Sir John Elliot framed a remonstrance against levying ton nage 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 merchants who should voluntarily pay these duties, were denominated betrayers of English liberty, and public enemies. The doors 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. 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 * 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 quò 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. to be imprisoned during the king's pleasure, to find sureties for their good behavior, and to be fined, the two former a thou sand 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 nappened 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. ‡ Kennet, vol. iii. p. 49. † Whitlocke, p. 13. § Rushworth, vol. v. p. 440. CHAPTER LII. CHARLES 1. [1629.] THERE now opens to us a new scene. Charles, naturally disgusted with parliaments, who, he found, were determined to proceed against him with unmitigated rigor, both in invading his prerogative and refusing him all supply, resolved not to call any more, till he should see greater indications of a compliant disposition in the nation. Having lost his great favorite, Buckingham, he became his own minister and never afterwards reposed in any one such unlimited confidence. As he chiefly follows his own genius and disposition, his measures are henceforth less rash and hasty; though the general tenor of his administration still wants somewhat of being entirely legal, and perhaps more of being entirely prudent. ; We shall endeavor to exhibit a just idea of the events which followed for some years, so far as they regard foreign affairs, the state of the court, and the government of the nation. The incidents are neither numerous nor illustrious; but the knowledge of them is necessary for understanding the subsequent transactions which are so memorable. Charles, destitute of all supply, was necessarily reduced to embrace a measure which ought to have been the result of reason and sound policy: he made peace with the two crowns against which he had hitherto waged a war, entered into with- ́ out necessity, and conducted without glory. Notwithstanding the distracted and helpless condition of England, no attempt. was made either by France or Spain to invade their enemy; nor did they entertain any further project than to defend themselves against the feeble and ill-concerted expeditions of that kingdom. Pleased that the jealousies and quarrels between king and parliament had disarmed so formidable a power, they carefully avoided any enterprise which might rouse either the terror or anger of the English, and dispose them to domestic union and submission. The endeavors to regain the good will of the nation were carried so far by the king of Spain 6 H VOL. "V. that he generously released and sent home all the English prisoners taken in the expedition against Cadiz. The example was imitated by France after the retreat, of the English from the Isle of Rhé. When princes were in such dispositions, and had so few pretensions on each other, it could not be difficult to conclude a peace. The treaty was first signed with France.* The situation of the king's affairs did not entitle him to demand any conditions for the Hugonots, and they were abandoned to the will of their sovereign. [1630.] Peace was afterwards concluded with Spain, where no conditions were made in favor of the palatine, except that Spain promised in general to use their good offices for his restoration. The influence of these two wars on domestic affairs, and on the dispositions of king and people, was of the utmost consequence; but no alteration was made by them on the foreign interests of the kingdom. Nothing more happy can be imagined than the situation in which England then stood with regard to foreign affairs. Europe was divided between the rival families of Bourbon and Austria, whose opposite interests, and still more, their mutual jealousies, secured the tranquillity of this island. Their forces. were so nearly counterpoised, that no apprehensions were entertained of any event which could suddenly disturb the balance of power between them. The Spanish monarch, deemed the most powerful, lay at greatest distance; and the English, by that means, possessed the advantage of being engaged by political motives into a more intimate union and confederacy with the neighboring potentate. The dispersed situation of the Spanish dominions rendered the naval power of England formidable to them, and kept that empire in continual dependence. France, more vigorous and more compact, was every day rising in policy and discipline; and reached at last an equality of power with the house of Austria; but her progress, slow and gradual, left it still in the power of England, by a timely interposition, to check her superiority. And thus Charles, could he have avoided all dissensions with his own subjects, was in a situation to make himself be courted and respected by every power in Europe; and, what has scarcely ever since been attained by the princes of this island, he could either be active with dignity, or neutra. with security. : * Rushworth, vol. ii. p. 23, 24. † Rushworth, vol. ii. p. 75. Whitlocke, p. 14. pro A neutrality was embraced by the king; and during the rest of his reign, he seems to have little regarded foreign affairs, except so far as he was engaged by honor, and by friendship for his sister and the palatine, to endeavor the curing of some relief for that unhappy family. He joined his good offices to those of France, and mediated a peace between the kings of Sweden and Poland, in hopes of engaging the former to embrace the protection of the oppressed Protestants in the empire. This was the famed Gustavus, whose heroic genius, seconded by the wisest policy, made him in a little time the most distinguished monarch of the age, and rendered his country, formerly unknown and neglected, of great weight in the balance of Europe. To encourage and assist him in his projected invasion of Germany, Charles agreed to furnish him with six thousand men; but, that he might preserve the appearance of neutrality, he made use of the marquis of Hamilton's name.* That nobleman entered into an engagement with Gustavus; and enlisting these troops in England and Scotland, at Charles's expense, he landed them in the Elbe. The decisive battle of Leipsic was fought soon after, where the conduct of Tilly and the valor of the imperialists were overcome by the superior conduct of Gustavus and the superior valor of the Swedes. What remained of this hero's life was one continued series of victory, for which he was less beholden to fortune than to those personal endowments which he derived from nature and from industry. That rapid progress of conquest which we so much admire in ancient history, was here renewed in modern annals; and without that cause to which, in former ages, it had ever been owing. Military nations were not now engaged against an undisciplined and unwarlike people; nor heroes set in opposition to cowards. The veteran troops of Ferdinand, conducted by the most celebrated generals of the age, were foiled in every encounter; and all Germany was overrun in an instant by the victorious Swede. But by this extraordinary and unexpected success of his ally, Charles failed of the purpose for which he framed the alliance. Gustavus, elated by prosperity, began to form more extensive plans of ambition; and in freeing Germany from the yoke of Ferdinand, he intended to reduce it to subjection under his own. He refused to restore the palatine to his principality, except on conditions which * Rushworth, vol. i. p. 46, 53, 62, 83. |