list of grievances, which his present conduct showed he had no scruple in inflicting on his subjects even after the Petition of Right? It was evident then that the Parliament would be dispersed, and it was of the utmost consequence that the declaration drawn up by the Committee with reference to tonnage and poundage should be placed on record in the House, and that resolutions should be passed on the subject.

The scene which occurred on the 2nd of March is well described by Mr. Forster :

'As soon as prayers were ended, and the members seated, Eliot rose; when at the same moment the Speaker stood up in his chair, and said he had the King's command for adjournment until the morrow se'nnight, the 10th of March. Eliot, nevertheless, persisting, the cry became general that he should proceed: several interposing to say that it was not a Speaker's office to deliver any such command: that to themselves alone it properly belonged to direct an adjournment; and that, after some things were uttered they thought fit to be spoken of, they would satisfy His Majesty. Again upon this Eliot rose; but then the Speaker, stating that he had the King's express command to quit the House after delivering his message, made a movement to leave the chair; when at once Denzil Holles and Valentine laid hold of his arm on either side, and pressed him down. The action was sudden; Finch, taken by surprise, appears to have doubted for the moment what to do; and in that instant Eliot had begun to speak. This for the time was decisive, the whole House inclining to hear.'-vol. ii. p. 448.

The concluding words of his speech were as follows:

'And therefore it is fit for us, as true Englishmen, in discharge of our own duties in this case, to show the affection that we have to the honour and safety of our Sovereign, to show our affection to religion, and to the rights and interests of the subject. It befits us to declare our purpose to maintain them, and our resolution to live and die in their defence. That so, like our fathers, we may preserve ourselves as freemen, and by that freedom keep ability for the supply and support of His Majesty when our services may be needful. To which end this paper which I hold was conceived, and has this scope and meaning. vol. i. p. 451.

Eliot then advanced to the table with the declaration of the Committee of Trade, but the Speaker refused to receive it, and the clerk declined to read it. The Speaker was twice called on to put the question, and twice protested that the King had commanded him not to do so. Selden stated that as their Speaker he was bound to put the question which they commanded, and that his refusal to do so was to abdicate his office. Twice again he alleged the King's commands, and attempted to move from the chair, but Valentine, Long, and Holles held him there, and the

last

last swore he should sit there till it pleased them to rise.' All who desired the declaration to be read and put to the vote were called on to stand up, when a great majority rose. Eliot threw the declaration on the floor of the House. The Serjeant-at-arms attempted to take the mace from the table, but it was seized and replaced by Sir Miles Hobart, who locked the door and put the key in his pocket. Eliot, seeing that there was no time to spare, then produced a shorter declaration, in which were expressed in the strongest terms the illegality of levying tonnage and poundage without the warrant of Parliament, and the determination of the House to punish all who counselled such a levy, or aided in carrying it out. This was passed, and then three resolutions proposed by Holles, whilst the Speaker still sat by compulsion in the chair, were carried by acclamation. In the mean time, Black Rod had long been knocking at the door, which the king's officers had been sent for to force it was opened, and the members rushed out.

Parliament was not formally dissolved till the 10th of March, but a proclamation for this purpose was signed on the 3rd, and on the following day Holles, Selden, Valentine, Coryton, Hobart, Hayman, Long, Strode, and Eliot were served with warrants to attend the Council.

Such was the last scene of Sir John Eliot's parliamentary life. We do not intend to enter on a discussion how far the course taken by the Opposition in the Commons was justifiable or praiseworthy; but it must never be forgotten, as Mr. Forster says, that the real conspirators were the King and the Speaker, Sir John Finch. A plan was laid which implied on the part of the latter a betrayal of his duty and an abnegation of his functions. He was the organ of the House, and of no one else. If they resolved to sit until they were prorogued by the undoubted prerogative of the Crown, he was bound to obey, and until that time it was his duty to retain his place with the symbol of authority on the table before him.

In this as in other cases, fraud or violence was met by similar weapons; and but for the work done by these men in Charles's third Parliament, there would have been no House of Commons competent to deal with the future encroachments of Charles or of James II.

'The King,' says Mr. Hallam, 'next turned his mind, according to his own and his father's practice, to take vengeance on those who had been most active in their opposition to him.'* Eliot, when heard with others before the Council, declined to answer

* Constitutional History,' vol. i. p. 414.

any

any questions relating to his conduct in Parliament, to which alone he held himself responsible as a member, and the prisoners were immediately committed to the Tower. In addition to the charges now made, the Attorney-General took steps for reviving the old judgments and processes of outlawry against Eliot. Questions were then privately put to the Judges, who seem on this as on other occasions of a similar nature, to have writhed under this sort of inquisitorial process, by which it was sought to commit them before they had the case before them, or had heard the other side.

In the Tower, for at least three months, Eliot was denied the use of books or pen and ink; but the public feeling in favour of the imprisoned members was becoming inconveniently strong. In the beginning of May the information in the Star Chamber had been filed, and on the 22nd of that month Eliot put in his plea and demurrer, and claimed to be heard by counsel.

'Besides certain technical objections, he answered broadly that the King could have no legal knowledge of what might have taken place in Parliament, until such should have been communicated by the House itself; and that it did not appear in the information that the matters charged had been so communicated to the King. That the matters charged were supposed to have been committed in Parliament, and were therefore only examinable in the House of Commons; and that he, Sir John Eliot, the defendant, might not, and ought not, to disclose what was spoken in Parliament, unless by consent of the House.'— vol. ii. p. 479.

