1640 Growth of FLIGHT OF WINDEBANK. 243 running strongly in the direction of Presbyterianism. Even the scheme of the Separatists was not without supPresbyter- port amongst the small tradesmen and artisans; but ianism. in the face of the common enemy all divisions of opinion were for the present waived. It was said that when bishops were removed, and the ceremonies abolished, it would be easy to agree on the plan of the new house to be erected on the ruins of the old one.1 Nov. 30. Action against the Dec. 1. Glyn's report. As yet the work of destruction was in full swing. The conviction that the Catholics had been treated with undue favour at Court, was continually receiving fresh support, and they were likely to pay a heavy penalty Catholics. for their entanglement in political strife. Orders were given to weed out the Catholic officers from the north2 ern army. A sharp report from Glyn pointed out that for some time priests and Jesuits had been almost entirely untouched by the recusancy laws. During the last seven or eight years no less than seventy-four letters of grace had been issued in their favour. Most of these had been signed by Windebank. On this report the House took sharp action. It directed the justices of the peace in and around the capital, to proceed Windebank against recusants according to law, notwithstanding any inhibition. Windebank was sent for, that he might give account of his interference.3 Dec. 3. Dec. 4. sent for. Windebank had but obeyed the orders given to him, however cheerfully he may have carried out his instructions. He was not the man to face his enemies as Strafford had 'faced them. It may be that the secret of the request which he had made to Rossetti for Papal troops and Papal gold to be employed against his countrymen, weighed heavily on his mind. He kept out of the way as long as it was possible to conceal himself, and when concealment was no longer Winde- possible, he fled beyond the sea, with the King's conbank's flight. nivance. He arrived in France bearing letters of introduction written by the Queen herself.1 Dec. 10. 1 Baillie, i. 275. 4 Rushworth, iv. 91. scripts, R. O. The Queen's irritation. to Rome for money. The treatment which the Catholics were receiving at the hands of the Parliament had roused the Queen to a heat of indignation which made her capable of any folly. Before the end of November, in spite of her rebuff in the She applies preceding spring, she had renewed her application to Cardinal Barberini for money. She informed him that 125,000l. might be usefully spent in bribes to the Parliamentary leaders to induce them to deal more gently with the Catholics. Her temper was not softened when, a week or two after the proposal was made, she herself received a warning that she would do well to dismiss her Catholic servants. She replied proudly that she would rather dismiss the Protestants, and fill their places with persons of her own religion. Yet so powerless did she feel in the early part of December, that she recommended Rossetti to leave England, on the ground that it was no longer possible to protect him. The Dutch alliance. 1 In these days of weakness, when the Queen and her husband were alike feeling the bitterness of obedience where they had been accustomed to command, the idea of the Dutch marriage rose before their minds as a means of escape from their difficulties. On December 10, the very day of Windebank's flight, Charles announced to the Privy Council that he had given his consent to a marriage between Prince William of Orange and his second daughter, though well-informed observers were aware that if a fresh application were made for the hand of the Princess Mary it would not now be refused. Yet even those who prided themselves on their knowledge of the King's intentions, did not know all his secret. In reality Charles was looking for help of a very substantial kind from the father of the bridegroom. He believed Proposed Dutch inter- that Frederick Henry might be induced to mediate vention. between himself and the English Parliament, and he had little doubt that the result of that mediation would be entirely in his own favour. It cannot be said certainly whether he already contemplated the landing of Dutch troops in England to support him against his own subjects. Frederick 1 Barberini to Rossetti, Jan. 16 26' R. O. Transcripts. 1 1640 SHIP-MONEY ATTACKED. 245 Henry, as his subsequent conduct shows, was capable of attempting to re-enact the sorry part which had been played by St. Louis at Amiens, but it may be that Charles would for the present be content with merely moral support. He at once took a higher tone than he had done since the meeting of Parliament. He would not allow the Houses, he said, to punish his servants.1 A few days after these words were uttered, Laud was impeached, and Finch had fled to Holland. Dec. 7. The foundations for an attack upon the Lord Keeper were already laid. On December 7, on St. John's report, the House resolved that ship-money was an utterly illegal impost, Resolutions and that the judges who had declared the contrary, against shipmoney, had acted in defiance of the law. To this result no supported by man contributed more than Falkland. Small of Falkland. statue and wlthout any advantages of voice or person, he placed himself at once in the first rank of Parliamentary orators. Burning indignation against wrong gave light and strength to his words. His ideal commonwealth was indeed very different from that of Pym. He was not anxious to put