No More Learning

Luther had evinced his own opinion in the clearest manner, by espousing
a nun. Some of the most illustrious bishops and priests who had died by
fire during the reign of Mary had left wives and children. Now, however,
it began to be rumoured that the old monastic spirit had reappeared
in the Church of England; that there was in high quarters a prejudice
against married priests; that even laymen, who called themselves
Protestants, had made resolutions of celibacy which almost amounted
to vows; nay, that a minister of the established religion had set up a
nunnery, in which the psalms were chaunted at midnight, by a company of
virgins dedicated to God. [11]

Nor was this all. A class of questions, as to which the founders of the
Anglican Church and the first generation of Puritans had differed
little or not at all, began to furnish matter for fierce disputes. The
controversies which had divided the Protestant body in its infancy had
related almost exclusively to Church government and to ceremonies. There
had been no serious quarrel between the contending parties on points of
metaphysical theology. The doctrines held by the chiefs of the hierarchy
touching original sin, faith, grace, predestination, and election,
were those which are popularly called Calvinistic. Towards the close of
Elizabeth's reign her favourite prelate, Archbishop Whitgift, drew
up, in concert with the Bishop of London and other theologians, the
celebrated instrument known by the name of the Lambeth Articles. In that
instrument the most startling of the Calvinistic doctrines are affirmed
with a distinctness which would shock many who, in our age, are reputed
Calvinists. One clergyman, who took the opposite side, and spoke harshly
of Calvin, was arraigned for his presumption by the University of
Cambridge, and escaped punishment only by expressing his firm belief in
the tenets of reprobation and final perseverance, and his sorrow for
the offence which he had given to pious men by reflecting on the great
French reformer. The school of divinity of which Hooker was the chief
occupies a middle place between the school of Cranmer and the school of
Laud; and Hooker has, in modern times, been claimed by the Arminians
as an ally. Yet Hooker pronounced Calvin to have been a man superior
in wisdom to any other divine that France had produced, a man to whom
thousands were indebted for the knowledge of divine truth, but who was
himself indebted to God alone. When the Arminian controversy arose
in Holland, the English government and the English Church lent strong
support to the Calvinistic party; nor is the English name altogether
free from the stain which has been left on that party by the
imprisonment of Grocius and the judicial murder of Barneveldt.

But, even before the meeting of the Dutch synod, that part of the
Anglican clergy which was peculiarly hostile to the Calvinistic Church
government and to the Calvinistic worship had begun to regard with
dislike the Calvinistic metaphysics; and this feeling was very naturally
strengthened by the gross injustice, insolence, and cruelty of the party
which was prevalent at Dort. The Arminian doctrine, a doctrine less
austerely logical than that of the early Reformers, but more agreeable
to the popular notions of the divine justice and benevolence, spread
fast and wide. The infection soon reached the court. Opinions which
at the time of the accession of James, no clergyman could have avowed
without imminent risk of being stripped of his gown, were now the best
title to preferment. A divine of that age, who was asked by a simple
country gentleman what the Arminians held, answered, with as much truth
as wit, that they held all the best bishoprics and deaneries in England.

While the majority of the Anglican clergy quitted, in one direction, the
position which they had originally occupied, the majority of the
Puritan body departed, in a direction diametrically opposite, from the
principles and practices of their fathers. The persecution which the
separatists had undergone had been severe enough to irritate, but not
severe enough to destroy. They had been, not tamed into submission, but
baited into savageness and stubborness. After the fashion of oppressed
sects, they mistook their own vindictive feelings for emotions of piety,
encouraged in themselves by reading and meditation, a disposition to
brood over their wrongs, and, when they had worked themselves up into
hating their enemies, imagined that they were only hating the enemies
of heaven. In the New Testament there was little indeed which, even when
perverted by the most disingenuous exposition, could seem to countenance
the indulgence of malevolent passions. But the Old Testament contained
the history of a race selected by God to be witnesses of his unity and
ministers of his vengeance, and specially commanded by him to do many
things which, if done without his special command, would have been
atrocious crimes. In such a history it was not difficult for fierce
and gloomy spirits to find much that might be distorted to suit their
wishes. The extreme Puritans therefore began to feel for the Old
Testament a preference, which, perhaps, they did not distinctly avow
even to themselves; but which showed itself in all their sentiments and
habits. They paid to the Hebrew language a respect which they refused
to that tongue in which the discourses of Jesus and the epistles of Paul
have come down to us. They baptized their children by the names, not of
Christian saints, but of Hebrew patriarchs and warriors. In defiance
of the express and reiterated declarations of Luther and Calvin, they
turned the weekly festival by which the Church had, from the primitive
times, commemorated the resurrection of her Lord, into a Jewish Sabbath.
They sought for principles of jurisprudence in the Mosaic law, and for
precedents to guide their ordinary conduct in the books of Judges
and Kings. Their thoughts and discourse ran much on acts which were
assuredly not recorded as examples for our imitation. The prophet who
hewed in pieces a captive king, the rebel general who gave the blood of
a queen to the dogs, the matron who, in defiance of plighted faith, and
of the laws of eastern hospitality, drove the nail into the brain of the
fugitive ally who had just fed at her board, and who was sleeping under
the shadow of her tent, were proposed as models to Christians suffering
under the tyranny of princes and prelates. Morals and manners were
subjected to a code resembling that of the synagogue, when the synagogue
was in its worst state. The dress, the deportment, the language, the
studies, the amusements of the rigid sect were regulated on principles
not unlike those of the Pharisees who, proud of their washed hands and
broad phylacteries, taunted the Redeemer as a sabbath-breaker and a
winebibber. It was a sin to hang garlands on a Maypole, to drink a
friend's health, to fly a hawk, to hunt a stag, to play at chess, to
wear love-locks, to put starch into a ruff, to touch the virginals,
to read the Fairy Queen. Rules such as these, rules which would have
appeared insupportable to the free and joyous spirit of Luther, and
contemptible to the serene and philosophical intellect of Zwingle, threw
over all life a more than monastic gloom. The learning and eloquence by
which the great Reformers had been eminently distinguished, and to which
they had been, in no small measure, indebted for their success, were
regarded by the new school of Protestants with suspicion, if not with
aversion. Some precisians had scruples about teaching the Latin grammar,
because the names of Mars, Bacchus, and Apollo occurred in it. The
fine arts were all but proscribed. The solemn peal of the organ was
superstitious. The light music of Ben Jonson's masques was dissolute.
Half the fine paintings in England were idolatrous, and the other half
indecent. The extreme Puritan was at once known from other men by his
gait, his garb, his lank hair, the sour solemnity of his face, the
upturned white of his eyes, the nasal twang with which he spoke, and
above all, by his peculiar dialect. He employed, on every occasion, the
imagery and style of Scripture. Hebraisms violently introduced into the
English language, and metaphors borrowed from the boldest lyric poetry
of a remote age and country, and applied to the common concerns of
English life, were the most striking peculiarities of this cant,
which moved, not without cause, the derision both of Prelatists and
libertines.

