While affairs were in this position, Parliament resumed its interrupted sittings in November 1621. Dean Williams, who after Bacon's fall had received the Great Seal, opened the session with a request for the immediate grant of new subsidies, which he said would be required even before Christmas. He promised that in the coming February, when they resumed their sittings, the other affairs should be brought under discussion.[413]
On this occasion as on a previous one, the King wished for nothing more than a renewed and stronger demonstration. Even now he lived and moved in a policy of compromise between opposite views. While his son-in-law was being robbed of his country in the interest of Spain, he adhered to the wish of marrying his son to a Spanish Infanta: he thought that he would bring about the restoration of the Palatinate most easily by the influence which this new alliance would confer. But he thought that his friendly advances should also be accompanied by threats, and he wished to be placed by the grants of Parliament in a position to arm more effectually than before. It would have been in accordance with his views, if Parliament had repeated its former declarations, according to which it was ready to put forth all its power in his behalf, in order to place him in a position to compel by force of arms what might be refused to his peaceful negotiations.
It is worth noticing in all this that James not only met the wishes of Parliament because he required support, but that he also encouraged the disposition which it showed in favour of Protestantism, in order to avail himself of it: he thought that he would always be able to control it. But how often has a policy been shipwrecked, which has thought to avail itself of great interests and great passions for some end immediately in view!
How could it be expected that while religious parties on the continent were meeting in a struggle for life and death, the English Parliament would approve of the wavering policy of James I, which aimed at compromise and had hitherto been without results?[414] Quite the contrary: starting with the view that England was the centre of Protestantism and must avert the dangers which assailed it, Parliament declared itself ready, it is true, to pay the King new subsidies, but not until the following year, and on the presumption that he should have accepted and ratified the bills for the welfare of the people which had passed the House.[415] They thought that the common danger to religion arising from the alliance between the Pope and the King of Spain had been brought upon England also by the indulgence hitherto shown to the recusants. Parliament invited the King to draw the sword without further circumlocution for the rescue of the foreign Protestants; in the first instance to break with the power whose army had carried on the war in the Palatinate, but above all to marry the Prince his successor to a lady of the Protestant faith.
The King wished to avoid war because he was anxious lest he should be constantly compelled by Parliament, owing to his repeated want of subsidies, to make fresh concessions, which would affect and diminish the substance of his authority. The Parliament wished for war because it expected that such a proceeding would furnish it with great opportunities for establishing its power.
As soon as the rival powers encountered each other on this ground, all agreement between them was at an end. Parliament interfered still more vigorously than before with the affairs which the King reserved for himself: it wished to induce him to adopt those very measures which he was resolved to avoid. He was expected to break with that power with which it was his principal ambition to become most closely connected. He was expected to take the sword in order to defend the common cause of Protestantism. He was expected to put an end to the indulgence which he had hitherto shown to his Catholic subjects; to do what ran counter to all the expectations which he had raised at Rome and Madrid; and what perhaps, considering the strength of the Catholic element in England, was not without danger to the maintenance of quiet at home. Meanwhile the payment of the subsidies, which he required at once in order to maintain his political position, was indefinitely deferred. Although it was not actually stated, yet it was quite clear that Parliament made the validity of its grants dependent on his compliance with its advice. And on what important matters was that advice offered! The King complained that his prerogative was openly infringed by it; that Parliament wished to decide on his alliances with other sovereigns, and to dictate to him how to conduct the war; that it brought under debate questions of religion and state, and the marriage of his son: what portion of the sovereign power, he asked, was left to him? On the competence which Parliament claimed as its hereditary right, he remarked that it had to thank the favour of his ancestors and himself for this: that he would protect Parliament, but only in proportion to the regard which it showed for the prerogative of his crown.
If we had to specify the moment in which the quarrel between the Parliament and the Crown once more found its full expression, we should choose this.[416] The Parliament, which had dissolution in immediate prospect, employed its last moments in making a protest, in which it again affirmed that its liberties and privileges were a birthright and heirloom of the subjects of the English crown, that it certainly was within its power to bring under debate public matters affecting the King, the State, the Church, and the defence of the country; and that full liberty of speech without any subsequent molestation on that account must be secured to every member in the exercise of these rights.
The King would not forego the satisfaction of punishing by arrest a number of members who were peculiarly hateful to him; he declared the protestation null and void, and struck it out of the clerks' book with his own hand. In a detailed exposition of his view of these transactions, in which he gives the assurance that he will still henceforth continue to summon Parliament, he emphatically repudiates this protestation, which he affirms to be drawn up in such terms that the inalienable rights of the crown are called in question by it, rights in the possession of which the crown had found itself in the times of Queen Elizabeth of glorious memory. He affirms that as King he cannot tolerate any such pretensions.
Parliament demanded the policy of Queen Elizabeth; King James demanded her rights. The privileges accorded to the crown and the opposition to Spain had formerly gone together: the surrender of the latter under King James served to supply Parliament on its part with a motive for making an attack upon the former.
The cause of Parliament was of great importance, even when it stood alone: deeper impulses and fresh life and vigour were first imparted to it by its combination with foreign policy and with religion.