that of any Parliament in our history. It made England conscious of the universality of its displeasure. Falkland, we are told, went back from this Parliament full of dissatisfaction with the Court,' and doubtless he did not stand alone. The chorus of complaint sounded louder when it was echoed from Cornwall to Northumberland than when it seemed to be no more than a local outcry. Nor was this Parliament more memorable for the complaints which it uttered than for the remedies which it proposed. The work which it assigned to itself was of no less import than that to which the Long Parliament subsequently addressed itself. Its moderation consisted rather in the temper in which it approached its labours, than in the Revolution proposed by it. demands which it made. What it proposed was nothing short of a complete change in the relations between the King and the nation. It announced through the mouth of Pym that Parliament was the soul of the commonwealth, and there were some amongst its members who sought for that soul in the Lower House alone. It was impossible that such a body should long have escaped a dissolution. From the very first the resolution had A dissolution been taken at Court to break up the Parliament unavoidable. unless it would give its support to the war. When it laid hands upon fleet and army, and seemed likely to give its voice for peace, the moment foreseen in Charles's Council had arrived. It needed all Hyde's bland conviction that contradictory forces were to be reconciled by his own lawyer-like dexterity, to throw the whole blame of the dissolution upon Vane. Oliver St. John understood better what the facts of the case really were, when he said 'that all was well, and that it must be worse before it could be better; and that this Parliament would never have done what was necessary to be done.' St. John knew full well what he wanted. Hyde never knew what he wanted beyond some dream of his own, in which Charles and Laud were to come to a happy compromise with all moderate men, and tyranny and sedition were to be renounced as equally impracticable. Clarendon, vii. 222. STRAFFORD, at least, had no notion of coming to a compromise with a Parliament which was bent on peace with Scotland, and 1640. Strafford's view of the situation. which was determined to place the whole military force of the Crown at its own disposal. The knowledge of Pym's intercourse with the Scots, which he doubtless acquired in the course of the day, changed his longing for conciliation to bitter hostility. The King, he thought, might leave his subjects to provide support for the navy, but he could not safely depend on them for the very existence of an army. If Charles gave way now, a modification of the whole constitution of England would be the result. The English Parliament would claim all the rights which the Scottish Parliament had asserted. The country, he may well have thought, would be handed over to the persuasive rhetoric of factious adventurers. The functions of government would be at an end. He saw all the weak points of the Parliamentary system without seeing any of its strong ones. He had no belief in the possibility that a better organisation might arise out of the chaotic public opinion of his day. The secret of the future, the growth of cabinet government, was a veiled mystery to him as it was to the rest of his generation. His con In conversation with his friends, Strafford made no secret of his conviction that the summoning of Parliament had been an experiment to which he indeed had heartily desired success, but that it had been nothing more than an experiment. The King's cause, he said to Conway, 'was very just and lawful, and if the Parliament would not versation with Conway. supply him, then he was justified before God and man if he sought means to help himself, though it were against their wills.' 1 Much the same language had been used by him to Usher whilst he was still in Ireland. The crisis which he then contemplated had now arrived. It was absolutely necessary for the common safety that the King should ward off the approaching danger from Scotland in spite of the refusal of the House of Commons to support him.2 The Committee of Eight. As soon as the King returned to Whitehall, a meeting was held of that Committee of Eight which had been appointed in the preceding winter to take special cognisance of Scottish affairs. Charles asked the advice of this select body on the course which it now behoved him to take. Vane argued, not without support, that to defend England against invasion was all that was now possible. Strafford was too clear-sighted not to perceive of defence. at once the hopelessness of such a course. Only a fierce blow, sharp and decisive, would save the King now. England would never bear the long contribution of enforced supplies to an inactive army on the Borders. Let the City, he Vane argues for a war Strafford war. said, be required to lend 100,000l. to the King. Let Supports an ship-money be vigorously collected. This would aggressive suffice for a short campaign, and it was clearly his opinion that a few months of invasion would bring Scotland to its knees. "Do you invade them," was his closing admonition. 4 Rushworth, Strafford's Trial, 536. 3 This rests on Vane's own evidence. 