrious prisoner ; but surely he would be confirmed in his sentiments or his suspicions when he had further meditated on the voluminous discussions of those who advocate the justice of the bill of attainder. He might wonder at that anxiety and that perplexity which they betray by their legal subtleties; he would find himself involved in the most abstruse arguments, as if the crimes of Strafford were rather of a metaphysical nature than overt acts of treason which even some dormant law might be imagined to reach ; he might smile at the preliminary questions they have sometimes been com- pelled to resort to before they venture to deduce their inferences ; J THE DEATH OP STRAFFOED. 185 he might be startled at the monstrous ingenuity of the incom- prehensible charges of constructive or accumulative treason, and at the solution of that enigma which explains that, however there was no established law for Strafford^ s condemnation to death, yet was he justly condemned by the Legislature, though he would have been unjustly condemned by an ordinary Court of Law.* And, finally, after all the tedious sophistry of lawyers, he might be surprised that these writers have usually wound up their vindication of the anomalous proceedings and the violation of public justice, by pleas of necessity, and apologies to palliate, what they had found to be so troublesome to explain f Yet, let us not forget the illustrious names at the bar who opposed the heartless St. John, and the inveterate advocates, Glynn and Maynard — the bar at least was honourably divided. We escape from the intricate and tenebrous labyrinth of the lawyers, emerging from their cloudy arguments to the open day-light of human nature. "We will consider Strafibrd as the minister of Charles the First. We may not flatter ourselves that we can penetrate into the secret recesses of his comprehen- sive mind, but it is the privilege of the passionless historian, with a wider scope of information than contemporaries possess, to form juster views of the man. We have to offer neither invectives nor apologies. The poet May, who still retained some courtly reminiscences, even in his character as the historian and the Secretary of the Parliament, struck by the genius of the great Minister, compared Strafford with the Roman Curio of his own Lucan : — I Haud alium tanta civem tulit indole Roma, Aut cui plus leges deberent recta sequent!. Perdita tunc Urbi nocuerunt secula, postquam * Brodie, iii. 99. f Brodie, iii. 104. Here is a notable instance. After having occupied several pages in controverting the enlightened opinion of a great statesman himself, Charles Fox, on the Commons' " departure in the case of Strafford from the sacred principles of justice," Mr, Brodie closes thus, " There seemed every reason to conclude that the fate of the Empire depended in a great measure upon his ; a view which even brings the matter within Mr. Fox's idea in regard to self-defence." The ingenuity, if not the ingenuousness, is here admirable ; as if not quite confident of all his previous legal distinctions, this historical controversiaUst, in his last distress of argument, offers to rest his cause by accepting the very opinion which he had been all along contending with ! 186 THE DEATH OP STRAFFORD. Ambitus, et luxus, et opum metuenda facultas. Transverse mentem dubiam torrente tulerunt, Momentumque £uit mutatus Curio rerum. In all our pregnant mother's tribes before, A son of nobler hope she never bore ; A soul more bright, more great, she never knew. While to thy country's interest thou wert true. But thy bad fate overruled thy native worth, And in an age abandon'd brought thee forth ; When Vice in triumph through the city pass'd, And dreadful wrath and power laid all things waste. The sweeping stream thy better purpose cross'd, And in tlie headlong torrent wert thou lost. Much to the ruin of the State was done -j When Curio by "Ambition's bribe " was won ; l Curio, the hope of Romie, and her most worthy Son. J RowE. A modern historian, to whom every respect is due for his dis- cernment and impartiality on the general subjects of our history, has pronounced of Strafford that " he was the most active and formidable enemy to the liberties of the people. He laboured — his own letters prove it — to exalt the power of the throne on the ruin of those rights of which he once had been the most strenuous advocate."* Such a popular opinion well merits that closer scrutiny which gratifies the love of truth. Was it then ambition, reckless of its means, which so wholly contaminated this great spirit, as basely to work in enslaving his fellow-countrymen to the tyranny of a despot ? Was an earl- dom weighed against a baronetcy ? Few statesmen, it is suspected, reject the seduction of political ambition, even in the private station occupied by independent Strafford : but it may yet be a question whether Strafford ever considered that his Sovereign was this absolute tyrant ? Even May confesses that " he under- stood the right way, and the liberty of his country as well as any man ; for which in former Parliaments he stood up stiffly, and seemed an excellent patriot." At his trial, Strafford declared that his opinions had suffered no change, whatever they might deem or misconceive of his conduct. Alluding to the Commons, he said, " I am the same man in opinion that I was when I was one of them." And some days after, with deeper emotions, " I * Dr. Lingard, x. 136. M THE DEATH OP STEAFFORD. 187 confess I am charged with treason by the honourable House of Commons, and that it is my greatest grief; for if it were not an arrow sent out of that quiver, it would not be so heavy as it is ; but, as it comes from them, it pierces my heart, though not with guilt, yet with grief, that in my grey hairs I should be misun- derstood by the companions of my youth with whom I have formerly spent so much time/^ Let us take Strafford at a moment less guarded than when he stood at the bar of his peers, an impeached minister — let us seek him in the secret confession of his privacy, and in the day of his glory. Strafford flattered himself that he had triumphed over his great adversary Pym, and that party : — " Now I can say the King is as absolute here (Ireland) as any prince in the whole world can be ; and may be still, if it be not spoiled on that side (the Commons.) For so long as his Majesty shall have here a deputy of faith and understanding, and that he be preserved in credit, and independent upon any but the King himself, let it be laid as a ground, it is the deputy^s fault if the King be denied any reasonable claim." We may assume this as the secret principle of Strafford^s political conduct. He considered that the King was to be invested with " absolute power," but he explains the ambiguous phrase, and he restricts this mighty power by any " reasonable claims." Arbitrary power, therefore, when'unreasonable, would be illegal. Strafford had a peculiar expression to describe the right of the King, amidst his difficulties to raise supplies. It was to be done " candide et caste " — this appears by the evidence Lord Cottington and others on the trial. In a curious paper ddressed to the King on the subject of " war with Austria," he employs the same expression ; he impresses on the King to exer- cise '^ the power only for public and necessary uses ; to spare the people as much and often as it is possible ; this being the only means to preserve, as may be said, the chastity of these levies."* In another place, alluding to the ship-money, he says, '' I am satisfied that monies raised for setting forth a fleet, was chastely bestowed that way." It is evident that by the chastity of levies of money, he meant an entire application to the necessary pur- ^wa * Strafford's Letters, ii. 62. 188 THE DEATH OP STRAFFORD. but arbitrary notions in his head, he had never troubled himself with such nice distinctions. But the obnoxious phrase of " abso- lute power ^' would be construed by a Commonwealth man odiously, passing over the fact that Strafford in his style, how- ever high, seems always to have subdued its worst construction. Had Charles been the Nero, which has been so artfully impressed on us, would Strafford have laboured to render the tyrant, as he did the King, absolute ? Strafford, like most men of that day, could not have enter- tained those correct notions of a popular constitution, which required such a length of time after his own age for their establishment. The principles of our political freedom were in his day fluctuating, depending on precedents, and always in- volved in controversy. He himself has more than once lamented this cruel uncertainty, and earnestly prayed for the time when "the prerogative and the liberty of the subject should be deter- mined.^' So doubtful and obscure were then the conflicting sentiments even in the capacious mind of this great statesman ! Candour requires that we should credit what his intimate friend Sir George Radcliffe assures us ; we have no reason to suppose that he has ascribed suppositious sentiments to his great friend. He asserts that Strafford " disliked the abuse of regal authority, but it appeared to him most hard and difficult to keep the interests of the King and the people from encroaching one upon another," that "Experience had taught him that there was less danger to increase the regal power than that the people should gain advantage over the King ; the one may turn to the prejudice of some particular sufferer, the other draws on the ruin of the whole." This opinion betrays more the dread of a democracy than an assent to the passive obedience of arbitrary power. On the scaffold Strafford himself declared that " he had the ill-hap to be miscontrucd, for that he had ever considered that the Parlia- ment of England were the happiest constitution that any king- dom lived under." Strafford, so late as in 1639, advised Charles to call a Parliament; and Whitelocke observes, that " Strafford had the honour of the people's good opinion for promoting this resolution." In the style of his correspondence with the King, we observe the most complete personal dcvo- i THE DEATH OP STRAFFOED. . 189 tion ; but we must recollect that he had to engage the affections of a distant master, and that confident of his own ability as a minister, which the result of his Irish administration had shown, in the improvement of the revenue, and the quieting of that unhappy kingdom, he was desirous to inspire the King by the confidence he himself possessed. However ambitious of office, with his noble spirit and his statesman-like views, and his independence of fortune, he would not tamely stand by as the obsequious deputy of a capricious tyrant. The phrase " The King of absolute power," however odious in the popular sense, would not be so in constitutional usage ; it may imply only the obedience due to the sovereign ; a King of England, the English lawyers have said, is the most absolute Prince in Europe., for the executive branch of the Constitution is itself absolute power. Abstract propositions in the science of politics mislead, because opposite parties in adopting identical terms affix different associations of ideas. It is the timely, shall we say the fortunate, application of such propositions, either in favour of the liberty of the subject, or the maintenance of the sovereign's power, which alone preserves the variable unity of our Constitution. The sovereign sometimes requires protection from the people, as well as the people from the King. Even Pym in his speech against Strafford observed, "If the prerogative of the King overwhelm the liberty of the people, it will be turned into tyranny; if liberty undermine the prerogative, it will grow into anarchy."* To such an abstract proposition we may believe that Strafford would have willingly subscribed — yet the conduct of the patriot Pym and the minister Strafford was in diametrical opposition — the one in agreeing with the identical proposition would have had "the prerogative of the King" more strongly impressed on his mind as being " undermined ;" the other "the liberty of the subject" as being "overwhelmed." And should we further allow, for the sake of argument, that neither were stimulated by personal hostility, or acted from party motives, the one would have been alarmed at anarchy, while the other would have abhorred tyranny. Each, perhaps, hj false ideas was governing the public mind — and the un- * Rush worth, viii. 662. 190 THE DEATH OF STRAFFORD. happy nation, in that critical period of the Constitution, was doomed to feel the successive evils of that tyranny, and that anarchy, of which their leaders had formed such unsettled notions. Mr. Brodie has said, that "it cannot be disputed that the generous tear which has been shed for Strafford might well have been spared." And as Mr. Brodie provokingly found in the sage and temperate Whitelocke a glowing eulogy on the magnanimous Strafford, he at once hastily suspects that the text has been interpolated. This noble character of Strafford, which Hume has transcribed into his text, however, is genuine.* At this day, when the sentence of Strafford becomes but " a problem in political ethics," and as an iEsopian fable with its instructive moral, truth should be dearer to us than the memories of Strafford and of Pym — or the orgasm of a female dema- gogue in Mrs. Macaulay, the cavils of a Scotch advocate in Mr. Brodie, or even the liberal views of a philosophic historian in Mr. Hallam. It is good to be jealous in the maintenance of freedom, but in the silence of seclusion, not less dear to the good and the wise is the sanctity of truth ! Strafford suffered execution by the decision of the Judges whose judicial opinion may still raise a blush in their successors on the bench: it was a huddled opinion extorted from their personal fears, where particularising no act, they condemned a man on the generality .f A philosophical lawyer of our own. times, who himself would have voted for the death of Strafford, is compelled to offer an apology for this judicial opinion, observing that the two articles — one of which was quartering * Brodie, iii. 94. This writer refers to the first edition of Whitelocke's Memo- rials, (10'22,) edited by the Earl of Anglesey, who took great liberties with the text and made important castrations. The second edition of 1732, published by sub- scription, was printed entire from the original manuscript. This valuable edition appears without a new preface, or the name of an Editor, which, after fi'equent inquiries, I could never learn. The entire passage which raised Mr. Brodie'a suspicions so unjustly, appears ad verlum in the genuine edition. + Sir George Radcliffe has stated the fact concerning the Judges with remark- able simplicity. " The .Judges were asked upon what grounds they had delivered their opinion to the Lords ; to which they would give no answer, but that as tho, case was put to them it was treason." One of the articles voted was for having quartered a Serjeant and four soldiers on a person, for refusing to obey his orders* as Deputy of Ireland, and this was deemed " levying war against the King ! " — Strafford^s Letters, ii. 432. 4 THE DEATH OF STRAFFOED. 191 troops on tlie people of Ireland, wHcli, however, "had been enforced so seldom, that it could not be brought within the act of treason," and another article in which the Peers had voted him guilty, but " not on the whole matter" — may be said, to use the words of this able writer, " at least to approach very nearly to a substantive treason, within the statute of Edward the Third."* So difficult it was to determine the character of the crime — and so unconsciously might it have been com- mitted, at a period when, as Mr. Hallam observes, " the rules of evidence were very imperfectly recognised, or continually Mr. Hallam rejoices at the condemnation of Strafford, but he acknowledges that " He should rather found his conviction of Strafford's systematic hostility to our fundamental laws, on his correspondence since brought to light, as well as his general conduct in administration, than on any overt acts proved on his impeachment." t What now becomes of the justice of the Peers, and the Judges ? since to have rendered justifiable the death-condemnation of this minister, on clear and positive evidence, we are told that it required that his Judges, to save their consciences, ought to have lived one hundred and fifty years later than they did; that is, to the time of the publication of Strafford's private correspondence. In regard to this private correspondence, and some uncon- stitutional language held in Council, no one has yet thought necessary to ascertain what might be the true meaning this minister attached to these ambiguous expressions ; no one yet has placed himself in the situation of the minister to comprehend us motives, or to penetrate into his design. What meant Strafford by recurring to " extraordinary ways " should the Parliament refuse supplies? What when he told the King that " having tried the affections of his people, and being refused, he was absolved from all rule of government ? " Why did he exult that he had conferred on the King in Ireland " absolute power ? " This high style may on its face admit of the most odious con- struction. But it is harmless, if " the extraordinary ways " was no grievance, but the suggestion of some " chaste " system of * Hallam, i. 568. t Ibid, 5Q7. 192 THE DEATH OF STRAFFORD. finance. "An absolved King" is a phrase which seems in separating the executive power from the legislative, to make the monarch independent of the laws ; the phrase was thrown out in the heat and collision of opinions amidst a Privy Council, and with a view of the peculiar circumstances into which the King was then cast. It might mean as much as his enemies could wish, or as little as his advocate might choose. " Abso- lute power " does not necessarily include " arbitrary power ; " absolute power may be only an efiicient power for a defined object, and on this principle every English monarch becomes a most absolute sovereign in his executive capacity; arbitrary power, depending only on the caprice of the individual, is inde- finite and unhmited. Who can ascertain the extent of Straf- ford's devotion to the King ? Would he have crouched as the vile creature of a brutal despot ? Would he, whatever might be his ambition, have sacrificed the nation to the arbitrary rule of a capricious sovereign ? Would he have stood by the side of Charles the First had he believed the King that tyrant, which is still the hollow echo of partisans ? This is the question which should be resolved. The style of the minister, indeed, is often an evidence of his resolution to support the King against that superior force under which Charles the First had of late succumbed. Strafford, confident in his own powers, could fearlessly have grappled with what he fatally deemed a chimerical faction. If we look into some parts of Straff'ord's conduct, we may be convinced that at least he was sensible of the value of the Con- stitution ; he solemnly swore this, as he laid his head on the block. He had felt as a Briton, and had been ranked among our Patriots. But at times to Straff'ord the power of the Com- mons seemed more evident than their authority. We know that Charles the First in his early manhood, after the ungene- rous treatment he had received from his first Parliament, and repeated trials to gain their favour, abhorred, or perhaps dreaded the very name ; and since that long-passed day he had gained nothing by concessions but a sense of his own weakness. But his minister was not hostile to Parliaments ; it was by his per- suasion that they were assembled ; and he iterated his prayers that the King and his Parliament should meet in mutual con- iL THE DEATH OP STEAFFORD. 193 fidence.* This fact of itself would be sufficient to discover the limits the minister seems in his mind to have set to his devo- tion to the King ; this is not denied by his enemies, but they have neutralised its merit ; one, by maliciously assuring us he only meant dependant Parliaments,t another by maintaining that he merely prudentially referred to Parliaments at times, in order to save himseK from the very fate he met with.J Strafford was perhaps a superior minister who anticipated a happier era when the monarch might find in his Parliament a source of strength, and the Parliament in the Sovereign a source of honour. It was at one of those awful and opposite crises which approxi- mate to revolution, that the minister Strafford stood forth, the champion of his sovereign. Strafford had ruled that land of Ire — as Fuller quaintly but expressively calls that unhappy country, long conquered by its neighbour, and ever in war with its own children — with firmness and wisdom. The acts for which he was impeached chiefly relate to his Irish administration ; but we know that that government has always been irregular from obvious causes, and too often compelled to resort to martial law. Mrs. Macaulay replying to those who asserted that the sentence by which Strafford fell was not according to statute law, plau- sibly insisted that " circumstances may arise of so peculiar and urgent a nature as to render it necessary for the legislative power to exceed the strict letter of the law.^' § Abstract posi- tions like these are equally strong on either side ; Strafford might have defended his own troubled administration in Ireland by adopting the very argument which was pointed for his destruc- tion. Strafford himself was so unconscious of criminality, in ^e government of Ireland, that he appealed to it as the evidence I shall transcribe a passage on the Irish Parliament, which will at least convey some notion of Strafford's opinion of all the Parliaments in Charles' reign. " The Parliament is ended here ; the King, I trust, well satisfied in the service done him, and if I be not much mistaken, his subjects infinitely satisfied in particular regards towards them, which indeed is the happy effects of Parliaments. And yet this is the only ripe Parliament that hath been gathered in my time, all the rest have heen a green fruit broken from the bough, which, as you know, are never so kindly or pleasant. Happy it were if we might see the hke in England : every thing in its season — this time it becomes us to pray foi*, and when God sends it, to make the right use of it."— Strafford's Letters, i. 420. t Macaulay, ii. 461. ^^ "t Brodie, iii. 82. § Macaulay, ii. 463. I 194 THE DEATH OP STRAFFORD. of his able administration ; nor was this entirely denied by his adversaries. Never was this minister taken more by surprise than when Pym, having opened his introduction to the trial, a sealed paper was produced which appeared to be sent from the Irish Parliament, purporting that the Commons there had voted the Earl guilty of high-treason. Strafford was startled ; at once he saw through the long scene which was opening on him — exclaiming that " There was a conspiracy against him to take his life ! " * Pym and his Committee remonstrated Avith the Lords that he who stood impeached of treason had dared to accuse the Parliament of a conspiracy against him. The Earl was compelled on his knees to retract his words. Strafford, however, here betrayed no deficient sagacity. It was indeed one of the preliminaries of a conspiracy, by getting up an im- peachment among the Commons at Dublin to prepare the minds, and prejudice the passions of the Parliament at London. The situation of the minister was surrounded by the most thorny difficulties ; he felt them, and he pleaded for them. " Do not, my Lords," cried the oppressed statesman when before the tribunal of the nation — " do not put greater difficulties upon the Ministers of State than that with cheerfulness they may serve the King and the State, for, if you will examine them by every grain, or every little weight, it will be so heavy that the public affairs of the kingdom will be left waste, and no man will meddle with them that hath wisdom and honour and fortune to lose." A strong administration is not a popular one, and it has never been difficult to render the commanding genius of a great minis- ter odious to the people. In the case of Strafford, unparalleled artifices were directed to this single purpose. "The brutish multitude," as Sir Philip Warwick indignantly calls them, at the decapitation of Strafford, exulted that " his head was off ! " They had been persuaded that that was the cure for all their grievances ; but the great statesman of France, when he heard of the event, which in some measure he had himself promoted, sarcastically remarked that " the English nation were so foolish that they would not let the wisest head among them stand on its own shoulders." The people and the minister seem to be placed in an opposite position to each other, whenever the safety of the * Whitelocke's Memorials, 40. THE DEATH OF STEAFFORD. 195 State demands a severe administration ; such a hapless minister is converting into enemies at least one portion of that kingdom •whose stability costs him so many vigils, and whose very pros- perity may gather strength to rise up against him. Some of the greatest ministers, who have guided the fortunes of Europe, would not have proved to be less criminal than Strafford, had they encountered judges and enemies as terrible. As E-ichelieu in France, Pombal in Portugal, and Pitt in England. Nothing is less difficult than to make a minister, who has been long in office, a criminal, if his enemies are his accusers. But in com- paring Strafford with other great ministers, his situation had this peculiarity : the party opposed to the minister had an army in their pay ; the reverse has been more usual. If ever a great minister could have saved a sinking State, the mind of Strafford was competent to that awful labour ; but his lofty spirit was to be mortified by his own personal defects, and to succumb beneath the rising genius of the age, which was developing its mighty limbs in the darkness of intrigue and revolution. His imperturbable courage would have wrestled with the daring aspirations and tumultuous force of popular ambition ; but the crisis of a kingdom had come, and he could not give stability to what was passing away, nor have dispersed what was soon to overwhelm ; nor could he repair the incapacity, the supineness, and the treachery of so many others. Imperious, vindictive, confident in his own energy, and, above all, devoted to the sovereign — yet could his implacable enemies only triumph by counting up the infirmities of fourteen years ! Whatever has been alleged in diminution of the odium which the leaders of the Patriotic party incur for the condemnation of death passed on this minister, it must remain a perpetual exam- ple of the passions of Parliament. If we consult the journals of the House of Commons, we may find how even a noble cause may terminate in an ignoble effect, whenever the end is made to sanctify the means, and the wisdom to disguise the error. At those moments and at such a crisis, justice may be forced down by the ardour of numbers, and truth may vanish amidst the illu- sions of the passions. It was quite evident that the party of Pym had meditated on a Government of terror, and to cement the popular cause by the blood of their governors. Laud was o 2 I 196 THE DEATH OP STRAFFORD. immured, and this greater victim lay in their hands — tliey had triumphed, and the public cause which they had adopted had consecrated that triumph. Had the Parliamentary leaders, with ordinary humanity and higher wisdom, shown themselves to have been honourable in their means, and dignified in their end, they would have been the great moral masters of the nation — and of Europe. They could have degraded the unhappy minis- ter, despoiled him of his power and his honours, reduced him, as Charles offered, " to be not fit to serve even the office of a con- stable,'^ and exiled him from his fatherland ; but they practised the meanest artifices, and closed by that astonishing act of in- justice, when, to condemn the minister, his prosecutors submit- ted to become themselves criminal. He whom they despaired to make guilty, they at once convicted. But it is the result of evil measures which ought to teach us to dread them. Evil measures, when they are suffered to become popular, create " a taste for evil ; " then it is that the wicked rejoice, and the iniquitous are never satiated with triumphs. The undisguised dereliction of legal justice in the case of Straf- ford, was but a prelude to the many which were to follow. An English Marat of that day, as an apology for the present and for future " legal murders," tells us their secret. " There is,'' says this barbarous politician, " a necessitated policy that my Lord of Strafford and some others should be given up, as a just sacrifice to appease the people." * The French Revolution is abundant in facts which confirm " the necessitated policy" of the dema- gogues. The most illustrious of foreigners, on these odious proscrip- tions of individuals, which open such a wide field for intrigues and personal hatreds, has noticed our bill of Attainder., He classes it with those laws of Athens and of Rome, by which an individual w^as condemned by the suffrages of thousands of the people. The various ostracisms which have been practised by some States, seem more akin to it ; but the people, who could not tolerate eminent virtue or eminent genius, only betrayed their own weakness, yet were not the less unjust and cruel — but these ostracisms were bloodless ! Cicero would have such laws abohshed, for this admirable reason, because the force of la\ • A pamphlet of the day, entitled " The Earl of Strafford characterised," 1641. THE AEMY-PLOT. 197 consists in being made for the whole community. When Mon- tesquieu delivered his own opinion, he was awed by the great reputation of the English nation ; he conceived our Constitution perfect, and us as men without passions. The foreigner has done us more honour than in the example of Strafford we have merited. He concludes his chapter thus : " I must own, not- withstanding, that the practice of the free'st nation that ever existed, induces me to think that there are cases in which we must cast a veil over liberty, as formerly they concealed the sta- tues of the gods.^^ The brilliant Montesquieu, as if he were composing his Temple de Guide instead of L^Esprit des Loix, gives the fancies of a poet for the severe truths of a legislator. Beccaria is not of the opinion of Montesquieu. The tragical history of the Earl of Strafford is among those crimes in our history, which are only chastised by the philoso- phical historian. The passions of contemporaries and the pre- judices of posterity are marshalled against the magnanimous minister, immolated to the mysterious purposes of a powerful party, who remorselessly pleaded, to cover their shame, in the style of Caiaphas, " It is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people." Strafford perished for a crime which no law recognised, and which Pym himself, when confounded by the indignant glance of the noble prisoner at the bar, rendered inex- plicable, by calling it " Treason far beyond the power of words ! " Strafford might have left the bar of his peers as a guilty man — as it was, he left it only as a persecuted one. The ferocious iumph could only be satiated by an inglorious homicide ! CHAPTER XIV. ARMY PLOT— HISTORY OF COLONEL GORING— PYM'S MANAGE- KMENT OF THE PLOT— DEFENCE OF LORD CLARENDON AND HUME. 'he Army-plot, as it is called, spread a consternation through the kingdom, and is still more remarkable for its immense consequences, not only as it hastened the catastrophe of Straf- ford's execution, but as, at no distant day, it instigated Parlia- I 198 TIIE ARMY-PLOT. ment, from their jealous fears of the military, to demand the militia ; an usurpation which fell little short of dethroning the King, and which terminated in the civil war. So important an incident has given rise to opposite opinions and statements between the great parties who now divide our English history: the aim of one is to substantiate the reality of the plot, and criminate the King; the other deny it altogether, and insist that it was a mere artifice of faction. The history of this plot is involved in great obscurity, — it changed its face more than once — and a contradictory tale has been shaped by opposite parties, suiting it to their own purpose. To unravel the perplexed skein of these intrigues — to analyse the contending elements of this confused compound — has been the labour of some of our contemporaries, and still remains to exercise our curiosity and our candour. All parties have agreed that the origin of this Army-plot was a rising jealousy of the Scottish army. The arrears of the English army had remained undischarged, and in other respects they had of late suffered a studied neglect.* An English mili- tary force, in truth, was no longer required by Englishmen who had adopted a foreign policy, had invited invaders, and for the benefits already conferred, chorused that cheering burthen to their street-ballads, which the honest Covenanter Baillie exult- ingly gives — " the binding word ever,'^ as he calls it, was, * Gramercy, good Scot ! " The English officers had witnessed convoys of monies pass by their quarters to their northern brethren. Officers unpaid would mutually communicate their dissatisfaction, and there was no difficulty in agreeing that the Parliament, and not the King, neglected them. Many of these officers were members of the House and young men ; Wilmot, then commissary, had boldly * Mrs. Macaulay, the perpetual advocate for the rarhament, pleads for her party : " The English army, without attending to circumstances, or comprehending the difficulties the Commons lay under, showed ajTnptoms of gi'eat disjileasure." (ii. 44G.) It ia lamentable for the cause of truth, that these political advocates, whenever reduced to frame apologies, never for once look to "the difficulties'" which the unfortunate monarch " lay under." But what were *' these difficulties of the Commons?" They had involved themselves in a dark labyrinth of intrigues, and they were compelled to sacrifice even themselves to the idol which their own hands had made. I THE ARMY-PLOT. 199 told the Speaker, when passing a vote of money, on the urgent demands of the Scots, that if the Scots could get money by sending up a piece of paper, he did not see why the English should not use the same easy messenger. Hence seems to have originated, in those petitioning days, the first idea of a military petition. It is evident that the strong partialities of the ruling party in the Commons were wholly bent towards the "dear brethren," whom they would consider as an army far deeper engaged in their interests than their own English, among whom doubtless were many friends of the King. A petition was drawn up by Percy, the brother of the Earl of Northumber- land, subscribed by Wilmot, Ashburnham, O'Neal, and a few others — the professed object was to settle the King's revenue, which would include their own; without infringing on the liberties of the subject, or on the sacredness of the laws. This paper was shown in a secret conference with some of the con- fidential servants of the royal party. The present subscribers were desirous of procuring the King^s approval by some testi- mony which might serve to engage others. More than one draught of the petition was made, ere Charles put his initials C. E., to one, as a mark that he had perused and approved of it. Percy addressed a letter to his brother, which some have thought was concocted to exculpate himself and the King towards the Parliament,* by criminating some of his associates. Percy tells us that on his first interview with the King he dis- covered that others had been treating before him ; and, as he asserts, on principles contrary to those originally proposed, " inclining a way more high and sharp, not having limits either of honour or law." Already the Army-plot was assuming an altered countenance. Colonel Goring, afterwards Lord Goring, who became dis- tinguished during the Civil War by his active intrigues, was now by the King's earnest desire admitted of the party, as also was Jermyn, the favourite of the Queen. Goring proposed the most * The Parliamentarians, not satisfied with Percy's letter, insinuate that he sup- pressed much which he knew, while Echard, a writer on the opposite side, asserts that Percy was induced by Pym to send this letter that his companions might be criminated, and thus furnish " a double evidence " preparatory to " a complete dis- covery." 200 THE ARMY-PLOT. daring designs, which Percy declares were positively rejected by all present, and in his interviews with the King, more than once forbidden by the King himself. Goring was anxious to learn who was to be the Commander-in-chief, while he himself refused any subordinate place. Several noblemen were men- tioned by different persons, but no one proposed the Colonel himself. After a great debate nothing was concluded. The conspirators, if these petitioners can be so called, now discovered that they consisted at least of two opposed parties ; the one restricting themselves to moderate measures, while the other seemed intent on nothing less than maintaining the King's absolute power. According to Percy's narrative, in consequence of the dis- agreement of the parties, the whole project was laid aside — it had vanished ! Goring seems to confirm this account of their inconclusive debates, in his pretended confession to the Par- liament. "Certainly, if they had stayed where I left them, there was no conclusion at all. It appears there were two several intentions digested by others, (he avoids to say by whom) before they were communicated to me ; and I know not whether my hearkening to them was a fault, but I am sure it was no misfortune.''