Thus the political and religious schism which had originated in the
sixteenth century was, during the first quarter of the seventeenth
century, constantly widening. Theories tending to Turkish despotism
were in fashion at Whitehall. Theories tending to republicanism were
in favour with a large portion of the House of Commons. The violent
Prelatists who were, to a man, zealous for prerogative, and the violent
Puritans who were, to a man, zealous for the privileges of Parliament,
regarded each other with animosity more intense than that which, in the
preceding generation, had existed between Catholics and Protestants.

While the minds of men were in this state, the country, after a peace
of many years, at length engaged in a war which required strenuous
exertions. This war hastened the approach of the great constitutional
crisis. It was necessary that the King should have a large military
force. He could not have such a force without money. He could not
legally raise money without the consent of Parliament. It followed,
therefore, that he either must administer the government in conformity
with the sense of the House of Commons, or must venture on such a
violation of the fundamental laws of the land as had been unknown during
several centuries. The Plantagenets and the Tudors had, it is true,
occasionally supplied a deficiency in their revenue by a benevolence or
a forced loan: but these expedients were always of a temporary nature.
To meet the regular charge of a long war by regular taxation, imposed
without the consent of the Estates of the realm, was a course which
Henry the Eighth himself would not have dared to take. It seemed,
therefore, that the decisive hour was approaching, and that the English
Parliament would soon either share the fate of the senates of the
Continent, or obtain supreme ascendency in the state.

Just at this conjuncture James died. Charles the First succeeded to the
throne. He had received from nature a far better understanding, a far
stronger will, and a far keener and firmer temper than his father's.
He had inherited his father's political theories, and was much more
disposed than his father to carry them into practice. He was, like his
father, a zealous Episcopalian. He was, moreover, what his father had
never been, a zealous Arminian, and, though no Papist, liked a Papist
much better than a Puritan. It would be unjust to deny that Charles had
some of the qualities of a good, and even of a great prince. He wrote
and spoke, not, like his father, with the exactness of a professor, but
after the fashion of intelligent and well educated gentlemen. His taste
in literature and art was excellent, his manner dignified, though not
gracious, his domestic life without blemish. Faithlessness was the chief
cause of his disasters, and is the chief stain on his memory. He was, in
truth, impelled by an incurable propensity to dark and crooked ways.
It may seem strange that his conscience, which, on occasions of little
moment, was sufficiently sensitive, should never have reproached
him with this great vice. But there is reason to believe that he was
perfidious, not only from constitution and from habit, but also on
principle. He seems to have learned from the theologians whom he most
esteemed that between him and his subjects there could be nothing of the
nature of mutual contract; that he could not, even if he would, divest
himself of his despotic authority; and that, in every promise which he
made, there was an implied reservation that such promise might be broken
in case of necessity, and that of the necessity he was the sole judge.

And now began that hazardous game on which were staked the destinies of
the English people. It was played on the side of the House of Commons
with keenness, but with admirable dexterity, coolness, and perseverance.
Great statesmen who looked far behind them and far before them were at
the head of that assembly. They were resolved to place the King in such
a situation that he must either conduct the administration in conformity
with the wishes of his Parliament, or make outrageous attacks on the
most sacred principles of the constitution. They accordingly doled out
supplies to him very sparingly. He found that he must govern either in
harmony with the House of Commons or in defiance of all law. His choice
was soon made. He dissolved his first Parliament, and levied taxes by
his own authority. He convoked a second Parliament, and found it more
intractable than the first. He again resorted to the expedient of
dissolution, raised fresh taxes without any show of legal right, and
threw the chiefs of the opposition into prison At the same time a new
grievance, which the peculiar feelings and habits of the English nation
made insupportably painful, and which seemed to all discerning men to
be of fearful augury, excited general discontent and alarm. Companies
of soldiers were billeted on the people; and martial law was, in some
places, substituted for the ancient jurisprudence of the realm.

The King called a third Parliament, and soon perceived that the
opposition was stronger and fiercer than ever. He now determined on a
change of tactics. Instead of opposing an inflexible resistance to the
demands of the Commons, he, after much altercation and many evasions,
agreed to a compromise which, if he had faithfully adhered to it, would
have averted a long series of calamities. The Parliament granted
an ample supply. The King ratified, in the most solemn manner, that
celebrated law, which is known by the name of the Petition of Right,
and which is the second Great Charter of the liberties of England. By
ratifying that law he bound himself never again to raise money without
the consent of the Houses, never again to imprison any person, except
in due course of law, and never again to subject his people to the
jurisdiction of courts martial.

