Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/203

] of armed resistance; England stands sternly not far distant from the same temper; trodden Ireland is not without remaining throes of life; and within 1640 the blood of civil strife, not soon to be stanched, must flow; and instead of no parliament in eleven years, two parliaments in one year; the latter to endure nearly twice as long as the country had been without any, and work more wonderful changes than had yet been seen in England or any other monarchy.

To assist the king and council in what was felt to be a critical emergency, Wentworth, now Strafford, returned, though suffering from a painful complaint. He left orders for the immediate levy of an army of eight thousand men, and Charles took measures for the raising in England fifteen thousand foot and four thousand horse, which he thought would serve to overawe parliament; and, what is singular, the orders for the raising of there troops and providing artillery and ammunition were signed by Laud, so little had he an idea of an archbishop being a minister of the prince of peace. Before the arrival of Strafford, Charles read to the council the account of the liberal subsidies and the loyal expressions which Strafford had put into the mouths of the enslaved Irish commons. This he did at the request of Strafford himself, to prove not only the loyalty of the Irish, but his own popularity there, spite of the assertions of his being hated in that country.

When the king met the parliament on the 13th of April, he had not abated one jot of his high-flown notions of his divine right, and of the slavish obedience due from parliament. The lord keeper Finch, formerly the speaker of the house, but now more truly in his element as a courtier, made a most fulsome speech, describing the king as "the most just, the most pious, the most gracious king that ever was." That his kingly resolves were in the ark of his sacred breast, that no Uzziah must touch it. That he was like Phœbus; and that though he condescended to lay aside the beams and rays of majesty, they were not to presume upon it. He informed them that for many years in his piety towards them he had taken all the cares and annoyances of government from them, and raised the condition and reputation of the country to a wonderful splendour. That, notwithstanding such exemplary virtues and exhibitions of goodness, some sons of Belial had blown the trumpet of rebellion in Scotland, and that it was now necessary to chastise that stiff-necked people. That they must therefore lay aside all other subjects, and imitate the loyal parliament of Ireland in furnishing liberal supplies. That had not the king, upon the credit of his servants and out of his own estate, raised three hundred thousand pounds, he could not have made the preparations already in progress. That they must therefore grant him tonnage and poundage from the beginning of his reign, and vote the subsidies at once, when his majesty would pledge his royal word that he would take into his gracious consideration their grievances. And all this balderdash, and this stale trick of trying to get the supplies before the discussion of grievances, on the now well-estimated word of the king, from those sturdy commoners who bad never yet given way to force or flattery!

Charles then produced the intercepted letters of the Scottish lords to the king of France, to show the treason of the Scots, and the necessity of taking decisive measures with them. But the commons were not likely to be moved from their settled purpose by any such arguments. They elected Serjeant Glauvil as speaker, and proceeded first and foremost to the discussion of the grievances of the nation. Amongst their old members, though the brave Sir John Elliot had perished in prison, and Sir Edward Coke, who by his latter years of patriotism had effaced the memory of the arbitrary spirit of his earlier ones, was also dead, their were Oliver Cromwell, now sitting for Cambridge, Pym Hampden, Denzell Hollis, Maynard, Oliver St. John, Strode, Corriton, Hayman, and Haselrig. There were amongst the new ones, Harbottle Grimston, Edmund Waller, the poet, lord George Digby, the son of the earl of Bristol, a young man of eminent talent, and other men destined to become prominent. Sir Benjamin Rudyard and Grimston delivered speeches recommending at once courtesy and respect towards the crown, but unflinching support of the rights of the people. Harbottle Grinston described the commonwealth as miserably torn and massacred, all property and liberty shaken, the church distracted, the Gospel and professors of it persecuted, parliament suspended, and the Laws made void. Sir Benjamin Rudyard protested that he desired nothing so much as that they might proceed with moderation, but that if parliaments were gone, they were lost. A remarkable feature of this parliament was, that of the number of petitions sent in by the people, the dawn of that custom which has now become one of the greatest customs of England and the most efficient support of reforms by the commons. These were poured in against ship-money and other abuses, as the star-chamber. High Commission Court, &c., from the counties of Hertford, Essex, Sussex, &c. After these matters had been warmly debated for four days, for the king had many advocates in the house, on the 17th Mr. Pym delivered a most eloquent and impressive speech, in which he narrated the many attacks on the privileges of parliament and the liberty of the subject, and laid down the constitutional doctrine "that the king can do no wrong," thus bringing the conduct and counsels of his ministers under the direct census of the house, and loading them with the solemn responsibility—an awful foreshadowing of the judgments to come down on Laud and Wentworth. From that point the debate turned on the arbitrary treatment of the members of the commons, and orders were issued for a report of the proceedings of the star-chamber and the Court of King's Bench against Sir John Elliot, Mr. Hollis, and Mr. Hampden, to be laid on the table of the house. The conduct of the late speaker, Finch, in adjourning the house at the command of the king, was declared unconstitutional.

The king could no longer restrain his impatience, and summoned both houses before him in the banqueting hall. There the lord keeper Finch, in the presence of Charles, recalled their attention to the necessity of voting the supplies, and repeated the king's promises. He endeavoured to excuse the raising of ship-money as a necessity for chastising the Algerine pirates who infested the seas, and again recommended the liberal example of the Irish parliament. The only effect produced by this, was a most vivid and trenchant speech the next day by Waller, in which he told the house that the king was personally beloved, but