A conference was next agreed upon, between the deputies of the Covenanters and the Commissioners of the king; but, just as they were commencing business, Charles walked in, saying, "I am told you complain that you can't be heard! Now then, fire away, for I am here to hear you." Lord Loudon, who was loud without being effective, began to make a speech, but the king cut him short, and Loudon, with all his loudness, remained inaudible during the rest of the sitting. The parties to the negotiation were pretty well matched, for royal roguery had to contend with Scotch cunning. "We must give and take," said Charles. "Yes, that's all very well, but you want us to do nothing but give, that you may do nothing but take," was the keen reply of the Caledonians. The assemblies of the Kirk were to be legalised, and an act of oblivion was to be passed, which was very unnecessary on the king's side, at least, for he was very apt to forget himself. Castles, forts, ammunition, and even money, were to be delivered up to the king, but part of the money having been spent, the cunning Scotchmen accounted for the deficiency by saying to his majesty, "You can't eat your cake and have it—that is very well known; and as we have eaten your cake, that you can't have it is a natural consequence."
Charles was puzzled, though not quite convinced, by this reasoning; but he thought it best to acquiesce for the sake of peace and quietness in all the proposed arrangements. The two armies were disbanded on the 24th of June, and Charles having stopped at Berwick to buy a Tweedish wrapper, returned to England. The king was now seized very seriously with a fit of his old complaint—the want of money—and he called in Laud and Hamilton to consult with Wentworth about a cure for the distressing malady. It was agreed, after some hesitation, to try another Parliament, and Wentworth suggested that an Irish Parliament might be tried first, upon which he was named Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with the title of Earl of Strafford, to give him more weight in making the experiment. The Irish Parliament promised four subsidies off-hand, and two more if required; but an Irish promise to pay, is little better than a bill without a stamp, a promissory note without a date, or an I O U without a signature.
At length on the 13th of April, 1640, the English Parliament met, and it contained many eminent men, among whom Hampden, who sat for the town of Buckingham, was one of the most conspicuous. Finch, who had been formerly Speaker, was now Lord Keeper, a position he was most anxious to keep, and Mr. Serjeant Glanvil was chosen to fill the Speaker's chair, upon which he made a long tedious speech that annoyed everyone by its premises, as much as it gratified every one by its conclusion. The debates very soon assumed a most important air; and Pym—who, from his effeminate voice, had got the name of Niminy Pyminy from some parasites of the king—held forth with wondrous power, on the subject of national grievances. Charles, who hated the word grievance—it is a pity he did not abhor and avoid the act—ordered Parliament to attend him next day in the Banqueting Hall, not to give them an opportunity of filling their mouths, but for the purpose of stopping them. Charles said nothing himself, but set Finch at them, who told them that they must first vote the supplies, and that then they might luxuriate in their grievances to their hearts' content, and having given the king his cash, they would be at liberty to look out for their own consolation. The Commons were not to be so cajoled, and on the 30th of April resolved themselves into a committee of the whole House on the question of ship-money.
The Lords, who were servile to the king, no sooner heard of this than they sent down to request a conference, but the Commons, who could get no satisfactory answer to the questions "why?" and "what about?" of course, on seeing the trap, declined tumbling into it. In vain did Charles send down to say he had a large amount to make up, and would be glad to know when it would be convenient to let him have "that subsidy," and even Sir Henry Vane, his treasurer, came—it can't be helped, the wretched pun must out—Yes! even Vane presented himself in vain to know when the supplies would be ready. The usual mode of getting rid of a pertinacious dun was resorted to by saying that an answer should be sent; and on the 5th of May, 1640, Charles, having asked the Speaker to breakfast, and as some say, made him exceedingly drunk, ran down to the House of Lords and dissolved the Parliament.
The state of the money-market was now truly frightful, and the emissaries of Charles ran about in all directions crying out "Cash! Cash! We must have Cash!"
Bullion was got from the Tower by bullying the people who had charge of it, and when no more good money was to be got, a proposition for coining four hundred thousand pounds' worth of bad was coolly suggested. "By Jove!" said the king, "when we can't snow white, we must snow brown, and if we can't snow silver, we must snow copper." Such snow would, however, have been equivalent tobits Latin appellation of nix, and the merchants foreseeing the danger of depreciating the coinage, prevented the uttering of base money, which would have been a source of unutterable confusion. The swindling resorted to for supplying the necessities of the king was something quite unsurpassed even in the annals of the most modern of fraudulent bankruptcies. Charles got goods on credit at a high price, and sold them for ready from the Tower by bullying money at a low one; horses were lugged out of carriages or carts, leaving the owners to draw their own vehicles and their own conclusions; and indeed the king's emissaries went about like a clown in a pantomime, appropriating and pocketing everything they could lay their hands upon. "See what I have found!" was a common cry at the snatching of a purse or anything else for the use of the king, and the example of robbery being set in high quarters, was sure to be followed in low with the utmost activity. The London apprentices were invited by a posting-bill stuck upon the Royal Exchange to a soirée at Lambeth, for the purpose of sacking the palace of the archbishop, but Laud was ready with cannon, loaded with grape, and the apprentices muttering that the grapes were sour, abandoned their formidable intention.
Hostilities with Scotland having again broken out, Charles had his hands quite full, and his pockets quite empty. The disputants on both sides were ultimately glad to come to another truce, for they found themselves after a great deal of fighting exactly where they were before they began, except some of the killed and wounded, who, unfortunately for them, were anything but just as they were at the commencement of the contest. The Scots were to receive, according to treaty, the sum of £850 per day for two months, and Charles, wondering where the money was to come from, recollected that the Commons had the glorious privilege of voting the supplies, together with the glorious privilege of raising the money.