The extreme contempt entertained for the natives in Ireland, made the popular leaders believe that it would be easy at any time to suppress their rebellion, and recover that kingdom: nor were they willing to lose, by too hasty success, the advantage which that rebellion would afford them in their projected encroachments on the prerogative. By assuming the total management of the war, they acquired the courtship and dependence of every one who had any connection with Ireland, or who was desirous of enlisting in these military enterprises: they levied money under pretence of the Irish expedition; but reserved it for purposes which concerned them more nearly: they took arms from the king’s magazines; but still kept them with a secret intention of employing them against himself: whatever law they deemed necessary for aggrandizing themselves, was voted, under color of enabling them to recover Ireland; and if Charles withheld the royal assent, his refusal was imputed to those pernicious counsels which had at first excited the Popish rebellion, and which still threatened total destruction to the Protestant interest throughout all his dominions.[*] And though no forces were for a long time sent over to Ireland, and very little money remitted during the extreme distress of that kingdom, so strong was the people’s attachment to the commons, that the fault was never imputed to those pious zealots, whose votes breathed nothing but death and destruction to the Irish rebels.
* Nalson, vol. ii. p 318. Clarendon, vol. iv. p. 590.
To make the attack on royal authority by regular approaches, it was thought proper to frame a general remonstrance of the state of the nation; and accordingly the committee, which at the first meeting of parliament had been chosen for that purpose, and which had hitherto made no progress in their work, received fresh injunctions to finish that undertaking.
The committee brought into the house that remonstrance which has become so memorable, and which was soon afterwards attended with such important consequences. It was not addressed to the king; but was openly declared to be an appeal to the people. The harshness of the matter was equalled by the severity of the language. It consists of many gross falsehoods, intermingled with some evident truths: malignant insinuations are joined to open invectives; loud complaints of the past, accompanied with jealous prognostications of the future. Whatever unfortunate, whatever invidious, whatever suspicious measure had been embraced by the king, from the commencement of his reign, is insisted on and aggravated with merciless rhetoric: the unsuccessful expeditions to Cadiz and the Isle of Rhé are mentioned; the sending of ships to France for the suppression of the Hugonots; the forced loans; the illegal confinement of men for not obeying illegal commands; the violent dissolution of four parliaments; the arbitrary government which always succeeded; the questioning, fining, and imprisoning of members for their conduct in the house; the levying of taxes without consent of the commons; the introducing of superstitious innovations into the church, without authority of law: in short, every thing which, either with or without reason, had given offence during the course of fifteen years, from the accession of the king to the calling of the present parliament. And though all these grievances had been already redressed, and even laws enacted for future security against their return, the praise of these advantages was ascribed, not to the king, but to the parliament, who had extorted his consent to such salutary statutes. Their own merits too, they asserted, towards the king, were no less eminent than towards the people. Though they had seized his whole revenue, rendered it totally precarious, and made even their temporary supplies be paid to their own commissioners, who were independent of him, they pretended that they had liberally supported him in his necessities. By an insult still more egregious, the very giving of money to the Scots for levying war against their sovereign, they represented as an instance of their duty towards him. And all their grievances, they said, which amounted to no less than a total subversion of the constitution, proceeded entirely from the formed combination of a Popish faction, who had ever swayed the king’s counsels, who had endeavored, by an uninterrupted effort, to introduce their superstition into England and Scotland, and who had now at last excited an open and bloody rebellion in Ireland.[*]
This remonstrance, so full of acrimony and violence, was a plain signal for some further attacks intended on royal prerogative, and a declaration, that the concessions already made, however important, were not to be regarded as satisfactory. What pretensions would be advanced, how unprecedented, how unlimited, were easily imagined; and nothing less was foreseen, whatever ancient names might be preserved, than an abolition, almost total, of the monarchical government of England. The opposition, therefore, which the remonstrance met with in the house of commons was great. For above fourteen hours the debate was warmly managed; and from the weariness of the king’s party, which probably consisted chiefly of the elderly people, and men of cool spirits, the vote was at last carried by a small majority of eleven.[**] Some time after, the remonstrance was ordered to be printed and published, without being carried up to the house of peers for their assent and concurrence.
