A Student's History of England, v. 2: 1509-1689

13.

Protestantism of the House of Commons. 1625-1628.

– That subject was the subject of religion. The country gentlemen, who almost entirely filled the benches of the House of Commons, were not Puritan in the sense in which Cartwright had been Puritan in Elizabeth's reign (see p.

446

). They did not wish to abolish episcopacy or the Prayer Book; but they were strongly Protestant, and their Protestantism had been strengthened by a sense of danger from the engagements in favour of the English Catholics into which James and Charles had entered. Lately, too, the power of the Catholic States on the Continent had been growing. In

1626

 the King of Denmark had been defeated at Lutter. In

1628

 the French Huguenots had been defeated at Rochelle. It was probably in consequence of these events that there was in England a revival of that attachment to Calvinistic doctrines which had accompanied the Elizabethan struggle against Spain and the Pope.

14.

Religious Differences. 1625-1628.

– On the other hand, a small but growing number amongst the clergy were breaking away from the dogmas of Calvinism, and especially from its stern doctrine on the subject of predestination. The House of Commons claimed to represent the nation, and it upheld the unity of the national belief as strongly as it had been upheld by Henry VIII. In

1625

 the House summoned to its bar Richard Montague, who had challenged the received Calvinist opinions on the ground that they were not the doctrines of the Church of England. In

1626

 it impeached him. Naturally, Montague and those who agreed with him warmly supported the royal power, and in

1627

 urged the duty of paying the forced loan. Another clergyman, Roger Manwaring, preached sermons in which Parliaments were treated with contempt, and the Commons retaliated by impeaching the preacher. Charles would have acted in a spirit in advance of his times, and certainly in advance of his opponents, if he had merely upheld the right of the minority to liberty of speech. Instead of contenting himself with this he made Montague Bishop of Chichester and gave Manwaring a good living.

15.

The King's Declaration. 1628.

– With the intention of smoothing matters down, Charles issued a declaration prefixed to the Articles, which would, as he hoped, make for peace. No one was in future to speak in public on the controverted points. Charles probably believed himself to be acting fairly, whilst, in reality, his compromise was most unfair. The Calvinists, who believed their views about predestination to be of the utmost importance to the souls of Christians, were hardly treated by the order to hold their tongues on the subject. Their opponents did not care about the doctrine at all, and would be only too glad if nothing more was heard of it. Charles, however, was but following in Elizabeth's steps in imposing silence and calling it peace. But the times were different. There was no longer a Catholic claimant of the throne or a foreign enemy at the gates to cause moderate men to support the government, even in its errors.

16.

The Second Session of the Third Parliament of Charles I. 1629.

– The Houses met for a second session on January 20,

1629

. The Commons attacked the clergy on a side on which they were especially vulnerable. Some of those who had challenged the Calvinistic doctrines had revived certain ceremonial forms which had generally fallen into disuse. In Durham Cathedral especially, parts of the service had been sung which had not been sung before, and the Communion table, which had hitherto stood at the north door and had been moved to the middle of the choir when needed, had been permanently fixed at the east end of the chancel. The Commons were indignant at what they styled Popish practices, and summoned the offenders before them. Then they turned to Tonnage and Poundage. Eliot, instead of confronting the difficulty directly, attempted to make it a question of privilege. The goods of a member of the House, named Rolle, had been seized for non-payment of Tonnage and Poundage, and Eliot wished to summon the Custom House officers to the bar, not for seizing the goods of an Englishman, but for a breach of privilege in seizing the goods of a member of Parliament. Pym, who occupied a prominent position amongst the popular party, urged the House to take broader ground: "The liberties of this House," he said, "are inferior to the liberties of this kingdom. To determine the privileges of this House is but a mean matter, and the main end is to establish possession of the subjects."

20

20

i. e.

 to establish the right of the subjects to possess their property.

 Eliot carried the House with him, but Charles supported his officers, and refused to allow them to appear at the bar of the House. Once more the question of sovereignty was raised. The House was adjourned by the king's order in the hope that a compromise might be discovered.

17.

Breach between the King and the Commons. 1629.

