CHAPTER II.
Shortly after the opening of Parliament, Pym met Hyde in Westminster Hall, and showed unmistakeably, by his conversation, the course which he intended to pursue. "They must now," he told him, "be of another temper than they were the last Parliament; that they must not only sweep the house clean below, but must pull down all the cobwebs which hung in the top and corners, that they might not breed dust, and so make a foul house hereafter. But they had now an opportunity to make their country happy, by removing all grievances, and pulling up the causes of them by the roots, if all men would do their duties."[90]
1640, November.
On the 6th of November, the Commons, in pursuance of precedent, appointed a grand Committee of religion,[91] consisting of the whole House, to meet every Monday afternoon, at two o'clock. The next morning came a petition from Mrs. Bastwick, and another from Mrs. Burton, on behalf of their husbands—"close prisoners in remote islands"—after having stood in the pillory, and lost their ears, by a Star Chamber sentence. Immediately upon this, another petition followed from John Brown, on behalf of his master, Mr. Prynne—"close prisoner in the Isle of Jersey"—who also had suffered mutilation by authority of the same tribunal. Scarcely had this arrived when another appeared from John Lilburne—"close prisoner in the Fleet"—also under Star Chamber condemnation. A fifth was read from Alexander Leighton, complaining of his sentence by the same court, in pursuance of which he had been whipped, slashed in the nose, branded on both cheeks, and deprived of his ears, and then closely imprisoned.[92]
Debates on Religion.
The presentation of these petitions produced an impression most adverse to the Church. The offences of the prisoners had been the publishing of books, which virulently assailed prelacy, superstitious worship, and ecclesiastical despotism. The tone in some of these writings is quite indefensible, and scarcely to be excused,[93] and had they been passed over in silence, sympathy might have turned towards those assailed; but after the liberty of the Press had been violated, and a merciless punishment had been inflicted on the assailants, the tide of popular feeling ran in their favour, and they were honoured as martyrs in their country's cause.
1640, November.
The House of Commons at once overrode the authority of the Star Chamber, and sent for the prisoners. Even in the pillory, and the prison, Burton and Prynne had received testimonies of sympathy, and now their return to London was a perfect ovation. They arrived on the 28th of November, and were "nearly three hours in passing from Charing Cross to their lodging in the city, having torches carried to light them." The parish churches had rung merry peals as the liberated prisoners reached town after town, and their escort into London consisted of a hundred coaches, some with six horses, and two thousand horsemen, with sprigs of rosemary in their hats—"those on foot being innumerable."[94] Afterwards the House resolved that the proceedings against these sufferers had been illegal and unjust—that their fines should be remitted—that they were to be restored to liberty, and that their persecutors should make reparation for the injuries they had inflicted.[95] Prynne—when vacancies in Parliament occurred through the secession of royalist members—was elected to a seat; and thenceforth in the Long Parliament his mutilated ears became constant mementoes of Star Chamber cruelty, stimulating resistance to arbitrary government, if not provoking retaliation for past offences. And here it may be noticed that many members on the patriotic side had suffered from the despotic doings of past years. Hampden, Holles, Selden, Strode, Sir Harbottle Grimston, Long, and Hobart had all been in prison, and some also had paid fines.[96] They would have been more or less than human if their memories had not aroused indignation against the despotism of the King and his ministers. Such members seated on the opposition benches, backed by a majority, were enough to make the hearts of courtiers quail.
Debates on Religion.
