While the king and his minister were raising forced loans and contributions, sending members of the House of Commons to the Tower, fining, imprisoning, and mutilating the Puritans, a new imposition called out the energies of a great patriot and a great man, John John Hampden. Hampden—a fit antagonist of the haughty Wentworth. This new exaction was a tax called ship money.
It was devised by Chief Justice Finch and Attorney-General Noy, two subordinate, but unscrupulous tools of despotism, and designed to extort money from the inland counties, as well as from the cities, for furnishing ships—a demand that Elizabeth did not make, in all her power, even when threatened by the Spanish Armada. Clarendon even admits that this tax was not for the support of the navy, "but for a spring and magazine which should have no bottom, and for an everlasting supply on all occasions." And this the nation completely understood, and resolved desperately to resist.
Hampden, though a wealthy man, refused to pay the share assessed on him, which was only twenty shillings, deeming it an illegal tax. He was proceeded against by the crown lawyers. Hampden appealed to a decision of the judges in regard to the legality of the tax, and the king permitted the question to be settled by the laws. The trial lasted thirteen days, but ended in the condemnation of Hampden, who had shown great moderation, as well as courage, and had won the favor of the people. It was shortly after this that Hampden, as some historians assert, resolved to leave England with his cousin Oliver Cromwell. But the king prevented the ships, in which they and other emigrants had embarked, from sailing. Hampden was reserved for new trials and new labors.
About a month after Hampden's condemnation, an Insurrection in Scotland. insurrection broke out in Scotland, which hastened the crisis of revolution. It was produced by the attempt of Archbishop Laud to impose the English liturgy on the Scottish nation, and supplant Presbyterianism by Episcopacy. The revolutions in Scotland, from the time of Knox, had been popular; not produced by great men, but by the diffusion of great ideas. The people believed in the spiritual independence of their church, and not in the supremacy of a king. The instant, therefore, that the Episcopal worship was introduced, by authority, in the cathedral of Edinburgh, there was an insurrection, which rapidly spread through all parts of the country. An immense multitude came to Edinburgh to protest against the innovation, and crowded all the houses, streets, and halls of the city. The king ordered the petitioners home, without answering their complaints. They obeyed the injunction, but soon returned in greater numbers. An organization of resistance was made, and a provisional government appointed. All classes joined the insurgents, who, menaced, but united, at last bound themselves, by a solemn league and covenant, not to separate until their rights and liberties were secured. A vast majority of all the population of Scotland—gentlemen, clergy, citizens, and laborers, men, women, and children—assembled in the church, and swore fealty to the covenant. Force, of course, was necessary to reduce the rebels, and civil war commenced in Scotland. But war increased the necessities of the king, and he was compelled to make peace with the insurgent army.
Eleven years had now elapsed since the dissolution of the last parliament, during which the king had attempted to rule without one, and had resorted to all the expedients that the ingenuity of the crown lawyers could suggest, in order to extort money. Imposts fallen into desuetude, monopolies abandoned by Elizabeth, royal forests extended beyond the limits they had in feudal times, fines past all endurance, confiscations without end, imprisonments, tortures, and executions,—all marked these eleven years. The sum for fines alone, in this period, amounted to more than two hundred thousand pounds. The forest of Rockingham was enlarged from six to sixty miles in circuit, and the earl of Salisbury was fined twenty thousand pounds for encroaching upon it. Individuals and companies had monopolies of salt, soap, coals, iron, wine, leather, starch, feathers, tobacco, beer, distilled liquors, herrings, butter, potash, linen cloth, rags, hops, gunpowder, and divers other articles, which, of course, deranged the whole trade of the country. Prynne was fined ten thousand pounds, and had his ears cut off, and his nose slit, for writing an offensive book; and his sufferings were not greater than what divers others experienced for vindicating the cause of truth and liberty.
At last, the king's necessities compelled him to summon another parliament. He had exhausted every expedient to raise money. His army clamored for pay; and he was overburdened with debts.
On the 13th of April, 1640, the new parliament met. It knew its strength, and was determined now, Long Parliament. more than ever, to exercise it. It immediately took the power into its own hands, and from remonstrances and petitions it proceeded to actual hostilities; from the denunciation of injustice and illegality, it proceeded to trample on the constitution itself. It is true that the members were irritated and threatened, and some of their number had been seized and imprisoned. It is true that the king continued his courses, and was resolved on enforcing his measures by violence. The struggle became one of desperation on both sides—a struggle for ascendency—and not for rights.
One of the first acts of the House of Commons was the impeachment of Strafford. He had been just summoned from Ireland, where, as lord lieutenant, he had exercised almost regal power and regal audacity; he had been summoned by his perplexed and desponding master to assist him by his counsels. Reluctantly he obeyed, foreseeing the storm. He had scarcely arrived in London when the intrepid Pym accused him of high treason. The Lords accepted the accusation, and the imperious minister was committed to the Tower.
The impeachment of Laud soon followed; but he was too sincere in his tyranny to understand why he should be committed. Nor was he feared, as Strafford was, against whom the vengeance of the parliament was especially directed. A secret committee, invested with immense powers, was commissioned to scrutinize his whole life, and his destruction was resolved upon. On the 22d of March his trial began, and lasted seventeen days, during which time, unaided, he defended himself against thirteen accusers, with consummate ability. Indeed, he had studied his charges and despised his adversaries. Under ordinary circumstances, he would have been acquitted, for there was not sufficient evidence to convict him of high treason; but an unscrupulous and infuriated body of men were thirsting for his blood, and it was proposed to convict him by bill of attainder; that is, by act of parliament, on its own paramount authority, with or without the law. The bill passed, in spite of justice, in spite of the eloquence of the attainted earl. He was condemned, and remanded to the Tower.
Had the king been strong he would have saved his minister; had he been magnanimous, he would have stood by him to the last. But he had neither the power to save him, nor the will to make adequate sacrifices. He feebly interposed, but finally yielded, and gave his consent to the execution of the main agent of all his aggressions on the constitution he had sworn to maintain. Strafford deserved his fate, although the manner of his execution was not according to law.