There are some strange things said by Clarendon of the ignorance of the Commons as to the value of twelve subsidies, which Hume, who loves to depreciate the knowledge of former times, implicitly copies. But they cannot be true of that enlightened body, whatever blunders one or two individuals might commit. The rate at which every man's estate was assessed to a subsidy was perfectly notorious; and the burden of twelve subsidies to be paid in three years, was more than the charge of ship-money they had been enduring.
[153] Journals; Parl. Hist.; Nalson; Clarendon.
[154] The king had long before said that "parliaments are like cats; they grow curst with age."
[155] See Mr. Waller's speech on Crawley's impeachment. Nalson, ii. 358.
[156] Mem. de Motteville, i. 238-278; P. Orleans, Rev. de l'Angleterre, tome iii., says the same of Vane; but his testimony may resolve itself into the former. It is to be observed, that ship-money which the king offered to relinquish, brought in £200,000 a year, and that the proposed twelve subsidies would have amounted, at most, to £840,000, to be paid in three years. Is it surprising that, when the house displayed an intention not to grant the whole of this, as appears by Clarendon's own story, the king and his advisers should have thought it better to break off altogether? I see no reason for imputing treachery to Vane, even if he did not act merely by the king's direction. Clarendon says he and Herbert persuaded the king that the house "would pass such a vote against ship-money as would blast that revenue and other branches of the receipt; which others believed they would not have the confidence to have attempted, and very few that they would have had the credit to have compassed." P. 245. The word they is as inaccurate, as is commonly the case with this writer's language. But does he mean that the house would not have passed a vote against ship-money? They had already entered on the subject, and sent for records; and he admits himself, that they were resolute against granting subsidies as a consideration for the abandonment of that grievance. Besides, Hyde himself not only inveighs most severely in his History against ship-money, but was himself one of the managers of the impeachment against six judges for their conduct in regard to it; and his speech before the House of Lords on that occasion is extant. Rushw. Abr. ii. 477. But this is merely one instance of his eternal inconsistency.
[157] Parl. Hist.; Rushworth; Nalson.
[158] June 4, 1640. Sidney Papers, ii. 654.
[159] A late writer has spoken of this celebrated letter, as resting on very questionable authority. Lingard, x. 43. It is, however, mentioned as a known fact by several contemporary writers, and particularly by the Earl of Manchester, in his unpublished Memorials, from which Nalson has made extracts; and who could neither be mistaken, nor have any apparent motive, in this private narrative, to deceive. Nalson, ii. 427.
[160] Rymer, xx. 432; Rushworth Abr. iii. 163, etc.; Nalson, i. 389, etc.
[161] Lord Clarendon seems not to have well understood the secret of this Great Council, and supposes it to have been suggested by those who wished for a parliament; whereas the Hardwicke Papers show the contrary. P. 116 and 118. His notions about the facility of composing the public discontent are strangely mistaken: "Without doubt," he says, "that fire at that time, which did shortly after burn the whole kingdom, might have been covered under a bushel." But the whole of this introductory book of his History abounds with proofs that he had partly forgotten, partly never known, the state of England before the opening of the long parliament. In fact, the disaffection, or at least discontent, had proceeded so far in 1640, that no human skill could have averted a great part of the consequences. But Clarendon's partiality to the king, and to some of his advisers, leads him to see in every event particular causes, or an overruling destiny, rather than the sure operation of impolicy and misgovernment.