In 1628 a new Parliament was called. In this House the Petition of Right was drawn up, in which, among other things, it was claimed that no man should be compelled to pay any kind of tax without the consent of Parliament.

Charles gave way, secretly, after his manner, reserving certain rights of his own, as that of imprisonment without appeal. The City knew nothing of this duplicity; bells were rung; bonfires lighted; it was assumed that the King had honestly given way, and the House granted a subsidy. Then came the news of Buckingham’s murder.

There were two of Charles’s friends, and only two, for whom the City afterwards entertained a hatred equal to that they felt for Buckingham. But at that moment there was no one whose death was so ardently desired. When the news was brought to London, grave citizens drank the health of Felton. When the murderer was brought to London, the crowd followed praying that the Lord would comfort him. Such was the mind of the City towards the man whom Eliot had impeached; they received the news of his murder with savage exultation. Then Charles made Laud Bishop of London—the third of the three men whose death a few years later the City welcomed with shouts of joy. It was not enough to trample on the liberties of the people, he must now proceed to deprive them of their religion. The memorable sitting in the House when the Speaker was held in his chair while the Commons passed resolution after resolution against innovations in religion and the illegal levy of taxes, belongs to national history. It was with passionate excitement, hardly restrained from tumult, that the news of this sitting and these resolutions was received in the City. There were as yet no newspapers to furnish day by day a report of the proceedings in the House, but the tidings of each protest of the Commons and each arbitrary measure of the King flew through the streets of the City as quickly as if by means of the daily paper, so that every house was filled with the angry murmurs of the citizens, and men in the streets and on ’Change looked at each other and asked what would happen next.

Yet no word of armed resistance. The old time when one King could be put down and another set up in his place was forgotten. Rebellion was not yet even thought of. The Parliament was dissolved.

Laud, free to do what he pleased, proceeded whither his pleasure led him. What he did is national history. The people of London, of whom nine-tenths were Puritans (see [p. 137]), or, at least, strong Protestants, saw with rage the severance of the ties connecting the Church of England with the foreign Protestant churches; they saw the forcible introduction of rites and ceremonies offensive to Puritan feeling; the expulsion of Puritan clergy; the suppression of Puritan lectures; the prohibition of the Geneva Bible, loved by all the people; the desecration, as they thought, of their so-called Sabbath; the restoration of ritualism; the return, as they believed, to Rome.

There seemed no hope of redress. The High Church party were in power; the return to Rome seemed certain.

It was at this time (1629–1640) that the first great emigration to America took place. It was an emigration of men and women of every station and every trade; there were men of family and property among them; there were also husbandmen and humble craftsmen; 1700 emigrants went out in one year, 1630; in eleven years (1629–1640) 20,000 went away. It seems as if the magnitude of the emigration should have caused uneasiness, but probably the exodus of 2000 people a year, many of whom went abroad to better themselves without regard to religion, was considered to be useful to the plantations, and, so far as they departed for the sake of religion, in no way prejudicial to the State.

The lists published in The Original Emigrants to America show that from the Port of London—the only port we need mention here—in the year 1635 there were embarked and were transported—not in a criminal sense—no fewer than 4890 emigrants, a fourth part of the whole number mentioned above. There must have been some special reason for the departure of so many in one year. We may find it, perhaps, in the tyrannical and oppressive proceedings of Laud. He had deprived the French and Flemish refugees of their right to worship after their own manner, and thousands emigrated in consequence; he had assumed a censorship of the Press which forbade such books as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs; he restored the “wakes” or dedication feasts, the church ales, the Sunday sports, the surplice, kneeling at the Communion; he insisted on uniformity of worship; these are sufficient causes for the great emigration of 1635. The book in which I find the names of the emigrants gives them in separate lists according to the ships in which they sailed; in most cases it gives their ages, in a few cases their occupation and station—unfortunately in very few cases. Again, in some cases the list gives the name of the parish where the statutory declaration was made, viz. the oaths of allegiance, that of conformity to the Church of England, and the assurance that the emigrant was not a “subsidy man”—that is to say, a person owing money to the State on account of subsidy due. One need not attach much importance to this declaration, as yet no one had begun to dispute the duty of allegiance; the Church of England included the Puritans, and as regards the subsidy, those who were of humble rank owed nothing; those of the better sort may very well have protested that they owed nothing—as by a strictly legal view they did not.

It is a great pity that the names of the places from which the emigrants came are not always indicated. We cannot, for instance, learn how far this movement affected London. Certain City parishes are given in which the emigrants made the statutory declaration, but in the majority of cases the parishes are not indicated. I have compiled a table, manifestly very incomplete, of those parishes which are mentioned. It is quite evident that many of the lists belong to London, though the fact is not stated. Thus there seems no reason why St. Katherine’s—is it St. Katherine Cree or St. Katherine Coleman, or St. Katherine’s by the Tower?—should have sent out 157 emigrants; St. Mildred’s, Bread Street, 27; and other London parishes two or three only.