smiled; "Well, do we what we can," said he, "this man scorns to go out like a snuff." He had inscribed his name on the scroll of the immortals -he had written his greatest works before his fall his History of Henry VII., and some other things, were produced after his disgrace. If he had satisfied himself with these ennobling pursuits -if he had remained quiet in the beautiful solitudes of Gorhambury, which lie like a piece of Paradise under the ancient town of St. Alban's, he would have risen into respect, even personally, from the moment he fell from power; but so mean was this great man's soul,-so dependant was he for his gratifications on money, and place, and court honour, that he struggled and begged incessantly, and wrote the most humiliating of letters for the light of the king's countenance, for a pension, for some fresh employment. The king, the favourite Buckingham, the prince, received these letters, and despised the man that could write them. At times his baseness and flattery were closely allied to impiety. He wrote, for example, to the prince, that he hoped, as his father, the king, had been his creator, so he, the son, would be his redeemer.† The Commons had scarcely made this session memorable by the impeachment of high delinquents, when they proceeded to make it disgrace ful by a spiteful and meanly tyrannical prosecution —a glaring instance of vulgar, savage intolerance. There was one Edward Floyde, a Catholic of good family, a prisoner in the Fleet for debt or popery, or both, who sorely offended Protestant ears by rejoicing at the success of the Catholic arms against the new king of Bohemia, or by saying, simply (for this was the burden of the matter), that Prague was taken, and goodman Palgrave and goodwife Palgrave had taken to their heels. For this offence, which was not worthy the attention of the pettiest court, the Commons, in a headlong fury, sentenced him to pay a fine of 1000l., to stand in the pillory in three different places, and to be carried from place to place on a horse without a saddle, and with his face turned to the tail. But the next day the Chancellor of the Exchequer delivered a message from the king, telling the Commons that his majesty thanked them for their zeal; but, lest it should transport them to inconveniences, he would have them reconsider whether they could sentence one who did not belong to them, and who had not offended against their house or any member of it; and whether they could sentence a denying party without the oath of witnesses. His majesty further reminded them that the judicial power of parliament did not belong to the Commons alone; and at the end of his message he desired them to consider whether it would not be better to leave the case of Floyde in his hands. Nothing could well be clearer than that the Com mons had exceeded their jurisdiction, as they had so recently done, and confessed it, too, in the case of Sir Giles Mompesson; but, now, instead of yielding the point, they debated it long and loudly, and persisted in their first votes. James, who for once was perfectly right, asked them to show precedents-they had none to show. The Lords requested a conference; and this, with the declaration of Noye, that the matter of judicature clearly remained with the Upper House, led the Commons to yield. The difference was merely between the two Houses-a conflict of privileges: but Lords and Commons were alike ready to be unmerciful to the poor offender; and the Lords, "to keep up a good understanding between the two Houses, augmented the severity of the original sentence. The fine of 1000l. was raised to 5000l. Whipping at the cart's tail from the Fleet to Westminster Hall was added to the infamous punishment of the pillory Floyde was to be degraded from his rank of a gentleman, to be held an infamous person, and, as a climax to all this brutality and injustice, he was to be imprisoned in Newgate for life. Prince Charles, to his honour, interfered and obtained the remission of the whipping; but the unfortunate man, it appears, underwent the rest of the atrocious sentence. The king was what we have seen; but, assuredly, lords, commons, and people, had yet much to learn, had yet to free themselves from some of the worst of vices ere there could be any rational hope of true liberty and good government. In the whole of this particular business the blame rests with them; for James had been talked into something like a jealousy of his own son-in-law, who, though in reality rather a contemptible personage, was constantly represented by the Calvinistic Puritans as a great and godly prince, the champion of the true faith; and James would certainly of himself have punished no man for talking of his defects and calling him goodman Palgrave. The king considered that he had done a great deal to conciliate the Commons in this session, but still there was no prospect of their voting the fresh supplies which he needed. Therefore, on the 24th of May, as they were going on in full career with other bills for reformation of abuses, for the checking of popery, &c., he unexpectedly announced his intention of proroguing the parliament at the end of the week. The Commons petitioned for a longer time. The king offered them a fortnight, which they considered too little; and the parliament was prorogued to November, by commission, after a unanimous declaration made by the Commons, and entered on record in the Journals, of their resolution to spend their lives and fortunes for the defence of the Protestant religion and the palatinate.