– No compromise could be found, and on March 2 a fresh order for adjournment was given. When Finch, the Speaker, rose to announce it, two strong young members, Holles and Valentine, pushed him back into his chair whilst Eliot read three resolutions to the effect that whoever brought in innovations in religion, or introduced opinions differing from those of the true and orthodox church; whoever advised the levy of Tonnage and Poundage without a grant by Parliament; and whoever voluntarily paid those duties, was an enemy to the kingdom and a betrayer of its liberties. A wild tumult arose. A rush was made to free the Speaker, and another rush to hold him down. One member, at least, laid his hand on his sword. The doors were locked, and, amidst the hubbub, Holles repeated the resolutions, which were accepted with shouts of 'Aye, aye.' Then the doors were opened, and the members poured out. The king at once dissolved Parliament, and for eleven years no Parliament met again in England.

18.

The Constitutional Dispute. 1629.

– The constitutional system of the Tudor monarchy had practically broken down. The nation had, in the sixteenth century, entered upon a struggle for national independence. Henry VIII. and Elizabeth had headed it in that struggle, and the House of Commons had but represented the nation in accepting Henry VIII. and Elizabeth as supreme rulers. The House of Commons now refused to admit that Charles was its supreme ruler, because he could neither head the nation, nor understand either its wants or its true needs. Yet the House had not as yet shown its capacity for taking his place. It had criticised his methods of government effectively, but had displayed its own intolerance and disregard for individual liberty. Yet, till it could learn to respect individual liberty, it would not be likely to gain the sovereignty at which it aimed. A king becomes powerful when men want a strong government to put down enemies abroad or petty tyrants at home. A Parliament becomes powerful when men want to discuss political questions, and political discussion cannot thrive when voices disagreeable to the majority are silenced. The House of Commons had thought more of opposing the king than of laying a wide basis for its own power, and now it was, for a time at least, silenced.

19.

The Victory of Personal Government. 1629-1632.

– Charles was now to show whether he could do better than the Commons. He had gained one great convert soon after the end of the first session of the last Parliament. Wentworth, satisfied, it is to be supposed, with the Petition of Right, and dissatisfied with the claim to sovereignty put forward by the Commons, came over to his side and was made first a baron and then a viscount, after which before the end of

1628

 he was made President of the Council of the North (see p.

397

). Wentworth was no Puritan, and the claim of the Commons, in the second session, to meddle with religion no doubt strengthened him in his conviction that he had chosen the right side. Before the end of

1629

 he became a Privy Councillor. The most influential member of Charles's Council, however, was Weston, the Lord Treasurer. Peace was made with France in

1629

, and with Spain in

1630

. To bring the finances into order, the king insisted on collecting the customs without a Parliamentary grant, and Chambers, a merchant who refused to pay, was summoned before the Council, and then fined 2,000

l.

 and imprisoned for saying that merchants were more wrung in England than they were in Turkey. The leading members who had been concerned in the disturbance at the last meeting of Parliament were imprisoned, and three of them, Eliot, Holles, and Valentine, were charged before the King's Bench with riot and sedition. They declined to plead, on the ground that the judges had no jurisdiction over things done in Parliament. The judges held that riot and sedition must be punished somewhere, and that as Parliament was not always sitting it must be punished by themselves. As the accused still refused to plead they were fined and imprisoned. Eliot died of consumption in the Tower in

1632

. Charles had refused to allow him to go into the country to recover his health, and after his death he refused to allow his children to dispose of his body. Eliot was the martyr, not of individual liberty, but of Parliamentary supremacy. Charles hated him because he regarded him as the factious accuser of Buckingham.

20.

Star Chamber Sentences. 1630-1633.

– The first years of unparliamentary government were, on the whole, years of peace and quiet. The Star Chamber, which under Henry VII. had put down the old nobility, was now ready to put down the opponents of the king. Its numbers had grown with its work, and all of the Privy Councillors were now members of it, the only other members being two judges. It was therefore a mere instrument in the king's hands. In

1630

 Alexander Leighton was flogged and mutilated by order of the Star Chamber for having written a virulent libel against the bishops; in which he blamed them for all existing mischiefs, including the extravagance of the dress of the ladies, and ended by advising that they should be smitten under the fifth rib. In

1633

 the same court fined Henry Sherfield for breaking a church window which he held to be superstitious. The bulk of Englishmen were not touched by these sentences, and there was more indignation when, in order to pay off debts contracted in time of war, Charles ordered the enforcement of fines upon all men holding by military tenure lands worth 40

l.

 a year who had neglected to be knighted. The Court of Exchequer held that the fines were legal; but the whole system of military tenure was obsolete, and those who suffered regarded themselves as wronged through a mere technicality.