* According to Percy, Goring was the spokes- man of the party who proposed "the violent courses" — the rescue of Strafford, and the march of the army to London. Goring on this point contrived an artful evasion. He told the Parliament, " I endeavoured to show them that as the design would be impious if the most desperate counsels had been followed, so it would be the weakest that ever was undertaken if they were omitted." By this ingenious turn Goring would screen himself by concealing the fact of himself having pro- posed "these desperate counsels." Probably not one of the party could have recollected the Colonel's mention of the warm condemning epithet, " impious." Some time after — the precise interval which would be material to fix on has not, however, been ascertained, — Goring reveals the Army-plot, which no longer existed, and whose object appears never to have been determined, to his friend the Earl of Newport, the Governor of the Tower, who having conducted * Nalson, ii. 275. 1 THE ARMY-PLOT. 201 him to tlie Earl of Bedford and Lord Mandeville, they, to relieve themselves from the weight of this dangerous communi- cation, hastened to inform the other leaders of the Parliamentary party. Percy, Jermyn, and others of the Army-cabal, received private notice that they were betrayed, though it was not known by whom ; for Goring required that his name at present should be concealed. They instantly took flight ; so suddenly, that Jermyn had not time to change his dress, and went off '^ in his black satin suit, and white boots," which circumstance was adduced as evidence by the Parliament that the courtly beau had not intended to leave England on that day which the King^s warrant he carried with him pretended. The flight of nearly all the party tended to confirm the deposition of Goring, and their guilt, and struck an universal panic, which greatly served the purposes of the anti-Straffordians. The moment which Goring chose to divulge this Army-plot was most favourable to the views of that party, who were in great want of some fresh collateral aid to lay the head of Strafford on the block; and Goring was quite certain of thus recommending himself to their high favour. He seems to have watched for the lucky hour. Lord Mandeville, afterwards Lord Kimbolton> and finally Earl of Manchester, who was so perfectly acquainted with the history of his times, and a chief actor in them, is an authority as unquestionable as impartial. His Lordship has in explicit terms declared the motives of Goring's treachery, and the dexterity and artifice with which he chose this particular moment for his discovery. ^' Col. Goring, whose ambition was not answered in being promised the place of Lieutenant- General of the army, and finding others employed whose persons he disliked, he having a full information from Mr. Percy and Mr. Jermyn of all the design, thought it would tend most to his security and advantage to reveal the conspiracy, and being versed in all the methods of falsehood, he chose the time and means which he thought would be most acceptable to the Parliament."* The causes which Lord Mandeville has assigned for the con- duct of Goring, we can confirm from other sources. We have * Nalson, ii. 273, from the MS. Memoirs of the Earl of Manchester. 20S THE ARMY-PLOT. the remark which Jermyn privately made to Goring, on Goring's objecting, as Goring pretends in his deposition, to marching the army to London. "You do not," said Jermyn, " disUke the design ; for you are as ready for any wild mad undertaking as any man I know ; but you dislike the temper of those persons who are engaged in the business."* But we have another authority which Lord Mandeville could not have seen, which confirms the motive assigned for Goring's abandonment of the party which he had evidently joined — it is that of the Queen herself, who informed Madame de Motteville that Goring was enraged at the disappointment of not having been chosen General-in-chief. However strenuously Goring denied before Parliament that he had ever contemplated on the desperate designs so dexterously ascribed by him to others, the Queen's story proves quite the contrary, and confirms the narrative of Percy.f Goring had proposed to rescue Strafford ; but Wilmot had entertained a similar project; each unknown to the other. The ambition, if not the zeal of both these military adventurers was equal. The King and the Queen, to whom these officers had separately, in confidence, communicated their design, dared not give a preference to either, certain by their choice of converting into a dangerous enemy the other, and dreading at that critical moment a discovery of this secret intercourse with the army. The perplexed monarch inclined to give the command to Goring, and to satisfy Wilmot by the equivalent of another splendid appointment. The courtly Jermyn, Master of the Horse to the Queen, the suavity of whose manners was imagined could not fail to reconcile these con- tending interests, and who valued himself on the impossible faculty of pleasing all and displeasing none, was dispatched to persuade either of these officers to relinquish the chief com- mand to the other ; but Jermyn found that his flatteries and ♦ Rushworth, iv. 254. f Percy charges Goring with proposing " the violent courses," while Goring asserts that he knew nothing of the plot till it was communicated to him by Percy. Here is a palpable contradiction by the parties themselves ; but the veracity of Percy may be trusted. Goring swore to Sir Philip Warwick, which oath, observes War- wick, " was no great assurance," that he never revealed the plot till he knew that the chief members of both Houses were before acquainted with it. The Earl of Manchester's and the Queen's account agree with Percy's naii'ative. I THE AEMY-PLOT. 203 I ^Kajoleries were quite inefficient with these sturdy and secret ^HKvals. It may^ perhaps, be deemed a most uncertain thing to assign the motives of a person of the character of Goring. Bold in enterprise, dexterous at any sudden emergency, and scornful of danger, with considerable abilities, he was, however, dissipated in his habits, and utterly profligate in his principles. If this volatile man were impatient at the vacillating and timid conduct of the King and the Queen ; if he did not much like some of his associates, and perhaps suspected the fidelity of others ; if he ^Kirere too proud to play a subordinate part; all this might ^^account for his desertion of that party, but will hardly for his avowed perjury, and his reckless treachery. The truth is, that Goring, versatile in his conduct, was apparently of no party, but dexterously and cunningly profiting by both. His whole life was a series of such acts. He would have been willing to have obliged both parties, would both have been satisfied to have been betrayed. He gave a remarkable instance of this duplicity on the present occasion. Jermyn, on his flight, ran off" to Portsmouth to his friend Goring, who was the Governor, and who at that moment he knew not was his betrayer. Jermyn had a royal warrant to procure a jfrigate ; Goring had just received an order from Parliament to arrest Jermyn. He hurried his friend aboard, and pocketed the order from the Par- liament, pretending afterwards that it had reached him an hour too late. When Governor of Portsmouth, he took large sup- plies of money from the Parliament for fortifying the place, and at the same time from the King to admit the Royalists on some favourable opportunity. He declared that he held the place faithful to the King and Parliament for their use, and not to be delivered up but by both their consents; and finally, having first decided for himself, passed over into France with the money he had received on both sides, without breaking his promise to either. It was his pride to cozen, and then laugh in the best humour at him whom he had cozened. Goring seems always to have relied on the ingenuity of his own duplicity, on the gracefulness of his person, and his con- summate address; these resources he could command at all times ; to be deceived by him was sometimes to love him, for 204. THE ARMY-PLOT. he showed himself to be an excellent actor on the most critical exigencies. Accused, he had always the art of persuading others of his integrity. Lord Digby, ha\dng Hstened to his tale of the Army-plot, where Goring, on his own unavoidable con- fession, was guilty of a wilful perjury in consorting with persons under the most solemn oath of secrecy, with a reserved intention to betray them, his Lordship indignantly exclaimed, that " He was a perjured man ! " Goring, pathetically appealing to the Commons for having broken all former ties of amity for his present duty as a subject, cunningly professed that the military were to submit themselves to Parliament in passive obedience, which he did not weakly express thus, " It belongs to an army to maintain, not to contrive the acts of State." The Commons, gratified by this profession of unlimited obedience, not only voted that Colonel Goring had done nothing contrary to justice or honour, but also voted the expulsion of Lord Digby from the House as unworthy to continue any longer a member ! Dissimulation was the habit of the man who could be at once a favourite with the Parliament, and at all times could ingra- tiate himself with the King. Clarendon has given one of his finest touches to the portrait : " He would appear with a bash- fulness so like innocence, when in truth it was a formed impudence to deceive; and with a disorder so like reverence, when he had the highest contempt of them." Goring was a man whom no oath of secrecy could bind, and whose oath on any occasion, even by his friends, was not deemed as any proof of evidence.* Of such a man it is as vain to conjecture the motives, as it is difficult to comprehend the views, when we examine his mutable actions. When he first met the Army- confederacy, proposed the most desperate schemes and aspired to the command, his ardent ambition might vouch for his sin- cerity; but when he disliked to act with some of his new associates, he cared not how soon he broke with them, and courting the Parliament by a very timely service, in divulging a plot which seems to have no longer existed, he secured his own safety, and his own good fortune, — reckless of a soldier^s honour, with a dispensation granted by the House of Commons from all moral obligation. * Sir Philip Warwick's Memoirs. THE AEMY-rLOT. 205 In this little comedy of a confused plot, there was an under one. Mrs. Macaulay tells us that " The Queen, who without the requisite talents had more than a female propensity to intrigue, entered with greater violence than judgment into the extreme of the King's proposition of bringing the army up to London, to surprise the Tower and overawe the Parliament.^' In this great conspiracy Henrietta's confidential agents were Davenant and Suckling, and she adds " a Mr. Jermyn.'' Why " a Mr. ? " Our historian must have been as familiar with that name as any other in Clarendon's History; she here betrays that feminine disposition which she has herself so singularly confessed. Our lady democrat, indulging not only her sexual but her political " propensity," delighted thus to spurn at the silken favourite of the Queen ; the future Earl of St. Alban's, and afterward the secret consort of Henrietta. In love affairs can a female historian grow malicious in imagination, and tinge with the gall of jealousy or envy, the page of obsolete amours ? The agents assigned to the Queen were certainly the sort of counsellors quite suitable to Henrietta's profound politics of which she has been so gravely accused. It may be easily imagined that the plots of these gentlemen were romantic, well adapted for one of the Queen's pastorals; they were more expert in such denouements than they ever showed themselves in political ones. ^fc.Pym wound up the public to the highest pitch of dismay and ^^tiriosity, by rumours, and afterwards by gradual disclosures, for partial revelations produced more effect than would the whole, had it been at once revealed. He first broke the alarm- ing, though yet obscure intelligence, to the House, of " despe- rate designs both at home and abroad." They were in a mood to imagine more than was told. They sate from seven in the . morning to eight at night. Indignant as much as terrified, the Commons resolved instantly on " a Protestation," not only to be signed by all the members, but shortly after ordered by themselves, for the Lords first threw out the Bill, though they afterwards subscribed it — " that the Protestation should be subscribed by the whole nation ! " * * Two Lords refused their signatures, alleging that they knew of no law that en- joined it, and that the consequence of such voluntary engagements might px'oduce effects that were not intended. ■ 206 THE ARMY-PLOT. This was in fact the Scottish Covenant — so closely they copied in all their proceedings that model, which so long admired, was now delightful to imitate. It had rested in their thoughts, and, as we shall find, it now crept into their Parliamentary style. A short time previous, that honest Covenanter Baillie had hinted to the Presbytery of Irvine, that " the lower House is more united than ever ; and they say not far from a Covenant J' He was no fallible prophet, for he was in all their secrets, and a short time after writing on this fierce debate he exclaims, " Blessed be the name of the Lord ! They all swore and sub- scribed the Writ. I hope in substance our Scottish Covenant.^' And the politic Covenanter remarks, " We see now that it hath been in a happy time that so much time hath been lost about Strafford's liead.^' This humane man maddened by his Presby- terial notions, loses even in his language any decent sympathy, and notices "the head of Strafford" as the slayer would his stalled ox. But the zealot was right enough in his notion of the Scottish Covenant of the English Parliament ! Sir John Wray in his anti-papistical, anti-episcopal, and choicely puri- tanic speech, this day took care to remind them of that Israelitish term, and he seems to have had the merit of intro- ducing that biblical oratory which so long after illumined this new style of the British Senate. " Let us endeavour to become holy pilgrims (not papists) and endeavour to be loyal COVENANTERS with God and the King; first binding ourselves by a Parliamentary or national oath (not Straftbrdian nor a Prelatical one) to preserve our religion entire and pure without the least compound of superstition and idolatry, Mr. Speaker ! making Jerusalem our chiefest joy, we shall be a blessed nation. But if we shall let go our Christian hold and lose our Parlia- ment-proof, and old English well-tempered mettle, let us take heed that our buckler break not, our Parliament melt not, and our golden candlestick be not removed." Matters must have advanced very far when such a speech in the English Parlia- ment was not only listened to, but seemed worthy of being recorded.* * In the true spirit of party-writing, the wretched Oldmixon calls this " a true English speech — how piquant and pleasing is the blunt honesty of this Lincolnshire knight !" and contrasts it with " the long sentences, the sophistry, and affectation in tlie Lord Clarendon's floind discourses." All that we can add of this "honest Lin- THE ARMY-PLOT. 207 Hume has said of this famous " Protestation/^ that " in itself it was very inoiBFensive, even insignificant, containing nothing but general declarations." The passionless historian, in the calm of his study, saw little more in this extraordinary act of the Commons but an incident to be recorded. The Covenanter of that day, however, grimly rejoiced ; and Father Philips, the Queen^s confessor, with tremulous nerves, wrote, "The Pro- testation is much like, but much worse, than the Scottish Covenant." If we now look at this State-document, we may consider it as conveying to us a singular mixture of the two distinct parties in the House, who were then acting for different ends, though acting in unity — the Puritanic and the political. Hence we find the party who had chiefly in view " the true reformed religion," inveighing against " Papistry," while the Politicians — they had hardly yet earned the distinction of Eepublicans — whose theme was " tyrannical Government," did not fail to lay great stress on " Illegal taxes." This famous Protestation was drawn up in heat and haste, and by an expression which none complained of at the moment, offended their friends out of the House, and flurried the Covenanters. The Commons had de- clared in their Protestation that they were "to protect and defend the true reformed Protestant religion expressed in the doctrine of the Church of England." This phrase, doubtless, had long been Parliamentary, and they had been so accustomed to it, that it naturally occurred in their eagerness to draw up their national " Covenant." But the doctrine of the Church of England included Episcopal government, which they were fast overturning, and rites and ceremonies which they had formally denounced as Eomish. Many pretended they could not sub- scribe to maintain an establishment they had resolved to destroy, and doctrines which they were perpetually disavowing. The Commons were reduced to the humiliating necessity of sending after their Protestation, an explanation of their meaning, which was that, by the doctrines of the Church of England, they meant nothing more than whatever it held con- trary to Popery, and Popish innovations, without extending to colnshire knight " is, that his sagacity lay as much in his nose as in his brains, when he smelt gunpowder in the House, and spread a panic by land and water, as we have already noticed. See p. 156. 208 THE ARMY-PLOT. its government and ceremonies. In a word they meant nothing more by the Church of England but what the Kirk of Scotland, in its spiritual illumination, allowed to all Christians — viz., all they enjoined and nothing they disliked. This is a striking instance of the passions of Parliament ! When Charles the First found himself compelled to publish an explanation of the famous " Petition of Right," to prevent the country from mis- conceiving its purport and his assent, the King heard only the scream of insurgency, but in the present case, where the Com- mons were fixed in the same dilemma, their time-serving and factious Explanation was embraced by their Covenanting friends with Hallelujahs ! Clarendon^s account of the Army-plot, Mr. Brodie, with more than the severity of a partisan, has* charged as "exceedingly disingenuous, and even inconsistent," and convicts Clarendon of having, on this particular occasion as well as on another, in both of which he (Clarendon) is mistaken,* fabricated a spurious document. With a freedom whicli exceeds even that of his- torical inquiry, Mr. Brodie, in more than one place, repeats his condemnation of the noble writer as " a dexterous forger of speeches and letters," from an ingenuous story told of himself in his own life of his adroitness in adopting the peculiarities of the style of others. Clarendon once displayed this faculty in two political jeux d' esprit, in the shape of the speeches of the eccentric Earl of Pembroke, for an accommodation with the King ; and the Puritan Lord Brooke, for utterly rooting out all courtiers. The contrast was amusing, and the speeches were inserted in some of the Diurnals. The sullen gravity of our contemporary heavily criminates these pleasantries of the day. Charles the First, who had flattered himself that he could never fail in discovering Clarendon by his impressive style, and who backed his critical discernment by wagering an angel with Lord Falkland, had only the merit of being deceived and charmed by the adroitness of the mimetic genius of the immortal writer.f * See Brodie, iii. 306, where in a note alluding to " the Porters' Petition," which Clarendon has given, and which Mr. Brodie, ashamed even of his ridiculous " Radi- cals," has " no hesitation in pronouncing a forgery by that author." Mr. Hallam has chastised this precipitate and passionate historian, by referi'ing to the Journals where this very petition is fully noticed. + Political fictions are dangerous ; for we historians, who are always grave, are not always sagacious. Such extemporary pleasantries, and sometimes lampoons, J I THE ARMY-PLOT. 209 But Lord Clarendon must be judged by our candour, as well as by the passions of party. We must adjust our views to that point of sight whence he contemplated the scene. Clarendon, as far as the King stood implicated in marching the army to London, which he says " was the chief matter alleged,^' calls the plot " an imposture,^' and he was even warranted to infer by the letter of Percy to his brother, the Earl of Northum- berland, that " it is evident there was no plot at all ! " But to turn the Army-plot into a ruse of the party, and to show the little danger which they had attached to it. Clarendon charges Pym and others with agitating the public mind and raising terrifying tumults, while they never divulged the plot till three months after the presumed discovery. Here the noble writer supposes that the discovery was made nearly as early as the plot was concerted ; the confederacy occurring in March, while the plot was only publicly denounced in May. Mr. Brodie detects, as he concludes, the inaccuracy of Clarendon. But he should have acknowledged that the incident was obscure ; its correctness depended on the precise date of Goring's first communication to the party. This has not been satisfactorily ascertained. If the Queen^s account be correct. Clarendon may not have widely erred, for the Queen said, that on the very night of the interview with Jermyn, when Goring found that he was disappointed of the chief command, stung with anger, he hurried to discover the whole design. Mr. Brodie acknow- ledges that the plot was imperfectly known to Pym about twelve days before the public disclosure. It was let out by parcels — which answered the purpose better than had the whole been known at once. Mr. Brodie concedes something still more, when he does not deny that during this very period, while the nature of the plot remained vague and unknown, it was, however, carefully noised about the city, and had stirred up the as these of Clarendon, were practised by others — it was a fashion with the wits, who were chiefly Loyalists. Butler forged, as Mr. Brodie, a sound advocate, could prove. Sir John Birkenhead was a clever fellow at these spurious speeches and letters. President Bradshaw, on his death-bed, was made to recant what he never recanted : Henderson, the polemic, was thro^vn into the same state. This was practised as well on the other side. Two speeches are printed of Strafford's, full of contrition for his past conduct, which he never could have spoken ; we have the authentic speech taken by Rushworth himself when on the scaffold. VOL. II. P 1 210 THE ARMY-PLOT. tumults. The party, therefore, in conformity with their new system of policy, had been providently spreading the infection of a panic, though they were yet ignorant whether the causes of their terror were at all adequate to the immense consequences they were producing. Clarendon has given "the Petition of the Officers/' whicli has not elsewhere been preserved ; and it has excited surprise how the noble writer obtained the copy of a petition, which is acknowledged to have been destroyed. This "petition," Mr. Brodie shows, " carries on its face the most unequivocal marks of fabrication" — ^indeed it alludes to events which did not happen till after the time assigned to it. This strange discordance Rapin had already detected, and justly inferred that the petition inserted in Clarendon's history could not be the real one, which Mr, Brodie amply confirms. Yet must not the more recent historian be indulged in tlie gratuitous triumph of his self-complacency, when he exclaims, that " he has set Lord Clarendon's veracity at rest." Claren- don, after all, was not a forger as Mr. Brodie from too warm prepossessions hastily imagines. The fact is, that the petition is what it professes to be, but it has been erroneously assigned to a period to which it does not belong. To such a mistake the collectors of historical documents, undated, are liable. Had his Lordship attentively examined it at the moment of its insertion into his history, he too might have discovered the error ; but such papers were probably collected at distant periods, and further, it appears that an Amanuensis usually transcribed these state-papers into the manuscript of the noble writer. This petition of the officers was drawn up several months after the time assigned to it in Clarendon's history, by Captain O'Neale, and other of the army royalists.* This is a curious instance where an historian has been condemned during half a century for an imposture on apparently the most obvious evidence, till the sagacity of the later historian has detected the accidental inadvertence, and vindicated the honour of the elder. * We owe this detection to the acuteness of Mr. Hallam, who by the very docu- ments which Mr. Brodie has printed, was enabled to discover the fact winch Mr. Brodie had overlooked, at the very moment he was so bitterly criminating Clarendon i for having fallen into a similar mischance. I THE ARMY-PLOT. 211 Mr. Brodie's observation on Hume is a specimen of unpMlo- sopliical taste. He scolds that illustrious philosopher for ridiculing the idea of marching the army to London; but "ridicule," adds the graver Scotsman, " which is a species of argument that he always uses, will never rebut the most decisive proofs that the thing was contemplated ; and Hume overlooks the circumstance of military assistance being expected from France — assistance from Catholics, &c., while the metropolis would be in the power of the army." * The argument of Hume, however, is perfectly serious and to me conclusive. " The King rejected the idea as foolish, because the Scots who were in arms, and lying in their neighbourhood, must be at London as soon as the English army. This reason is so solid and convincing that it leaves no room to doubt of the veracity of Percy^s evidence, and consequently acquits the King of this terrible plot of bringing up the army, which made such u noise at the time, and was a pretence for so many violences." '' This terrible plot " seemed to Mr. Brodie the most exquisite ridicule ! f What "military assistance was to be expected from France?" Pym indeed declared " that the French were drawing down their army in all ' haste to the sea side. ^ " This must have been one of his chimeras to alarm the mob. We discover no such 1^ mi * Brodie, iii. 115. The judicious Malcolm Laing indulges an odd fancy which Mr. Brodie has no Tfficulty in adopting. He says that " a part of the army would have sufficed to march against the Parliament, while the main body I'emaiued to oppose the Scots." This might have happened had the Scots been less shrewd than they showed them- selves to be at all times during this reign. But supposing that the English army had marched to London from York and taken the whole Parliament prisoners, and this is supposing an impossibility, they would still have to fight with an enemy of undiminished strength and flushed even by a triumphant invasion. But a circum- stance more important has been overlooked by these writers. The communications between the Scots and their paymasters, the Parliament, were so closely kept up, and each so entirely depended on the other, that had any part of the EngUsh army moved towards the Metropolis, it would inevitably have produced a battle, or a pur- suit. When Malcolm Laing refers to the petition in Clarendon, *' where the officers say," to secure the King and Parliament from such future insolencies, &c., they would wait upon him, " that is, to march directly to London : " Mr. Brodie eagerly repeats this confirmation of Malcolm Laing's idea. But neither of these writers was aware that the petition they were referring to had been drawn up at a sub- sequent period, and by another party. Their premises, therefore, being false, their conclusions can be no otherwise. p 2 212 THE ARMY-PLOT. movements in French history. Richelieu still was in the vigour of his administration, and we are acquainted with the vindictive policy which the great Cardinal had successfully adopted to depress the English Monarch ; RicheUeu was at that moment the secret ally of the Scots, and, had circumstances admitted, would not have scrupled being the ally of the English Parlia- ment. Charles had already sternly refused to submit to his aid. The idea of a French invasion, particularly that Portsmouth was to be given up to them, could only have originated in the false rumours which were perpetually renewed by the encourager of political panics, and which are gravely recorded by their histo- rian as secrets of state. The Army-plot seems to be a jumble of incidents and cross- purposes. The first malcontents, consisting of young officers of distinction, had confined their attempts to the prevalent mode of redress, so freely exercised at that moment — a petition to Parliament. Unquestionably when those eminent officers, who were all Royalists, consulted the King on the form of their proposed petition, it renewed the hope of Charles of recovering his regal influence over the miHtary. The King, however, pro- ceeded so cautiously in the style of the petition, that more than one was destroyed before he confidentially ventured to affix his initials. A distinguished military adventurer, Colonel Goring, who seems to have contemplated making his fortune in one day, proposed the daring measure of the march of the army to the Metropolis. "We are told by Percy, that this mad project was instantly rejected by the first petitioners, and twice by the King himself for its folly and impracticability. . It was indeed a scheme suitable to the romantic notions of the Queen and the heated fancies of her pair of poets, and her courtly Master of the Horse, who, however, ridiculed it in private. The parties who formed the confederacy could no longer agree — the whole pro- ject was given up — the petition was destroyed, and the con- federacy was dissolved. Thus the Army-plot, as it is called,! ceased to exist, if indeed it can be said that it ever commenced.! This was, however, a crisis, and the fate of Strafford was in suspense. Charles may have willingly listened to many a schemCj for the abstraction of this victim of state. To what last efl'ortl I THE AEMY-PLOT. 213 would not Charles have submitted in order to hold himself guiltless of the murder of a great minister, and a faithful servant ? The King had bowed down to his personal enemies, as he conceived some of them to be, in the new administration of the Earl of Bedford, — who pledged the life of Strafford for their admission into power. In his despair he probably listened to those adventurous spirits, who were projecting the rescue of the noble prisoner from the Tower. A passage in Strafford's farewell letter to his secretary. Sir Henry Slingsby, bears a dark indication of some uncertain project.* Sir John Suckling had procured a resolute captain, with a hundred picked men, to be admitted into the Tower, but Sir William Balfour, the Governor, was Scottish in heart, and afterwards showed himself a hero in the Parliament's service. Balfour refused the bribe of twenty- two thousand pounds, and the marriage of the daughter of Strafford with his son — the condition of his connivance at the meditated escape. Pym, on the earliest communications of the army-plot, was unquestionably frightened — but not out of his wits — for from the first intimations, however they may have reached him, to the deposition of Goring, and the subsequent ones which gradually came out, this industrious master of intrigues never turned a plot to his own advantage with more dexterity, or ever invented one more successfully for its important results. The conspiracy of Catiline did not shake Bome with a more general panic, than that which now disturbed the metropolis, and rapidly spread through the kingdom. The terror that the King had still the military at command, dismayed the hearts of the Commons, who seem to have felt themselves in the condition of Belshazzar when he beheld the hand-writing on the wall — " the joints of my loins were loosed, and my knees smote one against ,e other." And they manifested their terror by soon dispatching rt * After the bill of Attainder had passed, Strafford in his farewell letter myste- riously writes — " God may yet, if it please him, deliver me — the person you were last withal at Court sent to move that business we resolved upon, which, if rightly handled, might perchance do something ; but you know my opinion in all, and what niy belief is in all these things — I advise you to absent yourself till you see what becomes of me. If I live there will be no danger for you to stay, but otherwise keep out of the way till I be forgotten." — Rushworth, viii. 774. It is quite evident that in his cup of adversity even its dregs were tinctured with some faint hopes. L 214 THE ARMY-PLOT. to the English army "four cart-loads of money, and more was ordered suddenly to follow/^* So that the first petitioners who had concerted a petition, which was never presented, and who now were all in flight, are proved by the subsequent con- duct of the Commons themselves not to have been quite so unreasonable in raising a mutiny — for their defrauded arrears ! As the evidence is in the King's favour, that he was not privy to " the wild mad undertaking," it has been insinuated by those who think it makes for their cause to implicate Charles the First, that the evidence was given by all parties in a manner not to lose the royal favour. It is remarkable that the greater number of those implicated in the Army-plot were Royalists, for they afterwards showed their personal attachment to the King. There had been nothing very strange, had Charles, con- sidering the miserable condition to which he was now reduced, attempted to conciliate the favour of the army — the Commons themselves in their fright lost no time in doing it. Such is the history of a plot which never occurred, but which was contrived by the arts of faction, and the skill of Pym, to produce the same results as if it had. It is the history of a confederacy, or a conspiracy where people were not all of one mind, and where oaths were probably taken with different inten- tions. The evidence is contradictory ; for every one in criminating another, was very cautious to spare himself. An oath of secrecy, said to have been taken, is denied by others on their oath ; and a petition bearing the royal initials, no one could produce. He who pubhcly perjured himself, furnished most of the details; others probably as carefully suppressed what has never reached us. And to make the end as obscure as the beginning, the Commons, having issued proclamations for apprehending tlic conspirators, and having taken them, never proceeded against one of these persons ; every one seemed ready to vindicate him- self and to criminate others. But Pym was astute ; he saw enough and imagined more ; the plot which had been given up by the plotters to such a politic partisan was as serviceable as the plot which was going on. Clarendon might conscientiously affirm that "it was no plot at all," and believe too little of what had passed away ; * Rushworth, iv. 292. i THE MAEQUIS OF HAMILTON. 215 Brodie and Macaulay may maintain witli Pym, fbat it was a most desperate plot, and describe that which yet never existed. Had the army received their pay, we should have had no plot. And had Goring not perjured himself at the moment Pym eagerly grasped at all the benefits he knew how to derive from a Koyalist-plot, in the pending trial of Strafford, this affair would never have entered into our history — nor led to those mighty results which were soon to occur. CHAPTEE XV. THE MARQUIS OF HAMILTON. Mixed characters, when portrayed through all the shades of truth, are not drawn without difficulty ; but the motives of sub- dolous and artificial men, belonging, as it were, to two opposite parties, yet governed by no other principle than their own pre- servation, may be as mutable as the events of their lives. Such persons at times may be as zealous in the cause they adopt, as occasionally they may be equally prompt to betray it. To both parties the integrity of these characters becomes alike pro- blematical. Of the Duke of Hamilton and his brother the Earl of Lanerick, Warburton has not hesitated to declare that they were "both knaves," notwithstanding the apologies and the eulogies of Burnet ; while Hume, as if his penetrating acuteness were at fault, could only decide that " the numerous accusations against Hamilton have neither been proved nor refuted." The history of the Marquis of Hamilton affords a striking illus- tration of the true character of Charles the First — of its better and its infirm qualities : of that warmth in his personal attach- ments to which this monarch was so frequently a victim, having adopted for a principle of conduct, " never to suspect nor desert his friends," and of that deficient discernment in human charac- ter which seems to have operated such a disastrous influence over his affairs. What, indeed, is more endearing to a feeling heart than an inherited friendship ? The constitutional temper of Charles was susceptible of this profound impression ; and when the day came I 216 THE MAKQUIS OP HAMILTON. that Charles required a partner of his regal cares, he could only- view in the son of the friend of his father, that devoted being who is not to be found among the casualties of life. The father of the present Marquis had distinguished himself in the service of the late King, by his skilful conduct in the Scottish affairs, which had required great prudence and manage- ment. James the First had conferred on him a title which had never before been borne but by the royal blood — that of the Earl of Cambridge. Hamilton, indeed, was the nearest kinsman to the royal house of Scotland. Both the fathers had encouraged the mutual affections of the sons; and they had grown together in their prime. When Charles was Prince, young Hamilton was his frequent companion in " the hard chases of the stag and in the toilsome pleasures of a racket ;"* and Hamilton was one of the young noblemen who hastened to wait on the Prince in Spain. Charles placed Hamilton on the same equality as Buck- ingham ; the Prince called him by the endearing familiarity of his baptismal name, and " James " was as usual with the Prince, and afterwards the King, as " George.