nounces the

parties be sent for that had violated the liberties." The king Charles renow thought it prudent to attempt to allay the rising storm. right to levy Sending for the two Houses to Whitehall, he explicitly renounced tonnage and all claim to levy tonnage and poundage as of right. "It ever poundage. was, and still is my mending," he told them, "by the gift of my people to enjoy it, and my intention in my speech at the end of the last session was not to challenge tonnage and poundage of right, but for expedience de bene esse, shewing you the necessity, not the right, by which I was to take it until you had granted it unto me; assuring myself, according to your general profession, that you wanted time and not good will to give it me.' This politic speech made a most favourable impression, and two days afterwards a proposal was made by Sir John Coke to bring in a Bill granting tonnage and poundage to the king; but there still remained a grievance which the Commons had even more at heart than illegal taxation, and the latter question was postponed until the recent innovations in religion had been discussed.

of the Com

The position taken up by the Commons alike in Politics and ConservaReligion was a conservative one. In Politics, they sought to tive position preserve the Free English Constitution as it had existed prior mons in to the despotic practices of the Tudors and the despotic theories politics: as well as practices of the Stuarts. In Religion they adhered to and in religion. the narrow Calvinistic theology which had been prominent in the National Church from the Reformation to the beginning of the seventeenth century. This they regarded as the orthodox doctrine, and considered it to be supported by the Prayer Book, the Catechism, the Homilies, the writings of Bishop Jewel, the Lambeth Articles of 1595, the Resolutions of the Synod of Dort in 1618, the uniform consent of writers whose works had been published by authority, and by the submission enjoined by the two Universities upon the opponents of the Lambeth Articles. They complained of the spread of Popery and Arminianism; the removal of communion-tables to be set up as altars at the eastern end of churches; the placing of candlesticks on them; and the obeisance made towards them; the ordering that congregations should stand up at the singing of the Gloria Patri, and that women coming to be churched should wear veils; the setting up of pictures and lights and images in churches, praying towards the east, crossing and other devout but to them objectionable gestures.3

taken by the

In December 1628, at Laud's suggestion, the king had en- Position deavoured to silence all religious controversy by issuing a new king and edition of the Articles of Religion, prefaced by a Declaration Laud in the

1 Gardiner, Pers. Gov. of Ch. I., i. 47, 48.

2 Contarini's Despatch, Venetian MSS., cited by Gardiner, Pers. Gov. of

Ch. I., i. 50.

3 Parl. or Const. Hist., iii. 483; Gardiner, Pers. Gov. of Ch I., i. 87.

religious

controversy.

(which is still printed in the Book of Common Prayer) directing that thereafter no man should either in writing or preaching put his own sense or comment as the meaning of the Articles, but should take them in their literal and grammatical sense. He at the same time inferentially repudiated the right of Parliament to deal with religious questions, by declaring that to the king, as Supreme Governor of the Church, and to the Convocation, acting by his leave and with his approval, such matters exclusively belonged. But while professing to act impartially, the king's sympathies were unmistakably shown not only by his close alliance with Laud, but his ostentatious bestowal of promotion upon those of the clergy who had rendered themselves notorious, and incurred the animosity of the House of Commons, by their simultaneous advocacy of anti-Calvinistic doctrines in the Church and of the Divine right of kings in the State. Dr. Montague, whose Appello Caesarem in 1625 had been condemned by the Commons as containing matters contrary to the Thirtynine Articles, and who in 1627 had been foremost in inculcating the duty of paying the forced loan, was promoted by the king to a bishopric shortly after the prorogation of Parliament in 1628; and at the same time Dr. Mainwaring, who had but recently been impeached by the Commons and condemned by the Lords for his advocacy, in the pulpit and the press, of the right of the king to tax his subjects without the consent of Parliament,1 was rewarded with a rich living, and ultimately advanced to the bishopric of St. David's. The idea of Toleration and Religious unthought of liberty was as yet unthought of by either King or Parliament, and the Commons, having declared their interpretation of the Articles of Religion to be the only true one, proceeded to summon the authors of the ceremonial innovations to answer at the bar of the House.

