he most memorable sitting in Parliament, in the fourth year of King Charles the First, was that of the House of Commons, on March 2d, 1629, which was pronounced by Sir Simonds D'Ewes as "the most gloomy, sad, and dismal day for England that had happened for five hundred years."
The incidents of this day will be recollected by every one. Sir John Eliot is said, according to all accounts, to have made an indignant attack upon Lord Weston, the new Treasurer, and to have concluded by moving the adoption of a Remonstrance. The Speaker, Sir John Finch, declined to put the Remonstrance to the vote, and announced that he had received the King's command to adjourn the House until the 10th of March. The House paid little attention to the royal message, contending, first, that it was not the office of the Speaker to deliver any such command; and, secondly, that the power of adjournment belonged to the House, and not to the Crown. Regardless of these arguments, the Speaker prepared to obey the royal mandate. He rose and quitted the chair, when two members, Denzil Holles, son of the Earl of Clare, on the one side, and Benjamin Valentine, on the other side, stepped forward, and forced him back into his official seat. He appealed to the House with abundance of tears. Selden argued and remonstrated with him. Sir Peter Hayman disavowed him, we are told, "as a kinsman," and denounced him as a disgrace to a noble family. Again he endeavoured to quit the chair. Sir Thomas Edmondes, who was old enough to have been ambassador from Queen Elizabeth to Henry IV. of France—a man of small stature, but of great courage—with other privy councillors, pressed forward to the Speaker's help; but Holles violently held him in his chair, and swore, by what is termed Queen Elizabeth's oath, "God's wounds!" that he should sit still until it should please the House to rise.
In the midst of this uproar, Coriton and Winterton, two of the members, are said to have fallen to blows, numbers of the more timid fled out of the House, and the King, hearing of the tumult, sent to Edward Grimstone, the Serjeant-at-Arms, who was then within the House in attendance upon the Speaker, to bring away the mace, without which it was supposed that no legal meeting could be held. To defeat this object, the key of the door was taken from the Serjeant-at-Arms, and delivered to Sir Miles Hobart. Sir Miles stopped the egress of the Serjeant-at-Arms, and having taken from him the mace, quietly put him out of the House and locked the door. The mace was then replaced upon the table, and Holles, standing by the side of the Speaker, put to the House three resolutions, which were deemed to be voted by acclamation. The King is said to have sent, in the meantime, Mr. Maxwell, the Usher of the Black Rod, to summon the House to attend in the House of Lords, but Maxwell could gain neither hearing nor admission. Grown now, as is stated in Lord Verulam's manuscript, "into much rage and passion," the King sent for "the Captain of the Pensioners and Guard to force the door." Ere this officer could muster his stately band, the House had done its work. The resolutions had been passed, the Speaker had been released from the strong grasp of Denzil Holles, Sir Miles Hobart had unlocked the door, the excited members had been set free; and, for a period of eleven years, parliamentary discussion in England had come to an end.
Such is the narrative which was read by Mr. Bruce to the Society of Antiquaries, in 1859, upon his reading also a "True Relation" of the scene, in the handwriting of Lord Verulam, now in the manuscript collection at Gorhambury. Other MSS. of the proceedings of this Session are not uncommon, and many variations occur. Mr. Bruce has, in his paper, printed that portion of Lord Verulam's MS. which relates to the sitting of the 2d of March. Mr. Bruce, who has narrated the leading points according to Lord Verulam's MS., instead of Hayman's word, "kinsman," gives these words: "he was sorry he was a Kentish man, and that he was a disgrace to his country, and a blot to a noble family." Lord Verulam, too, gives Mr. Stroud's speech, not in other MSS.: he "tould the Speaker that he was the instrument to cutt off the libertie of the subject by the roote, and that if he would not be perswaded to put the same to question, they must all retorne as scattered sheepe, and a scorne put upon them as it was last session." This is important, since it explains more precisely than had hitherto been known, why he (Stroud) was prosecuted for his share in that day's transactions. On the other hand, Lord Verulam's MS. does not mention the Resolutions that were put to the House by Holles standing by the Speaker's chair. The concurrent testimony of a variety of authorities, however, forbids us to doubt that those Resolutions were really passed in the way described, and that in this respect Lord Verulam's MS. is defective.
[CAVALIERS AND ROUNDHEADS.]
he word Cavalier was not at first necessarily a term of reproach. Shakspeare does not so employ it when he speaks of the gay and gallant English eager for French invasion—