Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/417

Rh OF ENGLAND.] CHARLES I. 405 against the duke of Buckingham. His majesty replied with a haughty message that the duke had acted only at his direction, threw Eliot and Sir Dudley Digges into prison, and finally dissolved the Parliament again, without any improvement of his finances. Forced loans were resorted to ; the common people who refused to pay were pressed for the navy; the gentlemen were summoned before the council, or committed to prison per specials mandatum regis. At this inopportune moment Buckingham provoked a war with France, and led an expedition against Hne&quot;, which proved an utter failure. In 1628 Charles was com pelled to call a third Parliament. The House of Commons which now assembled was remarkable alike for the social standing of its members and for their we-ilth, which was three times that of the House of Lords. But equally with the other two which had met in this reign, it was determined to obtain redress of grievances. Its first act was to draw up the Petition of Right, which declares the illegality of forced loans, of martial law in time of peace, and of the billeting of soldiers on private houses. Characteristically, Charles at first attempted an evasive reply &quot; The king willeth that right be done according to the laws and customs of the realm.&quot; When, however, the Commons proceeded to censure Buckingham, he gave the regular formal assent. Yet such was his insincerity that he caused 1500 copies of the Petition to be distributed with the first answer attached. The Commons now made known their readiness to vote tonnage and poundage, provided that the king would admit that his arbitrary levy had been illegal; and Hollis and Valentine held the speaker in the chair while Eliot read a protest against Arminians and Papists, and against the irregular levy of tonnage and poundage. A few weeks before, Buckingham had fallen by the dagger of a disap pointed officer. But the king s policy was unchanged. The usual plan of dissolution was resorted to ; and Eliot, Hollis, and Valentine were heavily fined, and so strictly imprisoned that, though Eliot s health gave way, his petitions for a temporary release were repeatedly refused by Charles, and he was allowed to die in the Tower. From this time there was no Parliament for eleven years (March 1629 to April 1640). Every year made the people better acquainted with the character of their king, who showed an unhappy ignorance both of the history and the temper of the nation ; and taught them to feel more and more deeply that stronger safeguards were needed to withstand the arbitrary power of the sovereign. The Lon don merchant who compared the rule of Charles to that of the sultan of Turkey was not altogether unjust. A pater nal government was his beau-ideal ; and Parliament was to be summoned only to give advice to the king, and to acquaint him with the needs of the people. The Petition of Right, to which he had recently given his assent, he utterly disregarded. He descended to a puerile exercise of authority. His proclamations forbade the country people to come up to the metropolis, commanded all the shops in Cheapside, except those of the goldsmiths, to be shut, and prohibited the building of more houses in London, unless special leave (to be well paid f 3r) were first obtained. But the great necessity was to procure money. The Council of the North was directed to compound with recusants. Monopolies were granted to companies in defiance of the spirit of the law. Neglect of the knight hood which was no longer an honour was punished by a fine, which was often extremely severe. Pretensions to forest-lands, which prescription had long made unjust, were revived. And, lastly, the famous ship-money was levied. Besides, Charles must also be held personally responsible for other tyranny than that which was executed at his direct command. During these years Strafford was maturing his policy of &quot; Thorough,&quot; by which England was to be made subject to a standing army ; and if Charles did not carry out this scheme as far as might have been possible, it was not because it was too bad, but only because it was too great for him. Though he had no love for its inventor he showed his respect for his absolute policy by making him president of the Council of the North, and sending him to govern Ireland with an iron sternness, which, though it certainly added to the prosperity of some parts of the island, as certainly helped to arouse in others the feeling which resulted in the horrors of the Irish massacre. He allowed the Star Chamber to sentence a clergyman to perpetual imprisonment, mutilation, and whipping for a libel against the bishops, and to reduce a gentleman to poverty for merely sneering at the badge of a nobleman. He sanctioned the inquisitorial Court of High Commission. He supported Laud s oppression of the Puritans, his inculcation of celibacy among the clergy, of auricular confession, of prayers for the dead, and of the doctrine of purgatory, and he advanced men like Montagu, whom he knew to be desirous of a reunion of the English Church with Rome, confirming by all this the suspicions which the disclosures of Bristol had awakened. At length, on his own sole authority, he commanded Scotland to receive a liturgy and a book of canons. The fatal results of this act belong to the history of Scotland. Unable to meet the Scottish army with a sufficient force, Charles summoned the Short Parliament ; but as it refused to vote supplies till it made inquiry into the causes of the imprisonment of Eliot and his two com panions, into ship-money, and other matters of that kind, it was speedily dissolved. A great council of the peers would not act alone ; and in November 1 640 he was compelled to summon the Long Parliament. The Commons were now happy in a leader magnificently fitted for the times. His fiery energy was repressed, not quenched, by the ripeness of his age ; his courage and determination were too firm to be shaken ; his respect for law and order was deep and strong ; but deeper still and stronger were his love of liberty, and his resolve that nothing should serve as a bulwark against despotism. With the sagacity of the true statesman, Pym struck the first blow at the strongest pillar of the hateful structure. He exhibited articles of impeachment against the earl of Strafford. The impeach ment was allowed to drop (against his wish), but it was only in favour of a bill of attainder. The preachers preached and the mob yelled against the great delinquent. The king went in person to the House of Lords, and tried to buy him off by promising never to employ him again ; and then listened to a scheme, hatched by certain hot-headed officers and some of the fierier of the courtiers, to bring up the army of the north and overawe the Parliament. But his entreaty was voted irregular ; the plot was discovered, and the earl was condemned to death. Charles s weakness was now fatal to himself. A few months later the splendid ability of Strafford would have been invaluable to him. But he had no affection for the stern, haughty &quot; dark earl,&quot; and, when the Lords refused his humiliating request thjt they would suggest to the Commons some milder punish ment, he sacrificed his greatest servant. At the same time, Charles, who never knew tli3 true place for firmness, yielded on another fatal point by confirming a bill, accord ing to which the Parliament then sitting was not to be dissolved without its own consent. Before the triumphant course of the Commons everything had now to give way. The Triennial Bill was passed, ship-money, the Star Chamber, the High Commission, the Council of the North, the Council of Wales, the Council of Lancaster and Cheshire, the whole system of illegal exaction and injustice, were swept away. The religious passion of the