Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/102

88 securing the primacy, if Abbot were pronounced disqualified. A commission, however, of prelates and canonists proposed that the archbishop should be absolved from all irregularity, and James, as head of the church, granted him a pardon, and appointed eight bishops to give him absolution; but from this time forward he seldom appeared at court.

During the recess, the king performed an act calculated to conciliate the commons. By the advice, as it was said, of Williams, the lord-keeper, he had abolished thirty-seven of the most oppressive of the patents and monopolies, of which the commons had so long complained. But the effect of this was totally neutralised by other measures of a contrary tendency. Complaints had been made of the growing audacity of the Algerine pirates, who had not only seized several English merchant ships in the Mediterranean, but even on the British coast. James solicited Spain, which also was a sufferer from these robbers, to join in an expedition to burn all their ships and destroy Algiers itself. Sir Robert Monsell was sent with a squadron for this purpose, but the Spaniards did not join him, and he was said to have a royal order not to risk his ships. Under such circumstances, nothing very vigorous was to be expected, yet on the 24th of May Monsell sailed up to the fort, and the sailors set fire to the ships, and then retired. No attack was made on the town, and the firing of the vessels was so imperfectly done, that the Algerines soon put out the flames, and threw booms across the harbour to prevent the re-entrance of the English. Only two of the pirate vessels were consumed, and the Algerines, like a swarm of hornets irritated in their nest, but not injured, rushed forth soon afterwards in such force and fury, that they speedily captured no less than five-and-thirty English merchantmen. Loud and bitter were the complaints in the country of this worse than useless proceeding.

To add to the ill-humour generated by this imbecile transaction, the public had been greatly incensed by the arrest of a number of liberal-minded men—the earls of Oxford and Southampton, Sutcliffe, dean of Exeter, Brise, a puritan preacher, Sir Christopher Neville, Sir Edward Sandys, and Selden, the great lawyer and antiquary; and a prosecution had been commenced against Sir Edward Coke, on no less than eleven charges of misdemeanour during the time that he was a judge. Coke, unlike Bacon, had amassed great wealth during his official life, and it was understood that these charges of peculation and bribery had been got up at the suggestion of Bacon and Coke's own wife, lady Hatton.

The commons took up zealously the cause of their members, Sandys and Coke. Sandys had been examined on some secret charge before the council, and after a month's detention was discharged. Being confined to his bed at the commencement of the session, two members were appointed to wait on him and learn the cavise of his arrest, notwithstanding the assurance of the secretary of state that it had no connection with his conduct in the house. They also ordered the serjeant-at-arms to take into custody the accusers of Coke, and appointed a committee to examine witnesses. They felt assured that the proceedings against these gentlemen originated with their popular conduct in parliament.

At the same time Coke, in the commons, proposed a petition to the king against the increase of popery and the marriage of the prince of Wales to a catholic. It represented that the success in Germany against the prince palatine had so encouraged the papists, that they flocked in crowds to the chapels of the foreign ambassadors; sent their children abroad for education, and were treated with so much lenity that, if not prevented, they would soon again be in the ascendant. Spain was represented, without directly naming it, as the worst enemy of this country, and the king was implored to recall all the children of catholic noblemen and gentlemen from abroad, marry his son to a protestant princess, and enforce the laws with rigour against the papists.

James received a private copy of this petition, and was thrown into a paroxysm of rage at its perusal. To dictate to him how he should marry his son; that he should invade the territories of Spain, as it recommended; and to reflect on the honour of his ally, the Spanish king, were examples of intolerable interference with his dearly valued prerogative. He wrote at once to the speaker, denouncing certain "fiery, popular, and turbulent spirits " in the house, and desiring them not to concern themselves about such matters as were included in the petition. Adverting to Sandys, he denied that his offence was connected with the house of commons, but at the same time declared that the crown possessed a right to punish subjects, whether members of parliament or not, and would not fail to exercise it.

The house received this missive with high dissatisfaction, but with dignity, and vindicated their right of liberty of speech in a firm memorial. James replied that though their privileges were no undoubted right, but were derived from the grace of his ancestors on the throne, yet so long as they kept them within the limits of duty, he should not exercise his prerogative and withdraw those privileges. The house expressed its high resentment at this language, which reduced their right into mere matter of royal favour, and the expression of feeling ran so high that James became alarmed, and wrote to secretary Calvert, instructing him to qualify his assertions a little. But the house was not thus to be satisfied where the question of its privileges was directly raised, and on the 18th of December it drew up the following protest:—"That the liberties and jurisdictions of parliament are the most ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England; that arduous and urgent affairs concerning the king, the state, and defence of the realm, and the church of England, the making and maintenance of laws, and the redress of grievances, are proper subjects of counsel and debate in parliament; that in the handling of these businesses, every member hath and ought to have freedom of speech; that the commons in parliament have like liberty to treat of these matters in such order as they think proper; that every member hath like freedom from all impeachment, imprisonment, and molestation, other than by the censure of the house itself, concerning any bill, speaking or reasoning touching parliament matters; and that if any be complained of for anything said or done in parliament, the same is to be showed to the king by assent of the commons before the king give evidence to any private information."