CHAP. V 1640. April 18. The three estates of Committee to draw up a narrative of the proceedings against them. Before the House rose, it had ordered that the records of the ship-money case should also be brought before it. The feeling against the Bishops was perhaps even the realm. stronger in the Lords than in the Commons. There was more of personal jealousy there, as there had been among the nobility of Scotland. It was in the House of Lords that, for the first time since the days of Lollardism, the old constitutional doctrine, that lay peers, the clergy, and the Commons were the three estates of the realm was brought in question. The Bishops were distinctly told that the three estates were the King, the Barons, and the Commons. "The Bishops then, it was said, would make four estates or exclude the King." The King to be an estate. April 21. Hall obliged to beg pardon. The words thus defiantly spoken did not touch the Bishops alone. The notion that Parliament was the soul of the body politic, had been welcomed by the Lords. The King was no longer to reign supreme, summoning his estates, as Edward I. had summoned them, to gather round his throne. He was to be no more than a first estate, called on to join with the others, but not called on to do more. To such a pass had Charles brought himself by his resolution to walk alone. The time was not far off when even so much participation would be denied him. On the 21st the feeling of the Peers was even more strongly manifested. Bishop Hall had recently attracted attention to himself by publishing, at Laud's instigation, a work entitled 'Episcopacy by Divine Right,' in which he had argued that the primitive character of Episcopacy stamped it with Divine autho1 Harl. MSS. 4,931, fol. 47, THE KING DISSATISFIED. rity.1 He now rashly spoke of Saye as one who savoured of a Scottish Covenanter.' He was at once ordered to the bar. "If I have offended," he said, "I cry pardon." The words were received with a shout of "No ifs," and Hall was forced to beg pardon in positive terms. 319 СНАР. VII. 1640. April 21. House busy with grievances. In the meanwhile, the Lower House was busy with The Lower its grievances. Preparations were made to petition the King on the breach of privilege in 1629, and to draw up a statement of the case against the Crown on ship money and the impositions. the On this, both Houses were summoned to Whitehall. In the King's presence, Finch explained the absolute necessity of a fleet, and declared that King' was not wedded to this particular way' of supporting it, and that if the Houses would find the money in some other manner, he would readily give his consent to the change. Then, after holding up the example of the fresh Parliament as worthy of imitation, Finch turned to the Lords. His Majesty, he said, did not doubt that, if the House of Commons should fail in their duty,' the Lords would concur with him to preserve himself and the nation. looked Finch explains that the King will accept any other porting a navy. way of sup April 22. Subsidies voted in The appeal to the Lords was followed by an appeal to a body upon which the Commons with no slight jealousy. On the 22nd, at Laud's tion. 1 Professor Masson is rather hard upon Hall all through this affair (Life of Milton, ii. 124). It should be remembered that the book was intended not as a private venture of Hall's, but as a manifesto of the English Church. It was therefore perfectly reasonable that Laud, being invited to comment, should do as he was asked. After all, the comments were merely those which would suggest themselves to a mind rather more resolute and thorough than that of Hall, and Hall did himself no discredit by accepting them. There is nothing in them in the slightest degree discordant with Hall's own system, which may be seen briefly in a paper of propositions sent by him to Laud (Laud's Works, iv. 310). Convoca CHAP. 1640. April 21. April 23. Resolution mons to request, Convocation unanimously granted six subsidies from the clergy.1 These subsidies would, in the usual course, require the confirmation of Parliament before they could be levied, but it was natural that the Commons should not be very well pleased with the contrast between the alacrity of the clergy and their own deliberate hesitation. The next day, accordingly, the House went into of the Com- Committee on the message delivered by the Lord take griev- Keeper, and resolved to demand a conference with the Lords. "Till the liberties of the House and kingdom were cleared, they knew not whether they had anything to give or no.' ances first. Strafford in April 24. Charles appeals to the Lords. "2 When the news of this resolution reached the King, he was at supper. He rose angrily