Not only did Pym's spirit pervade the House, and manifest itself in these early proceedings, but his voice was heard enumerating the main grievances in Church and State. Scarcely had the session of the Commons commenced, when—according to the Puritan habit of the times—he denounced the encouragement given to Papists, because their principles were incompatible with other religions, and because with them laws had no authority, nor oaths any obligation, seeing that the Bishop of Rome could dispense with both. He complained further of their being allowed offices of trust in the Commonwealth, of their free resort to Court, and of their having a Nuncio in England, even as they had a congregation of Cardinals in Italy. It would be unreasonable to apply to a statesman maintaining these views in the seventeenth century, a standard of opinion belonging to the nineteenth, and also it is unnecessary to expose the fallacies which underlie such specious coverings. We must admit that there were special circumstances then existing, and recent facts in fresh remembrance—some of them will be hereafter seen—which rendered the position of the friends of freedom very different from what it is now. Though principles of righteousness and charity are immutable, the recollection of old evils just escaped, and the apprehension of new perils just at hand, may well be pleaded in excuse of measures then adopted for self-preservation. The fear of the restoration of Popery at that period cannot be pronounced an idle apprehension. The Reformation was young. Rome was busy. The Queen was a Papist. Roman Catholics were in favour at Court. Anglo-Catholicism unconsciously was opening the gates to the enemy. And further, in connection with this speech by Pym, it is only fair to quote what he said on another occasion:—"He did not desire any new laws against Popery, or any rigorous courses in the execution of those already in force; he was far from seeking the ruin of their persons or estates, only he wisht they might be kept in such a condition as should restrain them from doing hurt."[97]
1640, November.
From the subject of Popery, Pym turned at once to Anglican innovations, which he regarded as the bridge leading to it. He pointed out the maintenance of Popish tenets in books and sermons, together with the practice of Popish ceremonies in worship—which he compared to the dry bones in Ezekiel, coming together, and being covered with sinews, flesh, and skin; to be afterwards filled with breath and life. First the form and finally the spirit of the old apostacy were creeping over the Church of England, and the corpse buried at the Reformation even how seemed rising from the grave. The speaker proceeded to complain of the discouragement shown to Protestantism by prosecuting scrupulous persons for things indifferent—such as not coming to the altar rails to receive the communion,[98] preaching lectures on Sunday afternoons, and using other Catechisms than that in the prayer book. This part of Pym's speech concluded with a notice of alarming encroachments made by ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Accused persons were fined and punished without law. A jure divino authority was claimed for Episcopal order and proceedings, and articles were contrived and published, pretending to have the force of canon laws, which the orator declared was an effect of great presumption and boldness, not only in the bishops, but in their archdeacons, officials, and chancellors, who thus assumed a kind of synodical authority. Such injunctions might well partake, in name, with "that part of the common law which is called the extravagants."[99] This last charge referred to what had been done in the late convocation.
Debates on Religion.
Other speakers followed Pym, and all adopted the same tone. Sir Benjamin Rudyard complained of disturbances made on account of trifles, "where to place a metaphor or an altar," and of families ruined for not dancing on Sundays; and he asked what would become of the persecutors when the master of the house should return and find them beating their fellow-servants? These inventions were but sieves for the devil's purposes, made to winnow good men. They were meant to worry diligent preachers, for such only were vexed after this fashion. So it came to pass that, under the name of Puritan, all religion was branded, and under a few hard words against Jesuits, all Popery was countenanced; whoever squared his actions by any rule, either divine or human, he was a Puritan; whoever would be governed by the King's laws, he was a Puritan; he that would not do what other men would have him to do, was a Puritan. The masterpiece of the enemy was to make the truly religious suspected of the whole kingdom.[100]
Sir John Holland, member for Castle Rising, also insisted on ecclesiastical grievances. Bagshaw, Culpeper, and Grimston proceeded in a similar strain. Even Lord Digby complained of prelates, convocations, and canons, the last being "a covenant against the King for bishops and the hierarchy."
1640, November.
Perhaps there is not on record another great debate in which such unanimity found expression, and such volleys of grape-shot rattled into a regiment of abuses. No question, however, affecting the fundamental principles of the Establishment was at present raised; but the corruptions which had covered and choked it were unsparingly threatened. Towards them nothing but indignation was shown.
When the debate had closed with the appointment of a Committee to prepare a remonstrance, the House, well knowing that the right way to obtain a blessed issue was to implore the divine assistance, resolved to desire the Lords to join with them in requesting his Majesty to allow so holy a preparation, and, further, to appoint a general fast.
