CHAPTER XIII. THE STUART PERIOD. (1603-1688.) 1. FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES I. TO THE PASSING OF THE JAMES I. Tendency of 1603-1625. thought at sion. The Puritan JAMES I. came to the English throne at a critical period of our history. The reactionary movement towards despotism, which began under Henry IV., reached its climax under Henry VIII., political and and had since been slowly receding before the reviving spirit of religious freedom. During the latter years of Elizabeth the Puritan party his acceshad become organised and powerful. Whilst the old queen lived, they were, for the most part, content to postpone the active party. assertion of the rights of the people against the Crown. They looked forward with hope to the advent of her successor, in the expectation of voluntary concessions; but were determined in any case to carry out further reforms in the ecclesiastical system, and to insist upon all the ancient privileges of Parliament, and all the legal liberties of the subject. Violent changes were not, however, generally desired. Although there was a party hostile to the Hierarchy, the bulk of the Puritans had no desire to abolish Episcopacy, and would have been fully satisfied with a dispensation from certain ceremonies which too forcibly reminded them of the religion they had renounced. The Presby- Effect of terian education of James had led them to anticipate a ready James's Presacquiescence in such a moderate measure of reform. But the education. king's experience of the Presbyterian clergy had, in fact, been productive of prejudices the very opposite to what the English Puritans had expected. "The Scotch clergy," observes Mr. Brodie, "full of the highest ambition, had converted the pulpit into a theatre for political declamation; and James had imbibed the bitterest hostility to everything which approached to the 1 ["From the year 1595 the dissenting body had become known under the party name of Sabbatarians, and under James I. the sects had attained considerable proportions. Still, however, a consciousness of a fundamental schism in the political system as a whole did not exist."-Gneist, Hist. Engl. Const., p. 548, note (1). "The first warning which the Monarchy received of the coming Revolution was given towards the close of the reign of Elizabeth, when the Puritan element, strongest among the mercantile classes in the towns, and among the small country proprietors, began to return a majority to the House of Commons."-Hannis Taylor, Origin of the Engl. Const., p. 598.-ED.] byterian His political antipathy to Nonconformity. Presbyterian form of ecclesiastical establishment, declaring that under it Jack and Tom and Dick and Will presumed to instruct him in affairs of state." 1 Under the tuition of the celebrated George Buchanan, James had acquired more learning than he had understanding to digest. Puffed up with literary pride and self-sufficiency, he imagined himself possessed of supereminent wisdom, while in reality lacking the judgment of a man of ordinary abilities. The Duc de Sully called him the "wisest fool in Europe"-a phrase which epigrammatically sums up the peculiarities of the king's intellect.2 The avowed antipathy of James to every kind of Protestant Nonconformity was based on political, rather than on religious, reasoning. "The Presbytery," he said, "agreeth as well with monarchy as God with the devil." He was convinced that the Hierarchy was the firmest support of the Crown, and that where there was no bishop there would soon be no king. He determined, therefore, to allow not the slightest toleration to nonconformists, a resolution in which he was confirmed by the fulsome flattery of the prelates, some of whom, at the Hampton Court Conference, did not hesitate to ascribe to him immediate inspiration from Heaven.3 While sternly repressing the nonconforming Protestants, James at the same time showed an inclination to grant some partial indulgence to the Roman Catholics--a policy which excited disgust and jealousy throughout the Kingdom, and thus strengthened the hands of the Puritan faction.4 1 Brodie, Hist. Brit. Emp., i.332. 2 ["In the princes of the house of Stuart we see little of the sober Gothic honesty of the lowland Scot, much of the vanity, unsteadiness, and insincerity natural to the Italian Gallic stock from which they came." Gneist, Const. Hist., p. 546, citing Vaughan, iii. 13.