The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) π
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might probably suffice for the execution
of his great design. If strict economy were observed, if all
collision with foreign powers were carefully avoided, the debts
of the crown would be cleared off: there would be funds available
for the support of a large military force; and that force would
soon break the refractory spirit of the nation.
At this crisis an act of insane bigotry suddenly changed the
whole face of public affairs. Had the King been wise, he would
have pursued a cautious and soothing policy towards Scotland till
he was master in the South. For Scotland was of all his kingdoms
that in which there was the greatest risk that a spark might
produce a flame, and that a flame might become a conflagration.
Constitutional opposition, indeed, such as he had encountered at
Westminster, he had not to apprehend at Edinburgh. The Parliament
of his northern kingdom was a very different body from that which
bore the same name in England. It was ill constituted: it was
little considered; and it had never imposed any serious restraint
on any of his predecessors. The three Estates sate in one house.
The commissioners of the burghs were considered merely as
retainers of the great nobles. No act could be introduced till it
had been approved by the Lords of Articles. a committee which was
really, though not in form, nominated by the crown. But, though
the Scottish Parliament was obsequious, the Scottish people had
always been singularly turbulent and ungovernable. They had
butchered their first James in his bedchamber: they had
repeatedly arrayed themselves in arms against James the Second;
they had slain James the Third on the field of battle: their
disobedience had broken the heart of James the Fifth: they had
deposed and imprisoned Mary: they had led her son captive; and
their temper was still as intractable as ever. Their habits were
rude and martial. All along the southern border, and all along
the line between the highlands and the lowlands, raged an
incessant predatory war. In every part of the country men were
accustomed to redress their wrongs by the strong hand. Whatever
loyalty the nation had anciently felt to the Stuarts had cooled
during their long absence. The supreme influence over the public
mind was divided between two classes of malecontents, the lords
of the soil and the preachers; lords animated by the same spirit
which had often impelled the old Douglasses to withstand the
royal house, and preachers who had inherited the republican
opinions and the unconquerable spirit of Knox. Both the national
and religious feelings of the population had been wounded. All
orders of men complained that their country, that country which
had, with so much glory, defended her independence against the
ablest and bravest Plantagenets, had, through the instrumentality
of her native princes, become in effect, though not in name, a
province of England. In no part of Europe had the Calvinistic
doctrine and discipline taken so strong a hold on the public
mind. The Church of Rome was regarded by the great body of the
people with a hatred which might justly be called ferocious; and
the Church of England, which seemed to be every day becoming more
and more like the Church of Rome, was an object of scarcely less
aversion.
The government had long wished to extend the Anglican system over
the whole island, and had already, with this view, made several
changes highly distasteful to every Presbyterian. One innovation,
however, the most hazardous of all, because it was directly
cognisable by the senses of the common people, had not yet been
attempted. The public worship of God was still conducted in the
manner acceptable to the nation. Now, however, Charles and Laud
determined to force on the Scots the English liturgy, or rather a
liturgy which, wherever it differed from that of England,
differed, in the judgment of all rigid Protestants, for the
worse.
To this step, taken in the mere wantonness of tyranny, and in
criminal ignorance or more criminal contempt of public feeling,
our country owes her freedom. The first performance of the
foreign ceremonies produced a riot. The riot rapidly became a
revolution. Ambition, patriotism, fanaticism, were mingled in one
headlong torrent. The whole nation was in arms. The power of
England was indeed, as appeared some years later, sufficient to
coerce Scotland: but a large part of the English people
sympathised with the religious feelings of the insurgents; and
many Englishmen who had no scruple about antiphonies and
genuflexions, altars and surplices, saw with pleasure the
progress of a rebellion which seemed likely to confound the
arbitrary projects of the court, and to make the calling of a
Parliament necessary.
For the senseless freak which had produced these effects
Wentworth is not responsible.15 It had, in fact, thrown all his
plans into confusion. To counsel submission, however, was not in
his nature. An attempt was made to put down the insurrection by
the sword: but the King's military means and military talents
were unequal to the task. To impose fresh taxes on England in
defiance of law, would, at this conjuncture, have been madness.
No resource was left but a Parliament; and in the spring of 1640
a Parliament was convoked.
