were derived from the uniform tenor of the English laws, it would be rash to affirm. The fluctuating nature of the con stitution, the impatient humor of the people, and the variety of events, had, no doubt, in different ages, produced excep tions and contradictions. These observations alone may be established on both sides, that the appearances were suffi ciently strong in favor of the king to apologize for his follow ing such maxims; and that public liberty must be so precarious under this exorbitant prerogative, as to render an opposition not only excusable, but laudable in the people.* Some laws had been enacted, during the reign of Henry VII., against depopulation, or the converting of arable lands into pasture. By a decree of the star chamber, Sir Anthony Roper was fined four thousand pounds for an offence of that nature.t This severe sentence was intended to terrify others into composition; and above thirty thousand pounds were levied by that expedient. Like compositions, or, in default of them, heavy fines, were required for encroachments on the king's forests, whose bounds, by decrees deemed arbitrary, were extended much beyond what was usual. The bounds of one forest, that of Rockingham, were increased from six miles to sixty.|| The same refractory humor which made the people refuse to the king voluntary supplies, disposed them, with better reason, to murmur against these irregular methods of taxation. Morley was fined ten thousand pounds for reviling, chaiienging, and striking, in the court of Whitehall, Sir George Theobald, one of the king's servants. This fine was thought exorbitant; but whether it was compounded, as was usual in fines imposed by the star chamber, we are not informed. Allison had reported, that the archbishop of York had in. curred the king's displeasure, by asking a limited toleration for the Catholics, and an allowance to build some churches for the exercise of their religion. For this slander against the archbishop, he was condemned in the star chamber to be fined one thousand pounds, to be committed to prison, to be bound to his good behavior during life, to be whipped, and to be set cee note D, at the end of the volume. ↑ Rush. vol. ii. p. 270; Despatches, vol. ii. p. 117. on the pillory at Westminster, and in three other towns in England. Robins, who had been an accomplice in the guilt, was condemned by a sentence equally severe.* Such events are rather to be considered as rare and detached incidents, collected by the severe scrutiny of historians, than as proofs of the prevailing genius of the king's administration. which seems to have been more gentle and equitable than that of most of his predecessors: there were, on the whole, only five or six such instances of rigor during the course of fifteen years, which elapsed before the meeting of the long parlia ment. And it is also certain, that scandal against the great, though seldom prosecuted at present, is, however, in the eye of the law, a great crime, and subjects the offender to very heavy penalties. There are other instances of the high respect paid to the nobility and to the great in that age, when the powers of monarchy, though disputed, still maintained themselves in their pristine vigor. Clarendon t tells us a pleasant incident to this purpose: a waterman, belonging to a man of quality, having a squabble with a citizen about his fare, showed his badge, the crest of his master, which happened to be a swan; and thence insisted on better treatment from the citizen. But the other replied carelessly, that he did not trouble his head about that goose. For this offence, he was summoned before the marshal's court; was fined, as having opprobriously defamed the nobleman's crest, by calling the swan a goose; and was in effect reduced to beggary. Sir Richard Granvile had thought himself ill used by th earl of Suffolk in a lawsuit; and he was accused before the star chamber of having said of that nobleman, that he was a base lord. The evidence against him was somewhat lame; yet for this slight offence, insufficiently proved, he was condemned to pay a fine of eight thousand pounds; one half to the earl, the other to the king. Sir George Markham, following a chase where Lord Darcy's huntsman was exercising his hounds, kept closer to the dogs than was thought proper by the huntsman, who, besides other rudeness, gave him foul language, which Sir George returned with a stroke of his whip. The fellow threatened to complain to his master: the knight replied, "If his master should justif Rush. vol. ii. p. 269. + Life of Clarendon, vol. i. p. 72 such insolence, he would serve him in the same manner; or words to that effect. Sir George was summoned before the star chamber, and fined ten thousand pounds: "So fine a thing was it in those days to be a lord!" a natural reflection of Lord Lansdown's in relating this incident. The people, in vindicating their liberties from the authority of the crown, threw off also the yoke of the nobility. It is proper to remark that this last incident happened early in the reign of James. The present practice of the star chamber was far from being an innovation; though the present dispositions of the people made them repine more at this servitude. [1635.] Charles had imitated the example of Elizabeth and James, and had issued proclamations forbidding the landed gentlemen and the nobility to live idly in London, and ordering them to retire to their country seats.† For disobe dience to this edict, many were indicted by the attorney-general, and were fined in the star chamber. This occasioned discontents; and the sentences were complained of as illegal. But if proclamations had authority, of which nobody pretended to doubt, must they not be put in execution? In no instance I must confess, does it more evidently appear, what confused and uncertain ideas were during that age entertained concerning the English constitution. Ray, having exported fuller's earth, contrary to the king's proclamation, was, besides the pillory, condemned in the star chamber to a fine of two thousand pounds. Like fines were levied on Terry, Eman, and others, for disobeying a proclamation which forbade the exportation of gold.