Lectures and Essays

by Goldwin Smith

As a theologian, Falkland appears to have been a Chillingworth on a very small scale. It does not seem to us that Principal Tulloch, in his interesting chapter on him, succeeds in putting him higher. But he shared, with Chillingworth and Hales, the spirit of liberality and toleration, for which both were nobly conspicuous, though Hales did not show himself a very uncompromising champion of his principles when he accepted preferment from the hands of their arch-enemy, Laud. The learned men and religious philosophers whom Falkland gathered round him at Tew, were among the best and foremost thinkers of their age: the beauty of the group is marred, perhaps, only by the sinister intrusion of Sheldon.

Mr. Matthew Arnold, in the very graceful sketch of Falkland's life published by him in aid of the Falkland Memorial, has endowed his favourite character with gifts far rarer and more memorable than those of which we have spoken; with an extraordinary largeness and lucidity of mind, with almost divine superiority to party narrowness and bias, with conceptions anticipative of the most advanced philosophy of modern times. He quotes the Dean of Westminster as affirming that "Falkland is the founder, or nearly the founder, of the best and most enlightening tendencies of the Church of England"—a statement which breeds reflection as to the character of the Church of England during the previous century, in the course of which its creed and liturgy were formed. The evidence of these transactions lies wide; much of it is still in the British Museum; and it may be possible to produce something sufficient to sustain Falkland on the pinnacle on which Mr. Arnold and the Dean of Westminster have placed him. But we cannot help surmising that he has in some measure undergone the process which, in an age prolific in historic fancies as well as pre-eminent in historic research, has been undergone by almost every character in history—that of being transmuted by a loving biographer, and converted into a sort of ventriloquial apparatus through which the biographer preaches to the present from the pulpit of the past. The philosophy ascribed to Falkland is, we suspect, partly that of a teacher who was then in the womb of time. We should not be extreme to mark this, if the praise of Falkland had not been turned to the dispraise and even to the vilification of men who are at least as much entitled to reverent treatment at the hands of Englishmen as he is, and at the same time of a large body of English citizens at the present day, who are the objects, we venture to think, of a somewhat fanciful and somewhat unmeasured antipathy. Those who subscribe to the Falkland Testimonial are collectively set down by Mr. Arnold as the "amiable"—those who do not subscribe as the "unamiable." Few, we trust, would be so careful of their money and so careless of their reputation for moral beauty as to refuse to pay a guinea for a certificate of amiability countersigned by Mr. Matthew Arnold. Yet even the amiable might hesitate to take part in erecting a monument to the honour of Falkland, if it was at the same time to be a monument to the dishonour, of Luther, Gustavus, Walsingham, Sir John Eliot, Pym, Hampden, Cromwell, Vane, and Milton. As to the Nonconformists, their contributions are probably not desired: otherwise, accustomed to not very courteous treatment though they are, it would still be imprudent to warn them that their own "hideousness" was to be carved in the same marble with the beauty of Lord Falkland.

On Luther, Hampden, and Cromwell, Mr. Arnold expressly bestows the name of "Philistine," and if he bestows it on these he can hardly abstain from bestowing it on the rest of those we have named. Milton, at all events, has identified himself with Cromwell as thoroughly as one man ever identified himself with another, and whatever aspersion is cast on "Worcester's laureate wreath" must fall equally on the intermingling bays. We may say this without pretending to know what the exact meaning of "Philistine" now is. Originally, no doubt, it pointed to some specific defect on the part of those with regard to whom it was used, and possibly also on the part of those who used it. But with the fate which usually attends the cant phrase of a clique, it seems to be degenerating, by lavish application, into something which irritates without conveying any definite instruction. As Luther did not live under the same conditions as Heinrich Heine, perfect ethical identity was hardly to be expected. "Simpleton" and "savage" have the advantage of being intelligible to all, and when introduced into discussion with grace, perhaps they may be urbane.

