A history of England principally in the seventeenth century, Volume 2 (of 6)

by Leopold von Ranke

The majority of the Lower House besides was strongly inclined to exclusiveness. They would endure no one in the House who had shared in the exaction of the last imposts, no monopolist, no projector, above all no one who was prevented by his creed from joining in the Eucharist according to the Anglican ritual. The Lower House could not be regarded as an assembly of lawgivers who intended to establish the principles of equal justice for all: their hostility to the royal prerogative led them rather to endeavour to renew, with other laws, those statutes against the Catholics which had been passed in the hottest times of the religious contest. All breaches of positive law, according to their understanding of it, they were resolved to punish as offences, without any regard to royal prerogative. Everything breathed a decidedly aggressive spirit. In parliamentary meetings of the leading members this course was systematically planned, and the resolution taken that the Lower House should act as a sort of high court of enquiry for the kingdom. While it was thought expedient to combine all grounds of complaint in one great remonstrance, it was generally agreed to spare the King, to ignore his personal share, and always to mention his name with respect[213]. All the blame was to be cast on his advisers. They went through the list of men who had most participated in the misgovernment, in the Privy Council, on the episcopal and judicial benches, finding many who might be held criminally responsible, and ending with the special confidential advisers of the King, the junta by which affairs had been managed hitherto, and against which both kingdoms had common grounds of complaint. Hence one of the hardest and weightiest questions of parliamentary life came again to the front. When James I and Charles raised their favourites to the highest posts, so that men who were their mere personal dependants wielded the whole power of the State, we have seen already how often and how zealously both Lords and Commons resisted such A.D. 1640. inclinations. Charles I was always extremely sensitive on this point: more than once parliaments were dissolved because they harped on this topic. For a long time Charles I had ceased to have any personal favourites, but the leading members of his government identified themselves with his absolutist and anti-parliamentary policy. It must be left undecided whether the schemes of the administration originated chiefly with the King or his ministers: they were agreed in the idea of a government to be carried on essentially through prerogative. This intimate connexion between the royal authority and the holders of administrative power decided the leaders of the Parliament to begin operations by an attack on the ministers. Not that they were convinced that the ministers had in fact acted independently of the King, and merely covered with his name their own wills and purposes; but a few great examples would re-establish the right which Parliament had enjoyed in early centuries, and sometimes exercised in later times, to bring men of the highest position before its tribunal, to subject the administration to its control, and render it responsible. On this very ground King Charles had avoided convoking parliaments, because he feared the reappearance of this demand, which touched the very sources of his power, the means by which the general direction of affairs devolve on the crown. Now however in the course of events a Parliament was assembled in which his opponents had the upper hand: what was to prevent a return to the policy of earlier Parliaments? No one as yet entertained, at any rate consciously, the purpose of overthrowing the monarchy; but it was intended to confine its operations within narrow limits, and to ensure the preponderance of the parliamentary over the royal authority. They wished too to destroy the ministers, to take vengeance on those whom they had hitherto been compelled to fear, from whom they had suffered personal wrongs: it was now the ministers’ turn to experience a reverse of fortune, and feel the power of their enemies.

No one was better qualified to lead the attack than John Pym, who had himself announced it in the above-mentioned speech. As in former years he had contended against Cranfield A.D. 1640. at the side of Buckingham, then against the latter himself, so too it was well remembered, at least by members of Parliament, with what effect he had battled against Montague and Manwaring[214].

At the time that Wentworth deserted the popular party, Pym is said to have told him that he was going headlong to destruction. This was the man who now for a long time had most thoroughly personified royalist tendencies: on him the first and decisive attack must be made. Pym had for some time been preparing to bring about the fulfilment of his own prediction. When therefore, at the beginning of the appointment of committees, Pym proposed that the affairs of Ireland should be debated in a committee of the whole house, every one saw what his object was. The friends of the Viceroy demanded a separate committee. But the majority on which Pym could reckon when it came to actual impeachment, were on his side in the preliminary question also: by a trifling majority, but still in legal form, the resolution was adopted that the whole house should form the committee on Irish affairs.

It has always excited surprise that Wentworth Earl of Strafford appeared in Parliament at all. For even if he could have deceived himself so far as not to believe that impeachment and danger to his life awaited him, yet obviously he would have been much safer with the army, or in Ireland, or abroad. It has been said that he represented the whole case to the King[215], but that the latter, who still thought himself strong enough to protect his friends under all circumstances, reassured him, and requested his presence on the ground that A.D. 1640 he could not dispense with his advice. We need not however believe that Strafford trusted to this assurance. He knew full well, and avowed the knowledge, that there was a necessity which overruled the King’s good-will, for owing to the presence of the Scottish army he was in a measure at the mercy of the Puritans. But his friends implored him to come, in order to prevent blunders and follies such as had already been committed. Very unwillingly he tore himself away from Wodehouse, his country seat: but he desired to obey the King’s wish, and not to be untrue to his party. Moreover he had some confidence in his cause: it is asserted that he had in his hands proofs of an alliance between his enemies and the Scots which could be construed as treason, and that he intended to found thereon an impeachment against them.

