Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon — Volume 02

by Sir Henry Craik

When the Bill for supply was brought in by the Solicitor-General, Downing found his opportunity. He proposed a proviso, the object of which was "to make all the money that was to be raised by the Bill to be applied only to those ends to which it was given, and to no other purpose whatsoever, by what authority soever." The restrictions thus imposed upon the royal authority were viewed with jealousy by many, who found in them a renewal of that financial supremacy of the Commons which had been the symptom of the approach of the rebellion. Cromwell, it was pointed out, had himself seen the inconvenience of such restrictions, and had refused to submit to them. The proviso would have been defeated, had not Downing assured the Solicitor-General that the proviso was proposed by the King's own direction. After the House had risen, the King sent for the Solicitor- General, and "forbade him any more to oppose that proviso, for that it was much for his service." [Footnote: Ibid., p. 11.] He refused to listen to any remonstrances. "He would bear the inconveniences which would ensue upon his own account, for the benefits which would accrue." Downing took care to strengthen these favourable resolutions of the King. "He would make his Exchequer the best and the greatest bank in Europe, where all Europe would, when it was once understood, pay in their money for the certain profit it would yield, and the indubitable certainty that they should receive their money." He would, he assured the King, "erect the King's Exchequer into the same degree of credit that the Bank of Amsterdam stood upon." He forgot to tell the King that such credit could only be established by eliminating the personal influence and authority of the Crown over finance. That was no doubt a change which must come. But it formed no part of Charles's calculation, and it was opposed to Clarendon's theory of monarchy. Clarendon states the case with precision. Downing propounded his scheme

"without weighing that the security for monies so deposited in banks (such as that of Amsterdam) is the republic itself, which must expire before that security can fail; which can never be depended on in a monarchy, where the monarch's sole word can cancel all those formal provisions which can be made." [Footnote: Life, iii. 13.]

Anxious as he was for financial purity and for a due interdependence of King and Parliament, Clarendon was not disposed to part with this prerogative of the Crown. Downing and his allies were equally aware that to abandon it was no part of Charles's thoughts. It would be absurd to argue back from later days when such a claim on the part of the Crown was a thing of the past. The essence of the plan, which made it palatable to the King and the object of all Downing's scheming, was that "it was to new-model the whole Government of the country, in which the King resolved to have no more superior officers." The power of these superior officers was an incubus of which Charles longed to rid himself.

The Bill passed the House of Commons, and was brought to the Lords. Such Bills, says Clarendon in an interesting passage, [Footnote: Life, iii. 13.] "seldom stay long with the Lords."

"Of custom, which they call privilege, they are first begun in the House of Commons, where they endure long deliberation, and when they are adjusted there, they seem to pass through the House of Peers with the reading twice and formal commitment, in which any alterations are very rarely made, except in any impositions which are laid upon their (i.e. the Lords') own persons." "The same endorsement that is sent up by the Commons is usually the Bill itself that is presented to the King for his royal assent."

It is to be observed that Clarendon is speaking of custom only, not of right; and he is careful to add that such Bills are "no more valid without their (the Lords') consent than without that of the other (the Commons); and they may alter any clause in them that they do not think for the good of the people." Only "the Lords use not to put any stop on the passage of such Bills, much less diminish what is offered by them to the King."

But in spite of such usage, the new provisions of the Bill so alarmed those in the House of Lords who understood the matter, as to prompt them to an alteration. Both the Chancellor and the Treasurer were confined by illness, and neither of them had received notice of the Bill. It was only when their colleagues in the House of Lords informed them of its purport that they resolved to resist what they believed to be a deadly blow to the power of the Crown, albeit dealt with the sanction and active approval of the King.

By this time Ashley, who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, found his own prerogatives threatened, had definitely ranged himself against those with whom he had been associated in plotting against Clarendon and Southampton. His fertile wit supplied new arguments, and helped him to alarm the King. Charles

"was contented that the matter should be debated in his presence; and because the Chancellor was in his bed, thought his chamber to be the fittest place for the consultation; and the Lord Treasurer, though indisposed and apprehensive of the gout, could yet use his feet, and was very willing to attend his Majesty there, without the least imagining that he was aimed at."

Clarendon could no longer rely upon an effective ally in his aged colleague.