Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/161

] their offence, and paid the following fines:—Sir John Elliot, as the ringleader and chief offender, two thousand pounds; Hollis, one thousand marks; Valentine, five hundred pounds.

Long was not included in this trial, but was prosecuted in the star-chamber, on the plea that he had no business in parliament, being pricked for sheriff of his county, and by his oath was bound to have been there. He was fined one thousand marks. This, however, deceived nobody: every one knew that the offence for which he suffered was for his conduct in parliament. The prisoners lay in gaol for eighteen months. Sir John Elliot never came out again. His noble conduct had made deadly enemies of the king and his courtiers, and even when he was dying, in 1632, after three years' confinement, they rejoiced in his melancholy fate, and refused all petitions for his release.

Charles called no more parliaments till 1640, but went on for eleven years fighting his way through the most maniacal attempts on the constitution and temper of the nation, towards the block. A case of particular oppression on the part of the king, and of bravery on the part of the sufferer, at this time excited great indignation. Richard Chambers, a merchant, was summoned before the privy council for refusing to pay duties on a bale of silks, imposed without sanction of parliament. Charles selected this case as an example of his intention to trample on the Petition of Right so lately granted. Chambers, a brave and independent man, boldly told the council that "merchants were more encouraged, and less screwed and wrung in Turkey than in England." This was considered so contumacious, that he was prosecuted in the star-chamber; and that infamous and illegal instrument of the despotism of so many kings and queens, Tudors and Stuarts, declaring that it was the intention of Chambers to represent this happy government worse than a Turkish tyranny, fined him two thousand pounds, and ordered him to sign an acknowledgement that his words were seditious, false, and malignant. The honest merchant signed what they had written for him, but added of himself, "All the above contents and submission, I, Richard Chambers, do utterly abhor and detest, as most unjust and false, and never till death will acknowledge any part thereof." He did not stop there, but added various texts of Scripture to express his sense of the violent government of the time; such as, "Wo unto them that devise iniquity, because it is in the power of their hand!"

The case was forthwith removed to the exchequer, where he took his stand on Magna Charta and other statutes; but the judges would not suffer the plea to be filed; and when he demanded trial by exercise of his habeas corpus, they remanded him without hearing, and the indomitable man lay in prison twelve years. The long parliament, to which he sought long and anxiously for redress, deferred his case so shamefully, that he died unrequited and in destitution.

The treatment of Chambers and the parliamentary prisoners was a fair demonstration of the kind of government which now was to prevail. Laud was in the ascendant, and Wentworth, late a patriot, now bought over, was a slave and a generator of slaves. Laud was as great a stickler for the power of the church as Charles was of the state; their humours jumped amazingly, and this unexampled trio, Charles, Laud, and Wentworth, worked shoulder to shoulder in church and state, to reduce all to slavery. They invented a cant term betwixt them, to express what they aimed at, and the means by which they pursued it. It was "thorough," or, as the Americans have of late styled it in their slang, "going the whole hog."

Laud had introduced a passage into the ceremonial even of the coronation, which astonished the hearers, and showed even then that he aimed at an ecclesiastical despotism "Stand and hold fast from henceforth the place to which you have been heir by the succession of your forefathers, being now delivered to you by the authority of God Almighty, and by the hands of us all, and all the bishops and servants of God. And as you see the clergy to come nearer the altar than others, so remember them, in all places convenient, you give them greater honour," &c. This haughty prelate now promulgated such absolute doctrines of divine right of king and priest, and began to run in ceremonies and church splendour so fast toward actual popery, that the daughter of the earl of Devonshire being asked by him why she had turned catholic, replied, "Because I hate to travel in a crowd. I perceive your grace and many others are making haste to Rome, and therefore, in order to prevent being crowded, I have gone before you."

Under this undaunted leader, the pulpits now resounded with the most flaming advocacy of divine right. A pamphlet was discovered by the reformers, which had been written for king James, and was now printed, urging the king to do as Louis XI. of France had done—dispense with parliaments altogether, and secure his predominance by a standing army. The queen's advice was precisely of this character: often crying up the infinite superiority of the kings of her own country and family, whom she styled real kings, whilst the English were only sham ones. But whilst Charles was greatly soothed by these doctrines, and strengthened in his resolve to trouble himself no more with parliaments, he was careful to strengthen his government by seducing as many of the ablest men of the opposition as he could. The first with whom he succeeded were Wentworth and Sir John Saville. They were both from Yorkshire, and both men of considerable property. Saville had been induced, by Cottington, the lord chancellor, to desert his patriotic friends and professions at the close of the second parliament, for a place in the privy council, and the office of comptroller of the household.

Sir Thomas Wentworth was a much more considerable man. He claimed to be descended from the royal line of the Plantagenets, and had no superior in ability in the house. The position which he had assumed in the parliamentary resistance to the royal encroachments, had been uncompromising and most effective. So much were his eloquence and influence dreaded, that he had been, amongst others, appointed sheriff, to keep him out of the house. For his continual opposition he was deprived of the office of Custos Rotulorum, and thrown into prison. Yet, when tempted by the offer of rank and power, he fell suddenly, utterly, and hopelessly, and became one of the most unflinching advocates and actors of absolutism that ever lived. On the 21st of July, 1628, Saville was created a baron, and on the morrow Wentworth was raised to the same dignity, as