CHAPTER III. Policy of Charles-His Proclamation-Members of the Commons imprisonedProceedings against them-Death of Eliot-Four periods in the reign of Charles I.-Peace with France and Spain-The Cabinet, other instances of political apostacy-Illegal methods of aiding the Revenue-Compulsory KnighthoodRevival of the Forest Laws-Monopolies-Abuse of Proclamations-Ship-money -Trial concerning it-Star-Chamber, its proceedings in the case of Leighton, Prynne, Bastwick, Burton, and Bishop Williams. IT is probable that Charles was not wholly displeased with the excitement which prevailed in the commons during the proceedPolicy of Charles at this ings of the second of March. It was one of the incidents juncture. which might be made to afford a decent pretext for dispensing with the use of parliaments, until some more adequate experiment should be made with a view to supersede such assemblies altogether, or to render them the passive instruments of the crown. To such a course Charles was somewhat disposed by circumstances, but more by inclination, and it had never been contemplated by him with so much firmness and deliberation as at the present moment. The parliament was no sooner dissolved than a proclamation was His proclama- issued, the design of which was to justify the sovereign in tion. what he had done, and in adopting those new methods of government to which it would be necessary he should resort in future. It described the opposition to the court in the house of commons as limited to "a few ill-affected persons," but, at the same time, it set forth the conduct of this unimportant faction as the main reason for dissolving the national council. Through the influence of these persons the house had been induced to cast away the modesty which had for ages distinguished it, and not only to meddle with questions of government and law in a manner before unknown, but to seize on the necessities of the sovereign for the purpose of enforcing submission to their pleasure on conditions incompatible with monarchy." government had endeavoured to serve the interests of the protestant religion in France, in Germany, and in other places, but all its efforts had been rendered fruitless by a small number of men who assumed a great appearance of zeal in the cause of religion merely for the purpose of acquiring an influence over many honest and religious minds which had become much alarmed on that subject. All men, however, were to remember, that in future the servants of the king were to be held responsible to himself alone; that such proceedings as had taken place in the last parliament would never be submitted to again; and that while every thing proper would be done to discountenance popery and schism in the church, and to preserve the just immunities of the subject, it was the expectation of the monarch that the obedience shown to the greatest of his predecessors should be rendered to his authority; nor were the disaffected to suppose that there would be any want of means to enforce the claims of an office derived from God himself, to whom alone princes are bound to give account of their actions*. The reproach cast on the patriot leaders by the monarch, as affecting much zeal for religion with a view to deceive the unwary, and to accomplish their particular ends, is one still brought against them by their enemies. But who can attach credit to it as directed against such men as Coke, Selden, Cotton, Eliot, Seymour, and Philips? We see also in this proclamation the common error of ascribing to the influence of a few individuals what could never have become formidable had it not been sustained by strong general feeling, and this misconception will be found at the root of the misguided policy of the monarch throughout the great conflict before him. The importance of individuals at such times is never so much the effect of their peculiar character or capacity, as of the tide of popular sentiment by which they are borne onward. Charles resolved that the threats contained in his speech to the lords on the dissolution, and in his proclamation to the people, Members of should not seem to have been idle words. Two days after the Commons the adjournment of the commons, and five days before the imprisoned. dissolution had formally taken place, nine of its members who had been most active in its recent proceedings were called before the council. The charge against them was that of disobeying the message of the sovereign which required an immediate adjournment of the house. Hollis, Eliot, Hobart, and Hayman were committed close prisoners to the Tower. Selden, Valentine, Corington, Long, and Stroud, were consigned to other prisons, and the study of Selden, and those of Eliot and *Parl. Hist. ii. 492-504. The only part of the accusation contained in this address that could tend to the prejudice of the patriots with impartial and reflecting men was that which relates to the inquiries prosecuted by them with a view to convict and punish the persons who had presumed to collect the customs without consent of Parliament-or rather in contempt of its prohibition. But it will be perceived that this was now