Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/103

] This was speaking out; the parliament threw down the gage, and James, in his wrath, took it up. Forgetting that he was represented as ill, he rode up to London in a fury, ordered the clerk of the commons to bring him the journals of the house—according to Rushworth, tore the obnoxious protest out of it with his own hands, in full council, and in presence of the judges; at all events he cancelled it; had what he had done entered in the council-book, and on the 6th of January, 1622, by an insulting proclamation, dissolved parliament; assuring the public that it was on account of its evil temper that he had dissolved the house of commons, and not with any intention of doing without one; that he should soon call another; and in the meantime the country might rest assured that he would endeavour to govern well.

The first proofs of his notions of governing well were the summoning of the earls of Oxford and Southampton from the house of peers, and of Coke, Philips, Pym, and Mallory, from the commons, to appear before the council, some of whom were committed to the Tower, some to the Fleet, and others to the custody of private individuals. It was pretended that nothing in either house had occasioned these arrests, and various reasons were assigned; amongst others, that Selden was not a member of the commons, and he therefore could have incurred no blame there. But Selden was the legal adviser of Sandys and others, who had made themselves prominent in the popular cause, and he was known as one of the ablest legal advocates of parliamentary and public rights. The two peers were also at the head of a popular party, which had sprung up in the lords, and the whole matter was too palpable for mistake. Nothing could, however, be fixed on any of the prisoners which the government dared to charge as a crime, and after a sharp rebuke, they were liberated. There were still other members whose conduct had excited the anger of the court, but against whom no specific charge could be established. These were Sir Dudley Digges, Sir James Parrott, Sir Nathaniel Rich, and Sir Thomas Carew. To punish them a singular mode was devised. They were appointed to a commission in Ireland to inquire into the state of the army and navy, into the condition of the church and of public schools, into the abuses in the collection of revenue and in the settlement of the plantations, and into the existence of illegal and mischievous patents. As it was extremely inconvenient for these gentlemen to absent themselves on such business, they protested decidedly against it; but they were told that the king had a right to the services of his subjects, in any way that he pleased; and though these gentlemen had stood boldly with their fellows in a collective capacity for the rights of the subject, they were not sufficiently screwed up to the pitch of martyrdom, to stand upon their individual freedom, and refuse at all costs. Coke, who had now taken the lead in the popular cause, because the court had repelled and dismissed him, offered to accompany them, and assist them with his legal advice and experience, but his offer was declined. The subjects of inquiry, of themselves, were of a nature to furnish much strength and intelligence to the reformers, and the mode of punishing these men was as short-sighted as it was arbitrary. But the great contest was now full begun, in which the blindness and tyranny of the Stuarts, and the firm intelligence of the people, were to fight out the great question of constitutional government. Those who regard this as a matter only of Charles I.'s reign, have strangely overlooked the doings and doctrines of James, who was the great author of the conflict, and opened it himself with all the blind dogmatism which distinguished the royal side to the end. This very session prince Charles had been a diligent attender of the house of lords, but seems to have had no perception whatever of the spirit which was dominant in the house of commons, and rapidly diffusing its electric fire through the nation. The names of Pym, Coke, Wentworth, and Laud, were already in men's mouths, the heralds of that mighty host, which, for good or for evil, were soon to engage in terrible combat; whose victory was to be the morning-star of governmental science to the nations, determining the true powers, uses, and limitations of governments, and the liberty of the people protected by its own popular safeguards, from licence and anarchy.

On the very day of the dissolution of parliament, James very nearly finished his mortal career. "The same day," says Meade, in Ellis's Original Letters, "his majesty rode by coach to Theobalds to dinner, not intending, as the speech is, to return till Easter. After dinner, riding on horseback abroad, his horse stumbled, and east his majesty into the New River, when the ice brake; he fell in, so that nothing but his boots were seen. Sir Richard Young was next, who alighted, went into the water, and lifted him out. Then came much water out of his mouth and body. His majesty rid back to Theobalds, went into a warm bed, and, as we hear, is well, which God continue."

In foreign affairs James was placed in particular difficulties. The two objects which he had more than all others at heart, were the marriage of his son, the prince of Wales, to the Infanta of Spain, and the restoration of the elector palatine to his hereditary possessions. He had tried too late to secure the princess Christine of France. She was already affianced to Philip of Spain. He had since negotiated for the hand of Donna Maria of Spain. If he could accomplish this marriage, he should be at once able to secure by it his other grand desire, the restoration of the palsgrave, for Spain would then be induced to withdraw its forces from the assistance of the emperor against the Palatinate, and to add its earnest co-operation in arranging for the palsgrave's re-instatement.

But against this project of marriage—the stepping-stone to these measures in Germany—stood the aversion of the public in England to a match with so bigotedly catholic a country as Spain, and equally bigoted a family as that of its sovereign. Just as adverse were the Spaniards, and especially the priests, to the young Infanta coming into an heretical country, and to any impediment thrown in the way of the emperor of Germany exterminating the protestants there. During the life of Philip III., the father of Donna Maria, little progress could be made, but on the accession of his son, Philip IV., in 1621, a more promising prospect opened. Both James and Charles wrote to the new king and his favourite Olivarez. In England Gondomar, the Spanish minister, was warmly in favour of the alliance, seeing in it a guarantee for the relief of the catholics here, and of increased strength against France. Lord Digby, now earl of Bristol, late ambassador at Madrid, was