FOOTNOTES:
[289] ‘And this I will do, if need be, to the hazard of my life and all that is dear unto me.’ Nalson Collection 676.
[290] Cp. Forster, Arrest of the five members 48, 54.
[291] Slingsby to Pennington, 16th December (St. P. O.).
[292] Clarendon iv. 372: ‘By the concurrence and number of the meaner people men of the most active and pragmatical heads should be elected.’ These events in the city would be worth a searching investigation. Some information is given by the (one must admit) party pamphlet of Samuel Butler, A Letter from Mercurius Civicus, etc., in Someis’ Tracts iv. 584.
[293] So he himself told the aldermen. Nalson ii. 702.
[294] Journals 356.
[295] Parliamentary History x. 123.
[296] Giustiniani, 31 Dec/10 Jan. ‘Sciolto in freno alia licenza proruppero in parole di molto senso contra questa elettione non meno, che contra la camera alta, si lasciarono intendere che publicarebbero al popolo machinarsi a danni della libertà di lui, e lo persuaderebbero prender l’armi per defenderla.’
[297] Aerssen: ‘Les prentices firent des grandes insolences, même à Whitehall, le jour que le roi traitoit les colonels et capitaines qui devoient aller en Irlande.’ He reckons some sixty wounded; La Ferté 20-30.
[298] 16/26 Dec. ‘La cabale d’Espagne et de la cour se fait tous les jours plus faible que l’autre, qui commence à prendre le dessus: et se forment diverses intrigues dans la ville.’
[299] 31 Dec./9 Jan. ‘Les affaires n’ont jamais été si brouillées, le parlement estant maintenant en état, que l’une ou l’autre cabale perisse.’
CHAPTER X.
BREACH BETWEEN THE KING AND THE PARLIAMENT.
With the personal rivalries which the word cabal implies, there were blended very real and weighty differences, which touched the nature of authority itself.
Under the very eyes of the King the party which had compelled him to summon a Parliament, and then wrung from him the condemnation of Strafford and the right of Parliament not to be dissolved without its own consent, had risen to terrible power. When he attacked it, it had regained control of the majority in the Commons. However numerous the minority might be, it remained excluded from all political influence. A member was reprimanded for uttering the opinion that the majority of the Lords and the minority of the Commons had as good right to combine as the majority of the Commons with the minority of the Lords[300]. Now however the majority of the Lords also was reduced to impotence: the views of the leaders of the Commons appeared as the opinion of Parliament. Nothing else was to be expected but that those great demands for the abolition of Episcopacy and the co-operation of Parliament in the appointment of all officers of state, which the King regarded as an insult to himself, would soon be laid before him as bills of both Houses. Yet other demands, of which we have seen the traces at an earlier period, had now grown to full consciousness. The Lower House had voted levies for Ireland: the question was raised whether these could be made without a licence under the great seal, which had always hitherto been regarded as necessary. The House A.D. 1642. resolved that this was not indispensable, and that its own order was sufficient[301]. The idea had already been suggested of not entrusting to the King the nomination of leaders for the troops destined for Ireland: it was proposed that the Lower House should name a lord general for the land forces, and a lord high admiral for the fleet. In this manner they thought to fill the offices with a couple of opposition lords, who would have had no chance in the existing temper of the court. At the same time the men who stood nearest to the King were attacked by an impeachment which might cost them their lives. Who after that could join the King and manage his affairs? Strafford was ruined because he had tried to gain for the King a power transcending all earlier precedent: when the King surrendered him he altered his system. Bristol and Digby are not to be compared with Strafford in personal worth; but they belonged to the system which the King was now determined to uphold: what was left him if he abandoned them also?
The court was now trying to devise means for checking the growth of the preponderance of Parliament; and as it was desirable to keep within the law, none other could be found than that by which Strafford had perished, and which had often been talked of since, the impeachment in their turn of the leading members. There were five in the Lower House, Pym and Hampden, the two acknowledged leaders, Hollis and Strode, who had taken a conspicuous part in the impeachment of Digby and Bristol, and Haslerig, who had originated the Bill of Attainder and the proposal for the appointment of generals by Parliament. Of the Lords they selected Mandeville, now Lord Kimbolton, chiefly because he had been much concerned in the alliance with the Scots. The charge which had formerly been brought against the Viceroy of Ireland, that he had sought to overthrow the fundamental laws of England, might, they thought, be still better imputed to those six, for they had endeavoured to make the King hated by his people, to induce his army to abandon him, to rob him of his authority: in fact they had already levied war on the A.D. 1642. King, and Parliament was kept by them in subjection through terror and violence[302]. At least, they thought, they could support all these charges with no slighter evidence than had availed to prove the accusation against Strafford: why should these men not be convicted of high treason as well as Strafford? Moreover they would be under arrest during the process, and so for a long time be rendered harmless. It was determined that the impeachment should be laid before the Lords immediately in the King’s name.