the great point on which the question of good government hinged; the conduct of Charles, in persisting to take the responsibility of his functionaries upon himself, being destructive of the constitutional maxim that "the king can do no wrong," and of the due authority of the makers of the law over those who should administer it. Charles would not see the sacredness and value of the immunity which the constitution had thus placed around the throne. He contended for the strict independence of the executive on the legislative body, the effect of which was to put the uncertainties of his own will in the place of the security promised by the law, and to put his own life in the way of those penalties which the constitution had reserved for less important offenders. The king who will take the responsibilities of his ministers upon himself ought not to think it impossible that the punishment due to his ministers may some day fall upon himself. Hollis, were sealed by the royal officers, that their private papers might be searched for matter of crimination against them. In the midst of these proceedings Charles had pledged himself by his proclamation to respect the provisions of the Petition of Right; and the prisoners, on the ground of that instrument, claimed their writ of habeas corpus, which empowered them to demand in the court of king's bench, that they should be discharged or admitted to bail. It was alleged that their conduct in refusing to adjourn the house at the command of the sovereign, notwithstanding the irregular manner in which that command was made known, was seditious, and a notable contempt of the king and his government. This was denied by the counsel for the accused, the house having often exercised the power of adjournment itself, without consulting the crown or its ministers, and it was prayed that the opinion of the court on the law of the case might be delivered. This request was found to be inconvenient, and to evade it the prisoners were removed into new custody. It was not unusual by means of this artifice to prolong the imprisonment of obnoxious persons, as each remove put off the decision of the case until the next term. This expedient, a devise of tyranny to defraud the subject of the benefit of the law, served, in this instance, to give time for deliberation; and as the difficulties of the alleged ground of commitment were found to multiply the more it was examined, the judges were constrained to recommend that the prisoners should be discharged on finding security for their more proper conduct in future. But the sufferers were not men to profess a repentance which they did not feel, or to seem to reprobate as faults, the actions which they regarded as the most just and honourable in their lives. Prejudice may attribute their refusal to accept of enlargement on these "easy terms" to a vulgar thirst of popularity; but candour, without supposing them free from human infirmity, will regard their prevailing motives as of a more honourable nature. Selden was the adviser of this course, and no writer may cast such reflections on that great man without damage to his own reputation*. It was natural that the court should describe the conduct of these persons as obstinacy; and, after an interval of some months, a criminal information was in consequence filed against Eliot, Hollis, and Valentine. They refused to plead, on the ground that proceedings in parliament were not within the cognizance of the court of king's bench. But the judges descended to talk of a distinction between parliamentary and extra-parliamentary conduct, and, on the pretence that the actions of the accused were of the latter description, proceeded to pass sentence upon them. That sentence was to suffer imprisonment during the king's It is Hume who speaks thus of the terms of release proffered to these persons, and in whose prejudiced eye their conduct appeared in no better light than as the effect of a poor personal vanity. Hist. ubi supra. See the proceedings in the Parl. Hist., ii. 504-524. Rushworth, i. 662-691. pleasure, and to be fined, Valentine in 5007., Hollis in 10007., and Eliot "as the greatest offender and ringleader in parliament," in 20007. Death of sir John Eliot. The career of sir John Eliot, the importance of whose influence in the late parliaments was thus marked by the resentment of the court, was now approaching its close; but his efforts and bis sufferings in the defence of English liberty claim something more than a passing notice from the historian. This "greatest offender" in the cause of public right during the three first parliaments of the present reign was a man of good family, and a native of Cornwall, where he possessed extensive property. His studies at Oxford, and at one of the inns of court, favoured that combination of improved taste and sound legal knowledge by which he was distinguished. Previous to his appearance in parliament he had visited the continent, and at that early period formed an acquaintance with George Villiers, afterwards the favourite of the English monarch, and duke of Buckingham. This acquaintance continued for some time after