While petitioners were busy, and the House of Commons had enough to do to hear their grievances, and debates were earnest, and two potent principles were embodied in the strife, the King watched it all with alarm for Episcopacy rather than with any apprehensions for his own personal safety. For his subjects were loyal and dutiful, and, according to Baillie, "feared his frown." He summoned both Houses of Parliament to Whitehall, on the 25th January, 1641, and, after professing willingness to concur in the reformation of the Church, added the following characteristic sentences: "I will show you some rubs, and must needs take notice of some very strange (I know not what term to give them) petitions given in the names of divers counties, against the present established Government, and of the great threatenings against the bishops, that they will make them to be but cyphers, or, at least, their voices to be taken away. Now I must tell you, that I make a great difference between reformation and alteration of Government, though I am for the former, I cannot give way to the latter. If some of them have overstretched their power, I shall not be unwilling these things should be redressed and reformed—nay, further, if upon serious debate you shall show me that bishops have some temporal authority inconvenient to the State, I shall not be unwilling to desire them to lay it down. But this must not be understood, that I shall in any way consent that their voices in Parliament should be taken away; for in all the times of my predecessors since the Conquest, and before, they have enjoyed it, and I am bound to maintain them in it as one of the fundamental constitutions of this kingdom."[143]
1641, February.
After petitions from the people, consultations with the Scotch, cautions from the Crown, and preparatory proceedings in the House, the grand debate came on respecting the "Root and Branch" Petition. The debate lasted throughout the 8th and 9th of February, 1641. In the course of it, the mercurial royalist, Lord Digby, observed, he had reason to believe that some aimed at a total extirpation of Episcopacy, yet, whilst opposing such extreme views, he was for clipping the wings of the prelates; and, though condemning the Petition, he thought no people had ever been more provoked than England of late years, by the insolence and exorbitance of the bishops. "For my part," declared he, "I profess I am inflamed with the sense of them, so that I find myself ready to cry out with the loudest of the 15,000, "down with them, down with them, even to the ground!" Let us not, however," he added, "destroy bishops, but make bishops such as they were in primitive times." The independent Nathaniel Fiennes opposed Episcopal rule, maintaining that until the Church Government of the country could "be framed of another twist," and more assimilated to that of the commonwealth, the ecclesiastical would be no good neighbour to the civil: for as with children afflicted with the rickets, all nourishment goes to the upper parts, so in the rickety condition of the Church, while the hierarchy became monstrously enlarged, the lower clergy pined away. Bishoprics, deaneries, and chapels, he compared to wasters in a wood. The official Sir Benjamin Rudyard condemned bishops unsparingly, yet advocated episcopal superintendence: and afterwards the learned Mr. Bagshawe pedantically distinguished between Episcopacy primitive in statu puro, and Episcopacy in statu corrupto, pleading, at the same time, for a thorough reformation of abuses, and an alteration of Ecclesiastical government into a Presbyterian form. Sir Harbottle Grimstone also asked for a diminution of prelatical power.
Petitions.
The speakers who carried the greatest weight in this debate were Pym and Falkland. We have only a faint echo of the words delivered by the former. They were to the effect that he thought it was not the intention of the House to abolish either Episcopacy or the Book of Common Prayer, but rather to reform both, so far as they gave offence; and if that improvement could be effected with the concurrence of the King, Parliament would accomplish a very acceptable work, such as had never been done since the Reformation.[144] Falkland's speech is fully reported. Very severe upon the conduct of the bishops generally, he made exceptions, and expressed himself content to take away what he said begot the mischief, such as judging wills and marriages, and having votes in Parliament. He denied the divine right, but would allow the human expediency of Episcopal rank. His opinion was, "that we should not root up this ancient tree, as dead as it appears, till we have tried whether by this, or the like lopping of the branches, the sap which was unable to feed the whole may not serve to make what is left both grow and flourish. And, certainly, if we may at once take away both the inconveniences of bishops and the inconveniences of no bishops, this course can only be opposed by those who love mutation for mutation's sake."
1641, Feb.
The only person who boldly defended Episcopacy, and spoke in an Anglican tone, was Mr. Pleydell, member for Wootton Bassett. "Sir," said he, addressing Mr. Speaker, "there is as much beyond truth as on this side it, and would we steer a right course we must be sure to keep the channel, lest we fall from one extreme to another, from the dotage of superstition to the frenzy of profaneness, from bowing to idols to worship the calves of our own imagination." This honest gentleman lamented libellous pamphlets, Puritan sermons, irreverence in churches, and the like; called himself a dutiful son of his distressed mother, the Church of England; pleaded for referring matters of doctrine to learned divines; and declared that to venture on any alteration was to run a risk, the consequences of which no man could foresee.[145]
Petitions.
A scene unnoticed by our historians, but brought to light by the careful examination of Sir Symonds D'Ewes' journal, occurred during the debate.[146] Alderman Pennington, Member for London, vindicated the character of the anti-Episcopal petitioners, and maintained that in obtaining signatures there "was no course used to rake up hands, for if that had been done, 15,000 might have mounted to fifteen times 15,000." Then Sir John Strangways, Member for Weymouth, offered a few words in favour of Episcopacy, observing that "if we made parity in the Church, we must at last come to a parity in the Commonwealth, and that the bishops were one of the three estates of the kingdom, and had a voice in Parliament." Upon this Cromwell rose, and declared that "he knew no reason of those suppositions and inferences which the gentleman had made that last spoke." At this point some interruption occurred, and divers members "called him to the bar." After which Pym and Holles referred to the orders of the House, that if a gentleman said anything objectionable, he might explain himself in his place. D'Ewes followed this up by saying, "to call a member to the bar is the highest and most supreme censure we can exercise within these walls, for it is rending away a part from our body, because if once a member amongst us is placed at yonder bar, he ceaseth to be a member." He then moved, that if this offence of calling to the bar should be repeated, the offender should be well fined. Cromwell, who thus appears to have already become obnoxious to the Church party, must have still more annoyed his interrupter, when he proceeded to observe, "He did not understand why the gentleman that last spake (before the interruption) should make an inference of parity from the Church to the Commonwealth, nor that there was any necessity of the great revenues of bishops. He was more convinced, touching the irregularity of bishops, than even before; because, like the Roman hierarchy, they would not endure to have their condition come to a trial."[147] This debate resulted in the petition being referred to a Committee which had been appointed to prepare subjects to be submitted to the House—the House reserving to itself the main point of Episcopacy, which was to be afterwards taken into consideration. The speeches had shewn a remarkable coincidence of opinion as to the necessity of abridging prelatical power and Church influence; but they had also brought out discordant views in relation to Episcopacy itself, though few at present advocated its total abolition. As yet, it did not seem wise to the Commons to decide one way or the other on this important point, or to entrust the consideration of the question to a Committee; but as we look at the general complexion of the debate, together with the terms of the resolution, the exceptive clause would appear simply to mean that Parliament was not yet prepared to abolish Episcopacy.[148]
1641, Feb.