1641 THE ROOT-AND-BRANCH PARTY. 285 Those When the debate was resumed the next day, Pennington stood up to vindicate the conduct of his constituents. who had signed the petition, he said, were men of worth and known integrity; and if there were any mean men's hands to Feb. 9. The ad journed debate. Pennington defends the petitioners. it, yet, if they were honest men, there was no reason but their hands should be received. If pressure had been used, it would have been signed not by fifteen thousand but by fifteen times fifteen thousand. It was thus that the Root-and-Branch party took up the cause of the masses. It was not enough that the control over religion should be wrested from the King and the bishops, to be handed over to the educated classes which alone found a place in the House of Commons. No wonder the prospect thus opened was disagreeable to those who were determined not to be dictated to by Laud, but who could see no reason why they should not themselves dictate to the artisans and Argument of peasants whom they despised. "If we make a parity Strangways. in the Church," said Sir John Strangways, 66 we must come to a parity in the Commonwealth. The bishops are one of the three estates of the kingdom, and have voice in Parliament." In these few words Strangways had given voice to the strength and the weakness of his party. Large numbers of the country gentlemen who had shown a firm front to the aggressions of the Crown, who had resisted the payment of shipmoney, and who had risen up against Laud's ecclesiastical system, had no sympathy with Puritanism, especially when it took a popular form. From self-interest or principle, they held that government was for the few and not for the many, and that the mass of men, ignorant and immersed in the toils of life, were little capable of solving the intricate problems of politics and religion. They thought with Shakspere In the Cheshire petition against Presbytery, presented to the Lords on Feb. 27 (E. 163) various objections felt by laymen to the abolition of Episcopacy are well brought out. "We cannot but express our just fears that their desire is to introduce an absolute innovation of Presbyterial government, whereby we who are now governed by the Canon and civil laws dispensed by twenty-six ordinaries, easily responsible to Parliament for any deviation from the rule of law, conceive we should become exposed to Take but degree away, untune that string, And the rude son should strike his father dead. Should lose their names, and so should justice too. Then everything includes itself in power, Power into will, will into appetite; And appetite, an universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power, And, last, eat up himself. Cries of 'To the Strangways' words about parity in the commonwealth were more than Cromwell could bear. 'He knew no reason,' he Cromwell's said, 'of those suppositions and inferences which reply. the gentleman had made.' His look and tone were probably more irritating than his words. bar!' were heard from Strangways' friends. Pym and Holles intervened, and Cromwell was allowed to finish his speech. He repeated that he did not understand why the gentleman that last spake should make an inference of parity from the Church to the Commonwealth, nor that there was any necessity of the great revenues of the bishops. He was more convinced touching the irregularity of bishops than ever before, because, like the Roman hierarchy, they would not endure to have their condition come to a trial.' 6 The reply was characteristic of Cromwell. To the truth the mere arbitrary government of a numerous Presbytery, who, together with their ruling elders, will arise to near forty thousand Church governors, and with their adherents must needs bear so great a sway in the Commonwealth, that if future inconvenience shall be found in that government, we humbly offer to consideration how these shall be reducible by Parliament, how consistent with a monarchy, and how dangerously conducible to an anarchy, which we have just cause to pray against, as fearing the consequences would prove the utter loss of learning and laws, which must necessarily produce an extermination of nobility, gentry, and order, if not of religion." 1641 A COMPROMISE. 287 which lay behind the objections of his opponents he was wholly blind. For the practical work of the moment he was intensely keen-sighted. Bishops to him were not the ideal bishops who had their existence in Falkland's brain, but the actual Laud and Wren who were then existing in England in bodily shape. These men had stood in the way of that stern Protestantism which was all in all to him. They had imposed superstitious ceremonies. They had persecuted the saints. The work of the day was to break down their power. What was to be done next, or what would be the remote consequence of what he was doing, he did not care to inquire. A compromise accepted. The temper which had been provoked may have warned the leaders on both sides, that no good object would be attained by prolonging the discussion. Falkland and Culpepper offered a compromise. They suggested that the greater part of the Londoners' petition should be referred, together with the petition of the ministers, to the proposed committee, but that the special question of Episcopacy should be reserved for future consideration by the House itself. Though many voices were raised against this suggestion, it was ultimately adopted without a division. A