^' On the death of Buck- ingham, the Marquis enjoyed more of the royal favour than was even shared by his other kinsman, the Duke of Lennox, whose devotion to the King was shown, not only during the life, but after the death of Charles. On the decease of his father, who died early, the Marquis of Hamilton withdrew into privacy ; a remarkable step for a young nobleman ; and those who have attempted to inquire into the cause of this secession, have only clouded it over with mystery. Burnet has always ready a favourable motive for the conduct of the Hamiltons. The munificence of the father had so heavily encumbered the family estates, that the son could not maintain the same eminence at Court, and the pensive youth delighted in the retired life he led in the isle of Arran. We may infer that the personal affection of Hamilton for the King was not of that nature which rendered his voluntary exile very painful. Charles, however, never forgot the companion of his youth, but often solicited his hermit-friend to return to * Sir Philip Warwick sarcastically adds, " by which last he often filled his own and emptied his master's purse," 105. So early then did the Marquis's cool con- duct betray his love of self-preservation. THE MARQUIS OF HAMILTON. 217 Court, and accept the favours and the honours which he designed for him ; even Buckingham offered his prodigal friendship. On the unexpected death of the favourite, the high office of Master of the Horse was pressed on him ; Hamilton could no longer refuse ; and from this day the Marquis possessed the boundless confidence of his royal master. A beautiful instance of that generous, if not that wise princi- ple which Charles had adopted in the intercourse of friendship, was shown to Hamilton. The Marquis, in his absence in Sweden, as General of the Scottish troops, which, by the secret orders of Charles, had joined Gustavus Adolphus, Avas accused of treasonable designs ; it was hinted that even the life of the King was not safe in his hands. The Lord Treasurer, Weston, gave weight to the accusation, cautioning the King not to admit Hamilton to his bed-chamber. Charles rejected the calumnious insinuation, and, on the return of the Marquis, privately commu- nicated the infamous charge. The confusion of Hamilton was remarkable — Charles relieved him from the surprise by not suffering him to speak in his own vindication, but, to put an end to the vile calumny, the King commanded the Marquis that very night to sleep in his bed-chamber ! Hamilton often declared that he looked on this noble confidence, and the remembrance of that night, as having obliged him more than all the honours and bounties which he had received.* When the troubles in Scotland broke out, it was a natural choice in Charles the First, among the numerous Scotchmen who formed so strong a party in his Court, to fix on the Marquis of Hamilton for the confidential office of his High Commissioner in Scotland. Not only was the King led to this by the strong affection which he bore the Marquis from his early days, but because, in some respect, Hamilton might be said to have an hereditary claim to be the representative of Majesty. The late Marquis had served as High Commissioner in Scotland, and had prudently contrived a settlement, not however without violent opposition ; this difficult adjustment of affairs had endeared him to the monarch, but it had provoked the sullen Presbyters and democratic Knoxites. When Charles had decided to carry matters further than his father had ventured, I ♦ Burnet's Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton, 13. 218 THE MARQUIS OP HAMILTON. he consulted Hamilton, and when the universal explosion hurst forth as it were at a single moment, over mitred heads, and Episcopacy was ahout to he aboHshed, at that disastrous moment did Charles appeal to the friendship and confide to the fidelity of the Marquis of Hamilton, to be his sole adviser in the afi'airs of Scotland, and to allay, or to chastise the perturbed spirits of his countrymen. It must be confessed that this appeal of his Royal master to the zeal of his friend was as painful as it was critical. The Marquis was conscious that his name was unpopular among his Scottish compatriots ; nor was he more esteemed in England. The liberal bounties of his Sovereign and his friend had raised up to him enemies both in the Court and the country; the Marquis possessed certain monopolies of wine and iron, by which he had pressed harder on the people than any other man durst ; all which profits reverted to Hamilton and to his pen- sioners. This accusation, which had cast some odium on his name, we receive from Clarendon, who could not have known what Burnet informs us, that these monopolies, according to the custom of the times, were only assignments of the revenue derived from certain taxations for repayment of debts which Hamilton had contracted by the King's secret command, when he joined Gustavus Adolphus with six thousand Scots, in the thirty years' war. Hamilton, too, was as little a favourite at Court as with the people. The contrivances by which he eluded intermeddling further in any business tlian suited his ease or his interest, were considered as a perpetual evidence of his dexterity in self-preservation. There was an imperturbable calmness about Hamilton which no zeal could kindle, and whicli gave the appearance that he was never in earnest. The truth is, that the Marquis was a person of great reflection and fore- sight, one of a melancholy turn, who raised objections more easily than he could frame resolutions, and foresaw danger much more clearly than he could predict success. He was ever in that comfortless state of reserve, though not perhaps of indif- ference, to which the crooked politician is doomed who dares not entirely trust himself to any one, knowing that his friend may become his enemy, and his enemy his friend. His eulogist, Burnet, acknowledges that " Had not his mind been -of a great THE MARQUIS OF HAMILTON". 219 and undaunted stayedness and calmness, the shocks he met with had dashed him to pieces." And what was still more fatal to the great affairs in which Hamilton was to be so eminently engaged, was the melancholy cast in his character. This was frequently observable even in his countenance. It induced him to think that he was destined to be unfortunate in all his enter- prises. At times he believed that he was acting under the blasting influence of some inauspicious star, which was thwart- ing all his attempts. This sad feeling appears by his frequent requests and determination to retire from public aff'airs. This singular state might have been the result of the extraordinary exigencies in which this politic Marquis was so often placed. There was a painful and secret conflict in his mind, when some- times pursuing a conduct quite opposite to his principles, he wavered between his allegiance to his Royal friend — his attach- ment to his country and his countrymen — and his regard to self-preservation. Hamilton had therefore to manage with per- petual anxiety the oppositionists he found in both countries ; but his views of the future were of so melancholy a cast, that when he advised Straff*ord and Laud to retire, he also seems to have anticipated both their fall and his own. In the rising troubles of Scotland the unceasing torment in the heart of Hamilton was to decide whether, to employ his own language, " the madness of the people was to be indulged," or " the kingly way was to be enforced ? " He had the melan- choly sagacity to foresee from the first the future scenes which were preparing. It was the sad and solemn second sight of his countrymen, contempliting on the phantoms of his despair amid the clouds and storms. When the King communicated his determination to invest the Marquis with the character of the High Commissioner for Scotland, it was unfeignedly protested against by the Marquis, who declared it to be an employment full of danger, and the success always doubtful. Afterwards when it became necessary to renew a second time the Commission, the same repugnance was even more forcibly testified. He dwelt on the hatred which the chief Covenanters bore him — on the rage and malice of the common people against him, so that his life was in hourly peril, which indeed he valued not for his Majesty^s service, but that I 220 THE MARQUIS OF HAMILTON. his violent death, knowing his Majesty's keen sense of such an act, would hinder the business from ending quietly. "The work, too, is of a nature," he added, "which must certainly make me lose your Royal favour, for it is so odious, that the actor of it must be disliked by your Majesty, for though I should do all things by your Royal command, yet your Royal honour would oblige your Majesty not to seem to care for me. I am now perfectly hated by all your subjects who have withstood your Majesty, I shall hereafter be by all who wish prosperity to your affairs in both kingdoms." After this enigmatical style, the Marquis suggested a very extraordinary mode for his own self-preservation. " Where, or how, I may be called to an account for this undertaking I know not, it is a business of that nature that a pardon ought humbly to be begged before it be meddled in, since it is an act so dero- gatory to kingly authority. " Is it fit for an honest man and a gentleman to be made the instrument of doing that which he hath so often in public and private condemned in so high a degree, and withstood to the certain loss of most of my country, and many of your Majesty's court and kingdom of England ? Nor can I ever hope to live without perpetual accusations of such who will find themselves grieved by that which will be done, for not dissuading your Majesty from this course, or at least for accepting that employ* ment and proving your instrument therein." These were the confused and hesitating emotions, the melan- choly prescience, and the uncertain results, which perplexed the mind and tormented the heart of the Marquis of Hamilton, on his acceptance of the critical office of the High Commissioner for Scotland. It was distressful to his feelings — disastrous to his quiet. But amidst these conflicting sentiments, we discover that extraordinary caution for self-preservation which constitutes the marking feature of his character. Hamilton had much fear, through all the doublings of his winding ways, that he should be forced into many an equivocal position, and while his am- biguous character should raise suspicions in all men, " he could not hope to live without perpetual accusations." The Marquis suggests a mode of self-preservation as extraordinary as the exigence itself — that a pardon as he calls it, or rather a private fl THE MARQUIS OF HAMILTON. 221 ■warrant from the King, should be granted to him before be opens his dark negotiations. This was the Royal Amulet to preserve him from the noxious influence of his own witchcraft. And this singular warrant, extorted from the entire confidence and personal affection of Charles, was actually granted. Burnet, in his Memoirs of the Hamiltons, alludes to it ; he found it among the Hamilton papers, but as he probably did not con- sider it as very honourable to his hero, he dropped it, among other important suppressions which that partial, though enter- taining biographer acknowledged, at an after-day, when from a servile Tory, Burnet turned into a furious Whig. This private warrant has, however, been recovered by the zealous industry of Lord Hardwicke: it is granted to the Marquis ^^to converse with the Covenanters," and runs thus, " for which end you will be necessitated to speak that language which if you were called to an account for by us, you might suffer for it. These are, therefore, to assure you, and if need be hereafter to testify to others, that whatsoever you shall say to them, to discover their intentions, you shall neither be called in question for the same, nor yet it prove any way prejudicial to you ; nay, though you should be accused by any thereupon." We must now notice a very curious anecdote of a private interview of Charles the First with the Marquis of Hamilton, told by Clarendon with all the charm and warmth of his narra- tive genius. It is no gracious task to tell a story after Claren- don, but I will not content myself with a cold reference. His Lordship describes the Marquises conduct on this occasion. " It was as great a piece of art, if it were art, as I believe will be found amongst the modern politicians." " The Marquis came to the King, and with some cloudiness, which was not unnatural, and trouble in his countenance,* desired his Majesty * It is delightful to compare contemporary writers who could have no knowledge of each other's writings, which only posterity can possess — at distant intervals, and when their authors are no more. Confronting these writers together, who never before had met, often furnishes an indisputable confirmation of that truth in history which it has been too much the fashion to depreciate. The cloudiness in the coun- tenance of Hamilton, so expressive of his character, is also noticed by one who well knew him — Sir Philip Warwick, " I wondered much " — when Hamilton was a young man and an early favourite at Court under James — " that all present who usually at a Court put the best characters upon a rising man, generally agreed in I 222 THE MARQUIS OF HAMILTON. to give him leave to travel." The King was surprised and trou- bled. The IMarquis declared he foresaw a storm — and by his own unskilfulness he might be more obnoxious than other men. The King assured him of his protection, and bade him be confident. The Marquis with some quickness replied, " I know your Majesty's goodness would interpose for me to your own preju- dice— and I will rather run any fortune from whence I may again return to serve you." He had communicated with the Archbishop and with the Earl of Strafford, at whom the same fatal arrows were aimed, but he added, " the Earl was too great-hearted to fear, and the Archbishop was too bold to fly." Charles at that critical moment was disturbed by :his own fears — and was silent. The Marquis resumed. " There is one way by which I might secure myself without leaving the king- dom, and by which your Majesty, as these times are like to go, might receive some advantage ; but it is so contrary to my nature, and will be so scandalous to my honour, in the opinion of men, that for my own part I had rather run any fortune." The King impatiently asked what that way was ? The Marquis replied, " that he might endear himself to the other party by promising his service to them, and concurring with them in opinions and designs, — that his supposed interest in his Majesty's favour might induce the principal persons to hope he might have tlic influence they desired. But he knew this would be looked on with so much jealousy by other men, and shortly with that reproach, that he might by degrees be lessened even in his Majesty's own trust ; and therefore it was a province he had no mind to undertake," and concluded by renewing his suit for leave to travel. The King saw nothing in this political expedient, but what might tend to procure him important information. With bound- less confidence in the integrity of the friend, and the companion of his youth, Charles was delighted to retain Hamilton in his active service, and again assured the Marquis that " it should not be in any body's power to infuse the least jealousy of him into his royal breast." this, that the air of his countenance had such a cloud on it, that Nature seems to have impressed ahquid insigne, which I often reflected on when his future actions led him fu'st to be suspected, then to be disclaimed against." p. 103. , * THE MAEQUIS OF HAMILTON. 223 Clarendon, commenting on this secret anecdote, observes tliat Charles was so constant in this resolution, that Hamilton enjoyed the liberty of doing whatever he found necessary for his own purposes; with wonderful craft and low condescensions and seasonable insinuations to several leading men, advancing their distinct and contrary interests ; so that he grew in no less credit with the English Parliament than with the Scotch Commis- sioners, and with great dexterity was preserved from any public reproach which would have ruined any other man, nor for a long time did he incur the jealousy of the King, to whom he con- tinued to give the most important information, which, adds Clarendon, if there had been persons enough who would have concurred in prevention might have proved of great use. This confession of Clarendon, whose prejudices strongly lie against Hamilton, we shall find essential, as we advance in the investi- gation of this extraordinary character. The piece of secret history which we have from Clarendon requires a critical examination. The drift of the conversation, as given by the noble writer, accords with the ideas of Hamilton, as we find in the Hamilton papers published by Burnet ; and that extraordinary scheme of communicating with the Covenanters is authentic. Yet to invest this remarkable conversation with authenticity is not easy. Lord Clarendon prefaces the conver- sation by assuring us that he received it " from a very good hand." Was it from the King himself? We know it was not from the Marquis, for at no time would he plead this justifica- tion, even at the urgent moment of his trial, so tender in this Machiavelian intrigue was he of the credit both of the King and himself. A sceptic might reasonably object to the full details of a conversation between two great personages at which no one was present. He might admire the description even of their j^stures. ^■Clarendon, though indistinctly, has fixed the time of its occurrence. It was '' after the calling of the Council of the Peers at York was resolved upon, and a Httle before the time of their appearance." Now the Peers, after a summons of twenty days' notice, met on the 24th of September, 1640 ; so that the conversation as given by Clarendon must have taken place in July or August of that year. I 224! THE MARQUIS OF HAMILTON". We can ascertain that on the 5th and 8th of July, 1639, Hamilton delivered to the King his two papers of Advices and of Reasons which we have noticed ; * and that Hamilton, having succeeded in obtaining a licence to protect himself in the sub- dolous part he was about to act, this extraordinary private warrant is dated at Berwick nine days after, the 17th July, 1639. The conversation, reported by Clarendon as having occurred in 1640, could never have taken place, since its object had already been long obtained. Hamilton at that period is repre- sented as breaking his scheme for the first time to the King, and as suggesting with a mixture of diffidence and aversion that ample and singular licence which he already possessed. Here then is a conversation which could not have taken place at the time assigned, and yet one that on the whole exhibits a true account of a strange* and secret incident between the parties. The whole tenor of the conversation indeed accords with the sentiments of Hamilton as they appear in the papers of advice he laid before the King, and the important political secret of his double-dealing, as given by Clarendon, is indis- putably ascertained. How are we to resolve this paradoxical case ? Were the papers of Hamilton, among other papers of the King, inspected by, or reported to Clarendon ? It is evident he knew nothing of the warrant, for he would not have passed over in silence this political curiosity. The great historian was right in his conclu- sions of the unlimited confidence of the King, and the exemption of his minister from all responsibility in his ambigu- ous course. The delicacy of Lord Clarendon's situation may have been this : he could not publish these arcana of state, as he would any public document ; but in the dramatic form of a conversa- tion, which could never have occurred at the period assigned, he followed up the train of ideas which we actually discover in Hamilton's papers ; and to impress on the reader the authen- ticity of the secret history, his lordship assures him that he received it " from a good hand.'^ But with all the felicity of his * Burnet's Memoirs of the Hamiltons, p. 1 44 — who furnishes the respective dates of these papers. I THE MARQUIS OF HAMILTON. 225 ingenuity Clarendon could not conceal the impossibility of giving a secret conversation between the King and the Marquis. Whose was '' the good hand '^ which could furnish those fine individualising touches of the two great personages, in secrecy and privacy ? Who heard his lordship's wish to be permitted to travel ? Who marked " the cloudiness on his lordship's countenance ? " Who observed when " the Marquis with some quickness replied " — or when " the King was much disturbed," or when " much delighted with the expedient ? " These are the creative, yet veracious, touches of a great master, who from his familiarity with the temper, the habits, the languages of the personages themselves, could speak their very thoughts, and paint their very gestures — and thus endow the men he well knew, with the immortality of his own genius. And thus I think we may infer that should the conversation of Clarendon prove to be in some respects an invention, it cannot be denied that it revealed to the world an important truth. Hamilton, once possessed of this secret warrant, proceeded to act with extraordinary zeal; and when it happened, as it fre- quently did, that his conduct and his language afforded sufficient reason to alarm the friends of the King, and to set on watchful informers who were thus enabled to convey certain evidence of the prejudice to the King's service done by Hamilton, to the amazement and incomprehensibility of the best friends of Charles, whenever Hamilton was admitted to the King's pre- sence, all the charges against him, however positive, were thrown aside in silence. A private interview — a whisper in the King's ear — the plea of the secret warrant — reinstated the Marquis in the royal confidence, which we shall show, however startling his conduct, he never lost. We should not therefore be surprised at the strong conviction of many, who have denounced Hamil- ton as a traitor, since even his perpetual eulogist Burnet does acknowledge that, " he (Burnet) often stumbled," as he phrases it, '' at some of his speeches, which were hard to be understood," but when he discovered the secret warrant, " it reconciled the truth of these (unfavourable) reports with the innocence of the Marquis."* ^_ * Bui'net's Memoirs of the Harailtons, 148. It"- 226 THE MARQUIS OF HAMILTON. There seems to be no reason to suspect the sincerity of Hamilton on his first entrance into the ofiice of High Com- missioner in the Scottish affairs. He warned the King of the real intentions of the Covenanters. "It is more than probable that these people have somewhat else in their thoughts than religion. But that must serve for a cloak to rebellion, wherein for a time they may prevail ; but to bring them again to a dutiful obedience, I am confident your Majesty will not find it a work of long time, nor of great difficulty, as they have foolishly fancied to themselves." He put the King on his guard, that his agents abroad might prevent any arms being bought up by Scotchmen. He counselled Charles to hasten with his fleet and his army, or he must yield to all the demands of the Covenanters -, but he leaves the King to decide how far in his justice he should punish the folly of the people, or how far he should connive at their madness. Hamilton ever viewed the two opposite sides of a question, dubious of both. Something of vacillation appears in the Marquis's closing hint. Hamilton, on his entrance into Edinburgh, was certainly awed by having been met by the greatest number of the people which had assembled together for many years ; sixty thousand persons in the small city of Edinburgh formed an army, unarmed. This concourse was headed by five hundred minis- ters. When the Royal Commissioner attempted to elude their oratory in public, they pursued their victim of State to his privacy ; there, with tears in their eyes, they came to inform him of the danger in which their religion stood. When the King first received the encouraging news that the reduction of the Covenanters would not be a work of difficulty, he wrote to Hamilton a letter, of which I shall transcribe the important passages — they conduce greatly to let us into the character of this active, however unfortunate sovereign. "Hamilton, "Though I answered not yours of the 4th, yet I assure you that I have not been idle, so that I hope by the next week I shall send you some good assurance of the advancing of our preparations. This I say, not to make you precipitate any thing, for I like of all you have hitherto done, and even of that IL THE MARQUIS OF HAMILTON. 227 which I find you mind to do — but to show you that I mean to stick to my grounds, and that I expect not any thing can reduce that people to their obedience, but only force. In the mean time your care must be how to dissolve the multitude, and to this end I give you leave to flatter them with what hopes you please, so you engage not me against my grounds, consent- ing to the calling of Parliament, until the Covenant be disavowed and given up. ^' Your chief end being now to win time, that they may not commit public foUies until I be ready to suppress them ; and since it is, as you well observe, my own people, which by this means will be for a time ruined, so that the loss must be inevitably mine, and this if I could eschew, were it not with a greater, were well. But when I consider, that not only now my crown, but my reputation for ever, lies at stake, I must rather suffer the first, that time will help, than this last, which is irreparable. " This I have written to no other end than to show you I will rather die than yield to those impertinent and damnable de- mands, as you rightly call them, for it is all one as to yield to be no King in a very short time. So wishing you better success than I can expect, I rest. Your assured constant friend, "Charles R." The first instructions of Hamilton were to proclaim the Covenanters traitors — he ventured to transgress his instructions, as he then observed, at the hazard of his head. At that mo- ment the Marquis had not yet obtained the private warrant of the King, which was subsequently granted. His sole care now was to disperse this enormous multitude; to soothe and to wheedle, not to menace and condemn. Now he writes to the King not to hasten his warlike preparations. I ^fc Charles on these opposite counsels was entirely compliant: ^^th unabated confidence in his Minister, the King replies with great sense and patience — Hamilton, *^ The dealing with multitudes makes diversity of advertisement no way strange, and certainly the alteration from worse to less ill cannot be displeasing ; wherefore you may be q2 I 228 THE MARQUIS OF HAMILTON. confident I cannot but approve your proceedings hitherto, for certainly you have gained a very considerable point in making the heavy multitude begin to disperse, without having engaged me in any unfitting thing. I shall take your advice in staying the public preparations for force ; but in a silent way (by your leave) I will not leave to prepare, that I may be ready upon the least advertisement. " Your assured constant friend, "Charles R.'' Now Hamilton discovers that the Covenant is not illegal, and the bond of mutual defence which they had subscribed, and which Charles insisted should be given up to him, would admit of explanations. The King's Advocate in Scotland, Sir Thomas Hope, was himself a warm Covenanter, who appears to have silently directed their movements. The Marquis now alarms the King with the state of his affairs, both in England and in Scotland, where a close alliance was formed between the two parties, both equally adverse to him. On the first rupture the Covenanters would march into England, confident as they were of having many good friends there : nor had France ever for- gotten the Isle of E-lie, for her secret hand was cherishing the malcontents of Scotland. In spite of these critical difficulties, Hamilton craves his Majesty's pleasure, to whose service he would willingly sacrifice his life. At this conflicting state of affairs, Charles expresses no wonder, no alarm; he only regrets the spirit of the dispatch, while he informs Hamilton of the strength of his army, the goodness of his artillery, the arms which he had procured from Holland, his fleet ready. The King adds, "and last of all, which is indeed most of all, the Chancellor of the Exchequer assures me of 200,000/. for this expedition. Thus you may see that 1 intend not to yield to the demands of those traitors the Covenanters." The Marquis continues disheartening the King — many of the Council in Scotland were secret Covenanters — and certainly he did not communicate any false intelligence when he feared that his Majesty would be faintly followed by the English. Charles wrote — ! THE MARQUIS OF HAMILTON. 329 " Hamilton, " I must needs thank you that you stand so close and constantly to my grounds, and you deserve the more, since your fellow counsellors do rather dishearten than help you in this business, for which I swear I pity you much. As long as this damnable Covenant* is in force, whether it be with, or without explanation, I have no more power in Scotland than as a Duke of Venice, which I will rather die than suffer. If they call a Parliament without me, it would the more loudly call them traitors, and the more justify my actions. My resolution is to come myself in person, accompanied like myself; sea-forces, nor Ireland shall be forgotten." The Marquis now attempted to menace the Covenanters, who not being yet ready for an open rupture, affected to talk only of ^' their innocent intentions." The Marquis now asks leave to return to Court, that he may personally explain the emergent difficulties to the King. There were at least three of these "speedy journeys." At every return of the Marquis from Court, he found affairs more embroiled, and the " Tables," or Committees of the four classes of the nation, more frequently summoned. Whenever the Marquis published a royal declara- tion at the Market-cross, right opposite, on the same day, was V3pended their Protest. The King is more perplexed — ^in one letter Charles tells the Marquis, " I confess this last dispatch does more put one to ^^ek how to judge of the affairs of that kingdom than any that ^^have yet received." In another, Charles sensibly observes, " Why I should go further, I see no reason ; for certainly those who will not be contented with what I have done already will be less contented if I should do more." The style of Charles is evidently changed ; the regal tone is lowered, and as was usual This term " damnable Covenant " doubtless appeared to Rushworth, who copied part of the King's letter from Bvimet, excessively offensive, and strongly indicative of the tyrannical character of Charles ; for Rushworth has distinguished the words in the printing. The expression, however, had been first used by Hamilton, as we learn from Charles himself, who, however, would not have hesitated to have em- ployed the term had it occurred to him. Doubtless, however, this style inflamed the prejudices against the King with the many, who looked on this " Covenant " as sacred as the one in holy writ. House of Commons desire it may be so no more. Further the\ desire that their Lordships would pass the Bill for pressing, in regard they conceive that the ten thousand English cannot go unless that is done." * In vain the King, again and again, urged them to put an end to the miseries of Ireland, while the rebels were encouraged in their barbarities by the slowness of the succours which thcN * The " Smart answer given in Nalson's Collections, of the Commons " to two propositions of the Lords, in ns, ii, 771. -^ ^ I m NOT EELIEYma IRELAND. 291 had voted, but never sent. The Commons, on their side, again and again, pressed the Lords to pass the Bill, with the preamble — without which Ireland would not be saved. They noticed the King's offer to furnish the ten thousand men, in the most extraordinary way imaginable — for a rumour spread that the King was coming down with his Papists to cut the throats of the good citizens of London, and fire the City ! Thus the Commons persevered in imputing the loss of Ireland to the obstinacy of the Lords. At length they sullenly ordered their Committee on Irish affairs to meet no more ! Such was the conduct of the Commons on this occasion, which requires to be explained. Even by the confession of their ardent eulogist, Mrs. Macaulay, this endless discussion occa- sioned a fatal pause in the military preparations.* With all the artifice of a partisan, that lady lays the whole weight of her censure on the heads of the Lords : them only she accuses of the guilt of this unpardonable remissness in the suppression of this unnatural rebellion. But, in truth, all its criminality fnated with the Commons. >r an Englishman nothing is more instructive in his national ry than a calm scrutiny into the shiftings of partisans when they are fixed in the torture of an inextricable dilemma. Mr. Brodie affords me a remarkable instance. The Scottish Advo- cate will not allow his clients, the Commons, should yield a point. He declares, " Had the Commons halted now, they must have been held to recognise it " — the privilege of pressing — " They had, therefore, no alternative now.'' This representation is incorrect, since the salvo jure left the discussion open at any future day. Mr. Brodie says, the King insisted not to pass the Bill without " a salvo jure, or preservation of his right.'' This seems to me unfairly given ; it seems to restrict the benefit of the salvo jure merely to the King j but in the King's speech it is positively declared thus, " To avoid farther debate at this time, I offer that the Bill may pass with a salvo jure both for King and People." t Probably aware of the futility of this argument, Mr. Brodie suddenly mystifies the simple reader by a disclosure of certain secret motives in these transactions, on both sides : * Macaulay, iii. Ill, f Rushworth, iv. 457. u 2 292 THE COMMONS PERSIST IN NOT RELIEVING IRELAND. " Considering what had occurred on former occasions," con- tinues Mr. Brodie, "it is scarcely to be imagined that this Prince had profited so little by experience, as not to anticipate the result of this illegal interference with a Bill depending before both Houses." Mr. Brodie has justly expressed his sur- prise that Charles gained little from experience— ^but his wide inference is quite his own. " And therefore we may conclude that he was actuated by deeper motives than a mere desire to have his assumed right preserved." He reveals "the deeper motives," — "When the King proposed, as a compromise, to raise ten thousand volunteers, provided the House would sup- port them, and as that would have evaded what the Commons," as Mr. Brodie assures us, " had resolved upon," — namely, the appointment of the officers — " it is likely to have been one view which influenced him and his secret advisers from the beginning." Thus it appears by Mr. Brodie that the real contest was " the appointment of the officers," and farther, that the Commons had resolved on this, without communicating with the King or the Lords ! The object is changed : it was not for " the preamble," but " the officers," which the Commons were disputing : they were clamouring for one thing but intended another. Had the King and Lords been as much in the secret as Mr. Brodie, it would have fully warranted their firm resistance. But it is clear that had the Commons first succeeded in passing their " Preamble " against Pressing — it could have had no connexion with " tht appointment of the officers," and " therefore," to adopt Mr. Brodie's hypothetical style, " it is likely," that they had no such intention in the origin of their discussion.* The country was thrown into jeopardy by this party-question raised by the leaders in the Commons. One of the most vitu- perative calumniators of the King, in a rare moment of his dispassionate politics, has acknowledged that on this occasion "The Parliament connived at the Irish rebelhon, in order to charge King Charles with fomenting it."t Can we now refuse to agree in one opinion, that true patriot- ism, undegraded by criminal intrigue, would have instantly relieved L'eland, and left " the Preamble " as a grievance to be * Brodie, iii. 244. f Lord Orford, Memoirs, i. 150. 4", ^ THE GRAND REMONSTRANCE. 