Cassell's History of England, Vol. 2 (of 8) / From the Wars of the Roses to the Great Rebellion

by Anonymous

Parliament being adjourned, James proceeded to appoint a new Lord Chancellor in the place of Bacon. There were three public candidates for the office—Ley and Hobart, the two Chief Justices, and Lord Cranfield, the Treasurer, who had been originally a city merchant, but had risen by marrying a relative of Buckingham's. But there was another and still more extraordinary competitor determined on by Buckingham and James for the Chancellorship—no other than a clergyman—Williams, late Dean of Westminster, now Bishop of Lincoln. That a clergyman should be placed at the head of the Court of Chancery instead of a lawyer, was enough to astonish not only the members of the legal profession, but the whole public. Williams himself was openly professing to support the claims of Cranfield, and expressed astonishment when the post was offered to him. He declared so strongly his sense of his incapacity for the office, being inexperienced in matters of law, that he would only accept of it on trial for eighteen months, and on condition that two judges should sit with him to assist him. Yet this truly scandalous appointment was actually made, the real cause out of doors being assigned that "his too grate familiarity with Buckingham's mother procured him these grate favours and preferments one a suddaine." It was some time ere the barristers would plead before him.

But not the less did another event confound the dignitaries of the Church. Abbot, the Archbishop of Canterbury, hunting with Lord Zouch in Bramshill Park, in Hampshire, accidentally shot the keeper of the Park in aiming at a buck. The verdict of the coroner's inquest was unintentional homicide; but still the clergy contended that by the canon law the shedding of blood had disqualified him for discharging any ecclesiastical functions. Much censure was also expressed on his engaging in hunting at all; and as there were just then four bishops-elect who awaited consecration, they refused to receive it at his hands. Amongst these were Williams, the Lord Keeper, and Laud, Bishop of St. David's, who were supposed to be partly influenced by a hope of securing the primacy, if Abbot were pronounced disqualified. A commission, however, of prelates and canonists proposed that the archbishop should be absolved from all irregularity, and James, as head of the Church, granted him a pardon and appointed eight bishops to give him absolution; but from this time forward he seldom appeared at Court.

During the recess the king performed an act calculated to conciliate the Commons. By the advice, as it was said, of Williams, the Lord Keeper, he had abolished thirty-seven of the most oppressive of the patents and monopolies, of which the Commons had so long complained. But the effect of this was totally neutralised by other measures of a contrary tendency. Complaints had been made of the growing audacity of the Algerine pirates, who had not only seized several English merchant ships in the Mediterranean, but even on the British coast. James requested Spain, which also was a sufferer from these robbers, to join in an expedition to burn all their ships and destroy Algiers itself. Sir Robert Monsell was sent with a squadron for this purpose, but the Spaniards did not join him, and he was said to have a royal order not to risk his ships. Under such circumstances, nothing very vigorous was to be expected, yet on the 24th of May Monsell sailed up to the fort, and the sailors set fire to the ships and then retired. No attack was made on the town, and the firing of the vessels was so imperfectly done, that the Algerines soon put out the flames, and threw booms across the harbour to prevent the re-entrance of the English. Only two of the pirate vessels were consumed, and the Algerines, like a swarm of hornets irritated in their nest but not injured, rushed forth soon afterwards in such force and fury, that they speedily captured no less than five-and-thirty English merchantmen. Loud and bitter were the complaints in the country of this worse than useless proceeding.

To add to the ill-humour generated by this imbecile transaction, the public had been greatly incensed by the arrest of a number of liberal-minded men—the Earls of Oxford and Southampton, Sutcliffe, Dean of Exeter, Brise, a Puritan preacher, Sir Christopher Neville, Sir Edward Sandys, and Selden, the great lawyer and antiquary; and a prosecution had been commenced against Sir Edward Coke, on no less than eleven charges of misdemeanour during the time that he was a judge. Coke, unlike Bacon, had amassed great wealth during his official life, and it was understood that these charges of peculation and bribery had been got up at the suggestion of Bacon and Coke's own wife, Lady Hatton.

The Commons took up zealously the cause of their members, Sandys and Coke. Sandys had been examined on some secret charge before the Council, and after a month's detention was discharged. Being confined to his bed at the commencement of the Session, two members were appointed to wait on him and learn the cause of his arrest, notwithstanding the assurance of the Secretary of State that it had no connection with his conduct in the House. They also ordered the Serjeant-at-Arms to take into custody the accusers of Coke, and appointed a committee to examine witnesses. They felt assured that the proceedings against these gentlemen originated with their popular conduct in Parliament.

At the same time, Coke, in the Commons, proposed a petition to the king against the increase of Popery and the marriage of the Prince of Wales to a Catholic. It represented that the success in Germany against the Elector Palatine had so encouraged the Papists, that they flocked in crowds to the chapels of the foreign ambassadors; sent their children abroad for education, and were treated with so much lenity that, if not prevented, they would soon again be in the ascendant. Spain was represented, without directly naming it, as the worst enemy of England, and the king was implored to recall all the children of Catholic noblemen and gentlemen from abroad, to marry his son to a Protestant princess, and to enforce the laws with rigour against the Papists.

