Read The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 Online
Authors: David Hume
The whole world stood amazed at this important accusation, so suddenly entered upon, without concert, deliberation, or reflection. Some of these articles of accusation, men said, to judge by appearance, seem to be common between the impeached members and the parliament; nor did these persons appear any farther active in the enterprizes, of which they were accused, than so far as they concurred with the majority in their votes and speeches. Though proofs, might, perhaps, be produced, of their privately inviting the Scots to invade England; how could such an attempt be considered as treason, after the act of oblivion which had passed, and after that both houses, with the king’s concurrence, had voted that nation three hundred thousand pounds for their brotherly assistance? While the house of peers are scarcely able to maintain their independency, or to reject the bills sent them by the commons; will they ever be permitted by the populace, supposing them inclined, to pass a sentence, which must totally subdue the lower house, and put an end to their ambitious undertakings? These five members, at least Pym, Hambden, and Hollis, are the very heads of the popular party; and if these be taken off, what fate must be expected by their followers, who are many of them accomplices in the same treason? The punishment of leaders is ever the last triumph over a broken and routed party; but surely was never before attempted, in opposition to a faction, during the full tide of its power and success.
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But men had not leisure to wonder at the indiscretion of this measure: Their astonishment was excited by new attempts, still more precipitate and imprudent. A serjeant at arms, in the king’s name, demanded of the house the five members; and was sent back without any positive answer. Messengers were employed to search for them, and arrest them. Their trunks, chambers, and studies, were sealed, and locked.
The house voted all these acts of violence to be breaches of privilege, and commanded every one to defend the liberty of the members.
o
The king, irritated by all this opposition, resolved next day to come in person to the house, with an intention to demand, perhaps seize in their presence, the persons whom he had accused.
This resolution was discovered to the countess of Carlisle, sister of Northumberland, a lady of spirit, wit, and intrigue.
p
She privately sent intelligence to the five members; and they had time to withdraw, a moment before the king entered. He was accompanied by his ordinary retinue to the number of above two hundred, armed as usual, some with halberts, some with walking swords. The king left them at the door, and he himself advanced alone through the hall; while all the members rose to receive him. The speaker withdrew from his chair, and the king took possession of it. The speech, which he made, was as follows; “Gentlemen, I am sorry for this occasion of coming to you. Yesterday, I sent a serjeant at arms, to demand some, who, by my order, were accused of high treason. Instead of obedience, I received a message. I must here declare to you, that, though no king, that ever was in England, could be more careful of your privileges than I shall be, yet in cases of treason no person has privilege. Therefore, am I come to tell you, that I must have these men wheresoever I can find them. Well, since I see all the birds are flown, I do expect that you will send them to me as soon as they return. But I assure you, on the word of a king, I never did intend any force, but shall proceed against them in a fair and legal way: For I never meant any other. And now since I see I cannot do what I came for, I think this is no unfit occasion to repeat what I have said formerly, that whatever I have done in favour and to the good of my subjects, I do intend to maintain it.
q
When the king was looking around for the accused members he asked the speaker, who stood below, whether any of these persons were in the house? The speaker, falling on his knee, prudently replied: “I have, Sir, neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak in this place, but as the house is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am. And I humbly ask pardon, that I cannot give any other answer to what your majesty is
The commons were in the utmost disorder; and, when the king was departing, some members cried aloud, so as he might hear them,
Privilege!privilege!
And the house
immediately adjourned till next day.s
That evening, the accused members, to show the greater apprehension, removed into the city, which was their fortress. The citizens were the whole night, in arms. Some people, who were appointed for that purpose, or perhaps actuated by their own terrors, ran from gate to gate, crying out, that the cavaliers were coming to burn the city, and that the king himself was at their head.
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Next morning Charles sent to the mayor, and ordered him to call a common-council immediately. About ten o’clock, he himself, attended only by three or four lords, went to Guildhall. He told the common-council, that he was sorry to hear of the apprehensions entertained of him; that he was come to them without any guard, in order to show how much he relied on their affections; and that he had accused certain men of high-treason, against whom he would proceed in a legal way, and therefore presumed that they would not meet with protection in the city. After many other gracious expressions, he told one of the sheriffs; who of the two was thought the least inclined to his service, that he would dine with him. He departed the hall without receiving the applause, which he expected. In passing through the streets, he heard the cry,
Privilege of parliament! privilege of parliament!
resounding from all quarters.
One of the populace, more insolent that the rest, drew nigh to his coach, and called out with a loud voice,
To your tents, O Israel!
the words employed by the mutinous Israelites, when they abandoned Rehoboam, their rash and ill-counselled sovereign.
t
When the house of commons met, they affected the greatest dismay; and adjourning themselves for some days, ordered a committee to sit in merchant-taylors hall in the city. The committee made an exact enquiry into all circumstances attending the king’s entry into the house: Every passionate speech, every menacing gesture of any, even the meanest, of his attendants, was recorded and aggravated. An intention of offering violence to the parliament, of seizing the accused members in the very house, and of murdering all who should make resistance, was inferred. And that unparalleled breach of privilege, so it was called, was still ascribed to the counsel of papists and their adherents. This expression, which then recurred every moment in speeches and memorials, and which, at present, is so apt to excite laughter in the reader, begat at that time the deepest and most real consternation throughout the kingdom.