from the table, and summoned the Council to meet at once. That evening he had his sternest counsellor once more by his side. In spite of gout, Strafford had come back from Ireland. He found that his opponents at Court had taken advantage of his absence to complain of him as the main author of the summoning of so untoward a Parliament.3 He little heeded their words. He fiercely urged that Charles should go down to the House of Lords the next morning before the message of the Commons had been delivered, and should urge the Peers to declare that it was right that the satisfaction to be given to the King should precede the presentation of grievances.4 Strafford's advice was taken, and at the opening of the next morning's sitting, Charles appeared in the Upper House. This time he spoke with his own 1 Nalson, i. 36. 2 Harl. MSS. 3,931, fol. 47, 6. 3 Rossetti to Barberini, Apr, 24 R. O. Transcripts. Montreuil to Bellievre, May 49 Apr. 30 Bibl. Nat. Fr. 15,995, fol. 81. 6 STRAFFORD APPEALS TO THE LORDS. 321 CHAP 1640. April 24. support mouth. The Commons, he said, had put the cart before the horse. His necessities were too serious to admit of delay. If the Commons would trust him, he would make good all that Finch had promised in his name, and hear their grievances in the winter. In the other alternative, he conjured their lordships not to join with them, but to leave them to themselves.' In an attack upon the Bishops, the Lords were The Lords ready to go at least as far as the Commons. But the King. they were too accustomed to support the Crown to fall into opposition on such an appeal as this. In a House of eighty-six, of which eighteen were Bishops, sixty-one voted that the King's supply ought to have precedency of grievances. The minority of twenty-five contained the names of Hertford and Southampton, who afterwards took the side of the King in the Civil War, as well as those of Bedford, Essex, of Brooke and Saye.1 Strafford had done neither the King nor the Lords service in thus thrusting the Upper House forward in opposition to the Lower. What he did amiss sprang from his fundamental misconception of the situation. Like Wellington in 1831 and 1832, he saw the constitution threatened by a change which would shift completely, and for ever, the basis of power. Believing in his heart that this change would be prejudicial to the country, he was ready to resist it with every instrument that came ready to his hand. Like Wellington, he would appeal first to the House of Lords in the hope that the voice of the Lords would serve 1 The minority were Rutland, Southampton, Bedford, Hertford, Essex, Lincoln, Warwick, Clare, Bolingbroke, Nottingham, Bath, Saye and Sele, Willoughby of Parham, Paget, North, Mandeville, Brooke, Robartes, Lovelace, Savile, Dunsmore, Deyncourt, Montague of Boughton, Howard of Escrick, and Wharton. Note by Windebank, S. P. Dom. ccccli. 39. CHAP. 1640. April 24. April 27 The Commons de breach of as a rallying cry for the well-affected part of the nation. But there can be little doubt that he would have refused to be controlled by any numerical majority whatever, and would have fallen back upon an armed force if necessary, to beat down a resistance which he believed to be destructive of all that was most valuable in the country. It was a fatal mistake, fatal if only because it was out of Strafford's power to keep erect that mingled system of law and prerogative which stood for the English constitution in his eyes. If the Commons persisted in their opinion, the only choice would be between a military despotism and the supremacy of the Lower House. If Pym could not in the face of Charles call back into existence the whole of the Elizabethan constitution, he was at least standing up in defence of its nobler and better part. The claim of Englishmen to determine their own policy, and not to be the humble recipients of bounties at the good pleasure of the King and the Bishops, was the question at issue. Pym might not produce a complete and perfect work. He might sometimes be harsh in his judgments and defective in penetrating motives; but, for all that, it was the voice of Pym and not the voice of Strafford which appealed to the memories of the great England of the past, and which reached across the gulf of time to do, as Eliot would have said, the work of posterity, and to call into being the greater England of the future. Strafford had to content himself with the approbation of the Court. Charles said openly that he clare this a trusted him more than all his Council. Even the Queen was won. She told him that she esteemed him the most capable and faithful servant her Apr. 30 Bibl. Nat. Fr. 15,995, fol. 81. privilege. 1 Montreuil to Bellievre, May 10' |