James received a private copy of this petition, and was thrown into a paroxysm of rage at its perusal. To dictate to him how he should marry his son; to recommend that he should invade the territories of Spain, and to reflect on the honour of his ally, the Spanish king, were examples of intolerable interference with his dearly valued prerogative. He wrote at once to the Speaker, denouncing certain "fiery, popular, and turbulent spirits" in the House, and desiring them not to concern themselves about such matters as were included in the petition. Adverting to Sandys, he denied that his offence was connected with the House of Commons, but at the same time declared that the Crown possessed a right to punish subjects, whether members of Parliament or not, and would not fail to exercise it.

The House received this missive with much dissatisfaction, but with dignity, and vindicated their right of liberty of speech in a firm memorial. James replied that though their privileges were no undoubted right, but were derived from the grace of his ancestors on the throne, yet so long as they kept them within the limits of duty, he should not exercise his prerogative and withdraw those privileges. The House declared its high resentment at this language, which reduced their right into mere matter of royal favour, and the expression of feeling ran so high that James became alarmed, and wrote to Secretary Calvert, instructing him to qualify his assertions a little. But the House was not thus to be satisfied where the question of its privileges was directly raised, and on the 18th of December it drew up the following protest:—"That the liberties and jurisdictions of Parliament are the most ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England; that arduous and urgent affairs concerning the king, the State, and defence of the realm, and the Church of England, the making and maintenance of laws, and the redress of grievances, are proper subjects of counsel and debate in Parliament; that in the handling of these businesses every member hath and ought to have freedom of speech; that the Commons in Parliament have like liberty to treat of these matters in such order as they think proper; that every member hath like freedom from all impeachment, imprisonment, and molestation, other than by the censure of the House itself, concerning any Bill, speaking or reasoning touching Parliament matters; and that if any be complained of for anything said or done in Parliament, the same is to be showed to the king by assent of the Commons before the king give evidence to any private information."

This was speaking out; the Parliament threw down the gage and James, in his wrath, took it up. Forgetting that he was represented as ill, he rode up to London in a fury and ordered the clerk of the Commons to bring him the Journals of the House. According to Rushworth, he tore out the obnoxious protest with his own hands, in full Council, and in presence of the judges; at all events he cancelled it; had what he had done entered in the Council-book; and on the 6th of January, 1622, by an insulting proclamation, dissolved Parliament, assuring the public that it was on account of its evil temper that he had dissolved the House of Commons, and not with any intention of doing without one; that he should soon call another; and in the meantime the country might rest assured that he would endeavour to govern well.

The first proof of his notions of governing well was the summoning of the Earls of Oxford and Southampton from the House of Peers, of Coke, Philip, Pym, and Mallory from the Commons, and of Sir John Selden, to appear before the Council. Some were committed to the Tower, some to the Fleet, and others to the custody of private individuals. Though nothing in either House could have occasioned these arrests, various reasons were assigned for them. Moreover, Selden was not a member of the Commons, and he therefore could have incurred no blame there. But he was the legal adviser of Sandys and others, who had made themselves prominent in the popular cause, and he was known as one of the ablest legal advocates of Parliamentary and public rights. The two Peers were also at the head of a popular party which had sprung up in the Lords, and the whole matter was too palpable for mistake. Nothing could, however, be fixed on any of the prisoners which the Government dared to charge as a crime, and after a sharp rebuke they were liberated. There were still other members whose conduct had excited the anger of the Court, but against whom no specific charge could be established. These were Sir Dudley Digges, Sir James Parrott, Sir Nathaniel Rich, and Sir Thomas Carew. To punish them a singular mode was devised. They were appointed to a commission in Ireland to inquire into the state of the army and navy, into the condition of the Church and of public schools, into the abuses in the collection of revenue and in the settlement of the plantations, and into the existence of illegal and mischievous patents. As it was extremely inconvenient for these gentlemen to absent themselves on such business, they protested decidedly against it; but they were told that the king had a right to the services of his subjects, in any way that he pleased; and though these gentlemen had stood boldly with their fellows in a collective capacity for the rights of the subject, they were not sufficiently screwed up to the pitch of martyrdom to stand upon their individual freedom, and refuse at all costs. Coke, who had now taken the lead in the popular cause, because the Court had repelled and dismissed him, offered to accompany them, and assist them with his legal advice and experience, but his offer was declined. The subjects of inquiry, of themselves, were of a nature to furnish much strength and information to the reformers, and the mode of punishing these men was as short-sighted as it was arbitrary. But the great contest was now fully begun, in which the blindness and tyranny of the Stuarts, and the firm intelligence of the people, were to fight out the grand question of constitutional government. Those who regard this as a matter only of Charles I.'s reign have strangely overlooked the doings and doctrines of James, who was the real author of the conflict, and opened it himself with all the dogmatism which distinguished the royal side to the end. This very session Prince Charles had been a diligent attender of the House of Lords, but seems to have had no perception whatever of the spirit which was dominant in the House of Commons, and rapidly diffusing its electric fire through the nation. The names of Pym, Coke, Wentworth, and Laud, were already in men's mouths, the heralds of that mighty host, which, for good or for evil, was soon to engage in terrible combat; the issue of which was to be the morning-star of governmental science to the nations, determining the true powers, uses, and limitations of governments, as well as the liberty of the people protected, by its own popular safeguards, from licence and anarchy.