The day on which the royal sanction was, after many delays, solemnly
given to this great Act, was a day of joy and hope. The Commons,
who crowded the bar of the House of Lords, broke forth into loud
acclamations as soon as the clerk had pronounced the ancient form of
words by which our princes have, during many ages, signified their
assent to the wishes of the Estates of the realm. Those acclamations
were reechoed by the voice of the capital and of the nation; but
within three weeks it became manifest that Charles had no intention of
observing the compact into which he had entered. The supply given by the
representatives of the nation was collected. The promise by which that
supply had been obtained was broken. A violent contest followed. The
Parliament was dissolved with every mark of royal displeasure. Some of
the most distinguished members were imprisoned; and one of them, Sir
John Eliot, after years of suffering, died in confinement.

Charles, however, could not venture to raise, by his own authority,
taxes sufficient for carrying on war. He accordingly hastened to make
peace with his neighbours, and thenceforth gave his whole mind to
British politics.

Now commenced a new era. Many English Kings had occasionally committed
unconstitutional acts: but none had ever systematically attempted to
make himself a despot, and to reduce the Parliament to a nullity. Such
was the end which Charles distinctly proposed to himself. From March
1629 to April 1640, the Houses were not convoked. Never in our history
had there been an interval of eleven years between Parliament and
Parliament. Only once had there been an interval of even half that
length. This fact alone is sufficient to refute those who represent
Charles as having merely trodden in the footsteps of the Plantagenets
and Tudors.

It is proved, by the testimony of the King's most strenuous supporters,
that, during this part of his reign, the provisions of the Petition of
Right were violated by him, not occasionally, but constantly, and on
system; that a large part of the revenue was raised without any legal
authority; and that persons obnoxious to the government languished for
years in prison, without being ever called upon to plead before any
tribunal.

For these things history must hold the King himself chiefly responsible.
From the time of his third Parliament he was his own prime minister.
Several persons, however, whose temper and talents were suited to
his purposes, were at the head of different departments of the
administration.

Thomas Wentworth, successively created Lord Wentworth and Earl of
Strafford, a man of great abilities, eloquence, and courage, but of a
cruel and imperious nature, was the counsellor most trusted in political
and military affairs. He had been one of the most distinguished members
of the opposition, and felt towards those whom he had deserted that
peculiar malignity which has, in all ages, been characteristic of
apostates. He perfectly understood the feelings, the resources, and the
policy of the party to which he had lately belonged, and had formed a
vast and deeply meditated scheme which very nearly confounded even the
able tactics of the statesmen by whom the House of Commons had been
directed. To this scheme, in his confidential correspondence, he gave
the expressive name of Thorough. His object was to do in England all,
and more than all, that Richelieu was doing in France; to make Charles a
monarch as absolute as any on the Continent; to put the estates and the
personal liberty of the whole people at the disposal of the crown; to
deprive the courts of law of all independent authority, even in ordinary
questions of civil right between man and man; and to punish with
merciless rigour all who murmured at the acts of the government, or who
applied, even in the most decent and regular manner, to any tribunal for
relief against those acts. [12]

This was his end; and he distinctly saw in what manner alone this
end could be attained. There was, in truth, about all his notions a
clearness, a coherence, a precision, which, if he had not been pursuing
an object pernicious to his country and to his kind, would have justly
entitled him to high admiration. He saw that there was one instrument,
and only one, by which his vast and daring projects could be carried
into execution. That instrument was a standing army. To the forming of
such an army, therefore, he directed all the energy of his strong mind.
In Ireland, where he was viceroy, he actually succeeded in establishing
a military despotism, not only over the aboriginal population, but also
over the English colonists, and was able to boast that, in that island,
the King was as absolute as any prince in the whole world could be. [13]

The ecclesiastical administration was, in the meantime, principally
directed by William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. Of all the prelates
of the Anglican Church, Laud had departed farthest from the principles
of the Reformation, and had drawn nearest to Rome. His theology was more
remote than even that of the Dutch Arminians from the theology of the
Calvinists. His passion for ceremonies, his reverence for holidays,
vigils, and sacred places, his ill concealed dislike of the marriage
of ecclesiastics, the ardent and not altogether disinterested zeal
with which he asserted the claims of the clergy to the reverence of the
laity, would have made him an object of aversion to the Puritans, even
if he had used only legal and gentle means for the attainment of his
ends. But his understanding was narrow; and his commerce with the world
had been small. He was by nature rash, irritable, quick to feel for his
own dignity, slow to sympathise with the sufferings of others, and prone
to the error, common in superstitious men, of mistaking his own peevish
and malignant moods for emotions of pious zeal. Under his direction
every corner of the realm was subjected to a constant and minute
inspection. Every little congregation of separatists was tracked out and
broken up. Even the devotions of private families could not escape the
vigilance of his spies. Such fear did his rigour inspire that the
deadly hatred of the Church, which festered in innumerable bosoms, was
generally disguised under an outward show of conformity. On the very eve
of troubles, fatal to himself and to his order, the Bishops of several
extensive dioceses were able to report to him that not a single
dissenter was to be found within their jurisdiction. [14]

The tribunals afforded no protection to the subject against the civil
and ecclesiastical tyranny of that period. The judges of the common
law, holding their situations during the pleasure of the King, were
scandalously obsequious. Yet, obsequious as they were, they were less
ready and less efficient instruments of arbitrary power than a class of
courts, the memory of which is still, after the lapse of more than two
centuries, held in deep abhorrence by the nation. Foremost among
these courts in power and in infamy were the Star Chamber and the High
Commission, the former a political, the latter a religious inquisition.
Neither was a part of the old constitution of England. The Star Chamber
had been remodelled, and the High Commission created, by the Tudors. The
power which these boards had possessed before the accession of Charles
had been extensive and formidable, but had been small indeed when
compared with that which they now usurped. Guided chiefly by the violent
spirit of the primate, and free from the control of Parliament, they
displayed a rapacity, a violence, a malignant energy, which had been
unknown to any former age. The government was able through their
instrumentality, to fine, imprison, pillory, and mutilate without
restraint. A separate council which sate at York, under the presidency
of Wentworth, was armed, in defiance of law, by a pure act of
prerogative, with almost boundless power over the northern counties. All
these tribunals insulted and defied the authority of Westminster Hall,
and daily committed excesses which the most distinguished Royalists have
warmly condemned. We are informed by Clarendon that there was hardly
a man of note in the realm who had not personal experience of the
harshness and greediness of the Star Chamber, that the High Commission
had so conducted itself that it had scarce a friend left in the kingdom,
and that the tyranny of the Council of York had made the Great Charter a
dead letter on the north of the Trent.

