Chapter LI: Charles I (2)

During that short interval which passed between Charles's accession and his first parliament, he had followed the example of his predecessors; and no fault was found with his conduct in this particular. But what was most remarkable in the proceedings of that house of commons, and what proved beyond controversy that they had seriously formed a plan for reducing their prince to subjection, was, that instead of granting this supply during the king's lifetime, as it had been enjoyed by all his immediate predecessors, they voted it only for a year; and, after that should be elapsed, reserved to themselves the power of renewing or refusing the same concession.[**] But the house of peers, who saw that this duty was now become more necessary than ever to supply the growing necessities of the crown, and who did not approve of this encroaching spirit in the commons, rejected the bill; and the dissolution of that parliament followed so soon after, that no attempt seems to have been made for obtaining tonnage and poundage in any other form.[***] [3]

* 6 Henry VIII. cap. 14.

** Journ. 5th July, 1625.

*** See note C, at the end of the volume.

Charles, meanwhile, continued still to levy this duty by his own authority, and the nation was so accustomed to that exertion of royal power, that no scruple was at first entertained of submitting to it. But the succeeding parliament excited doubts in every one. The commons took there some steps towards declaring it illegal to levy tonnage and poundage without consent of parliament; and they openly showed their intention of employing this engine, in order to extort from the crown concessions of the most important nature. But Charles was not yet sufficiently tamed to compliance; and the abrupt dissolution of that parliament, as above related, put an end, for the time, to their further pretensions.

The following interval between the second and third parliament, was distinguished by so many exertions of prerogative, that men had little leisure to attend to the affair of tonnage and poundage, where the abuse of power in the crown might seem to be of a more disputable nature. But after the commons, during the precedent session, had remedied all these grievances by means of their petition of right, which they deemed so necessary, they afterwards proceeded to take the matter into consideration, and they showed the same intention as formerly, of exacting, in return for the grant of this revenue, very large compliances on the part of the crown. Their sudden profulgation prevented them from bringing their pretensions to a full conclusion.

When Charles opened this session, he had foreseen that the same controversy would arise; and he therefore took care very early, among many mild and reconciling expressions, to inform the commons, "That he had not taken these duties as appertaining to his hereditary prerogative; but that it ever was, and still is, his meaning to enjoy them as a gift of his people: and that, if he had hitherto levied tonnage and poundage he pretended to justify himself only by the necessity of so doing, not by any right which he assumed."[*]

* Rushworth, vol. i. p. 644 Parl. Hist. vol. viii. p. 256,
346.

This concession, which probably arose from the king's moderate temper, now freed from the impulse of Buckingham's violent counsels, might have satisfied the commons, had they entertained no other view than that of ascertaining their own powers and privileges. But they carried their pretensions much higher. They insisted, as a necessary preliminary, that the king should once entirely desist from levying these duties; after which they were to take it into consideration, how far they would restore, him to the possession of a revenue of which he had clearly divested himself. But, besides that this extreme rigor had never been exercised towards any of his predecessors, and many obvious inconveniencies must follow from the intermission of the customs, there were other reasons which deterred Charles from complying with so hard a condition. It was probable, that the commons might renew their former project of making this revenue only temporary, and thereby reducing their prince to perpetual dependence; they certainly would cut off the new impositions which Mary and Elizabeth, but especially James, had levied, and which formed no despicable part of the public revenue: and they openly declared, that they had at present many important pretensions, chiefly with regard to religion; and if compliance were refused, no supply must be expected from the commons.