The nation had been put into good humour by the prospect of
seeing constitutional government restored, and grievances
redressed. The new House of Commons was more temperate and more
respectful to the throne than any which had sate since the death
of Elizabeth. The moderation of this assembly has been highly
extolled by the most distinguished Royalists and seems to have
caused no small vexation and disappointment to the chiefs of the
opposition: but it was the uniform practice of Charles, a
practice equally impolitic and ungenerous, to refuse all
compliance with the desires of his people, till those desires
were expressed in a menacing tone. As soon as the Commons showed
a disposition to take into consideration the grievances under
which the country had suffered during eleven years, the King
dissolved the Parliament with every mark of displeasure.
Between the dissolution of this shortlived assembly and the
meeting of that ever memorable body known by the name of the Long
Parliament, intervened a few months, during which the yoke was
pressed down more severely than ever on the nation, while the
spirit of the nation rose up more angrily than ever against the
yoke. Members of the House of Commons were questioned by the
Privy Council touching their parliamentary conduct, and thrown
into prison for refusing to reply. Shipmoney was levied with
increased rigour. The Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs of London were
threatened with imprisonment for remissness in collecting the
payments. Soldiers were enlisted by force. Money for their
support was exacted from their counties. Torture, which had
always been illegal, and which had recently been declared illegal
even by the servile judges of that age, was inflicted for the
last time in England in the month of May, 1610.
Everything now depended on the event of the King's military
operations against the Scots. Among his troops there was little
of that feeling which separates professional soldiers from the
mass of a nation, and attaches them to their leaders. His army,
composed for the most part of recruits, who regretted the plough
from which they had been violently taken, and who were imbued
with the religious and political sentiments then prevalent
throughout the country, was more formidable to himself than to
the enemy. The Scots, encouraged by the heads of the English
opposition, and feebly resisted by the English forces, marched
across the Tweed and the Tyne, and encamped on the borders of
Yorkshire. And now the murmurs of discontent swelled into an
uproar by which all spirits save one were overawed.
But the voice of Strafford was still for Thorough; and he even,
in this extremity, showed a nature so cruel and despotic, that
his own pikemen were ready to tear him in pieces.
There was yet one last expedient which, as the King flattered
himself, might save him from the misery of facing another House
of Commons. To the House of Lords he was less averse. The Bishops
were devoted to him; and though the temporal peers were generally
dissatisfied with his administration, they were, as a class, so
deeply interested in the maintenance of order, and in the
stability of ancient institutions, that they were not likely to
call for extensive reforms. Departing from the uninterrupted
practice of centuries, he called a Great Council consisting of
Lords alone. But the Lords were too prudent to assume the
unconstitutional functions with which he wished to invest them.
Without money, without credit, without authority even in his own
camp, he yielded to the pressure of necessity. The Houses were
convoked; and the elections proved that, since the spring, the
distrust and hatred with which the government was regarded had
made fearful progress.
In November, 1640, met that renowned Parliament which, in spite
of many errors and disasters, is justly entitled to the reverence
and gratitude of all who, in any part of the world. enjoy the
blessings of constitutional government.
During the year which followed, no very important division of
opinion appeared in the Houses. The civil and ecclesiastical
administration had, through a period of nearly twelve years, been
so oppressive and so unconstitutional that even those classes of
which the inclinations are generally on the side of order and
authority were eager to promote popular reforms and to bring the
instruments of tyranny to justice. It was enacted that no
interval of more than three years should ever elapse between
Parliament and Parliament, and that, if writs under the Great
Seal were not issued at the proper time, the returning officers
should, without such writs, call the constituent bodies together
for the choice of representatives. The Star Chamber, the High
Commission, the Council of York were swept away. Men who, after
suffering cruel mutilations, had been confined in remote
dungeons, regained their liberty. On the chief ministers of the
crown the vengeance of the nation was unsparingly wreaked. The
Lord Keeper, the Primate, the Lord Lieutenant were impeached.
Finch saved himself by flight. Laud was flung into the Tower.
Strafford was put to death by act of attainder. On the day on
which this act passed, the King gave his assent to a law by which
he bound himself not to adjourn, prorogue, or dissolve the
existing Parliament without its own consent.
After ten months of assiduous toil, the Houses, in September
1641, adjourned for a short vacation; and the King visited
Scotland. He with difficulty pacified that kingdom by consenting,
not only to relinquish his plans of ecclesiastical reform, but
even to pass, with a very bad grace, an act declaring that
episcopacy was contrary to
of his great design. If strict economy were observed, if all
collision with foreign powers were carefully avoided, the debts
of the crown would be cleared off: there would be funds available
for the support of a large military force; and that force would
soon break the refractory spirit of the nation.