It is useless to attempt, without authentic materials, to fill in the faint outline of an historic figure. But judging from such indications as we have, we should be inclined to say that Falkland, instead of being a man of extraordinarily serene and well-balanced mind, was rather excitable and impulsive. His tones and gestures are vehement; where another man would be content to protest against what he thought an undeserved act of homage by simply keeping his hat on, Falkland rams his down upon his head with both his hands. He goes most ardently with the popular party through the early stages of the revolution; then he somewhat abruptly breaks away from it, disgusted with its defects, though they certainly did not exceed those of other parties under the same circumstances, and feeling in himself no power to control it and keep it in the right path. He is under the influence of others, first of Hampden and then of Hyde, to an extent hardly compatible with the possession of a mind of first-rate power. When he is taxed with inconsistency for going round upon the Bill for removing the Bishops from Parliament, his plea is that at the time when he voted for the Bill "he had been persuaded by that worthy gentleman (Hampden) to believe many things which he had since found to be untrue, and therefore he had changed his opinion in many particulars as well to things as persons." Hampden himself would hardly have been led by anybody's persuasions on the great question of the day. Clarendon tells us that his friend, from his experience of the Short Parliament, "contracted such a reverence for Parliaments that he thought it really impossible they could ever produce mischief or inconvenience to the kingdom." We always regard with some suspicion Clarendon's artful touches, otherwise we should say that there is a pretty brusque change from this unbounded reverence for the Short Parliament to an appearance in arms against its successor, especially as the leader and soul of both Parliaments was Pym.

In the prosecution of Strafford, Falkland showed such ardour that, as Clarendon intimates, those who knew him not ascribed his behaviour to personal resentment. His lips formulated the very doctrine so fatal to the great accused, that a number of acts severally not amounting to high treason might cumulatively support the charge. "How many haires' breadths makes a tall man and how many makes a little man, noe man can well say, yet we know a tall man when we see him from a low man; soe 'tis in this,—how many illegal acts make a treason is not certainly well known, but we well know it when we see." Mr. Arnold says that "alone amongst his party Falkland raised his voice against pressing forward Strafford's impeachment with unfair or vindictive haste." That is to say, when Pym proposed to the House, sitting with closed doors, at once to carry up the impeachment to the Lords and demand the arrest of Strafford without delay, Falkland, moved by his great, and, in all ordinary cases, laudable respect for regularity of proceeding, proposed first to have the charges formally drawn up by a committee. Falkland's proposal was almost fatuous; it proves that the grand difference between him and Pym was that Pym was a great man of action and that he was not. It would have been about as rational to suggest that the lighted match should not be taken out of the hand of Guy Fawkes till a committee had formally reported on the probable effects of gunpowder if ignited in large quantities beneath the chamber in which the Parliament was sitting. Strafford would not have respected forms in the midst of what he must have well known was a revolution. He would probably have struck at the Commons if they had not struck at him; certainly he would have placed himself beyond their reach; and the promptness of Pym's decision saved the party and the country. No practical injustice was done by wresting the sword out of Strafford's hand and putting him in safe keeping till the charges could be drawn up in form, as they immediately were. Falkland himself in proposing a committee avowed his conviction that the grounds for the impeachment were perfectly sufficient. His name does not appear among the Straffordians; and had he opposed the Bill of Attainder it seems morally certain that Clarendon would have told us so. The strength of this presumption is not impaired by any vague words of Baxter coupling the name of Falkland with that of Digby as a seceder from the party on the occasion of the Bill. Had Falkland voted with Digby, his name would have appeared in the same list. That he felt qualms and wavered at the last is very likely; but it is almost certain that he voted for the Bill. There is some reason for believing that he took the sterner, though probably more constitutional, line, on the question of allowing the accused to be heard by counsel. But the evidence is meagre and doubtful; and the difficulty of reading it aright has been increased by the discovery that Pym and Hampden themselves were against proceeding by Bill, and in favour of demanding judgment on the impeachment. It seems certain, however, that Falkland pleaded against extending the consequences of the Act of Attainder to Strafford's children, and in this he showed himself a true gentleman.

