The parliament, which sat after the assembly, advanced pretensions which tended to diminish the civil power of the monarch; and, what probably affected Charles still more, they were proceeding to ratify the acts of assembly, when, by the king’s instructions,[*] Traquaire, the commissioner, prorogued them. And on account of these claims, which might have been foreseen, was the war renewed; with great advantages on the side of the Covenanters and disadvantages on that of the king.
No sooner had Charles concluded the pacification without conditions than the necessity of his affairs and his want of money obliged him to disband his army; and as the soldiers had been held together solely by mercenary views, it was not possible, without great trouble, and expense, and loss of time, again to assemble them. The more prudent Covenanters had concluded, that their pretensions being so contrary to the interests, and still more to the inclinations, of the king, it was likely that they should again be obliged to support their cause by arms; and they were therefore careful, in dismissing their troops, to preserve nothing but the appearance of a pacific disposition. The officers had orders to be ready on the first summons: the soldiers were warned not to think the nation secure from an English invasion: and the religious zeal which animated all ranks of men, made them immediately fly to their standards as soon as the trumpet was sounded by their spiritual and temporal leaders. The credit which in their last expedition they had acquired, by obliging their sovereign to depart from all his pretensions, gave courage to every one in undertaking this new enterprise.[**]
* Rush vol. iii. p. 955.
** Clarendon, vol. i. p. 125. Rush vol. iii. p. 1023.
1640.
The king, with great difficulty, found means to draw together an army; but soon discovered that all savings being gone, and great debts contracted, his revenue would be insufficient to support them. An English parliament, therefore, formerly so unkind and intractable, must now, after above eleven years’ intermission, after the king had tried many irregular methods of taxation, after multiplied disgusts given to the Puritanical party, be summoned to assemble, amidst the must pressing necessities of the crown.
As the king resolved to try whether this house of commons would be more compliant than their predecessors, and grant him supply on any reasonable terms, the time appointed for the meeting of parliament was late, and very near the time allotted for opening the campaign against the Scots. After the past experience of their ill humor, and of their encroaching disposition, he thought that he could not in prudence trust them with a long session, till he had seen some better proofs of their good intentions: the urgency of the occasion, and the little time allowed for debate, were reasons which he reserved against the malecontents in the house; and an incident had happened, which, he believed, had now furnished him with still more cogent arguments.
The earl of Traquaire had intercepted a letter written to the king of France by the Scottish malecontents, and had conveyed this letter to the king. Charles, partly repenting of the large concessions made to the Scots, partly disgusted at their fresh insolence and pretensions, seized this opportunity of breaking with them. He had thrown into the Tower Lord Loudon, commissioner from the Covenanters, one of the persons who had signed the treasonable letter.[*] And he now laid the matter before the parliament, whom he hoped to inflame by the resentment, and alarm by the danger, of this application to a foreign power.
* Clarendon, vol. i. p. 129. Rush. vol. iii. p 956. May, p.
56.
By the mouth of the lord keeper Finch, he discovered his wants, and informed them, that he had been able to assemble his army, and to subsist them, not by any revenue which he possessed, but by means of a large debt of above three hundred thousand pounds, which he had contracted, and for which he had given security upon the crown lands. He represented, that it was necessary to grant supplies for the immediate and urgent demands of his military armaments: that the season was far advanced, the time precious, and none of it must be lost in deliberation; that though his coffers were empty, they had not been exhausted by unnecessary pomp, or sumptuous buildings, or any other kind of magnificence: that whatever supplies had been levied on his subjects, had been employed for their advantage and preservation; and, like vapors rising out of the earth, and gathered into a cloud, had fallen in sweet and refreshing showers on the same fields from which they had at first been exhaled: that though he desired such immediate assistance as might prevent for the time a total disorder in the government he was far from any intention of precluding them from their right to inquire into the state of the kingdom, and to offer his petitions for the redress of their grievances: that as much as was possible of this season should afterwards be allowed them for that purpose: that as he expected only such supply at present as the current service necessarily required, it would be requisite to assemble them again next winter, when they should have full leisure to conclude whatever business had this session been left imperfect and unfinished: that the parliament of Ireland had twice put such trust in his good intentions as to grant him, in the beginning of the session, a large supply, and had ever experienced good effects from the confidence reposed in him: and that; in every circumstance, his people should find his conduct suitable to a just, pious, and gracious king; and such as was calculated to promote an entire harmony between prince and parliament.[*]
* Rush. vol. iii. p. 1114.