The government of England was now, in all points but one, as despotic as
that of France. But that one point was all important. There was still no
standing army. There was therefore, no security that the whole fabric
of tyranny might not be subverted in a single day; and, if taxes were
imposed by the royal authority for the support of an army, it was
probable that there would be an immediate and irresistible explosion.
This was the difficulty which more than any other perplexed Wentworth.
The Lord Keeper Finch, in concert with other lawyers who were employed
by the government, recommended an expedient which was eagerly adopted.
The ancient princes of England, as they called on the inhabitants of the
counties near Scotland to arm and array themselves for the defence of
the border, had sometimes called on the maritime counties to furnish
ships for the defence of the coast. In the room of ships money had
sometimes been accepted. This old practice it was now determined, after
a long interval, not only to revive but to extend. Former princes had
raised shipmoney only in time of war: it was now exacted in a time of
profound peace. Former princes, even in the most perilous wars, had
raised shipmoney only along the coasts: it was now exacted from the
inland shires. Former princes had raised shipmoney only for the maritime
defence of the country: It was now exacted, by the admission of the
Royalists themselves. With the object, not of maintaining a navy, but
of furnishing the King with supplies which might be increased at
his discretion to any amount, and expended at his discretion for any
purpose.

The whole nation was alarmed and incensed. John Hampden, an opulent and
well born gentleman of Buckinghamshire, highly considered in his own
neighbourhood, but as yet little known to the kingdom generally, had the
courage to step forward, to confront the whole power of the government,
and take on himself the cost and the risk of disputing the prerogative
to which the King laid claim. The case was argued before the judges
in the Exchequer Chamber. So strong were the arguments against the
pretensions of the crown that, dependent and servile as the judges were,
the majority against Hampden was the smallest possible. Still there was
a majority. The interpreters of the law had pronounced that one great
and productive tax might be imposed by the royal authority. Wentworth
justly observed that it was impossible to vindicate their judgment
except by reasons directly leading to a conclusion which they had not
ventured to draw. If money might legally be raised without the consent
of Parliament for the support of a fleet, it was not easy to deny that
money might, without consent of Parliament, be legally raised for the
support of an army.

The decision of the judges increased the irritation of the people. A
century earlier, irritation less serious would have produced a general
rising. But discontent did not now so readily as in an earlier age take
the form of rebellion. The nation had been long steadily advancing in
wealth and in civilisation. Since the great northern Earls took up arms
against Elizabeth seventy years had elapsed; and during those seventy
years there had been no civil war. Never, during the whole existence
of the English nation, had so long a period passed without intestine
hostilities. Men had become accustomed to the pursuits of peaceful
industry, and, exasperated as they were, hesitated long before they drew
the sword.

This was the conjuncture at which the liberties of the nation were in
the greatest peril. The opponents of the government began to despair of
the destiny of their country; and many looked to the American wilderness
as the only asylum in which they could enjoy civil and spiritual
freedom. There a few resolute Puritans, who, in the cause of their
religion, feared neither the rage of the ocean nor the hardships of
uncivilised life, neither the fangs of savage beasts nor the tomahawks
of more savage men, had built, amidst the primeval forests, villages
which are now great and opulent cities, but which have, through
every change, retained some trace of the character derived from their
founders. The government regarded these infant colonies with aversion,
and attempted violently to stop the stream of emigration, but could not
prevent the population of New England from being largely recruited by
stouthearted and Godfearing men from every part of the old England.
And now Wentworth exulted in the near prospect of Thorough. A few years
might probably suffice for the execution of his great design. If
strict economy were observed, if all collision with foreign powers were
carefully avoided, the debts of the crown would be cleared off: there
would be funds available for the support of a large military force; and
that force would soon break the refractory spirit of the nation.

At this crisis an act of insane bigotry suddenly changed the whole
face of public affairs. Had the King been wise, he would have pursued a
cautious and soothing policy towards Scotland till he was master in the
South. For Scotland was of all his kingdoms that in which there was the
greatest risk that a spark might produce a flame, and that a flame might
become a conflagration. Constitutional opposition, indeed, such as he
had encountered at Westminster, he had not to apprehend at Edinburgh.
The Parliament of his northern kingdom was a very different body from
that which bore the same name in England. It was ill constituted: it was
little considered; and it had never imposed any serious restraint on
any of his predecessors. The three Estates sate in one house. The
commissioners of the burghs were considered merely as retainers of the
great nobles. No act could be introduced till it had been approved by
the Lords of Articles, a committee which was really, though not in
form, nominated by the crown. But, though the Scottish Parliament was
obsequious, the Scottish people had always been singularly turbulent and
ungovernable. They had butchered their first James in his bedchamber:
they had repeatedly arrayed themselves in arms against James the
Second; they had slain James the Third on the field of battle: their
disobedience had broken the heart of James the Fifth: they had deposed
and imprisoned Mary: they had led her son captive; and their temper was
still as intractable as ever. Their habits were rude and martial. All
along the southern border, and all along the line between the highlands
and the lowlands, raged an incessant predatory war. In every part of the
country men were accustomed to redress their wrongs by the strong hand.
Whatever loyalty the nation had anciently felt to the Stuarts had cooled
during their long absence. The supreme influence over the public mind
was divided between two classes of malecontents, the lords of the soil
and the preachers; lords animated by the same spirit which had often
impelled the old Douglasses to withstand the royal house, and preachers
who had inherited the republican opinions and the unconquerable spirit
of Knox. Both the national and religious feelings of the population
had been wounded. All orders of men complained that their country, that
country which had, with so much glory, defended her independence against
the ablest and bravest Plantagenets, had, through the instrumentality of
her native princes, become in effect, though not in name, a province
of England. In no part of Europe had the Calvinistic doctrine and
discipline taken so strong a hold on the public mind. The Church of Rome
was regarded by the great body of the people with a hatred which might
justly be called ferocious; and the Church of England, which seemed
to be every day becoming more and more like the Church of Rome, was an
object of scarcely less aversion.
The government had long wished to extend the Anglican system over the
whole island, and had already, with this view, made several changes
highly distasteful to every Presbyterian. One innovation, however, the
most hazardous of all, because it was directly cognisable by the senses
of the common people, had not yet been attempted. The public worship
of God was still conducted in the manner acceptable to the nation. Now,
however, Charles and Laud determined to force on the Scots the English
liturgy, or rather a liturgy which, wherever it differed from that of
England, differed, in the judgment of all rigid Protestants, for the
worse.