It has often been proved to demonstration that this step cannot be regarded as lawful. The Upper House possessed no criminal jurisdiction over the Lower: the charges against the five members ought to have been brought before a grand jury, or before the Commons themselves. We may add that there was a misunderstanding of what had happened in Stafford’s case. The Lord Lieutenant was not condemned at all in judicial form: his condemnation was a political act of the legislative authority. The Lower House, from which it proceeded, had since gone still further in the same direction, and the Upper House was now paralysed: the impeachment embraced charges against the majority which now enjoyed the whole authority of Parliament. It was bringing the authors of the imputed crime to trial before their accomplices, for a large part of the Upper House belonged to the same party. To what result could this lead?
On January 3, 1642, the Attorney-General, by special command of the King, laid the impeachment before the Lords, where it was received with astonishment. The arrest even of the member of their own House was not ordered, nor even notice of motion given. But just as if all had been fully completed, royal officers immediately repaired to the houses of the accused members of the Lower House to seal up their papers. The Commons were in the act of taking counsel for the indispensable security of the great council of the nation, when the news of this measure arrived. They declared it a breach of their privileges, especially as there had not even been notice given them of the impeachment, and A.D. 1642. called on the Upper House for joint resistance: just then appeared the King’s serjeant to require the surrender of the five members. The Commons had no intention of giving way to this demand, but could not at the moment pronounce a definite refusal. The House pledged itself that the members should at all times be ready to answer any lawful impeachment which should be brought against them, but at the same time reserved the power of representing to the King by a deputation, that this matter touched the privileges of Parliament, and concerned the whole Commons of the realm.
The five members were not arrested, and the seals which had been affixed to their dwellings were removed by an order of the Lower House, in which the Lords concurred.
In earlier times kings had arrested without difficulty members who had opposed them. Charles I had surrendered this power when he accepted the Petition of Right: but we may remember that the lawyers had then secretly assured him that it would always remain to him in case of need. Besides, in cases of treason, privileges counted for nothing. Always inclined to interfere in person, the King determined to go himself to the Lower House, and obtain the surrender of the accused, which had been denied to his officers. It is asserted that he took counsel on the question with members of the Privy Council who also had seats in Parliament, and that his intention was approved by them[303].
It is clear as day that by so doing the King attacked the immunities on which Parliament founded its efficiency and its very existence. It determined under no circumstances to permit the arrest. An immediate practical importance now attached to that protest which had been passed after the discovery of the army plot, and which formed a sort of English Covenant, and pledged every man to defend by united effort the privileges of Parliament. In relation to this the formal resolution was passed that in case any one, whoever it might be, should attempt to arrest a member of the House without its assent and order, resistance should be A.D. 1642. made to him. The question was raised whether the refusal to allow the arrest should be made unconditionally[304]: and not only was this answered in the affirmative, but a further step was taken. As the King again refused the renewed pressure for the appointment of a guard for Parliament, the Lower House now, without further hesitation, requested the Lord Mayor to arm the militia, and send a detachment of them to Westminster to protect the assembly. It looked as if it might serve also as a defence against the violent arrest of the members. The King commanded the Lord Mayor to assemble no troops without his positive order, and if any riot took place in the city, to suppress it by force of arms. He himself deferred the execution of his purpose till the next day (January 4). His plan was, so to speak, a public secret. In the morning the Earl of Essex, Lord Chamberlain, informed the five members confidentially that the King was coming to seize their persons[305]. This was known at the commencement of the sitting. The vehemence of the debate was however not damped by this news, but rather stimulated: especially it dealt with the act of impeachment, which was attacked at all points, refuted, denounced, and finally declared to be a scandalous libel, whose authors must be detected and punished, in order to secure the Commonwealth against them. It was as if the Lower House wished to answer the King’s threat by a counter threat of its own. Hitherto Charles I had delayed the execution of his design. At the news of this resolution he felt himself as it were challenged: in violent agitation he went to the officers assembled in the antechamber. ‘Soldiers,’ he cried, ‘vassals, let him who is true to me, follow me[306]!’ They hastened with him down the A.D. 1642. stairs: at the door there was by chance a carriage which the King entered, the multitude following him on foot.