Toleration

by King, or

Parliament.

Question of tonnage and poundage resumed.

The officers who had

seized Rolle's goods summoned.

The king
refuses to
allow them
to be ques-

tioned, and
orders the
House to
adjourn.
A further
adjournment
ordered.

In the meantime the question of tonnage and poundage was again taken up, and contrary to the advice of Pym, who wished the matter to be dealt with on the broad national basis of the illegality of taxation without consent, the Commons resolved to give prominence to the breach of privilege in Rolle's case, and accordingly summoned the custom-house officers who had seized that member's goods to appear and answer for their contempt. The king refused to allow his officers to be questioned for obedience to his orders, and directed the House to adjourn for a few days until March 2.2 During the short recess attempts were made to come to some private arrangement with the leaders of the Commons, but these failing, the House, at its reassembling on March 2, was informed by the Speaker, Sir John Finch, that the king again required them to adjourn, this time to the 10th. The right of the king to order an adjournment, which had always 1 Supra, D. 410, n. 3.

2 Gardiner, Pers. Gov. of Ch. I., i. 89.

been admitted by the Lords in reference to their own House, had never been acquiesced in by the Commons, who, while complying with the king's wishes, had always been careful to make their adjournment their own formal act. When the question of The Comadjournment was now put by the Speaker a chorus of Noes mons refuse. resounded from every side. Sir John Eliot, who, anticipating the adjournment and speedy dissolution of Parliament by the king, had prepared a protestation on the subjects of religion and taxation, which, if only passed by the House before its adjournment, would go forth to the country as an appeal against

the king's arbitrary proceedings, rose to speak. He was inter- Tumult in rupted by the Speaker, who saying he had the absolute command the House. of the king to leave the chair if any one should attempt to address the House, rose also, but was at once thrust back into his seat by Holles and Valentine. The whole House was now in an uproar. Some of the Privy Councillors present rushed to the assistance of the Speaker, who broke away for a moment, but only to be again seized and forced into the chair. "God's wounds," exclaimed Holles, "you shall sit till we please to rise." At the order of the House the door was locked by Sir Miles Hobart, who placed the key in his pocket. Eliot proposed that three resolutions, the substance of which he explained, should be formally put to the vote. Both the Speaker and the clerk refused. A confused and stormy debate ensued, and Eliot, despairing of getting the resolutions passed, had thrown them into the fire, when, just as the king's guard was approaching the House to effect a forcible entry, Holles, who had hastily rewritten the resolutions from memory, read them to the House. They were carried by acclamation, and the House, having voted its own adjournment, the door was thrown open.1

The three resolutions declared: (1) that the introducers of The three innovation in religion, or of Popery, or Arminianism, or other Resolutions. opinions disagreeing from the true and orthodox Church; and (2) all who should counsel or advise the taking and levying of the subsidies of tonnage and poundage, not being granted by Parliament, or should be actors or instruments therein, should be reputed capital enemies to the Kingdom and Commonwealth; and (3) that all merchants or others who should voluntarily pay the said subsidies, should be reputed betrayers of the liberties of England, and enemies to the same.

10 March.

The House at its rising had adjourned to March 10. On that Parliament day the king dissolved Parliament in person, with an angry dissolved, reference to the disobedient carriage of the Lower House," [1628-9]. and a threat that "the vipers amongst them should meet with their reward." 2

1 Nicholas' Notes of the Session of 1629; State Papers, Dom. [1628-1629, p. 485], cxxxviii. 5, 6, 7. 2 Parl. or Const. Hist., viii. 333.

Determination of Charles I. to govern without a Parliament,

intimated in
a Proclama-
tion, Mar. 27,
1629.

Imprisonment of Sir John Eliot, Selden, and other members of the Commons.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE STUART PERIOD. (1629-1660.)