What the next day witnessed is most memorable for its political consequences, yet it also involved ecclesiastical results of the greatest importance. The Earl of Strafford, though suffering from the gout to which he was a martyr, had hastened to London, and reached it on the 10th of November; fully comprehending the state of affairs, and meditating measures for stopping the tide of revolution. People believed he had a project for accusing the patriots of a share in the Scotch invasion; and that, failing other schemes, there remained the old expedient of dissolving Parliament.
The Earl, the morning after his arrival in London, went down to the House and took his seat; being received with all the "expressions of honour and observance, answerable to the dignity of his place, and the esteem and credit which he had with the King as the chief Minister of State. But this day's sun was not fully set before his power and greatness received such a diminution as gave evident symptoms of his approaching ruin."[101]
Debates on Religion.
His fellow-counsellor and trusty adherent, Archbishop Laud, moved that from a Committee of the two Houses, to be held that afternoon, he and four other bishops might be spared their attendance, on account of a meeting of Convocation. The Prime Minister and the Archbishop left the House, little dreaming of what would happen before sunset on that November day.
Pym had heard of Strafford's arrival. Knowing the man, regarding his return as ominous, and with a keen eye piercing into the heart of his policy, he felt that he must grapple with him at once. Not merely for himself had it come to be a question of life or death, but all reform in Church and State depended on an immediate defeat of Strafford. If suffered to do what he pleased but for another day, he might render all the work of the last few months abortive, and bring back absolutism in triumph. Men said of him, "he had much more of the oak than the willow about his heart." To bend the oak was impossible, and therefore Pym resolved to cut it down. Another such instance of timely sternness there is not in English history.
1640, November.
Twelve years before, at Greenwich,—when Strafford, faithless to his party, thought of accepting a coronet,—Pym had said to him, "You are going to leave us, but I will never leave you while your head is upon your shoulders." Did those words cross the mind of the patriotic statesman as he passed through the lobby to take his accustomed seat on the morning of the most memorable day of his life? Suddenly he rose, looked round on the well-filled benches, and said he had matter great importance to bring forward. "Let the strangers' room be cleared," he went on to ask, "and the outer doors be locked, and the keys laid on the clerk's table." This done, breathless silence followed. Before the Parliament of England, now sitting in secret conclave, Pym spoke out boldly what was in his heart. The kingdom had fallen into a miserable condition. "Waters of bitterness" were flowing through the land; he must enquire, he said, "from what fountain? what persons they are who have so far insinuated themselves into the royal affections, as to be able to pervert His Majesty's excellent judgment, to abuse his name, and apply his authority to support their own corrupt designs?"
Pym's speech occupied some hours in delivery. In the midst of it came interruption. With the usual formalities, a message arrived from the House of Lords, touching the conference to which the Archbishop had referred that morning. Though the message itself could not at first have been contrived with a view of getting at the secret, about which outside curiosity had risen to fever heat; yet it might have been sent at that moment, with the hope of worming out what His Majesty's Commons were doing within locked doors. But the messengers, as they walked slowly up to the clerk's table, making their measured obeisances, were none the wiser for their visit. Pym, suspecting some other object than the professed one, had them quickly dispatched with the answer, "that as the House was engaged on very weighty business it could not meet the Lords just then." At the same time, he managed to "give such advertisement to some of the Lords," that their House might be kept from rising till his project should be fully accomplished.
Debates on Religion.
The messengers dismissed, the doors re-locked, the buzz of conversation hushed, Pym resumed, and at length ended his speech by demanding that Strafford should be impeached. The demand found "consent from the whole House;" nor in all the debate did one person offer to stop the torrent of condemnation by any favourable testimony respecting the Earl. Lord Falkland only counselled that time should be taken to digest the accusation. Pym immediately replied such delay would blast all hopes, for Strafford, hearing of their intentions, "would undoubtedly procure the Parliament to be dissolved."
The House at once appointed a committee of seven to draw up the charges. They retired, and soon returned with their report. The House at once solemnly resolved to impeach the Earl at the bar of the Lords.
The clock had struck four. The doors were thrown open. "The leader of the Commons issued forth, and followed by upwards of three hundred of the members, crossed over in the full sight of the assembled crowd, to the Upper House." Standing at the bar, with the retinue of members pressing round, Pym, in the name of the Commons, accused Strafford of high treason.[102]
1640, November.