In St. Stephen’s Chapel the afternoon sitting had just begun, when Captain Langres, probably sent by the French ambassador, arrived with the tidings that the King was on his way from Whitehall[307]. The danger was imminent for all, inasmuch as they had pledged themselves to resist a violent capture of the members, who were present. It was now thought good to adopt the advice which Lord Essex had given in the morning: and a resolution was passed that the five members should withdraw, to which Strode, the youngest of them, offered strenuous opposition, for he wished to seal his innocence with his blood. Scarcely were they gone when the King arrived. His armed followers, amounting to about five hundred men, lined the way for him as he entered. He bade them stay in the vestibule, forbidding any of them to enter the chamber on pain of death: the Earl of Roxburgh kept the door. Charles I had no idea of dispersing the assembly by force, after the fashion of more decidedly revolutionary times. Extraordinary as his conduct was, he believed himself to be acting within his legal rights, and only wished to make his prerogative effectual. The prerogative of the crown in the sense of the early kings, and the privilege of Parliament in the sense of coming times, were directly contradictory to each other. The King was attended by the Elector Palatine: uncovered, saluting on both sides, he walked up to the Speaker’s chair. He said that he did not wish to interfere with the privilege of the House, but that it did not apply in cases of treason: as he had waited in vain yesterday for the surrender of those accused of this crime, he had now come in person to take them away. He asked first for Pym—all was silent: then for Hollis—still no answer. He turned to the Speaker, to learn from him where they A.D. 1642. were: the Speaker fell on his knee and prayed to be excused if he was silent, he was but the organ of the House, and had no eyes to see, nor tongue to speak, anything but what the House bade him. The King now perceived for himself that those whom he sought were not present, or, as he himself expressed it, that the birds were flown. He seized the occasion to assure the House that he intended no violence, that he would observe all that he had granted for the good of his subjects, and that he would proceed in strictly legal fashion against the accused, but that he expected an answer, else he would know how to seek and to find them. He departed in the same manner in which he had entered, but already it might be seen what lay hidden under this crust of forced moderation. From the assembly was heard the cry of Privilege! whereupon the King’s guards laid hand on their swords, and drew out their loaded pistols.
As the five members of the Lower House had fled to the city, the King next day, holding firmly to his purpose, repaired to Guildhall to obtain their surrender. The aldermen and common council were assembled. Charles had all the less hesitation about trusting himself among them, because he was assured of the devotion of the city authorities: only, as we know, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen were no longer masters of the populace. In presence of the King was raised the cry, Privilege! Liberty of Parliament! to this others answered with God bless the King! They were the battle-cries of the opposing parties: no one could say which was the stronger among those present[308]. When peace was restored, the King himself, by asking whether any one had anything to say, as it were invited a demonstration. A voice called out that the assembly wished the King to listen to the opinion of Parliament: another replied that the speaker expressed his own sentiments only, not those of the assembly. ‘Who can say,’ interposed the King, ‘that I do not listen to the advice of my Parliament? but there is a difference between A.D. 1642. Parliament and some turbulent members of it: the one I do and will listen to, the others I will deliver over to lawful punishment.’
When the King was gone, his demand raised a hot debate: it was not directly refused, but at the same time it was not acceded to.
The King, who wished to show himself in his fashion gracious and confiding, had invited himself to dine with one of the aldermen. When he quitted the house the crowd which had gathered meanwhile received him with the cry, ‘Parliament! Privilege!’ and here it was not as in the common council, for there was no counter shout. A pamphlet was thrown into the King’s carriage with the title, ‘To thy tents, O Israel’—the words with which Israel rose against Rehoboam. The King however would not even now abandon his object. The next day appeared a prohibition to receive and harbour the five fugitive members. His officers and all his subjects were required to seize them, and commit them to the Tower, which was now in safe hands: the King at this moment had some cannon conveyed thither, and strengthened the garrison. What might not be expected after this[309]?
On one of these days a friend writes to Admiral Pennington: we have here no fewer storms than you have at sea, and perhaps even worse and more dangerous. We are here near to ruin, says another letter: the liberty of the press, the factious preaching, the licence which unruly people have assumed of assembling without regard to the laws, all this has destroyed obedience to the King as with a slow poison. The Puritan faction, it is observed in a third letter, together with the schismatics, are so strong in the city and country, that no one can foresee the result, unless the King and Parliament are reconciled.
