Subsidy delayed, and parliament prorogued. Feb. 7.

long-anticipated, and we may perhaps say the deeply-mortgaged subsidy, appeared to be more remote than ever. Judging from the temper of the house, James began to fear the mortification of a direct refusal, even to so moderate a demand, and from this his first parliament; an event which he would have looked upon as degrading him in the sight of all Europe. It was to avoid this catastrophe, that his majesty professed to have discovered reasons for not wishing to press just now on the means of his subjects, and requested that the application for a subsidy might be withdrawn. In less than a fortnight after making this communication, James prorogued the parliament. The session had lasted twelve months within a few days*.

Conduct of the
Commons at

examined.

It is no doubt true that the monarch needed the lesson which this seeming parsimony could not but convey. Even his apologists must admit that his habits of expense, though rethis juncture sulting from a facility of disposition towards those who obtained his favour more than from any other cause, were such as required a vigorous check. But when every allowance of this nature shall have been made, something more than we have yet seen is necessary to account for this cautious, this seemingly ungenerous course of proceeding on the part of the commons. The king, supposing him to have shown any reasonable consideration of the wishes and claims of his subjects, was surely entitled to the limited pecuniary

*Parl. Hist. 1028, 1030, 1044, 1045. One effect of this session was to show James that he had greatly underrated the strength of the Puritans. Writing to Lord Howard while the question of a subsidy was pending, he says, "My faithful 3; such is now my misfortune, as I must be for this time secretary to the devil in answering your letters directed unto him. That the entering now into the matter of the subsidy should be deferred until the council's next meeting with me, I think no ways convenient, especially for three reasons: first, you see it has already been longest delayed of any thing, and yet you see the longer and further from it, and (as in every thing that concerns me) delay of time does never turn them toward me, but, by the contrary, every hour breedeth a new trick of contradiction amongst them, and every day produces new matter of sedition, so fertile are their brains in ever uttering forth venom; next, the parliament is now so very near an end, as this matter can suffer no longer delay; and thirdly, if this be not granted unto before they receive my answer to their petition, it needs never to be moved, for the will of man or angel cannot devise a pleasing answer to their proposition, except I should pull the crown not only from my own head, but also from the head of all those who shall succeed unto me, and lay it down at their feet. And that freedom of uttering my thoughts, which no extremity, nor strait, nor peril of my life, could ever bereave me of in times past, shall now remain with me as long as the soul shall with the body. And as for the reservations of the bill of tonnage and poundage, ye of the upper house must, out of your love and discretion, help it again, or otherwise they will in this, as in all things else that concerns me, wrack both me and all my posterity. Ye may impart this to little 10 and bigg Suffolk. And so far well from my wilderness, which I had rather live in (as God shall judge me) like a hermit than be a king over such a people as the pack of Puritans are that overrules the lower house." Printed from the MS. in Hallam's Constitutional History of England, i. 331, 332. In the secret correspondence between James and Cecil, 30 stood for the King, 10 for Cecil, and 3 for Lord Henry Howard. Birch's Memoirs, ii. 514.

aid which his servants solicited in his name. But no men could be more sensible than were the members of the lower house, that to judge properly of the relation in which they stood with respect to the sovereign at the close of this their first session, required attention to the whole of the occurrences forming the history of that session. Accordingly, as if looking forward to a sudden prorogation, they appointed a committee to draw up a succinct statement of what had passed; that, for their own vindication, and the instruction of posterity, the reasons of their conduct might be matter of full and permanent record *.

Civil

When accused of meddling with wardships, marriages, and purveyance, for the purpose of impairing the revenue of the crown, they replied, with justice and becoming indigna- grievances. tion, that their sole object was to release the subject from those old and prolific sources of oppression; presuming, that, as with the proposal to abolish all such exactions they were careful to annex the offer of a permanent equivalent in another shape, the change was one that would commend itself to the patriotism of the monarch, no less than to that of the subject.

Religion.

