Read The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 Online
Authors: David Hume
The king could easily see the consequence of these proceedings. Though he had offered at the beginning of the session, to give his consent to any law for the security of the rights and liberties of the people; he had not expected that such inroads would be made on his prerogative. In order, therefore, to divert the commons from their intention, he sent a message, wherein he acknowledged past errors, and promised, that, hereafter, there should be no just cause of complaint. And he added, “That the affairs of the kingdom press him so, that he could not continue the session above a PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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week or two longer: And if the house be not ready, by that time, to do what is fit for themselves, it shall be their own fault.”
b
On a subsequent occasion, he asked them,
“Why demand explanations, if you doubt not the performance of the statutes, according to their true meaning. Explanations will hazard an encroachment upon the prerogative. And it may well be said, What need a new law to confirm an old, if you repose confidence in the declarations, which his majesty made to both houses?”
c
The truth is, the great charter and the old statutes were sufficiently clear in favour of personal liberty: But as all kings of England had ever, in cases of necessity or expediency, been accustomed, at intervals, to elude them, and as Charles, in a complication of instances, had lately violated them; the commons judged it requisite to enact a new law, which might not be eluded or violated, by any interpretation, construction, or contrary precedent. Nor was it sufficient, they thought, that the king promised to return into the way of his predecessors. His predecessors, in all times, had enjoyed too much discretionary power; and by his recent abuse of it, the whole world had reason to see the necessity of entirely retrenching it.
The king still persevered in his endeavours to elude the petition. He sent a letter to the house of lords, in which he went so far as to make a particular declaration, “That neither he nor his privy-council shall or will, at any time hereafter, commit or command to prison, or otherwise restrain, any man for not lending money, or for any other cause, which, in his conscience, he thought not to concern the public good, and the safety of king and people.” And he farther declared, “That he never would be guilty of so base an action as to pretend any cause, of whose truth he was not fully
satisfied.”d
But this promise, though enforced to the commons by the recommendation of the upper house, made no more impression than all the former messages.
Among the other evasions of the king, we may reckon the proposal of the house of peers, to subjoin, to the intended petition of right, the following clause. “We humbly present this petition to your majesty, not only with a care of preserving our own liberties, but with due regard to leave entire that
sovereign power,
with which your majesty is entrusted for the protection, safety and happiness of your people.”
e
Less penetration, than was possessed by the leaders of the house of commons, could easily discover how captious this clause was, and how much it was calculated to elude the whole force of the petition.
These obstacles, therefore, being surmounted, the petition of right passed the
commons, and was sent to the upper house.NOTE [T]
The peers, who were probably well pleased in secret, that all their solicitations had been eluded by the commons, quickly passed the petition without any material alteration; and nothing but the royal assent was wanting to give it the force of a law. The king accordingly came to the house of peers; sent for the commons; and, being seated in his chair of state, the petition was read to him. Great was now the astonishment of all men, when, instead of the usual concise, and clear form, by which a bill is either confirmed or rejected, Charles said, in answer to the petition, “The king willeth, that right be done according to the laws and customs of the realm, and that the statutes be put into execution; that his subjects may have no cause to complain of any wrong or oppression, contrary to PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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their just rights and liberties, to the preservation whereof he holds himself in
conscience as much obliged as of his own prerogative.”g
It is surprising, that Charles, who had seen so many instances of the jealousy of the commons, who had himself so much roused that jealousy by his frequent evasive messages during this session, could imagine that they would rest satisfied with an answer so vague and undeterminate. It was evident, that the unusual form alone of the answer must excite their attention; that the disappointment must inflame their anger; and that therefore it was necessary, as the petition seemed to bear hard on royal prerogative, to come early to some fixed resolution, either gracefully to comply with it, or courageously to reject it.
It happened as might have been forseen. The commons returned in very ill humour.
Usually, when in that disposition, their zeal for religion, and their enmity against the unfortunate catholics, ran extremely high. But they had already, in the beginning of the session, presented their petition of religion, and had received a satisfactory answer; though they expected, that the execution of the laws against papists would, for the future, be no more exact and rigid, than they had hitherto found it. To give vent to their present indignation, they fell with their utmost force, on Dr. Manwaring.
There is nothing, which tends more to excuse, if not to justify, the extreme rigour of the commons towards Charles, than his open encouragement and avowal of such general principles, as were altogether incompatible with a limited government.
Manwaring had preached a sermon, which the commons found, upon enquiry, to be printed by special command of the king;
h
and, when this sermon was looked into, it contained doctrines subversive of all civil liberty. It taught, that, though property was commonly lodged in the subject, yet, whenever any exigency required supply, all property was transferred to the sovereign; that the consent of parliament was not necessary for the imposition of taxes; and that the divine laws required compliance with every demand, how irregular soever, which the prince should make upon his
subjects.i
For these doctrines the commons impeached Manwaring. The sentence, pronounced upon him by the peers, was, that he should be imprisoned during the pleasure of the house, be fined a thousand pounds to the king, make submission and acknowledgment for his offence, be suspended during three years, be incapable of holding any ecclesiastical dignity or secular office, and that his book be called in and
It may be worthy of notice, that no sooner was the session ended, than this man, so justly obnoxious to both houses, received a pardon, and was promoted to a living of considerable value.
l
Some years after, he was raised to the see of St. Asaph. If the republican spirit of the commons encreased, beyond all reasonable bounds, the monarchical spirit of the court, this latter, carried to so high a pitch, tended still farther to augment the former. And thus extremes were every where affected, and the just medium was gradually deserted by all men.