II. FROM THE PETITION OF RIGHT TO THE RESTORATION.

On the dissolution of his third Parliament, Charles I. appears to have come to a settled determination to overthrow the old Parliamentary Constitution of England by governing, for the future, without the intervention of the National Council, so long as that Council should presume to claim an independent, and, as the representative of the collective Nation in opposition to the individual king, a preponderating voice in the government of the State. In an arrogant Proclamation, referring to certain false rumours that he was about again to call a Parliament, he announced that "the late abuse having for the present driven him unwillingly out of that course, he should account it presumption for any to prescribe any time unto him for Parliaments, the calling, continuing, and dissolving of which was always in his own power. He should be more inclinable to meet a Parliament again when his people should see more clearly into his intents and actions, and when such as had bred this interruption should have received their condign punishment." Even before the actual dissolution, the king had hastened to take vengeance on the Opposition "vipers." Sir John Eliot, Selden, Holles, Long, Valentine, Strode, and other eminent members of the Commons, were summoned before the Council and committed to prison. Against Eliot, Holles, and Valentine an information was filed in the King's Bench. On suing out their writ of habeas corpus they were by the king's order removed to the Tower, so as to elude the judgment of the Court. On being required to plead to the information, they demurred to the jurisdiction of the Court on the ground that as their alleged offences had been committed in Parliament, they were not punishable in any other place. This demurrer, which raised the great question of parliamentary privilege, was overruled; and as the defendants persisted in their refusal to plead, judgment was given that they should be imprisoned during the king's pleasure, and not released until each had given surety for good behaviour and had made submission. In addition, Eliot, as the ringleader, was fined £2000, Holles,

party accept

£1000, and Valentine £500.1 Other distinguished leaders of the Some of the Opposition had been brought over to the king's side by the Popular gift of office. Sir Dudley Digges was made Master of the Rolls; office. Noy, Attorney-General; and Littleton, Solicitor-General ; Wentworth, created first a baron, then a viscount, and subsequently Earl of Strafford, was made President of the Council of the North, and afterwards Lord Deputy of Ireland.

government.

Surrounded by these new counsellors, and guided chiefly by Eleven years the advice of Laud and Wentworth [who had "thorough" for of despotic his motto.-ED.], Charles now entered upon a career of despotism [1629-40.] which he maintained for eleven years. This period of Personal government, during which the king governed without the Parliament, was, Constitutionally speaking, as much a Revolutionary period as that during which, later on, Parliament governed without the king. It should always be borne in mind that it was the aggression of Charles which provoked the counteraggression of the Parliament.

revenue.

To raise a revenue, Charles had recourse to various exactions, Expedients many of which were clearly illegal, and nearly all odious and to raise a vexatious. "Obsolete laws," says Clarendon, "were revived and rigorously executed," and "unjust projects of all kinds, many ridiculous, many scandalous, all very grievous, were set on foot. Tonnage and poundage and other duties were rigorously enforced Tonnage and by the royal authority alone. Monopolies, abolished by Act of poundage. Parliament in the last reign, were re-established and applied to Monopolies. almost every article of ordinary consumption. The ancient prero- Compulsory gative of compelling tenants in chivalry to receive the order of knighthood. knighthood or pay a fine was revived, and extended to all men of full age seised of lands or rents (by whatever tenure) of the annual value of £40 or more. “By this expedient," says Clarendon, "which, though it had a foundation in right, yet in the circumstances of proceeding was very grievous, the king received a vast sum of money from persons of quality, or of any reasonable condition, throughout the Kingdom." 2 Commissioners were Inquisition appointed to search out and compound for defects in titles to estates; and an attempt was even made to revive the ancient and odious Forest Laws. Under cover of the rule of law that Forest laws no length of prescription could be pleaded in bar of the king's revived. title, the boundaries of the Royal forests were so extended that the forest of Rockingham alone was increased from six to sixty miles in circuit at the expense of the neighbouring landowners, who, at the same time, were mulcted in enormous fines for alleged encroachments, some of which were from three to four hundred

1 [Eliot died in prison some years afterwards (Nov. 27, 1632), universally regarded as a martyr in the cause of liberty. (See supra, p. 258, Forster's Life of Sir John Eliot, and Gneist, Hist. Engl. Const., p. 533, and note.)— ED.] 2 Hist. Rebellion, i. 67.

into titles to estates.