But what especially contributed to this umbrage of the Commons was the discouragement with which the king and his advisers bad met every attempt toward the reformation of the Church. In fact, James, as though resolved not to credit the strength of the Puritans in that assembly, had applied himself to the government of the nation in a manner so independent of their aid, that it assumed the character of defiance. This they could not fail to see, and they acted accordingly. They extorted from the servants of the crown the appointment of a committee of both houses for the purpose of a conference on this important subject, though the sovereign had declared by proclamation that no further change was to be admitted. The particulars enumerated by the Commons committee, as those requiring deli

Sir Thomas Ridgway presented this paper to the house as the production of "a select committee." Hume, who describes it as the work of Sir Francis Bacon and Sir Edwin Sandys, states that its spirit of freedom was "much beyond the principles of the age," and that it failed to be adopted on that account, no trace of it appearing in the Journals. But the truth is, we find the first paragraph of it in the Journals; and from the debates of the lower house in 1621 it is manifest that the document was not only read, but adopted, its non-appearance in the Journals being matter of astonishment to those senior members who had been parties to the adoption of it. Nor will its having been presented to the king appear at all improbable, if it be remembered that all its great principles were embodied in the Speaker's address on the meeting of parliament. There is an allusion to the paper inTruth brought to Light." Pref. It was first printed by Sir Matthew Hale, and may be seen in Petyt's "Jus Parliamentarium." Parl. Hist. i. 1030, 1042, 1335, et seq. We are not aware that the allusion to this document in the debates of the Commons in 1621 has been noticed by any preceding writer; and since we became acquainted with that reference, we find the following notice of it in one of Beaumont's unpublished despatches:-On the 10th of June, this writer remarks that the king made a speech to the house "full of anger," which was heard in silence, but was followed by "a justification of themselves in writing against all his imputations." Dépêches, June 12.

D

beration, were in substance the same with those inserted in the petition of the Puritan clergy, and which led to the meeting at Hampton Court. They especially regret the "pressing the use of certain rites and ceremonies of the Church; as the cross in baptism, the wearing of the surplice in ordinary parish churches, and the subscription required of ministers, further than is commanded by the laws of the realm; things which, by long experience, have been found the occasions of such difference, trouble, and contention in the Church, as thereby divers profitable and painful ministers, not in contempt of authority, or desire of novelty, as they sincerely profess, and we are verily persuaded, but from conscience toward God refusing the same, some of good desert have been deprived, others of good expectation withheld from entering into the ministry, and way given to ignorant and unable men, to the great prejudice of the free course and fruitful success of the gospel, to the dangerous advantage of the common adversaries of true religion, and to the great grief and discomfort of many of your majesty's most faithful and loyal subjects.*

But all reasoning and entreaty on this subject was without effect; and as the sovereign had determined not to grant the reasonable wishes of the subject, the subject in his turn had determined not to comply with the otherwise reasonable wishes of the sovereign.† And even when matters had manifestly come to this pass, the preStrong preju- judices of the monarch only seemed to gather strength, dice of James and his passions to become more excited. "As God shall against the judge me!" he exclaimed in the ear of favourites, “I Puritans. had rather live like an hermit, than be a king over such a people as the pack of Puritans are that over-rules the lower house."‡ This state of mind, indeed, had now acquired the force of habit; and gloomy, in many directions, was the prospect which it boded. Five years had now passed since his majesty had penned the advice to his son, which found its way abroad under the title of 'Basilicon Doron,' and it is after this manner that he there speaks of the Puritans of Scotland. "There never rose faction in the time of my minority, nor trouble since,

*Parl. Hist. i. 1023-1026.

Of the impression which the conduct of the king at this time was adapted to make on the mind of the by-stander, some judgment may be formed from the following report of the French ambassador:-" James has written to the lower house a letter full of reproaches, and in a style which I submit privately to your majesty, only to remark that this mode of proceeding is very unusual and very prejudicial to the prince. The letter has also been very ill taken; great complaints have been raised of it, and very bitter and hostile judgments fallen upon it. The king, therefore, determined to tell the lower house, in a second letter, that he had not intended to offend them, but only to gain them over to reason. They, however, are by no means satisfied; and if they were more angry, and spoke more bitterly of the first letter, they scoff more at the second. King James, in spite of all this, lives in the conviction that he is wiser than all his councillors; and is able, in spite of all complications, to remain neuter, and enjoy peace and repose. I, on the other hand, contemplate the approach of much misfortune and confusion; and can assure your majesty, that you have rather reason to reflect on and compassionate his perversity and its ruinous results, than to fear his power." Beaumont, Dépêches, Mai 13, 26, 1604.