21.

Laud's Intellectual Position. 1629-1633.

– For all matters relating to the Church Charles's principal adviser was William Laud, now Bishop of London. As far as doctrine was concerned Laud carried on the teaching of Cranmer and Hooker. He held that the basis of belief was the Bible, but that the Bible was to be interpreted by the tradition of the early church, and that all doubtful points were to be subjected, not to heated arguments in the pulpits, but to sober discussion by learned men. His mind, in short, like those of the earlier English reformers, combined the Protestant reliance on the Scriptures with reverence for ancient tradition and with the critical spirit of the Renascence. Laud's difficulty lay, as theirs had lain, in the impossibility of gaining over any large number of his fellow-countrymen. Intelligent criticism and intelligent study were only for the few. Laud, as he himself plaintively declared, was in danger of being crushed between the upper and lower mill-stones of Puritanism and the Papacy.

22.

Laud as the Upholder of Uniformity.

– In all this there was nothing peculiar to Laud. What was peculiar to him was his perception that intellectual religion could not maintain itself by intellect alone. Hooker's appeals to Church history and to the supremacy of reason had rolled over the heads of men who knew nothing about Church history, and who did not reason. Laud fell back upon the influence of ceremonial. "I laboured nothing more," he afterwards said, "than that the external public worship of God – too much slighted in most parts of the kingdom – might be preserved, and that with as much decency and uniformity as might be; being still of opinion that unity cannot long continue in the Church when uniformity is shut out of the Church door." He, like Eliot and the Parliamentarians, was convinced that there could be but one Church in the nation. As they sought to retain their hold on it by the enforcement of uniformity of doctrine, Laud sought to retain his hold on it by enforcing uniformity of worship. To do this he attempted to put in force the existing law of the Church as opposed to the existing practice. What he urged men to do he believed to be wholly right. He himself clung with all his heart to the doctrine of the divine right of episcopacy, of the efficacy of the Sacraments, and to the sobering influence of appointed prayers and appointed ceremonies. What he lacked was broad human sympathy and respect for the endeavour of each earnest man to grow towards perfection in the way which seems to him to be best. Men were to obey for their own good, and to hold their tongues. The king was the supreme governor, and with his authority, as exercised in the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, Laud hoped to rescue England from Pope and Puritan.

23.

The Beginning of Laud's Archbishopric. 1633-1634.

– In

1633

 Laud became Archbishop of Canterbury. He at once made his hand felt in every direction. By his advice, in consequence of an attempt of the judges to put an end to Sunday amusements, Charles republished the

Declaration of Sports

 which had been issued by his father, authorising such amusements under certain restrictions. Where, however, James had contented himself with giving orders, Charles insisted on having the Declaration read in church by all the clergy, and roused the resistance of those who regarded Sunday amusements as a breach of the Sabbath. Laud was also anxious to see the Communion table standing everywhere at the east end of the church. No doubt his anxiety came in part from his reverence of the holy sacrament for which it was set apart, but it also arose from his dislike to the base purposes for which it was often made to serve. Men often put their hats on it, or used it as a writing table. The canons, or laws of the Church, indeed, directed that the position of the table should, when not in use, be at the east end, though at the time of Communion it was to be placed in that part of the church or chancel from which the minister could best be heard. A case was brought before the king and the Privy Council in

1633

, and it was then decided that the bishop or other proper authority should settle what was the position from which the minister could best be heard. Of course the bishops settled that that place was the east end of the chancel.

24.

Laud and Prynne. 1633-1634.

