Browning's England: A Study in English Influences in Browning

by Helen A. Clarke

The play opens at the important moment of Wentworth's return to London from Ireland, where for some time he had been governor. The occasion of his return, according to Gardiner, was a personal quarrel with the Chancellor Loftus, of Ireland. Both men were allowed to come to England to plead their cause, which resulted in the victory of Wentworth. In the play Pym says, "Ay, the Court gives out His own concerns have brought him back: I know 'tis the King calls him." The authority for this remark is found in the Forster-Browning Life. "In the danger threatened by the Scots' Covenant, Wentworth was Charles's only hope; the King sent for him, saying he desired his personal counsel and attendance. He wrote: 'The Scots' Covenant begins to spread too far, yet, for all this, I will not have you take notice that I have sent for you, but pretend some other occasion of business.'" Certain it is that from this time Wentworth[87] became the most trusted counsellor of Charles, that is, as far as Charles was capable of trusting any one. The condition of affairs to which Wentworth returned is brought out in the play in a thoroughly alive and human manner. We are introduced to the principal actors in the struggle for their rights and privileges against the government of Charles meeting in a house near Whitehall. Among the "great-hearted" men are Hampden, Hollis, the younger Vane, Rudyard, Fiennes—all leaders in the "Faction,"—Presbyterians, Loudon and other members of the Scots' commissioners. A bit of history has been drawn upon for this opening scene, for according to the Forster-Browning Life, "There is no doubt that a close correspondence with the Scotch commissioners, headed by Lords Loudon and Dumferling, was entered into under the management of Pym and Hampden. Whenever necessity obliged the meetings to be held in London, they took place at Pym's house in Gray's Inn Lane." In the talk between these men the political situation in England at the time from the point of view of the liberal party is brought vividly before the reader.

There has been no Parliament in England for ten years, hence the people have had no[88] say in the direction of the government. The growing dissatisfaction of the people at being thus deprived of their rights focussed itself upon the question of "ship-money." The taxes levied by the King for the maintainance of a fleet were loudly objected to upon all sides. That a fleet was a necessary means of protection in those threatening times is not to be doubted, but the objections of the people were grounded upon the fact that the King levied these taxes upon his own authority. "Ship-money, it was loudly declared," says Gardiner, "was undeniably a tax, and the ancient customs of the realm, recently embodied in the Petition of Right, had announced with no doubtful voice that no tax could be levied without consent of Parliament. Even this objection was not the full measure of the evil. If Charles could take this money without the consent of Parliament, he need not, unless some unforeseen emergency arose, ever summon a Parliament again. The true question at issue was whether Parliament formed an integral part of the Constitution or not." Other taxes were objected to on the same grounds, and the more determined the King was not to summon a Parliament, the greater became the political ferment.

Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford

At the same time the religious ferment was[89] centering itself upon hatred of Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury. His policy was to silence opposition to the methods of worship then followed by the Church of England, by the terrors of the Star Chamber. The Puritans were smarting under the sentence which had been passed upon the three pamphleteers, William Prynne, Henry Burton, and John Bastwick, who had expressed their opinions of the practises of the church with great outspokenness. Prynne called upon pious King Charles "to do justice on the whole Episcopal order by which he had been robbed of the love of God and of his people, and which aimed at plucking the crown from his head, that they might set it on their own ambitious pates." Burton hinted that "the sooner the office of the Bishops was abolished the better it would be for the nation." Bastwick, who had been brought up in the straitest principles of Puritanism, had ended his pamphlet "Flagellum Pontificis," with this outburst, "Take notice, so far am I from flying or fearing, as I resolve to make war against the Beast, and every hint of Antichrist, all the days of my life. If I die in that battle, so much the sooner I shall be sent in a chariot of triumph to heaven; and when I come there, I will, with those that are under the altar cry,[90] 'How long, Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood upon them that dwell upon the earth?'"

These men were called before the Star Chamber upon a charge of libel. The sentence was a foregone conclusion, and was so outrageous that its result could only be the strengthening of opposition. The "muckworm" Cottington, as Browning calls him, suggested the sentence which was carried out. The men were condemned to lose their ears, to pay a fine of £5000 each, and to be imprisoned for the remainder of their lives in the castles of Carnarvon, Launceston, and Lancaster. Finch, not satisfied with this, added the savage wish that Prynne should be branded on the cheek with the letters S. L., to stand for "seditious libeller," and this was also done.

The account of the execution of this sentence is almost too horrible to read. Some one who recorded the scene wrote, "The humours of the people were various; some wept, some laughed, and some were very reserved." Prynne, whose sufferings had been greatest for he had been burned as well as having his ears taken off, was yet able to indulge in a grim piece of humor touching the letters S. L. branded on his cheeks. He[91] called them "Stigmata Laudis," the "Scars of Laud," on his way back to prison. Popular demonstrations in favor of the prisoners were made all along the road when they were taken to their respective prisons, where they were allowed neither pen, ink nor books. Fearful lest they might somehow still disseminate their heretical doctrines to the outer world, the council removed them to still more distant prisons, in the Scilly Isles, in Guernsey and in Jersey. Retaliation against this treatment found open expression. "A copy of the Star Chamber decree was nailed to a board. Its corners were cut off as the ears of Laud's victims had been cut off at Westminster. A broad ink mark was drawn round Laud's name. An inscription declared that 'The man that puts the saints of God into a pillory of wood stands here in a pillory of ink!'"

Things were brought to a crisis in Scotland also, through hatred of Laud and the new prayer-book. The King, upon his visit to Scotland, had been shocked at the slovenly appearance and the slovenly ritual of the Scottish Church, which reflected strongly survivals of the Presbyterianism of an earlier time. The King wrote to the Scottish Bishops soon after his return to England: "We, tendering the good and peace of that Church by[92] having good and decent order and discipline observed therein, whereby religion and God's worship may increase, and considering that there is nothing more defective in that Church than the want of a Book of Common Prayer and uniform service to be kept in all the churches thereof, and the want of canons for the uniformity of the same, we are hereby pleased to authorise you as the representative body of that Church, and do herewith will and require you to condescend upon a form of Church service to be used therein, and to set down the canons for the uniformity of the discipline thereof." Laud, who as Archbishop of Canterbury had no jurisdiction over Scottish Bishops, put his finger into the pie as secretary of the King. As Gardiner says, "He conveyed instructions to the Bishops, remonstrated with proceedings which shocked his sense of order, and held out prospects of advancement to the zealous. Scotchmen naturally took offense. They did not trouble themselves to distinguish between the secretary and the archbishop. They simply said that the Pope of Canterbury was as bad as the Pope of Rome."

The upshot of it all was that in May, 1637, the "new Prayer-book" was sent to Scotland, and every minister was ordered to buy two[93] copies on pain of outlawry. Riots followed. It was finally decided that it must be settled once for all whether a King had any right to change the forms of worship without the sanction of a legislative assembly. Then came the Scottish Covenant which declared the intention of the signers to uphold religious liberty. The account of the signing of this covenant is one of the most impressive episodes in all history. The Covenant was carried on the 28th of February, 1638, to the Grey Friars' Church to which all the gentlemen present in Edinburgh had been summoned. The scene has been most sympathetically described by Gardiner.