When Lord Arundel was thus imprisoned Parliament was sitting. The Lords declared his arrest to be an infringement of their privileges. The King replied that ‘the Earl of Arundel is restrained for a misdemeanour which is personal to the King’s Majesty, and has no relation to matters of Parliament.’ The Lords still insisted that it was the Earl’s unquestionable right ‘to be admitted to come, sit, and serve in Parliament.’ Charles released Arundel from the Tower, and then confined him to Horsley. Royal evasion did but provoke increased earnestness and firmness from the Peers. At length they resolved that they would suspend public business until the Earl presented himself in his place. |Secretary Conway’s Letter Book, pp. 251 seqq. (R. H.)| Nearly three months had been spent in debate and altercation before Secretary Conway was directed to write to Arundel in these terms: ‘It is the King’s pleasure that you come to the Parliament, but not to the Court.’
Lords’ Journals, vol. iii, p. 653, &c.
The sequel of the story, as it tells itself in the State Papers, affords an early and eminent illustration of the qualities in Charles the First which, as they ripened, brought about his ruin. The King resolved that his concession should as far as was possible be retracted. Directly the sitting of Parliament was suspended, the King commanded Conway to apprise the Earl that his restraint to Horsley was renewed, ‘as before the Earl’s leave to come to Parliament.’ |Domestic Corresp., Charles I, vol. xxxv, p. 16 (R. H.).| Arundel on his part made courtly and even lavish declarations of submission. ‘I desire to implore the King’s grace by the humblest and best ways I can.’ This was written in September, 1626. Whenever it was indispensable that he should obtain leave to visit the capital a petition had to be prepared. In March, 1627, he writes: ‘The King has limited my stay in London until the 12th of March. I will obey, but I beg you to represent to His Majesty that I have necessary business to transact ... and that I have so carried myself as to shew my desire to give His Majesty no distastes. If now, after a year has passed, the King will dissolve this cloud, and leave me to my own liberty, I will hold myself to be most free when living in such place and manner as may be most to His Majesty’s liking.’ It was all in vain. Another whole year passes. Arundel has still to write: ‘I beseech the King to give life to my just desires, and after two years of heavy disfavour to grant me the happiness to kiss his hands and to attend him in my place.’ To this humble representation and entreaty it was replied by Secretary Conway: ‘His Majesty’s answer is that the Earl has not so far appeased the exceptions which the King has taken against unkindness conceived, as yet to take off his disfavour. |Ibid., vol. lvi, p. 86; vol. xcv, pp. 51, 85, &c. Conway’s Letter Book, pp. 295, &c. (R. H.)| As for the Earl’s proffered duty and carriage in the King’s service, the King will judge of that as he shall find occasion.’
He found occasion ere long; but not until after Buckingham’s death. Arundel rendered useful service, on some conspicuous occasions, both at home and abroad. If his successive diplomatic missions to Holland in 1632, and to Ratisbon in 1638, on the affairs of the Palatinate, failed of their main object, it was from no miscarriage of the ambassador. In the unostentatious labours of the Council Board he took during a long series of years a very honourable share. And it is much to his honour that by the men to whom the chief scandals of a disastrous reign are mainly ascribable, Arundel was, almost uniformly, both disliked and feared.
Arundel and Strafford.
1641. March and April.
As Lord High Steward of England, Arundel had to preside at the trial of the Earl of Strafford. He acquitted himself of an arduous task with eminent ability, and with an impartiality which won respect, alike from the managers of the impeachment and from the friends of the doomed statesman. The only person who expressed dissatisfaction with Arundel’s conduct on that critical occasion was the King. The historians who have most deeply and acutely scanned the details of that most memorable of all our State Trials are agreed that in order to have satisfied Charles, the Earl of Arundel must have betrayed the duty of his high office.
Shortly after the trial of Strafford, it became Arundel’s duty as Earl Marshal to attend the mother of the queen (Mary of Medicis), on her return to Holland; and he received the King’s license to remain beyond the seas during his pleasure. |Latest Employments.| He returned however to England in October of the same year. |Rushworth, vol. iv, pp. 317, 318.| In the following February, a similar ceremonial mission was his last official employment. He then conducted Queen Henrietta Maria on her journey into France, and took his own last farewell of England. |1642. February.| It was an unconscious farewell. |Sir E. Walker, in MS. Harl., as before.| Nor does his departure appear to have been dictated by any desire to shrink from sacrifices on behalf of the cause with which—whether rightly or wrongly—all his personal sympathies, as well as the political views of his whole life, were bound up. At the hands of the first Stuart he had met with capricious favour, and with enduring injustice. By the second, during several years, he was treated with marked and causeless indignity; and then, during several other years, rewarded grudgingly for zealous service. In exile, his contributions in support of the royal cause were upon a scale which impoverished both himself and his family.[[33]]
Such a fact is a conclusive proof of magnanimity of spirit, whatever may be thought of its bearings in regard to political insight. |Colonizing Efforts of Lord Arundel.| Opinion is less likely to differ with respect to exertions of quite another order which occasionally occupied Lord Arundel’s mind and energies during at least twenty years of his political life.
One of the best known incidents in his varied career is also one of its most honourable incidents. His friendship for Ralegh grew out of a deep interest in colonization. And the calamitous issue of that famous voyage to Guiana in 1617 which Arundel had promoted was very far from inducing him to abandon the earnest advocacy of a resumption, in subsequent years, of the enterprise which Ralegh had had so much at heart. His efforts were more than once repeated, but the same influences which ruined Ralegh foiled the exertions of Arundel and of those who worked with him.