1625. EXPEDITION TO CADIZ. 17 The collectors had orders to return the names of those who refused to lend, or complied reluctantly. He sent privy seals not only to his subjects, but to alien merchants : the latter peremptorily refused them.* He levied the duties of tonnage and poundage voted by the commons for one year only, and for that reason, it has been observed, stopped in the house of lords. Buckingham was charged not only with his diplomatic mission to the Hague, but with the king's plate and jewels, upon which he was to raise money among the Dutch. The fleet, by great exertions, in the difficult situation to which Charles had reduced himself, was enabled to put to sea from Plymouth on the 3d and 4th of October, under the command of sir Edward Cecil, who had served with the English auxiliaries in the Low Countries — an officer of more experience than reputation or capacity. There were inauspicious murmurs when the fleet was about to sail. The seamen expected to be commanded by sir Robert Mansel. + The public censured Buckingham, the high admiral, because he did not command in person an expedition the secret of which he concealed from the rest of the council. Cecil was created viscount Wimbledon on the occasion; but this imposing dignity added little or nothing to the confidence of the fleet in its commander, and the chances of success. The fleet, dispersed and damaged by foul weather, rendezvoused off Cape St. Vincent on the 19th. Wimbledon's orders were in substance the same as those given by Elizabeth to the commanders of her expeditions against Spain to destroy the shipping and stores in the Spanish harbours, lie in wait for the Spanish plate fleet, and not engage in desperate enterprises from motives either of cupidity or glory. A council of George Westby, esq. 107.; Sir John Ramsden, 157.; John Armitage, esq. 157.; John West, esq. 107.; John Key, esq. 137. 10s.; Sir Henry Savil, 301.; Sir John Savil, 157.; Philip Hungate, esq. 15.; Wid. Armitage, 107.; Ursula Wentworth, 10. &c. (Rush. i. 445.) Rushworth, i. 195. war, held in pursuance of the instructions of the commander-in-chief, decided upon sailing directly for the Bay of Cadiz., Arrived at Port St. Mary, Wimbledon, after the example of the memorable capture of Cadiz by the English, in 1596, began by attacking the fort of Puntal; which was accordingly battered for a day without success. Sir John Burgh landed next morning with 1000 men, and the fort, upon which no impression had been made by the naval batteries, surrendered upon summons without firing a gun. The Spanish ships meanwhile secured themselves further up the harbour, under the guns of Port Real, from the English fleet. The next step after the taking of Puntal was to destroy the bridge which connects the island with the main land, and attack Cadiz. This operation had been readily executed by the gallant earl of Essex, in 1596. Wimbledon had not proceeded far on his way to the bridge when his troops broke into wine cellars, and soon became a drunken, disorderly, unmanageable rabble. He abandoned the idea of attacking Cadiz, and thought of retaining possession of Puntal, with the hope of intercepting the Spanish plate fleet, but found his men in such a state of insubordination and disease, as to render even this attempt unadvisable. He accordingly re-embarked with ignominy, and after having waited eighteen days in expectation of the plate fleet, which appeared four days after he sailed, arrived at Plymouth about the middle of December. The nation was indignant at this disastrous failure, and the unhappy commander was hooted on his return. By some it was ascribed to want of energy and prudence in him*; by others to the mutinous and party spirit of his officers, more especially Essex, the son of him who had formerly signalised himself by the capture of Cadiz. + Essex and other officers accused him before the council, and were accused by him in return. inquiry had no result. The The irregular levies of revenue employed by Charles Rush. i. 196. Whitelock's Memorials, p. 3. + Rush. i. 197. 1625. FAILURE OF THE EXPEDITION. 19 * were as unproductive as those of his father. He was reduced to the distresses of the late reign, even in his household. Debts and pensions, the salaries of his officers, the wages of his domestics, were unpaid. At Salisbury he was obliged to borrow for his table 2000l. from the town, on the bonds of the treasurer and chancellor of the exchequer. † There is no ground for asserting, though there may be for conjecturing, that Charles, when he dismissed the last parliament, and plunged eagerly into war, had concerted with Buckingham a scheme for turning foreign victory to his advantage against the essential privilege of the commons, and the property of the subject; but it is manifest, from an instruction of the commander-in-chief, that the king expected at least to reimburse the charges of the expedition by the plunder of Spanish maritime towns. He was directed "to