the commencement of Buckingham's prosperous fortune, but never became the occasion on the side of Eliot of the slightest departure from those great principles to which his later years were so signally devoted. His private conduct during that period was not probably so irreproachable, his passions being, on his own admission, not unfrequently beyond his control. In a dispute, on one occasion, with a neighbour, Mr. Moyle, he drew his weapon and inflicted a dangerous wound on the person of his opponent. But writers, whose prejudices have given the darkest colouring to this act, are obliged to admit that it was provoked by taunting words, that it was an outbreak of youthful passion which was soon repented of, and that it was not only followed by the most humble acknowledgment of the fault, but by a permanent reconciliation and friendship between the parties*. Before the accession of Charles, Eliot had distinguished himself in the popular cause, and no trace of intimacy between himself aud Buckingham remained. Impatience of subserviency on the one side, and proud neglect on the other, appear to have been the causes of disagreement; and by the time the first parliament under Charles was assembled, Eliot had so far imbibed the general feeling against the minion of the court, that he became, as we have seen, one of the most active and formidable of the party who made his overthrow the See the early life of Eliot as described by an enemy in D'Israeli's Commentaries on the Reign of Charles I., and some important corrections of the mistakes into which the prejudices of that writer have led him, in the Life of Eliot by Mr. Forster, in the Cabinet Cyclopædia. The affectionate friendship which evidently subsisted between Eliot and Moyle, immediately after the painful incident mentioned in the text, is a sufficient proof that the act was not attended by those base circumstances which archdeacon Echard had coupled with it. Moyle's daughter said of him, referring to that event, that his private deportment, ever after, was as free from fault as his public conduct. great object of their policy*. At this time no man employed himself so effectually, either in exposing the general misconduct of the government, or in preventing or restricting the votes upon supplies. The part which he took in the third parliament has been related in the narrative of the proceedings in that assembly. The sentence which his conduct there brought upon him he regarded, from the first, as one of perpetual imprisonment, unless the power of the crown should be soon checked by the power of another parliament, and of this there was then but little prospect. He made that provision, accordingly, for this his third lodgment in the Tower, which showed that he was far from expecting a speedy release. When he addressed himself to the service of his country by opposing the malpractices of the powerful, he saw very clearly the evils to which his generous efforts would expose him; and the whole of his property had in consequence been settled on his sons: so that when the royal officers would have exacted from him the heavy fine imposed by the judges, they were obliged to report that the means of payment did not exist. Eliot, on hearing that the sheriff of Cornwall and five other commissioners, all his capital enemies, were employed in an inquiry concerning his lands and goods, with a smile, said, "He had two coats, two suits, two pairs of boots, and galoshes; and that, if they could pick 2000/. out of that, much good might it do them." In the "dark and smoky room" to which he was confined, he was allowed, at his earnest request, the use of books and of writing materials, and his many weary hours were employed in reading, in meditation, in committing his thoughts to writing, or in correspondence with his sons, his friends, and particularly the patriot John Hampden, to whose superintendence he had assigned the education of his children. His papers being liable to be searched, it was only with the greatest secrecy that his correspondence could be carried on; but, fortunately, some of the letters included in it have been preserved, and these present to us traits of character of the most interesting nature. They serve to place both Eliot and Hampden before us, not only in the light of pure moralists and honourably-minded statesmen, but as men whose spirits were wrought to the temper of a pure and elevated Christianity. No one acquainted with the letters can read the speeches of these great men in the cause of what they venerated as social justice or pure religion without the strongest confidence in their sincerity. Many petitions were presented to the king praying for Eliot's release, one signed, it is said, by all the gentry of Cornwall; but Charles, in * Echard makes Eliot go to London about the Moyle affair to beg the interference of the duke for his pardon, and attributes the disagreement between these persons to the conduct of Buckingham on that occasion, forgetting that, at that time, George Villiers was as little known at the English court as John Eliot; yet Mr. D'Israeli could give credit to this pitiful invention. |