1641 THE SCOTTISH TERMS. but, in the face of the impossible to reject it. Bristol recommends their accept ance. 261 on for many more.1 Such a demand was sufficiently startling; known sentiments of the King, it was Bristol, as a Commissioner, had fought hard against it. "When the Scots," he said, in announcing their resolution to the Houses, "made this vast proposition, it startled me to think what a dishonour was fallen upon this ancient and renowned nation; but when I considered that this dishonour fell upon us by the improvidence and evil counsels of certain bad instruments, who had reduced his royal Majesty and this kingdom to these straits, I well hoped the shame and part of the loss would fall upon them."2 On the 23rd the Scottish demands were taken into consideration by the Commons. There was much difference of opinion. The Scots had many enemies in the House. Some of these suggested that they should have nothing till they had left England.3 Others thought that the money needed to pay them should be raised out of the estates of the incendiaries. In the end it was voted in general terms that a friendly assistance should be given, Jan. 23. They are taken into consideration by the Commons. ་ 1 Borough's Notes, Harl. MSS. ccclvii. 50. D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. 140. Baillie, i. 289. It is seldom indeed that any complaint has to be made of Mr. David Laing's editing, but he has here made Baillie write pure nonsense. In his edition the passage runs: The particular compt was given with the demand; a scrole of two hundred and fiftie thousand pound sterling, which we putt out of compt, five hundred and fourteen thousand pound [Scots] whereof we offered to bear ourself such a proportion as the Parliament should find reasonable or us able.' I would suggest the following changes. 'A scroll of 250,000l. sterling which we put out of compt [and] 514,000l., whereof we offered,' &c. This agrees with Borough's notes, which it should be remembered Mr. Laing had not seen. Since this was written I have seen the full account in the MS. in the Advocate's Library (33, 4, 6). The exact sum put out of account must be the 271,500l. there charged on general losses. The claim made is given, as I had supposed, in pounds sterling. 2 D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 140. 3 'It is not unknown,' the Scotch Commissioners had written on the 13th, 'what desperate desires and miserable hopes our adversaries have conceived of a breach upon this article.' Adv. Libr. Edin. 33, 4, 6. though the amount of it and the mode in which it was to be raised were left to future discussion.1 William of Orange. If the English Commons were not likely to quarrel with the Scots, neither were the Dutch likely to serve Charles as he Jan. 19. expected to be served. On the 19th he announced The Princess to their ambassadors that he was ready to accept Mary to marry Prince their demand for the Princess Mary instead of the Princess Elizabeth. He hoped that the marriage treaty might be accompanied by a political alliance between the two States. It is true that he spoke of this alliance as one which was to be directed against Spain, but there can be little doubt that his thoughts were travelling in another direction. "Our eldest daughter," said the Queen, it may well be believed with her most winning smile, " deserves something more than her younger sister." The question was referred to commissioners appointed to draw up the marriage treaty. The Dutchmen expressed their readiness to treat of a political alliance as soon as riage treaty the articles of marriage were agreed on. But they negotiated. intimated that, in their opinion, such an alliance The mar would be of little use unless the King came to a good understanding with his Parliament. The marriage treaty was quickly settled. The only question at issue related to the time at which the youthful bride was to be transmitted to Holland. Charles withdrew a demand, on which he had insisted the year before, that his daughter should be allowed the use of the ceremonies of the Church of England. "It may be," said one of the English Commissioners, "that in three months there will be no such ceremonies here." 2 Transforma- Whilst every hope which the King had formed of external assistance was thus failing him, the Commons were showing no signs of flinching. The Bill for Annual Parliaments, indeed, when it emerged from committee, had been subjected to considerable mo 1 C. J. ii. 71. Prinsterer, ser. 2, iii. 330. 1641 A NEW LORD KEEPER. 263 difications, partly perhaps in consequence of the knowledge that it was threatened with some opposition in the Upper House.' It was now a Bill not for Annual but for Triennial Parliaments. The old statutes of the reign of Edward III., which enacted that Parliament should meet once a year, were indeed recited in the preamble. But the machinery by which elections were to be held without authority from the Crown was not to be called into existence until the sittings of the Houses had been intermitted for three years. On the 20th the Bill was sent up to the Lords. It was accompanied by a Bill granting four subsidies to be specially applied to the relief of the armies in the North.2 One concession at least Charles was ready to make, and it was one which at any other time would have been received with gratitude. On the 14th Finch was formally im Jan. 20. to the Lords together with a Jan. 14. Finch impeached. Jan. 15. The judges to hold office quamdiu se benè