Charles was presently in intense excitement about the matter. Its next stage cannot be better or more briefly told, than in the words which the King himself addressed to his assembled Councillors—in unusual array, for they were twenty-one in number—and afterwards caused to be entered upon the Council Book:
1629. 15 Nov.
‘This day His Majestie, sitting in Counsell, was pleased to imparte to the whole Boarde the cause for which the |[Council Register, vol. v, p. 495.]| Erles of Clare, Somerset, and Bedforde, Sir Robert Cotton, and sundry other persons of inferior qualitie, had bene lately restrained and examined by a speciall Committee appointed by him for that purpose, which cause was this:—
‘His Majestie declared that there came to his handes, by meere accedent, the coppie of a certain “Discourse” or “The Proposicion” (which was then, by his commandement, read at the Boarde), pretended to be written “for His Majesties service,” and bearing this title—”The Proposicion for Your Majestie’s Service conteineth twoe partes: |Proceedings against Sir Robert Cotton in the Privy Council.| The one to secure your Estate, and to bridle the impertinencie of Parlements; the other to encrease Your Majestie’s Revenue much more then it is.”
‘Now the meanes propounded in this Discourse for the effecting thereof are such as are fitter to be practised in a Turkish State then amongst Christians, being contrarie to the justice and mildnesse of His Majestie’s Government, and the synceritie of his intentions, and therefore cannot be otherwise taken then for a most scandalous invention, proceding from a pernitious dessein, both against His Majestie and the State, which, notwithstanding, the aforesaid persons had not onely read—and concealed the same from His Majestie and his Counsell—but also communicated and divulged it to others.
‘Whereupon His Majestie did farther declare that it is his pleasure that the aforesaid three Erles, and Sir Robert Cotton, shall answere this their offense in the Court of Star Chamber, to which ende they had alreadie bene summoned, and that now they shoulde be discharged and freed from their restraint and permitted to retourne to their severall houses, to the ende that they mighte have the better meanes to prepare themselves for their answere and defense.
‘And, lastly, he commanded that this his pleasure should be signified by the bearer unto them, who were then attending without,—having, for that purpose, bene sent for. His Majestie, having given this Order and direccion, rose from the Boarde, and when he was gone, the three Erles were called in severally and the Lorde Keeper signified to each of them His Majestie’s pleasure in that behalfe; shewing them, with all, how gratiously he had bene pleased to deale with them, both in the maner of the restraint, which was only during the time of the examination of the cause (a thing usuall and requisite specially in cases of that consequence), and in that they had bene committed to the custodie of eminent and honorable persons by whom they were treated according to their qualities; and lykewise in the discharge of them now from their restraint that they may have the better convenience and meanes to prepare themselves for the defense of their cause in that legall coursse by which His Majestie had thought fit to call them to an account and tryall.
‘The like was also signified by his Lordship to Sir Robert Cotton, who was further tolde that although it was His Majestie’s pleasure that his Studies’ [meaning, that is, his Library and Museum,] ‘shoulde, as yett, remaine shut up, yet he might enter into them and take such writtings wherof he shoulde have use, provided that he did it in the presence of a Clerke of the Counsell; |Council Register, Chas. I, vol. v, ff. 495, 496 (C. O.).| and whereas the Clerke attending hath the keyes of two of his Studies he might put a seconde lock on either of them so that neither dores might be opened, but by him and the said Clerke both together.’
A reader who now looks back on this singular transaction—and who has therefore the advantage of looking at it by the stern-lights of history,—will be likely to believe that the chief offence of the pamphlet lay (in a certain sense,) in its truth. |Character and Authorship of the ‘Proposition to bridle Parliaments.’| It was the much too frank exposition of a policy which clung very close to Charles’ heart, though he could ill afford—in 1629—to have it openly avowed. The undeniable fact that this ‘Proposition for Your Majesty’s Service’ was indeed fitter for the latitude of Constantinople, than for that of London, sounds but awkwardly on the royal lips, when connected with an assertion (in the same breath,) of the ‘justice and mildness’ of the King’s own government. The indictment which his Parliament brought against Charles,—and which History has endorsed,—could hardly be packed into briefer words than those which the King himself used that day at the Council Board. His notions of kingly rule, like his father’s, were in truth much better suited for the government of Turkey than for the government of England.
Sir Robert Cotton, however, had no more to do with the authorship of the ‘Proposition’ than had Charles himself. The author was Sir Robert Dudley. The time of its composition was at least fifteen years before the date of the imprisonment of Cotton and his companions in disfavour. The place of its birth was Florence. It cannot even be proved that Cotton had any personal knowledge of the fact that the offensive tract had been found in his own library. He had recently read it, indeed,—in common with Bedford, Clare, and Oliver Saint-John, and no doubt, like them, had read it with many surging thoughts,—but he had read it in a recent transcript, written by a clerk.