As the business of Dering's bill was under debate, a message arrived from the Upper House, signifying a readiness to concur in the Bill which they had already received, excepting only the clause for taking away the bishops' votes. "This message," we are told, "took little effect with the Commons."[194]
A conference followed on the 3rd of June, when the peers were as decided as the Commons. They contended that there could be no question of the bishops' right to sit in Parliament, as well by common and statute law as by constant practice; and they further declared, that they knew of no inconveniences attending the privilege; still, if there were any, they were ready to consider them.[195] In reply the Commons alleged, that intermeddling with secular business hindered the exercise of ministerial functions, and that bishops should devote themselves entirely to their spiritual vocation. They added, that councils and canons forbid their engaging in secular affairs—that the twenty-four bishops are dependent on two archbishops—that with a peerage only for life, they are ever hoping for translation—that of late several prelates had encroached on the liberty of conscience belonging to His Majesty's subjects, and would still do so—and that they were pledged in their parliamentary character to maintain a jurisdiction grievous to the three kingdoms, and already abolished in Scotland, while it was petitioned against both in England and Wales. Finally, the Commons urged that rank as peers placed the prelates at too great a distance from the rest of the clergy. The arguments of neither House satisfied the other. The Commons could not accept the answer of the Lords. We will, declared they, have the whole Bill or none. Then, replied the Lords, you shall have none; and threw it out altogether. A wedge had before entered the oak of the English constitution. This blow split the two branches asunder, and they stood apart wider than before.
1641, June.
The Commons went on their way, and framed a piece of Sabbath legislation, by prohibiting bargemen and lightermen from using their barks on the day of rest. Further, they separated ancient usages from parish perambulations, by requiring that no service should be said, nor any psalms sung when such perambulations took place. And then—perhaps to cover the measure against the bishops with some show of zeal for clerical order—the House reproved some poor people brought before them for schismatical irregularities.[196]
Debates by the Commons.
Needing themselves a lesson on religious liberty, the Commons resolved to follow up their attack on those whom they considered to be its greatest enemies. "We fell upon the great debate of the Bill of Episcopacy," observes D'Ewes, in his Diary, June 11. "Robert Harley, as I gathered, Mr. Pym, Mr. Hampden, and others, with Mr. Stephen Marshall, parson, of Finchingfield, in the county of Essex, and some others, had met yesternight and appointed, that this Bill should be proceeded withal this morning. And the said Sir Robert Harley moved it first in the House, for Mr. Hampden out of his serpentine subtlety did still put others to move those businesses that he contrived."[197] From this passage it appears, that Pym had within six months made a considerable advance in his advocacy of ecclesiastical reform. It will be recollected, that in January he "thought it was not the intention of the House to abolish Episcopacy," but now before Midsummer he seems to agree in opinion with the "root and branch men." Hampden, probably, entered the Long Parliament with at least a deep suspicion of the inexpediency of upholding episcopal rule: and both he and Pym were now in close conference with Stephen Marshall, the famous Presbyterian divine: who, by the way, affords an instance of the active part in political movements for the overthrow of bishops, which even then had begun to be taken by clergymen of his order. D'Ewes further reports:—"So after a little debate the House was resolved into a committee, and Mr. Edward Hyde (a young utter-barrister of the Middle Temple), upon the speaker's leaving his chair, went into the clerk's chair, and there sat also many days after." The making Hyde chairman was a stroke of policy—so he says himself—on the part of those who were favourable to the Bill, on the ground that thus he would be prevented from speaking against it.
According to his own account, he amply revenged himself, and proved no small hindrance, by mystifying questions and frequently reporting "two or three votes directly contrary to each other," so that after nearly twenty days spent in that manner, the Commons "found themselves very little advanced towards a conclusion."[198] The trick indicates the character of the man; and the confession of it years afterwards, is a sign of his effrontery; indeed, the whole of his conduct on this occasion proves how little he could have had at heart the interests of Episcopacy, not to speak boldly on its behalf, and vindicate that which he professed was venerable in his eyes, in this the crisis of its fate and the hour of its humiliation.
1641, June.
In the course of debate, Sir Harry Vane advocated the abolition of Episcopacy, inveighing against it as a plant which God's right hand had not planted, but one full of rottenness and corruption, a mystery of iniquity fit to be plucked up and removed out of the way. Yet he did not advocate what would now be called the separation of Church and State; nor did he enter upon the defence or exposition of any broad principle of religious liberty. At the same time, Waller, the poet—a lively speaker, who, even at the age of eighty, could amuse the House with his badinage and wit—protested against further attacks on Episcopacy, now that its horns and claws were cut and pared. He was, he said, for reform, not for abolition. Upon the close of the debate on the 11th—which lasted from early in the morning till late at night—the committee, in spite of Mr. Hyde's expedients, resolved on the preamble of the Bill: "Whereas the government of the Church of England by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors, and commissaries, deans, archdeacons, and other ecclesiastical officers, hath been found, by long experience, to be a great impediment to the perfect reformation and growth of religion, and very prejudicial to the civil state and government of this kingdom."[199]
Debates by the Commons.