Strafford's seat was empty. The Commons withdrew. After consideration of the message by the peers, the Lord-keeper acknowledged its receipt, gave credit for due care taken in the business, and promised a further answer. The Earl was sitting at Whitehall with the King. Swift as the wind, tidings of the impeachment began to travel, and reached the accused amongst the first. He had been out-manœuvred. While preparing for an attack on the enemy's camp he found his own citadel assailed, stormed, taken. Still dauntless, he coolly remarked, "I will go and look mine accusers in the face." Then going to the court gate he took coach, and drove to the House. Advancing to the threshold, he "rudely" demanded admission. James Maxwell, keeper of the Black Rod, opened the door. His lordship, with a "proud glouming countenance," made towards his seat as well as his lameness would allow. He sat down, heard[103] what was going on, and, in spite of orders to withdraw, "kept his confidence and his place till it raised a vehement redoubling of the former scorn, and occasioned the Lord-keeper to tell him that he must withdraw, and to charge the gentleman usher that he would look well to him."[104]
The proud minister found himself detained in the lobby of the House in which once his word had been law.
The Lords debated further on the message of the Commons, and came to the conclusion that the Earl, for this accusation of high treason, should be committed to the safe custody of the gentleman usher, and be sequestered from coming to Parliament until he cleared himself. Called in, he was commanded to kneel at the bar. Completely vanquished, he did so on the very spot where his great antagonist an hour before had stood a conqueror. He now had formal information of the charge brought up by Pym, and was taken into custody. Master Black Rod, proud of his business, required his prisoner to deliver up his sword, and told a waiting-man to carry it. As the prisoner retired, all gazed, but no man "capped to him before whom, that morning, the greatest of England would have stood discovered."[105] Discourteous speeches followed—for an English mob has little pity for fallen greatness—and, to add to his humiliation, when at last, amidst the bustle, the Earl found his carriage, Master Maxwell insolently remarked, "Your lordship is my prisoner, and must go in my coach."
Debates on Religion.
That day sealed Strafford's fate; the only impediment in the patriot's path lay crushed. Now Pym could do his will, and carry out some great reform in Church and State. It was time.
"The strong man armed kept his palace, and his goods were in peace. But now a stronger than he came upon him and overcame him, and took from him all his armour, wherein he trusted, and divided his spoils."
To some readers, there may appear little or no connection between Pym's death-wrestle with Wentworth, and the overturning of the Episcopal Church, the setting up of Presbyterianism, and what followed; yet really without that death-wrestle the things which happened afterwards appear impossibilities.
When Strafford had been in the Tower a month, Laud was impeached, and followed his friend into the custody of James Maxwell.[106]
On the 17th November, a public fast took place, when the House of Commons assembled in the Church of St. Margaret, Westminster, and continued in divine worship for seven hours.[107]
1640, November.
A few days after the fast[108] the Commons, according to precedent, received the Holy Communion, and also according to precedent resolved that none should sit in the House who did not partake of the Sacrament.[109] A measure of policy was connected with their piety on this occasion, which from its having been misunderstood has led to a misapprehension of the whole proceeding. The fact of its having been resolved that all should participate in the Lord's Supper has been cited as a proof that the members were all attached to the Church of England;[110] but Rapin[111] adopts the subtle theory that, bent upon assailing the Bishops, the Commons resolved on this communion, to save themselves from being suspected of Presbyterianism,—as in the reign of Henry V., the Commons prefaced their assault on the clergy by passing a Bill for burning heretics, to save themselves from being suspected of heresy. Yet amidst these speculations upon the subject, the real purpose of the House—beyond its following a precedent and gratifying religious feelings—is frankly expressed in the Journal to have been the discovery of papists amongst the members. The committee who reported on the subject conceived that some confession of faith and a renunciation of the Pope should be required from such as were suspected of popery. At the same time two members of the House were directed to convey to the Dean of Westminster a desire that "the elements might be consecrated upon a communion-table, standing in the church, according to the rubric, and to have the table removed from the altar."[112]
Debates on Religion.
