I. 1625. and the But under this specious reasoning, the country CHAP. party could detect the germ of all grievance and misrule, and they failed not to treat the cautious The patriots and moderate expressions of their adversaries as in- puritans. sincere, and as more the language of policy than of patriotism. Their own numbers greatly exceeded the adherents to the court, and were made up from two classes. The most powerful body was that of the puritans. But with these was a second class, described under the general name of patriots, and in this smaller band were many of the most distinguished men of the age. It must not be supposed, however, that the patriotic party consisted of men whose concern for civil freedom left them without solicitude as to the religion of their country. Among its leaders were such men as sir Edward Coke, sir John Eliot, and sir Robert Cotton, who frequently adverted to the safety of the protestant cause, as a question claiming the precedence of all others. Coke was long the oracle of this party, and there is every thing in his character, and in his conduct, to forbid our supposing that such language was assumed to propitiate a faction. The horror of popery, indeed, which some far-sighted men are pleased to represent as one of the ridiculous attributes of puritanism, was not more observable among people of that stamp, than among no small number of those conduct of the court party at this time, occurred in the case of two or three persons who had passed most of their time in foreign courts. But the attempt of these gentlemen to reconcile their countrymen to a despotic government at home, by reminding them of the wooden shoes, and coarse fare which it doled out to its victims abroad, was encountered in a manner that could not fail to extinguish their eloquence. Parl. Hist. I. 60. CHAP. who are said to have acted with them, with I. 1625. out belonging to their sect, and these allies of that calumniated people will be found, if fairly viewed, to have been great men, not only as compared with their times, but as compared with their race. By the one class, however, popery was assailed chiefly on account of its opposition to civil liberty and social improvement; by the other, it was to be crushed, as a power which invaded the conscience, and destroyed the soul. Both regarded its possible revival as inseparable from the return of the greatest national calamities; but the one saw only a part of those religious evils which must follow in its train, the full extent of which was never absent from the view of the other. We may deplore the intolerance which characterized the zeal both of patriots and puritans; but that of the puritans, which it has long been the fashion to censure most, will appear to have been the least culpable, if it be only admitted, that the degree of our opposition to an evil should be regulated by our perceptions of its magnitude. Those secular reasonings which induced the patriots to seek, and with so much earnestness, the destruction of popery, were equally true and important in the esteem of the puritan, while the religious motives which, in his case, were superadded to those reasonings, were the most solemn and imperative that could be presented to the mind of man. We know not of a single penal law imposed on the English catholic by puritans, with which the patriots did not readily concur; and, what is more, I. 1625. it is evident, that to the zeal of the latter class CHAP. some of the most severe enactments of this description owed their origin. In truth, puritanism has been made a sort of scape-goat to bear the reproach of sins which are scarcely more chargeable upon such persons, than upon the most learned and philosophical men of their day. It should be remembered, also, that the men who were thus relentless in their opposition to popery, were habitually severe in the religious discipline which they imposed upon themselves.* But whatever shades of difference there might have been among these parties, as to the justice or the policy of appealing to the magistrate to eradicate the superstitions of the Romanist, there was one question on which they were never disunited;-that question was civil liberty. The persecuting temper which had marked the later government of Elizabeth, and which continued to dishonour that of her successor, produced results in the case of the puritans the opposite of those which had been anticipated from it. The disputed points with regard to religious worship became more familiar, and better understood; and the reasoning which fitted men to resist usurpation, when approaching * It has been justly remarked, that the difference between Charles and his parliament, with respect to the treatment of catholics, has been frequently spoken of as though it were a struggle between a liberal sovereign and an illiberal people. But the conduct of that sovereign toward the puritans shows, that his different inclination, with regard to the catholics, proceeded from no principle of toleration. The philosophy of this business is not very profound. Catholicism was considered in the court and the country as the ally of arbitrary power; and what rendered it hateful to the one party, procured it the favour of the other. We may add also, that the cry against popery was never more obstreperous than after the Restoration, when the age of puritanism had passed. I. 1625. CHAP. the conscience, taught them to assume the same attitude when its evils fell on their possessions, and reached to their personal liberty. By men thus tutored, it was long since resolved, that, whatever might be urged from the statutes, or from the customs of the kingdom, in defence of the rights of the subject, should be brought to their aid; and as to all doubtful points, on which so much misrule had been founded, it was determined to settle them by more explicit enactments. A slight review of our constitutional history was enough to convince the unprejudiced, that the control of the public purse belonged to the commons, and that the members of that house were supported alike by natural equity, and by the custom of parliament, in making the security of their rights, and the redress of grievances, a condition of granting supplies to the crown. Indeed, the popular party at this time were sufficiently aware, that their privileges had been secured by the wealth, as much as by the valour, of their predecessors. It was their determination, therefore, to protect the immunities which had been thus bequeathed to them: a few were, no doubt, solicitous that some addition should be made to this inheritance of freemen, before it should pass from their hands to those of their descendants. CHAP. II. PROCEEDINGS OF PARLIAMENT AT WESTMINSTER-AND MEETING AT WESTMINSTER. — PROCEEDINGS AGAINST CATHOLICS AND POLICY. II. June 21. THE new parliament was no sooner assembled, CHAP. than the commons appointed a day of fasting and prayer to precede their deliberations. They Meeting at met, for this purpose, in St. Margaret's church, Westmin where each member was required to join in receiving the sacrament. The court, at this moment, was crowded with catholics, who were there in honour of the queen; and the presence of these Procedings strangers appears rather to have disturbed than catholics. chastened the devout feeling of the lower house. In addressing themselves to the business of the session, they drew up a petition, which called upon the king, by every solemn consideration, to put the laws against catholic recusants, and against the priestly emissaries of the pontiff, into fullest execution.* A chapel was appropriated to the queen, in Somerset house, with apartments adjoining for her chaplains and a fraternity of Capuchin friars. These persons were imprudent enough to expose themselves in the streets, in their canonical habits, a boldness which served to strengthen against |