1641

HYDE AND FALKLAND.

275

over the question of Episcopacy which he had not conceded to it in the preceding year. No doubt he argued warmly now, as then, on behalf of the Divine authority of bishops. But his main contention was in favour of the excellence of the Book of Common Prayer, and of its adaptability to every mood of Christian devotion. He admitted that some things might call for a reformation; but, when existing grievances had been redressed, the ancient building might well be left with all its fair proportions unimpaired. No wonder Charles liked the book well. No wonder, too, that the few who were bent on establishing Presbyterianism in England held that all others pitied it as a most poor piece.' 1

Feb. 8.

Feeling

against Presbyterianism.

If Episcopacy in its actual form found few supporters in England, Presbyterianism was not without its enemies. Though many minds had received a strong Puritan impress from the ecclesiastical domination of the past years, there were others, scarcely less numerous, which were filled with a distrust of the government of ecclesiastics in any form whatever, and who thought that the yoke of a popular clergy was likely to be far harder than the yoke of an unpopular clergy had ever been. In the House of Commons this distrust of Presbyterianism was widely spread. It found expression especially in three men-in Hyde, in Falkland, and in Digby, the lawyer, the scholar, and the gentleman.

Hyde was taking no mean part in the work of cutting away the extraordinary powers which had been acquired by the Crown since the accession of the House of Tudor. Hyde. He was zealous with more than ordinary zeal to establish the supremacy of the law. But with him the supremacy of the law was almost equivalent to the supremacy of lawyers. He fully shared in the contempt which is always felt by the members of a learned profession for those who are outside its pale. He had no idea that sovereignty when once taken away from a king, must be transferred to a nation. He had no sympathy with Pym's trust in the supremacy of the House of Commons. Being himself without strong passions, he never took account of the existence of strong passion in

Baillie, i. 293.

others. The Church of his ideal was one in which there would be no enthusiasm and no fanaticism, no zeal of any kind to break up the smooth ease of existence. He loved the services of the Church, but he loved them rather because they were decorous than because they were expressive of spiritual emotion. Far nobler, if also far weaker, was the character of his friend Falkland. Falkland saw, before Milton saw Falkland. it, that new presbyter would be but old priest writ large. He feared lest intellectual liberty would suffer from the new Church government as it had suffered from the old.

Although in some respects Lord Digby, Bristol's son and heir, stood nearer to Falkland than to Hyde, his distrust of Presbyterianism was rather the feeling of the polished Digby. gentleman versed in the ways of society than that of the truth-seeking student. Possessed of every quality which lifts a man to success, except discretion, he looked down with the scorn of conscious power upon the sophisms which passed muster in a popular creed. His versatility and lack of principle made him easily the dupe of flattery, and the most brilliant of living Englishmen ended a long career without attaching his name to any single permanent result either for good or for evil. There can be little doubt that the Queen had already gained him over. At the opening of the Parliament he had cried out as loudly as anyone against the iniquities of the Government. In the late debate on the Queen's message it had been his voice which had asked that formal thanks might be returned to her for the friendly assurances which she had given.

On February 8 the most momentous debate of these months was opened in the Commons. Formally the question at issue The debates was whether the London petition, which asked for the abolition of Episcopacy, should be sent to a competitions. mittee as well as the ministers' petition which asked only that the bishops might be restrained by certain defined rules.

on the ecclesiastical

Rudyerd's

The debate was opened by Rudyerd. He arspeech. gued in favour of a scheme of limited Episcopacy, according to which the bishop, being excluded from political

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LORD DIGBY.

277

functions, would be bound in ecclesiastical matters of importance to take the advice of a certain number of the clergy of his diocese. Then Digby followed. No one, he said, was

Digby's speech.

more ready than he to join in clipping the prelates' wings, but he could not join in their extirpation. The secret of his displeasure was not long concealed. He poured out his contempt on the 15,000 citizens who had signed the London petition, as well as on the petition itself. He spoke of it as a comet with a terrible tail pointing towards the north. "Let me recall to your mind," he said, "the manner of its delivery, and I am confident there is no man of judgment that will think it fit for a Parliament under a monarchy to give countenance to irregular and tumultuous assemblies of people, be it for never so good an end." The petition itself, he declared, was filled with expressions of undeniable harshness, and its conclusion was altogether illogical. It argued that because Episcopacy had been abused, its use must be taken away. Parliament might make a law to regulate Church government, but it was mere presumption for those who were outside Parliament to petition against a law actually in force.

