At the time of this untoward occurrence Charles had sent for Wentworth from Ireland, to assist him by his counsels as to the best mode of dealing with his difficulties at home, and the Scots in the North. Wentworth had overridden all obstacles in Ireland, and had forced an income out of the reluctant people there; he was thought, therefore, by Charles the only man whose wisdom and resolution were equal to the crisis. Wentworth had strongly advised Charles not to march against the Scots, knowing that the king's raw levies would have no chance against them; and he had gone on actively drilling ten thousand men, to prepare them for the campaign, which he felt must come, even after all seemed settled at Berwick.
Clarendon, who is a regular Royalist and inclined to see more virtues in Wentworth than other historians of the time, is yet obliged to sketch this picture of the enmities which he justly provoked:—"He was a man of too high and severe deportment, and too great a contemner of ceremony, to have many friends at court, and therefore could not but have enemies enough. He had two that professed it, the Earl of Holland and Sir Henry Vane." Besides having said that "the king would do well to cut off Holland's head," he had insulted the Earl in various ways. He had done all he could to prevent Sir Henry Vane from being made secretary in place of Sir John Coke, whom the king removed on his return from Scotland; but, worse still, Charles now creating him Earl of Strafford, nothing would satisfy him but that he must be also made Baron of Proby, Vane's own estate, from which he himself hoped to derive that title. "That," continues Clarendon, "was an act of the most unnecessary provocation that I have known, and though he contemned the man with marvellous scorn, I believe it was the loss of his head. To these a third adversary, like to be more pertinacious than the other two, was the Earl of Essex, naturally enough disinclined to his person, his power, and his parts." This enmity in Essex, we are told, was increased by Wentworth's insolent conduct to Lord Bacon, for whom Essex had a friendship; and he openly vowed vengeance. "Lastly, he had an enemy more terrible than all the others, and like to be more fatal, the whole Scottish nation, provoked by the declaration he had procured of Ireland, and some high carriage and expressions of his against them in that kingdom." Moreover, Wentworth had no friend in the queen, from his persecution of the Catholics in Ireland, and was continually thwarted by her.
But all these councillors could devise no way to raise funds but by the old and irritating mode of ship-money, for which writs to the amount of two hundred thousand pounds were immediately issued, and this bearing no proportion to the requirements of a campaign against the Scots, they advised Charles to call together a Parliament. To this he demurred; but when they persisted in that advice, he ordered a full Council to be called, and put to it this question:—"If this Parliament should prove as untoward as some have lately been, will you then assist me in such extraordinary ways as in that extremity should be thought fit?"
Charles was thus bent on extraordinary ways, and the Council promised him its support. Wentworth returned to Ireland, being not only created Earl of Strafford, but made Lord-lieutenant of that country. He promised to obtain a liberal vote from the Irish Parliament, which it was thought might act as a salutary example for England. Accordingly, no one daring to oppose his wishes, he obtained four subsidies, with a promise of more if found necessary. The English Parliament was delayed till this was effected, and was then summoned for the 13th of April. To assist the king and council in what was felt to be a critical emergency, Wentworth, now Strafford, returned, though suffering from a painful complaint. He left orders for the immediate levy of an army of eight thousand men, and Charles took measures for the raising in England of fifteen thousand foot and four thousand horse, which he thought would serve to overawe Parliament; and, what is singular, the order for the raising of these troops and providing artillery and ammunition was signed by Laud, so little had he an idea of an archbishop being a minister of the Prince of Peace. Before the arrival of Strafford, Charles read to the Council the account of the liberal subsidies and the loyal expressions which Strafford had put into the mouths of the enslaved Irish Commons. This he did at the request of Strafford himself, to prove not only the loyalty of the Irish, but his own popularity there, in spite of the assertions of his being hated in that country.
When the king met the Parliament on the 13th of April he had not abated one jot of his high-flown notions of his divine right, and of the slavish obedience due from Parliament. The Lord Keeper Finch formerly Speaker of the House but now more truly in his element as a courtier, made a most fulsome speech, describing the king as "the most just, the most pious, the most gracious king that ever was." He informed them that for many years in his piety towards them he had taken all the annoyances of government from them, and raised the condition and reputation of the country to a wonderful splendour; that, notwithstanding such exemplary virtues and exhibitions of goodness, some sons of Belial had blown the trumpet of rebellion in Scotland, and that it was now necessary to chastise that stiff-necked people; that they must therefore lay aside all other subjects, and imitate the loyal Parliament of Ireland in furnishing liberal supplies; that had not the king, upon the credit of his servants and out of his own estate, raised three hundred thousand pounds, he could not have made the preparations already in progress; and that they must therefore grant him tonnage and poundage from the beginning of his reign, and vote the subsidies at once, when his Majesty would pledge his royal word that he would take into his gracious consideration their grievances. And all this attempt to get the supplies before the discussion of grievances, from sturdy commoners who had never yet given way to force or flattery!
VISIT OF CHARLES I. TO THE GUILDHALL.
From the Wall Painting in the Royal Exchange, by Solomon J. Solomon, A.R.A
Charles then produced the intercepted letters of the Scottish lords to the King of France, to show the treason of the Scots and the necessity of taking decisive measures with them. But the Commons were not likely to be moved from their settled purpose by any such arguments. They elected Serjeant Glanvil as Speaker, and proceeded first and foremost to the discussion of the grievances of the nation. Amongst their old members—though the brave Sir John Eliot had perished in prison, and Sir Edward Coke, who by his later years of patriotism had effaced the memory of the arbitrary spirit of his earlier ones, was also dead—there were Oliver Cromwell, now sitting for Cambridge, Pym, Hampden, Denzil Holles, Maynard, Oliver St. John, Strode, Corriton, Hayman, and Haselrig. There were amongst the new ones, Harbottle Grimston, Edmund Waller, the poet, Lord George Digby, the son of the Earl of Bristol, a young man of eminent talent, and other men destined to become prominent. Sir Benjamin Rudyard and Grimston delivered speeches recommending at once courtesy and respect towards the Crown, but unflinching support of the rights of the people. Harbottle Grimston described the commonwealth as miserably torn and massacred, all property and liberty shaken, the Church distracted, the Gospel and professors of it persecuted, Parliament suspended, and the laws made void. Sir Benjamin Rudyard protested that he desired nothing so much as that they might proceed with moderation, but that if Parliaments were gone, they were lost. A remarkable feature of this Parliament was the number of petitions sent in by the people. These were poured in against ship-money and other abuses, as the Star Chamber and High Commission Court, from the counties of Hertford, Essex, and Sussex. After these matters had been warmly debated for four days, for the king had many advocates in the House, on the 17th Mr. Pym delivered a most eloquent and impressive speech, in which he narrated the many attacks on the privileges of Parliament and the liberty of the subject, and laid down the constitutional doctrine "that the king can do no wrong," thus bringing the conduct and counsels of his ministers under the direct censure of the House, and loading them with the solemn responsibility—an awful foreshadowing of the judgments to come on Laud and Wentworth. From that point the debate turned on the arbitrary treatment of the members of the Commons, and orders were issued for a report of the proceedings of the Star Chamber and the Court of King's Bench against Sir John Eliot, Mr. Holles, and Mr. Hampden, to be laid on the table of the House. The conduct of the late Speaker Finch, in adjourning the House at the command of the king, was declared unconstitutional.