An order was made in the Star Chamber that after arguments on the pleas and demurrer there, it should be referred to the judges in Westminster Hall to decide whether or not the defendants should be required to make any other answer; but this decision was long delayed. In the mean time Eliot remained in his prison, under conditions somewhat less rigorous than those at first imposed on him; and from the striking passage quoted from a letter to Richard Knightley, it is evident that he remained calm, undaunted, and resigned to all that God might think it fitting he should suffer. His care for his children, and his regard for his friends, are clearly brought out by his biographer, and we feel that in private and domestic life he was amiable and affectionate in the highest degree; but his determination was unshaken. 'There appears,' he writes, noe signe of alteration in our state, or an opening yett to libertie, unlesse it be in such waies as I hope we shall not take. But we know ther is that will effect it in due tyme.'-Vol. ii. p. 503.

A petition was presented to the King in favour of the prisoners from the whole county of Cornwall, but its only effect was to

increase

increase his exasperation against Eliot. A manuscript treatise by him, entitled 'De jure Majestatis,' still remaining at Port Eliot, shows how he passed his time in prison. Mr. Forster says of it-One derives from it a prodigious impression of the variety of Eliot's scholarship and knowledge, and of the happy power of finding relief therein from suffering and sorrow, as Raleigh in that very place had done in the earlier time.'Vol. ii. p. 509.

At Michaelmas, probably from fear of pushing the power of the Star Chamber into direct conflict with the privilege of Parliament, it was resolved to proceed by information in the King's Bench against Eliot, Holles, and Valentine.

It was understood that the Judges were prepared to maintain the jurisdiction of their courts over parliamentary offences, and it was also understood that they would refuse even intermediate bail, except on the condition of 'good behaviour.' Six out of the seven who were still in custody were brought up on Saturday, October the third; their conduct was admitted to be 'temperate and without offence;' but they all absolutely refused to enter into the bond for their 'good behaviour' which was required before they could be bailed. An information in the King's Bench was prepared and filed against Eliot, Holles, and Valentine, and on the night of the 29th of October they were brought privately from the Tower to the chambers of the Chief Justice, and were then committed to the Marshalsea-'to their country house in Southwark,' as Eliot called it.

On the 26th of January, 1629-30, the three defendants appeared with their counsel in the Court of King's Bench. The Chief Justice began by informing the counsel that the Judges had made up their minds on the point that any offence committed contemptuously or criminally in Parliament remained punishable in another court. The defendants were remitted to custody, with a direction to plead further before a certain day of that term. It ended, of course, in the court overruling the plea to their jurisdiction, and sentencing the defendants to be imprisoned during the King's pleasure. Sir John Eliot was to be confined in the Tower of London, and the others elsewhere, and none of them was to be released until he had given security for his good behaviour, and made submission and acknowledgment of his offence. Eliot was in addition fined 2000 marks, Mr. Holles 1000, and Mr. Valentine 5001.

Before this sentence was pronounced the hero of this story had been confined to his bed by sickness, and had been unable to appear in court on the last day. He knew too well that the sentence now pronounced was one of perpetual imprisonment

unless

unless a Parliament was summoned. He knew, moreover, that the last thing Charles would do, if he could help it, was to summon a Parliament. When that assembly did at last meet, eleven years afterwards, the arrears against the King had accumulated, and it did not separate so easily or so calmly even as the Parliament of 1629.

Sir John Eliot died on the 27th of November, in the year 1632, in the 43rd year of his age:

'But' says Mr. Forster, 'revenges there are which death cannot satisfy, and natures that will not drop their hatreds at the grave. The son desired to carry his father's remains to Port Eliot, there to be with those of his ancestors; and the King was addressed once more. The youth drew up an humble petition that His Majesty would be pleased to permit the body of his father to be carried into Cornwall, to be buried there. Whereto was answered at the foot of the petition, "lett Sir John Eliot's body to be buried in the church of that parish where he dyed." And so he was buried in the Tower.'-vol. ii. p. 727.

We have long thought that recent researches and disclosures with reference to the civil war and the character of Charles I. tended rather to his disadvantage than otherwise, but we have seen no fact which is more damaging than that brought to light in the words just quoted. That he was vindictive to his opponents while they were alive we know; but there is a mean and bitter spite in the answer to the petition for Eliot's burial at St. German's which appears unworthy-we will not say of a king -but of a Christian gentleman.

Our readers must have felt how imperfectly an analysis of a book such as that before us can represent its real interest, or do justice to its merits. Mr. Forster, in his other works,* has thrown much light on the reign of Charles I., but it is impossible to estimate too highly this addition to his former labours. The public owe much to the Earl of St. German's for the liberality with which he has thrown open his family papers, but they owe him still more for the judgment which he has shown in his selection of the person to whom they have been intrusted. If we wish that the book was shorter it is not because its interest flags, but because we should desire that it might be more widely circulated. Its value as history is very great, and the picture which, as a biography, it gives of the character of Sir John Eliot is of the most striking kind.

Arrest of the Five Members by Charles the First. A Chapter of English History re-written.' London, 1860. 'The Debates on the Grand Remonstrance, Nov. and Dec. 1641. With an Introductory Essay on English Freedom, under Plantagenet and Tudor Sovereigns.' Second edition. London, 1860.

ART.