* Rush. vol. v. p. 438. Nalson, vol. ii. p. 694.
** Whitlocke, p. 49. Dugdale, p. 71. Nalson, vol. ii. p.
668.
When this remonstrance was dispersed, it excited every where the same violent controversy which attended it when introduced into the house of commons. This parliament, said the partisans of that assembly, have at length profited by the fatal example of their predecessors; and are resolved, that the fabric which they have generously undertaken to wear for the protection of liberty, shall not be left to future ages insecure and imperfect. At the time when the petition of right, that requisite vindication of a violated constitution, was extorted from the unwilling prince, who but imagined that liberty was at last secured, and that the laws would thenceforth maintain themselves in opposition to arbitrary authority? But what was the event? A right was indeed acquired to the people, or rather their ancient right was more exactly defined; but as the power of invading it still remained in the prince, no sooner did an opportunity offer, than he totally disregarded all laws and preceding engagements, and made his will and pleasure the sole rule of government. Those lofty ideas of monarchical authority, which he has derived from his early education, which are united in his mind with the irresistible illusions of self-love, which are corroborated by his mistaken principles of religion, it is in vain to hope that, in his more advanced age, he will sincerely renounce from any subsequent reflection or experience. Such conversions, if ever they happen, are extremely rare; but to expect that they will be derived from necessity, from the jealousy and resentment of antagonists, from blame, from reproach, from opposition, must be the result of the fondest and most blind credulity. These violences, however necessary, are sure to irritate a prince against limitations so cruelly imposed upon him; and each concession which he is constrained to make, is regarded as a temporary tribute paid to faction and sedition, and is secretly attended with a resolution of seizing every favorable opportunity to retract it. Nor should we imagine that opportunities of that kind will not offer in the course of human affairs. Governments, especially those of a mixed kind, are in continual fluctuation: the humors of the people change perpetually from one extreme to another: and no resolution can be more wise, as well as more just, than that of employing the present advantages against the king, who had formerly pushed much less tempting ones to the utmost extremities against, his people and his parliament. It is to be feared, that if the religious rage which has seized the multitude be allowed to evaporate, they will quickly return to the ancient ecclesiastical establishment; and with it embrace those principles of slavery which it inculcates with such zeal on its submissive proselytes. Those patriots who are now the public idols, may then become the objects of general detestation; and equal shouts of joy attend their ignominious execution, with those which second their present advantages and triumphs. Nor ought the apprehension of such an event to be regarded in them as a selfish consideration: in their safety is involved the security of the laws. The patrons of the constitution cannot suffer without a fatal blow to the constitution: and it is but justice in the public to protect, at any hazard, those who have so generously exposed themselves to the utmost hazard for the public interest. What though monarchy, the ancient government of England, be impaired, during these contests, in many of its former prerogatives: the laws will flourish the more by its decay; and it is happy, allowing that matters are really carried beyond the bounds of moderation, that the current at least runs towards liberty, and that the error is on that side which is safest for the general interests of mankind and society.