See note, p. 32, book ii. passim.

but they that were upon that factious part were ever careful to persuade and allure these unruly spirits among the ministry to spouse that quarrel as their own; where through I was often calumniated in their popular sermons, not for any evil or vice in me, but because I was a king, which they thought the highest evil. And yet for all their cunning, whereby they pretended to distinguish the lawfulness of the office from the vice of the person, some of them would sometimes snapper out well grossly with the truth of their intentions; informing the people that all kings and princes were naturally enemies to the liberty of the Church, and could never bear patiently the yoke of Christ:—with such sound doctrine fed they their flocks. And because the learned, grave, and honest men of the ministry were ever ashamed and offended with their temerity and presumption, there could be no way found out so meet in their conceit for maintaining their plots, as parity in the Church-parity, the mother of confusion. Take heed, therefore, my son, to such Puritans, very pests in the Church and commonwealth; whom no deserts can oblige, neither oaths nor promises bind; breathing nothing but seditions and calumnies, aspiring without measure, railing without reason, and making their own imaginations (without any warrant of the word) the square of their conscience. I protest before the great God, and as I am here upon my testament it is no place for me to lie in, that ye shall never find with any highland or border-thieves greater ingratitude and more lies and vile perjuries than with these fanatic spirits. And suffer not the principal of them to brook your land, if you like to sit at rest." The remedy for these inveterate evils, it is added, would be found in the reinstatement of bishops, not only in the Church, but in the parliament.

It is not easy to read the above extract without supposing that James had seen instances of base and violent conduct in the party to which it refers. Some were, probably, as he describes Conduct of the them, "fanatic spirits," and more scrupulous in regard to the points of their sectarianism, than about some weightier censurable. matters. But no dispassionate man will believe that

Puritans

how far

such was their general character, or that in the disorders adverted to the king had been so free from "evil or vice" as he seems to have supposed. With respect to the Puritans of England, it may be safely affirmed, that while not altogether devoid of the elements of character with which James had been so deeply offended in Scotland, their temper and conduct were such as should have secured his respect and sympathy. So far were they from manifesting the artifice and turbulence imputed to the Scots, that their manners as a body during the whole of this reign were characterized by a wise admixture of the devout and the moral virtues; and by a deference to authority, which, coupled as it was with an ardent love of freedom, erred on the side of patient decorum, rather than on that of rudeness or violence. Let attention be given to the following passage from a document in which the Commons de

fended their conduct as the advocates of these people, and then let the question be asked, whether the men who so express themselves, or the party which they represent, or, at least, whose cause they were always willing to plead, could deserve to be confounded with the class of persons set forth in such odious colours by the passions of the monarch. "For matter of religion, it will appear by examination of truth and right, that your majesty should be misinformed, if any man should deliver that the kings of England have any absolute power in themselves either to alter religion, (which God defend should be in the power of any mortal man whatsoever) or to make any laws concerning the same, otherwise, than, as in temporal causes, by consent of parliament. We have, and shall at all times by our oaths, acknowledge, that your majesty is sovereign lord and supreme governor in both. Touching our own desires and proceedings therein, they have not been a little misconceived and misreported. We have not come in any Puritan or Brownish spirit to introduce their party, or to work the subversion of the state ecclesiastical as now it standeth, things so far and so clearly from our meaning, as that with uniform consent, in the beginning of this parliament, we committed to the Tower a man who out of that humour, in a petition exhibited to our house, had slandered the bishops. We disputed not of matters of faith and doctrine; our desire was peace only, and our device of unity; how this lamentable and long-lurking dissension among the ministers, from which both atheism, sects, and all ill life have received such encouragement, and such dangerous increase, might at length, before help came too late, be extinguished. And for the ways of this peace we are not at all addicted to our own inventions, but ready to embrace any fit way that may be offered; neither desire we so much that any man in regard of weakness of conscience may be exempted after parliament from obedience unto laws established, as that in this parliament such laws may be enacted, as by the relinquishment of some few ceremonies of small importance, or by any better way, a perpetual uniformity may be enjoined and observed. Our desire hath also been to reform certain abuses crept into the ecclesiastical state even as into the temporal: and, lastly, that the land might be furnished with a learned, religious, and godly ministry; for the maintenance of whom we would have granted no small contributions, had we found that correspondency from others which was expected."*

It must be admitted that the spirit of the Puritans, goaded by the tyranny of Elizabeth's government, was not always so moderate and decorous as that of their advocates in the House of Commons. Of the Brownists, mentioned in the above passage, we shall have occasion to speak in another place. They were a sect distinguished from the Puritans as being opposed to any official interference of the magistrate in religious matters; and were the opponents, in consequence, of all civil establishments of christianity.

*Parl. Hist. i. 1039.