1640, November.
The Long Parliament, in its early sittings, occupied much time in hearing Puritan petitions. Such petitions came from sufferers under ecclesiastical oppression; from people dissatisfied with Anglican clergymen; from individuals scandalized at ceremonial innovations; and from different counties praying for redress of grievances in Church and State. The latter petitions were brought up to town by troops of horsemen. Such documents, accompanied by the denunciations of members who presented them, occasioned searching inquiries into Anglican superstition and intolerance. Persons alleged that communion-tables were set altar-wise; that anthems and organs were superseding plain and proper psalm-singing; that wax candles were burnt in churches in honour of our Lady; that copes of white satin were worn by ministers; that boys with lighted torches went in procession and bowed to the altar; and that Puritans were roughly handled for refusing to make a like obeisance. Further, such persons declared "flat Popery" had been preached, as well as performed; transubstantiation, confession, and absolution, being doctrines maintained in Anglican pulpits.[113] Cases were brought up of clergymen unrighteously suspended for refusing to read the "Book of Sports," and for similar offences. The private gossip of the day touching church matters reached the House through members anxious to stimulate their partizans. Though such reports appear undignified enough in senatorial speeches, they are welcome to the historian, because indicative of the staple talk round firesides in those boisterous days. Alderman Pennington told how an archdeacon's son had said, "God take the Parliament for a company of Puritanical factious fellows, who would wiredraw the King for money, when a Spanish don would lend him two millions. The King would never have quiet until he had taken off twenty or more of their heads." In petitions, according to the Diurnals, very odd references occurred to the sayings and doings of High Churchmen. One declared "the Commissaries were the suburbs of heaven, and the High Commission the Archangels, and that to preach twice a day, or to say any prayers but the Common Prayers, was a damnable sin." Moreover, the same newspaper states, that a minister in Shoreditch stood charged with preaching on the man who went down to Jericho—saying, the King was the man, the Scots the thieves, the Protestant the priest, the formal Protestant the Levite, and the Papist the Good Samaritan.[114] Another, being asked how he could maintain by Scripture the turning of the communion-table altar-wise, replied, "the times were turned, and it was fit the tables should be turned also."
A petition came from a churchwarden cited and punished for not prosecuting parishioners who refused to stand while hearing the creed, to bow at the name of Jesus, to kneel at public prayer, and to sit uncovered during sermon time. These breaches of prescribed ecclesiastical decorum were taken as proofs of Puritan irreverence; but when Puritans were threatened in consequence with legal penalties, such acts appeared to them to be full of heroic virtue.
Debates on Religion.
The growth of popery formed a fruitful topic of quaint declamation. The approach of any great personage, it was said, may be known by the sumpter mules sent on before. And when the Pope travels, altars, copes, pictures, and images precede his progress. High Church ceremonies announced the coming Mass. Clerical tricks of this description prepared for the revival of papal domination. Resistance had provoked persecution. Fire had come out of the bramble, and devoured the cedars of Lebanon.[115]
Stories, too, were told of a parsonage worth three hundred a year, where not even a poor curate remained to read prayers, catechise children, or bury the dead; and of a vicarage, where the nave of the church had been pulled down, the lead sold, the bells profaned, the chancel made into a dog-kennel, and the steeple turned into a pigeon-house.[116]
The debate of the 14th and 15th of December, on the canons, was conducted in the same spirit as other proceedings. Convocation had met in April, at the opening of the Short Parliament; one of the first measures adopted being an imposition on the clergy of six subsidies of four shillings in the pound for six years. Canons had then been prepared, relative to the regal power for suppressing popery, also against Socinianism and sectaries, and further, for preventing Puritan innovations and for promoting uniformity. While discussions on these subjects were proceeding, Parliament had been dissolved, but Convocation had unconstitutionally determined as a royal synod, to persevere sitting until it should be dissolved by the King's writ.[117] Some of the clerical body had protested against this procedure, but the King, with the opinion of certain judges, had confirmed it, and Convocation, then acting as a synod under royal sanction, had completed the new canons.[118]
1640, November.