Accusation against accusation: but the one depended on the notions of old English loyalty; the other had as its motive and aim the idea of parliamentary government: the former treated as high treason the alliance with the Scots, the latter the war against them. Their opposition corresponded to that between the chief combatants, and the principles embraced by each. Had the King obtained the upper hand in the field, perhaps the first might have prevailed: but after he had sustained a political defeat, the success of the second became more probable.

Strafford came to London on November 10, and that evening had an audience at Whitehall: next morning he appeared in the Upper House to take his seat, and then repaired again to Whitehall. There he was informed that the Commons were busy with an impeachment against him: he replied that he would look his enemies in the face. On this morning, the 11th, the chamber in which the Commons assembled was closed and the key laid on the table, in order that no one might absent himself, and no stranger might come into the house. All other business was set aside, in order that the house might devote itself to the impeachment of Strafford. A committee of seven members, among whom were Pym and Hampden, was deputed to draw it up: after their draft had been approved, Pym himself was appointed to carry it to the Upper House. At the head of about three hundred members he appeared A.D. 1640 before them: ‘My Lords,’ said he, ‘in the name of the Commons of Parliament and of the country I impeach Thomas Earl of Strafford, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, of high treason. I am commissioned to request that he be removed from Parliament and committed to prison.’ The Lords had come to no conclusion when Strafford, with haughty and lowering demeanour, entered the house and went towards his seat. In the morning he had been received by every one with respect, now a hollow murmur greeted him. He might have intended to take part in the debate, and so have the opportunity of at once taking his own line, but he was obliged to retire into the antechamber until a resolution was taken respecting him. The Upper House could not well do otherwise than assent to the request of the Commons. The Viceroy, who in the morning was regarded by most men as lord and master of the executive power of England, was seen in the afternoon to kneel at the bar of the Upper House, and in obedience to the commands which he there received, follow the gentleman-usher to his house as a prisoner[216].

Prosecution was now of necessity directed also against the man whom the English and Scottish Puritans regarded as the source of those torrents of destruction which had overflowed the Church, Archbishop Laud. On December 18 an impeachment for high treason against him was laid before the Upper House, and his arrest ordered. Rising from prayer in his chapel, he entered the barge which was to carry him to the Tower: he was confident of so defending himself before Parliament as to make the justice of his cause obvious; but had this been more irreproachable than it was, he had as little chance of making it prevail, before a Parliament such as was then assembled, as the Puritans had had before his own spiritual tribunals.

Inferior in external dignity, but not less important in fact, was the office of Secretary Windebank, who, as his letters show, exercised much influence over the King, and enjoyed the confidence of the Queen: he was not only favourable to Spain, like Strafford, but also inclined towards Catholicism. A.D. 1640 The chief articles of an impeachment against him were already drawn up. His impending arrest was a danger not merely to himself, but to all who were associated with him: it was feared that in the proceedings against Strafford and Laud he would be compelled to give evidence which would destroy them utterly. With one of his subordinates who knew as much as himself, he avoided arrest by flight into France: he had a pass from the King[217]. The French minister hastened to warn his government against him, as a very suspicious person.

Meanwhile the impeachment against John Lord Finch had been prepared by examination of the judges, over whom he had exercised illegitimate influence in the matter of ship-money. His friends prevailed so far that he was first heard once more in his defence. Quitting the woolsack in the Upper House, in his official dress, the great seal of the kingdom, with the bag which held it, in his hand, he appeared before the Commons. The excuses which he alleged were not positively false: moreover he was able to plead some attempts to defend and shelter the preachers. These actions, the beauty and eloquence of his language, and his tone of submission, won him a certain amount of sympathy. Nevertheless impeachment and imprisonment would undoubtedly have been his lot, had not his friends succeeded in interposing sufficient delay to allow of his also taking to flight. He sent the great seal secretly to the king, and took ship for Holland[218].

Thus the men to whose hands had been committed all the chief offices of state in the army, the Church, the law, foreign affairs, were banished or imprisoned: in one way or another Parliament proceeded further to make sure of the most interested judges, the most confidential friends of Strafford, the most active bishops. All those who had taken a consenting and active part in the government saw themselves A.D. 1640 personally threatened. Not only a change of persons, but an alteration of the mode of government had to be achieved: there was a complete and systematic revolution of principles. It was now definitely established that Parliamentary privilege was the fundamental law of the realm, and that every infringement of it, although with the King’s approval, should be punished as a crime. Henceforth there was a change in the power, an offence against which constituted high treason: formerly it was the King, now it was the entire Parliamentary body. In their hands was the sword of vengeance: the victims of the Star Chamber were set free, the members of the tribunal impeached.