To this step, taken in the mere wantonness of tyranny, and in criminal
ignorance or more criminal contempt of public feeling, our country owes
her freedom. The first performance of the foreign ceremonies produced
a riot. The riot rapidly became a revolution. Ambition, patriotism,
fanaticism, were mingled in one headlong torrent. The whole nation was
in arms. The power of England was indeed, as appeared some years later,
sufficient to coerce Scotland: but a large part of the English people
sympathised with the religious feelings of the insurgents; and many
Englishmen who had no scruple about antiphonies and genuflexions, altars
and surplices, saw with pleasure the progress of a rebellion which
seemed likely to confound the arbitrary projects of the court, and to
make the calling of a Parliament necessary.

For the senseless freak which had produced these effects Wentworth
is not responsible. [15] It had, in fact, thrown all his plans into
confusion. To counsel submission, however, was not in his nature. An
attempt was made to put down the insurrection by the sword: but the
King's military means and military talents were unequal to the task.
To impose fresh taxes on England in defiance of law, would, at this
conjuncture, have been madness. No resource was left but a Parliament;
and in the spring of 1640 a Parliament was convoked.

The nation had been put into good humour by the prospect of seeing
constitutional government restored, and grievances redressed. The new
House of Commons was more temperate and more respectful to the throne
than any which had sate since the death of Elizabeth. The moderation
of this assembly has been highly extolled by the most distinguished
Royalists and seems to have caused no small vexation and disappointment
to the chiefs of the opposition: but it was the uniform practice of
Charles, a practice equally impolitic and ungenerous, to refuse all
compliance with the desires of his people, till those desires
were expressed in a menacing tone. As soon as the Commons showed a
disposition to take into consideration the grievances under which
the country had suffered during eleven years, the King dissolved the
Parliament with every mark of displeasure.

Between the dissolution of this shortlived assembly and the meeting
of that ever memorable body known by the name of the Long Parliament,
intervened a few months, during which the yoke was pressed down more
severely than ever on the nation, while the spirit of the nation rose up
more angrily than ever against the yoke. Members of the House of Commons
were questioned by the Privy Council touching their parliamentary
conduct, and thrown into prison for refusing to reply. Shipmoney was
levied with increased rigour. The Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs of London
were threatened with imprisonment for remissness in collecting the
payments. Soldiers were enlisted by force. Money for their support was
exacted from their counties. Torture, which had always been illegal, and
which had recently been declared illegal even by the servile judges of
that age, was inflicted for the last time in England in the month of
May, 1610.

Everything now depended on the event of the King's military operations
against the Scots. Among his troops there was little of that feeling
which separates professional soldiers from the mass of a nation, and
attaches them to their leaders. His army, composed for the most part of
recruits, who regretted the plough from which they had been violently
taken, and who were imbued with the religious and political sentiments
then prevalent throughout the country, was more formidable to himself
than to the enemy. The Scots, encouraged by the heads of the English
opposition, and feebly resisted by the English forces, marched across
the Tweed and the Tyne, and encamped on the borders of Yorkshire.
And now the murmurs of discontent swelled into an uproar by which all
spirits save one were overawed.

But the voice of Strafford was still for Thorough; and he even, in this
extremity, showed a nature so cruel and despotic, that his own pikemen
were ready to tear him in pieces.

There was yet one last expedient which, as the King flattered himself,
might save him from the misery of facing another House of Commons. To
the House of Lords he was less averse. The Bishops were devoted to
him; and though the temporal peers were generally dissatisfied with
his administration, they were, as a class, so deeply interested in the
maintenance of order, and in the stability of ancient institutions, that
they were not likely to call for extensive reforms. Departing from
the uninterrupted practice of centuries, he called a Great Council
consisting of Lords alone. But the Lords were too prudent to assume the
unconstitutional functions with which he wished to invest them. Without
money, without credit, without authority even in his own camp, he
yielded to the pressure of necessity. The Houses were convoked; and the
elections proved that, since the spring, the distrust and hatred with
which the government was regarded had made fearful progress.

In November, 1640, met that renowned Parliament which, in spite of many
errors and disasters, is justly entitled to the reverence and
gratitude of all who, in any part of the world enjoy the blessings of
constitutional government.

During the year which followed, no very important division of opinion
appeared in the Houses. The civil and ecclesiastical administration
had, through a period of nearly twelve years, been so oppressive and so
unconstitutional that even those classes of which the inclinations
are generally on the side of order and authority were eager to promote
popular reforms and to bring the instruments of tyranny to justice. It
was enacted that no interval of more than three years should ever elapse
between Parliament and Parliament, and that, if writs under the Great
Seal were not issued at the proper time, the returning officers should,
without such writs, call the constituent bodies together for the choice
of representatives. The Star Chamber, the High Commission, the Council
of York were swept away. Men who, after suffering cruel mutilations, had
been confined in remote dungeons, regained their liberty. On the chief
ministers of the crown the vengeance of the nation was unsparingly
wreaked. The Lord Keeper, the Primate, the Lord Lieutenant were
impeached. Finch saved himself by flight. Laud was flung into the Tower.
Strafford was put to death by act of attainder. On the day on which this
act passed, the King gave his assent to a law by which he bound himself
not to adjourn, prorogue, or dissolve the existing Parliament without
its own consent.

