On the whole, this part of the impeachment seems to have fallen to the ground; and we are disposed to credit Clarendon, who states that though “investigated in a time of great licence, ‘no criminality was discovered.’” King Charles also became afterwards the subject of aspersions on this point--one of those slanderous and impossible accusations that weaken all the previous charges, and taint them with the hue of malice.

It is remarkable, as Hume observes, that the most vulnerable point in Lord Bristol’s attack was altogether ignored by the Commons in this “large impeachment.” The most blamable circumstance in Buckingham’s whole life, as the same historian observes, was the Duke’s conduct in breaking the Spanish treaty, and in hurrying the nation into a war in order to gratify his private passions. But there was a general conviction of the insincerity of Spain; and the unjustifiable conduct of the Duke, in the affairs relative to that country, was suffered to escape unnoticed, whilst charges, almost untenable, were got up in the hope of ruining him with the King.

Charles was, however, infatuated. His youth and inexperience, the pernicious example set him by his father, plead for him, but nothing can extenuate the want of manly boldness in Buckingham, in not facing his foes and demanding a trial. His answers to the impeachment, thirteen in number, were, it is true, to borrow the words of Sir Henry Wotton, “very diligently and civilly couched,” and “savoured of an humble spirit, though his heart was big.” One consideration swayed with the public, which was, that in the “bolting and sifting of near fourteen years of such power and favour, all that came out could not be expected to be pure and white, and fine metal; but must needs have withal among it a certain mixture of padars and bran in this lower range of humane fragility.”[[318]]

The Duke’s answers were very clear and satisfactory,[[319]] and his address to the Lords appears to have been ingenuous and courteous. He reminded them how full of danger and prejudice it was to give too ready an ear, too easy a belief, to reports and testimony not upon oath; upon such allegations none ought, he argued, to be condemned. Then, with a grace that was natural to him, he acknowledged, with humility, “how easy a thing it was for him in his younger years, when inexperienced, to fall into thousands of errors in these two years wherein he had the honour to serve so great and so open-hearted a master.”[[320]] He concluded with professions of attachment to the Church of England, hoping that for the future “he might watch over all his actions, public and private, so as not to give cause of just offence to any one.” And such was probably his sincere determination; and Buckingham, had he lived, might have proved an excellent and, as times went, an honest minister.

The answer of Buckingham, as well as the speech of the King to his Commons, on the 29th of March, was ascribed to the pen of Laud; but Heylyn disavows that statement. Yet there is little doubt that Laud prompted the Duke’s cautious and submissive reply on the one hand, and encouraged, if he did not prompt, the King’s arbitrary and unconstitutional conduct to the Commons.

The tempest, violent as it seemed, “did,” as Sir Henry Wotton remarks, “only shake and not rent” the Duke’s sails. Charles, taking as a plea that many of the accusations were not within the compass of his own reign, and also that nothing had been proved against Buckingham on oath, resolved to brave the storm in such a manner as to bring down its force upon himself.

He lost, therefore, no opportunity of showing his contempt for the House of Commons. “No one,” Hume observes, “was at that time sufficiently sensible of the great weight which the Commons bore in the balance of the Constitution.” Nothing but “fatal experience could induce the English princes to pay a due regard to the inclinations of that formidable assembly.”[[321]]

“This was indeed,” Lord Campbell remarks, “the great crisis of the English Constitution. Had our distinguished patriots then quailed, Parliaments would thenceforth have been merely the subject of antiquarian research, or perhaps occasionally summoned to register the edicts of the Crown”[Crown”][[322]] “The state,” as Sir Edward Coke declared in Parliament, “was in a consumption, yet not incurable.” It was his courage and honesty that helped to effect a cure.

Charles, considering that he was himself aimed at in the allegations against the Duke, commanded the House expressly not to interfere with his servant Buckingham, and ordered it to conclude the bill for the subsidies which they had begun, intimating that if that were not done it should sit no longer. Instead of referring the case to the Lords, and insisting on the affair being brought to a trial before that body, he went himself to the House of Lords, and declared his intention of clearing the Duke by his own testimony. The Commons had, on that very day, moved that the Duke should be committed to the Tower until the issue of his trial should be known. That motion was rejected; in vain did Buckingham attempt to explain and soften down this conduct in a speech to the Lords. Sir Dudley Digges and Sir John Eliot were thrown into prison, and although they were soon liberated, the Commons immediately declared that they would not proceed with any business whatsoever until satisfaction should be given for this breach of privilege.

Unhappily, all these discords were aggravated nearly to frenzy by the bitterest of all passions--religious intolerance. Whilst we must applaud, with all gratitude, the lofty and honest spirit which opposed acts of despotism--a spirit to which we owe our present pre-eminence as a free and powerful nation--we must deprecate the remorseless oppressions which the friends of liberty scrupled not to inflict on those who thought on religious matters differently from themselves.