NOV., 1640.] LONG PARLIAMENT SUMMONED. 81 the king money. But the nation thought otherwise. "If," said two lords consulted by the king's council, "it be intended to raise money by any other way than a Parliament, it will give no satisfaction."* Charles was left in no doubt of his subjects' wishes; counties sent petitions for a Parliament; twelve of the chief peers of the realm signed a petition for a Parliament; the City of London petitioned for a Parliament; the Scots sent a petition: 'they were loyal subjects, their grievances were the cause of their being in arms; they begged their king to settle a firm and durable peace by advice of a Parliament.' Charles So at last, forced by necessity, Charles yielded. When his fifth Parthe peers met at York (24th Sept., 1640), he informed liament. them that he had already sent out writs for a Parliament, and asked their advice for treating with the Scots. "They were so taken," writes the king's secretary, "with his Majesty's speech and with his Majesty's offer of a Parliament that whatever was afterwards proposed they yielded to. . . . There is no doubt but this black storm will be dispersed.”+ summons Sixteen peers, none of them favourable to arbitrary government, negotiated with eight Scottish commissioners at Ripon. It was agreed that a cessation of arms should be made for two months; that both armies should remain where they were; that the northern counties should support the Scottish army by paying it £5600 a week, until a peace should be concluded in London (23rd Oct., 1640). Then king, lords, and Scottish commissioners hastened to the capital, where Charles met his fifth and last Parliament (3rd Nov., 1640). Clar. State Papers, 1-112. + Windebank to Sir A. Hopton, 1st Oct., 1640, MSS. Clar. Papers in Bodleian. CHAPTER IV. MEETING OF LONG PARLIAMENT AND TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. House of 1640-1641. Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, he would not in mine age : Have left me naked to mine enemies.-HENRY VIII., iii. 2. WESTMINSTER HALL, in the year 1640, was just the same building that we see to-day but the house in which the Commons sat was utterly different. At right angles to the hall, between it and the river, stood a building which was once a chapel of the old palace of Westminster, but was now fitted with tiers of horseshoe benches for the members of the Commons. The building itself was small, somewhat dingy and gloomy; though Commons. sittings were generally by day, on winter afternoons candles were placed on a table in the centre. The appearance of the members, however, belied the meanness of their meeting-house; for these were peers' sons, country gentlemen, merchants, lawyers, distinguished in their towns or counties for birth or wealth, or both; their dress displayed their quality-the sword by the side, the velvet coat, the large frilled linen collar to protect the lace and gold or silver trimming from the long hair falling in curls upon the shoulders, were sure signs that the House did not count among its members any of the fanatics from the lower orders, who cut their hair close and prided themselves upon the especial plainness of their attire. Leading Chief amongst the many notables of that assembly were members. John Pym, John Hampden, Lord Falkland,* Edward Hyde, Oliver Cromwell. Pym, the old opposer of tyranny in the previous reign; Hampden, the ship-money hero, gentle and affable to all, and now the most popular man in the House; Lord Falkland, whose truthful, generous nature made him the declared enemy of injustice in high places; Hyde, afterwards Earl of Clarendon, and *He had succeeded his father (Sir H. Cary, Deputy of Ireland), as second Viscount of Falkland, in the county of Fife, in Scotland. He sat as burgess for Newport, Scotch peers being eligible before the Act of Union (1707). NOV., 1640.] MEETING OF LONG PARLIAMENT. 83 the Royalist historian of the Rebellion, now carried along with the stream, and as eager as his friend Falkland to restore the old government of England by Parliaments; Cromwell, member for the town of Cambridge, a country gentleman, dressed in a plain cloth suit, and as yet little remarked, save for his activity in defending the poor of his own neighbourhood from oppression. The members of both Houses of Parliament, urged by a hundred different motives, were almost unanimous in their determination to make the agents of the government answer for their conduct, and above all, the chief offender, Strafford. The noble ruinously fined in the Star Chamber; the courtier of whom Strafford had used sharp words, as ‘that the king would do well to cut off his head;' the merchant, forced to pay illegal customs; the patriot, indignant at the judges' verdict that Grievances, ship-money was a just and legal tax; the Presby- delinquents. terian fined and insulted by the Court of High Commission, were all alike eager to gratify, as the case might be, their desires for reform, or justice, or revenge. The House proceeded to business at once. Votes were passed that all monopolists should be deprived of their seats (9th Nov.), that ship-money was against the laws of the realm (7th Dec.),* that all agents of the crown who had taken part in the collection of ship-money, or had shared in any other acts condemned by the * Lord Falkland felt and spoke strongly on the extra-judicial opinion the judges had given at Charles' request, on the king's right to ship-money. No meal undigested," he said, "can lie heavier upon the stomach than that unsaid would have lain upon my conscience." He complained that the