-ED.] 3 On his journey to London the Puritan clergy presented to the king what is commonly called the " Millenary Petition," because it purported to proceed from "more than 1000 ministers," though the actual number of those who signified their assent to it is said not to have exceeded 825. It contained nothing inconsistent with the established hierarchy; but the petitioners prayed for "a reformation in the church service, ministry, livings, and discipline." In order to obtain further information on the points in dispute, James summoned the famous conference at Hampton Court between the Archbishop of Canterbury, eight bishops, five deans and two doctors on the one side, and Dr. Reynolds and three other Puritan divines on the other. At the conference, which was held before the king on January 14, 15, and 16, 1603-1604, instead of acting as moderator, James, eager to display his theological learning, assumed the part of Advocate for the Church. Transported with admiration, the primate exclaimed that "his majesty spoke by the special assistance of God's spirit"; and the Bishop of London said "his heart melted within him to hear a king, the like of whom had not been since the time of Christ." (Howell's State Trials, ii. 86, 87.) Some slight alterations in the Book of Common Prayer were made after the Conference; but ten of the men who had presented the Millenary Petition were committed to prison," the judges having declared in the Star Chamber that it was an offence fineable at discretion, and very near to treason and felony, as it tended to sedition and rebellion." Hallam, Const. Hist., i. 298. James soon found it necessary, in order to free himself from the imputa nature of his The Civil government of James was no less impolitic and Arbitrary arbitrary than his Ecclesiastical. At a time when the growing Civil governspirit of freedom, the general diffusion of knowledge, and the ment. revived study of Greek and Roman authors1 had caused a Republican tendency to manifest itself in Parliament, and among the people, this alien king,-who, having been legally excluded from the English throne by the testament of Henry VIII., had no title to it but such as he derived from the will of the English people was constantly asserting, in the most offensive form, the novel and monstrous theory of his Divine right to absolute and irresponsible sovereignty. The doctrine had already been Theory of advanced by him some years before in Scotland, in a treatise Divine Right. on the "True Law of Free Monarchies."2 Adopted by the Hierarchy and the courtiers, the theory of Divine Right was later on elaborated into a system by Sir Robert Filmer, and became the distinctive badge of the more violent Highchurchmen and Tories. "It was gravely maintained that the Supreme Being regarded hereditary monarchy, as opposed to other forms of government, with peculiar favour; that the rule of succession in order of primogeniture was a Divine institution, anterior to the Christian, and even to the Mosaic dispensation; that no human power, not even that of the whole legislature, no length of adverse possession, though it extended to ten centuries, could deprive a legitimate prince of his rights; that the authority of tion of Papistry, with which the Puritans assailed him, to cause the penal laws against the Catholics to be put into execution. After the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, additional severity was added to the statutes in force by two Acts" containing more than seventy articles inflicting penalties on the Catholics in all their several capacities of masters, servants, husbands, parents, children, heirs, executors, patrons, barristers, and physicians." (3 James I. c. 4, "For the better discovering and repressing of Popish recusants"; and 3 James I. c. 5, To prevent and avoid dangers which grow by Popish recusants." See also 7 James I. c. 2, and c. 6. 1 On the powerful influence of the classical writings in the direction of liberty, see Lecky, Rationalism in Europe, ii. 218. Hobbes (born 1588, died 1679) says in the Leviathan (ch. xxix.), "Inter rebellionis causas maximas numerari potest librorum politicorum et historicorum quos scripserunt veteres Graeci et Romani lectio. . . . Mihi ergo monarchiis nihil videtur esse damnosius posse, quam permittere ut hujusmodi libri publice doceantur, nisi simul a magistris sapientibus quibus venenum corrigi possit remedia applicentur. Morbum hunc comparari, libet cum hydrophobia," &c. [On the Italian Renaissance as the mother of modern political science," vide Hannis Taylor, Origin of the Engl. Const., pp. 595, 596.-Ed.] 2 King James's Works, p. 207. 3 In 1604, Convocation drew up a set of Canons, 141 in number, which received the Royal assent, but never having been sanctioned by Parliament are not legally binding upon the laity. Besides declaring every man to be excommunicated who should question the complete accordance of the Prayer Book with the word of God, they denounce as erroneous a number of tenets believed to be hostile to Royal Government, and inculcate the duty of passive obedience to the king, in all cases without exception. 4 In his famous " Patricia," writen in the reign of Charles I., but not published till after the restoration of Charles II. A conflict with the House of Commons inevitable. James is the aggressor. First Parliament, 1603-4. such a prince was necessarily always despotic; that the laws, by which, in England and in other countries, the prerogative was limited, were to be regarded merely as concessions which the sovereign had freely made and might at his pleasure resume; and that any treaty which a king might conclude with his people was merely a declaration of his present intentions, and not a contract of which the performance could be demanded.” 