It is easy to see in what an inextricable labyrinth Charles was now involved. By his own concessions, by the general principles of the English government, and by the form of every bill which had granted this duty, tonnage and poundage was derived entirely from the free gift of the people; and, consequently, might be withdrawn at their pleasure. If unreasonable in their refusal, they still refused nothing but what was their own. If public necessity required this supply, it might be thought also to require the king's compliance with those conditions which were the price of obtaining it. Though the motive for granting it had been the enabling of the king to guard the seas, it did not follow, that because he guarded the seas, he was therefore entitled to this revenue without further formality: since the people had still reserved to themselves the right of judging how far that service merited such a supply. But Charles, notwithstanding his public declaration, was far from assenting to this conclusion in its full extent. The plain consequence, he saw, of all these rigors, and refinements, and inferences, was, that he, without any public necessity, and without any fault of his own, must of a sudden, even from his accession, become a magistrate of a very different nature from any of his predecessors, and must fall into a total dependence on subjects over whom former kings, especially those immediately preceding, had exercised an authority almost unlimited. Entangled in a chain of consequences which he could not easily break, he was inclined to go higher, and rather deny the first principle, than admit of conclusions which to him appeared so absurd and unreasonable. Agree-* to the ideas hitherto entertained both by natives and foreigners, the monarch he esteemed the essence and soul of the English government: and whatever other power pretended to annihilate or even abridge, the royal authority, must necessarily, he thought, either in its nature or exercise, be deemed no better than a usurpation. Willing to preserve the ancient harmony of the constitution, he had ever intended to comply as far as he easily could, with the ancient forms of administration; but when these forms appeared to him, by the inveterate obstinacy of the commons, to have no other tendency than to disturb that harmony, and to introduce a new constitution, he concluded that, in this violent situation, what was subordinate must necessarily yield to what was principal, and the privileges of the people, for a time, give place to royal prerogative. From the rank of a monarch, to be degraded into a slave of his insolent, ungrateful subjects, seemed of all indignities the greatest; and nothing, in his judgment, could exceed the humiliation attending such a state, but the meanness of tamely submitting to it, without making some efforts to preserve the authority transmitted to him by his predecessors.

Though these were the king's reflections and resolutions before the parliament assembled, he did not immediately break with them upon their delay in voting him this supply. He thought that he could better justify any strong measure which he might afterwards be obliged to take, if he allowed them to carry to the utmost extremities their attacks upon his government and prerogative.[*] He contented himself, for the present, with soliciting the house by messages and speeches. But the commons, instead of hearkening to his solicitations proceeded to carry their scrutiny into his management of religion,[**] which was the only grievance to which, in their opinion, they had not as yet, by their petition of right, applied a sufficient remedy.

* Rushworth, vol. i. p. 642.

** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 651. Whitlocke, p. 12.

It was not possible that this century, so fertile in religious sects and disputes, could escape the controversy concerning fatalism and free will, which, being strongly interwoven both with philosophy and theology had, in all ages, thrown every school and every church into such inextricable doubt and perplexity. The first reformers in England, as in other European countries, had embraced the most rigid tenets of predestination and absolute decrees, and had composed upon that, system all the articles of their religious creed. But these principles having met with opposition from Arminius and his sectaries, the controversy was soon brought into this island and began here to diffuse itself. The Arminians, finding more encouragement from the superstitious spirit of the church than from the fanaticism of the Puritans, gradually incorporated themselves with the former; and some of that sect, by the indulgence of James and Charles, had attained the highest preferments in the hierarchy. But their success with the public had not been altogether answerable to that which they met with in the church and the court. Throughout the nation, they still lay under the reproach of innovation and heresy. The commons now levelled against them their formidable censures, and made them the objects of daily invective and declamation. Their protectors were stigmatized; their tenets canvassed; their views represented as dangerous and pernicious. To impartial spectators surely, if any such had been at that time in England, it must have given great entertainment to see a popular assembly, inflamed with faction and enthusiasm, pretend to discuss questions to which the greatest philosophers, in the tranquillity of retreat, had never hitherto been able to find any satisfactory solution.

Amidst that complication of disputes in which men were then involved, we may observe, that the appellation "Puritan" stood for three parties, which, though commonly united, were yet actuated by very different views and motives. There were the political Puritans, who maintained the highest principles of civil liberty; the Puritans in discipline, who were averse to the ceremonies and Episcopal government of the church; and the doctrinal Puritans, who rigidly defended the speculative system of the first reformers. In opposition to all these stood the court party, the hierarchy, and the Arminians; only with this distinction, that the latter sect, being introduced a few years before, did not as yet comprehend all those who were favorable to the church and to monarchy. But, as the controversies on every subject grew daily warmer, men united themselves more intimately with their friends, and separated themselves wider from their antagonists; and the distinction gradually became quite uniform and regular.