After ten months of assiduous toil, the Houses, in September 1641,
adjourned for a short vacation; and the King visited Scotland. He with
difficulty pacified that kingdom by consenting, not only to relinquish
his plans of ecclesiastical reform, but even to pass, with a very bad
grace, an act declaring that episcopacy was contrary to the word of God.

The recess of the English Parliament lasted six weeks. The day on
which the Houses met again is one of the most remarkable epochs in our
history. From that day dates the corporate existence of the two great
parties which have ever since alternately governed the country. In one
sense, indeed, the distinction which then became obvious had always
existed, and always must exist. For it has its origin in diversities
of temper, of understanding, and of interest, which are found in all
societies, and which will be found till the human mind ceases to be
drawn in opposite directions by the charm of habit and by the charm of
novelty. Not only in politics but in literature, in art, in science,
in surgery and mechanics, in navigation and agriculture, nay, even in
mathematics, we find this distinction. Everywhere there is a class of
men who cling with fondness to whatever is ancient, and who, even when
convinced by overpowering reasons that innovation would be beneficial,
consent to it with many misgivings and forebodings. We find also
everywhere another class of men, sanguine in hope, bold in speculation,
always pressing forward, quick to discern the imperfections of whatever
exists, disposed to think lightly of the risks and inconveniences which
attend improvements and disposed to give every change credit for being
an improvement. In the sentiments of both classes there is something to
approve. But of both the best specimens will be found not far from the
common frontier. The extreme section of one class consists of bigoted
dotards: the extreme section of the other consists of shallow and
reckless empirics.

There can be no doubt that in our very first Parliaments might have been
discerned a body of members anxious to preserve, and a body eager to
reform. But, while the sessions of the legislature were short, these
bodies did not take definite and permanent forms, array themselves under
recognised leaders, or assume distinguishing names, badges, and war
cries. During the first months of the Long Parliament, the indignation
excited by many years of lawless oppression was so strong and
general that the House of Commons acted as one man. Abuse after
abuse disappeared without a struggle. If a small minority of the
representative body wished to retain the Star Chamber and the High
Commission, that minority, overawed by the enthusiasm and by the
numerical superiority of the reformers, contented itself with secretly
regretting institutions which could not, with any hope of success, be
openly defended. At a later period the Royalists found it convenient to
antedate the separation between themselves and their opponents, and
to attribute the Act which restrained the King from dissolving or
proroguing the Parliament, the Triennial Act, the impeachment of
the ministers, and the attainder of Strafford, to the faction which
afterwards made war on the King. But no artifice could be more
disingenuous. Every one of those strong measures was actively promoted
by the men who were afterward foremost among the Cavaliers. No
republican spoke of the long misgovernment of Charles more severely than
Colepepper. The most remarkable speech in favour of the Triennial Bill
was made by Digby. The impeachment of the Lord Keeper was moved by
Falkland. The demand that the Lord Lieutenant should be kept close
prisoner was made at the bar of the Lords by Hyde. Not till the law
attainting Strafford was proposed did the signs of serious disunion
become visible. Even against that law, a law which nothing but extreme
necessity could justify, only about sixty members of the House of
Commons voted. It is certain that Hyde was not in the minority, and that
Falkland not only voted with the majority, but spoke strongly for the
bill. Even the few who entertained a scruple about inflicting death by
a retrospective enactment thought it necessary to express the utmost
abhorrence of Strafford's character and administration.

But under this apparent concord a great schism was latent; and when,
in October, 1641, the Parliament reassembled after a short recess, two
hostile parties, essentially the same with those which, under different
names, have ever since contended, and are still contending, for the
direction of public affairs, appeared confronting each other. During
some years they were designated as Cavaliers and Roundheads. They
were subsequently called Tories and Whigs; nor does it seem that these
appellations are likely soon to become obsolete.

It would not be difficult to compose a lampoon or panegyric on either
of these renowned factions. For no man not utterly destitute of judgment
and candor will deny that there are many deep stains on the fame of the
party to which he belongs, or that the party to which he is opposed may
justly boast of many illustrious names, of many heroic actions, and of
many great services rendered to the state. The truth is that, though
both parties have often seriously erred, England could have spared
neither. If, in her institutions, freedom and order, the advantages
arising from innovation and the advantages arising from prescription,
have been combined to an extent elsewhere unknown, we may attribute this
happy peculiarity to the strenuous conflicts and alternate victories
of two rival confederacies of statesmen, a confederacy zealous for
authority and antiquity, and a confederacy zealous for liberty and
progress.

It ought to be remembered that the difference between the two great
sections of English politicians has always been a difference rather of
degree than of principle. There were certain limits on the right and on
the left, which were very rarely overstepped. A few enthusiasts on one
side were ready to lay all our laws and franchises at the feet of
our Kings. A few enthusiasts on the other side were bent on pursuing,
through endless civil troubles, their darling phantom of a republic.
But the great majority of those who fought for the crown were averse
to despotism; and the great majority of the champions of popular rights
were averse to anarchy. Twice, in the course of the seventeenth century,
the two parties suspended their dissensions, and united their strength
in a common cause. Their first coalition restored hereditary monarchy.
Their second coalition rescued constitutional freedom.

It is also to be noted that these two parties have never been the whole
nation, nay, that they have never, taken together, made up a majority
of the nation. Between them has always been a great mass, which has
not steadfastly adhered to either, which has sometimes remained inertly
neutral, and which has sometimes oscillated to and fro. That mass has
more than once passed in a few years from one extreme to the other, and
back again. Sometimes it has changed sides, merely because it was tired
of supporting the same men, sometimes because it was dismayed by its
own excesses, sometimes because it had expected impossibilities, and had
been disappointed. But whenever it has leaned with its whole weight in
either direction, that weight has, for the time, been irresistible.