1 Such being the ideas of the king on regal government, it was inevitable that he should speedily come into conflict with the House of Commons, a body fully aware of its ancient rights and privileges, impressed with the duty of asserting and maintaining them, and strong in the consciousness that it represented the feelings and wishes of the great majority of all classes of the nation. 2 The very first acts of James's reign were ominous of the arbitrary manner in which he designed to rule his new Kingdom. On his journey to London he ordered a thief, taken in the fact, to be executed without the formality of a trial;3 and in the Proclamation summoning his first Parliament he was guilty of a daring infringement upon the privileges and independence of the House of Commons. He took upon himself to specify the kind of men who were to be elected, and directed that all returns should be sent to his Court of Chancery, and that such as should be there found contrary to the Proclamation should be rejected as unlawful and insufficient." 4 James's first Parliament met on March 19, 1603-4. It was 1 Macaulay, Hist. Eng., i. [71]. The sublime pretensions of James were rendered ludicrous, as well as irritating, by the contemptible demeanour of the king himself. Cf. Green, Short Hist. of Eng. People, pp. 464, 467. 2 Towards the end of the 16th, and during the earlier part of the 17th, century, the House of Commons included among its members a large body of men of ability, recruited especially from amongst the lawyers, who became known to the electors by the talent which they displayed at the bar. "The services which this class of men rendered to the cause of freedom were incalculable. The learning of the ablest lawyers in the 16th century may have been small in comparison with the stores of knowledge which may be acquired in our own day; but, relatively to the general level of education, it stood far higher. A few years later a race of parliamentary statesmen would begin to arise from amongst the country gentlemen; but, as yet, almost all pretensions to statesmanship were confined to the council table, and its supporters. For the present, the burthen of the conflict in the Commons lay upon the lawyers, who at once gave to the struggle against the Crown that strong legal character which it never afterwards lost."-S. R. Gardiner, Hist. Eng. from 1603 to 1616, i. 178. 3 "I hear our new king,' said Sir John Harrington, "has hanged one man before he was tried; it is strangely done. Now, if the wind bloweth thus, why may not a man be tried before he has offended ? ”—Nugæ Antiquæ, i. 180. 4 Parl. Hist., i. 967. Gardiner, Hist. Eng., 1603-1642, i. 163, shows from the Egerton Papers, 384, that of the "two sets of notes for the proclamation," it is that in Lord Chancellor Ellesmere's hand which "alone contains the direction for the reference of disputed elections to Chancery, showing that this assumption originated with him.” So large Session I. additional March 19th felt that a struggle with the Crown was at hand. July 7th. Commons The first business of the Commons was the vindication of their Privileges exclusive right to determine contested elections, against the of the attempt of James to transfer the decision of such cases to his vindicated. Court of Chancery. Another of their privileges, freedom from arrest, was also energetically asserted, and received for the first time a distinct legislative recognition.1 of grievances. justification During a long and stormy session the Commons freely dis- Complaints cussed their various grievances; the ancient abuse of purveyance, which, notwithstanding thirty-six restraining statutes, still flourished with scarcely diminished vigour; the hardships of feudal guardianship in chivalry; the monopolies of the great foreign trading companies, and several other matters of complaint. After granting the usual duties of tonnage and poundage for the king's life, they concluded by placing on record a remarkable protestation of their rights and liberties, drawn up by a Committee of the House, and entitled "A Form of Apology and Commons' Satisfaction to be delivered to his Majesty." In this important of their proConstitutional document the Commons commence by expressing ceedings. a desire to justify their own conduct and to remove from the king's mind certain misinformations under which he appeared to be labouring: namely, first, That the privileges of the Commons were not held of right, but of grace only, renewed every Parliament by way of donative, upon petition; secondly, that they are no Court of Record, nor yet a court that can command view of records, but that the attendance with the records is courtesy not duty; and lastly, that the examination of the returns of writs for knights and burgesses is without their compass and belonging to the Chancery: assertions against which, as "tending directly and apparently to the utter overthrow of the very fundamental privileges of our House, and therein of the Assertion of privileges by 1 See the cases of Sir Thomas Shirley, and of Goodwin and Fortescue, supra, 262, 267. During the discussion on Goodwin's case, James informed the Commons that "he had no purpose to impeach their privilege, but since they derived all matters of privilege from him, and by his grant, he expected that they should not be turned against him." |