293 resumed, as the King had said, " at a fitter time ? " The ruling- party in the Commons on so many occasions, were alert at similar contrivances; and by practising more artifices than accord with the dignity of patriotism, have stamped their cha- racter, too often, with the subtlety and cunning of Faction. t CHAPTER XXI. THE GRAND REMONSTRANCE. HERE is great obscurity among our historians respecting the origin of this memorable and elaborate party-production. It is evident, that it could not have been drawn up in haste, for a temporary purpose ; for in fact it is an historical memoir of all the infelicities of the King^s reign, with a very cautious omis- sion that all the capital grievances there commemorated had no longer any existence. The secret history of this anti-monarchical attack, for such it is, and such were now a rising party in the House ; the persons I who framed it ; the Councils which must have been held on it -, the mode of their inquiries after some of " the grievances -" and the time occupied in its composition, for we find that it was I long in preparation, and even laid aside in suspense, would aU be matter of deep interest in the history of the artifices of a subtle party. We are at present* deprived of any memoirs of these persons ; they appear not to have chronicled their acts of patriotism. We can only get glimpses of them as in a dark chamber, without light enough to see their faces, but not with- out evidence which yields us more than suspicions of the persons themselves. The reader has already heard some important intelligence from that great revealer of political events. Bishop Williams, and from the watchfulness of the vigilant Secretary Nicholas. The Kemonstrance at length was brought into the House. The party was sanguine. They had numbered their votes, and * I say « at present," for Lord Nugent has long announced a Life of the Patriot Hampden. I 294 THE GRAND REMONSTRANCE. moreover had practised a trick on those Members who disliked their violence, and deemed this act to be uncalled for at a moment when the Sovereign had shown by so many acts of his own, and by a recent change of councils, that wearied by opposition, he now was only seeking for public tranquillity. The trick prac- tised was this. They assured these moderate men that the intention of this Remonstrance was purely prudential ; it was to mortify the Court, and nothing more ! The Remonstrance, after having been read, would remain in the hands of the clerk and never afterwards be called for. When it was brought forward, to give it the appearance of a matter of little moment, the morning was suffered to elapse on ordinary business, and the Remonstrance was produced late. They overshot their mark ; the very lateness of the hour was alleged as a reason to postpone entering on the debate, for to the surprise of one who afterwards rose to be the most eminent person in the nation, - . and also of some of the authors, it now appeared that the Remon- m I strance was to be submitted to a very strong opposition. At nine the next morning the debate opened, and several hours past midnight it fiercely raged, with every dread of per- sonal violence among the members.* It was a full House, and was only carried by the feeble majority of eleven ; Clarendon says only by nine. We find some notice of the calmness and adroitness of Hampden during this disorderly debate. When the Remonstrance had been carried, he moved for the printing, that it might be dispersed among the people. According to constitutional usage, it should first have been communicated to the Lords, and afterwards presented to the King. But this appeal to the people against the Sovereign, as it avowedly was, he observed run in the sole name of the Commons — an all- suflBcient authority ! Already this great man was meditating that * As a curious instance how difficult it is sometimes to ascertain the plainest matter of fact, from even those wlio were present, Rushworth says, the Debate lasted from three in the afternoon till three in the morning : Sir Thilip Warwick says it was three in the morning when the Remonstrance passed. Wliitcloeke differs from both, prolonging it from three in the afternoon till ten the next morning. It is certain that the House was debating hard at midnight, but began eai'lier than Rushworth mentions ; for Secretary Nicholas, writing to the King, says, ** The Commons have been in debate about their Declaration since twelve at noon, and arc at it still, it being now near twelve at midnight." I THE GRAND REMONSTRANCE. 295 separation from the Lords, which in due time occurred. This had been indicated by several signal unparliamentary courses, for the House of Lords had of late been refractory.* Even Hamp- den failed in the division for printing, on the first night ; but it was a favourite measure, and his cool and determined diligence renewed the motion three weeks after, when the printing was carried by a considerable majority. So out-wearied, or so supine were the Royalists, though the King was excessively anxious that this cruel record of his disturbed reign, reflecting such an aggravated picture of tyranny and himself the tyrant, should not be sent forth among the people, unaccompanied by his defence, or his apology. Thus it happened that when the King desired that they would not print the Remonstrance till they had his answer, Charles discovered that it had already been dispersed. This edict of Revolution had been nearly rejected, and un- questionably it would have been thrown out, had it not been for an accident to which it would seem our Parliaments are liable. The length of the debate, as much as its vehemence, exhausted the physical condition of the elder members ; many through utter faintness had been compelled to retire, and honest Sir Benjamin Rudyard not unaptly compared the passing of the Remonstrance to the verdict of a starved jury. Clarendon complains on the present occasion, that while the party them- selves had secured the presence of all their friends, the hour of the night had driven home the aged and the infirm, who could no longer await the division. Mr. Hallam has shrewdly remarked on Clarendon^s complaint of the friends of established authority, that " sluggish, lukewarm, and thoughtless tempers must always exist, and that such will always belong to their side." A simple, but important truth ! And since the wisdom, or the virtue, of a free people, must often depend on the subtraction or the mul- tiplication of voices, it is a curious fact in the history of an English Parliament, that some of the most eventful changes in our Constitution, have been carried by majorities which wear all the appearance of minorities ; and that the majority and minority on the same question, at different periods, have changed sides.f I^^P' * Macaulay, iii. 99. ^r The great points of the National Religion, under Elizabeth, were carried by six, and some say by a single vote ; the Hanover succession was voted in by a single I 29G THE GRAND REMONSTRANCE. Thus it happens that the age and the health of the members become a material circumstance in the highest concerns of the nation, and nothing seems more desirable than that even an absent member should not be deprived of his vote, provided he had been present at the debate. An artful party in that case could not steal a majority from a thin House ; and the robust, the diligent, or the juvenile, would possess no fractional advan- tage over the infirm or the supine, in that great sum of human ■wisdom which is to appear in the numerical force of a division of the House. After the numerous concessions of the King, and the hu- miliated state to which the party had reduced the Sovereign, certain as they were that they could scarcely demand any thing short of the throne itself, which Charles would now have denied, what motive induced this ungenerous remonstrance of grievances redressed ; of painful reminiscences ; of errors chastened, and of passions subdued ? Mrs. Macaulay tells us that "this Remon- strance was looked on by the opposers of the Court as absolutely necessary to their farther curtailing the power of the Crown, which was essential to the preservation of those privileges the public had already obtained." Such is the diplomacy of revolu- tionary democracy, and with the present party it was an irrefra- gable argument : we will not add with Hampden and Pym, though there is sufficient reason to suspect their designs ; but the result proved that this party had decided on overturning the English Constitution by setting aside the Crown altogether. But, in truth, this was not the first motive of the present per- sonal persecution of the monarch. " The Remonstrance " was an act of despair. Those who have written since the day of the female historian, with less passion and closer research, though not with more ability, nor even with any undue sympathy for vote ! — Calaray, ii. 2. It is certainly difficult to get at " the sense of the Nation." On a question whether the Protestant religion was in danger under Queen Anne's government, 256 saw no danger, and only 20R remained in a state of alarm. — Calaniy's Life, ii. 279. But it often happens that Parliaments correct their own errors ; for we find questions which had been frequently lost by the weakest minorities, after- wards carried with little or no opposition. The Ncmine contradicente is always rare How can we hope to reconcile so many opposed interests, to conceive such different sizes of understandings, and conciliate tempers which no art of man can ever accord ! In this imperfect state of human existence, we can only ti'ust to the Ayes and the Noes/ THE GEAND EEMONSTRANCE. 297 this unfortunate prince, have agreed that a far different motive than the one alleged in favour of the Commons, was the real inducement of this ungenerous attack. That motive was a conviction that their own supporters had visibly diminished; some of the most eminent names in our history had abandoned them; and their violent courses, con- trasted with the sacrifices both of personal feelings and royal authority, of which Charles, of late, had given so many striking evidences, had affected the moderate, and alarmed the honest. Nor was it unknown to themselves, that their clandestine prac- tices in their intercourse with the Scots, of which Strafford had made some discoveries, and Montrose had revealed more, were rankling in the mind of Charles. The King had lately accepted for his advisers some from themselves — and, under more prudent councils than Charles had been accustomed to, the heads of the party felt themselves in personal danger ; for the throne might appeal to the people, and patriots might be impeached, as well as ministers attainted. They dreaded nothing more than a popular king. An able judge of these times has observed, that " Their Remonstrance was put forward to stem the returning tide of loyalty which threatened to obstruct the farther progress of their endeavours." * The Remonstrance was made such a point to be carried with the Commonwealth-men, who though not yet in their strength, were so sanguine, that Cromwell, as yet a new name in our history, expected that it would pass with little or no opposition ; and after it was carried with the greatest difficulty, and by means in which the parties were not fairly balanced, Cromwell swore, for at that time he was not half " the Preci- sian " he turned out to be, that had it not passed, " some other honest men would the next day have sold their estates, and abandoned Old, for New England." It is quite clear that the anti-monarchists considered this desperate act of theirs to be the test and ratification of their triumph ; and some of those "other honest men," might probably have been found among the contrivers of this piece of political machinery. * The same true statement occurs in Dr. Liugard, x. 157, and Mr. Hallam,i. 584. Let me add my feeble testimony. I 298 THE HISTORY OF LORD DIGBT. CHAPTER XXir. THE HISTORY OF LORD DIGBY. The King's new private advisers were eminent for their patriotism and their ability; the virtuous Lord Falkland, the active Sir John Colepepper, and the sagacious Mr. Hyde. Their names were even popular; they had gradually retreated from the Opposition, and now stood by the side of the King, witliout extinguishing their honourable principles. Another person, whose councils, on more than one remarkable occasion, Charles adopted, and who appears not to have closely connected himself with the other ministers, was the fascinating Lord Digby. The restless imagination and the reckless audacity of this extraor- dinary man, made him the most dangerous adviser of a monarch, who himself was liable to do precipitate acts, repented often as soon as done, and whose temperament was the most sanguine that a prince so unfortunate has ever shown. George Digby, the second Earl of Bristol, should rather be the hero of romance, than of history. He was himself so mucli a creature of imagination, that an imaginative writer would seem more happily to record the versatility of his fine genius, and the mutability of his condition. By adding only a termi- nation to the adventures of Lord Digby, which he himself never could, the Romancer, in the simple narrative of his life, could place before us an extraordinary being — and the truths he would have to tell, would at least equal the fictions he might invent. Among other peculiarities in the fate of this nobleman was the place of his nativity. Born during his father's prolonged embassy at Madrid, he did not leave that Court before his thirteenth year; he spoke the Spanish language with native elegance, and stole some of the fancies of its literature. This circumstance, scarcely noticea])le in another person, in this Lord's romantic history becomes an incident, as we shall see, in which the fortunes of Spain might have revolved. He acquired the French idiom with the same vernacular felicity to the admi- ration of the Parisians, and this too might have changed the ■I THE HISTORY OF LORD DIGBY. 299 face of the administration of Mazarine ! But in the language of the land of his fathers, he was neither Spaniard nor French- man, but a Briton. Thus Lord Digby was master of the languages of all the countries, in every one of which he was to become so variable and so conspicuous an actor. His eloquence, elevated and forcible, has the elegance which we imagine to be the acquisition of our own days ; his indignant spirit, bold in expression as in thought, sharpens his sarcasm, or stings with scorn, often sliding into graceful pleasantry. It is not a Canning we are listening to, it is Demosthenes ! His patriotism seems vital; for no man in Parliament, at that troubled and critical period, marked his way so distinctly between the conflicting interests; just to the Sovereign, he asserted the rights of the nation. He maintained the necessity of frequent Parliaments without calumniating the monarch, or flattering the people ; he could condemn Strafi'ord without becoming pn accessory in that judicial murder ; and we shall see that he spoke in favour of the Test Act, though he was himself a Roman Catholic. Several years of studious residence at his father's retreat, when the Earl, on his return home, was banished to his seat, was a fortunate circumstance in the life of the son. Surrounded by the learned and the ingenious, who resorted to Sherborne Castle, Lord Digby became equally learned and skilful in the prevalent theology and philosophy of that day, and accomplished in elegant literature. One of the fruits of these early studies was his letters to his relation. Sir Kenelm Digby, against the Roman Catholic religion. When he himself chose to be con- I verted, it is said, that he never would take upon himself to ! mswer himself, except by a subtle apology, or rather a fanciful I iistinction, which he made between the Church of Rome and ;he Court of Rome. Lord Digby's first step into life was strongly indicative of its subsequent events. His impetuous passions brought him into lotice. On a casual visit to the metropolis, from the quiet ihades of Sherborne, he engaged in an amour, and a duel ; both >f which were none of his inferior delights through life. He ihastised an insolent rival, who was a favourite at Court, and it Tas done in the purlieus of Whitehall. His Lordship was com- laitted to prison. The severity of this treatment, with the I 800 THE HISTORY OF LORD DIGBY. remembrance of his father's, now qualified him, by his dis- content, to become an able coadjutor in the patriotic band of Opposition. A lovely countenance, and an innate graciousness of person, which instantaneously fascinated the beholder ; a voice, whose tones thrilled some obdurate beauty when on his knees he would creep, with prodigal sensibility bewailing his own want of merit ; or which could throw an irresistible charm over his elocution, insinuating his own confidence to the listener ; these were the favours of Nature; and hers, too, that temperament which courts danger, and the fearlessness which scorns death. There was something chivalric in his courage, quick to assert his honour by that sword which had often signalised his glory in the field. But the utmost refinement of art had accomplished a perfection beyond the reach of nature. With the emotions and the imagination of a poet, he often opened views of things as if they had a present existence, when, in truth, they were only events which had not yet occurred ; events in which he was himself so often disappointed, and had so often disappointed the unreasonable hopes of others. Lord Digby was never wise by experience and misfortune ; for his working genius was only invigorated by the failiu-e of one event to hasten on another ; nothing seemed lost, when so much remained to be acquired; and in his eager restlessness, the chase after the new soon left the old out of sight. By the peculiarity of his situation, Europe was opened for his career, and when he had wrestled with his fate at home, he met her as a new man, in France or in Spain. But those who had prematurely blessed their good fortune, for having met with a wonder of human kind, and clung to him as their pride and their hope, were left desperate at a single mischance ; these persons had set all their venture on his single card; they could not repair their ruined fortunes by new resources ; and thus it happened, that those who had been his greatest admirers were apt to become his greatest enemies. None so easily won admiration and esteem, none more rapidly lost their friends. It was remarkable, as Clarendon observes, that Lord Digby's keenest enemies had been connected Avith him by the closest friendships. Digby accepted their esteem as a tribute to his own virtues and transcendent genius, and, as he -ij THE HISTOEY OF LORD DIGBY. 301 deemed it, as an evidence of his own skill in the management of men ; but their enmity he ascribed to their own inconstancy and their jealousy of his superiority. Lord Digby on all occasions was easily reconciled to himself. Deliberation and resolution with him were hardly separable ; and the boldness of his conceptions was only equalled by the promptness of their execution. Digby had that hardiness of mind which is called decision, and that hardihood of heart which is courage ; qualities not always found in the same individual. It was his constitutional disposition to embrace the most hazardous exploits, not only from an impatience of repose, but from a notion that the audacity of the peril would cast a greater lustre on his genius and his actions. Cardinal de Retz has finely observed on this feeling, that " the greatest dangers have their charms if we perceive glory, though in the prospect of ill -fortune; but middling dangers have only horrors when the loss of repu- tation is attached to the want of success." Digby^s designs were sometimes so hazardous that he would reserve some important point to himself, and not confide it to those whom he appeared to be consulting ; and this, as Clarendon observes, not so much out of distrust that they would protest against it, for he was very indulgent to himself in believing that what appeared reasonable to him would appear so to every one else, but from a persuasion that by this concealment, he was keeping up his own reputation, by doing that which had been unthought of by others. It was this unlucky temper in his nature which pro- duced so many inconveniences to the King and to himself— for Charles the First was himself too prone to sudden enterprizes, and a counsellor so daring and so fanciful as Lord Digby was the unfittest minister for a monarch who, though easily induced to adopt such rash attempts, as quickly was startled at their I^Mculties.* ^BKo man dared more than Lord Digby, and few had greater abilities to support that daring nature ; but no man^s life, who had entered into such a variety of fortunes, was more unpros- perous, nor were ever such great designs left unaccomplished by the genius which had conceived them. If Lord Digby possessed some extraordinary qualities, he had also others which were not * Clarendon, ii. 102. 302 THE HISTORY OF LORD DIGBY. SO, and which worked themselves into his character only to weaken it ; like those roots and branches which grow out of the fractures of battlements and turrets, and come at last to loosen, or undermine, even such solid strength. It was his fatal infir- mity, says Clarendon, that he too often thought difficult things very easy, and considered not possible consequences, when the proposition administered somewhat that was delightful to his fancy, by pursuing whereof he imagined he should reap more considerable glory to himself, of which he was immoderately ambitious.* How did it happen that this extraordinary man so frequently acted in contradiction with himself? The character of Lord Digby has furnished some sparkling antitheses to the polished cynicism- of the heartless Horace Walpole. Insensible to the great passions of a mind of restless energies, but petulantly alive to the ridiculous. Lord Orford could easily detect the wanderings of too fanciful a genius, but he wanted the sym- pathy, or the philosophy to penetrate to their causes. Tliis man, who in so many respects may be deemed great, had some fatal infirmities. He would carry his dissimulation, perhaps, beyond the point of honour. On the trial of Strafford he appears to have left his party from his indignation at their mea- sures; his eloquence on that occasion has reached posterity. But when with deep imprecations he protested that he knew not of the abstraction of an important document, which was long after discovered copied in his hand-writing among the King's papers, whatever might be the policy of his solemn oaths, and however desperate the predicament in which ho stood, it has involved his honour. In the proposed arrest ol the six members, when his lordship discovered how ill that measure was resented by the House, he immediately rose, and vehemently spoke against it, delaring that it was absolutely necessary that the King should disclose the name of the pro- poser of that pernicious counsel; and whispering to Lord Kirabolton, who was intended to have been one of those State victims, that " He now clearly saw that the King was hastening to his own ruin.'' Yet we are told by Clarendon that it was he only who had advised the measure, without any communication Clarendon, ii. 101. I THE HISTORY OF LORD DIGBY. 303 with the Ministers. Even on this occasion his own character rose paramount. For a moment he had been "the creeping thing'' which has left in the dust the trail of his political cunning, but his dauntless spirit soared as high as it had sunk, for Digby could not dissimulate when his courage and intrepidity were in question. He who had reprobated the dangerous and unsuccessful design, on the next day offered the King to hasten with a few gentlemen and seize on those very Members who had flown to the City, and bring them, dead or ahve. Charles was startled at this greater peril than the memorable one of which he had already repented. In so chivalric a genius, one could hardly have suspected a selfish being, as we shall see his repeated deeds have stamped him to be; his feelings were con- centrated within himself. Clarendon tell us that he was never known to have done a single generous action, even to those who had claims for their disappointments in their unwary depen- dence on him. He sacrificed his Protestant daughter to a Flemish baron for his own convenience. He was habitually addicted to gaming and to his amours, and lived, even at a time when in the receipt of a considerable revenue, a mean life, unworthy of his rank and name. In his last days, after the Restoration, he seems to have been so maddened by personal distresses, that his violent behaviour to Charles the Second had nearly incurred an act of treason, and it banished him from the Court. Such is the anatomy of the mind and genius of this accom- phshed statesman and warrior ; his actions only exhibit him in the motion of life. The Commons excepted Lord Digby from pardon, in a nego- tiation for a treaty of peace. They pursued Digby with the same violence they had hunted down Strafford, designing that another minister should bleed on the scaffold. Digby flew to Holland. But he was not a man to repose in security at a moment of great agitation. We soon find him at York, where in a midnight interview with the King he arranged his return to Holland to procure arms. Taken, and brought into Hull, an adventure occurred which perfectly displays his versatile and dauntless character. 304 THE HISTORY OF LORD DIGBY. Parliamentarians, he appeared as a sea-sick Frenchman, and re- tiring into the hold of the vessel, he there concealed his papers ; their detection would have been fatal. The Governor of Hull was Sir John Hotham, a man of a rough unfeeling nature, sordid, and influenced entirely by his meanest interests ; moreover, he was an enemy. Digby, in his usual way, deliberated, and resolved. The sea-sick Frenchman opened his part, by address- ing one of the sentinels in broken English, till, by his vivacious gesticulations, the man at last was suff'ered to comprehend that the foreigner had secrets of the King and Queen, which he would communicate to the Governor. Introduced to Sir John, the disguised Digby took him aside, asking in good English, " Whether he knew him ?" Surprised, Hotham sternly answered "No!" "Then," resumed Lord Digby, "I shall try whether I know Sir John Hotham, and whether he be in truth the same man of honour I have always taken him to be." Digby revealed himself, and in his persuasive manner left to Sir John the alternative of an ignoble deliverance of him to his im- placable enemieg. Hotham was mastered by the greatness of mind of Lord Digby, and so touched by the high compliment to his own honour, that the stern and covetous man, who had now in his hand whatever his interest or ambition could desire for their ends, spontaneously declared that such a noble confi- dence should not be deceived. The only difficulty now was to concert the means of escape ; it was considered to be the safest that the Frenchman should be< openly sent to York, with a promise that he should return to Hull. Such hair-breadth escapes were the delight and the infirmity of this romantic hero. In the civil wars, from the first battle of Edge Hill, we trace Lord Digby's gallant achievements, and on one signal occasion his desperate bravery. He seemed as careless of death, as if he had been invulnerable to bullets, which, however, he was not, for he received many wounds very little short of life. As active in the cabinet as in the field, he was concerting very ingenious schemes to obtain a city by an intrigue, or to project a visionary treaty, but he did not command success. Whatever might be the skill of the sculptor, his marble was of too rough a grain to take his polish. His good fortune was always of short duration. He suffered a great defeat — quarrelled with his officers— and i THE HISTORY OF LORD DIGBY. 305 was sent by Charles to Ireland. There his busied brain planned to fix the Prince on an Irish throne ; but the Queen insisting that her son should hasten to Paris, Digby followed ; a circum- stance which first brought him in contact with the French minister. On the death of Charles the First, Lord Digby at St. Ger- main addressed Charles the Second, offering his devoted ser- vices in a style which could only have been dictated by a nobleman, the intimate companion of monarchs, and by a genius even more distinguished than his rank.* Lord Digby was now the servant of fortune. France opened a scene favourable to the genius of the man. The commotions of the Fronde had broken out. The insurrectionary state of England seemed to have been reduced to a French petite piece, as the comedians of the Theatre Italien were performing one of their own ludicrous parodies. The French in Revolutions were then but childish mimics. Lord Digby, not without difiiculty, having procured a horse, entered as a volunteer in the Royalist army. One of those extraordinary occasions which can only happen to extraordinary men, for others are incompetent to seize on them, made his fortune in one day. The two armies were drawn up against each other, at no great distance. One of the insurgents advanced out of the ranks, j md in a bravado offered to exchange a shot with any single cnan who would encounter him. Lord Digby, without speaking .'.o any one, leisurely moved his horse towards this vaunting I jhampion, who stood still, apparently awaiting his antagonist, it was a dishonourable feint ; for the bravo dexterously receding l:owards his own party as Digby approached, the whole front of v,he squadron fired. His lordship was shot in the thigh, and though he still kept his seat, it was not without difficulty he got back to his own side. Such intrepid gallantry, performed in the presence of the French Monarch, Cardinal Mazarine, and others of the Court, raised an universal inquiry. At that mo- ment few knew more of the remarkable gentleman, than that ^^■t would be irrelevant to our subject to insert this admirable letter, which is the 'lost striking evidence that the style of the present day has degenerated in its ■ aanges. It exists in the Clarendon Papers. I^DL. II. X 306 THE HISTORY OF LORD DIGBY. he was an Englishman. All pressed forward to admire the chivalrous lord, and on his recovery the King and the Cardinal instantly gave him a regiment of horse, with the most liheral appointments. Every thing ahout Lord Digby was in unison with his ima- ginative character. The impress on his standard was noticed for the ingenuity and acuteness of its device. An Ostrich, his own crest, was represented with a piece of iron in its mouth, and the motto, Ferro vivendmn est tibi, quid prcBstantia plumm ? " Thou who must live on iron, what avails the lustre of thy feathers ?'' But the motto includes a play upon words; the iron alluded to his sword, the feathers to his pen, to whose excel- lence he himself was by no means insensible. Lord Digby's troop of cavalry was chiefly composed of Eng- lish emigrants, who flocked to the standard of their idolised commander. He charmed them by the seduction of his imagi- nation, the shadows of his fancy ; they flattered themselves in flattering him. But neither the commander nor his followers had patience and industry. Victories and promotions were equally rare in the puny warfare ; and the adventurers gradu- ally fell off in murmurs, abandoning the hero who, they were induced to conclude, if he had the power, would never have performed his prodigal promises. But Lord Digby, at the French Court, was in the element in which he was born, and had been trained; and there he wa more idolised than by his military dependents. The beauty ( his person, the delightfulness of his conversation, the softnes of his manners, his elegant literature and his political sagacitv and, above all, his alacrity and bravery in action, put him in full possession of all hearts and eyes. His lordship was even admitted into the councils of the King and the Cardinal. Hi was invested with a high command in the French army, whicl gave him the full privileges of tolls and passes and licences over tli river to Paris, so that his profits were considerable as his honours. Such a prosperous state might have terminated the career cd other men. Digby was more gratified at having attracted th< eyes of both sexes on him, than by the honours which had n- novelty for him, and the fortune, which, however abundant, could never supply his invisible necessities. His revenues wen I THE HISTORY OF LORD DIGBY. 307 so large that it was imagined that his lordship designed to accumulate a vast fortune, for he maintained no establishment, was without an equipage, lived meanly, was never bountiful or even charitable, yet ever moneyless. Deeply involved in amo- rous intrigues and romantic exploits, more adapted for some folio romance than for the page of grave history, he was, how- ever, not less intent on political ones, of the boldest nature his inexhaustible invention had ever conceived. When Cardinal Mazarine was compelled to quit France and retire to Cologne, while the popular clamour was at its height, that sage states- man recommended Lord Digby to the Queen, as an able and confidential adviser. In one of the flights of his erratic genius his lordship projected supplanting Mazarine, and himself becom- ing the Premier of France. He countenanced the popular cry against Mazarine, and suggested to the Queen, Anne of Austria, that her personal safety was concerned in keeping the Cardinal in exile. But though this fascinating nobleman had deceived an old statesman, he could not make a woman his dupe; for the Queen accepting his zealous councils with complacency, was equally cautious in informing Mazarine of his accomplished friend^s conduct. When the Cardinal returned in triumph, it was contrived to send his lordship on a very hazardous expedi- tion to Italy, where success seemed next to an impossibility. Digby surmounted the difiicult task, and returning to Paris was highly complimented by the Cardinal, and rewarded — at the same time that he was cashiered and ordered to depart from the territories of France. Here was a kingdom lost ! Digby now repaired to the obscure Court which Charles the Second held at Bruges, and where some of the courtiers wanted half-a-crown for a dinner. Digby announced that he brought money which would last him a twelvemonth, but at the end of six weeks he had drained his treasury. As neither the monarch nor the peer could be of any use to the other, it was not found inconvenient to part. Digby had now to create a new scene of action, and he designed to enter into the Spanish service. He asked for no recommenda- tion from Charles, but depended on his own resources — half Spaniard as he was ; for the gaiety of his disposition prevented I him from being wholly Spanish. But here he found obstacles ; I X 2 308 THE HISTORY OF LORD DIGBY. his person was far from being agreeable in the Spanish army in Planders, where about two years before, in a predatory incur- sion, rapine and conflagration had marked the progress of his troops through many villages and towns, and he listened to his odious name in lampoons and ballads. The poverty of the Spanish Court in Flanders offered no promise to a military adventurer. But Digby knew the character and taste of Don Juan, the Governor of the Low Countries, who, unlike other grandees of Spain, was addicted to universal literature, and had a passion for judicial astrology ; and Digby was an arbiter in literature, and an adept in the mystical and the occult. The Spanish ministers and officers gave but a cold and reserved reception, but they soon marvelled at the delectable Spanish idiom from the lips of an Englishman ! He, who had been, as it were, a native in all the Courts of Europe, was many men in one man: one who interested all in their various stations, according to their tempers and their pursuits. The confidential minister of the governor, Don Alonzo di Cardinas, had per- sonally known our mercurial genius at London, and was the most obdurate, from " his own parched stupidity,'^ till Digby, as Clarendon says, '^ commending his great abilities in State affairs, in which he was invincibly ignorant, the Don suspected that he had not known Lord Digby well enough before." Whoever listened was lost, and none more than Don Juan himself. No one indeed was so capable of appreciating the luxuriant genius of this accomplished man. At every leisure hour Don Juan sought the company of Lord Digby ; frequently at his meals, and in the evenings, the Prince indulged in literary conversations, and, more retiredly, in whispering the secrets of the skies. Nothing was now wanting to convince Don Juan that he had by his side the greatest genius in Europe, but some signal ser- vice, which might fix with the Spanish army the worth of their new compatriot. The Spaniards had long been annoyed by a fort, five miles from Brussels, which Marshal Schomburgh had rendered impregnable. The Spanish Prince had suffered repeated repulses in his attempts to reduce this fort. Many Irish regiments, who had followed the fortunes of their Sove- f THE HISTORY OF LOED DIGBY. 