20. The Monopolies Condemned. 1621.—The Commons, therefore, in looking for abuses, had no lack of subjects on which to complain. They lighted upon monopolies. James, soon after his accession, had abolished most of those left by Elizabeth, but the number had been increased partly through a wish to encourage home manufactures, and partly from a desire to regulate commerce. One set of persons, for example, had the sole right of making glass, because they bound themselves to heat their furnaces with coal instead of wood, and thus spared the trees needed for shipbuilding. Others had the sole right of making gold and silver thread, because they engaged to import all the precious metals they wanted, it being thought, in those days, that the precious metals alone constituted wealth, and that England would therefore be impoverished if English gold and silver were wasted on personal adornment. There is no doubt that courtiers received payments from persons interested in these grants, but the amount of such payments was grossly exaggerated, and the Commons imagined that these and similar grievances owed their existence merely to the desire to fill the pockets of Buckingham and his favourites. There was, therefore, a loud outcry in Parliament. One of the main promoters of these schemes, Sir Giles Mompesson, fled the kingdom. Others were punished, and the monopolies recalled by the king, though as yet no act was passed declaring them to be illegal.
Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Alban, Lord Chancellor: from the National Portrait Gallery.
21. The Fall of Bacon. 1621.—After this the Commons turned upon Bacon. He was now Lord Chancellor, and had lived to find that his good advice was never followed. He had, nevertheless, been an active and upright judge. The Commons, however, distrusted him as having supported grants of monopolies, and, when charges of bribery were brought against him, sent them up to the Lords for enquiry. At first Bacon thought a political trick was being played against him. He soon discovered that he had thoughtlessly taken gifts even before judgment had been given, though if they had been taken after judgment, he would—according to the custom of the time—have been considered innocent. His own opinion of the case was probably the true one. His sentence, he said, was 'just, and for reformation's sake fit.' Yet he was 'the justest Chancellor' that had been since his father's time, his father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, having creditably occupied under Elizabeth the post which he himself filled under James. He was stripped of office, fined, and imprisoned. His imprisonment, however, was extremely brief, and his fine was ultimately remitted. Though his trial was not exactly like that of the old impeachments, it was practically the revival of the system of impeachments which had been disused since the days of Henry VI. It was a sign that the power of Parliament was increasing and that of the king growing less.
22. Digby's Mission, and the Dissolution of Parliament. 1621.—The king announced to Parliament that he was about to send an ambassador to Vienna to induce the Emperor Ferdinand to be content with the re-conquest of Bohemia, and to leave Frederick undisturbed in the Palatinate. Parliament was therefore adjourned, in order to give time for the result of this embassy to be known; and the Commons, at their last sitting, declared—with wild enthusiasm—that, if the embassy failed, they would support Frederick with their lives and fortunes. When Lord Digby, who was the chosen ambassador, returned, he had done no good. Ferdinand was too anxious to push his success further, and Frederick was too anxious to make good his losses for any negotiation to be successful. The Imperialists invaded the Palatinate, and in the winter James called on Parliament—which had by that time re-assembled after the adjournment—for money sufficient to defend the Palatinate till he had made one more diplomatic effort. The Commons, believing that the king's alliance with Spain was the root of all evil, petitioned him to marry his son to a Protestant lady, and plainly showed their wish to see him at war with Spain. James replied that the Commons had no right to discuss matters on which he had not consulted them. They drew up a protestation asserting their right to discuss all matters of public concernment. James tore it out of their journal-book, and dissolved Parliament, though it had not yet granted him a penny.
23. The Loss of the Palatinate. 1622.—In 1614, James, being in want of money, had had recourse to a benevolence—the lawyers having advised him that, though the Act of Richard III. (see p. 342) made it illegal for him to compel its payment, there was no law against his asking his subjects to pay it voluntarily. He took the same course in 1622, and got enough to support the garrisons in the Palatinate for a few months, as many who did not like to give the money feared to provoke the king's displeasure by a refusal. Before the end of the year, however, the whole Palatinate, with the exception of one fortress, had been lost.