This however was now become impossible. The Commons met the unsuccessful steps of the King with the most determined and vigorous opposition. Already on January 5 they had resolved to adjourn the sittings at Westminster till A.D. 1642. the 11th, as they could not attend to business in safety there, so long as their violated privileges were not re-established, and meanwhile to appoint a committee, which should sit at Guildhall, and before everything else devise means for the restoration of security[310]. On the 6th we find this committee already at Guildhall: a deputation of the common council in their chains and gowns of office welcomed their appearance. The first decision of the committee was, that the impeachment of the five members was illegal, and a breach of the privileges of Parliament. On this was based the second, in opposition to the King’s new order of arrest, that whosoever should attempt to obey it should be treated as an open enemy of the commonwealth. But if all that had been attempted against the five members was declared unlawful, there was no ground for depriving them of their share in the proceedings. On January 7 in Grocer’s Hall, for the common council could no longer spare the room at Guildhall, the committee resolved to summon back the five accused members to its deliberations, without regard to the King’s decree. Thus the deputation representing Parliament included in its own body the men whom the King designated as traitors, and in so doing had the full support of the capital. In the common council, through the influence of the newly elected members, even before they had formally taken their seats, the party opposed to the King had now the upper hand: the notion was fully accepted that the city was pledged to defend Parliament and its privileges. The common council appointed a committee, which, in concert with that of the Commons, resolved, on the ground of the attempts that had been made, to form a guard for defence against them. The city thought it necessary to take precautions for its safety against such a commandant of the Tower as John Byron; it was determined to raise an armed force under an officer in whom Parliament and the city should have full confidence. Such a leader they found in Captain Skippon, a man of Puritan opinions and a A.D. 1642. supporter of the Parliament, who had learned war in Holland, and had raised himself from the lowest rank: he was placed as major-general at the head of a guard, at first of eight companies, which was immediately formed in the city and its neighbourhood. No one was admitted into it who had not taken the oath of protest. And without scruple they faced the possibility of thus coming to open war with the King. In the seventh article of the resolution Skippon was expressly authorised to attack as well as defend, in case violence was offered to him: and this service, said the twelfth article, was to be counted as legal, and as rendered to the King, the kingdom, and Parliament—for so long as it was in any way feasible they observed forms. The sitting of the 10th was the first in which the five members again took part: we see what an importance its conclusions had. Nor were they contented with this alliance between Parliament and the city: they accepted an offer made by Hampden in the name of some thousands of his Buckinghamshire constituents, to live and die in defence of the rights of the Lower House. Thus completely did the impeachment of the five members, in which Charles I thought to find deliverance and safety, and his attempt to seize them, result in his discomfiture.
The King held his conduct to be valid and lawful: Parliament declared it in the highest degree unlawful, both the scheme itself and every separate step. We will not undertake to decide this controversy, but we may remark that it touched the very core of the pending questions. All the claims of the Lower House depended on its representing the commons of the country. As the individuality of the members would be shown in the discharge of this high duty, so it was protected by the very idea. The House which for ages has maintained a certain jurisdiction for the preservation of internal order, is alone possessed of the right to judge of the misdeeds of its members within its precincts, or even of the charges which are brought against them. Without this an external power would be able to interfere with the conditions of its internal action, or directly to disperse it by repeated accusations and arrests. The assembly forms a moral person, which alone acts, so long as it is in session: only if it assents and surrenders its A.D. 1642. members, can they be brought to justice. On this foundation depend its privileges: the members are thereby raised personally above their natural position as subjects.
On the other hand the King maintained that the entire supreme power, and the care for the general interests, were entrusted to his hands. In cases which implied a danger to the whole state, he would on no account abandon the right of arrest in order to prevent such dangers. Every day’s experience showed that this power was exercised in the great neighbouring monarchies without any reserve whatever, and powerfully contributed to their strength and stability. Now, as before, Charles I regarded members of Parliament merely as his subjects, and would exercise the inherent rights of his office against them as well as others. What he now treated as a crime in them was the attitude of political hostility which they maintained; he thought to be able to punish it as treason against the crown. The Parliament on the contrary saw in every infringement of their inviolability an attack on the institutions of the country: to have taken part in them it declared to be treason[311].
The King succumbed in this contest chiefly because the capital, carried away by the religious sympathies of the populace, sided with the Parliament; deeming itself pledged to protect the privileges of Parliament, whatever sense might be put on them by Parliament. The armed force which it might have been expected that the King would raise for himself, received, under the guidance of the city, an impulse against him.