From Manwaring, the house of commons proceeded to censure the conduct of Buckingham, whose name hitherto, they had cautiously foreborn to mention.
m
In vain did the king send them a message, in which he told them, that the session was drawing PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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near to a conclusion; and desired, that they would not enter upon new business, nor cast any aspersions on his government and ministry.
n
Though the court endeavoured
to explain and soften this message by a subsequent message;o
as Charles was apt hastily to correct any hasty step, which he had taken; it served rather to inflame than appease the commons: As if the method of their proceedings had here been prescribed to them. It was foreseen, that a great tempest was ready to burst on the duke; and in order to divert it, the king thought proper, upon a joint application of the lords and
commons,p
to endeavour giving them satisfaction, with regard to the petition of right.
He came, therefore, to the house of peers, and pronouncing the usual form of words,
Let it be law as is desired,
gave full sanction and authority to the petition. The acclamations, with which the house resounded, and the universal joy diffused over the nation, showed how much this petition had been the object of all men’s vows and
It may be affirmed, without any exaggeration, that the king’s assent to the petition of right produced such a change in the government, as was almost equivalent to a revolution; and by circumscribing, in so many articles, the royal prerogative, gave additional security to the liberties of the subject. Yet were the commons far from being satisfied with this important concession. Their ill humour had been so much irritated by the king’s frequent evasions and delays, that it could not be presently appeased by an assent, which he allowed to be so reluctantly extorted from him.
Perhaps too, the popular leaders, implacable and artful, saw the opportunity favourable; and turning against the king those very weapons, with which he had furnished them, resolved to pursue the victory. The bill, however, for five subsidies, which had been formerly voted, immediately passed the house; because the granting of that supply was, in a manner, tacitly contracted for, upon the royal assent to the petition; and had faith been here violated, no farther confidence could have subsisted between king and parliament. Having made this concession, the commons continued to carry their scrutiny into every part of government. In some particulars, their industry was laudable; in some, it may be liable to censure.
A little after writs were issued for summoning this parliament, a commission had been granted to Sir Thomas Coventry lord keeper, the earl of Marlborough, treasurer, the earl of Manchester, president of the council, the earl of Worcester, privy seal, the duke of Buckingham, high admiral, and all the considerable officers of the crown, in the whole thirty-three. By this commission, which from the number of persons named in it could be no secret, the commissioners were empowered to meet, and to concert among themselves the methods of levying money by impositions, or otherwise;
Where
form and circumstance,
as expressed in the commission,
must be dispensed with,
rather than the substance be lost or hazardedr
In other words, this was a scheme for finding expedients, which might raise the prerogative to the greatest height, and render parliaments entirely useless. The commons applied for cancelling the commission;
s
and were, no doubt, desirous that all the world should conclude the king’s principles to be extremely arbitrary, and should observe what little regard he was disposed to pay to the liberties and privileges of his people.
A commission had likewise been granted, and some money remitted, in order to raise a thousand German horse, and transport them into England. These were supposed to PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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be levied, in order to support the projected impositions or excises; tho’ the number seems insufficient for such a purpose.
t
The house took notice of this design in severe terms: And no measure, surely, could be projected more generally odious to the whole nation. It must, however, be confessed, that the king was so far right, that he had, now at last, fallen on the only effectual method for supporting his prerogative. But at the same time, he should have been sensible, that, till provided with a sufficient military force, all his attempts, in opposition to the rising spirit of the nation, must, in the end, prove wholly fruitless; and that the higher he screwed up the springs of government, while he had so little real power to retain them in that forced situation, with more fatal violence must they fly out, when any accident occurred to restore them to their natural action.
The commons next resumed their censure of Buckingham’s conduct and behaviour, against whom they were implacable. They agreed to present a remonstrance to the king, in which they recapitulated all national grievances and misfortunes, and omitted no circumstance, which could render the whole administration despicable and odious.
The compositions with catholics, they said, amounted to no less than a toleration, hateful to God, full of dishonour and disprofit to his majesty, and of extreme scandal and grief to his good people: They took notice of the violations of liberty above-mentioned, against which the petition of right seems to have provided a sufficient remedy: They mentioned the decay of trade, the unsuccessful expeditions to Cadiz and the isle of Rhé, the encouragement given to Arminians, the commission for transporting German horse, that for levying illegal impositions; and all these grievances they ascribed solely to the ill conduct of the duke of Buckingham.
u
This remonstrance was, perhaps, not the less provoking to Charles, because, joined to the extreme acrimony of the subject, there were preserved in it, as in most of the remonstrances of that age, an affected civility and submission in the language. And as it was the first return, which he met with for his late beneficial concessions, and for his sacrifices of prerogative, the greatest by far ever made by an English sovereign, nothing could be more the object of just and natural indignation.
It was not without good grounds, that the commons were so fierce and assuming.
Though they had already granted the king the supply of five subsidies, they still retained a pledge in their hands, which, they thought, ensured them success in all their applications. Tonnage and poundage had not yet been granted by parliament; and the commons had artfully, this session, concealed their intention of invading that branch of revenue, till the royal assent had been obtained to the petition of right, which they justly deemed of such importance. They then openly asserted, that the levying of tonnage and poundage without consent of parliament, was a palpable violation of the ancient liberties of the people,