This house of commons, which, like all the preceding, during the reigns of James and Charles, and even of Elizabeth, was much governed by the Puritanical party, thought that they could not better serve their cause than by branding and punishing the Arminian sect, which, introducing an innovation in the church, were the least favored and least powerful of all their antagonists. From this measure, it was easily foreseen, that, besides gratifying the animosity of the doctrinal Puritans, both the Puritans in discipline and those in politics would reap considerable advantages. Laud, Neile, Montague, and other bishops, who were the chief supporters of Episcopal government, and the most zealous partisans of the discipline and ceremonies of the church, were all supposed to be tainted with Arminianism. The same men and their disciples were the strenuous preachers of passive obedience, and of entire submission to princes; and if these could once be censured, and be expelled the church and court, it was concluded, that the hierarchy would receive a mortal blow, the ceremonies be less rigidly insisted on, and the king, deprived of his most faithful friends, be obliged to abate those high claims of prerogative on which at present he insisted.

But Charles, besides a view of the political consequences which must result from a compliance with such pretensions, was strongly determined, from principles of piety and conscience, to oppose them. Neither the dissipation incident to youth, nor the pleasures attending a high fortune, had been able to prevent this virtuous prince from embracing the most sincere sentiments of religion: and that character, which in that religious age should have been of infinite advantage to him, proved in the end the chief cause of his ruin; merely because the religion adopted by him was not of that precise mode and sect which began to prevail among his subjects. His piety, though remote from Popery, had a tincture of superstition in it; and, being averse to the gloomy spirit of the Puritans, was represented by them as tending towards the abominations of Antichrist. Laud also had unfortunately acquired a great ascendant over him; and as all those prelates obnoxious to the commons, were regarded as his chief friends and most favored courtiers, he was resolved not to disarm and dishonor himself by abandoning them to the resentment of his enemies. Being totally unprovided with military force, and finding a refractory, independent spirit to prevail among the people, the most solid basis of his authority, he thought consisted in the support which he received from the hierarchy.

In the debates of the commons, which are transmitted to us, it is easy to discern so early some sparks of that enthusiastic fire which afterwards set the whole nation in combustion. One Rouse made use of an allusion which, though familiar seems to have been borrowed from the writings of Lord Bacon.[*] "If a man meet a dog alone," said he, "the dog is fearful, though ever so fierce by nature: but if the dog have his master with him, he will set upon that man from whom he fled before. This shows, that lower natures, being backed by higher, increase in courage and strength; and certainly man, being backed with Omnipotency, is a kind of omnipotent creature. All things are possible to him that believes; and where all things are possible, there is a kind of omnipotency. Wherefore, let it be the unanimous consent and resolution of us all, to make a vow and covenant henceforth to hold fast our God and our religion; and then shall we henceforth expect with certainty happiness in this world."[**]

Oliver Cromwell, at that time a young man of no account in the nation, is mentioned in these debates, as complaining of one who, he was told, preached flat Popery.[***] It is amusing to observe the first words of this fanatical hypocrite correspond so exactly to his character.

The inquiries and debates concerning tonnage and poundage went hand in hand with these theological or metaphysical controversies. The officers of the custom-house were summoned before the commons, to give an account by what authority they had seized the goods of merchants who had refused to pay these duties: the barons of the exchequer were questioned concerning their decrees on that head.[****] One of the sheriffs of London was committed to the Tower for his activity in supporting the officers of the custom-house: the goods of Rolles, a merchant, and member of the house, being seized for his refusal to pay the duties, complaints were made of this violence as if it were a breach of privilege:[v] Charles supported his officers in all these measures; and the quarrel grew every day higher between him and the commons.[v*] Mention was made in the house of impeaching Sir Richard Weston the treasurer;[v**] and the king began to entertain thoughts of finishing the session by a dissolution.