Parliament poured out vials of wrath on all these canons. They included protests against popery—the third being for the suppression of its growth, and the seventh charging the Church of Rome with "idolatry committed in the mass for which all popish altars were demolished," but the Puritans overlooked or regarded all this as only a pretence for covering assaults upon themselves. To have done so seems to us unfair, though considering the character of the men framing the canons, with whom members of the House of Commons were well acquainted, everybody must believe the authors of the new laws hated Puritanism more than Popery. The truth is, Anglicanism, though thoroughly opposed to papal supremacy, and to some of the dogmas and superstitions of Rome, fostered sympathy with much of the faith and worship characteristic of that church, while it had not a breath of kindness for Puritan sentiments. Such a state of things drove the two parties wide as the poles asunder, and we cannot wonder that on the question of the canons the House of Commons, revolting at Anglo-Catholicism, read all which Convocation had done in the light of those well-known principles by which Convocation was actuated. Whatever the bishops and clergy there, might honestly say about popish ceremonies and the idolatry of the mass, they were chiefly bent on crushing the Puritans, and accordingly the Puritans grappled with the Anglicans as in a struggle for life. Matter enough existed in these new laws to provoke destructive criticism. The first propounded the divine right of kings, and claimed for them powers inconsistent with the English constitution. The canon against sectaries was extremely intolerant, and was so ingeniously contrived as to turn statutes for suppressing popery against all sorts of nonconforming Protestants.
Debates on Religion.
No one, however, of this ill-fated assembly's enactments had to run the gauntlet, like the canon relative to the et cetera oath.[119] It speedily sank under torrents of argument and invective, ridicule, and satire. Also, the prolonging of convocation as a synod, after the dissolution of Parliament, incurred condemnation as wholly illegal; the canons were pronounced invalid; and the entire proceedings subversive of the laws of the realm.[120]
Heylyn declares that the et cetera was introduced in the draft to avoid tautology, and that the enumeration was to be perfected before engrossment, but the king hastened its being printed, and so occasioned the mischief.—Heylyn's Life of Laud, 444.
Archbishop Laud had to bear, in no small measure, the odium of the new ecclesiastical measures. Doubtless, he had a leading hand in their origin, but it is also a fact, that before the opening of the Long Parliament, he wrote by His Majesty's command to the bishops of his province, to suspend the operation of the article respecting the et cetera oath.[121] And when the House had been sitting a little more than three weeks, after Pym, Culpeper, Grimston, and Digby, had attacked this unpopular clerical legislation, and when a still more distinct and violent assault was seen to be approaching, the Archbishop wrote a letter to Selden, member of a committee for enquiry upon the subject, requesting that the "unfortunate canons" might be suffered to die quietly, without blemishing the Church, which had too many enemies both at home and abroad.[122]
1640, November.
The vote of the House of Commons administered a blow to Convocation from which it could not recover. That assembly, indeed, again appeared as the twin sister of the new Parliament. Representatives of the province of Canterbury met on the 3rd November, the day on which the Lords and Commons assembled. The usual formalities having been observed, a sermon preached, and a prolocutor chosen—Archbishop Laud addressed the clergy in Henry the Seventh's chapel, in a manner which shewed that he heard the sound of the brewing storm, and had sense enough to discern the impending danger. So had others of the assembly. Accordingly, some one proposed in the Lower House, that "they should endeavour according to the Levitical law to cover the pit which they had opened, and to prevent the designs of their adversaries by condemning the obnoxious canons." But the majority, not willing to be condemned till formally accused, heeded not this warning; yet the members avoided giving further provocation, and, feeble themselves, they only watched the proceedings of their parliamentary neighbours. When the resolution of the Commons was passed it paralyzed them. The Upper House did not meet again after Christmas, nor the Lower after the following February.[123] The assembly of the Convocation of York had been prevented by the death of the Archbishop, and the new writ issued came to nothing.
Here we shall pause for a moment to watch other forces coming into play.