Having thus assailed the petitioners, Digby turned round upon the bishops. "Methinks," he said, "the vengeance of the prelates hath been so layed, as if it were meant no generation, no degree, no complexion of mankind could escape it. . . . Was there a man of nice and tender conscience? Him they afflicted with scandal, . . . imposing on him those things as necessary which they themselves knew to be but indifferent. Was there a man of a legal conscience that made the establishment by law the measure of his religion? Him they have nettled with innovations, with fresh introductions to Popery. ... Was there a man that durst mutter against their insolencies? He may inquire for his 'lugs'; they have been within the bishops' visitation, as if they would not only derive their brandishment of the spiritual sword from St. Peter, but of the material one too, and the right to cut off ears. For my part I profess I am

Rushworth, iv. 183. There are short notes of the debate in D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. 206. The speeches are given by Rushworth in a wrong order and assigned to a wrong date.

so inflamed with the sense of them, that I find myself ready to cry out with the loudest of the 15,000, 'Down with them! down with them!' even unto the ground."

Other considerations held him back. It was impossible that institutions which had existed since the time of the Apostles could have in them 'such a close devil' that no power could 'exorcise' it, or 'no law restrain' it. He was much deceived 'if triennial Parliaments would not be a circle able to keep many a worse devil in order.' He knew of no other government which might not prove subject to 'as great or greater inconveniences than a limited Episcopacy.' Then, pointing his meaning still more plainly, he expressed his firm belief that monarchy could not stand with the government of Presbyterian assemblies. Assemblies would be sure to claim the right of excommunicating kings; and if a king,' he ended by saying, 'chance to be delivered over to Satan, judge whether men are likely to care much what becomes of him next.'

Falkland's

Falkland followed in a higher strain. He dwelt more on the effect of Laud's exercise of power on thought than on its effect upon persons. He told how preaching had been dis couraged; how the King's declaration, whilst ostensibly imposing silence on both parties, had been used to speech. silence one; how the divine right of bishops, the sacredness of the clergy, and the sacrilege of impropriations had been 'the most frequent subjects even in the most sacred auditories.' Some of the bishops-Montague was doubtless in his thoughts-had so industriously laboured to deduce themselves from Rome, that they had 'given great suspicion that in gratitude they' desired 'to return thither, or at least to meet it half-way.' "Some," he then said, "have evidently laboured to bring in an English, though not a Roman, Popery; I mean not only the outside and dress of it, but equally absolute, a blind dependence of the people upon the clergy, and of the clergy upon themselves; and have opposed the Papacy beyond the seas, that they might settle one beyond the water." "Nay," he added, with bitter reference to Bishop Goodman, common fame is more than ordinarily false if none of them have found a way to reconcile the opinions of Rome to the preferments of

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NATHANIEL FIENNES.

279

England; and to be so absolutely, directly, and cordially Papists, that it is all that 1,500l. a year can do to keep them from confessing it."

With all this, and with much more than this, Falkland could see no necessity for the abolition of Episcopacy. Let all laws be repealed which empowered the bishops to persecute, and let no ceremonies which any number counts unlawful, and no man counts necessary, be imposed against the rules of policy and St. Paul. "Since, therefore," he said, "we are to make new rules, and be infallibly certain of a triennial Parliament to see those rules observed as strictly as they are made, and to increase or change them upon all occasions, we shall have no reason to fear any innovation from their tyranny, or to doubt any defect in the discharge of their duty. I am as confident they will not dare either ordain, suspend, silence, excommunicate, or deprive, otherwise than we would have them."

Fiennes replies not to

to Digby.

It was with the sure instinct of a true debater that Nathaniel Fiennes, Lord Saye's second son, replied to Digby and not to Falkland. That ecstatic vision of a Liberal Falkland but Church, where no ceremonies were enforced which were unpalatable to any considerable number of the population, had no hold on the actual world around. In answer to Digby, Fiennes vindicated the right of petition, against the notion that the House of Commons was to stand apart from its constituents, and to legislate regardless of their wishes. Going over once more the long catalogue of the oppressions inflicted by the bishops, Fiennes traced the mischief, as Bacon had traced it before, to the fact that bishops had acted despoti-cally and alone. Assemblies, he thought, were not so adverse to monarchy as they appeared to be. It did not, however, follow that the presbyterian system must be introduced because Episcopacy was abolished. It might be that the Church would be most fitly governed by commissioners appointed by the Crown. Whatever might be the merit of this suggestion,

' Rushworth, iv. 184.

2 It will be afterwards seen that the celebrated Root-and-Branch Bill, in its final shape, provided for the exercise of episcopal jurisdiction by lay commissioners.