* Essay of Atheism.

** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 646. Parl. Hist. vol. viii. p. 260.

*** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 655. Parl. Hist. vol. viii. p.
289.

**** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 654. Parl. Hist. vol. viii. p.
301.

v Rushworth, vol. i. p. 653.

v* Rushworth, vol. i. p. 659.

v** Parl. Hist. vol. viii. p. 326.

Sir John Elliot framed a remonstrance against levying tonnage and poundage without consent of parliament, and offered it to the clerk to read. It was refused. He read it himself. The question being then called for, the speaker, Sir John Finch, said, "That he had a command from the king to adjourn, and to put no question;"[*] upon which he rose and left the chair. The whole house was in an uproar. The speaker was pushed back into the chair, and forcibly held in it by Hollis and Valentine, till a short remonstrance was framed, and was passed by acclamation rather than by vote. Papists and Arminians were there declared capital enemies to the commonwealth. Those who levied tonnage and poundage were branded with the same epithet. And even the merchant who should voluntarily pay these duties, were denominated betrayers of English liberty, and public enemies. The doom, being locked, the gentleman usher of the house of lords, who was sent by the king, could not get admittance till this remonstrance was finished. By the king's order, he took the mace from the table, which ended their proceedings,[**] and a few days after the parliament was dissolved.

The discontents of the nation ran high, on account of this violent rupture between the king and parliament. These discontents Charles inflamed by his affectation of a severity which he had not power, nor probably inclination, to carry to extremities. Sir Miles Hobart, Sir Peter Heyman, Selden, Coriton, Long, Strode, were committed to prison on account of the last tumult in the house, which was called sedition.[***]

* The king's power of adjourning, as well as proroguing the
parliament, was and is never questioned. In the nineteenth
of the late king, the judges determined, that the
adjournment by the king kept the parliament in statu quo
until the next sitting, but that then no committees were to
meet; but if the adjournment be by the house then the
committees and other matters do continue. Parl. Hist, vol v.
p. 466.

** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 660. Whitlocke, p. 12.

*** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 661, 681. Parl. Hist. vol. viii.
p. 354 May, p. 13

With great difficulty, and after several delays, they were released; and the law was generally supposed to be wrested in order to prolong their imprisonment. Sir John Elliot, Hollis, and Valentine, were summoned to their trial in the king's bench, for seditious speeches and behavior in parliament; but refusing to answer before an inferior court for their conduct as members of a superior, they were condemned to be imprisoned during the king's pleasure, to find sureties for their good behavior, and to be fined, the two former a thousand pounds apiece, the latter five hundred.[*] This sentence, procured by the influence of the crown, served only to show the king's disregard to the privileges of parliament, and to acquire an immense stock of popularity to the sufferers who had so bravely, in opposition to arbitrary power, defended the liberties of their native country. The commons of England, though an immense body, and possessed of the greater part of national property, were naturally somewhat defenceless, because of their personal equality, and their want of leaders: but the king's severity, if these prosecutions deserve the name, here pointed out leaders to them, whose resentment was inflamed, and whose courage was nowise daunted, by the hardships which they had undergone in so honorable a cause.

So much did these prisoners glory in their sufferings, that, though they were promised liberty on that condition, they would not condescend even to present a petition to the king, expressing their sorrow for having offended him.[**] They unanimously refused to find sureties for their good behavior, and disdained to accept of deliverance on such easy terms. Nay, Hollis was so industrious to continue his meritorious distress, that when one offered to bail him, he would not yield to the rule of court, and be himself bound with his friend. Even Long, who had actually found sureties in the chief justice's chamber, declared in court that his sureties should no longer continue.[***] Yet because Sir John Elliot Happened to die while in custody, a great clamor was raised against the administration; and he was universally regarded as a martyr to the liberties of England.[****]

* Rushworth, vol. i. p. 684, 691.

** Whitlocke, p. *13.

*** Kennet vol. iii. p. 49.

**** Rushworth, vol. v. p. 440.