Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/418

Rh 406 CHARLES I. [OF ENGLAND. Houses manifested itself in an impeachment of Laud, and a proposal to abolish Episcopacy. Charles once more resorted to the crooked policy which he usually employed in extremity. He visited Edinburgh, attended the Presbyterian worship, and loaded Argyll, Hamilton, and the other Presbyterian leaders with marks of favour, while all the time he was intriguing with the earl of Montrose, Argyll s open enemy. There was a darker suspicion at the time that an attempt, known as the &quot; Incident,&quot; had been made by Montrose, with the king s knowledge, to assassinate Argyll; but this worse treachery is by no means proved. At this moment, while men s minds were full of excitement and apprehension, a massacre of thousands of Protestants took place in Ireland. It was known that O Neale, the leader of the butchery, professed to have the king s written warrant and the ardent support of the queen ; and many believed the hideous charge. They would have been more strongly convinced had they seen the letter in which his majesty coldly remarked that he trusted this trouble in Ireland would help to cure the folly at home. Other plots were also being discovered, of which men more naturally ascribed some knowledge to the king. Pym s life was in constant danger. An attempt was made to convey plague infection to him in a letter, and a gentleman was stabbed by mistake for him in &quot;Westminster Hall. But Pym and the Parliament yielded not one step. On the 1st December 1641 the Grand Remonstrance was pre sented to the king, who received the committee which pre sented it in the highest spirits. He had returned from Scotland but a few days before, had been entertained at a great banquet by the Lord Mayor, and had made up his miud to show the Parliament that he was not to be trifled with. He had already appointed Colonel Lunsford, a dis reputable scapegrace, to the command of the Tower. He now replaced the guard, which had protected Parliament since the news of the Army Plot, by a company under the earl of Dorset, who did not pass his first day of duty without firing on the people. Mobs far from orderly began to assemble round Westminster Hall, and a petition against the bishops was presented to the Commons. The bishops themselves were mobbed on their way to the House, and when they protested against the legality of what should be done in their absence, were summarily silenced by an impeachment. The excitement in the city grew dangerously intense, and Charles fanned the flame by accepting a com pany of armed soldier-adventurers as guard, and allowing them to quarrel with the unarmed crowd. It was on the 3d of January 1642 that the final breach was made. Pym was not to be gained over, for only a few days before he had refused office. The king now practically declared war against the Parliament. How far he acted alone is disputed ; but Clarendon is very likely right in saying that he was goaded on by the queen, who had retained from the political theory in which she had been educated some very lofty notions about the rights of kings and the duties of parliaments. On the morning of the 3d, he commanded Attorney-General Herbert to impeach Lord Kimbolton (against whom, however, the matter was not pressed), Pym, Hampden, Haslerig, Hollis, and Strode on a charge of high treason, founded upon their parliamentary conduct. The rooms, drawers, and trunks of the five members were illegally sealed at the king s command, and the king s sergeant-at-arms was illegally sent to demand their persons. The Commons behaved with the greatest dignity. The sergeant was commanded to show his respect for the House by laying aside his mace, and four members, of whom two were privy-councillors, were sent with a message to the king that the House would give him an a-iswer as speedily as the greatness of the business would allow, and that the members should meet any legal charge against them. But Charles had determined to crush the Parliament by force, and to make it for ever subservient to the Crown. He sent orders to the lord mayor that the guard sought by the Parliament should be employed to disperse all crowds, and to &quot; shoot with bullets &quot; all who resisted. On the morning of the 4th, at the head of his attendants, his pensioners, and the Whitehall guard, armed with partisans, swords, and pistols, to the number of three or four hundred men, he entered the House of Commons, and demanded the persons of the five members, declaring that treason has no privilege. But, with the formal consent of the House, they had taken refuge in the city; to the king s demands the sole reply was that given by the speaker, bravely, though tremblingly, and on his knees, that he could speak only as he was commanded by the House ; and Charles was obliged to retire with undignified threats upon his lips. The consequence of this act was the most ter rible excitement. Some members of the Commons cried &quot; Privilege&quot; in the very presence of his majesty. In Lon don the shops were shut ; there was a report that the cavaliers, with the king at their head, were about to fire the city, and it became known that a seizure of the arms of the citizens was contemplated. When the king visited the city next day, in the streets and in the court- room of the common council, he was met by cries of &quot; Privilege of Parliament ! &quot; The panic still grew ; the streets were thronged with almost frenzied crowds ; the train bands were collected. Other crowds poured in from the country, one with a petition signed by thousands for the protection of Pym, another, from Buckinghamshire, eager to live and die with Hampden, to serve the Commons, respectfully to petition the king. The very sailors in the river caught the enthusiasm, and offered their assistance. And the House of Commons, declaring itself no longer safe at Westminster, adjourned first to Guildhall and then to Grocers Hall. On the 10th Charles, eeeing that the true magnitude of his attempt had been understood, and that he was met with his own weapons, retired in alarm to Hamptcn Court. On the following morning the five members returned to their seats in triumph, amid salutes from the river, the shouts of the crowd, and a parade of the train bands. The Parliament retaliated the king s attack by passing a bill assuming the command of the militia, and appointing the lieutenants of counties. But the king on his journey from Dover, where the queen had embarked with the crown jewels, had met with so many expressions of loyalty that he refused his consent. He requested, however, that all requirements should be drawn up in one document, and submitted to him. Accordingly, in June 1642, Parliament presented &quot; The Nineteen Propositions.&quot; They were such as would have entirely altered the constitution. Constitu tional concessions could no longer avail the king ; fifteen years of unconstitutional rule had made that impossible. He had striven to obtain the tyranny ; he had appealed to force ; and the Civil War had already begun with the Westminster tumults. On the 22d August 1642, it was formally commenced by the erection of the royal standard at Nottingham. At first success was on the side of the king, and the Parliament suffered so severely in the west that they began to discussterms of peace, while several defections to the royalist party took place. But Charles was too highly elated ; having summoned a parliament of his own at Oxford, he declared that which met at Westminster to be none; and when the earls of Holland, Bristol, and Clare came over to his party, he treated them with so much neglect and insult that after three months they turned back, and no others risked the treatment they had received. But as the troops of the Parliament became accustomed to the use of arms, and its officers to the tactics of war, the inferiority of the royalists