* It was, indeed, time to be stirring if they meant to keep the Palatine from utter ruin. In the month of November of the preceding year (1620) the Imperialists and the Spaniards, commanded by his own relative, but bitter enemy and rival, • Journals.-Rushworth. under the advice of Bishop Williams, to whom, to the great vexation of all lawyers, he had given the seals, abolished, by proclamation, thirty-six of the most oppressive of the patents and monopolies, and adopted certain regulations meant for the improvement and protection of foreign commerce. These measures were calculated to put the Commons and the nation in good-humour; but other circumstances had happened that tended to produce a very different effect. The pirates of Algiers and other ports on the African coast had for some years been very troublesome to all the flags of Europe. Several English ships trading to Smyrna had been plundered, and occasionally the Corsairs, issuing from the Mediterranean, had made prizes on the coast of England, and had carried off people into slavery from the coast of Ireland. James proposed that the different Christian powers should unite to destroy the pirates' chief nest, Algiers, and burn all their ships. Spain, whose subjects had suffered most, engaged to co-operate; but when the time came, they fell short of the promised supply, and Sir Robert Mansell sailed to Algiers with an insufficient force and a cramped commission, by which, it should appear, he was ordered by the timid, needy king of England not to risk his ships. On the 24th of May Mansell sailed up to the port, and the English sailors soon set fire to the ships and galleys; but they had scarcely retired when the Algerines, assisted, it is said, by a "cataract of rain which hindered the working of the English fire-works," put out the flames, recovered their ships, brought down artillery, mounted batteries on the mole, and threw booms across the harbour-mouth. We may safely calculate that Mansell did not much expose himself or his fleet, for he lost only eight men in the whole affair, and brought back all his ships undamaged; in fact he did not renew the attack, and all the Algerine ships were saved with the exception of two that were burnt to the water's edge.* This was clearly another case where more ought to have been done or nothing at all. The pirates turned their whole fury against the flag of James, and, within a few months, thirty-five English merchantmen were captured by them, and the crews sold as slaves. The country was filled with bitter and just complaints, when, in the month of November, the parliament re-assembled. the Duke of Bavaria, and by the famous Tilly, gained a decisive victory over him in the neighbourhood of Prague, drove him from that city, where he had been king twelve months all but three days, took all his artillery, baggage, standards, and a great treasure he had not the heart to touch, and which, if properly and timely employed, might have given him the advantage over his enemies. He fled with his wife and children to Breslaw, leaving the heads of his party in Prague to be victims to their enraged enemies. From Breslaw he got to Berlin, and thence to the Hague in Holland, "having made a long progress, or rather a pilgrimage, about Germany. During this flight the fair and captivating Elizabeth of England, who was styled the Queen of Hearts when she could no longer be called Queen of Bohemia, was far advanced in pregnancy. The princes of the Protestant union, to whom the Palatine had intrusted the defence of his patrimonial possessions during his absence in Bohemia, were no match for the great Italian general Spinola, with his army of "old tough blades"+ and veteran commanders. They lost town after town, and were constantly outmanœuvred or beaten by very inferior forces. The 4000 English were far too few, and their generals too unskilful, to turn the fortune of the war. The petty princes were jealous of each. other; they acted upon no one concerted plan of operations; and when they were all put to the ban of the empire, they began to abandon as hopeless the cause of the Palatine, who soon found himself left alone in the war, with no other means at his disposal than the weak English force and two free corps commanded by a younger son of the House of Brunswick and Count Mansfeldt. The English threw themselves into Heidelberg, Manheim, and Frankendael. Brunswick and Mansfeldt carried on a very irregular, partisan-like warfare. Sir Arthur Chichester, one of the envoys, said plainly, that the English army should have been greater or none at all; but James had neither the means nor the steady wish to increase it. He fondly fancied that he could reinstate his son-in-❘ law, and make up all those differences,-which eventually ran into the "Thirty Years' War," the starting point being Bohemia,-by his admirable skill in diplomacy; and he continued to send ambassadors in all directions, with instructions that were very minute and deeply laid, but frequently contradic-king lay at Royston under a real or feigned sicktory the one to the other. The earls of Essex and Oxford, who had returned from the palatinate, said that the only way to recover that country was by force of arms; and the English people not only believed them, but joined in their complaints that the money which ought to be spent in retrieving the national honour was wasted in inglorious idlings. The discontents of these two noble commanders, and of the Earl of Southampton, gave rise to a great