2 Ibid. 535. Rushworth, Straf. Trial, 546. I have no hesitation in accepting the form of Vane's notes printed in the Hist. MSS. Commissioners' Report, iii. 3, against that given by Whitelocke. All external evidence is in favour of a copy found in the House of Lords, and the internal evidence goes in the same direction. The heading which appears in Whitelocke's copy might easily have been added; but it would be difficult to account for the presence of Northumberland's speech, or the characteristic saying of Strafford's about Saul and David which appears in the House of Lords' copy, but is absent from Whitelocke's, unless the former be genuine. Clarendon's account agrees with neither, and was doubtless given merely from memory, like his account of the debates in the Short Parliament. The existence of a copy amongst the State Papers corresponding with that in the House of Lords is in itself almost 1640 Northumberland's objection. STRAFFORD VOTES FOR WAR. 121 Northumberland took up the word. In the morning he had voted against the dissolution, and he now gave his reasons for wishing the King to hold his hand. He belonged to a class of politicians whom enthusiastic partisans always despise at their peril. He was not in the habit of thinking deeply on any subject, and had taken the command of the army, as he had before taken the command of the fleet, without any strong persuasion of the righteousness of the cause for which he was about to draw his sword. Personally he admired Strafford, and he liked his own position as a great nobleman at Court. He felt no attraction towards the aggressive Puritanism of the Commons; but he had an indecisive, as it is hardly to be imagined that both the King and the Peers would content themselves with anything incorrect. · The notion that Vane's paper was stolen, and therefore could not have found its way into the House of Lords, will not bear the test of investigation. According to Lord Bute's MS., Whitelocke states that this and all the rest of the papers concerning the charge against the Earl were entrusted to the care and custody of Whitelocke, the chairman of the Close Committee, and being for a time missing at the Committee, and because the Earl answered so fully, some were jealous of Whitelocke that he had let see it, the better to make his defence and to oblige the Earl.' He then goes on to show, not very conclusively, that Digby and not himself was the culprit. As, however, the reply of Strafford referred to was on April 5, and the paper was produced in the Commons on the 10th, it is plain that it cannot have been actually lost at the time referred to, and it is not unlikely that Whitelocke's account of the matter being written down long after the event was not altogether correct. It is at all events distinctly negatived by D'Ewes's Diary, from which it appears under the date of April 23 (Harl. MSS. 164, fol. 185) that two papers were lost, neither of which was Vane's Notes. No one need be surprised that the paper in the House of Lords is in a clerk's hand, as both the original paper and the younger Vane's copy had been previously destroyed. I fancy that Whitelocke's copy was merely one set down from memory by some one who had only heard it read. It is of course quite a different question whether the notes, granting them to be Vane's, were really trustworthy. Vane had reason to bear hard upon Strafford; but there is something very characteristic in each utterance, and I am ready to accept the paper as substantially correct, though it is impossible to say more than this. Verbally accurate the notes do not even profess to be. The question of the Irish army will be discussed subsequently. stinctive feeling that to enter on a war without the support of the Commons, was a rash and headlong proceeding, which would probably end in disaster. How, he asked, could they 'make an offensive war' if they had no better means at their disposal than those which Strafford had just recited. They were in a difficulty whether 'to do nothing or to let them alone, or go on with a vigorous war.' Strafford's Strafford's fierce, resolute spirit waved the objection haughtily away. "Go on vigorously," he cried, and we can fancy how his eyes flashed as he spoke, “ or let them reply. alone." The broken, disjointed notes are all that remain to us. "No defensive war; loss of honour and repution. The quiet of England will hold out long. You will languish as betwixt Saul and David. Go on with a vigorous war, as you first designed, loose and absolved from all rules of government; being reduced to extreme necessity, everything is to be done that power might admit, and that you are to do. They refusing, you are acquitted towards God and man. You have an army in Ireland you may employ here to reduce this kingdom. Confident as anything under heaven, Scotland shall not hold out five months. One summer well employed will do it. Venture all I had, I would carry it or lose it. Whether a defensive war as impossible as an offensive, or whether to let them alone." Opinions of Strafford's vehement words were echoed by Laud and Cottington. "Tried all ways," said the Archbishop, "and refused all ways. By the law of God and man you should have subsistence, and ought to have it, and lawful to take it." Cottington followed with an argument that, as the Scots were certain to enter into leagues with foreign Powers, an attack upon them was in reality a defence. of this kingdom.' "The Lower House," he added, "are weary both of King and Church.1 All ways shall be just to raise money for this unavoidable necessity, therefore to be used, being lawful." Strafford again struck in. Commissions of 1 Ranke (Eng. Transl. ii. 196) speaks of this as a mere party statement. It is, however, quite true that the Commons wanted to get rid of kingship, as Charles and Cottington understood kingship. |