– Amongst the most virulent opponents of Laud was William Prynne, a lawyer whose extensive study of theology had not tended to smooth away the asperities of his temper. He was, moreover, a voluminous writer, and had written books against drinking healths and against the wearing of long hair by men, in which these follies had been treated as equally blameworthy with the grossest sins. Struck by the immorality of the existing drama, he attacked it in a heavy work called

Histrio-mastix

, or The scourge of stage players, in which he held the frequenting of theatres to be the cause of every crime under the sun. He pointed out that all the Roman emperors who had patronised the drama had come to a bad end, and this was held by the courtiers to be a reflection on Charles, who patronised the drama. He inserted in the index a vile charge against all actresses, and this was held to be an insult to the queen, who was at the time taking part in the rehearsal of a theatrical representation. Accordingly in

1633

 Prynne was sentenced by the Star Chamber to lose his ears in the pillory, to a heavy fine, and to imprisonment during the king's pleasure. In

1634

 the sentence was carried out. Prynne's case, however, awakened no general sympathy, and the king does not appear to have as yet become widely unpopular. The young lawyers came to Whitehall to give a masque or dramatic representation in presence of the king and queen, in order to show their detestation of Prynne's conduct, whilst John Milton, the strictest and most pure-minded of poets, wrote a masque,

Comus

, to show how little sympathy he had with Prynne's sweeping denunciations. Yet, though Milton opposed Prynne's exaggeration, his own poetry was a protest against Laud's attempt to reach the mind through the senses. Milton held to the higher part of the Puritan teaching, that the soul is to lead the body, and not the body the soul. "So dear," he wrote in

Comus

,

to Heaven is saintly chastity,

That, when a soul is found sincerely so,

A thousand liveried angels lackey her,

Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,

And, in clear dream and solemn vision,

Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear,

Till oft converse with heavenly habitants

Begin to cast a beam on the outward shape,

The unpolluted temple of the mind,

And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence,

Till all be made immortal.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE OVERTHROW OF THE PERSONAL GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES I. 1634-1641

LEADING DATES

The Reign of Charles I., 1625-1649

• The Metropolitical Visitation 1634

• First Ship-money Writ (to the port-towns) 1634

• Second Ship-money Writ (to all the counties) 1635

• Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick in the pillory 1637

• Riot in Edinburgh 1637

• Scottish National Covenant 1638

• Judgment in Hampden's Case 1637-1638

• First Bishops' War 1639

• Short Parliament 1640

• Second Bishops' War 1640

• Meeting of the Long Parliament 1640

• Execution of Strafford, and Constitutional Reforms 1641

1. 

The Metropolitical Visitation. 1634-1637.

– The antagonism which Laud had begun to rouse in the first months of his archbishopric became far more widely spread in the three years beginning in

1634

 and ending in

1637

, in consequence of a Metropolitical Visitation – that is to say, a visitation which he conducted by the Metropolitan or Archbishop – either in person or by deputy – to enquire into the condition of the clergy and churches of the Province of Canterbury; a similar visitation being held in the Province of York by the authority of the Archbishop of York. Every clergyman who refused to conform to the Prayer Book, who resisted the removal of the Communion table to the east end of the chancel, or who objected to bow when the sacred name of Jesus was pronounced, was called in question, and if obstinate, was brought before the High Commission and suspended from the exercise of his functions or deprived of his living. Laud wanted to reach unity through uniformity, and made the canons of the Church his standard of uniformity. Even moderate men suspected that he sought to subject England again to the Pope. The queen, too, entertained a Papal agent at her Court, and a few successful conversions, brought about by Con, who at one time resided with her in that capacity, frightened the country into the belief that a plot existed to overthrow Protestantism. Some of Laud's clerical supporters favoured this idea, by talking about such topics as altars and the invocation of the saints, which had hitherto been held to have no place in Protestant teaching. The result was that moderate Protestants now joined the Puritans in opposing Laud.

2.

Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton. 1637.

– Laud had little hope of being able to abate the storm. One of his best qualities was that he was no respecter of persons, and he had roused animosity in the upper classes by punishing gentlemen guilty of immorality or of breaches of church discipline as freely as he punished more lowly offenders. In

1637

 he characteristically attempted to defend himself from the charge of being a Papist and an innovator in religion by bringing three of his most virulent assailants – Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton – before the Star Chamber. The trial afforded him the opportunity of making a speech in his own defence, to which nobody paid the least attention. As a matter of course the accused were heavily punished, being sentenced to lose their ears in the pillory, to pay a fine of 5,000

l.