309 reign, were in the service of France, and the garrison of this fort was chiefly composed of this soldiery. Charles the Second had lately been abandoned by Mazarine, in his terror of Crom- well, and the King was now a fugitive in the Spanish Nether- lands. Digby one day surprised Don Juan by an assurance that the Spaniards should possess the fort. He had been pri- vately negotiating with the Irish officers, and having convinced them that as their Sovereign was no longer protected by France, it could not but be agreeable to him that they should unite with Spain, who had afforded him an asylum, to the Irish it was per- fectly indifferent in whose service they engaged, and they found no difficulty in resolving to pass over to the other side. The great Marshal Schomburgh, who was convinced that he was secure from all attacks, suddenly discovered that his orders were disobeyed, and himself in the midst of unaccountable mutinies. The Marshal was constmined to march out of his impregnable fort, and had the mortification to witness most of his garrison wheel about to the Spanish camp. The dexterity and secrecy which Lord Digby had displayed in this transaction to the Spanish Prince, looked as if he had magically changed the scene ; and Don Juan declared that there was no reward equal to that service. From this moment Lord Digby, who no longer viewed any prospect of the Restoration, devoted himself to the fanish Court. Digby now anticipated some active part in the state ; and to an entire Spaniard, he deemed it necessary to become, what they call at Madrid, " a Christian.^' There was never wanting a favourable opportunity to execute what he had resolved on. Falling ill at a monastery where he visited his daughter. Father Courtnay, the Provincial of the English Jesuits, converted the able assailant of the Romish faith. This rapid conversion was not considered miraculous, even by the Spaniards, — and yet it seems so, for Father Courtnay was a person of no talents, and the learned Digby must have known the arguments of the Jesuit before he listened to them. This step irretrievably lost him with the English. Charles laughed at the ascendancy of Father Courtnay over the under- standing of the great philosopher, but, with his countrymen, Digby was not to be quit for their ridicule, and the King found I 310 THE HISTORY OP LORD DIGBY. it necessary to conceal his own sentiments, in pursuance of the advice of Clarendon, in commanding Digby^s absence at all future councils ; and moreover, ordered him to resign the signet as Secretary of State, which, though now but a titular office, was important, for it conferred on him a political character at the Court of Madrid. Even Don Juan, who had not read this portentous conversion when they had conned the stars together, cast a cold glance on the wonderful young proselyte. The Prince, indeed, had incurred a reprimand from the Spanish Cabinet for suffering himself to be so powerfully influenced by Lord Digby : the jealousy of the Ministers was at work. No place, no pension came from Madrid; no compliment from E/ome, but an exhortation, which relished of irony, that " since his Lordship had been converted, it behoved him now to convert his brothers/^ When Charles the Second was invited to be present at the treaty between France and Spain at Fontarabia, Don Louis de Haro, the Spanish Minister, pointedly excepted against the King being accompanied by Lord Digby. Yet such was the spell of Digby's genius, that Charles, though his crown might have been at stake, could not part with his delightful com- panion, who, leaving the negotiators with the fate of Europe in their hands, as matters not very pressing, proposed to the King to take a circuitous route in their way, from city to city. His Lordship had been a curious traveller, who knew when to post, and where to loiter; thus delighting and delaying, a rumour reached them that the treaty had been concluded, and the Plenipotentiaries had taken their departure. The saun- tering monarch then discovered how far he had been carried away by the fancies of his erratic conductor, to the detriment of very urgent affairs. The report, however, proved premature; but the adventure was auspicious to Lord Digby, for no sooner had he come in contact with Don Louis de Haro and the Spanish grandees, than that statesman was as deeply captivated by this admirable man, as had been Don Juan. On Charles's return to Brussels, Lord Digby was invited to Madrid, where he was well received by the King ; his wants were amply provided for, and he remained at that Court till the Restoration. The Earl of Bristol, such Digby had now become, returned THE HISTORY OF LORD DIGBY. 311 home Spanisli in heart, but he had lost an old friend in the Chancellor ever since his adventure with Father Courtnay. He retained, however, the personal affection of the King, who on the Restoration had been more munificent to the Earl of Bristol than the Eoyal forgetfulness had allowed with so many others. As Digby could not be of the Privy Council, or hold any osten- sible post in the administration, but had free access at all hours to the King, he ambitioned to be the head of the English Roman Catholics, but he found that the Jesuits would not divulge their secrets. That he could not be the Prime Minister of England, possessing as he did the King's ear, I suspect rankled in his spirit. A curious incident now occurred, which shows that the genius of the Earl of Bristol, unmitigated by age, still retained the restless invention of his most fanciful days. The treaty of the Portuguese match, already advanced, was confidentially revealed by the King to the Earl, who, provoked that he had not a greater share in foreign affairs, than his old friend the Chan- cellor admitted him to, determined to exert his rare faculty of puzzling, and obstructing any project which was not of his own contrivance. He startled the King by an assurance that this proposed political marriage must be followed by a war with Spain; he described the critical situation of Portugal, and of that miserable family who would shortly be compelled to ship themselves off to their Brazils, as Spain in one year would over- run the whole country. He caricatured the Infanta, as repulsive in person, and known to be incapable of having any progeny, an objection which was fully verified by the event. There were, however, two accomplished ladies of the House of Medici, whom he luxuriously painted forth to the voluptuous Monarch, and whom Spain would consider as a Spanish match. He suggested that the King should send him incognito to Italy to make his election for a Queen of the most favoured of these two ideal ladies. He prevailed over the weakness of the Monarch ; kissed hands, and took his departure ; and though a letter was dis- patched after him to stay any farther proceedings, he pretended that he had received the communication too late, and would have closed his secret negotiation with one of the ladies, but, as Clarendon sarcastically observes, " he had not the good fortune to be believed." 812 THE HISTORY OP LORD DIGBY. The same improvidence in his domestic affairs which had marked the wanderings of his emigrant life, ruined his happi- ness. Jealous of Clarendon's influence, he thought that the Chancellor had lessened his favour with the King. One day, in a closet interview, in a state of great agitation, he upbraided the King in unmeasured terms for " passing his life only in pleasure and debauchery, while he left the government to the Chancellor — but he would do that which should awaken him ! " The King was equally surprised and confused; otherwise, as he declared, having been personally menaced in his private closet, he had called the guard, and sent his old companion to lodge in the Tower. This extravagant conduct was the prelude of the Earl of Bristol exhibiting charges of high treason against his estranged friend the Chancellor. When these were brought into the House of Lords it was resolved, that by the statutes of the realm no Peer can exhibit a charge of high treason against another Peer in their own House; and further, that in tlie matters alleged there was no treason. What is extraordinary, the Earl himself fully concurred in these resolutions, but what is still more so, he preferred the same charges a second time. ^' Follies of the wise V The King was so greatly offended, that warrants were issued for his arrest ; and during two years, tliis baffled and eccentric statesman was forced to live au secret, ^ But this singular man was familiar with the mutability of fo^ I tune, for on the Chancellor's final disgrace, we find that the Earl of Bristol came to Court and Parliament in triumph I In the enmity of an ancient friendship, like the unnatural feuds of civil war, the hatred is proportioned to the former affection. In the persecution of Clarendon the Earl of Bristol was his own victim. His vindictive passion, perhaps, on this single occasion, blinded his luminous intellect and subdued the natural generosity of his temper, for that was such, that tliough he loved and hated violently, the softness of his disposition would easily reconcile him even to those who had injured him. Digby liad more imagination than sensibility ; his love, or his hatred, ap- peared by the most vivacious expressions ; but it was his temper, more than his heart, which was engaged. His friend, or his enemy, in his own mind, was but a man, with whom he con- il THE HISTORY OF LOED. DIGBY. 313 sidered that a single conference would be sufficient to win over to his own will. His glory was now setting, when Digby was yet to show him- self to all the world, as the most elevated of human beings. Lord Orford, among the contradictions in his character of Lord Digby, has sneered at his conduct on a remarkable occa- sion. " He spoke for the Test Act, though a Roman Catholic/^ Thus an antithesis, or an epigram, can cloud over the most glorious action of a whole life. This statesman, in the policy of that day, and at that critical hour, above all other considera- tions, held, that the vital independence of this country was in the firm and jealous maintenance of the Protestant interest. On this occasion he delivered his sentiments with his accustomed eloquence, but above the eloquence was the patriotism. The present work will not admit of a development of the fine and original genius of this remarkable statesmen. From his speech on the Test Act and his "Apology" addressed to the Commons* might be selected passages, as important for their deep sense, as for their splendid novelty. The noble speaker avoided to decide, whether the boon of greater freedom to be granted to the Romanists would be dangerous ; or whether the unreasonable ambition of any E-oman Catholics had afforded any just grounds for the alarm which had so violently seized on, and distempered the major part of his Majesty^s Protestant subjects. It is these fancies which he would now allay, and he thus illustrates the nature of popular fancies. "My Lords, in popular fears and apprehensions, those usually prove most dangerous that are raised upon grounds not well understood ; and may rightly be resembled to the fatal effects I of panic fears in armies, where I have seldom seen great dis- orders arise from intelligence brought in by parties and scouts, or by advertisements to Generals, but from alarms on groundless and capricious fears of danger, taken up we know not either how or why. This no man of moderate experience in military affairs but hath found the dangerous effects of, one time or other ; in giving a stop to which mischiefs the skill of great commanders is best seen." He closes the speech with these words : "My Lords, however the sentiments of a Catholic of the * It is preserved in Nalson's Collections, vol. ii. 314 THE HISTORY OF LORD DIGBY. Church of Rome, (I still say uot of the Court of Rome,) may oblige me, upon scruple of conscience, in some particulars of this Bill, to give my negative to it, when it comes to passing, yet as a member of the Protestant Parliament, my advice pru- dentially cannot but go along with the main scope of it, the present circumstances of time and affairs considered, and the necessity of composing the disturbed minds of the people." However we may be disposed to censure the eccentricity of this singular personage, his public character was always decided, and at the most critical moments of his political life his path was clearly traced before him. Lord Digby, from his first eloquent speech on the trial of Strafford to his last on the Test Act, poured forth the feelings of a patriot with the calm sagacity of the statesman. Had he lived in our times, it is probable that Lord Digby would have spoken against this very Test Act, and afforded Horace Walpole one more ungenerous sneer. Little did Lord Digby imagine that he would only be known to posterity by the pen of his immortal adversary, the Chan- cellor, who in his solitude, though feeling himself personally aggrieved, had suffered no vindictive passion to cross the seas — a sad exile from his country and his glory ; yet in his leisure hours at Montpellier, his great mind found a delightful task, in commemorating the splendid accomplishments and the daring virtues of his great enemy, which he felicitously distinguishes as " the beautiful part of his life.'' " It is pity,'' continues the noble writer, "that his whole life should not be exactly and carefully written, and it would be as much pity that any body else should do it but himself, who could only do it to the life, and make the truest description of all his faculties, and passions, and appetites, and the full operation of them ; and he would do it with as much ingenuity and integrity as any man could do.'' And his Lordship finely concludes — " If a satiety in wrestling and struggling in the world, or a despair of prospering by those strugglings shall prevail with him to abandon those contests, and retire at a good distance from the Court, to his books and a contemplative life, he may live to a great and long age, and will be able to leave such information of all kinds to posterity, that he will be looked upon as a great mirror by which well- disposed men may learn to dress themselves in the best orna- I •i THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL. 315 ments, and to spend their lives to the best advantage of their country/^ This had been a fortunate suggestion, had it ever reached Lord Digby ; but this Earl of Bristol lived eight years after this noble effusion, and though no man was more partial to his own genius, he has left his adventurous life unwritten. We have lost a tale of the passions, warm with all the genius which prompted his actions. The confessions of Lord Digby might have afforded a triumph over his vanities; Statesmen would have been lessoned, and men of the world, through his versatile conditions, and in his reckless life, would have contemplated a noble and enlarged image of themselves. CHAPTER XXIII. THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL. HE menaced Remonstrance had been the secret terror of Charles the First : even in Scotland, at its first intimation, the King had earnestly impressed on his faithful Secretary that his irieuds should put a stop to it by any means. Heart-stricken it its presentation, the King desired that this Remonstrance should not be published, unaccompanied by his answer; he earnt that it was already dispersed ! The style of the Monarch, in alluding to this Romonstrance knd to the seditious libels of the pulpits, betray his dread. " We are many times amazed to consider by what eyes these things ire seen, and by what ears they are heard." With this enve- momed satire on himself and his government, the very populace rere now to sit in judgment over their rulers, and to comment rith all their passions and their incompetence, on evils often aggravated, and evils which though they had ceased to exist, by their cruel recollections seemed to increase in number. Rushworth has printed this memorable State paper in the xtraordinary manner of a chapter in the Bible, consisting of ;'06 verses; every verse a grievance which had been redressed, »r a grievance which Charles was now willing should no longer I S16 THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL. exist.* He appealed to them in his replies " whether he had not granted more than ever King had granted ? — whether of late he had refused to pass any Bill presented by Parliament, for redress of those grievances mentioned in the Remonstrance ? " This Remonstrance was an elaborate volume, which might serve as the text-book of every Revolutionist in the three realms ; and it laid open his infirm government to the eyes of Europe ; or, as it was described in one of the King's Declarations, "rendered us odious to our subjects and contemptible to all foreign Princes." This anomalous Remonstrance was the first formidable engine of that great Paper-war which preceded the civil, sad and wrath- ful image of the fast-approaching conflicts ! This Remonstrance may also be distinguished as the first of those decisive acts by which the Commons usurped the whole Sovereignty of Govern- ment. It was an appeal to the people against the Sovereign, by the Commons themselves, and an actual announcement of the separation of the Lower from the Higher House, since it had not been deemed necessary any longer to require the concur- rence of the Lords. " Our presumption may be very strong and vehement, that though they have no mind to be slaves, they are not unwilling to be tyrants ; for what is tyranny but to admit no rule to govern by, but their own wills ? And we know th( misery of Athens was at the highest when it suffered under tli thirty tyrants." f The Remonstrance received an able answer, the secret pro- duction of Hyde, which Mr. Brodie candidly acknowledges, "was calculated to make a great impression," but whid Mrs. Macaulay could only perceive " was vague, and totally deficient in justifying the King's actions." As if the King' actions were to be justified, any more than the proceedings ot the Commons ! It is, however, remarkable for the positive state ment of that important circumstance in the reign of tin calumniated Monarch, which, had it been fictitious, could hardly have been ventured on, in such an unreserved appeal to th( whole nation — namely, the present prosperity of the people, an*! the national happiness during a period of sixteen years; '^uo! * Rushworth, iv. 438. + His Majesty's Answer, Husband's Collect. 284 should be 283. ii THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL. 317 only comparatively in respect of their neighbours, but even of those times which were justly accounted fortunate/' The style of Charles had become more popular ; the moderate councils of Falkland, Colepepper, and Hyde would have tended to tranquillize the disturbed state of the public mind; and Charles himself had evinced his own disposition for con- ciliatory measures, by all which he had himself done in Scotland. The violence of the Commons now strikingly contrasts with the subdued conduct of the King. They seemed to have ac- quired a renovated vigour; their agitation was more intense; their hostility more open. The sovereignty of England now depended on the single vote of the Commons. The more the King was driven to yield, seemed only to inflame their consci- ousness of power. Secret motives were instigating this fiercer activity. One motive was their dread of a change in public opinion; the stream which had hitherto carried them on was ebbing, or turning from its course. Charles, left to discreeter counsels, might win the affections of the honest and the honourable, who were not enlisted into a party. When Hampden reproached Lord Falkland for having changed his opinion, his Lordship replied to the patriot, that he had been persuaded at that time to believe many things which he had since found to be untrue ; and therefore he had changed his opinion in many particulars, as well as to things as persons. This, at least, was an unbiassed opinion, for the virtuous Falkland had accepted ofiice on the repeated entreaties of his Sovereign, but with the greatest repugnance. The Commons were now despotic. They ridi- culed even Parliamentary customs when these thwarted their immediate purposes ; when on one occasion Pym declared that the established orders were not to be considered like the laws of the Medes and Persians. When the shadow of the House of Lords was yet suffered to show itself, an extraordinary motion was made by Pym, that " the major part of the House of Com- mons, and the minor of the Lords, should be an authentic concurrence of both Houses.* Mr. Godolphin, objecting to this * Sir Philip Warwick, 187. Abstract propositions little influenced the conduct of the demagogue who publicly promulgated them. He who thus violated the laws 318 THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL. novel Parliamentary reform, observed, that, if the greater part of the Lords went to the King with the lesser part of the Com- mons, it would be exactly the same thing. Pym was too resolute to be embarrassed by a dilemma. Godolphin was instantly commanded to withdraw, and an order entered in the Journals, that " the House should take into consideration the words spoken by Mr. Godolphin." It ended, as usual, with the threat, and Godolphin escaped without the treason! It would be difficult to determine whether the King had made, or the patriots were making, the greatest encroachments on the Constitution. Another secret motive was at work which instigated the vio- lence of the Commons. It was known to some in the House, that the King possessed from Strafford, Saville, and Montrose many discoveries concerning themselves. The patriotic leaders had betrayed their sensitive state on various occasions. They had clamoured against the King's journey to Scotland, and sent their Commissioners at his back; they had felt even a jealousy in the King's personal communication with his Scot- tish subjects; when the mysterious " Incident" occurred at Edinburgh, the parties at London were struck by the sym- pathetic terror. Charles possessed evidence for their im- peachment, they imagined for their destruction. To maintain the power they had usurped, it was necessary to push on to every extremity; it was also a desperate effort for their own self-preservation. They decided to annihilate the House of Lords, beginning by the Bishops, and to degrade, to calumniate, and to terrify the Sovereign ; dreading nothing so much as that reconciliation which seemed fast approaching between the King and the nation. It is important to observe, that the inevitable results of these has himself delivered for posterity one of the noblest descriptions of law which the whole compass of our language can produce, in a passage which rivals the splendour of one of the common-places of Cicero, and the logical force of Lord Bacon's pri found meditations. " The law is that which puts a difference betwixt good and evil, betwixt just and unjust. If you take away the law, all things will fall into a con. fusion ; every man will become a law unto himself, which in the depraved conditio of human nature must needs produce many great enormities ; lust will become a law, and envy will become a law ; covetousness and ambition will become laws wliat dictates, what decisions, such laws would produce, may easily be discerned.'* THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL. 319 persevering persecutions of the Commons led to the fatally im- prudent acts of the various parties who, on their side alike urged by their despair, fell the victims of the Commons. The Lords now perceived their own danger in resisting the Commons ; the mobocracy again triumphed ! Many peers ab- sented themselves, from disgust or from terror ; and thin houses supplied a majority for the Commons. The cry of " No bishops" had been for some time bellowed by the mobs, who more exph- citly threatened " to pull the bishops in pieces." One evening, at torch-light, the Marquis of Hertford hurried to the Bishops' bench, and, greatly agitated, prayed them to remain all that night in the House. The terrified bishops earnestly desired their Lordships that some care might be taken of their persons ; messages to the Commons were totally disregarded ; some Lords only bestowed a smile. The Earl of Manchester at length un- dertook to protect Williams, the Archbishop of York, and some bishops his friends. Some escaped by secret passages, others by staying great part of the night in the House. ^HfThe final ruin of the bishops was hastened by the rashness of ^le, who on so many critical occasions had never been deficient in self-possession, nor in dexterous manoeuvres. The Arch- bishop of York, the wily Williams, in this extremity, maddened by despair, committed an act of greater imprudence than were even some of the King's precipitate measures. ^tA.rchbishop Williams hastily drew up a protest, and by his ^Plful representations, assuring them of the legality of the act, obtained the signatures of twelve bishops, wherein they declared that " All laws, orders, and votes were void, and of none effect in their absence." This protest was not to be used till it had received the royal consent. The Lord-Keeper, Littleton, how- ever, to ingratiate himself with the Commons, as more than one testimony confirms, read it openly in the House, aggravating its offence. When this protest reached the Commons, it was instantly voted "high treason." "We, poor souls, who little thought that we had done any thing that might deserve a chiding, are now called to our knees at the bar — astonished at the sud- denness of this crimination compared with the perfect innocency of our own intentions." Such is the language of Bishop Hall in his " Hard Measure." At night, and in a hard frost in I 820 THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL. January, the bishops are dragged to the Tower. The news of their committal is announced by the ringing of bells and the blaze of bonfires, so prevalent was now the novel passion for Presbytery ! The infamy of the bishops was blazoned in scur- rilous pamphlets both at home and abroad, and their " treason- able practices" were reiterated, till some discussed what sort of death could expiate such unheard-of crimes ? After a tedious prosecution of these victims of state, huddling them together, " standing the whole afternoon in no small torture, struggling with a merciless multitude," and in that dark night sending them all in a barge to shoot Ijondon Bridge, where the chance of escape was doubtful — the Commons did not make out their pre- tended treason. One of the party, to prevent involving them in any greater crime, desired that they should only be voted " stark mad, and sent to Bedlam." Another of their oracles being asked for his opinion, declared that they might with as good reason accuse these bishops of adultery, as of treason. They remanded them for another day, which day never came. The truth is, many in the nation did not conceal their abhorrence of their barbarous conduct in hurrying to their dungeons these dignified and learned personages. It is observable that in more than one instance the party evinced the sagacity of retreating when they discovered that they were in danger of losing ground in popular opinion. But though the bold design of the Commous was frustrated in condemning the bishops as traitors, they persisted in renewing the bill for taking away their votes at the same time with the bill for pressing, both which, as Clarendon states, had lain so long desperate while the Lords came and sat with free- dom in the House. Both afterwards easily passed in a very thin House.* Thus had the Commons signalized their triumph over the Lords ; nor had they ceased to harass the hapless monarch ; and the injuries and indignities offered to his person were " scorns put upon the kingly office," degrading it in the eyes of the very populace. The King was reduced to a state nearly of destitution. " Beggar as I am ! " he exclaimed, when once he pathetically reminded them of his personal deprivations ; " we have and do patiently suff'er those extreme personal wants, as • Bishop Hall's « Hard Measure." THE FLIGHT FKOM THE CAPITAL. 821 our predecessors have been seldom put to, rather than we would press on the great burdens our people have undergone, which we hope in time will be considered on your parts/^ There was a bitter mockery in their pretended elevation of the character of majesty ; they sometimes promised " to make him a great and glorious king," but they also told the Sovereign, that they had done him no wrong, for he was not capable of receiving any ; and that they had taken nothing from him, because he had never any thing of his own to lose. About this time the Common- wealth men raised their voices ; Harry Martin, in a novel strain had asserted, unreproved, that " the office of Sovereignty was forfeitable," and that "the happiness of the kingdom did not depend upon the King nor any of that stock." Sir Henry Ludlow, the father of the celebrated General who has left us his memoirs, had openly declared that " Charles was unworthy to be King of England." The King had long witnessed the peti- tioning mobs j he daily heard how their pulpits sermonised sedition ; and gay ballads were chorusing the fall of the Bishops, and menacing his own, under the palace windows. All seemed a merciless triumph over the feebler Sovereign. Charles seemed abandoned amidst his new council; his old ministers had been forced to flight, or had been compelled to resign their offices to his new and suspected friends. The Sovereign afterwards had been placed amidst a council whom he could not consult on his most immediate concerns, and whose advice, it has been conjectured, on more than one occasion, had proved treacherous. His new SoHcitor-General, the dark- browed St. John, was meditating his ruin; Lord Say and Sele had led him into perilous measures. With his new ministers, Falkland, Colepepper, and Hyde, however honourable, his per- jonal intercourse had been but recent, and there was yet wanting )n both sides that confidential intercourse which time only natures. Meanwhile, Charles was betrayed in his most retired liours ; the apartments of the palace were surrounded by watch- ful spies, by corner listeners — and by mean creatures, who, on the denial of any favour, would fly to the Parliament, where they were certain of being enlisted among the recruits of patriotism. Pym unreservedly told the Earl of Dover, that " if he looked for ny preferments he must comply with them in their ways, and VOL. II. Y I 822 THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL. not hope to have it by serving the King." Hence it happened that the most secret councils, and the future designs of Charles were anticipated by his great enemies. These confederacies explain many extraordinary occurrences which could not have happened in the ordinary course of affairs, and which must have often surprised Charles himself as much as they have done the readers of his history. The artifices practised on the infirm faculties of the Queen, who lived in continual panics during the King^s absence, were not, surely, with Charles one of their least off'ences; he felt them as personal injuries. Threatened with impeachment, she was reminded that several Queens of England had perished on the scaffold. The tremendous secret had been revealed to Hen- rietta, by those who were acting by connivance with some of the party in the Commons. When the party petitioned to bfl informed who were the " Malignants " who had done that mali- cious office, they well knew who it was ; and could they have been compelled to confess to whom they stood indebted for their information concerning the Queen, the juggle would have been manifest. The same person who had so confidentially ac- quainted the Queen with the design must have conveyed to them the alarm, and the language which broke forth from this ter- rified Princess.* But they well knew that the Queen could not betray those whom she held as her friends, and she was, in con- sequence, compelled to assure the very persons who she believed would willingly have required her life, that " although she had heard such a discourse, she had never considered it credible." The King was often driven to similar compulsions. At length, when the Commons desired the execution of seven priests, in which the Lords were made to join, the King would only consent to their banishment. Among such numerous claims, which the Commons were daily urging, this sanguinary measure was the only one to which the King would not yield. Amidst the humiliating state of contumely which Charles was enduring, it was not among the least hopes of some who enter- tained deeper designs than the rest, that this Monarch, of a * Clarendon, ii. 232. The recent edition furnishes a material verbal correctiou from the manuscript. The passage, as given by the former editors, to me is unintelligible. I THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL. 323 temper hasty and indignant, would be provoked into some fatal indiscretion, and so it happened ! It was on the 3rd of January, 1642-3, without any conference with his ministers, that Charles commanded the Attorney- General to impeach the five members, and the Lord Kimbolton. A Serjeant-at-arms demanded 'that the House should deliver them into his custody, and returned with a message, but not an answer. That very night a printed order from the Commons was issued that no member can be arrested without the consent of the House, and every person might lawfully aid any member in his resistance, " according to the Protestation taken to defend the privileges of Parliament.'^ This was an open defiance of the Royal authority ! In strictness, however, there was an irregularity in the form of Charles's arresting the members ; they alleged that their consent must be had before any pro- ceedings were instituted against a member of their House — a subject, however, which admitted of many opposite arguments when the privileges of Parliament were afterwards discussed, and which might lead to some ridiculous results. "The Pro- testation," on which the irregularity is grounded, had been a recent act of the Commons. The King afterwards complained, that when he resolved on the arrest of the members, having no design to invade their privileges, " he had expected an answer as might inform us if we were out of the way ; but we received Jjone at all. This was the first time that we heard ' the Pro- ■fcstation ' might be wrested to such a sense. We confess we were somewhat amazed, having never seen nor heard of the like, though we had known members of either House committed without so much formality as we had used, and upon crimes of a far inferior nature to those we had suggested. Having no course proposed to us for our proceeding, we were upon the matter only told that against those persons we were not to pro- ceed at all j that they were above our reach, or the reach of the law, so that it was not easy for us to resolve what to do." * Amidst this unhappy conflict of prerogative and privilege, new and hurried ordinances were often recurring ; and most of the dissensions between the King and the Commons seem to have sprung from the latitude, and even opposite sense, in which k * Husband's Collections, 245. Y 2 324 THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL. both parties received them. As formerly, in the " Petition of Eight," Charles discovered, in the exercise of his authority, that he had been deprived of it, by some unexpected explanation of a recent Act of the Commons. On the following day, the 4th of January, Charles, to the astonishment of all men, went down in person to the House of Commons, to repeat his injunctions, if not to arrest the members in their open House. He came, too, attended by a formidable company. This memorable incident in the history of Charles the First cast his affaii's into irretrievable ruin, at a moment when Pym is said to have acknowledged that " If that extraor- dinary accident had not happened to give them new fcredit, they were sinking under the weight of the expectation of those whom they had deluded, and the envy of those whom they oppressed." ■•■ Clarendon positively assures us that the King^s adviser on this occasion was Lord Digby. Mr. Brodie observes that the proceedings against the six members had been resolved on before the King left Scotland, and the utmost that can with propriety be imputed to that nobleman is, that he recommended what he saw had been determined upon.f Had this impeach- ment been solely the consequence of a long settled determina- tion, it is remarkable that on so important a state- measure the King should never once have discussed it with those three ministers who possessed his entire confidence. J Whatever we * Clarendon, ii. 183. The noble writer, in delivering the Patriot's confession, has evidently interpolated it with his own feelings. f Brodie, ii. 151 and 280. Mr. Brodie refers generally to the correspondence between the King and Nicholas in Appendix to Evelyn's Mem. This would be an authority recently published, which could confiraa that of preceding writers, who were not contemporary with the events. But I cannot discover any passage wliich specifically shows any such decision. Oldmixon, however, asserts, that the articles of High Treason were prepared by the King when in Scotland, and that the im- peachment of the members was the consequence. — Iltstoi'y of the Sieivarts, 176, col. 2. We know that the King had been very assiduous in obtaining infonnation hi Scot- land, and probably collected enough to satisfy himself of what he deemed treasouabl< practices ; but on his return home, and the Act of Oblivion having passed, it seems not probable that he would have ventured to impeach these powerful leaders, had they granted him that tranquillity which he flattered himself to have restored in Scotland. X Mr. Ilallam solves this historical problem, not, perhaps, untruly. " The King was guided by bad private advice, and cared not to let any of his Privy Council know his intentions lest he should encounter opposition," i. 688. I suspect, how- ever, that Mr. Hallara imagined at the moment of writing this, that Charles had « listened to the Queen." 583. I THE FLIGHT FEOM THE CAPITAL. 