[614] P. 330.
[615] P. 339.
[616] P. 359.
[617] Rymer, xvii. 344; Parl. Hist. Carte, 93; Wilson.
[618] Besides the historians, see Cabala, part ii. p. 155 (4to edit.); D'Israeli's Character of James I., p. 125; and Mede's Letters, Harl. MSS. 389.
[619] Wilson's Hist. of James I. in Kennet, ii. 247, 749. Thirty-three peers, Mr. Joseph Mede tells us in a letter of Feb. 24, 1621 (Harl. MSS. 389), "signed a petition to the king which they refused to deliver to the council, as he desired, nor even to the prince, unless he would say he did not receive it as a counsellor; whereupon the king sent for Lord Oxford, and asked him for it; he, according to previous agreement, said he had it not; then he sent for another, who made the same answer: at last they told him they had resolved not to deliver it, unless they were admitted all together. Whereupon his majesty, wonderfully incensed, sent them all away, re infectâ, and said that he would come into parliament himself, and bring them all to the bar." This petition, I believe, did not relate to any general grievances, but to a question of their own privileges, as to their precedence of Scots peers. Wilson, ubi supra. But several of this large number were inspired by more generous sentiments; and the commencement of an aristocratic opposition deserves to be noticed. In another letter, written in March, Mede speaks of the good understanding between the king and parliament; he promised they should sit as long as they like, and hereafter he would have a parliament every three years. "Is not this good if it be true?... But certain it is that the Lords stick wonderful fast to the Commons and all take great pains."
The entertaining and sensible biographer of James has sketched the characters of these Whig peers. Aikin's James I., ii. 238.
[620] One of these may be found in the Somers Tracts, ii. 470, entitled Tom Tell-truth, a most malignant ebullition of disloyalty, which the author must have risked his neck as well as ears in publishing. Some outrageous reflections on the personal character of the king could hardly be excelled by modern licentiousness. Proclamations about this time against excess of lavish speech in matters of state (Rymer, xvii. 275, 514), and against printing or uttering seditious and scandalous pamphlets (Id. 522, 616) show the tone and temper of the nation.
[621] The letters on this subject, published by Lord Hardwicke (State Papers, vol. i.) are highly important; and being unknown to Carte and Hume, render their narratives less satisfactory. Some pamphlets of the time, in the second volume of the Somers Tracts, may be read with interest; and Howell's Letters, being written from Madrid during the Prince of Wales's residence, deserve notice. See also Wilson in Kennet, p. 750, et post. Dr. Lingard has illustrated the subject lately (ix. 271).
[622] Hume, and many other writers on the side of the Crown, assert the value of a subsidy to have fallen from £70,000, at which it had been under the Tudors, to £55,000, or a less sum. But though I will not assert a negative too boldly, I have no recollection of having found any good authority for this; and it is surely too improbable to be lightly credited. For admit that no change was made in each man's rate according to the increase of wealth and diminution of the value of money, the amount must at least have been equal to what it had been; and to suppose the contributors to have prevailed on the assessors to underrate them, is rather contrary to common fiscal usage. In one of Mede's letters, which of course I do not quote as decisive, it is said that the value of a subsidy was not above £80,000; and that the assessors were directed (this was in 1621) not to follow former books, but value every man's estate according to their knowledge, and not his own confession.