2 XI. PARLIAMENT OF 1640. CHAP a reconstruction of the government on a popular basis could have been safely undertaken; and thus the democratic revolution in England was a failure, alike from the events and passions of the fierce struggle which rendered moderation impossible, and from the misfortune of the age, which had not as yet acquired the political knowledge that time alone could gather for the use of later generations. 1629 to 1640. 6. Charles I., conspiring against the national constitution, which he, as the most favored among the natives of England, was the most solemnly bound to protect, had resolved to govern without the aid of a parliament. To convene a parliament was, therefore, in itself, an 1640. acknowledgment of defeat. The house of commons, April which assembled in April, 1640, was filled with men not less loyal to the monarch than faithful to the people; yet the king, who had neither the resignation of wise resolution, nor yet the daring of despair, perpetually vacillating between the desire of destroying English liberty, and a timid respect for its forms, disregarded the wishes of his more prudent friends, and, under the influence of capricious passion, suddenly May dissolved a parliament more favorable to his interests 5. than any which he could again hope from the excitement of the times. The friends of the popular party were elated at the dissolution. "This parliament could have remedied the confusion," said the royalist Hyde, afterwards earl of Clarendon, to St. John. The countenance of the sombre republican, usually clouded with gloom, beamed with cheerfulness as he replied, "All is well; things must be worse before they can be better; this parliament could never have done what is necessary to be done." 1 1 Clarendon, i. 140. The exercise of absolute power was become more CHAP. difficult than ever. violent counsels. XI. The haughty Strafford had advised There were those who refused 1640 to take the oath never to consent to alterations in the church of England. "Send for the chief leaders," wrote Strafford,' "and lay them by the heels; no other satisfaction is to be thought of." But Strafford was not without his enemies among the royalists. During the suspension of parliament, two parties in the cabinet had disputed with each other the administration and the emoluments of despotism. The power of the ministers and the council of state was envied by the ambition of the queen and the greedy selfishness of the courtiers; and the arrogant Strafford and the unbending Laud had as bitter rivals in the palace as they had enemies in the nation. There was no unity among the friends of absolute power. 24. The expedient of a council of peers, convened at Sept. York, could not satisfy a people that venerated representative government as the most valuable bequest of its ancestors; and a few weeks made it evident that concession was necessary. The councils of Charles were divided by hesitancy, rivalries, and the want of plan; while the popular leaders were full of energy and union, and were animated by what seemed a distinct purpose, the desire of limiting the royal authority. The summons of a new parliament was now on the part of the monarch a surrender at discretion. But by the English constitution, the royal prerogative was in some cases the bulwark of popular liberty; the subversion of the royal authority made a way for the despotism of parliament. 1 Strafford's Letters, ii. 409. April 10, 1640. 4 CHAP. Nov. neous. MEETING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. The Long Parliament was not originally homogeThe usurpations of the monarch threatened 1640. the privileges of the nobility not less than the liberties 3. of the people. The movement in the public mind, though it derived its vigor as well as its origin from the rising influence of the Puritans, was not directed towards vindicating power for the people, but only aimed at raising an impassable barrier against the encroachments of royalty. The object met with favor from a majority of the peerage, and from royalists among the commons; and the past arbitrary measures of the court found opponents in Hyde, the inflexible tory and faithful counsellor of the Stuarts; in the more scrupulous Falkland, who hated falsehood and intrigue, and whose imagination inclined him to the popular side, tiil he began to dread innovations from its leaders more than from the ambition of the king; and even in Capel, afterwards one of the bravest of the Cavaliers, and a martyr on the scaffold for his obstinate fidelity. The highest authority in England began to belong to the majority in parliament; no republican party as yet existed; the first division ensued between the ultra royalists and the vast undivided party of the friends of constitutional monarchy; and though the house was in a great measure filled with members of the aristocracy, the moderate royalists were united with the friends of the people; and, on the choice of speaker, an immense majority appeared in favor of the constitution. "As I The sagacity of the earl of Strafford anticipated danger, and he desired to remain in Ireland. am king of England," said Charles, "the parliament shall not touch one hair of your head;" and the re 1 Whitelocke, 36. 2 XI. 11. 21. 11. iterated urgency of the king compelled his attendance. CHAP. His arraignment, within eight days of the commencement of the session, marks the resolute spirit of the Nov. commons; his attainder was the sign of their ascend- 1641. "On the honor of a king," wrote1 Charles to April ency. the prisoner," you shall not be harmed in life, fortune, or honor;" and the fourth day after the passage of the bill of attainder, as if to reveal his weakness, the king could send his adhesion to the commons, adding, "If Strafford must die, it were charity to reprieve him till May Saturday." Men dreaded the service of a sovereign whose love was so worthless, and whose prerogative was so weak; safety was found on the side of the people; and the parliament was left without control to its work of reform. Its earliest acts were worthy of all praise. The liberties of the people were recovered and strengthened by appropriate safeguards; the arbitrary courts of High Commission, and the court of Wards, were broken up; the Star Chamber, doubly hated by the aristocracy, as "ever a great eclipse to the whole nobility," was with one voice abolished; the administration of justice was rescued from the paramount influence of the crown; and taxation, except by consent, was forbidden. The principle of the writ of habeas corpus was introduced; and the kingdom of England was lifted out of the bondage of feudalism by a series of reforms, which were afterwards renewed, and which, when successfully imbodied among the statutes, the commentator on English law esteemed above Magna Charta itself.1 These measures were national, were adopted almost without opposition, and 1 Strafford's Letters, ii. 416. 2 Burnet, i. 43. Compare Lingard's note, x. c. ii. 108, 109. 3 Lord Andover, in Macauley, iii. 3. Rushworth, iv. 204. 4 Blackstone, b. iv. c. xxxiii. 437. 6 THE LONG PARLIAMENT. CHAP. received the nearly unanimous assent of the nation. XI. They were truly English measures, directed in part 1641 against the abuses introduced at the Norman conquest, in part against the encroachments of the sovereign. They wiped away the traces that England had been governed as a conquered country; they were in harmony with the intelligence and the pride, the prejudices and the wants of England. Public opinion was the ally of the parliament. But an act declaring that the parliament should neither be prorogued nor dissolved, unless with its own consent, had also been proposed, and urged with pertinacity till it received the royal concurrence. Parliament, in its turn, subverted the constitution, by establishing its own paramount authority, and making itself virtually irresponsible to its constituents; it was evident a parliamentary despotism would ensue. The English government was substantially changed, in a manner injurious to the power of the executive, and still more dangerous to the freedom of the people. The king, in so far as he opposed the measure, was the friend of popular liberty; the passage of the act placed the people of England, not less than the king, at the mercy of the parliament. The methods of tyranny are always essentially the same; the freedom of the press was subjected to parliamentary censors. The usurpation foreboded the subversion of the throne, and the subjection of the people. The liberators of England were become its tyrants; the rights of the nation had been asserted only to be sequestered for their use. The spirit of loyalty was still powerful in the commons; as the demands of the commons advanced, stormy debates and a close division ensued. Falkland, and Capel, and Hyde, now acted with the court. The |