325 may deem the policy of this bold act of impeachment, we must not condemn it as any exercise of arbitrary power, since the King professed to put the members on their legal and fair trial. What the treasonable practices precisely were we can only conjecture, for the patriots were never brought to the bar. The articles exhibited by the Attorney- General seem to have been common between the impeached members and the Parliament. Did Charles imagine that he could compel the Parliament to condemn themselves or accomplices with their own leaders? Hume has profoundly observed, that "the punishment of leaders is ever the last triumph over a broken and routed party; but surely was never before attempted in opposition to a faction during the full tide of its power and success.'^ Had the King in reserve some of their later intrigues, some yet unrevealed occurrences which had passed in their divan, for Whitelocke informs us that they had of late held frequent private meetings ? The King was fully convinced that he possessed particular proofs of " a solemn combination for altering the government of the Church and State; of their designing offices to them- selves and other men, &c.'^* Charles even considered that Ithe people would thank him for disclosing some of his scoveries." Jt was the subsequent act of going down to the House in Tson, and with a considerable force, which was, as the King afterwards called it, "a casual mistake.^^ The King went reluctantly, and not without hesitation, till quickened by a woman's taunt : — of what nature was that famous taunt, I must refer the reader to a preceding passage.f This reluctance seems to indicate that the project was not his own ; it has even been surmised that the rash council came from that irresistible quarter ; and Hume, taking his ideas from Whitelocke, ascribes it to " the Queen and the Ladies of the Court," who had long witnessed the personal indignities the King was enduring. It was quite in character that the vivacious Queen of Charles should have been transported at this " brisk act," as Clarendon might have called it, and rejoiced to see her Consort become " master in his own dominions," at least over those who were threatening her with an impeachment. Such a coup d'etat I Husband's Collections, 534. f See vol. i. 426. 326 THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL. would charm her toilette politics, which were always the echo of some one who had her ear at the moment; she had no political head of her own. That person was now Lord Digby, who had equally fascinated Henrietta and Charles. The King was not likely to be swayed, on such a strong and decisive measure, by the sudden freaks and fancies of womanish coun- cils, which on many occasions he had treated with raillery, or dismissed with argument. The irritated monarch was in more danger at this moment of having his natural impetuosity worked upon by " the sanguine complexion" of Lord Digby ; an expres- sive designation, which some years after experience had taught the monarch to apply to his romantic adviser. All that perilous boldness which characterises the singular genius of Lord Digby is stamped on this memorable impeach- ment, as well as on the more extraordinary occurrence of the succeeding day. His wonderful dissimulation in the House of Lords the instant he discovered the fatal effects of his owns I councils on the impeachment, reprobating the measure even to Lord Kimbolton, the very victim on whom he expected to have laid his hands, was not unusual with this versatile man. That he instigated the King to hasten in person to the House, if any one did, appears from this remarkable circumstance. After Charles had been baffled in the attempt, and found to his sur- prise that " all the birds had flown," the reckless Digby offered the King to take a dozen picked military men. Col. Lunsford, j and other soldiers of fortune, and hasten to the City, and in the House where the fugitive members lodged, by a coiip de main, to seize on them alive, or leave them dead. Charles, who had grown more sage than his counsellor by some hours, forbade this double rashness. The man who would willingly have cast himself on such a forlorn hope, was the sort of genius who only could have suggested, if any one did, the wild romantic scheme of the King coming down, with men armed, to the House of Commons. On a hasty knock, the door of the Commons was thrown open, i announcing the arrival of their extraordinary visitor : already f warned, from more than one quarter, of his approach, the House had a little recovered from their consternation ; still the presence of the Sovereign in the House of Commons, for all parties, was THE FLIGHT FEOM THE CAPITAL. 327 a moment of awful novelty,* and our actors had now to perform a new part for the first time. The Speaker was commanded to keep his seat with the mace lying before him. Charles entered, solely accompanied by his nephew the Palsgrave. Immediately uncovering himself, the Members stood up uncovered. The King took the Speaker's chair " by his leave." He stood some time, glancing around, but seemed perplexed by the multitude of faces ; he more particularly directed his looks towards Pym's usual seat by the bar, whose person he well knew. Charles in addressing the House assured them, that no King that ever was in England should be more careful of their privileges ; but in cases of treason he held that no person hath a privilege. On the word of a King he declared that he intended no force, but would proceed against those whom he sought in a legal and fair way ; he subsequently said, *' according to the laws and statutes of the realm, to which all innocent men would cheerfully sub- rait." He took this occasion again to confirm that whatever he had done in favour, and for the good of his subjects, he would maintain. He now called on the impeached members by their names. None answered. Turning to the Speaker, who stood below the chair, he inquired whether they were in the House ? The Speaker, Lenthall, a person who never afterwards betrayed any sign of a vigorous intellect, and who, had he acted with less promptitude and dignity, might have fairly pleaded the novelty and difiiculty of his unprecedented situation, seemed inspired by the greatness of the occasion. Kneeling to the King, he desired the Sovereign to excuse his answer, for " in this place I have neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak, but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here." The King told him that " He thought him right, and that his own eyes were as good as his. I see the birds are flown ! " He * An explanatory apology for this unusual proceeding was afterwards given by Charles. « We put on a sudden resolution to try whether our own presence, and a clear discovery of our intentions, which haply might not have been so well under- stood, could remove their doubts, and prevent those inconveniences which seemed to have been threatened ; and thereupon we resolved to go in our own person to our House of Commons, which we discovered not till the very minute we were going — the bare doing of which we did not then conceive could have been thought a breach of privilege, more than if we had gone to the House of Peers, and sent for them to have come to us, which is the usual custom." — Husband's Collections, 246. i 328 THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL. concluded by strenuously insisting that the accused Members must be sent to him, or he must take his own course. On this occasion none but the Speaker spoke. All were mute in sullenness or in awe. No generous, no dignified emotions broke forth from that vast body of Senators. The incident itself was so sudden, and so evidently unpremeditated that Charles had not discovered his intention to a single friend. All ■were astonished or indignant. It was, however, a fitting and fortunate occasion for some glorious patriot to have risen as the eloquent organ of the public opinion, and have loyally touched a nerve in the heart of a monarch, who would not have been insensible, amidst his sorrows and his cares; he might have been enlightened by solemn truths, and consoled by that loyalty of feeling from which he had been so long estranged. Charles having spoken, and no friendly voice responding, left the House as he had entered, with the same mark of respect. But the House was in disturbance, and the reiterated cries of " Privilege! Privilege ! " screamed in the ears of the retiring Monarch. We are told by Clarendon that the King deeply regretted the wild adventure, and that " He felt within himself the trouble and agony which usually attends generous and magnanimous minds upon their having committed errors which expose them to censure, and to damage." Should it be imagined that this colouring exceeds the reality, we may at least trace the King's whole conduct after his late error, day after day, to retrieve "the casual mistake," and to adopt measures the reverse of those which argue a design of arbitrary rule. All parties agreed to censure this bold and hazardous measure ; for on unsuccessful enterprises men are judged of by the results. Fatal as was this false step, yet Charles was always conceiving himself justified in the impeachment; the King was desirou that the nation should be rightly informed of his own notions. On his return in the evening, he sent for Rushworth, whom he had observed at the Clerk's table, taking down his speech. The King commanded him to supply a copy. Rushworth, at all times in due dread of his Lords the Commons, who, in their tyranny, were already preparing the sad fate of the Attorney-General for having obeyed his Master's commands, and who honestly avows that he wished to be excused, reminded THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL. 3£9 the King that the House was so jealous of its privileges, that Mr. Nevil, a Yorkshire member, had been committed to the Tower only for telling his Majesty what words were spoken by Mr. Bellassis, son to Lord Faulconbridge. Charles, with remarkable quickness, observed, "I do not ask you to tell me what was said by any member of the House, but what I said myself.^^ This fortunate distinction allayed the fears of the wary Clerk of the Commons, and is one among the other abundant evidence of the logical head of Charles. Rush worth transcribed the speech from his short-hand, the King staying all the while in the room. The King instantly sent it to the printer, and it was published on the morning. These transactions passed on the 3rd and 4th of January, 1641-2. The five impeached members had flown to the city. The Commons on their adjournment formed a select committee at Grocers' -hall, at once to express their terror by their removal, and not to be distant from the council of the five. On the 5th, Charles having utterly rejected the wild bravery of Digby's resolution to seize on the members, went to the Guildhall, accompanied by three or four Lords and his ordinary retinue. He addressed the people in the hall, regretting their causeless apprehensions, and still relying on their aff'ections ; the accused I members, who had shrouded themselves in the city, he hoped no good man would keep from a legal trial. He aimed to be gracious and condescending ; and to be popular, he ofi'ered to dine with one of the Sheriff's, who was a known Parliament-man, and by no means solicitous of the royal honour. But Charles was mortified when the cry of the Commons echoed from the ! mouths of the populace. A daring revolutionist flung into the i King's coach a pamphlet bearing the ominous cry of insurrec- I tion, " To your tents, O Israel ! " for this Puritanic Israelite, iesignated as an Ironmonger and a Pamphleteer, only saw in Oharles a sovereign who was to be abandoned, like the weak md tyrannical Rehoboam. Rush worth says, on the King^s •eturn there were no tumults; however, the loyal Lord Mayor vas pulled from his horse, and with some of the Aldermen, iifter manifold insults, was fortunate to escape on foot.* Events, fraught with the most important results, pressed on * Nalson, ii. 822. 330 THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL. each other at every hour. Both Houses of Parliament, as if in terror, adjourned from time to time and from place to place. The city was agitated, and the panic spread into the country. All the plots and conspiracies which they had formerly heard, and had almost ridiculed, they now imagined to be very credible. Such rumours were the talk of the day and were cried at night. A conflict of the disordered multitude raged through West- minster. Their language was as violent as their motions. " It was a dismal thing," says Whitelocke, " to all sober men, espe- cially Members of Parliament, to see and hear them." It had become necessary to fortify Whitehall. On the 6th, the King ventured to issue a Proclamation for the apprehension of the five members who were to be lodged in the Tower. They were, however, more secure at a house in Coleman-street, in hourly communication with the Committee, till they were carried in state to Merchant-Taylors* -hall, to sit in the Committee itself. | On the 7th, the Royal Proclamation was declared to be false, scandalous, and illegal, and the Attorney- General was com- mitted for having preferred the articles against the five members. An inflammatory narrative, by the Committee, of the King's unhappy entrance into the House of Commons, was prepared with considerable art. They assiduously collected every loose expression, and every ridiculous gesture of some inconsiderate young persons who appear to have joined the King's party on their way. From such slight premises the Committee had drawn the widest inferences, till, in the climax of this denounce- ment of their "Rehoboam," they alleged, as evidence, the opinion of these blustering blades themselves, that had "the word" been given, "questionless they would have cut the throats of all the Commons." It is certain that Charles had enjoined his company not to enter the House " on their lives." A news- writer of the day acknowledges that " they demeaned themselves civilly ; " and Lilly, by no means prejudiced in favour of "the gentlemen with halberts and swords," says — " Truly I did not hear there was any incivility offered by those gentlemen then attending to any member of the House, his Majesty having given them strict commands to the contrary." * • Lilly's Life and Death of Charles the First, 108. «l THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL. 331 But the party had calculated on the effect of deepening the odium which the King had incurred ; and though this aggrava- tion of the idle words of some idle men, little comported with the dignity of the Commons, it was an artifice which served their purpose, of exciting the public feeling against the indis- creet monarch. A people already in tumult, were flax to the fire ; the populace seemed now only waiting to be led on to any desperate enter- prise. Most of the shops were closed, and the wandering rabble, here and there, were listening to any spokesman. At such a crisis, orators and leaders shot up, certain to delight themselves with an indulgent audience, or to head compliant associates. A person of some consideration exclaimed, '' the King was un- worthy to live \" another that "the Prince would govern better." The rage of the infuriated Leviathan was at its height. The tub was thrown to the whale. It was proposed to conduct the accused members in a grand triumph to their House. A thousand mariners and watermen fly to the Committee to guard them on the river ; a mob of apprentices proffer their services by land. During the preparations for the triumphal procession of the five, Charles deemed it necessary to remove from Whitehall. Such a resolution was not made without difficulty, and the ! anhappy result is alleged to prove that a contrary conduct was :he preferable one. The flight of Charles from the capital has jeen condemned. Some dreaded a civil war, should the King i ibandon the capital. The Lord Mayor, with many of the King's j/riends from the city, offered to raise a guard of ten thousand ]nen, but that itself would have been the very evil for which it •offered a preventative — a civil war. "If your Majesty leaves us," observed a sage citizen, "we are undone, and the members will carry all before them as they please." Presciently he Ldded, " Sir, I shall never see you again ! " Moreover, it was urged that the King had yet a strong party in the nation — a pajority among the Peers, and no inconsiderable number of the t/Ommons, who though they were separated by their fears, f'ere not yet lost, and even his late error might be redeemed. i>ut the King had lived of late without honour; the Queen not without peril; every hour was multiplying personal injuries i. 332 THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL. ■which he dared not resent. His late false step had ruined his hopes, and his confidence in his Lords had long heen shaken since they could no longer protect their own privileges. At a distance from this rule of terror, these scenes of insurrectioiij perhaps his fortune might change ; he might show himself to his whole kingdom, the Sovereign he desired to be ; his presence in the Capital had only surrounded him by conspiracies in his palace, and dethronement from his Parliament. On the tenth of January the King with his family, and a few of his household, took his melancholy departure from Whitehall, which he never again saw but to die before his palace- window. On the eleventh, at noon, the Committee, with the five members, came by water to Westminster. The river was covered with long boats and barges — their appearance was war- like— "dressed up with waist-clothes"* as prepared for action; their guns pealed and their streamers waved ; at land the drums and the trumpets responded. Clamouring against Bishops and Popish Lords, as they passed by Whitehall they jeeringly ask "What had become of the King and his Cavaliers?" Ti multitude rolled on from the city and the suburbs, with loud acclamations, following the citizens and the trained-bands, m1 carried "the Protestation" tied to the tops of their pikes, ai several troops of volunteers, who, instead of feathers, deck their hats with "the Protestation." This "tumultuary ami} was led by a Captain of the Artillery- ground, for whom : extraordinary commission for that purpose bore the novel till* of Major-General of the Militia. Major Skippon, who had risi from the ranks, became an able officer in thcRevolutionary w; The double triumph was complete by land and water. I military character was the most striking novelty ; and withe a war, the Parliament could show an army. All these scon remind one of Revolutionary Paris. The King had flown to Hampton Court ; this was the fii flight in a life that was afterwards to be so fugitive. Hck * As Clarendon calls tliem. The term is not in Todd, and perhaps the us< obsolete. They are explained in Kersey's dictionary, as " all such clothes as hung about the cage-work, or uppermost hull, to shadow the men from the ent i in an engagement ; whence they are also termed Fights.^' The Wark or waist oi ship is described as that part of her which Ues between the two masts, the main a the fore-masts. J THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL. 833 however, tlie distance was not found inconvenient for the march of that army of petitioners, 'for such they appeared to be by their number and their hostility. It was now that the appren- tices, the porters, the beggars, and the "good wives" of the city* grew eloquent on paper. The most remarkable petitioners who went to the King were the deputation of a formidable body from Hampden^s County of Buckinghamshire. Four thousand, as they were computed, says Rushworth, some have said six, riding every man with the cockade of a printed copy of "the Protestation" in their hats, had presented themselves at the doors of the Commons, calling themselves " countrymen and neighbours of Hampden." As they were probably expected, this Buckinghamshire cavalcade excited no astonishment, and they were sure of a flattering reception. It must be confessed this muster did great honour to the patriot, but the fact could not be concealed, that here was a formidable squadron of cavalry of Hampdenites, of which the Colonel had not yet been ap- pointed. It was a regiment which might have given Charles more reasonable alarm than the Commons affected to feel, when Lord Digby drove one morning in a coach and six, attended by a single servant, to deliver a message to about fifty disbanded officers at Kingston^ for which he was compelled to fly the country, and attainted of treason for " levying war." On the twelfth, Charles flew to Windsor, having first dis- j patched a message to the Commons. He told them that some finding it disputable whether his proceedings against the mem- bers were agreeable to their privileges, he waived them — but I would adopt others in an unquestionable way. I Between this day and the twentieth, a committee, for now the I government seemed entirely at the mercy of a select committee, proposed a new Remonstrance on the state of the kingdom. To disperse this storm, the King sent down a remarkable nessage to both Houses. He offered that if they would digest ill their grievances into one entire body, for settling the affairs )f the nation on a secure basis, he would convince them that he lad never designed to violate their privileges, and was ready to ijxceed the greatest example of the most indulgent Princes. Hume, vi. 477. The philosopher is perfectly Lucianic in his descriptions, articularly in his profane scoffings of these female zealots. ii 334 THE FLIGHT FEOM THE CAPITAL. This healing message rejoiced the Lords, who implored the Commons to join with them in accepting this unreserved confi- dence of the King. But the Commons had to walk in their owTi path, not in that of the King^s or the Lords'. On the next day they pressed the King to proceed against the members. The King inquired whether he is to proceed by impeachment in Parliament, or by common law ; or have his choice of either? After these repeated attempts on the King's side to maintain the justice of his impeachment, it came to an almost incredible conclusion — the King grants a general pardon to all the parties ! The style is singular : " As he once conceived that he had ground enough to accuse them, so now his Majesty finds as good cause wholly to desert any prosecution of them." Charles would not falsify his late proceedings by declaring the innocence of the accused members, but assigns a reason which only leaves to posterity a testimony of his inextricable difficulties. It might be imagined that the whole incident of the five members had now closed all farther negotiations. But while Charles existed as the Sovereign, there remained for the Commons, particularly for the Commonwealth-men, much to be done. They had not yet obtained possession of the sword, though they had wrested the sceptre from royalty. They ad- vanced a step farther than the ingenuity of malice could easily liave contrived. They petitioned the King to disclose the names of his informers against the five members, and to consign them to the Parliament ! This " humble petition" never could be answered by the King, and this they well knew.* Suchi was their Machiavelian policy ; to close their discussions they usually forced the King into a predicament in which he must either have been the most contemptible of Princes in sacrificir" his friends, or in exposing the secrets of State, which involve his honour; or appear odious to the people by a conccalracni of what he dared not avow, or for having alleged what he could not maintain. • Rushworth notes, "What answer his Majesty returned to this petition, whether any, I do not find or remember." — Rushworth, iv. 492. I observe by ^^ Brodie that a bill in vindication of the accused members was immediately pi-epai' but Charles justly alleging that it reflected on him, which it certainly did, refused pass it. Pari. History, x. 388. Cobbet, ii, 1 1 34-4G. This fact completes the pro' of the rancorous personal persecution of the helpless Monarch. THE FLIGHT FKOM THE CAPITAL. 335 At this moment the King was left abandoned amidst the most urgent wants. He could no longer draw the weekly sup- plies for his household, for the officers of the customs were under the control of the Commons. The Queen had pawned her plate for a temporary aid. His friends in terror were in flight ; and the Sovereign sate amidst a council whom he could no longer consult. He was betrayed by the most confidential of his intimates. He was deserted by those who like Lord Holland had depended on his bounty, or whom like the Earl of Essex he had unaccountably neglected. " In this sad condition," says Lord Clarendon, " was the King at Windsor, fallen in ten days from a height and greatness that his enemies feared^ to such a lowness that his own servants durst hardly avow the waiting on him." Amidst the perplexities of State, and these personal distresses, the anxieties of Charles were increased by the fate of his Queen, and the pressure of his own immediate plans of operation. Hen- rietta's fears were restless since the menace of impeachment. The pretext of the Queen to accompany her daughter, betrothed to the Prince of Orange, to Holland, covered more than one design. There, in security, not unprovided with the means, carrying with her the crown jewels, she might execute some confidential offices, while the King resolved to fly to the North, as yet untainted by the mobocracy of the Metropolis. There was yet an agony to pass through for the husband, in the separation from his adored companion — that hapless foreigner, now chased to a still more foreign land, to live alone among a people who never cast a sorrowing look on suff'ering royalty. Charles accompanied Henrietta and the Princess to Dover; many an importunate message was received from the Commons on his way, and the last hours of the parting of the family were disturbed by many a gloomy presage. When the Queen had embarked, Charles stood immoveable, watching the departing ship with the most poignant emotions. There was an awful uncertainty whether they should ever meet again. He stood on the shore to give them the last signal, the last fare- well ! — gazing with moistened eyes till the shadowy sails vanished in the atmosphere. When the vessel was no longer visible, Charles lingered for some time, pacing along the shore, wrapped II 336 THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL. in deep and sad thoughts. The King had of late been accus- tomed to the deprivation of his power — to the destitution of personal wants, and it was doubtful whether he had a kingdom which acknowledged its Monarch, or a soldier who would obey his commands, for at this very moment, and on his road, he had been assailed by reiterated messages to deliver up the militia to the Commons. But he had never yet lost his wife — he had never felt that pang of love — the loneliness of the soul. Yet he was still a father, and Charles contemplated on a melancholy pleasure on his return to Greenwich, in the embrace of the Prince. On this last tendril were now clinging his domestic affections; yet of this object of his tenderness the Commons hastened to deprive him. While at Dover, a worth- less courtier had been refused to be admitted of the Prince's bed-chamber. With men of this stamp a favour denied implies a wrong received; and thus injured, this man declared that '' since he could not be considerable by doing the King service, considerable he would be, by doing him disservice." Posting to the Parliament, he gave some pretended information of a design to remove the Prince into France, but more intelligibly offered himself as " their bravo " at taverns, and meetings, not deficient in insolence and audacity. This worthless rejected creature of the Court, though without talents, and having long lost his character, was publicly embraced and eulogised, even by Hampden. In the spirit of party no man is too mean to court, no arts too gross to practise. Charles had desired the Marquis of Hertford, the governor of the Prince, to bring him to Green wich; on this an express order from the House forbade hi removal. But the command of the father was preferred. Several Members hastened to Greenwich to convey the Prince to Lou don, but the King had arrived; and they were silent in tli presence of the father. Charles had been greatly agitated on his road by a message from the Commons respecting the Prince Embracing his son, the melancholy Monarch, shedding sonii joyful tears, exclaimed, " I can now forget all, since I have go Charles ! " The King had granted so much, that he had nothing left to bestow, save one great object of the ambition of the triumphanf party — the army itself. THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAPITAL. 837 They had first proposed to nominate the Lords Lieutenant of every county^ chiefly their adherents, who were to obey the orders of the two Houses ; the two Houses were now the House of Commons. The King had not refused even this point, reserving to himself a revocable power. But their policy was now, observes Hume, to astonish the King by the boldness of their enterprises. They declared that their fears and jealousies had so multiplied on them, that it was necessary for them to dispose of the whole military force of the kingdom, both for the safety of his Majesty and the people ; this they had resolved to do, by the authority of both Houses — that is by their own autho- rity. And they mercifully invited his Majesty to fix his residence among them. It is remarkable of Charles the First, that whenever he acted unembarrassed by the distracting councils of others, there was a promptness in reply, and a decision in conduct, which convey the most favourable impressions not only of his intellect, but of his intellectual courage. When the Committee of both Houses went down to Newmarket to deliver this astonishing message, instead of finding the King subdued into pusillanimity, an object of the contempt they had so studiously shown him, they were answered by such an unexpected denial, in a style so vigorous and indignant, that it startled the Committee, who had rehed on what of late had so often passed. They had come to vanquish a deserted monarch, and were themselves repulsed. Lord Holland would not venture to report the King^s words, without a written memorandum. By this circumstance posterity receives an authentic specimen of Charles's colloquial discourse; we trace his warm undisguised emotions expressive of his anger, or pathetic from deep and injured feelings. From the King's interviews with the Committee I transcribe those passages which will interest the readers of his history. " I am confident that you expect not that I should give you a speedy answer to this strange and unexpected declaration. " What would you have ? Have I violated your laws ? Have [ denied to pass any one bill for the ease and security of my subjects ? I do not ask you what you have done for me? " Have any of my people been transported with fears and jiipprehensions ? I have ofi'ered as free and general a pardon as 1 VOL. II. z I 338 THE CIVIL WARS. yourselves can devise. All this considered, there is a judgment from Heaven upon this nation if these distractions continue. God so deal with me and mine that all my thoughts and inten- tions are upright for the maintenance of the true Protestant profession, and for the observation and preservation of the laws of the land." On the following day the Earl of Holland endeavoured to per- suade his Majesty to come near the Parliament. Charles replied, " I would you had given me cause, but I am sure this Declaration is not the way to it. And in all Aristotle's rhetoric there is no such argument of persuasion." The Earl of Pembroke pressed to learn of his Majesty wl he would have them say to the Parliament ? Charles smartlj replied, that " He would whip a boy in Westminster school that could not tell that by his answer." Again pressed by the Earl of Pembroke, after all that had ' passed, to compromise the demand of the Commons, by granting the militia for a time : Charles suddenly swore, " By God ! not for an hour ! You have asked that of me in this, was never asked of a King, and with which I will not trust my wife and children." Well might Charles the First exclaim, as once he did, in addressing the Commons, " Surely, we too have our grievances !" CHAPTER XXIV. THE CIVIL WARS. As late as in my youth, the Civil Wars of Charles the First were still a domestic tale, as well as a public history. Their local traditions are scattered over the land, and many an achieve- ment of chivalric loyalty, or of Commonwealth intrepidity, are commemorated in our county histories; for the kingdom of England, as the poet May, the Parliamentary historian, expresses it, was divided into more wars than counties.* We may listen to such narratives on the very spots of their occurrence. We may linger amid the scenes of some forlorn hope, or some strange and momentary stratagem ; of the obdurate siege, where famine * A Breviary of the History of the Parliament, 71. THE CIVIL WAKS. 339 was more murderous than the sword, and the dread surrender to an enemy as obdurate — as at the siege of Colchester ; or some sanguinary storming, as at Leicester, where they found a war in every street ; or some triumphant repulse, as at Lyme ; some midnight surprise, as at Dover Castle. Many an obscure village like Chagford in Devonshire, where Sydney Godolphin fell, or Chalgravefield, where Hampden shed his blood, or the Close at Lichfield, where Lord Brooke, the great adversary of the Church, pledged his solemn vow and perished, were places which, as Lord Clarendon has said of one of them, " would never otherwise have a mention to the world." The Civil Wars of Charles the First, ere the Revolutions among our neighbours, formed an unparalleled story of the strug- gles and the passions of a great people. It was then peculiar to Englishmen, that there were few who had not derived from their very birth-place the most elevated feelings, though associated with obscure incidents and the names of unknown persons ; for however obscure might be the incident, and however unknown the person, the interest excited was not local but national ; and the man of whom the tale was told, whether Monarchist or Par- liamentarian, was a hero or a martyr. Thus it has happened that some whose name has only received a single mention, known but by a single act, are still chronicled in the memory of their towns- men, and we find their descendants among the old families of the place. Heroes have died unsung among these Civil Wars, and more noble blood has been shed in an obscure field of action than have cost some victories of renown. Struck by so many ennobling and so many affecting scenes, in the variable contest, an artist of some eminence, a few years ago, designed a series of pictures to perpetuate the most remarkable incidents. He had loitered through many a summer day in their scenes ; he had stood on the broken town's wall where the enemy had forced an entrance, now concealed beneath the tall grass, and on which no Corporation would bestow an useless repair. From such a spot he had traced the combatants to the stand made at the market-place, or where the steeple of the church opposed the inroad like a fort. There the townsmen, too brave and too simple in their rude warfare to cry for or to give quarter, " not from cruelty but from ignorance," a contemporary z 2 im 340 THE CIVIL WARS, narrative mournfully records, would fight after the surrender of the place, maddening the vindictive soldiery. Our jirtist had pondered over the memoirs of contemporaries who had them- selves been actors in the scenes which they described, and often discovered incidents which are still attested by the records of the town — by the evidence retained among ancient families, in diaries, letters, and other domestic memorials ; * and may still be veri- fied by an inspection of the very places — spots for the dreaming fancies of the painter^ s graphical imagination ! The halls of ancient mansions are often hung with the antique gorget and the petronel ; f the steel basket-hilted sword, common in the Parliamentary wars, the ponderous brass spurs and the military gloves, which have not yet mouldered away. There they hang, and with them often " hangs many a tale." The hero himself, who either defended or retook his own mansion, or perished in the field, no unwilling victim to martyred honoufii J or to holy freedom, still awes us with his peaked beard andFI shining corslet among his obscure cousins in the portrait- gallery. Often in these aboriginal families, the domestic circle has its private anecdotes — they show the secret apartment wliere the sliding panel concealed all entrance ; there some hero lay secreted | * Among other curious circumstances of this nature which have happened to me, I may mention one concerning a gentleman of the time of Charles the First. In a visit to Lyme Regis, it was my good fortune to become acquainted with a ver}' amiable gentleman of the name of Pyne. He was a descendant of John Ppic, whose name has been commemorated by Clarendon, v. 68. Mr. Pyne obligingly showed me some family papers. This John Pyne, in the time of Charles the First, was " a gentleman well known and of a fair estate " in Somersetshire. He was of " a passionate and virulent temper, of the Independent party." A letter of his was intercepted during tli<^ treaty of Uxbridge, which showed "a great detestation of the peace," inveighing against the Earl of Essex and the Scots. The effect on the impending negotiation produced by this letter, which exposed the secret intentions of the Independents, is noticed by Clarendon. I found at the British Museum an original letter of this Mr. Pyne, which warmly congratulates that worthy, Colonel Pride, for his famous " Purge." But the history of Pyne has not yet closed. This ardent Independent and country gentleman lived to witness the Restoration — and it seems from th«; family papers, that, after a considerable imprisonment, means were used that the Attorney-General came down with a nolle prosequi — and one day John Pyne, *' tra- velling in a coach and four," returned to his " fair seat ;" but the means practised with the ministers of Charles the Second, and most probably with Clarendon, are still felt by his descendants, and " the fair estate " was sadly " shorn of its beams." + A "petronel is a kind of harquebuss or horseman's gun, so called because it !