To stop the outcry against their cruelties, they next determined to gag the press. An order was therefore issued by the Star Chamber, forbidding all importation of foreign books, and the printing of any at home without licence. All books on religion, physic, literature, and poetry must be licensed by the bishops, so that all truths unpleasant to the Church would thus be suppressed. There were to be allowed only twenty master printers in the kingdom, except those of his majesty and the universities; no printer was to have more than two presses nor two apprentices, except the warden of the Company. There were to be only four letter-founders; and whoever presumed to print without licence was to be whipped through London and set in the pillory. All this time the High Commission Court kept pace with the Star Chamber in its prosecutions and arbitrary fines, under pretence of protecting public morals.
Laud soon had delinquents against the atrocious order for gagging the press. In about six months after the infliction of the sentence on Prynne and his associates, he cited into the Star Chamber John Lilburne and John Warton, for printing Prynne's "News from Ipswich" and other books called libellous (1638). The accused refused to take the oath proposed to them, protesting against the lawfulness of the court. Being called up several times, and still obstinately refusing, they were condemned to be fined five hundred pounds apiece, Lilburne to be whipped from the Fleet to the pillory, and both to be bound to their good behaviour. Lilburne was one of the most determined of men. He continued to declaim violently against the tyranny of Laud and his bishops whilst he was standing in the pillory and undergoing his whipping. He drew from his pockets a number of the very pamphlets he was punished for printing, and scattered them from the pillory amongst the crowd. The court of Star Chamber being informed of his conduct, sent and had him gagged; but he then stamped with his feet to intimate that he would still speak if he could. He was then thrown into the Fleet, heavily ironed and in solitude.
To complete Laud's attacks on all persons and parties, there lacked only an onslaught on the episcopal bench, and there he found Williams, formerly Lord Keeper, and still Bishop of Lincoln, for a victim. Williams, with all his faults, had been a true friend of Laud's at a time when he had very few, and the wily upstart had declared that his very life would be too short to demonstrate his gratitude: but he took full occasion to display towards him his ingratitude. From the moment that Laud was introduced to the king, Williams could ill conceal his disgust at the clerical adventurer's base adulation. But Laud continued to ascend and Williams to descend. Williams having lost the seals, retired to his diocese, where he made himself very popular by his talents, his agreeable manners, his hospitality, and still more by his being regarded as a victim of the arbitrary spirit of the king and of Laud. Williams, who had a stinging wit, launched a tract at the head of the Primate, called the "Holy Table," in which he unmercifully satirised Laud's parade of high altars and Popish ceremonies. The Primate very speedily had him in the Star Chamber, where he received private information that if he would give up to Laud his deanery of Westminster, that disinterested prelate would let the prosecution slip. Williams refused, and then commenced one of the most disgraceful scenes in history. Laud, Windebank, and the king were determined to force the deanery and a heavy fine from him. They browbeat his witnesses; threw them into prison to compel them to swear falsely; removed Chief Justice Heath to put in a more pliant man; and at length, through the medium of Lord Cottington, induced Williams, from terror of worse, to give up the deanery and pay a fine of ten thousand pounds. His servants and agents, Walker, Catlin, and Lunn, were fined three hundred pounds apiece, and Powell two hundred pounds.
This being done, Laud uttered a most hypocritical speech, professing high admiration of the talents, wisdom, learning, and various endowments of Williams, and his sorrow to see him thus punished, declaring that he had gone five times on his knees to the king to sue for his pardon. But even so Williams was not destined to escape. The officers who went to take possession of his effects, found amongst his papers two letters from Osbaldeston, master of Westminster School, in one of which he said that the great leviathan—the late Lord Treasurer, Portland—and the little urchin—Laud—were in a storm; and in the other, that "there was great jealousy between the leviathan and the little meddling hocus-pocus."
This, which was no crime of Williams, but of Osbaldeston, was, however, made a crime of both. Williams was condemned on the charge of concealing a libel on a public officer, and fined eight thousand pounds more, and to suffer imprisonment during the king's pleasure. The chief offender, Osbaldeston, could not be found; he had left a note saying he was "gone beyond Canterbury;" but he was sentenced to deprivation of his office, to be branded, and stand opposite to his own school in the pillory, with his ears nailed to it. He took good care, however, not to fall into such merciless hands.
JOHN LILBURNE ON THE PILLORY. (See p. [556].)
Besides those means of raising a permanent revenue for the Crown, independent of Parliament, which we have already detailed—as tonnage and poundage, the fees on compulsory knighthood, and the resumption of forest lands,—there was discovered another which was owing to the ingenuity of Attorney-General Noye. The landed proprietors had been much alarmed by the rumours that the king would lay claim to the greater part of every county in England except Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, but the whole public was struck with consternation at the additional project of the Attorney-General. As he had been always of a surly and morose disposition, he carried this ungracious manner with him into his apostacy. Formerly he had acted like a rude ill-tempered patriot, now he was the more odious from being at once obsequious to the Crown, and coarsely insolent to those whose rights he had invaded.
In the Records of the Tower he discovered writs compelling the ports and maritime counties to provide a certain number of ships during war, or for protecting the coasts from pirates. It was now declared that the seas were greatly infested with Turkish corsairs, who not only intercepted our merchantmen at sea, but made descents on the coast of Ireland and carried off the inhabitants into slavery. The French and Dutch mariners, it was added, were continually interrupting our trade, and making prizes of our trading vessels. It was necessary to assert our right to the sovereignty of the narrow seas, which, it was contended, "our progenitors, Kings of England, had always possessed, and that it would be very irksome to us if that princely honour in our time should be lost, or in anything diminished."
But the real cause was that Charles was at that time, 1634, engaged in the treaty with Spain to assist it against the United Provinces of Holland, on condition that Philip engaged to restore the Palsgrave. Noye's scheme was highly approved and supported by the Lord Keeper Coventry. On the 20th of October, 1634, a writ was issued by the Lords of the Council, signed by the king, to the city of London, commanding it to furnish before the 1st of March next, seven ships, with all the requisite arms, stores, and tackling, and wages for the men for twenty-six weeks. One ship was to be of nine hundred tons, and to carry three hundred and fifty men; another of eight hundred tons, with two hundred and sixty men; four ships of five hundred tons, with two hundred men each; and one of three hundred tons, with one hundred and fifty men. The Common Council and citizens humbly remonstrated against the demand as one from which they were exempt by their charters, but the Council treated their objections with contempt, and compelled them to submit.