It was a fatal mistake, fatal if only because it was out of Strafford's power to keep erect that mingled system of law and prerogative which stood for the English constitution in his eyes. If the Commons persisted in their opinion, the only choice would be between a military despotism and the supremacy of the Lower House. If Pym could not in the face of Charles call back into existence the whole of the Elizabethan constitution, he was at least standing up in defence of its nobler and better part. The claim of Englishmen to determine their own policy, and not to be the humble recipients of bounties at the good pleasure of the King and the bishops, was the question at issue. Pym might not produce a complete and perfect work. He might sometimes be harsh in his judgments and defective in penetrating motives; but, for all that, it was the voice of Pym and not the voice of Strafford which appealed to the memories of the great England of the past, and which reached across the gulf of time to do, as Eliot would have said, the work of posterity, and to call into being the greater England of the future. It is of greater importance that men shall throw themselves with energy into public affairs, than that the laws by which they are governed shall be the best which human reason can invent.

April 27. The Com

mons declare

Strafford had to content himself with the approbation of the Court. Charles said openly that he trusted him more than all his Council. Even the Queen was won. She told him that she esteemed him the most capable this a breach and faithful servant her husband had. The Commons of privilege. were not likely to regard his performances in the same light. For a moment, perhaps, the thought of averting a collision gained the upper hand. Might it not be possible to vote money to the King with the proviso that it should not be used against the Scots? Pym had little difficulty in showing the absurdity of the proposal; and the House, recovering its balance, took up as a breach of privilege the suggestion about supply which had been made by the Peers, and demanded reparation. Before the question, thus raised, came to an issue, April 30 Bibl. Nai. Fr. 15,995, fol. 81.

Montreuil to Bellievre,

May 10'

Charles learned how little he could count even upon the Upper House in ecclesiastical matters. It needed his special intervention to hinder the Lords from passing a fresh censure on Manwaring.1

The Lords maintain

On the 29th it appeared that, though the Lords resolved to maintain their position, the resistance of the Commons had not April 29. been without its effect. This time the King's majority had dwindled from 36 to 20. The resolution of the their point. Upper House let loose men's tongues. For the first time in English history its composition was unfavourably canvassed. In that House, it was said, 'there were few cordial for the commonweal ;' its members spoke 'so cautelously as doth not become a free Commonwealth.' The votes of the bishops and the councillors were at the King's disposal. It was well known that a heavy pressure had been put on the Lords by the King. Carlisle and others acknowledged that they had voted against their consciences. Holland had been urged to speak on behalf of the King. He had given a silent vote and had retired to Kensington in disgust. Newport, on the other hand, declared that he had been so agitated as to vote against the King by mistake. "They of the Upper House," it was bitterly said, were fully fitted for slavery." 2

66

On May I the first division of the session was taken in the Commons. Pym stated that Dr. Beale, the Master of St. John's at Cambridge, had asserted, in a sermon, that the King had power to make laws without the help of Parliament, and moved that he should be sent for

May 1. Dr. Beale sent for.

"The House begins to proceed to censure Manwaring ; but the King sent word that they should desist, or not censure him so far as to make him incapable of his bishopric.

Some

"The Archbishop affirmed that, if the Parliament did deprive a man of his bishopric, it was in the King's power to remit that censure. said that he pleaded his own case.

"My Lord Saye spoke nobly for the kingdom, but he had many adversaries. He answered the Lord Keeper, the Archbishop, &c., but none was found a match for him but the Deputy of Ireland." Harl. MSS. 4,931, fol. 48.

2 Harl. MSS. 4,931, fol. 486. Montreuil to Bellievre, Nat. Fr. 15,995, fol. 32.

April 30, Bibl.

May 10

to account for his words. An amendment that the evidence should first be referred to a Select Committee was lost by a majority of 109. It was impossible to have a plainer indication of the temper of the Commons on ecclesiastical matters.1

That same day news arrived from Scotland which made Charles more impatient than ever for an immediate grant of

Shots fired from Edin

burgh Castle.

money. The first blood in a new civil war had been shed at Edinburgh. The citizens had thrown up a work opposite the gate of the Castle, and Ruthven had replied by firing upon them with his cannon. Four of the townsmen had been slain and some houses injured.

May 2.

message.

Debate in
Committee.