•" hanged on the breast." — Kersey's " New World of Words." i THE CIYIL WAES. 341 from his pursuers, even from his family ; * and there once the wealth of the family, hastily thrown together, was buried from the irruption of a predatory soldiery. They, too, have their affectionate or their proud traditions of devoted fidelity, and of sequestrations and imprisonments, which at the time only concealed family feuds under the cloak of patriotism ; and of many a tender alliance, through more than one generation, crossed by the heirs of the courtly cavalier and the uncompro- mising Cromwellian. Foreigners sometimes reproach our insular English for defi- cient sympathy with the miseries of war, estranged, as they are, from its actual scenes. The history of no people, however, has been more abundant with the calamities of that most cruel of all wars — civil war ! The scroll of British history unfolds little but a barbarous and tragic tale. The blood of the English people was not consumed only by the two Roses ; the protracted war of several years of the Sovereign and the Parliament was a male- diction of Heaven ; and so recently as in the days of our fathers, how many domestic feuds survived the battles of the Stuart and the Brunswick ! Civil, or intestine wars, are distinguishable from external, or foreign wars, by the personal hatred of the actors. They are neither combating for ancient glory, nor for new conquests. It is the despair of their passions which involves these fraternal enemies in one common vengeance. Even conquests in civil wars render the victors fearful. Whitelocke was deeply im- pressed by this sorrowful observation. " Thus," says he, " we may see that even after almost a conquest, yet they (the Parlia- ment) apprehended no safety ; such are the issues and miseries * The history of these interior and secret apartments in old mansions is curious. They were long used, and often built by our Roman GathoUcs to conceal the celebra- tion of their mass, and as an asylum for their priests. In the civil wars they were of great service in secreting persons, whose lives have been saved by half an hour from the soldiers sent after them. ISIany have lived in their own houses, for many months, unknown to their own family, save the single member who was trusted to procure their meal with the most cautious secrecy. Sir Henry Slingsby seems to allude to such an apartment in his own house. " Since they have from York laid wait for me to take me, I take myself to one room in my house scarce known of by my servants, where I spend my days in great silence, scarce daring to speak or walk, but with great heed lest I be discovered. Etjam veniet tacito curva senectus pede.^' — Memoirs, p. 92. 342 THE CIVIL WARS. of a civil war, that the victors are full of fears from those they have subdued ; no quiet, no security ! " * Where victories are painful as defeats, dark cypress, and not laurels, must be gathered. What can two armies of fellow-countrymen, sometimes two rival counties opposed to each other with provincial malignity,t destroy, but that which was their own ? Him who so bravely assaults, and him who so bravely repels, the country might bless, had they the hearts to be recreants ! What scenes are shifted in this tragic drama ! The plundered mansion — the village in flames — the farmer's homestead ravaged ! W^hose property has the hero of civil war plundered ? — his neighbours' ! Whom has he routed ? — ^his friends ! Who appear in the returns of the wounded and killed of the enemy ? — ^his relatives ! The sanctit} of social life once violated, family is ranged against family; parents renounce their children ; the brother is struck by the arm of his brother ; even the affection of the wife is alienated ; and finally, they leave the sad inheritance of their unnatural animosities from generation to generation. In ci^dl wars not small is the number of those, whose names appear in no list of the suflferers, whose wounds are not seen by any human eye, but whose deaths are as certain as any which flies with the bullet. These are they who retreat into the silence of horror and despair, and die heart-broken — or linger on with sorrows unassuaged, or unutterable griefs. But all are not patriots who combat for patriotism. All sort^ of adventurers looking up to all sorts of hopes, take their station under opposing banners. There shall we find Ambition and Avarice, often Revenge and Ingratitude ; so many are the passions civil war indulges and conceals ! The suff'erings of the common people seem beneath the * Whitelocke,219. t I fear that in the civil wars of Charles the First, when whole regiments wer' composed of men raised from a particular county, and came in contact with a siniilm one of another, the struggle became more obstinate and malignant. The men < Herefordshire encountering the men of Gloucestershire ; the Lancastrians engaguii; witli the Northumbrians ; even the inhabitants of one town with those of a neigh- bouring town, would slash each other with the malice of provincial rivalry, and to the miseries of war add the paltry pride of the jealousy of a whole county. In tli< Memoirs of Captain John Hodgson, an active Commonwealth officer, in the Lancashii' infantry, we detect this sort of feeling. Alluding to the bravery of his regiment, li' says, " They were brave firemen — I have often told them they were as good fighter and as great plunderers as ever went to a field." — Memoirs of Captain Hodgson, 1 19- ii THE CIVIL WAES. 343 dignity of the historical pen, and the sympathy of abstract reasoners. Every scene in history is to be something which may be acted in a theatre by the privileged actors. It is not the story of a few hundred persons in a nation ; but of the tens of thousands who are hourly to be immolated to the demon, who hears their shrieks, or notices their tears ! In a civil war not only men change their principles, but towns and cities are disordered by sudden phrenzies. During the wars of Charles the First and the Parliament, many a town, sometimes a whole county, were compelled to take a new side at the approach, or on the retreat, of an army. And this concussion of their passions, or clash of their interests, was again to be suffered as the place was lost, or was recovered. A civil war is more than one war, for it conceals enemies within, while it combats the enemy without. In the wars of Charles the First, often on the day the Parliament's warrant to enlist men was read, a messenger hastened to the Sheriff with the King's proclamation. If the people opposed the Parliament, they heard themselves lauded for their due allegiance to their Sovereign ; if they sided with the Parliament, they were flattered as the faithful servants of the State. The people thus seemed always in the right ; but whatever was the principle, they dis- covered that the result was ever the same. The people were to be plundered ! The friend they must not deny ; the foe they dared not. Political confusion nourished Anarchy and Tyranny — ^political confusion, like the wolf-nurse of the two rival founders of Rome, sent her progeny forth, raging uncontrolled from Dover to Berwick. Military marauders, for such in civil wars even disciplined troops become, living at free-quarters, making war as their holiday, and enriching themselves by impoverishing others, would often reproach their fellow-countrymen to their faces that " They were conquered slaves ! " Who now was to maintain laws, when lawlessness was itself the law, and the swordsman sate as the Lord Chief- Justice ? A contemporary bard has energetically described this unhappy crisis : '* The eyeless sword 's unable to decide ; But with its two-edged skill it doth divide The Client, not the Cause." I 344 THE CIVIL WARS. The enormities of the military on both sides tyrannised through the land. Often in vain was the white flag hung out and a parley prayed for, as the soldier, eager for pillage, rejected a capitulation, and took by storm, and sack, the place ready to open its gates. This intolerable state of suffering gave rise to a very extraordinary attempt at self-defence. In the west of England many countrj^-gentlemen were persuaded to raise up a third party in the country, which should neither be Royalist nor Parliamentarian. It was to consist of an ai'my without soldiers, for they were neither to wear swords nor carry fire- arms. Suddenly appeared many thousand men, who it is said at one period amounted to a body of fourteen thousand, armed with clubs and flails, scythes and sickles laid on long poles ; it was an agricultural war, and the agrestic weapons no longer wounding the fertile bosom of nature, directed the whole rural war against man himself. Announcing that they would allow no armies to quarter within their bounds, they called themselves Club-men, and decided all matters by their own Club-law. They professed only to defend their harvests and their granaries. At any given point they assembled in considerable force, and their ensign bore a motto in rhymes, rude, but plain — " If you offer to Plunder and take our cattle, You may be sure we '11 give you battle." This third party in the Civil Wars at first were so strange, that neither of the two great parties knew whether to consider them hostile or friendly. The Club-men grew to be so formidable as to be courted by both for timely compliances and temporary aid. Cromwell, too decided a general to allow of any independent force, or of ambiguous favours, attacked this unsoldierly army, and so completely routed the rural troops, that they no longer appear in our history.* It is remarkable that the term Plunder, for military spolia- tions and robberies, which we find in the rhyming motto of the Club-men, was now first introduced into our language — it was brought from Germany by some of those soldiers of fortune, whose deeds here were the clearest comments on a foreign term * This novel insurrection of the Club-men, Locke has ascribed to the prolific brain of Shaftesbury when a young man. The fantastic invention of an army without soldiei's was not ill-suited to his plotting and fanciful genius. THE CIVIL WARS. 345 whicli time lias by no means rendered obsolete * It is curious to observe the latitude whicb the partisans of that day, and of all days whenever such of the mobocracy are in power, chose to affix to the term, which was by no means limited to military execution. An unlucky "malignant" indicted several of the mob-worthies for "plundering his house." The prisoners did not deny the fact, so that there were the fact and the law alike against them. The petty-jury, however, persisted in returning Ignoramus. The Bench asked how they could go against such clear evidence ? The foreman would return no other answer than this — " Because we do not think plundering to be felony by the law." t Such was the magic of a new name for most ancient thievery ! But the truth was, that the men at the bar were all " honest men," being all Parliamentarians. The Civil Wars of Charles the First were accompanied by one of the most distressful emotions which an honourable mind can experience. On both sides men were induced to combat for a cause, in the justice of which they were not over-confident. Neither the object nor the conduct of the Patriots was always so evident to the contending parties as they may appear to later times. After the death of Hampden and Pym, new factions rose, who assuredly were not combating for the freedom of the English nation. Opinions sometimes wavered, as points of law admitted of a novel exposition, or as the last arguments were perplexed by the more recent confutation; even the warm apologists of each party were often disconcerted at unexpected circumstances, which too often betrayed the errors or the violence of their own. In this ambiguous state there necessarily resulted the most confused notions, distracting their consciences and paralysing their acts. Many eminent persons fell victims to these mutable and contradictory proceedings. Neither the Boyalist, nor the Commonwealth-man, wh9 were so on system, would hesitate in their decision; and both alike perished in the field or sufl'ered on the scaff'old. But these irmed, perhaps, not the greater, nor always the most estimable * May's History of the Parliament. Lib. iii. 3. } Bruno Ryves in his « Mercurius Rusticus, or the Country's Complaint," which 346 THE CIVIL WARS. part of the nation. Many great and good men acted they scarcely knew how ; they fluctuated in their opinions, for which they had too often reason * — and what sometimes proved more fatal, they abandoned their friends — or if in their despair they concealed their private sentiments, these self-tormentors lived in the agony of their consciences. Essex and Manchester obeyed the Parliament, but they were not enemies to the King ; Falkland, and many others in the royal army, obeyed the King, but were not enemies to the Par- liament. Sir Edward Varney, the Standard-bearer of the King, who perished at Edge-hill, marched in the royal ranks, from a principle of honour, but not from any conviction of the justice of his master's cause ; on the other side, Sir Alexander Carew, who had distinguished himself among the hottest of the Patriotic party in the prosecution of the Earl of Straflford, and was in the full confidence of the Parliament, was beheaded — it is said at the instigation of his brother, such a hellish brood a Revolution hatches ! — for his design of giving up Plymouth to the King. Sir Hugh Cholmley, long a Patriot of the highest reputation, and one of their active Commissioners, passed over to the King. In the Lord-Keeper Littleton we see a sage of the law, and a man of unblemished integrity, siding with the Parliament, and at last delivering up the great seal, and himself too, to the King. This was an immediate sacrifice of his own considerable fortune and his condition — but it terminated the solitary struggles in his mind. Unhappy men ! The party they desert never forgive them, and those to whom they go never forget from whence they come. This numerous class of honourable persons were not apostates from caprice or faithlessness; neither present nor prospective views influenced them. They were off'cring the greatest per- sonal sacrifices in going over to the King, for they left behind them their estates to an eager and sequestrating Parliament. The virtuous and sensitive Falkland, amid those reveries, in which, since the opening of the Civil War, his melancholy had * Sir Philip Wanvick tells an anecdote of a Dr. Farrar, a physician, whom he describes as a man of " a pious heart but fanciful brain, for this was he that would have had the King and I'arliament have decided their business by lot." Many points which cost so much blood might as well liave been decided by the dice. The physician was the philosopher. to I THE CIVIL WAES. 347 indulged, was often heard to exclaim "Peace! Peace! Peace!" It was to escape from that prostration of his spirits, which had of late clouded over his countenance, deranged his manners, and sharpened his language, that Falkland, to end this war of his feelings, rushed to the death he sought in the field. It may be suspected that even thorough-paced Partisans were haunted with many lurking doubts which at times darkened their convictions. Lord Brooke, that fiercest assailant of the National Church, who, on looking on St. Paul's, hoped " to see the day when not one stone of that edifice should lie on another," appears to me, notwithstanding his enthusiasm, to have stood in this comfortless predicament. To storm the Close at Lichfield he chose St. Chad's day, to whom the Cathedral was dedicated. His Lordship meant to give the most public aff'ront he could imagine to the Saint ; this was a remaining feeling of the old superstition, as if dubious whether his Saintship were, as he believed, a mere nonentity. Farther, he solemnly invoked Heaven, for some signal testimony of its approbation ; or if his cause were not right and just, that he might perish ! It is quite evident that he had contemplated on a possibility that his cause was not right and just, otherwise he would not have implored for a signal testimony. Lord Brooke, however, seemed hardly to have trusted Heaven with his life ; for his invulnerable lordship was armed at all points in stubborn mail, and the only part of him uncovered with iron, was that *^ evil eye " which he had cast on St. Paul's. Great Churchmen, Laud and South, and the historian Clarendon, fancied that St. Chad himself had rolled the bullet which pierced the eye and confused for ever the metaphysical brain of the renowned adversary of Episcopacy, whom Milton has immortalised. It is more evident that had Lord Brooke's final conviction been freed from every doubt in that offuscating controversy, he had never so solemnly appealed to Heaven to confirm the verity of his positions and the justice his violence. If elevated characters, such as these, could not elude the verity of their fate, it was still more disastrous with the weak and the timid. " The two unfortunate Hothams, the father and the son," as May pathetically designates them, offer a memor- able history in our Civil Wars. They were both ostensibly on I us THE CIVIL WARS. the Parliament's side. It fell to the lot of the hapless father to bear the dread exigency of opening the Civil War. As Governor of Hull he had been compelled by a strong party among the townsmen to close the gates against the King. The Governor appeared on the walls, on his knees, and with distracted looks, a pitiable object, solemnly protesting his loyalty to the King and his duty to the Parliament. The man before his own face was proclaimed a traitor by the King — the secret lay in his heart, for he was a Royalist. The Parliament dispatched the son to watch over the father — at length both came to betray each other ! The father was inveigled, by the miserable hope of saving himself, to aggravate the delinquency of the son ; and the son inveighed against the father as an enemy of the Par- liament. The father and the son, destitute of affection and forti- tude, on that day cast a blot on a name ancient and honourable, and both were hurried to the scaffold.* A warm and genuine picture of the conflicting emotions at this period, we find in a letter from Sir William Waller, the Parliamentary General, to Sir Ralph Hopton, his former com- panion, and now one of the King^s most zealous commanders. Waller feelingly dwells on that cruel situation in which the most intimate friends were now to be torn away from each other, and not only divided, but opposed in arms. Waller confesses, too, the fears which harassed a delicate mind not yet brutalised by war ; and is sorrowfully conscious, that he could not communicate that conviction, which he hardly seems to have felt himself. " My affections to you are so unchangeable that HostiHty itself cannot violate my friendship to your person ; but I must be true to the cause wherein I serve. — I should wait on you, according to your desire, but that I look on you as engaged in that party beyond the possibility of retreat, and consequently, incapable of being wrought upon by any persuasion. That Great God who is the searcher of all hearts, knows with what a sad fear I go upon this service, and with what perfect hate I * " The woeful tragedy " of the Ilothains is told by Clarendon, v. 1 10". We now find by a suppressed passage that '' the vile artifice " which had been practised on them was the contrivance of Hugh Peters, who was the chaplain sent to them to prepare them for death, and took that opportunity to wrest from them mutually arguments one against the other. THE CIVIL WARS. 349 detest a war without an enemy. But I look upon it as Opus Domini 1 We are both on the Stage, and must act those parts that are assigned to us in this Tragedy; but let us do it in the way of honour, and without personal animosity." This extraordinary state of affairs often produced a singular effect both on persons and on events. The most enhghtened men of the age, and the most free from suspicion of any criminal selfishness, could not avoid, alternately, to gratify and to offend the two great Parties. Selden, in his firm integrity, had con- demned " the Commission of Array " issued by the King, on a point of Law; the King remonstrated with him; the Parlia- ment professed to be governed by the most learned of lawyers and the most forcible of reasoners, whose decision in this instance contributed to their own designs. Selden had flattered himself that he should equally guide their measures when he delivered his judgment against the Parliamentary ordinance to possess themselves of the militia or the army. On that occasion he raised his admirable faculties to their highest pitch, and he demonstrated as positively, as he had done in the case of '^ the Array," that it was " without precedent and without law." It must have mortified that erudite scholar and that profound lawyer, when he discovered that his legal knowledge was only to be consulted, and his arguments were only to be valid, when they concurred with the purposes of those whom he ad- dressed ; and were weak, and of no authority, when they came in contact with their passions. Such a severe judge of truth would not have been accepted as an arbiter either by the King or the Parliament. But Time has consecrated the decisions of Selden ; and Posteritj^ acknowledges the rectitude of that wisdom which was censured by both parties for mutability of conduct. All in the ranks of the King were not insensible to the voice of the Parliament, and knew how to appreciate as dearly, their laws, their liberties, and their properties, as the Patriotic leaders in the Commons. There was a period when the Loyalists would plead in favour of their cause, that the King had long earnestly concurred in many popular acts; had of late more cautiously governed himself by law ; and they might have pointed out at least one energetic passage in which Charles absolutely recanted his past political errors, tenderly reproaching those who persisted 1 350 THE CIVIL WARS. in reverting to them, and warning his censurers that they them- selves might fall into the like errors from the same suggestion of necessity.* On the side of the Patriots were many who, without the views of ambitious men, had taken up arms neither to dethrone the Monarch, nor to change the Constitution, but they suspected the sincerity of the royal concessions. Rapin, with great candour and equal shrewdness, has stated this nice point of the distrust of the Parliament : a distrust on which revolved the calamities of the nation ! " I do believe it to be something rash to affirm that Charles the First was not sincere in his promises. But then I am of opinion that his sincerity may be doubted, since he had never an opportunity to demonstrate it by effects." And thus it was, that the people were now driven into this cruel alternative, to combat against or to defend the sovereign, with equal reason to do one, or the other ! It was necessary to develop this obscure point in the history of our great Civil War, by showing how it happened that such frequent defections alike occurred to both parties. It may also correct the popular notion, which so conveniently decides that it was necessary that our civil liberty should be the fruits of violence and injustice ; raised up by the passions and not by the wisdom of men. Many who were the actors in the solemn scenes of our Revolution, when they beheld the nation opposed to the nation ; laws violated and authority usurped ; a Presbytery raised on the ruins of a Hierarchy ; the destruction of the monarch, and the dominion of demagogues — did not con- clude that the constitutional freedom of England had become more vigorous or looked more beautiful. They did not conceive that Charles the First was that absolute tyrant, and that the Parliament were so absolutely patriotic, as we are apt to imagine. They did not assert that nothing more was necessary than to pursue a direct course, without fear and without doubts, without honour and without conviction. • This remarkable passage is in the King's answer to the ParHaraent's petition, presented at York in 1642. — Husband's CoUections, 127. WHO BEGAN THE WAR 1 351 CHAPTER XXV. "WHO BEGAN THE WAR, THE KING OR THE PARLIAMENT 1" Such is the title of a grave chapter in the favourite " Essay" of a party, " towards obtaining a true idea of the real character of Charles the First/'* With the Parliament in their last Treaty of Newport, it was an important point to clear them- selves of the charge of rebellion by an acknowledgment that they only had recourse to arms in their own defence ; but to do this they necessarily criminated the King. The King urged them to agree to an act of oblivion on both sides. Charles was willing to grant them security, but not justification. When the Earl of Northumberland was intreated to spare the distress of his old friend and master, by conceding such a condemnatory proposition on the King and all his friends, it was declared to be a sine qua non in the treaty — the Earl observing, "The King in this point is safe as King, but we cannot be so.'' It seems to have afforded a melancholy satisfaction to the sufferers from the Civil Wars to imagine that their party were not the authors of the protracted miseries of the country. The inquiry has been a legacy left from one historian to another, and we find it a subject of acrimonious discussion with the most recent.t All these writers, in the march of their narrative, pause, to fling back the reproach on the adverse party, while both, with equal triumph, assign some insulated circumstance, or adduce some subtle argument, whence to date the origin of the Civil War. To remove the odium from their own heads, of * This Essay professes to be « extracted from and delivered in the very words of some of the most authentic historians." It was first printed in 1748, anonymously. The compiler was Micaiah Towgood, a dissentmg minister. A third edition appeared as recently as in 1811. It is therefore appreciated, nor is it the least curious of the pamphlets concerning Charles the First. This sort of works, pretending to offer nothing from the writer himself, but merely the opinions of others, has an appearance of candour and impartiality which is often very deceptive. The choice of the extracts, and the class of the originals, are made by the prepossessions of the compiler. Among " the most authentic historians " here quoted, we find chiefly warm party-writers, as Neal, Burnet, and Ludlow, till we sink down to the infamous Oldmixon. t Brodie, History of the British Empire, iii. 335. I 352 WHO BEGAN THE WAR, haviug first opened those calamitous scenes, eacli party lias always been anxious to charge the other with the first aggres- sions, and to infer that their own side, whether Royalist or Parliamentary, persevered in all the simplicity of innocence, and, to the last hour of their exemplary patience, testified their utter repugnance to appeal to the sword. In detecting the arti- fices and perplexities of the advocates of both the great parties which were now about to divide the nation between them, we may smile at their strenuous invectives to criminate each other. The day of debate had closed. The cry of conspiracy and treason on the side of the Royalists, and of suspicions and fears from that of the Patriots, had ceased. This terribly tedious paper- war of remonstrances and resolutions, of protestations and of messages, of declarations and of votes, of replies and rejoin- ders, had outwearied the vigour of their pens. Little sincerity appears in these public appeals, dictated as they are often by their fears and jealousies. Here they attack, and there they retort; here there are evasions, and there misrepresentations. Both parties perfectly understood one another, but it was alike their interest that the people should not learn that the struggle was for the actual Sovereignty. The one thundered against arbitrary government, the other against those who had assumed it. Both disguised their real intentions, for both dreaded to become odious to the people by afflicting them with the horrors of an unnatural war. The people, distracted by law and by logic, by dusty pre- cedents and involved arguments, each persisting that the law was on their side, and no one seeming to care what the law was, or whether there existed any law at all for their own acts, were also divided among themselves by contrary interests and heart- burning bickerings. The people at this moment were to be the umpires between the Sovereign and the Parliament — alas ! the umpires themselves required an umpire ! These rotary mani- festos succeeded one another in ceaseless perplexity, designed to create a public opinion by winning over the affections or impelling the passions of their adherents, through the slow gradations of sympathy. Their arguments, while arguments served their purpose, being framed on opposite principles, like two parallel lines,, i THE KING OR THE PARLIAMENT 1 353 miglit have run on to "the crack of doom." And as they attached to the same terms very different senses by this equivocal and ambiguous style, they had only to ring the changes on "Fundamental Law"— "The Parliament"— and "Peace," as triumphantly at the fiftieth time as at the first.* In this war of papers the King obtained many splendid vic- tories. Charles had called in for aid the pens of the enlightened Lord Falkland, and the adroit Sir John Culpepper, but more usually exercised the eloquent and keen genius of Clarendon. A statesman, however, remarked at the time, that wit and elegance, delightful as they were, could not long last useful, and he dreaded lest "their fine pen would hurt them." It was indeed evident, that in a contest which had in it all the elements of civil war, though they had showered their words against each other as hard as the flowers of rhetoric can hit, the parties would seize on weapons more decisive than arguments, con- vincing only those who required none, and with truths whose denials were persisted in, till the truths seemed to be fictions. While the battle was to be urged by the force of words, there was not an Athlete in the kingdom who could wield the club of Hercules, but Hercules himself. The profound thought — the deep insight into human concerns — the sharp and irresistible irony of the fertile genius of Clarendon poised the whole force of the Commons, who could only surpass him in the practical * Rapin shrewdly observes that the King and the Pariiament played with the term Fundamental Law. The Parliament gave the name to the trust which the people placed in the two Hoitses—Sknd when it came to the last push, to the single House of Commons ! The King would recognise nothing fundamental, but positive and particular laws. Hobbes, in his Behemoth, a work in dialogue, inquires, " What did they mean by the Funda.^iental Laws of the Nation ? Nothing but to abuse the people." 260. Oldmixon more curiously explains, that by Fundamental Law Charles interpreted the Laws of the Land, meaning his own corrupt Sovereign potoer,hut not that Sovereign power under which the kingdom has been so glorious since the last male monarch of the House of Stuart ! 198. The phrase Fundamental Law is still a marketable article among the great political traders as "sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." The Parliament, meant for some time the two Houses and the King's name, separated from his person— Charles insisted that a Parliament included both Houses and himself. Peace, with the Parliament, had as many different senses as the propositions for peace varied. Clarendon has well described it : « Both sides entertained each other with discourses of peace, which always carried a sharpness with them thatTwhetted their appetite to war ! " VOL. II. A A II 854 WHO BEGAN THE WAR, politics of their own House. Clarendon, whose dexterity in style was such, that he could inimitably imitate the style of any man, never yet found one who dared to imitate the deep solemnity of his periods, and the vigorous redundance of his own style. Charles, confident in the masterly skill of his replies, always accompanied his own by the papers of Parliament. The Parliament discovered their own inferiority, and were so utterly disconcerted, that at length, when they sent forth any of their own manifestos, they strictly prohibited the publication of the King's answers. In vain the royalist Echard, following his Coryphaeus Claren- don, struggles to show " the King's backwardness as to war," and as vainly the venal Oldmixon echoes his oracle Acherley, in denouncing the King for having originated the civil war. At York Charles raised what he called a guard for his person : it consisted of a single troop of cavalry, composed of volunteers from " the prime gentry,'' of which the young Prince of Wales was the captain, and a single regiment of six hundred train- bands, the ordinary militia of the county. Doubtless this was a nest egg for some future brood. At this moment Charles had no other force than the influence of his name. He was without any means to maintain an army had he possessed one ; he was in extreme necessity, not having yet received the moderate supplies which he was awaiting from the Queen in Holland. He had neither ships, nor harbours, nor arms, nor monies. The Parliament had deprived him " of bread," as Clarendon pathetically expressed it, and the whole regal establishment was reduced to a single table for himself and the Princes. So far from Charles being considered in the least formidable, or even able to enter on a civil war, Hampden and Pym assured Sir Benjamin Rudyard, as that honest patriot declared on his death-bed, that they considered that the King was so ill-beloved by his subjects, that he would never be able to raise an army to oppose them. And even when the King had raised this very guard for his person, as he called these volunteers, the Secretary and historian of the Parliament in alluding to this particular event, confesses that "the kingdom was not much affrighted with any forces the King could so raise."* * May's History of tho Parliament, lib. ii. 58. THE KING OR THE PARLIAMENT'? 355 Yet it is on this very circumstance of raising this guard for his person that Charles is denounced as the real author of all the miseries of the civil war. The Parliament voted that it was the King's intention to make war. The words of Acherley are triumphantly quoted by Oldmixon, and the passage is important, for it will serve to detect one of those artful mis- representations where a party-writer, to colour an extravagant charge, gives a fictitious appearance of the real state of aflfairs. " Such a body of men," says this historian, " might, by an expeditious march, easily have entered the House of Commons, and dispersed the Unarmed Parliament, who looked on that proceeding as a clear evidence of his Majesty's intentions to make war upon them."* Will not an innocent reader be surprised when he is informed that this "Unarmed Parliament" was the most warlike imaginable ? The Parliament had already possessed themselves of the great depot of arms and ammunition in the Tower of London, and the Arsenal at Hull. They were the sole sovereigns of the entire naval force of England, and twice during the last year, in February and March, 1641, they had passed their ordinance to place the militia, that is, the whole military force of the kingdom, under their own officers, and at their sole command. This is energetically stated in one of the King's answers. " All those pikes and protestations, that army on one side, and that navy on the other, must work us in an opinion that you appeared to levy war against us." f Their devoted train-bands of the City, and even the recruits presumed to be raised for Ireland, were themselves an army ready to be called out. They had an unlimited power over all the wealth of the capital, the royal revenues were now their own, and from the large sub- l^v* The verbose title of the Lawyer Acherley's work conveys some idea of its character. « The Britannic Constitution, or the fundamental form of government in Britain, demonstrating the original contract entered into by King and People ; wherein is proved that the placing on the Throne King William III. was the natural fruit and effect of the original Constitution." It is a folio, and has passed through three editions. Yet this Whig production, apparently theoretical, seems to have been famous in its day, and now is cast into oblivion. I do not recollect this work as referred to by any late writer on the Constitution. Acherley is a source of inspiration to Oldmixon. 