political novelty-a spirited opposition to the court in the House of Lords. During the recess, James, acting, it is said, The ness; but, by his orders, Lord Digby, at a conference of the Houses, explained his bootless embassies into Germany for the recovery of the Palatinate, which he plainly hinted was now hopeless unless by means of English arms and English money. There were, he said (with a very considerable exaggeration), yet 21,000 men in the Lower Palatinate, 16,000 under Count Mansfeldt, and 5000 Englishmen, now under the supreme command of Sir Horatio Vere, who would certainly mutiny unless they got their pay. But money for other purposes, and more men, were • Howell. needed immediately, and, if they were not sent, his lordship saw no chance of success. Lord Cranfield, the treasurer, told the Commons that, to maintain a sufficient force in that country for one year would require 900,000l.: all that the Commons would vote was one subsidy, which would make about 70,000l.! We can scarcely be surprised at this parsimony; they had every ground for believing that the money would have been applied to other purposes than the Protestant war; and, in spite of the mystery kept up by the court, they knew that James was, at the very moment, engaged in a treaty with Spain to get for his son a Catholic wife, which, according to most of them, would be a bringing back of Antichrist into the kingdom. And, indeed, it required some uncommon faculty to discover how James should wage a fierce war with the whole House of Austria (for Spain had been as active as the emperor against his son-in-law) and intermarry with that House at one and the same time. The Commons, moreover, and not a few of the Lords, were exasperated by fresh stretches of the prerogative. Since the adjournment the Earls of Oxford and Southampton, Sutcliff, Dean of Exeter, Brise, a Puritan preacher, Sir Christopher Neville, Sir Edwin Sandys, who was a bold-spoken member of the Lower House, and the great constitutional lawyer and antiquary Selden, who had been in prison before for differing in opinion with the king and the bishops in the matter of tithes, had all been arbitrarily arrested; and Coke, whose patriotic vigour increased with his years and his disappointments at court, and who had boldly espoused the country party-as the popular party was called-in the preceding session, had been exposed to a prosecution for various offences and malpractices committed when he * was a judge. It was felt by the Commons that all this severity had been provoked by the expression of liberal opinions; and, putting aside Coke, though not until they attempted to prove that there was a conspiracy against him, they stood by the only other member of their House, Sir Edwin Sandys (against whom there were no legal proceedings), and, as he was sick in bed, they sent two members to wait upon him and hear from his own mouth the cause of his arbitrary arrest, giving no credit whatever to the declaration of Secretary Calvert, that he had not been committed for any parliamentary matter. Together with intelligence of these proceedings, James received information respecting a petition, proposed by Coke in the Commons, against the growth of popery and the Catholic marriage of the Prince of Wales (though Spain was not named, she was clearly_designated, and set down as the worst enemy of England and Protestantism), and for the vigorous prosecution of the war in the Palatinate an unreasonable prayer when they would not trust the king with the money necessary to carry on that war. The petition encountered a strong opposition in the House; those who supported it were fain to agree to the insertion of a clause that "they did not mean to press on the king's most undoubted and royal prerogative;" and it neither passed nor was very likely to pass when James, proud of his finding the Commons in error in two cases in the preceding session, inflated by his extravagant notions of prerogative, and enraged and transported out of all discretion by this bold intermeddling with his arcana imperii, addressed a most absolute letter It is said that his wife, the implacable Lady Hatton, did her best to bring on this prosecution, and that she was privately assisted by Bacon, to whom she was bound, even in his disgrace, by a community of hatred against Coke. "Mr. Speaker, we have heard by divers reports, to our great grief, that our distance from the Houses of Parliament, caused by our indisposition of health, hath emboldened the fiery and popular spirits of some of the Commons to argue and debate publicly of matters far above their reach and capacity, tending to our high dishonour and breach of prerogative royal. These are, therefore, to command you to make known, in our name, unto the House that none therein from henceforth do meddle with anything concerning our government, and deep matters of state; and, namely, not to deal with our dear son's match with the daughter of Spain, nor to touch the honour of that king, or any other of our friends and confederates; and also not to meddle with any man's particulars, which have their due motion in any of our ordinary courts of justice. And whereas we hear they have sent a message to Sir Edwin Sandys, to know the reasons of his late restraint, you shall, in our name, resolve them, that it is not for any misdemeanor of his in parliament; but, to put them out of doubt of any question of that nature that may arise among them hereafter, you shall resolve them, in our name, that we think ourself very