The best arguments of the royalists against a further attack on the prerogative, were founded more on opposite ideas which they had formed of the past events of this reign, than on opposite principles of government. Some invasions, they said, and those too of moment, had undoubtedly been made on national privileges: but were we to look for the cause of these violences, we should never find it to consist in the wanton tyranny and injustice of the prince, not even in his ambition or immoderate appetite for authority. The hostilities with Spain, in which the king on his accession found himself engaged, however imprudent and unnecessary, had proceeded from the advice, and even importunity of the parliament; who deserted him immediately after they had embarked him in those warlike measures. A young prince, jealous of honor, was naturally afraid of being foiled in his first enterprise, and had not as yet attained such maturity of counsel, as to perceive that his greatest honor lay in preserving the laws inviolate, and gaining the full confidence of his people. The rigor of the subsequent parliaments had been extreme with regard to many articles, particularly tonnage and poundage; and had reduced the king to an absolute necessity, if he would preserve entire the royal prerogative, of levying those duties by his own authority, and of breaking through the forms, in order to maintain the spirit of the constitution. Having once made so perilous a step, he was naturally induced to continue, and to consult the public interest by imposing ship money, and other moderate though irregular burdens and taxations. A sure proof that he had formed no system for enslaving his people is, that the chief object of his government has been to raise a naval, not a military force; a project useful, honorable, nay, indispensably requisite, and, in spite of his great necessities, brought almost to a happy conclusion. It is now full time to free him from all these necessities, and to apply cordials and lenitives, after those severities which have already had their full course against him. Never was sovereign blessed with more moderation of temper, with more justice, more humanity, more honor, or a more gentle disposition. What pity that such a prince should so long have been harassed with rigors, suspicions, calumnies, complaints, encroachments; and been forced from that path, in which the rectitude of his principles would have inclined him to have constantly trod! If some few instances are found of violations made on the petition of right, which he himself had granted, there is an easier and more natural way for preventing the return of like inconveniencies, than by a total abolition of royal authority. Let the revenue be settled, suitably to the ancient dignity and splendor of the crown; let the public necessities be fully supplied; let the remaining articles of prerogative be left untouched; and the king, as he has already lost the power, will lay aside the will, of invading the constitution. From what quarter can jealousies now arise? What further security can be desired or expected? The king’s preceding concessions, so far from being insufficient for public security, have rather erred on the other extreme; and, by depriving him of all power of self-defence, are the real cause why the commons are emboldened to raise pretensions hitherto unheard of in the kingdom, and to subvert the whole system of the constitution. But would they be content with moderate advantages, is it not evident that, besides other important concessions, the present parliament may be continued, till the government be accustomed to the new track, and every part be restored to full harmony and concord? By the triennial act, a perpetual succession of parliaments is established, as everlasting guardians to the laws, while the king possesses no independent power or military force by which he can be supported in his invasion of them. No danger remains but what is inseparable from all free constitutions, and what forms the very essence of their freedom; the danger of a change in the people’s disposition, and of general disgust contracted against popular privileges To prevent such an evil, no expedient is more proper than to contain ourselves within the bounds of moderation, and to consider, that all extremes naturally and infallibly beget each other. In the same manner as the past usurpations of the crown, however excusable on account of the necessity or provocations whence they arose, have excited an immeasurable appetite for liberty; let us beware, lest our encroachments, by introducing anarchy, make the people seek shelter under the peaceable and despotic rule of a monarch. Authority, as well as liberty, is requisite to government; and is even requisite to the support of liberty itself, by maintaining the laws, which can alone regulate and protect it. What madness, while every thing is so happily settled under ancient forms and institutions, now more exactly poised and adjusted, to try the hazardous experiment of a new constitution, and renounce the mature wisdom of our ancestors for the crude whimseys of turbulent innovators! Besides the certain and inconceivable mischiefs of civil war, are not the perils apparent, which the delicate frame of liberty must inevitably sustain amidst the furious shock of arms? Whichever side prevails, she can scarcely hope to remain inviolate, and may suffer no less, or rather greater injuries from the boundless pretensions of forces engaged in her cause, than from the invasion of enraged troops enlisted on the side of monarchy.
The king, upon his return from Scotland, was received in London with the shouts and acclamations of the people, and with every demonstration of regard and affection.[*] Sir Richard Gournay, lord mayor, a man of moderation and authority, had promoted these favorable dispositions, and had engaged the populace, who so lately insulted the king, and who so soon after made furious war upon him, to give him these marks of their dutiful attachment. But all the pleasure which Charles reaped from this joyous reception, was soon damped by the remonstrance of the commons, which was presented him, together with a petition of a like strain. The bad counsels which he followed are there complained of; his concurrence in the Irish rebellion plainly insinuated; the scheme laid for the introduction of Popery and superstition inveighed against; and, as a remedy for all these evils, he is desired to intrust every office and command to persons in whom his parliament should have cause to confide.[**]
* Rush. vol. v. p. 429.
** Bush. vol. v. p. 437. Nalson, vol. ii. p. 692.