When the rival parties first appeared in a distinct form, they seemed
to be not unequally matched. On the side of the government was a
large majority of the nobles, and of those opulent and well descended
gentlemen to whom nothing was wanting of nobility but the name. These,
with the dependents whose support they could command, were no small
power in the state. On the same side were the great body of the clergy,
both the Universities, and all those laymen who were strongly attached
to episcopal government and to the Anglican ritual. These respectable
classes found themselves in the company of some allies much less
decorous than themselves. The Puritan austerity drove to the king's
faction all who made pleasure their business, who affected gallantry,
splendour of dress, or taste in the higher arts. With these went all who
live by amusing the leisure of others, from the painter and the comic
poet, down to the ropedancer and the Merry Andrew. For these artists
well knew that they might thrive under a superb and luxurious despotism,
but must starve under the rigid rule of the precisians. In the same
interest were the Roman Catholics to a man. The Queen, a daughter of
France, was of their own faith. Her husband was known to be strongly
attached to her, and not a little in awe of her. Though undoubtedly a
Protestant on conviction, he regarded the professors of the old religion
with no ill-will, and would gladly have granted them a much larger
toleration than he was disposed to concede to the Presbyterians. If the
opposition obtained the mastery, it was probable that the sanguinary
laws enacted against Papists in the reign of Elizabeth, would be
severely enforced. The Roman Catholics were therefore induced by the
strongest motives to espouse the cause of the court. They in general
acted with a caution which brought on them the reproach of cowardice
and lukewarmness; but it is probable that, in maintaining great reserve,
they consulted the King's interest as well as their own. It was not for
his service that they should be conspicuous among his friends.

The main strength of the opposition lay among the small freeholders in
the country, and among the merchants and shopkeepers of the towns.
But these were headed by a formidable minority of the aristocracy, a
minority which included the rich and powerful Earls of Northumberland,
Bedford, Warwick, Stamford, and Essex, and several other Lords of great
wealth and influence. In the same ranks was found the whole body of
Protestant Nonconformists, and most of those members of the Established
Church who still adhered to the Calvinistic opinions which, forty
years before, had been generally held by the prelates and clergy. The
municipal corporations took, with few exceptions, the same side. In the
House of Commons the opposition preponderated, but not very decidedly.

Neither party wanted strong arguments for the course which it was
disposed to take. The reasonings of the most enlightened Royalists may
be summed up thus:--"It is true that great abuses have existed; but they
have been redressed. It is true that precious rights have been invaded;
but they have been vindicated and surrounded with new securities. The
sittings of the Estates of the realm have been, in defiance of all
precedent and of the spirit of the constitution, intermitted during
eleven years; but it has now been provided that henceforth three years
shall never elapse without a Parliament. The Star Chamber the High
Commission, the Council of York, oppressed end plundered us; but those
hateful courts have now ceased to exist. The Lord Lieutenant aimed at
establishing military despotism; but he has answered for his treason
with his head. The Primate tainted our worship with Popish rites and
punished our scruples with Popish cruelty; but he is awaiting in the
Tower the judgment of his peers. The Lord Keeper sanctioned a plan by
which the property of every man in England was placed at the mercy of
the Crown; but he has been disgraced, ruined, and compelled to take
refuge in a foreign land. The ministers of tyranny have expiated
their crimes. The victims of tyranny have been compensated for their
sufferings. It would therefore be most unwise to persevere further in
that course which was justifiable and necessary when we first met, after
a long interval, and found the whole administration one mass of abuses.
It is time to take heed that we do not so pursue our victory over
despotism as to run into anarchy. It was not in our power to overturn
the bad institutions which lately afflicted our country, without shocks
which have loosened the foundations of government. Now that those
institutions have fallen, we must hasten to prop the edifice which it
was lately our duty to batter. Henceforth it will be our wisdom to look
with jealousy on schemes of innovation, and to guard from encroachment
all the prerogatives with which the law has, for the public good, armed
the sovereign. "

Such were the views of those men of whom the excellent Falkland may be
regarded as the leader. It was contended on the other side with not less
force, by men of not less ability and virtue, that the safety which the
liberties of the English people enjoyed was rather apparent than real,
and that the arbitrary projects of the court would be resumed as soon
as the vigilance of the Commons was relaxed. True it was,--such was the
reasoning of Pym, of Hollis, and of Hampden--that many good laws had
been passed: but, if good laws had been sufficient to restrain the
King, his subjects would have had little reason ever to complain of his
administration. The recent statutes were surely not of more authority
than the Great Charter or the Petition of Right. Yet neither the Great
Charter, hallowed by the veneration of four centuries, nor the Petition
of Right, sanctioned, after mature reflection, and for valuable
consideration, by Charles himself, had been found effectual for the
protection of the people. If once the check of fear were withdrawn,
if once the spirit of opposition were suffered to slumber, all the
securities for English freedom resolved themselves into a single one,
the royal word; and it had been proved by a long and severe experience
that the royal word could not be trusted.