judges, "the persons who should have been as dogs to defend the flock, have become the wolves to devour it ;" that they had exceeded their functions, "being judges of law and not of necessity, that is, being judges and not philosophers or politicians;" that to justify the plea of necessity, they have "supposed mighty and eminent dangers in the most quiet and halcyon days, but a few contemptible pirates being our most formidable enemies;" they also "supposing the supposed doings to be so sudden that it could not stay for a Parlia ment which required but a forty days' stay, allowed to the king the sole power in necessity, the sole judgment of necessity, and by that enabled him to take from us what he would, when he would, and how he would." He especially declaimed against the Chief Justice (at this time Lord Keeper) Finch, who impor tuned the other judges "as a most admirable solicitor, but a most abominable judge." "He it was who gave away with his breath what our ancestors have purchased with so long expense of their time, their care, their treasures, and their bloods, and strove to make our grievances mortal and our slavery irreparable," "he who hath already undone us by wholesale [and now as chancellor] hath the power of undoing us by retail."-MSS. Clarendon Papers, No. 1464, and Rushworth. House, were delinquents,' and might be proceeded against at any moment. This made offenders of all ranks tremble, lords of the Council and Star Chamber, lords-lieutenant of counties, sheriffs, judges, besides a host of inferior officers. It was not so much the intention of the Commons to proceed against all these delinquents, as to terrify them into submission. The chief criminals alone had real cause to fear. Strafford trusts in Strafford had seen the storm gathering and was anxious to return to Ireland, but Charles wrote him a positive command to come to London, assuring him, 'as he Charles. was King of England, he was able to secure him from any danger, and the Parliament should not touch one hair of his head.' The king was in fact afraid of meeting his enraged Parliament unsupported. Accordingly Strafford came prepared with charges of treason against some of the leading members, for having encouraged the Scots in rebellion. They were aware of his intention and determined to strike first. No time was lost. feelings at this crisis are analyzed in Browning's lines: Impeach ment of Strafford. That man has set himself to one dear task, The bringing Charles to relish more and more Power-power without law, power and blood too- Their Strafford had only been one day in London when, on the 11th of November, Pym proposed in the House of Commons to impeach of high treason the man who, "according to the nature of apostates, had become the greatest enemy to the liberties of his country, and the greatest promoter of tyranny that any age had produced." The process by impeachment has been described in Buckingham's case, it is still more familiar to us from the trial of Warren Hastings in the following century (1788). The king having no part in an impeachment, and the House of Lords being judge, the only preliminary required is a resolution of the Commons to pro * Wentworth created Earl of Strafford, 12 Jan. 1640. + See page 34. 1640.] STRAFFORD AND LAUD IN TOWER. 85 secute. The Commons now agreed to the proposal without a dissenting voice, and Pym, followed by a train of three hundred members, went up straight to the Lords' house, and there accused the earl of high treason, desiring that he might be lodged a prisoner in the Tower, until the time of his trial came on. Thus, at one blow, was the king deprived of his ablest adviser, and Strafford himself of the awe with which power had previously invested him. Strafford was in consultation with the king when the news came. Hastening to the Lords' house with a "proud, glooming countenance, he makes towards his place at the boardhead. But at once many bid him void the house. After consultation, being called in, he stands, but is commanded to kneel, and on his knees, is delivered to the keeper of the black rod, to be prisoner until he was cleared of those crimes sent to the House of Commons had charged him with. As he passed through the gazing crowd outside to find his coach, nc man capped to him, before whom that morning the greatest of England would have stood discovered, all crying, 'What is the matter?' He said, 'A small matter, I warrant you.' They replied, 'Yes, indeed, high treason is a small matter.'" Strafford Tower. The next month Laud was impeached too (18th Dec.), and followed his friend to the Tower, amid the curses and Other 'dehowlings of the populace. Windebank, the king's linquents." secretary, wise in time, jumped into an open boat, and, steering through the mist, succeeded in putting the Channel between him and his foes. Finch, though known as the first adviser of imposing ship-money on the inland counties, hoped much from the graceful defence he made before the Commons. But the temper of his hearers was too stern; "There be birds,” said one, "that in the summer of Parliament will sing sweetly, that in winter turn into birds of prey!" The most he could effect was to be allowed, like others, to escape into exile. Judge Berkeley, the principal supporter of ship-money, was also a marked man. The messenger of the Lords entered Westminster Hall, while the courts of justice were sitting, and then and there carried him off to the Tower, impeached by the Commons of high treason. The gazing crowd felt awe-struck, while the consciences of some of Berkeley's brethren gave them uneasy qualms. |