an end to the meddlesome interference of the few, merely to give free scope to the meddlesome interference of the many, and he would be sure to distrust any system which threatened to lay intellectual freedom at the feet of a Parliamentary majority. On the point for the moment at issue he was, however, at one with Pym, and in expressing the opinion which he had formed he was far more vehement and impetuous. He took no account of the natural tendency of the judges to give a hard and legal form to the political ideas which were floating in their minds, and he treated their arguments as an insult to common sense. They had seen danger from an enemy where danger there was none. It was strange that they saw not the law, which all men else saw but themselves. He then proceeded to reason that there was now no more questlon whether the judges were to be punished or not for past offences. Men who had delivered 1 Giustinian to the Doge, Nov. Dec. 20 30' 4, 12, 18 R. O. Vane to the Prince of Orange, Dec. 11, Groen Van Prinsterer, Ser. 2, iii. 206. such opinions could not safely be left on the Bench. They were the advisers in all legal matters of the House of Lords. If the law was to regain its force, they must be punished and removed. Had not Finch declared that the power of levying ship-money was so inherent in the Crown that it was not in the power even of Parliament to take it away? Had he not gone round to solicit the judges to give opinions against their knowledge and conscience? Yet it was this man who was now the Keeper of his Majesty's conscience, and was always ready to infuse into his mind opinions hostile to his Parliament. He is Falkland was at once supported by his friend Hyde. Hyde's legal mind was shocked at the action of the judges, not so much because they had defied the nation, as because seconded by they had brought the law into disrepute. He moved Hyde. that the eight judges who were left on the Bench out of the twelve who had sat on it in Hampden's case might be asked to reveal the solicitations to which they had been subjected. The report of their answers was not favourable to Finch, and at Falkland's motion, orders were given to draw up a charge against him.1 Dec. 21. Finch defends himself before the Commons. Before the day arrived, when the impeachment of the Lord Keeper would finally be decided on, Finch unexpectedly sent a request to be heard by the Commons. On the 21st he appeared, and was received by the House with all the honour due to his office. The manner in which his defence was made extorted admiration even from his bitterest opponents. There can be little doubt that, harsh and insolent as he was, his most outrageous arguments had resulted from an honest conviction that he was in the right. Yet he could hardly have expected that any justification of his conduct would find favour with the audience to which it was addressed. His defence seemed to the Commons to have been an aggravation, rather than a mitigation, of his offence. Sir Thomas Jermyn, the Comptroller of the Household, asked 'whether this were a treason within the statute or by the construction of the House.' Pym loftily replied, 'that to endeavour the subversion of the laws of this 1 Rushworth, iv. 86. D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 55. 1640 His flight, FLIGHT OF FINCH. 247 kingdom was treason of the highest nature.' "Tis treason,' said Hyde, "to kill a judge, much more to slay justice itself." The vote for the impeachment of the Lord Keeper as a traitor was carried with scarcely a dissentient voice.1 That night Finch followed the example which had been set by Windebank. After an interview with Charles, he fled across the sea in a vessel belonging to the Royal Navy. He chose the Hague as the place of his exile. It was a matter of course that his impeachment was now finally voted, and at the same time six of the judges who were selected as sharing his offence in the matter of shipmoney were ordered to give security that they would appear whenever they were called for. Dec. 23. and impeachment. Unanimity of the House. On the political questions before the House, on the impeachment of Strafford and Finch, on the condemnation of ship-money, and on the necessity of defensive measures against the Catholics, the House was practically unanimous. No Royalist party was in existence. The few Privy Councillors who had a seat in the House-Vane, Roe, and Jermyn-had no power and probably no wish to defend the fallen system. Division, if it came at all, would come from another quarter. Whatever difficulties might arise about the political system to be substituted for that which had failed so utterly, men were pretty well agreed as to the general character of the institutions which they desired to found. They wanted to restore the reign of law in combination with the authority of Parliament. With respect to religion they were far from being equally unanimous, and they had an instinctive feeling that it was here that the seeds of future division were to be found. On the The London 11th a violent petition for Church-reform and the petition against abolition of Episcopacy, signed by 15,000 Londoners, Episcopacy. was presented to the House. An approving crowd of some 1,500 persons followed it into Westminster Hall. For the first time opinion in the House was seriously divided. "There were many against, and many for the same.” .66 Dec. II. 1 Rushworth, iv. 124. D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 90. castle, Adv. Libr. Edin. 33, 4, 6. |