free and able to punish any man's misdemeanors in parliament, as well during their sitting as after; which we mean not to spare hereafter upon any occasion of any man's insolent behaviour there that shall be ministered unto us: and if they have already touched any of these points which we have forbidden, in any petition of theirs which is to be sent to us, it is our pleasure that you tell them that, except they reform it before it comes to our hands, we will not deign the hearing nor answering of it." The House received this letter with less warmth than might have been expected, but they were unanimous, or nearly so, in their resolution to disapprove of and resist the propositions it contained. They drew up a remonstrance in firm but mild and respectful language, telling the king that they could not conceive how his honour and safety, or the state of the kingdom, could be matters unfit for their consideration in parliament, and asserting their undoubted right of liberty of speech as an inheritance received from their ancestors. James replied at length, showing them how unfit they were for entering on high matters of government, and criticising the language of their remonstrance. In the end he told them that, although he could not allow of the style of calling their privileges an undoubted right and inheritance, but could rather have wished that they had said that their privileges were derived from the grace and permission of his ancestors and himself, yet, as long as they contained themselves within the limits of their duty, he would be as careful of their privileges as of his own prerogative, so that they never touched on that prerogative, which would enforce him or any just king to retrench their privileges. This was bringing matters to an issue: this was an explicit assertion on the part of the sovereign that the privileges of parliament existed only by suffrance, or depended entirely upon what the court might choose to consider good behaviour. The assertion exasperated the House beyond measure, and Secretary Calvert and other ministers or courtiers vainly attempted to pacify them by admitting that the king's expressions were incapable of defence, and calling them a mere slip of the pen. James, in a fright, wrote a letter to Calvert to qualify what he had said; but, even in this conciliatory epistle, he could not abstain from reasserting that the liberties and privileges of the House were not of undoubted right and inheritance unless they were so from their being granted by the grace and favour of his predecessors on the throne: and therefore, on the memorable 18th of December, a day which forms an era in constitutional history, they drew up the following protestation: "The Commons, now assembled in parliament, being justly occasioned thereunto, concerning sundry liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of parliament, amongst others not herein mentioned, do make this protestation following:That the liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of parliament are the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England; and that the arduous and urgent affairs concerning the king, state, and the defence of the realm, and of the Church of England, and the making and maintenance of laws, and redress of mischiefs and grievances, which daily happen within this realm, are proper subjects and matter of counsel and debate in parliament; and that, in the handling and proceeding of those businesses, every member of the House hath, and of right ought to have, freedom of speech to propound, treat, reason, and bring to conclusion the same: that the Commons in parliament have like liberty and freedom to treat of those matters, in such order as, in their judgments, shall seem fittest; and that every such member of the said House hath like freedom from all impeachment, imprisonment, and molestation (other than by the censure of the House itself), for or concerning any bill, speaking, reasoning, or declaring of any matter or matters touching the parliament or parliament business; and that, if any of the said members be complained of and questioned for anything said or done in parliament, the same is to be showed to the king, by the advice and assent of all the Commons assembled in parliament, before the king give credence to any private information." After a long and spirited debate (it lasted till the unusual hour of five or six in the evening, being carried on even by candle-light!*) the Commons entered this protestation in their journals, "as of record." James's wrath overcame his caution and cowardice, and he forgot that he was reported sick: he rode up to London foaming or slavering at the This is one of the earliest instances of a debate by candle-light. mouth, prorogued parliament,-ordered the clerk of the House of Commons to bring him the journals,-erased the famous protestation with his own royal hand, in the presence of the judges of the land and a full assembly of the council,-commanded an act of council to be made thereon, and what he had done to be entered in the councilbook, and a few days after (on the 6th of January, 1622,) dissolved the parliament by an insulting proclamation, taking care, however, to inform his subjects that, though this late parliament had offended him with their evil-tempered spirit, he should be glad to call another on the first convenient occasion, and that he intended to govern well in the interval.