, and to imprisonment for life. It was not now as it had been in

1634

, when Prynne stood alone in the pillory, no man regarding him. The three victims had a triumphal reception on their way to the pillory. Flowers and sweet herbs were strewed in their path. The crowd applauded them whilst they suffered. On their way to their several prisons in distant parts of the country men flocked to greet them as martyrs.

3.

Financial Pressure. 1635-1637.

– Revolutions are never successful without the guidance of men devoted to ideas; but on the other hand they are not caused only by grievances felt by religious or high-minded people. To stir large masses of men to resistance, their pockets must be touched as well as their souls. In

1635

 Weston, who had been created Earl of Portland, died, and a body of Commissioners of the Treasury, who succeeded him, laid additional impositions on commerce and established corporations for exercising various manufactures under the protection of monopolies. This proceeding was according to the letter of the law, as corporations had been exempted from the act in restraint of monopolies which had been passed in

1624

 (see p.

501

). So, too, was a claim put forward by Charles in

1637

 to levy fines from those who had encroached on the old boundaries of the forests. It is true that, in the teeth of the opposition roused, Charles exacted but a small part of the fines imposed, but he incurred almost as much obloquy as if he had taken the whole of the money.

4.

Ship-money. 1634-1637.

– More important was Charles's effort to provide himself with a fleet. As the Dutch navy was powerful, and the French navy was rapidly growing in strength, Charles, not unnaturally, thought that England ought to be able to meet their combined forces at sea. In

1634

, by the advice of Attorney-General Noy, he issued writs to the port towns, to furnish him with ships. He took care to ask for ships larger than any port – except London – had got, and then offered to supply ships of his own, on condition that the port towns should equip and man them. In

1635

– Noy having died in the meantime – Charles asked for ships not merely from the ports, but from the inland as well as from the maritime counties. Again London alone provided ships; in all the rest of England money had to be found to pay for the equipment and manning of ships belonging to the king. In this way Charles got a strong navy which he manned with sailors in the habit of managing ships of war, and entirely at his own orders. The experience of the Cadiz voyage had shown him that merchant-sailors, such as those who had done good service against the Armada, were not to be trusted to fight in enterprises in which they took no interest, and it is from the ship-money fleet that the separation of the naval and mercantile marine dates. Necessarily, however, Englishmen began to complain, not that they had a navy, but that the money needed for the navy was taken from them without a Parliamentary grant. Year after year ship-money was levied, and the murmurs against it increased. In February,

1637

, Charles consulted the judges, and ten out of the twelve judges declared that the king had a right to do what was necessary for the defence of the realm in time of danger, and that the king was the sole judge of the existence of danger.

5.

Hampden's Case. 1637-1638.

– It was admitted that, in accordance with the Petition of Right, Charles could not levy a tax without a Parliamentary grant. Charles, however, held that ship-money was not a tax, but money paid in commutation of the duty of all Englishmen to defend their country. Common sense held that, whether ship-money was a tax or not, it had been levied without consulting Parliament, simply because the king shrank from consulting Parliament; or, in other words, because he was afraid that Parliament would ask him to put an end to Laud's system of managing the Church. Charles was ready, as he said, to allow to Parliament liberty of counsel, but not of control. The sense of irritation was now so great that the nation wanted to control the Government, and knew that it would never be able to do so if Charles could, by a subterfuge, take what money he needed without summoning Parliament. Of this feeling John Hampden, a Buckinghamshire squire, became the mouthpiece. He refused to pay 20

s.

 levied on his estate for ship-money. His case was argued before the twelve judges sitting in the Exchequer Chamber. In

1638

 two pronounced distinctly in his favour, three supported him on technical grounds, and seven pronounced for the king. Charles continued to levy ship-money, but the arguments of Hampden's lawyers were circulated in the country, and the judgment of the majority on the Bench was ascribed to cowardice or obsequiousness. Their decision ranged against the king all who cared about preserving their property, as the Metropolitical visitation had ranged against him all who cared for religion in a distinctly Protestant form. Yet, even now, the Tudor monarchy had done its work too thoroughly, and had filled the minds of men too completely with the belief that armed resistance to a king was unjustifiable, to make Englishmen ripe for rebellion. They preferred to wait till some opportunity should arrive which would enable them to express their disgust in a constitutional way.