He had gone back to Whitehall, as has been said, thinking the city was favourable to him. When nothing but hostility and contempt was displayed towards him from thence, he could not wish to remain longer in the neighbourhood. Moreover the Queen found her stay unendurable. She one day called the attention of the Dutch ambassador to certain persons whose presence in the palace was not to be avoided, but who, she said, were there merely to spy her actions and A.D. 1642. those of the King. Her oldest friends of both sexes were in this category: the most detested of all was the French ambassador, her brother’s representative. There seemed also to be danger if Parliament, as was reported, came back to Westminster with the civic guard, there being no means for repelling an attack on the palace. The Queen thought that the least she had to fear was being separated from the King[312]. Under these circumstances the King and Queen resolved to quit Whitehall: they first returned to Hampton Court, though no preparation had been made there for their reception, and soon afterwards, not feeling safe enough there, repaired to Windsor.
Meanwhile the sittings in the Lower House had been resumed on the appointed day amid great popular rejoicings. Two or three thousand mounted yeomen had come in: the sailors of the Thames occupied the river with numerous barges: the militia and guards were drawn up in their ranks: the young men from the stalls and workshops appeared with flags and pikes, and poles on which printed inscriptions announced their troth and devotion to the laws, liberty, and religion. Then the Committee, which hitherto had sat in the city, with the five members and Lord Kimbolton, entered a boat at the Three Cranes, which was joined by a great number of others: amid salutes of artillery and hearty congratulations they were conducted back towards Whitehall hard by. The King had fled: the chamber occupied by the Commons might be regarded as the supreme seat of authority.
A momentary embarrassment may have been caused, through the nature of the parliamentary forms, by the King’s having departed. But it was already usual, at least on one side, to require obedience to decrees issuing from the Lower House only. In order to obviate the counter effects of the King’s personal commands, they devised the formula that only those orders of the King which should be issued with assent of both Houses, were to be fulfilled. This was A.D. 1642. used, so far as I can discover, for the first time in the nomination of Skippon: his dismissal could only be effected by a royal order expressed through the two houses, that is to say, not by the King’s command but according to the opinion of the houses. On a similar principle the commandants of the chief places received instructions to admit no reinforcement of their garrisons without a royal order backed by the assent of both houses.
Immediately after the resumption of its sittings, Parliament renewed its complaints about the bad advisers of the King, about the favour shown to evil-minded persons, and the neglect which others experienced: but it now went further than ever before. A commission appointed to consider ways and means for the restoration of peace reported that the greatest of all evils was ‘the influence which recusants, priests, and other malignants have over the Queen, the influence which these possess in the State, the great influence which she has over the King.’ It is obvious that nothing would content the Parliament but an administration composed entirely of their partisans, and the absolute subordination to it of all personal authority.
There was no longer a word of any opposition from the House of Lords. Energetic expressions employed there against the proposals of the Commons sufficed to give rise to a formal accusation against them. One day, after an unsatisfactory conference with the Lords, Pym declared that the Commons would be very well content to have their help in saving the country, but if not they were determined to do their duty alone: but surely it would not come to be recorded in history that the Lords at a time of so great danger had taken no part in saving the country. Through various concurrent circumstances it came to pass that what had been the minority of the Lords now constituted the majority. The Upper House, on February 5, assented to the bill by which the bishops were deprived of their voice in Parliament.
To change the administration and overthrow the bishops was the purpose which the majority of the Lower House had pursued since the commencement of the new session. The last contest had broken out because the King would not give A.D. 1642. way on these points. After this battle had been decided, and the King defeated, nothing else was to be expected than that Parliament would proceed without further hesitation to accomplish its purpose. It had already taken care to have an armed force at command for the maintenance of the position it had won.