At this crisis an act of insane bigotry suddenly changed the
whole face of public affairs. Had the King been wise, he would
have pursued a cautious and soothing policy towards Scotland till
he was master in the South. For Scotland was of all his kingdoms
that in which there was the greatest risk that a spark might
produce a flame, and that a flame might become a conflagration.
Constitutional opposition, indeed, such as he had encountered at
Westminster, he had not to apprehend at Edinburgh. The Parliament
of his northern kingdom was a very different body from that which
bore the same name in England. It was ill constituted: it was
little considered; and it had never imposed any serious restraint
on any of his predecessors. The three Estates sate in one house.
The commissioners of the burghs were considered merely as
retainers of the great nobles. No act could be introduced till it
had been approved by the Lords of Articles. a committee which was
really, though not in form, nominated by the crown. But, though
the Scottish Parliament was obsequious, the Scottish people had
always been singularly turbulent and ungovernable. They had
butchered their first James in his bedchamber: they had
repeatedly arrayed themselves in arms against James the Second;
they had slain James the Third on the field of battle: their
disobedience had broken the heart of James the Fifth: they had
deposed and imprisoned Mary: they had led her son captive; and
their temper was still as intractable as ever. Their habits were
rude and martial. All along the southern border, and all along
the line between the highlands and the lowlands, raged an
incessant predatory war. In every part of the country men were
accustomed to redress their wrongs by the strong hand. Whatever
loyalty the nation had anciently felt to the Stuarts had cooled
during their long absence. The supreme influence over the public
mind was divided between two classes of malecontents, the lords
of the soil and the preachers; lords animated by the same spirit
which had often impelled the old Douglasses to withstand the
royal house, and preachers who had inherited the republican
opinions and the unconquerable spirit of Knox. Both the national
and religious feelings of the population had been wounded. All
orders of men complained that their country, that country which
had, with so much glory, defended her independence against the
ablest and bravest Plantagenets, had, through the instrumentality
of her native princes, become in effect, though not in name, a
province of England. In no part of Europe had the Calvinistic
doctrine and discipline taken so strong a hold on the public
mind. The Church of Rome was regarded by the great body of the
people with a hatred which might justly be called ferocious; and
the Church of England, which seemed to be every day becoming more
and more like the Church of Rome, was an object of scarcely less
aversion.
The government had long wished to extend the Anglican system over
the whole island, and had already, with this view, made several
changes highly distasteful to every Presbyterian. One innovation,
however, the most hazardous of all, because it was directly
cognisable by the senses of the common people, had not yet been
attempted. The public worship of God was still conducted in the
manner acceptable to the nation. Now, however, Charles and Laud
determined to force on the Scots the English liturgy, or rather a
liturgy which, wherever it differed from that of England,
differed, in the judgment of all rigid Protestants, for the
worse.
To this step, taken in the mere wantonness of tyranny, and in
criminal ignorance or more criminal contempt of public feeling,
our country owes her freedom. The first performance of the
foreign ceremonies produced a riot. The riot rapidly became a
revolution. Ambition, patriotism, fanaticism, were mingled in one
headlong torrent. The whole nation was in arms. The power of
England was indeed, as appeared some years later, sufficient to
coerce Scotland: but a large part of the English people
sympathised with the religious feelings of the insurgents; and
many Englishmen who had no scruple about antiphonies and
genuflexions, altars and surplices, saw with pleasure the
progress of a rebellion which seemed likely to confound the
arbitrary projects of the court, and to make the calling of a
Parliament necessary.
For the senseless freak which had produced these effects
Wentworth is not responsible.15 It had, in fact, thrown all his
plans into confusion. To counsel submission, however, was not in
his nature. An attempt was made to put down the insurrection by
the sword: but the King's military means and military talents
were unequal to the task. To impose fresh taxes on England in
defiance of law, would, at this conjuncture, have been madness.
No resource was left but a Parliament; and in the spring of 1640
a Parliament was convoked.