6.

Scottish Episcopacy. 1572-1612.

– The social condition of Scotland was very different from that of England. The nobles there had never been crushed as they had been in England, and they had tried to make the reformation conduce to their own profit. In

1572

 they obtained the appointment of what were known as Tulchan bishops, who, performing no episcopal function, received the revenues of their sees and then handed them over to certain nobles.

21

21

  A Tulchan was a stuffed calf's skin set by a cow to induce her to give her milk freely.

 The Presbyterian clergy, however, represented the popular element in the nation – and that element, though it had hitherto been weak, was growing strong through the discipline which it received in consequence of the leading share assigned to the middle and lower classes in the Church Courts (see p.

434

). The disagreement between these classes and the nobles gave to James the part of arbitrator, and thus conferred on him a power which no Scottish king had had before. After much vacillation, he consented, in

1592

, to an act fully re-establishing the Presbyterian system. It was not long before he repented. The Presbyterian clergy attacked his actions from the pulpit, and one of them, Andrew Melville, plucking him by the sleeve, called him 'God's silly vassal.' The nobles, too, were angry because the clergy assailed their vices, and tried to subject them to the discipline of the Church. Though their ancestors had, at almost all times, been the adversaries of the kings, they now made common cause with James. Gradually episcopacy was restored. Bishops were re-appointed in

1599

. Step by step episcopal authority was regained for them. In

1610

 three of their number were consecrated in England, and in

1612

 the Scottish Parliament ratified all that had been done.

7.

The Scottish Bishops and Clergy. 1612-1637.

– In England bishops had a party (lay and clerical) behind them. In Scotland they were mere instruments of the king and the nobles to keep the clergy quiet. In

1618

, James, supported by the bishops and the nobles, forced upon a general assembly the acceptance of the Five Articles of Perth, the most important of which was a direction that the Communion should be received in a kneeling posture. Yet, in spite of all that James had done, the local popular Church courts still existed, and the worship of the Church remained still distinctly Calvinistic and Puritan. Charles was more eager than his father to alter the worship of the Scottish Church, and, in

1637

, at his command, certain Scottish bishops – often referring for advice to Laud – completed a new Prayer Book, not unlike that in use in England, but differing from it, for the most part, in a sense adverse to Puritanism. The clergy declared against it, and this time the clergy had on their side the nobles, who not only feared lest Charles should take from them the Church lands appropriated by their fathers, but were also irritated at the promotion of some bishops to high offices which they claimed for themselves.

8.

The Riot at Edinburgh and the Covenant. 1637-1638.

– On July 23,

1637

, an attempt was made to read the new service in St. Giles's, at Edinburgh. The women present burst into a riot, and one of them threw her stool at the head of the officiating minister, fortunately missing him. All Scotland took part with the rioters. The new Prayer Book was hated, not only because it was said to be Popish, but also because it was English. In November four committees, known as the Tables, practically assumed the government of Scotland. In February,

1638

, all good Scots were signing a National Covenant. Nothing was said in it about episcopacy, but those who signed it bound themselves to labour, by all means lawful, to recover the purity and liberty of the Gospel, as it was established and professed before the recent innovations.

9.

The Assembly of Glasgow, and the Abolition of Episcopacy. 1638.

– The greater part of

1638

 was passed by Charles in an endeavour to come to an understanding with the Scots. On September 2 he revoked the Prayer Book, and offered to limit the powers of the bishops. On November 21 a general assembly met at Glasgow, in which ninety-six lay members – for the most part noblemen – sat with 144 clergymen, and which may therefore be regarded as a sort of Ecclesiastical Parliament in which the clergy predominated as the nobles predominated in the single house which made up the real Parliament. The Assembly claimed to judge the bishops, on which the king's commissioner, the Marquis of Hamilton, dissolved the Assembly rather than admit its claim. The Assembly, however, on the ground that it poss