1+ Husband's Collections, 261. The King's Answer, 20th May, 1642. A A 2 356 WHO BEGAN THE WAR, Bcriptions raised for the Irish war, they borrowed what sums they willed *' for the supply of the public necessity." * They parcelled out that unhappy land in lots of a thousand acres to adventurers, and a good citizen's patriotism was rated according to the quantity of his Irish purchases.f Thus this "Unarmed Parliament" were nerved by the true sinews of war — money and the materiel. We shall often find that the chronology of Facts is something in the history of the Passions, and a simple statement of the movements of these Parties, at this critical period, will save much of their mutual declamation. 1642 — April 23. — The King made his inefficient attempt to seize Hull ; it contained the only dep6t of arms which he could call his own. Oldmixon considers this attempt on Hull as the first overt act of the Civil War. But it must be candidly acknowledged that if the afiPair of Hull is to be deemed an act of civil war, the Parliament had anticipated the King, for they had ordered that its entrance should be closed against him ; besides, the King could not yet be said to levy war who had not yet an army. At the end of April the Lords began to desert the Parliament, which doubtless occasioned some surprise and some uneasiness. Not that these Lords withdrew from Parlia- ment with any intention of raising a civil war. They had retired from the violent measures of Parliament, but they did not pass over to the King to encourage any on his side. They I • Rushworth, iv. 778. The Parliament borrowed at once £100,000 of "the Treasurie for Subscription." The forced loans of Charles himself yielded notlxing like those " for the Public Necessity." f They were selling the skin before they had caught the bear. The lands were not yet their own, but they presumed that in the Irish Rebellion, many millions of acres would be confiscated, and they were anticipating the sales ! The value of the land varied in different counties, for 2001. was the price of one thousand acres in Ulster, 300/. in Connaught, 450/. in Munster, and 600/. in Leinster — the value was probably rated by the neighbourhood. — Rushworth, iv. The King, at a moment he was not master to refuse, had given an unwilling assent to these desperate grants, relying on " the wisdom of his Parliament, without taking time to consider whether this course may not retard the reducing of that Kingdom, by exasperating the rebels, and rendering them desperate." Noy had flattered the Monarch that he had discovered in " the Ship Money " " a purse without a bottom, never to be emptied," — but the Commons were perfect Fortunatuses in their public purse, while they held the sovereign power. THE KING OR THE PARLIAMENT? 357 thought that the Parliament durst not make a war, lest the people should rise for the King, while they impressed on the King that should he raise forces, the Parliament would easily persuade the people that their liberties and religion would be overthrown.* So intricate were the feelings and the events of that critical hour, that even honourable men, with tortured con- sciences and confused heads, designed secret purposes entirely the reverse of their actions. Those who wished to keep them- selves, as Lord Clarendon expresses it, " negatively inuocent,^' were the unhappiest men in the kingdom. The crimes of a nation suffer no man to be innocent. May 5. — The Parliament declare their resolution to put their Ordinance for the Militia in execution, '^warranted by the Fundamental Laws of the Land.'^ May 12. — The King summons the Gentry of York, and it was on this occasion that the Guard for the King's person was raised, for which, observed the Commons, '^ there can be no use, considering the fidelity and care of your Parliament." f There was at times something exquisitely ludicrous in the Par- liamentary style whenever the King was to be mentioned. May 20. — The Parliament declare the King intends to levy war, and they call out the Militia throughout the kingdom. June 2. — The Parliament present those memorable nineteen dethroning propositions, which the King indignantly rejected. On this day arrived from Holland a ship with arms for the King. June 10. — Troops and monies are openly raised by the Par- liament in a new and extraordinary manner, " on Public Faith." They issued an order for bringing in money and plate, horse and horsemen, and arms. They fixed a premium for Patriotism, an interest of " Eight in the Hundred, on the Pubhc Faith." The Treasurers found that place was wanting to store the treasure — the Commissaries were incompetent to appraise the horses and the arms, and hand the acquittances to the fortunate Patriots. Even the City dames hastened to the Mint to melt down their thimbles and bodkins, for they who had neither money nor horse were desired to subscribe. J We are assured several millions were thus raised — all for the maintenance of ) ^^ * Clarendon, iii. 66. + Husband's Collections, 259. 358 WHO BEGAN THE WAR, the Protestant religion, " the Fundamental Laws," " the safety of the King's person," and " Eight in the Hundred I " June 15. — As late as this day Charles was professing that he had no intention of war, but against this general arming the King sent forth his Commission of Array. The most remark- able circumstance in these equal movements is, that the King in his Commission of Array employed the very same reasons, in the identical words the Parliament had done in their Declara- tion, as May tells us : " Thus did the Parhament's prologue to their Ordinance serve the King's turn for his Commission of Array, totidem verbis." In this game of political chess, which both Parties were now so cautiously playing, move against move, check-mate occurred. It is evident that the movements were perfectly regular on both sides. Who then began the Civil War? It is not by assigning some insulated circumstance, as so many historians have done, that we shall ascertain either Who first intended the war, or Who first began it ? I would not dispute who were the warUke party. Yet we need not express our surprise with the sage Whitelocke, that "It is strange to note how we have insensibly slid into this beginning of a civil war, by one unex- pected accident after another, as waves of the sea which hath brought us thus far." * The inevitable war had been mutually determined on, long ere any period which has been assigned by historians, biassed by their own party views. From the moment the Parliament assumed the Sovereignty over the Militia — that is, the Army, the only difficulty the Parties found, was to conceal their intentions. When the Commons passed their resolutions that the King intended to make war upon them, Charles complained much of this Vote in regard to his intention, declaring that God knew his heart abhorred it. " And to such a height did he and his counsellors carry their hypocrisy," proceeds Mr. Brodie, " that even on the 15th of June, when arms had been purchased in Holland, the King repeated his professions," appealing to the Lords whether they saw any preparations or counsels that might beget a belief of any such design ; and whether they were not * Rusliwortli, iv. 764. THE KING OR THE PARLIAMENT? 359 fully persuaded that his Majesty had no such intention, but that all his endeavours tended to Peace. The Lords at York unanimously signed a declaration to this purpose. "It is impossible/' again exclaims Mr. Brodie, " to conceive a more melancholy picture of insincerity, nay downright perfidy, than Charles and his advisers exhibited on this occasion." Mr. Brodie argues, as if the purchase of arms in Holland was still a secret, which the King and his Council were reserving to themselves. If so, "the hypocrisy and perfidy '^ were ludicrous, for they were concealing what was as notorious at London as at York. The Declaration animadverted on by Mr. Brodie, occurred on the 15th of June. Already on the 2nd of June the Parliament had issued their order against the pawning of the jewels of the Crown,* and on the 11th of June, two letters were openly read in Parliament from their spies at Amsterdam, handing over an inventory of the arms and of all the military stores. t Nor should the intention of making war be confounded with actual war. Charles without violence to his conscience, and certainly with the prudence of a statesman, might solemnly protest that he intended no War, though at the same time he should be levying troops. Warlike preparations are no proof that war is designed or desired; they may be preventive or defensive. Clarendon tells us "that when the Parliament accused the King of intending to make war, they were so far from appre- hending that he would be able to get an army to disturb them, that they were most assured he would not be able to get bread to sustain himself for three months, without submitting all his counsels to their conduct and control." — "Clarendon says this," exclaims Mr. Brodie, " who only in the seventh page preceding this one, relates that War of the most rancorous kind" (the epithet is gratuitous!) "had been determined on before the Queen left England. Such is the veracity of Lord Clarendon, that individual panegyrised and followed by Mr. Hume, who says that he was too honest a man to falsify facts." Since war had been decided on by the King before the Queen's departure for Holland, Mr. Brodie argues, it settles Ie long-disputed point of who began the war, in favour of Par- [ * Rushworth, iv. 736. t Rushworth,.iv. 745. I 360 WHO BEGAN THE WAR, liament, and it shows the faithless narrative of Clarendon, who at the moment he represents the Parliament accusing the King of intending war, while they had really no such apprehen- sions themselves, knew himself that war had been resolved on by the King. Clarendon, we are told, had "inadvertently" dropped the important fact, which Mr. Brodie ungenerously fancies that his Lordship would not have confessed on reflection. The modern historian, in his eagerness to assert the innocence of Parliament on this occasion, exults in discovering that the King intended war at a period, previous to the Accusation of the Commons, and that Clarendon knowing this, for he has himself told it, has reproached the Parliament as accusing the King of an intention of war, when they were persuaded that he could not even raise an army. The question as it respects '^the veracity'^ of Clarendon in this instance, is not what had been decided on by the King, previous to the Parliament's declaration, but whether the Par- liament declared the King's intention of war, at the very time that they had no apprehensions of that nature, and that the King was precisely in the forlorn state which Clarendon has described ? This is easily answered, for there is not a passage in Claren- don's whole history more authentic than the present one, so unreservedly stigmatised by his accuser. The " veracity " of the noble writer is fully confirmed by May, the Parliamentary historian, who on this very incident of the King raising a Guard at York, which induced the Parliament's declaration, observes, " But the kingdom was not much aflfrighted with any forces which the King could so raise." And shortly after, even when the King had received some supply of arms and ammunition from Holland, the same historian remarks that " He wanted hands to wield those arms." This was their opinion, and as we have seen, it was the opinion of Hampden and Pym. The narrative of Clarendon has neither exaggerated, nor misrepre- sented the motives and the conduct of the Parliament at the moment they declared the King's intention of war. It was indeed not long after, in the defection of their House, that* the Commons might have felt the fears which at first theyJf had feigned. " So^ much for the veracity of Clarendon," as ^ THE KING OR THE PARLIAMENT? 361 Mr. Brodie exclaims, and so much was due to this fallacious arraignment. With Mr. Brodie, the crime of Charles is the King's diso- bedience to the Commons, in not subscribing the nineteen Dethroning Propositions they shortly afterwards proffered. With Lord Clarendon the crime of the Parliament was their invasion of the monarchy. The Scottish Advocate contracts his views by the narrow standard of a legal case, and would often, by some subtle point, a quibble, or a flaw, put an end to the action. But the language and the acts of political men, placed in the most critical circumstances, are best judged by the states- man in his prudential wisdom, and are best explained by the philosopher, conversant with human nature. Two of the most illustrious men in our history convey to us the feelings which actuated their contemporaries, in this per- petual discussion of who began the Civil War: one is the monarch himself, the other is the immortal Milton, The torturing reproach of having first begun the Civil War haunted Charles to the scaffold — and in the few last minutes which separated life from death, solemnly the King declared, appealing to those who could hear him, " All the world knows that I never did begin a war first with the two Houses of Parliament — I call God to witness they began upon me — it is the militia they began upon — they confessed that the militia was mine, but they thought it fit to have it from me." Milton, after alluding to the warlike appearance of some dis- banded officers at Kingston, the Queen's packing the Crown Jewels, the attempt on Hull, Charles sending over for arms, and calling out Yorkshire and other counties, has delivered as a fact to posterity that Charles "raised actual forces while the Parliament were yet petitioning in peace, and had not one man listed.''* Hence, probably, Acherley derived his "Unarmed Parhament ! " Harris, in quoting the statement of Milton, observed that " there was some truth in these assertions ; " an traordinary sort of historical evidence ! However, chronology en corrects the anachronisms of party. The ordinance for calling the militia preceded the Commission of Array, and the vies of the Earl of Essex took place when the King had yet * Iconoclastes, 41. 362 THE FIRST BATTLE BETWEEN only his guard of volunteers. The disturbed politics of Milton, were fraught with all the popular rumours and passions of that day. On the present occasion, to me, the monarch on the scaffold appears superior to the poet, in the dignity of solemn truth, and the loftier emotions which appealed to it. Thus it happened that two parties, dated the same reproach- ful event at different epochs, to hold themselves guiltless, while they mutually recriminated for having done that, which both alike had long contemplated to do. CHAPTER XXVI. THE FIRST BATTLE BETWEEN THE KING AND THE PARLIAMENT. The battle of Edge-hill is one of the most singular recorded in military history ; it was the first battle of the Civil Wars, when the nation was yet strange to these unnatural hostilities. The honest and the honourable men of both parties dreaded nothing so much as a battle ; and the people at large had never considered that the pending discussions of Privilege and Prero- gative were ever to be terminated in a field of blood ; even the parade of two armies they flattered themselves would only hasten on a treaty which might finally set so many troubles at rest. It was a war which, however, instigated by their leaders in the metropolis, was not prompted by the nation, divided as they were in opinions on new doctrines, and influenced by very opposite interests. One half of England remained in so neutral a state that some families never suspecting a war, had warily distributed their members on both sides, often perhaps with a view of protecting their estates, whatever party prevailed, and whole counties were so little concerned that they mutually agreed to sit still and not take up arms against their neighbours. A curious anecdote of the times strikingly shows that those who had neither abilities nor disposition for fighting were left undis- turbed, and seem to have taken Httle interest in the battles between King and Parliament. In the journal of a Yorkshire squire, who lived in the immediate neighbourhood of Marston- THE KING AND THE PAELUMENT. 363 Moor, it appears that he went out hunting on the very day of that memorable engagement, but our sportsman in the details of his chase had not made even an allusion to the battle, though the roar of the cannon must have echoed to his " Tally-ho ! " This anecdote I think is told by Horace Walpole ; and a con- genial one, evincing the disposition of some of the common people, to cast a ludicrous air over the heroes of the Civil War, of both sides, has been recorded by De Foe as having happened in his own family. The huntsman of his grandfather called his pack by the names of the Roundheads and the Cavaliers; Goring and Waller ; so that the generals of both armies were hounds in his pack. When the times turned too serious for jesting, it became necessary to scatter the whole pack, and make them up with more canine surnames. It is possible that even the secret instigators of the Civil War had never contemplated on those protracted scenes of misery which were opening for their father-land. A show of war might end in a bloodless victory, and at the worst they had no higher conception of a battle between their own countrymen, than what they called " a civil bout." A contemporary anecdote conveys this idea. On the first breach between the King and the Parliament, one deploring the fatal change about to ensue, another observed, '^ The King and the Subject must e'en have one civil bout, as we say, and then we shall all be very good friends again.''* In vain the prudential sagacity of Whitelocke had presciently warned, that probably few of them would live to see the end of such a war ; that they who drew the sword against the sovereign must throw away the scabbard ; " and that such commotions, like deep seas once stirred, will be long ere they are again calmed.'' The sage Whitelocke voted to provide for war, but not for war itself. It was, however, the unhappiness of both parties to imagine that a single battle would terminate the conflict, and when that battle had been fought, it was as easily imagined that the next would be decisive. But in Civil Wars the first battle is usually the prognostic of many ; for among its other calamities, is that of setting up the power of the military, particularly when foreign soldiers of fortune are invited, who always studiously prolong the season of their fatal prosperity. I * Harl. MSS. 6395, (503). 864 THE FIRST BATTLE BETWEEN The Parliament had recourse to military men who had seen service in the Netherlands, to discipline their raw levies. Among these were many Germans. In some accounts from the country we find noticed "the honest German'' who drilled them. Recruits drawn from the shop, or the wharf, or the manufactory, had hitherto more ably served them in mobs than they could in rank and file. The Parliamentary colonels who had regiments appointed to them, were generally country- gentlemen, and stu- dents from the Inns of Court. They were so inexperienced in their tactics, that they had not yet acquired the technical style. General Ludlow, that honourable Commonwealth-man, was evi- dently something jealous of these imported officers, the mercenaries of Royalty, some of whom were foreigners, and even suspected of Popery, for he alludes to these veterans " as a generation of men much cried up at that time." But Ludlow has himself furnished an anecdote, which shows how men who had never been in action, when once in the field, are but apprentices in their new craft. In the battle of Edge-hill, among other similar disasters of the day, one of these veterans, having drawn up his men into an open space, to make an advantageous charge, gave the word of com- mand to " Wheel about ! " " Our gentlemen," proceeds Lud- low, " not well understanding the diff'erence between wheeling about and shifting for themselves, their backs being now towards the enemy, whom they thought to be close in their rear, flew back to the army in a very dishonourable manner, and received the next morning but a cold welcome from the General." Even the common precautions of military discipline had not been practised, and the officers appear to have been as negligent as the soldiers. In the royal army they had the field-word given to know their friends in the heat of battle, " For God and the King ! " but the Parliamentarians had no word to recognise their fellows from the enemy, and several instances occurred of their firing on each other. This error was no doubt soon cor- rected. At the sanguinary battle of Marston-Moor, the field- word of the Parliamentarians, in contra-distinction of the King's, was " God with us ! " In that day the soldiers seemed to have depended on the colour of their coats as a signal of recognition ; these, however, were as various as their regiments, and it some- times happened that both parties wore the same colour. The THE KING AND THE PARLIAMENT. 365 King had a red regiment, held to be "The Invincible Regi- ment/' consisting of 1200 men. Among the ParHamentarians they had also a regiment of Red-coats. There were regiments of purple, of gray, and of blue.* It required some recollection when two encountered to ascertain the friend from the foe, which might depend on the colour, or even the cut of his coat.f The simple citizens of a provincial town on a sudden attack would be startled by the pomp and glory of an army, which seemed terrible to those fearful spirits who were hurried from their quiet labours to defend the avenue, or to stand at the breach, in the very throat of war. The siege of Bradford has been described by one of its own townsmen. In his naive nar- rative, there is a passage so true to nature, and withal so forcible in expression, that a higher genius might not have disdained it. "Every man was now ordered to his post, armed with such weapons as he was beforehand provided withal ; the church and steeple were secured in the best manner we possibly could. They approached us with the sound of warlike music, and their streamers flying in the air — tremendous sight ! enough to make the stoutest heart to tremble ! to shake the nerves and loose the joints of every beholder ! Amazing to see the different effects it had upon others, who were fired with rage even to madness, and filled with revenge almost to enthusiasm ! " We were at that time, after twenty years of luxurious peace, little skilled in military affairs. The French Resident, Sabran, alluding to the critical state of Essex in Cornwall, who must be lost, he said, if the King seizes on the advantage he has now over him, and the reinforcements of Waller, dispatched too late, observed on both parties in the Civil Wars, " Mais ils font touts si mat la guerre queje doute s'il Vaura combattu, ce qu^il ne pourra faire si avantageusement, et si ce secours arrive a terns le mettre lui-meme entre deux feuocP As it happened, Charles on this occasion escaped from Waller by deceiving him in altering his march. * Vicars' Parliamentary Chronicle, second part, 200. + The Marquis of Newcastle had a regiment composed of Northumberland men, called, from their dress, White Coats. These veterans behaved with the utmost gallantry, and though deserted at Marston-Moor by all their friends, they formed a ring to oppose Cromwell, and the White Coats fell in their ranks without the flight of one man. Whether from the colour of their coats, or their desperate courage, ey also obtained the title of Newcastle's « Lambs." ^ej 366 THE FIRST BATTLE BETWEEN The truth is, Sabran, accustomed to the military tactics of a continental campaign, was not aware that in our Civil Wars it was not always deficient skill which occasioned our bad generalship. A general was not always in earnest, and the pursuer in his career would often pause, to spare the massacre of his fellow- citizens. Essex, inclined to peace, seemed always to have avoided coming to extremities with the King. His name was untainted by fear, and his military reputation was the highest in the king- dom. By his dexterity in raising the siege of Gloucester he did the Parliament the greatest service. Essex, at a moment when he, disliking their proceedings, felt weary of his new masters, and was himself in a most critical position, nobly refused the unlimited offer made by the King, in a letter written by the royal hand, sternly and honourably referring to his Commission, which he said was '^ to defend the King's person and his pos- terity, but for the rest he counselled his Majesty to apply to his Parliament.'' On many occasions, indeed, with these mixed feelings, he seems to have been cautious in pursuing his advan- tages. On the King's side they often deliberated long without coming to any resolution, and as often resolved without delibe- ration.* The King's most able general. Colonel Goring, was an airy bacchanalian, who, on the most critical emergency, could not be enticed from the jollities of the table, slighting every alarmist, till the carouse was concluded. His rapid genius often repaired his neglect, but on one great occasion he suflPered the Earl of Essex to escape, not to interrupt the harmony of a con- vivial party which he had engaged. The Parliament had the appearance of an army before the King could complete a single regiment, but it was chiefly com- posed of citizens, and this undisciplined soldiery now saw them- selves opposed to the volunteers in the King's ranks, men of name, of condition, and of wealth, while they themselves were so unknown to the world, that afterwards their loss was unper- ceived. Those who fell on the King's side were too eminent to be passed over. Many now beheld themselves in arms against those, from whom they were accustomed to solicit commands, more were marching against those old companions with whom they had shared in their common labours. The brother saw his * Bulstrodc's Memoirs, 1 1 3. THE KING AND THE PARLIAMENT. 307 brother in the ranks he was led on to attack. A ParHamentary soldier, dying of his wounds, declared that his deepest grief was having received his death from the hand of his brother. Him he had recognised among the royal troops, and turned aside, but the carabine was impetuously discharged by the hand which had never before been raised but in affection. A spirit of chivalric loyalty animated the slender ranks of the King's army. A spirit so strange to the political party in the Commons, that they had not calculated on that awakening force which had supphed the deserted monarch, left as he was without other resources than his standard and his name, with an army maintained by the nobility and gentry. The noblemen and gentlemen who crowded to ride in the King's own regiment, commanded by Lord Bernard Stuart, his kinsman, and brother to the Duke of Richmond, were so wealthy a body of the aristo- cracy, that Charles observed, " the revenues of those in that single troop would buy the estates of my Lord of Essex and of all the officers in his army.'' Wealth has always been con- sidered by the infirmity of civilised man as the permanent standard of power ; but in great revolutions, where the passions, more even than the interests of the actors are concerned, the artificial potency of wealth shrinks before loftier motives and mightier principles. The royal army was inspired by honour, and the Parliamentary army was led on by liberty. These are national virtues, more permanent in their operations, and less liable to consume themselves than that which " maketh itself wings and flieth away." But there was a fatality in the character of Charles the First, a fatality which arose from that propensity to favour those who stood most near to him. Though of cold and retired habits, his social affections were excessive, and deprived him of all power of judgment. It is unquestionable that this monarch was deficient in the acute discernment of the real talents and capacity of those persons who were most closely attached to him, a weakness which repeatedly betrayed him into errors on some of the most important events of his life. It is observed in one of the suppressed passages of Clarendon, that " the King always loved his family immoderately, and with notable partiality, and was willing to believe that their high quality could not be I 368 THE PIRSt BATTLE BETWEEN without all those qualities and qualifications which were equal to it, if they had an opportunity to manifest those endow- ments/'* Charles credited them for that which he himself possessed. There was a romantic tinge in the character of Charles the First; it showed itself in that day -break of his active life, the stolen voyage of love to Madrid, to its setting- sun — ^his long imprisonments. All men about him witnessed in this monarch that greatness of spirit which he was prone to contemplate in those who were allied to him, or those who were closest in his intimacy. This domestic weakness was the first ruinous error in the civil wars of this hapless monarch. Charles in exempting Prince Rupert, because the Prince was his nephew, from re- ceiving orders from any one but himself, and by adopting the Prince's plans, was confiding his fortunes to a juvenile soldier, whose rash spirit and intolerable haughtiness made his courage his greatest defect. The Earl of Lindsay, who actually bore the commission of Commander-in-chief, thus became subordi- nate in power; and besides suffering this indignity, that veteran entirely disagreed with the royal boy's orders and plans. Un- skilled in the military science, the Prince delighted solely in the impetuosity of his charge, and in the pursuit of the fugitive. He would rush on the enemy in view, but never at any time reflected on those he left behind, and was sure on his victorious return to find that the battle was lost. Prince llupert could never correct his natural deficiencies for warlike enterprises, for he repeated the same error in the three great battles which decided the fate of Charles. llupert had great courage, but neither science nor genius; he depended on his impetuous charge, and never failed in it. But it seems that the military genius, like the genius of poetry, requires to be reminded of that critical verse of Pope, as it was originally plainly given — *< There are whom Heaven has blest with store of Wit, Yet want as much again to manage it." The worst characteristic of this German soldier was his dispo- sition for plunder, and pillaging the waggons, which occasioned Prince llupert to be called " Prince Robber," being, as Vicars * Clarendon, iv. 603. THE KING AND THE PARLIAMENT. 369 says, "thievishly wise."* The noble-minded Lindsay would not desert the King for the error of the royal judgment. Considering himself, however, no longer as his General, but as a private Colonel, he took his station at the head of his own regiment, to manifest that he was willing to die for the sovereign whom he could not serve. The Parliament had selected for their Commander-in-Chief one who yielded to none in reputation. The Earl of Essex, whose unfortunate history seems to have occasioned him the displeasure of the ladies at Court, had been unaccountably neglected by the King. Essex had felt the coldness of that neglect, but he was of a temper which made him but half an enemy. The royal person was still reverenced as inviolable in the Constitution, and Essex looked on the sovereign with more awe than on his new masters. The Earl indeed had been per- plexed by the novel doctrine which distinguished his allegiance to the King in his corporate, from his personal capacity ; but stronger heads than his own had satisfactorily decided to arm in the King^s name against the King. Invested with the dis- tinguished title of " His Excellency," Essex was not insensible to its gloriole. We may often use the Abbe St. Pierre's felicitous diminutive of glory, when the personal vanity of the egotist predominates over the more elevated feeling. But there seems to have been a better motive in the conduct of the Earl of Essex. He had flattered himself, for his new masters had flattered him, that he should stand in the breach to aUay the passions of the Parliament, and even to direct their councils, and thus to preserve the nation in its extremities. Men of middling capacity often indulge those bold designs to which ^^nly the greatest are competent. ^P It was in a state of such vacillating opinions and afflicted feelings that the two armies met ; their animosities had not yet fleshed their swords, and their reluctant spirits weakened at the onset. Many on both sides alike dreaded a defeat or a victory. The battle of Edge-hill is a memorable instance of one of those indecisive actions in which both parties aHke imagined that they were d^eated. I » Vicars' Pari. Chronicle, second part, 200. VOL. II. 370 THE FIRST BATTLE BETWEEN It was on an October morning that suddenly on the heights of Edge -hill in Warwickshire was discerned a body of cavalry. It was the horse of the impetuous Rupert, who had preceded the royal troops ; they at intervals were hastening to rejoin him. Beneath, in the plain, called the Vale of the Red Horse,* stood the Earl of Essex, who had chosen his ground and arranged his order of battle, awaiting the attack. During several hours the Royahsts were allowed to wind down the steep, without suffering any interruption. Before the battle Charles severally addressed his lords and colonels in his tent — his soldiers and his whole army. His speeches on this remarkable occasion are animated. To the lords, Charles rejects with disdain the odious term of " Malig- nant,'' and explains to the soldiers that of " Cavalier,'' which had been degraded into infamy, while the plain republican rude- ness had prided itself on that of " Trooper." " My Lords, and the rest here present," said Charles, " your King is both your cause, your quarrel, and your Captain. The foe is in sight. Now show yourselves no malignant parties, but with your swords declare what courage and fidelity is within you. I have written and declared that I intended always to maintain the Protestant religion, the privileges of the ParHa- ment, and the liberties of the subject. Let Heaven show his power by this day's victory ! Come life or death, your King will bear you company, and ever keep this field, this place, and this day's service in his grateful remembrance ! " " Friends and Soldiers ! " exclaimed the monarch, " you are called Cavaliers and Royalists in a disgraceful manner. If I suffer in my fame, needs must you do also. Now show your- selves my friends and not malignants, fight for your King, the peace of the kingdom, and the Protestant religion. The valour of Cavaliers hath honoured that name both in France and other countries, and now let it be known in England, as well as horseman or trooper. The name of Cavalier signifies nothing more than a gentleman serving his King on horseback. Show yourselves therefore now courageous Cavaliers, and beat back all opprobrious aspersions cast upon you. • One Brightman on the Revelations, chap, vi., in this name wliich the inhabit- ants of Keinton gave the meadow between Stratford-on-Avon and Banbury, '* cleared up a terrible mystery." THE KING AND THE PARLIAMENT. 371 " Friends and Soldiers ! I look upon you with joy to behold so great an army as ever King of England had in these later times. I thank your loves offered to your King to hazard your lives and fortunes with me, in my urgent necessity. I see by you that no father can leave his son, no subject his lawful King. We have marched so long in hope to meet no enemy, unknowing any at whose hands we deserve any opposition. But matters are not to be declared by words, but by swords. You all think our thoughts while I reign over your affections, as well as per- sons. My resolution is to try the doubtful chance of war, while with much grief I must stand to and endure the hazards. I desire not the effusion of blood, but since Heaven hath so decreed, and that so much preparation hath been made, we must need accept of the present occasion for an honourable victory and glory to our crown, since reputation is that which gilds over the richest gold, and shall ever be the endeavour of our whole reign. Your King bids you all be courageous, and Heaven make ye victorious ! "^ The King gave the solemn word, " Go in the name of God, and I '11 lay my bones with yours." With his own hand he fired the first piece, that first shot, the predecessor of years of national misery ! Prince Rupert impetuously charged the right wing of the Parliamentarians, who dispersed in all directions, many of these fugitives never stopping tiU they reached the metropolis, where they brought the first news of a total defeat. There was also a defection in the army of the Parliament ; an entire regiment passed over to the King. Fortune seemed favourable to the Royalists, and when Lord Falkland repeatedly pressed Wilmot, who commanded the King's left wing, to charge ^k Sir William Balfour, who with a small unbroken body of the ^^eserve of Essex's army was roving about and doing fatal execu- tion, this General replied, " My Lord, we have got the day, and let us live to enjoy the fruit." Yet here the Earl of Lindsay feU, and the Standard-bearer, Sir Edward Varney was kiUed. The King himself was in imminent danger, as well as the Princes ; the bullets dropped near them, or passed over their heads. Every one trembled for the King, and Charles was importuned to draw off from the midst of the action; but no I * Somers' Tracts, Sir Walter Scott's edition, iv. 478. B B 2 372 THE PIKST BATTLE BETWEEN intreaties availed, and the King rode into tlie head-ranks encouraging them to maintain their ground, by the valour with which he himself set the example. At length perceiving the doubtful aspect of the field, he commanded the Princes to retire. Charles himself still lingered on the field with some of his lords and officers, but they knew not what had become of their horse, and their ranks had visibly thinned. When Rupert with his cavalry returned from his imprudent victory, and a pursuit which had been