The nation had been put into good humour by the prospect of
seeing constitutional government restored, and grievances
redressed. The new House of Commons was more temperate and more
respectful to the throne than any which had sate since the death
of Elizabeth. The moderation of this assembly has been highly
extolled by the most distinguished Royalists and seems to have
caused no small vexation and disappointment to the chiefs of the
opposition: but it was the uniform practice of Charles, a
practice equally impolitic and ungenerous, to refuse all
compliance with the desires of his people, till those desires
were expressed in a menacing tone. As soon as the Commons showed
a disposition to take into consideration the grievances under
which the country had suffered during eleven years, the King
dissolved the Parliament with every mark of displeasure.
Between the dissolution of this shortlived assembly and the
meeting of that ever memorable body known by the name of the Long
Parliament, intervened a few months, during which the yoke was
pressed down more severely than ever on the nation, while the
spirit of the nation rose up more angrily than ever against the
yoke. Members of the House of Commons were questioned by the
Privy Council touching their parliamentary conduct, and thrown
into prison for refusing to reply. Shipmoney was levied with
increased rigour. The Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs of London were
threatened with imprisonment for remissness in collecting the
payments. Soldiers were enlisted by force. Money for their
support was exacted from their counties. Torture, which had
always been illegal, and which had recently been declared illegal
even by the servile judges of that age, was inflicted for the
last time in England in the month of May, 1610.
Everything now depended on the event of the King's military
operations against the Scots. Among his troops there was little
of that feeling which separates professional soldiers from the
mass of a nation, and attaches them to their leaders. His army,
composed for the most part of recruits, who regretted the plough
from which they had been violently taken, and who were imbued
with the religious and political sentiments then prevalent
throughout the country, was more formidable to himself than to
the enemy. The Scots, encouraged by the heads of the English
opposition, and feebly resisted by the English forces, marched
across the Tweed and the Tyne, and encamped on the borders of
Yorkshire. And now the murmurs of discontent swelled into an
uproar by which all spirits save one were overawed.
But the voice of Strafford was still for Thorough; and he even,
in this extremity, showed a nature so cruel and despotic, that
his own pikemen were ready to tear him in pieces.
There was yet one last expedient which, as the King flattered
himself, might save him from the misery of facing another House
of Commons. To the House of Lords he was less averse. The Bishops
were devoted to him; and though the temporal peers were generally
dissatisfied with his administration, they were, as a class, so
deeply interested in the maintenance of order, and in the
stability of ancient institutions, that they were not likely to
call for extensive reforms. Departing from the uninterrupted
practice of centuries, he called a Great Council consisting of
Lords alone. But the Lords were too prudent to assume the
unconstitutional functions with which he wished to invest them.
Without money, without credit, without authority even in his own
camp, he yielded to the pressure of necessity. The Houses were
convoked; and the elections proved that, since the spring, the
distrust and hatred with which the government was regarded had
made fearful progress.
In November, 1640, met that renowned Parliament which, in spite
of many errors and disasters, is justly entitled to the reverence
and gratitude of all who, in any part of the world. enjoy the
blessings of constitutional government.
During the year which followed, no very important division of
opinion appeared in the Houses. The civil and ecclesiastical
administration had, through a period of nearly twelve years, been
so oppressive and so unconstitutional that even those classes of
which the inclinations are generally on the side of order and
authority were eager to promote popular reforms and to bring the
instruments of tyranny to justice. It was enacted that no
interval of more than three years should ever elapse between
Parliament and Parliament, and that, if writs under the Great
Seal were not issued at the proper time, the returning officers
should, without such writs, call the constituent bodies together
for the choice of representatives. The Star Chamber, the High
Commission, the Council of York were swept away. Men who, after
suffering cruel mutilations, had been confined in remote
dungeons, regained their liberty. On the chief ministers of the
crown the vengeance of the nation was unsparingly wreaked. The
Lord Keeper, the Primate, the Lord Lieutenant were impeached.
Finch saved himself by flight. Laud was flung into the Tower.
Strafford was put to death by act of attainder. On the day on
which this act passed, the King gave his assent to a law by which
he bound himself not to adjourn, prorogue, or dissolve the
existing Parliament without its own consent.
After ten months of assiduous toil, the Houses, in September
1641, adjourned for a short vacation; and the King visited
Scotland. He with difficulty pacified that kingdom by consenting,
not only to relinquish his plans of ecclesiastical reform, but
even to pass, with a very bad grace, an act declaring that
episcopacy was contrary to
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