Again, in the case of Laud, Mr. Arnold wishes to draw a strong line between the conduct of his favourite and that of the savage "Puritans." He says that Falkland "refused to concur in Laud's impeachment." If he did, we must say he acted very inconsistently, for in his speech in favour of the Bishops' Bill he violently denounced Laud as a participator in Strafford's treason:—

"We shall find both of them to have kindled and blown the common fire of both nations, to have both sent and maintained that book (of Canons) of which the author, no doubt, hath long since wished with Nero, Utinam nescissem literas! and of which more than one kingdom hath cause to wish that when he wrote that he had rather burned a library, though of the value of Ptolemy's. We shall find them to have been the first and principal cause of the breach, I will not say of, but since, the pacification of Berwick. We shall find them to have been the almost sole abettors of my Lord Strafford, whilst he was practising upon another kingdom that manner of government which he intended to settle in this; where he committed so many mighty and so manifest enormities and oppressions as the like have not been committed by any governor in any government since Verras left Sicily; and after they had called him over from being Deputy of Ireland to be in a manner Deputy of England (all things here being goverend by a junctillo and the junctillo goverend by him) to have assisted him in the giving such counsels and the pursuing such courses, as it is a hard and measuring cost whether they were more unwise, more unjust, or more unfortunate, and which had infallibly been our destruction if by the grace of God their share had not been a small in the subtilty of serpents as in the innocency of doves."

We are not aware, however, of the existence of any positive proof that Falkland did "refuse to concur" in the impeachment of Laud. There is nothing, we believe, but the general statement of Clarendon that his friend regarded with horror the storm gathering against the archbishop, which the words of Falkland himself, just quoted, seem sufficient to disprove. Mr. Arnold tells us that "Falkland disliked Laud; he had a natural antipathy to his heat, fussiness, and arbitrary temper." He had an antipathy to a good deal more in Laud than this, and expressed his dislike in language which showed that he was himself not deficient in heat when his religious feelings were aroused. He accused Laud and the ecclesiastics of his party of having "destroyed unity under pretence of uniformity;" of having "brought in Superstition and Scandal under the titles of Reverence and Decency;" of having "defiled the Church by adorning the churches," of having "destroyed as much of the Gospel as they could without themselves being destroyed by the law." He compared them to the hen in AEsop, fed too fat to lay eggs, and to dogs in the manger, who would neither preach nor let others preach. He charged them with checking instruction in order to introduce that religion which accounts ignorance the mother of devotion. He endorsed the common belief that one of them was a Papist at heart, and that only regard for his salary prevented him from going over to Rome. All this uttered to a Parliament in such a mood would hardly be in favour of gentle dealing with the archbishop. But Pym and Hampden, as Clarendon himself admits, never intended to proceed to extremities against the old man; they were satisfied with having put him in safe keeping and removed him from the councils of the King. When they were gone, the Presbyterians, to whom the leadership of the Revolution then passed, took up the impeachment and brought Laud to the block.

The parts were distributed among the leaders. To Falkland was entrusted the prosecution of the Lord Keeper Finch; and this part he performed in a style which thoroughly identifies him with the other leaders, and with the general spirit of the movement at this stage of the Revolution. No man, so far as we can see, did more to set the stone rolling; it was not likely that, with his slender force, he would be able to stop it at once in mid career.

In contrasting Falkland's line of conduct with that of the "Puritans," on the question of the Bishops' Bill and of the impeachment of Laud, Mr. Arnold indicates his impression that all Puritans were on principle enemies, and as a matter of course fanatical enemies, of Episcopacy. But he will find that at this time many Puritans were Low Church Episcopalians, wishing only to moderate the pretensions and curb the authority of the Bishops. Episcopacy is not one of the grievances protested against in the Millenary Petition Sir John Eliot appears to have been as strong an Erastian as Mr. Arnold could desire.