|| In order to account for the subsequent convulsions, even these incidents are not to be overlooked as frivolous or contemptible. Such зeverities were afterwards magnified into the greatest enormities. There remains a proclamation of this year, prohibiting hackney coaches from standing in the street.¶ We are told, that there were not above twenty coaches of that kind in London. There are at present near eight hundred. * Lod Lansdown, p. 515. This story is told differently in Hobart's Reports, p. 120. It there appears, that Markham was fined only five hundred pounds, and very deservedly; for he gave the lie and wrote a challenge to Lord Darcy. James was anxious to discourage the practice of duelling, which was then very prevalent. Rush. vol. ii. p. 144.. § Rush. vol. ii. p. 348. Rush. vol. ii. p. 316. Rush. vol. p. 288. 1636.] The effects of ship money began now to appeɛr. A formidable fleet of sixty sail, the greatest that England nad ever known, was equipped under the earl of Northumberland, who had orders to attack the herring busses of the Dutch, which fished in what were called the British seas. The Dutch were content to pay thirty thousand pounds for a license cur ing this year. They openly denied, however, the claim of dominion in the seas beyond the friths, bays, and shores; and it may be questioned whether the laws of nations warrant any further pretensions. This year, the king sent a squadron against Sallee; and, with the assistance of the emperor of Morocco, destroyed that receptacle of pirates, by whom the English commerce, and even the English coasts, had long been infested. [1637.] Burton, a divine, and Ba-twick, a physician, were tried in the star chamber for seditious and schismatical libels, and were condemned to the same punishment that had been inflicted on Prynne. Prynne himself was tried for a new offence; and, together with another fine of five thousand pounds, was condemned to lose what remained of his ears. Besides that these writers had attacked with great severity, and even an intemperate zeal, the ceremonies, rites, and gov. ernment of the church, the very answers which they gave in to the court were so full of contumacy and of invectives against the prelates, that no lawyer could be prevailed on to sign them.* The rigors, however, which they underwent, being so unworthy men of their profession, gave general offence; and the patience, or rather alacrity, with which they suffered, increased still further the indignation of the public.t The severity of the star chamber, which was generally ascribed to Laud's passionate disposition, was, perhaps, in itself somewhat blamable; but will naturally, to us, appear enormons, who enjoy, in the utmost latitude, that liberty of the press, which is esteemed so necessary in every monarchy, contined by strict legal limitations. But as these limitations were not regularly fixed during the age of Charles, nor at any time be fore, so was this liberty totally unknown, and was generally deemed, as well as religious toleration, incompatible with all good government. No age or nation among the moderus and ever set an example of such an indulgence; and it seems Rush. vol. ii. p. 381, 382, etc. State Trials, vol. v. p. 66. † State Trials, vol. v. p. 80. unreasonable to judge of the measures embraced during one period by the maxims which prevail in another. * Burton, in his book where he complained of innovations mentioned, among others, that a certain Wednesday had been appointed for a fast, and that the fast was ordered to be celeorated without any sermons. The intention, as he pretended. of that novelty was, by the example of a fast without sermons, to suppress all the Wednesday's lectures in London. It is observable, that the church of Rome and that of England, being both of them lovers of form, and ceremony, and order, are more friends to prayer than preaching; while the Puritani cal sectaries, who find that the latter method of address, being directed to a numerous audience present and visible, is more inflaming and animating, have always regarded it as the chief part of divine service. Such circumstances, though minute, it may not be improper to transmit to posterity; and those who are curious of tracing the history of the human mind, may remark how far its several singularities coincide in different iges. Certain zealots had erected themselves into a society for buying in of impropriations, and transferring them to the church; and great sums of money had been bequeathed to the society for these purposes. But it was soon observed, that the only use which they made of their funds was to establish lec turers in all the considerable churches; men who, without being subjected to Episcopal authority, employed themselves entirely in preaching and spreading the fire of Puritanism. Laud took care, by a decree which was passed in the court of exchequer, and which was much complained of, to abolish tnis society, and to stop their progress.† It was, however, still observed, that throughout England the lecturers were all of them Puritanically affected; and from them the clergymen, who contented themselves with reading prayers and homilies to the people, commonly received the reproachful appellation of "dumb dogs." The Puritans, restrained in England, shipped themselves uff for America, and laid there the foundations of a government which possessed all the liberty, both civil and religious, of which they found themselves bereaved in their native country Franklyn, p. 839. Whitlocke, p. 15. History of the Life 212. |