A disadvantageous influence had been exercised from the very first by the reappearance of the man who had given occasion to the last violent scenes in the year 1629, and who was in ill repute with every one—John Finch, who now came forward as Lord Keeper. His appearance awakened the old controversies and the old hatred.
And moreover the disloyalty of the Scots failed to produce so great an impression as was expected, because it was partly a result of the religious conflict. France was regarded as the protector of Protestantism, which, on the contrary, was in danger from a King who belonged to it. The French government had not been slow to release the Elector Palatine from prison, on the receipt of the warning which was addressed to it; it had removed this cause of offence as well as others, and in both Houses of Parliament it reckoned decided partisans.
Thus it came to pass that Charles I was encountered in the Parliament of 1640 by an opposition no less resolute than that which had led to the dissolution of the Parliament of 1629.
The very first speaker who made himself heard, Grimstone, set off domestic grievances against the complaints which the King made of the Scots; he dwelt above all on the infringement of the obligations undertaken by the acceptance of the Petition of Right. He said that freedom and property had been shaken, the Church thrown into confusion, and the true religion even persecuted. While appealing for support to a passage of the Bible he gave utterance to the significant opinion that men ought to enquire how this result had come to pass, and who had given the advice which had brought it about.
Then rose up John Pym, the man of all others in that assembly in whom the union of Puritan and Parliamentary principles was most clearly displayed. He had drawn up for himself a list of the grievances, which he now set forth, with A.D. 1640. methodical and almost scholastic accuracy, but with clear vision, and not without statesmanlike insight. He gave especial prominence to the religious grievances, to the failure in executing the ancient laws in consequence of which men of the Catholic faith were placed in positions of trust and power, and to the presence of a Papal Resident in England, who, he said, was only carrying into execution what a congregation sitting at Rome was devising for the conversion of England. It was necessary, he affirmed, to consider the Papacy in its connexion with the other states which it governed, as the sun governs the course of the planets; he thought it was intended that England also should be torn from her proper path and subjected to the same influence[171].
To this origin—for everything, he said, had its source—most of the abuses were then referred by him and by others; especially the suspension of the sittings of Parliament, and the attacks made on private property by the collection of taxes which had not been granted, measures intended to relieve the government from any need of convening that body[172].
The various complaints of a similar nature which came in from every county and every class made all the stronger impression, as they were also based on the ground of a general danger to the religion ‘which was professed according to the law of God and the law of the land.’
These all showed the same conception of the King’s intentions as that entertained by the Scots, although much more moderately expressed; yet, for all that, it cannot be accepted as resting on an historical basis. The efforts of the government certainly proceeded from one fundamental design, but this was the design of uniting the three kingdoms in a like obedience, not by the acceptance of Catholicism, A.D. 1640. but only by more lenient treatment of it; according to the King’s idea, Great Britain far from again becoming a satellite of the Papacy, was, on the contrary, to describe its own course as an independent portion of the universe, while external influence was to be neutralised. But nevertheless Pym’s assertions made a great impression even in England. In the religious conflict which filled the world neutrality might well seem to be partiality to one side; the danger lay, not merely in the intention of the ruler, but in the nature of things, which often exercises an influence even beyond that of individuals.
The controversy was connected with a question which has always been one of the most important in those countries which have a highly developed representative constitution. When, on April 23, at the wish of the government the proposal was made to allow the granting of subsidies to precede the discussion of grievances, this proposal, after long debate, was rejected in the House of Commons; it was thought that it ought not to set so bad an example to posterity. The House came to a resolution to grant no money, unless it received at all events simultaneously the definite assurance of redress on those three points under which all others were comprised—security for religion, for property, and for Parliamentary liberties.
By this resolution the House of Commons at once placed itself in opposition to the intentions of the government, which required grants of money without delay. For what a wide prospect must have been opened by the discussion of these points even in a friendly and indulgent spirit! On the evening of the same day a meeting of the Privy Council was held, and, at Strafford’s proposal, although not without opposition, a resolution was taken to bring the matter before the House of Lords. Not that the power of granting subsidies was ascribed to that House; the formal question was laid before it, whether the King ought first to give satisfaction to his subjects, or to expect satisfaction from them[173]. In the A.D. 1640. House of Lords a tendency in favour of the opposition was not wanting: the Earls of Southampton and Rutland, and Lords Say and Brooke were against the King’s proposal. But the majority were still decidedly in favour of the government; and a resolution was passed that the satisfaction to be given to the King must precede the discussion of grievances[174]. The members of Convocation without waiting any longer granted the King six subsidies. The House of Commons in great excitement remarked that its rights were thereby trenched upon, as the granting of subsidies belonged to that House alone[175]. Hereon the House of Lords once more took the matter into consideration on the 29th of April; but on a second division they arrived at just the same result as before. The Lords again took the side of the government by a majority of twenty votes.