* The first act the king did to make good his promise to govern well was to commit Coke and Sir Robert Phillips to the Tower,-Mr. Selden, Mr. Pym, and Mr. Mallery to other prisons, and to send Sir Dudley Digges, Sir Thomas Crew, Sir Nathaniel Rich, and Sir James Parott on a commission into Ireland, as a sort of a cover for banishment. It was evident to every one that the offence of these men was their 'free conduct in the House of Commons, or, as in the case of Selden, who was not a member, conversations out-of-doors writings in support of the privileges of parliament. It will be remembered that an opposition party had sprung up in the House of Lords; therefore several of the peers were called before the privy council, and one or two of them committed to the Tower. or It is said that Prince Charles was rather constant in his attendance in the House of Lords during this most significant session; but, if so, he certainly had neither the good sense nor the good fortune to understand its meanings and indications, or to perceive the great changes men's minds were undergoing, the mighty events that were indeed casting their shadows before them. The day of the dissolution of parliament had well-nigh been that of the mortal dissolution of King James, for "he rode by coach to Theobald's to dinner, and, after dinner, riding on horseback abroad, his horse stumbled and cast his majesty into the New River, where the ice broke, and he fell in, so that nothing but his boots was seen. Sir Richard Yong was next, who alighted, went into the water, and lifted him out. There came much water out of his mouth and body; but his majesty rode back to Theobald's, went into a warm bed, and did well."† A.D. 1622-3.-At this time the popular feeling was greatly excited by the misfortunes and sufferings of the king's daughter, which, by a little exaggeration, were heightened into a wonderfully dramatic interest. The young and the brave declared themselves her champions, and troubled James with their enthusiasm. "The Lieutenant of the Middle Temple played a game this Christ Rymer.-Rushworth-e-Parl. Hist.-Coke.-Carte, The Rev. Joseph Meade, or Mede (a great news collector), to Sir Martin Stuteville,Sir Henry Ellis, Orig. Letters, mas time, whereat his majesty was highly displeased. He made choice of some thirty of the civilest and best-fashioned gentlemen of the House to sup with him, and, being at supper, took a cup of wine in one hand, and held his sword drawn in the other, and so began a health to the distressed Lady Elizabeth; and, having drunk, kissed his sword, and laying his hand upon it, took an oath to live and die in her service; then delivered the cup and sword to the next, and so the health and ceremony went round."* Every step that the Palatine took was a blunder, and James could do little for him but send more ambassadors. His relation, the king of Denmark, was no longer able or willing to do him service; and the Dutch, who were said to have contributed to all his troubles, by urging him to accept the crown of Bohemia, could not do much by themselves. The Catholics of Antwerp turned all these illustrious parties into ridicule in their public theatres. A courier came puffing on the stage with cries of "News!—great news!" Upon being asked what news? he replied that the Count Palatine was likely to have a formidable army soon, for the King of Denmark was to send him a thousand, the Hollanders ten thousand, and the King of England a hundred thousand. Thousands of what? asked the bystanders? Oh! said the courier, the King of Denmark's are red herrings, the Hollanders' are Dutch cheeses, and the King of England's are ambassadors.† At the same time they pictured King James at one place with a scabbard without a sword; in another with a sword which nobody could pull out of its sheath, though many kept tugging at it. In Brussels they painted him with his pockets turned inside out, and his purse empty; and at Antwerp they drew a large caricature, representing the ex-queen of Bohemia trudging on foot with her child on her back, and her father, King James, carrying her cradle after her: and all these caustic specimens of art had stinging mottos, aimed more particularly at his sacred majesty. The French, out of their ancient rivalry and jealousy of the House of Austria, and their love of war, would have been disposed to strike a blow for the dispossessed prince; but their young king, like our old king, was ruled by a despicable favourite :‡ their court was occupied by profligate intrigues and selfish factions; and their country was again the scene of a civil and religious war, for the Huguenots about this time rushed or were driven into open hostilities. Instead of being in a condition to lead an army to the Rhine, Louis XIII. • Id. Id. In this same letter Meade tells another story, not less amusing. "The gentlemen of Gray's Inn, to make an end of Christmas on Twelfth Night, in the dead time of the night, shot off all the chambers (small pieces of orduance) they had borrowed from the Tower, being as many as filled four carts. The king awa kened with this noise, started out of his bed, and cried "treason! treason!" The city was in an uproar, and the whole court almost in arms; the Earl of Arundel running to the bed-chamber with his sword drawn, as to rescue the king's person." +Howell's Letters. His favourite was one Monsieur de Luynes, who, in his non-age, gained much upon the king by making hawks to fly at all little birds in his gardens, and by making some of those catch butterflies.-Life of Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury, written by himself., |