gesserint. It is sent up peached. On the 15th the King announced that from henceforth the judges should hold office on Subsidy Bill. good behaviour, and no longer, as had been too often the case in his reign, at the good pleasure of the Crown. The place of Lord Keeper was now vacant, and if Charles had really been anxious to come to an understanding with Parliament he would have seized the opportunity of appointing some lawyer who shared the popular feeling. The man whom he selected was Lyttelton; and Lyttelton, amiable as he was, had pleaded vigorously against Hampden in the case of ship-money. To Charles he brought little advantage. He was personally brave, but politically timid. He fell ill shortly after his appointment; and if there had been any expectation that his great legal knowledge would be turned to good account when he was called on as Lord Keeper to preside on Strafford's trial, that expectation was doomed to disappointment. Jan. 20. Lyttelton Lord Keeper. Bankes, who had taken part with Lyttelton in pleading against Hampden, succeeded him as Chief Justice of the Common 1 Giustinian to the Doge, Jan. 7, Ven. Transcripts, R. O. I, Jan. 29. Bankes Chief Justice mon Pleas. Pleas. Heath received a puisne judgeship which happened to be vacant. Though, as one who had been driven from the Bench as not sufficiently pliant in the days of the Com. of Charles's unquestioned power, he might have had some hold on the public sympathy, he was known to have been one of the staunchest upholders judge again, of the prerogative in its most exalted claims, and he had taken a leading part in those proceedings which sent Eliot to his glorious death in prison. The Attorney-Generalship was given to Sir Edward Herbert. Jan. 23. Heath becomes a Jan. 29. St. John Solicitor. General. The strangest of all appointments was that of Oliver St. John as Solicitor-General.1 If he had been placed in a position of real authority, his name would have served as a sign that Charles at least wished to appear desirous of approximating to the popular party. A SolicitorGeneral, as all men knew, had no real authority. He had a lucrative post, and Charles seems to have thought that he could win over many of his opponents by placing them in lucrative posts. On this occasion the attempt failed, as it deserved. St. John remained as staunch to his principles as he had been before. Jan. 20. The Lords' resolutions Before St. John assumed his new office, he had the satisfaction of seeing his contention in the ship-money case adopted by the House of Lords. On the 20th against ship. they passed a series of resolutions condemning the impost as illegal. money. The Lords and the If Lords and Commons were of one mind on the Catholics. question of ship-money, they were also of one mind on another point in which modern feeling would be distinctly against them. It is sometimes said that the distrust of the Catholics was a weakness inherent in a Puritan House of Commons, and that even there it would not have been very active but for the machinations of Pym and his associates. Those who hold this view can have paid of Goodman. little attention to the journals of the House of Lords. On the 21st John Goodman, a priest, who was specially ob1 Croke's Reports, Car. 600. Foss (Lives of the Judges, vi. 347) gives the date erroneously as the 18th. Jan. 21. Conviction 1641 A REPRIEVED PRIEST. 265 noxious as a convert from Protestantism, and perhaps, too, as a brother of the obnoxious Bishop of Gloucester, was condemned to death under the bloody laws of Elizabeth's reign. Rossetti, as soon as he heard what had taken place, applied to the Jan. 22. The King reprieves him. die.' Angry feeling aroused. Queen, and the Queen told the sad story to her husband. "If he is only condemned for being a priest," said Charles, "I will assure you he shall not The next morning he sent him a reprieve. To show mercy to a priest was unfortunately to rouse the indignation of all good Protestants. The Queen, too, had herself contributed something to the violence of the storm which followed on this act of mercy. It must have been known to many in both Houses that some, at least, of the Parliamentary leaders had recently been tempted with offers of promotion to support the continuance of the residence of a Papal Agent at the Queen's Court, which made it the centre of a permanent intrigue against the parliamentary constitution of England. Jan. 23. in the City. The first outcry did not arise in either of the Houses. The City had been making preparations to lend a further sum of 60,000l. On the morning of the 23rd Pennington Excitement announced that, in consequence of Goodman's reprieve and of other suspicious circumstances, the City had decided to lend nothing. The Commons at once answered to the touch, and called on the Lords to join them in demanding the execution of The Commons demand Goodman's execution. the condemned priest. Charles determined, for the first time since the meeting of Parliament, to intervene in person. He sent for both Houses to appear before him at Whitehall in the afternoon. Charles sends for the He had other matters besides this affair of Goodman Houses. on which he wished to address them. Since the London petition against the bishops had been presented, its principles had been acted on in the City. That peand Branch tition asked that Episcopacy might be destroyed 'root and branch,' and the 'root and branch party," as it was afterwards called, showed signs of increasing vigour. The Root party. |