But to what had the British monarchy of the Stuarts been reduced! Its aim was to form the three kingdoms into an union which should consult the interests of all equally. The prerogative of royalty by the grace of God, and Episcopacy, were to form the foundations of public power, and peace abroad serve to maintain tranquillity at home. Not unsuccessfully the first Stuart supported this system which originated in his own brain, more by a clever and versatile management of affairs according to the circumstances of the moment, which he moulded to his will with tenacious perseverance, than through great qualities which might have availed to bind men’s hearts to his cause, or institutions which might have given it independent permanence. The system had not strength to bear the test of a war, in which the second Stuart let himself be entangled, and Great Britain remained far below the rank which properly belonged to her. At home the war was a signal for all contending elements to show themselves. Charles I was by nature at once lawyer-like and priest-like, deeply convinced that the doctrines which he believed, the rights which he claimed, were true and pleasing to God, and (after the precedent of ‘his wise father’) that both possessed intrinsic power. His opponents were in his eyes the enemies of the cause of God, which was also his own, and which he was born to defend. Of the rights of others he had little understanding, and but a slight opinion of their strength, as if they did not much signify so long as external order lasted. Then it came to pass that through action and reaction this order was broken through at the most vulnerable point. The policy in which the King saw a divine necessity, and the safety and future greatness of Great Britain, was regarded by the greater portion of his subjects as violence and oppression A.D. 1642. at home, weakness abroad, and inclination towards a system detested by them, which was just then threatening the world with subjection. Then the Scots rose, with the strong effort of a long-suppressed religious and national impulse: the idea of independence for their Church spread to the State also. While the King was preparing to master this opposition with the strength of England, the latter also rose in analogous opposition to him. He was obliged to restore Parliament, with which, during the war, he had been fundamentally at variance, after having long avoided it: Parliament claimed its primitive rights in their fullest extent, and would assent to nothing but an unmistakeably Protestant policy. In the course of this struggle the native enthusiasm of the Irish also rose in arms, to cast off the subjection in which they were held by the superior power of the Protestant and Teutonic element.
Charles I was not formed by nature to wage such a war successfully: he was not fully master of his own court and council, which was full of cabals in which foreign powers took part, in the very year of this contest. While he only took counsel with his partisans, he could not prevent some of them from acting with an eye to their own particular interests, which made others adopt the opposite view with embittered pertinacity. He himself was always occupied with his own intentions; the purposes, strength, and probable acts of his opponents he had not the penetration to measure: we see him with the utmost confidence undertaking what was to the last degree ruinous. With this was united a false wisdom: for the sake of some greater end he would assent to things which in-themselves he disapproved. Then when his ultimate views came again to light, beside those which for the moment he had admitted, he appeared in himself untrue and untrustworthy: his opponents held themselves justified in taking security by any means against his returning to his old intentions. His adversaries on the other hand, were consistent, vigilant, and suspicious: in opposition to the notion of a compact power, not weak in itself, but merely represented as such, and always dreaded, they placed the feelings of provincial and constitutional autonomy, which, when once penetrated by the feelings and ideas of individual freedom, disclosed an invincible A.D. 1642. strength. Thus it came to pass that one of the British kingdoms attained to an independence which robbed the crown of all substantial influence: the second was striving to conquer by a bloody insurrection, stained with horrible crimes, the same independence for its Catholic population which was enjoyed in the first by the Protestants: while in the third and greatest an authority was being established which aimed at absorbing the royal power.
The course of events had virtually decided that the original system of the Stuarts could not be established: but what shape the British kingdoms would assume, whether they would hold together or separate, what forms and principles of government would ultimately triumph,—all this lay buried in total darkness.
England had not stopped at the constitutional questions which presuppose an assured social order. We have more than once remarked on the significance of the attempt to overthrow Episcopacy, which formed one of the fundamental conditions of English society, and of the constitution. This had been done earlier still in Scotland, though not without serious danger, in the first stage of the Reformation movement, in which the truth of doctrines and the salvation of men’s souls were at stake. It was otherwise in England, where doctrines in general were undisputed, and the episcopal order, which was most intimately connected with the doctrine, had the deepest root in the nation. That Parliament thought to destroy and uproot this order is, among all its undertakings, the one which most distinctly bore the character of revolution—for where should destruction once begun find an end?—and of one-sided party violence. To the King it was in a measure useful, for by opposing it he regained a tenable position and the possibility of resistance. He could now with obvious truth retort on his opponents the charge which they had made against him, of seeking to overthrow the laws of England. Charles could assert that he would never permit any alteration in the lawful condition of England. ‘Nolumus leges Angliae mutari’ was firmer ground for him than the indefinite and questionable rights of prerogative, which at an earlier time he had sought to maintain and extend.
A.D. 1642.
No words are needed to show the universal historical importance of these contests in Great Britain; both the purely constitutional ones, and those extending into the domain of revolution, of whose development we have undertaken to treat. It was our object to watch the origin of them on this classic ground of all constitutional history. It is an event which concerns all, this shaking of the foundations of the old British state. Whether they would stand the shock, or, if not, what shape public affairs would in that case assume, was a question which must concern the Continent also; the civilised world is still busy day by day with more or less conspicuous complications of the spiritual and political struggles arising from similar opposing principles.