division, was, however, subsequently taken, on the addition of six names, three from each side, to those of the committee of twenty-four previously appointed for Church affairs. This proposal was resisted by the supporters of Episcopacy, possibly on the ground that they did not expect that the weight of Roe, Holborne, and Palmer, who were named from their own side, would be equal to that of Holles, Fiennes, and the younger Vane on the other. They were, however, defeated by a majority of thirty-five.1 Falkland and Culpepper had gained for Charles that respite. which was all that he could reasonably expect. If he had done now what he did eleven months later, and had summoned the leaders of the minority to his counsels, frankly placing in their hands full authority to deal with the Church question as they thought best, the minority would in all probability soon have become a majority. If not, Charles gains a respite; C. 7. ii. 81. Rushworth, iv. 187. D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. 209, clxiv. 115. Feb 11. the power of dissolution was still in his hands, and it is quite possible that a fresh appeal to the country would have given him an unexpected strength, if it were once understood that he had broken honestly and for ever with the old system. The existing Parliament had been elected when the Court was at the height of its unpopularity, and it was consequently more Puritan in its composition than the country itself. That even under the most favourable circumstances, the leaders of the minority would have been able to offer a permanent solution of the Church problem, may well be doubted. That problem was too complicated in itself, and it cut too deeply into the ingrained habits of Englishmen, to make it likely that it would be settled so easily. Much, however, would have been gained if a temporary solution could have been found to ward off that entire breach between the constitutional powers which was the fruitful parent of so much material and moral evil to that generation and the next. which he does not know how to use. Feb. 10. The mar Unfortunately, Charles was not likely to employ well the respite which had been gained. He took up now, as he had taken up before, one project after another for the restoration of an authority which he had never known how to use, brooding over each in turn, without settled purpose of any sort. The day after the conclusion of the Church debate in the Commons, he announced that his daughter's marriage treaty had been brought riage treaty. to a conclusion, and that it only remained to consider the terms of a political alliance between England and the Dutch Republic. Almost at the same time the Queen Mother declared to Rossetti, as a positive fact, that the young bridegroom was to land in England at the head of 20,000 men. Immediately on his arrival, the King would dissolve Parliament, and liberate Strafford, in order to entrust him with the reins of government. Other troops would be found to give support to the King, and in all probability France and Ireland would not be wanting in the emergency. The Queen Mother's expectations from it. L. F. iv. 157. 2 Rossetti to Barberini, Feb. 12, R. O. Transcripts. 1641 Feb. 11. THE IRISH ARMY. 289 It is not likely that Charles had definitely thought out all this plan, any more than it is likely that the Prince of Orange had definitely decided on sending an army to England with his son. It was enough that Charles lived in an atmosphere in which such plans were constantly discussed. He might, indeed, comfort himself with the thought that not a soul in the House of Commons knew anything of his hopes from Dutch or French intervention; but he could not expect anyone to be blind to the danger from Ireland. On the 11th Sir Walter Erle brought up a report from a committee appointed to Erle's report inquire into the condition of the Irish army. The army. report was not likely to allay the fears which were generally entertained. The Irish troops, said Erle, were so quartered, that 'within two or three days three or four thousand of them might upon any design be drawn together.' They had arms and munitions, and Strafford was still their general. Evidence was then produced to show that the Catholic Earl of Worcester had been employed to levy troops in Wales in the preceding summer, and a statement was made, though no documentary evidence was produced in its support, that the Irish army was to have landed at Milford Haven in order to act in combination with Worcester's force.' on the Irish The Commons unanimous against the Catholics. If Charles had desired to close the ranks of the House of Commons against him, he could not have hit on a better plan than on this menace of an Irish army suspended over their heads. Both parties in the late debate were unanimous in distrusting the Catholics. Both parties, too, were unanimous in denouncing that system of personal government to which Charles was so fondly attached. It was now on a report from Hyde, and by the lips of Culpepper, that Berkeley, whose language in the shipmoney case had been more extravagant than that of any other judge on the Bench, was impeached of high treason. The Lords at once sent Maxwell to bring him to their bar. He was found sitting as a judge in the Court of King's Bench. Maxwell ordered him to descend, and he had nothing for it but to obey. He was at once committed to the 1 D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 215. Feb. 12. Impeach. ment of Berkeley. |