save the wealth of any town that was taken towards the charge of the fleet." + The disgraceful failure of the expedition put an end to his designs and hopes, whatever they may have been. He was driven within the short space of a few months to have recourse again to parliament. His purpose summoning a parliament was suspected. It was inferred from his appointing several of the leading commoners who opposed the court sheriffs of their respective counties, in order thus to render them incapable of serving in parliament. The members thus distinguished were, sir Francis Seymour, sir Robert Phillips, sir Grey Palmer, sir William Fleetwood, sir Edward Coke, sir Thomas Wentworth. Coke maintained that they might serve for other counties or boroughs beyond the sphere of their duty as sheriffs; and Seymour and Phillips proposed to act upon his authority. They, however, did not press the question, probably from the refusal of Wentworth to enter into an election arrangement proposed to him by Seymour. § Wentworth, guided by Sidney, Lett. ii. 863. † Ibid. Straf. Pap. i, 30, i his own instincts, or by the counsels of his father-inlaw, Hollis, earl of Clare, seemed resolved at first not to serve the people beyond the possibility of forgiveness by the court. Lord Clare suggested to him that "it was not good to stand within the distance of absolute power; that they were in a country where the lex laquens was above book-law *;" and Wentworth writes to another correspondent, that "it was with him an invariable rule never to contend with the prerogative out of parliament.” † Another obstacle to the return of the marked patriots, was the danger to which the boroughs electing them would subject their charters. It is scarcely necessary to suggest how unsettled the constitution, how undefined the prerogative, how imperative the duty of reforming the government and restraining the crown, when, in the minds of such men as Wentworth and Clare, the king's word was the transcendant law, the corporate franchise was at the mercy of the sovereign, and no prudent subject would dispute with the crown, unless shielded by the privileges of an assembled parliament. Charles himself selected and named the seven marked sheriffs. § Going over the names, he observed in passing, that "sir Thomas Wentworth was an honest gentleman ||;" either as an artifice to gain him over, or from a perception of his character and presentiment of his apostacy. Coke gave in to the council board four exceptions to the sheriffs' oath, of which one was admitted, and the following article struck out of the oath, in pursuance of the unanimous opinion of the judges; viz.: “You shall do all your pain and diligence to destroy, and make to cease, all manner of heresies and errors commonly called Lollardies within your baylwick, from time to time to all power, and assist and be helping to all ordinaries and commissioners of the holy church." ¶ * Straf. Pap. i. 31. Id. ibid. + Ibid. p. 33. 1625. BUCKINGHAM AND WILLIAMS. 21 The preservation of this article in the sheriffs' oath, is one of the many proofs how fondly the protestant church of England cherished the provisions and pretensions by which the church of Rome made the civil magistrate its passive instrument in forcing religious conformity. Among the chief incidents which preceded the meeting of Charles's second parliament, was the disgrace and removal of the lord keeper, Williams. Buckingham, who had an implacable sense of even slight injuries, never forgot Williams's share in the intrigue against him during his absence in Spain. The lord keeper, upon the accession of Charles, thought to maintain his equilibrium by his own management and adroitness, without dependence upon the favourite. He came to a secret understanding with the opposition lords, by way of governing the balance between the opposition and the court, and veiled his manœuvres under an air of frank zeal for the safety and interests of Buckingham, even at the risk of offending him. The first leading question upon which he opposed Buckingham in the council, was the adjournment of parliament from Westminster to Oxford. He urged, that the commons would meet at Oxford in a bad temper; that it was not the usage to vote subsidies twice in the same session; that it was imprudent to offend the commons, and hazard a refusal in the first year of the king's reign. Buckingham impatiently replied, that the public advantage must overrule the opinion of one man; from which it appears that Williams stood alone in the council. The bishop, thus foiled in the council, had the hardihood to attempt to countermine the favourite, by telling the king in a private audience, that Buckingham's enemies in the commons had their charges against him prepared, and would produce them at Oxford; that "the hectic" would pass away during a prorogation to the ensuing Christmas, through his interference and influence in the mean time with "the chief sticklers." This supple, adroit, and bold in |