At one of these festive meetings, occurring not long before the Coronation of Charles the First, the talk seems to have turned on the coming solemnity. The plague at this time was still in London, though it was fast abating. |Cotton and the Coronation of Charles I.| That circumstance was to abridge the ceremonies, in order to permit the Court to leave Westminster more quickly; but it was known that great attention had been given by the King, personally, when framing the programme, to the strict observance of ancient forms. D’Ewes was one of Sir Robert’s guests. Like his host, he had a great love for sight-seeing on public occasions. And they would both anticipate a special pleasure in witnessing the revival of certain coronation observances which had been pretermitted during two centuries. In regard to the coronation oath Cotton had been consulted, and he expected to be present, carrying in his hand his own famous copy of the Gospels known as the ‘Evangeliary of King Ethelstan.’ It was also expected that the watergate of Cotton House would be the King’s landing-place, and that he would cross the garden in order that he might enter the Palace more conveniently than he could from its usual stairs, then under repair, or in need of it. Sir Robert invited D’Ewes, with other of his guests—not privileged to claim places in Westminster Abbey on the great occasion—that at least they might see their new sovereign, as he passed to take his crown.
When the morning came D’Ewes was early in his visit, but, he found Cotton House already filled with ladies. The Earl Marshal had decorated the stairs to the river and the watergate very handsomely. Sir Robert had done his part by decorating his windows, and his garden, more handsomely still. But to the chagrin alike of the fair spectators and of their host, as they were standing, in all their bravery, from watergate to housedoor, to do respectful obeisance, the royal barge, by the King’s own commandment—given at the moment, but pre-arranged by Buckingham—was urged onward. To our amazement, writes Sir Symonds, ‘we saw the King’s barge pass to the ordinary stairs, belonging to the backyard of the Palace, where the landing was dirty ... and the incommodity was increased by the royal barge dashing into the ground and sticking fast, before it touched the causeway.’ |D’Ewes; in Harl. MS., 646, as before.| His Majesty, followed by the Favourite, had to leap across the mud,—certainly an unusual incident in a coronation show.
When Cotton—swallowing the mortification which he must have felt, on behalf of his bevy of fair visitors, if not on his own—presently showed himself in the Abbey, bearing the Evangeliary, he and it were contemptuously thrust aside.
As a straw tells the turn of the wind, this trivial incident points to a policy. The insults both within the Abbey and without, had been planned, by the King and Duke, in order to mark the royal indignation at the close fellowship of Cotton with Eliot and the other Parliamentary leaders. That the insults might be the more keenly felt, the Earl Marshal was left in ignorance of the plan. It is a help to the truthful portraiture of Charles, as well as to that of Buckingham, to note that to insult a group of English ladies was no drawback to the pleasure of putting a marked affront upon a political opponent. Perhaps, it increased the zest, from the probable near relationship of some among them to the offender.
But it is more important to note that another and graver intention in respect to Sir Robert Cotton had been already formed. It was in contemplation to do, in 1626, what was not really done until 1629. |Mede to Stuteville; MS. Harl., 383, 18 April, 1626.| Buckingham had advised the King to put the royal seals on the Cottonian Library. That done, he thought, there would surely be an end to the communication of formidable precedents for parliamentary warfare. More wary counsellors however interposed with wiser advice. A fitting pretext was lacking. Slenderness in the pretext would be no serious obstacle to action. But some excuse there must be. The project, though abandoned for the time, will be seen to have its value when considering, presently, the strange story which is told, in the Privy Council Book, of the ‘Proposition to bridle the impertinency of Parliaments,’ and when narrating the sequel of that high-handed act of power, which brought Cotton’s head—as yet scarcely gray—with sorrow to the grave.
Advice to Privy Council on Change of Coinage.
Although, thus early in the reign of Charles, a court insult was inflicted upon Sir Robert Cotton, after a fashion the extreme silliness of which rather serves to set off the intended malignity than to cloke it, only a few months passed before his advice was called for in presence of the Council Board, on an important question of home policy. The question raised was that of an alteration of the coinage. The Privy Council was divided in opinion. There was a desire for the advice of statesmen who were not at the Board, but who were known to have studied a subject beset with many difficulties. Among these, Sir Robert Cotton was consulted. He appeared at the Council Table on the 2nd of September, 1626, and we have a report of his speech to the Lords, which from several points of view is notable. |MS. Lansd., ff. 141–152. (B. M.)[[13]]| |Council Registers, James I, vols. v and vi, passim. (C. O.)| But a preliminary word or two needs to be said on what may seem the singularity that a man who, in 1625, was fighting zealously beside the Parliamentary patriots, should, in 1626, be speaking at the Council Table as a quasi-councillor of the Crown.
It might be sufficient to point attention to the obvious difference between questions affecting the liberty of the subject, and questions of mere administration, were this the only occasion—or were it a fair sample of the only class of occasions—in which Cotton appears as an unofficial Councillor. But the fact is otherwise. And it is best to be explained, partly, by the unsettled character of party connection during the political strife of Charles’ reign, as well as long afterwards, and partly by peculiarities belonging to the man himself. |Life of Sir John Eliot, vol. i, p 468.| There are not many statesmen, even of that period, of whom it could be said as the able biographer of Sir John Eliot says of Sir Robert Cotton: ‘He acted warmly with Eliot and with the patriots in the first Parliament of Charles. At the opening of the third, he was tendering counsel to the King, of which the obsequious forms have yet left no impression unfavourable to his uprightness and honour.’ The result is unusual. How came it to pass?
Perhaps the preceding pages may have already suggested to the reader’s mind more than one possible and plausible answer to this question. Here it may suffice to say that while Sir Robert Cotton was plainly at one with the Parliamentarian leaders in the main points of their civil policy, he never went to the extreme lengths of the puritanic faith, either in things secular, or in matters pertaining to Religion. On some religious questions he differed from them widely. In secular matters, a tyrannic Parliament would have been as little to his liking as a despotic king. Neither friend nor enemy—Gondomar excepted—ever called him a Puritan (or pretended-Puritan) in his lifetime, any more than they would have called him a Republican. His ultimate divergence was not cloaked. It was no bar to the entire respect, or to the love and close fellowship, of men like Eliot, just because it was frankly avowed, and had no selfish aim. Cotton,—had he lived long enough,—would probably have ranged himself, at last, with the Cavaliers, rather than with the Roundheads. He would have had Falkland’s misgivings, and Falkland’s sorrow, but I think he would not have lacked Falkland’s self-devotion also.
And, in another point, he resembled Lord Falkland. Both would have advised Charles to yield much of so-called ‘prerogative.’ Neither of them would have bade him to yield a grain of true royal honour. In later years, some words which Cotton wrote,—in 1627,—for the King’s eye may well have come back painfully into Charles’ memory:—‘To expiate the passion of the People,’ said Sir Robert, ‘with sacrifice of any of His Majesty’s servants, I have ever found to be no less fatal to the Master than to the Minister, in the end.’