Upon this the King himself intervened, asking for an immediate answer to his request for money. In the Lords, Strafford distinctly announced that a refusal would The King's be followed by a dissolution, and there can be little doubt that Vane conveyed the same intimation to the Commons. The Lower House went at once into committee, and broke up at the unusually late hour of six in the evening without coming to any conclusion. Though no vote was taken, the general feeling of the House was to be ascertained without difficulty. The impression left by the debate was that the Commons would have been quite ready to leave to some future time the discussion of their ecclesiastical grievances, and of that invasion of their privileges which they held to have taken place in 1629; but that they were unwilling to vote money until the question of arbitrary taxation had been fully cleared up. It must be finally settled, they thought, that the King had no right to take what they were prepared voluntarily to offer. Not only must the money required for the navy be levied by a Parliamentary grant, but the money needed for the army as well. The military charges, especially coat-and-conduct money, must no longer be fixed upon the subject by the sole authority of the King."

Feeling of the House.

The next day was a Sunday. At the Council Board Straf

1 Commons' Journals, ii. 18. Rossingham's News-Letter, May 4, S. P. Dom. cccclii. 20.

2 Rossingham's News-Letter, May 5, Add. MSS. 11,045, fol. 114.

1640

May 3. Resolution taken in the Council.

Contest

between Strafford

and Vane.

STRAFFORD AND VANE.

113

ford recommended the King not to allow ship-money to stand in the way of a reconciliation with the Commons. Charles consented that the ship-money judgment should be carried before the House of Lords upon a writ of error, where it would undoubtedly be reversed. No better way of making the concession could possibly be devised. On another point Strafford found him less yielding. When Vane argued that no less than twelve subsidies, or about 840,000l., should be fixed as the price of so great a concession, Charles seemed inclined to agree with him. Strafford, in the very spirit of Bacon, urged that there should be no haggling in the matter. He told the King. ‘that the said offer to the Commons' House ought not to be conditional,' but that he should put it upon their affections for supply.' Charles answered, hesitatingly, that he feared less would not serve his occasion. Before Strafford's repeated warnings, however, he gave way at last and consented to be satisfied with eight.'

Vane gains over the

King.

Strafford's urgency was entirely thrown away. It was impossible to rely upon Charles for any steady and consistent policy. It is exceedingly probable-though no evidence of the fact exists-that after the Council was dismissed, Vane drew away the King from the conciliatory attitude recommended by Strafford. At all events, he was able to appear in his place in Parliament the next morning to deliver a message, distinctly asking for twelve subsidies as the price of the abandonment of ship-money.

May 4. Twelve

subsidies

demanded.

The House was again in committee.

Hampden asked that the question might be put whether the King's request, as it was contained in the message,' should be granted. Edward Hyde-then, as ever, anxious to step forward as a mediator between extreme opinions-asked

The debate in committee.

The only distinct information we have is from Strafford's interrogatories (Whitaker's Life of Radcliffe, 233). It is evident that they do not all relate to the same discussion. The last five interrogatories are plainly connected with the later Council, at which a dissolution was resolved on.

that the question should be simply whether supply should be given at all. He might reasonably expect that many members who would vote in the negative on Hampden's motion, would vote in the affirmative on his.

The debate which followed only served to bring out the difficulties of an agreement in a stronger light than Strafford had supposed to be possible. The dread of an early dissolution, indeed, had great effect. As far as the amount of the subsidies was concerned, those who most strongly objected to even a tacit acknowledgment of the legality of ship-money, were prepared to vote at least six subsidies; and Strafford, at all events, was ready to advise the King to accept the offer. Glanville, the Speaker of the House, a lawyer of no mean repute, inveighed bitterly against taxation by prerogative. The judgment of the Exchequer Chamber. he said, 'was a senseless judgment.' All the arguments contained in it.'might easily have been answered.' If it were allowed to stand upon record, 'after ages would see the folly of their times.' It was 'against law, if he understood what law was.' 2 2 Yet even Glanville recommended that supply should be given. An understanding would doubtless have been come to on the basis laid down by Strafford, if there had been no other question but that of ship-money before the committee. As the debate the abolition went on, however, greater prominence was given to the demand for the abolition of the military charges which had been mooted on the preceding Saturday. One of the members for Yorkshire, Sir William Savile, said that his constituents would not care how many subsidies were voted if only they were relieved of ship-money. He was at once contradicted by Bellasys, the other member for the same county, who, some years before, had suffered imprisonment for his

Demand for

of the military charges.

So far, I suppose, we may trust Clarendon (ii. 72). His account of this Parliament, however, is so inaccurate that I dare not use his narrative of the debate. His memory only served him to show the figure of Vane as frustrating an agreement which, but for Vane's delinquencies, would have been brought about by himself.

? The last sentence is from Clarendon; the rest from Harl. MSS. 4,931, fol. 49.