The two parties were still regarding each other with cautious hostility,
and had not yet measured their strength, when news arrived which
inflamed the passions and confirmed the opinions of both. The great
chieftains of Ulster, who, at the time of the accession of James, had,
after a long struggle, submitted to the royal authority, had not long
brooked the humiliation of dependence. They had conspired against the
English government, and had been attainted of treason. Their immense
domains had been forfeited to the crown, and had soon been peopled by
thousands of English and Scotch emigrants. The new settlers were, in
civilisation and intelligence, far superior to the native population,
and sometimes abused their superiority. The animosity produced by
difference of race was increased by difference of religion. Under the
iron rule of Wentworth, scarcely a murmur was heard: but, when that
strong pressure was withdrawn, when Scotland had set the example of
successful resistance, when England was distracted by internal quarrels,
the smothered rage of the Irish broke forth into acts of fearful
violence. On a sudden, the aboriginal population rose on the colonists.
A war, to which national and theological hatred gave a character of
peculiar ferocity, desolated Ulster, and spread to the neighbouring
provinces. The castle of Dublin was scarcely thought secure. Every post
brought to London exaggerated accounts of outrages which, without any
exaggeration were sufficient to move pity end horror. These evil tidings
roused to the height the zeal of both the great parties which were
marshalled against each other at Westminster. The Royalists maintained
that it was the first duty of every good Englishman and Protestant,
at such a crisis, to strengthen the hands of the sovereign. To the
opposition it seemed that there were now stronger reasons than ever for
thwarting and restraining him. That the commonwealth was in danger
was undoubtedly a good reason for giving large powers to a trustworthy
magistrate: but it was a good reason for taking away powers from a
magistrate who was at heart a public enemy. To raise a great army had
always been the King's first object. A great army must now be raised.
It was to be feared that, unless some new securities were devised, the
forces levied for the reduction of Ireland would be employed against
the liberties of England. Nor was this all. A horrible suspicion, unjust
indeed, but not altogether unnatural, had arisen in many minds. The
Queen was an avowed Roman Catholic: the King was not regarded by the
Puritans, whom he had mercilessly persecuted, as a sincere Protestant;
and so notorious was his duplicity, that there was no treachery of which
his subjects might not, with some show of reason, believe him capable.
It was soon whispered that the rebellion of the Roman Catholics of
Ulster was part of a vast work of darkness which had been planned at
Whitehall.

After some weeks of prelude, the first great parliamentary conflict
between the parties, which have ever since contended, and are still
contending, for the government of the nation, took place on the
twenty-second of November, 1641. It was moved by the opposition,
that the House of Commons should present to the King a remonstrance,
enumerating the faults of his administration from the time of his
accession, and expressing the distrust with which his policy was still
regarded by his people. That assembly, which a few months before had
been unanimous in calling for the reform of abuses, was now divided
into two fierce and eager factions of nearly equal strength. After a hot
debate of many hours, the remonstrance was carried by only eleven votes.

The result of this struggle was highly favourable to the conservative
party. It could not be doubted that only some great indiscretion could
prevent them from shortly obtaining the predominance in the Lower House.
The Upper House was already their own. Nothing was wanting to ensure
their success, but that the King should, in all his conduct, show
respect for the laws and scrupulous good faith towards his subjects.

His first measures promised well. He had, it seemed, at last discovered
that an entire change of system was necessary, and had wisely made
up his mind to what could no longer be avoided. He declared his
determination to govern in harmony with the Commons, and, for that end,
to call to his councils men in whose talents and character the Commons
might place confidence. Nor was the selection ill made. Falkland, Hyde,
and Colepepper, all three distinguished by the part which they had taken
in reforming abuses and in punishing evil ministers, were invited to
become the confidential advisers of the Crown, and were solemnly assured
by Charles that he would take no step in any way affecting the Lower
House of Parliament without their privity.

Had he kept this promise, it cannot be doubted that the reaction which
was already in progress would very soon have become quite as strong as
the most respectable Royalists would have desired. Already the violent
members of the opposition had begun to despair of the fortunes of their
party, to tremble for their own safety, and to talk of selling their
estates and emigrating to America. That the fair prospects which had
begun to open before the King were suddenly overcast, that his life was
darkened by adversity, and at length shortened by violence, is to be
attributed to his own faithlessness and contempt of law.

The truth seems to be that he detested both the parties into which the
House of Commons was divided: nor is this strange; for in both those
parties the love of liberty and the love of order were mingled, though
in different proportions. The advisers whom necessity had compelled him
to call round him were by no means after his own heart. They had joined
in condemning his tyranny, in abridging his power, and in punishing his
instruments. They were now indeed prepared to defend in a strictly legal
way his strictly legal prerogative; but they would have recoiled with
horror from the thought of reviving Wentworth's projects of Thorough.
They were, therefore, in the King's opinion, traitors, who differed only
in the degree of their seditious malignity from Pym and Hampden.

He accordingly, a few days after he had promised the chiefs of the
constitutional Royalists that no step of importance should be taken
without their knowledge, formed a resolution the most momentous of his
whole life, carefully concealed that resolution from them, and executed
it in a manner which overwhelmed them with shame and dismay. He sent the
Attorney General to impeach Pym, Hollis, Hampden, and other members of
the House of Commons of high treason at the bar of the House of Lords.
Not content with this flagrant violation of the Great Charter and of the
uninterrupted practice of centuries, he went in person, accompanied by
armed men, to seize the leaders of the opposition within the walls of
Parliament.

The attempt failed. The accused members had left the House a short time
before Charles entered it. A sudden and violent revulsion of feeling,
both in the Parliament and in the country, followed. The most favourable
view that has ever been taken of the King's conduct on this occasion by
his most partial advocates is that he had weakly suffered himself to be
hurried into a gross indiscretion by the evil counsels of his wife and
of his courtiers. But the general voice loudly charged him with far
deeper guilt. At the very moment at which his subjects, after a long
estrangement produced by his maladministration, were returning to him
with feelings of confidence and affection, he had aimed a deadly blow at
all their dearest rights, at the privileges of Parliament, at the very
principle of trial by jury. He had shown that he considered opposition
to his arbitrary designs as a crime to be expiated only by blood. He had
broken faith, not only with his Great Council and with his people,
but with his own adherents. He had done what, but for an unforeseen
accident, would probably have produced a bloody conflict round the
Speaker's chair. Those who had the chief sway in the Lower House now
felt that not only their power and popularity, but their lands and
their necks, were staked on the event of the struggle in which they were
engaged. The flagging zeal of the party opposed to the court revived in
an instant. During the night which followed the outrage the whole city
of London was in arms.