A letter was pretended to be intercepted, and was communicated to the committee, who pretended to lay great stress upon it. One catholic there congratulates another on the accusation of the members; and represents that incident as a branch of the same pious contrivance, which had excited the Irish insurrection, and by which the profane
heretics would soon be exterminated in England.u
The house again met; and, after confirming the votes of their committee, instantly adjourned, as if exposed to the most eminent perils from the violence of their enemies.
This practice they continued for some time. When the people, by these affected panics, were wrought up to a sufficient degree of rage and terror, it was thought proper, that the accused members should, with a triumphant and military procession, take their seats in the house. The river was covered with boats, and other vessels, laden with small pieces of ordnance, and prepared for fight. Skippon, whom the parliament had appointed, by their own authority, major-general of the city-militia,
w
conducted the members, at the head of this tumultuary army, to Westminster-hall.
And when the populace, by land and by water, passed Whitehall, Tumults.
they still asked with insulting shouts,
What was become of the
king and his cavaliers? And whither are they fled?
x
The king, apprehensive of danger from the enraged multitude, King leaves London.
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overwhelmed with grief, shame, and remorse, for the fatal measures, into which he had been hurried. His distressed situation he could no longer ascribe to the rigors of destiny, or the malignity of enemies: His own precipitancy and indiscretion must bear the blame of whatever disasters should henceforth befal him. The most faithful of his adherents, between sorrow and indignation, were confounded with reflections on what had happened, and what was likely to follow. Seeing every prospect blasted, faction triumphant, the discontented populace inflamed to a degree of fury, they utterly despaired of success, in a cause, to whose ruin friends and enemies seemed equally to conspire.
The prudence of the king, in his conduct of this affair, nobody pretended to justify.
The legality of his proceedings met with many and just apologies; though generally offered to unwilling ears. No maxim of law, it was said, is more established or more universally allowed, than that privilege of parliament extends not to treason, felony, or breach of peace; nor has either house, during former ages, ever pretended, in any of those cases, to interpose in behalf of its members. Though some inconveniencies should result from the observance of this maxim; that would not be sufficient, without other authority, to abolish a principle established by uninterrupted precedent, and founded on the tacit consent of the whole legislature. “But what are the inconveniencies so much dreaded? The king, on pretence of treason, may seize any members of the opposite faction, and, for a time, gain to his partizans the majority of voices. But if he seize only a few; will he not lose more friends, by such a gross artifice, than he confines enemies?” If he seize a great number; is not this expedient force, open and barefaced? And what remedy, at all times, against such force, but to oppose to it a force, which is superior? Even allowing that the king intended to employ violence, not authority, for seizing the members; though at that time, and ever afterwards, he positively asserted the contrary; yet will his conduct admit of excuse.
That the hall, where the parliament assembles, is an inviolable sanctuary, was never yet pretended. And if the commons complain of the affront offered them, by an attempt to arrest their members in their very presence; the blame must lie entirely on themselves, who had formerly refused compliance with the king’s message, when he peaceably demanded these members. The sovereign is the great executor of the laws; and his presence was here legally employed, both in order to prevent opposition, and to protect the house against those insults which their disobedience had so well merited.
Charles knew to how little purpose he should urge these reasons against the present fury of the commons. He proposed, therefore, by a message, that they would agree upon a legal method, by which he might carry on his prosecution against the members, lest farther misunderstandings happen with regard to privilege. They desired him to lay the grounds of accusation before the house; and pretended that they must first judge, whether it were proper to give up their members to a legal trial. The king then informed them, that he would wave, for the present, all prosecution: By successive messages, he afterwards offered a pardon to the members; offered to concur in any law that should acquit or secure them; offered any reparation to the house for the breach of privilege, of which, he acknowledged, they had reason to
complain.y
They were resolved to accept of no satisfaction, unless he would discover his advisers in that illegal measure: A condition, to which, they knew, that, without PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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rendering himself for ever vile and contemptible, he could not possibly submit.
Meanwhile, they continued to thunder against the violation of parliamentary privileges, and, by their violent outcries, to inflame the whole nation. The secret reason of their displeasure, however obvious, they carefully concealed. In the king’s accusation of the members, they plainly saw his judgment of late parliamentary proceedings; and every adherent of the ruling faction dreaded the same fate, should royal authority be re-established in its ancient lustre. By the most unhappy conduct, Charles, while he extremely augmented, in his opponents, the will, had also encreased the ability, of hurting him.
The more to excite the people, whose dispositions were already very seditious, the expedient of petitioning was renewed. A petition from the county of Buckingham was presented to the house by six thousand subscribers who promised to live and die in defence of the privileges of parliament.
z
The city of London, the county of Essex, that of Hertford, Surrey, Berks, imitated the example. A petition from the apprentices was graciously received.
a
Nay, one was encouraged from the porters; whose numbers
amounted, as they said, to fifteen thousand.b
The address of that great body contained the same articles with all the others; the privileges of parliament, the danger of religion, the rebellion of Ireland, the decay of trade. The porters farther desired, that justice might be done upon offenders, as the atrociousness of their crimes had deserved. And they added,
That if such remedies were any longer suspended, they
should be forced to extremities not fit to be named, and make good the saying,
“That necessity has no law.”
c