The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1, Thomas Babington Macaulay [ebook pc reader txt] 📗

to plead before any tribunal.


For these things history must hold the King himself chiefly

responsible. From the time of his third Parliament he was his own

prime minister. Several persons, however, whose temper and

talents were suited to his purposes, were at the head of

different departments of the administration.


Thomas Wentworth, successively created Lord Wentworth and Earl of

Strafford, a man of great abilities, eloquence, and courage, but

of a cruel and imperious nature, was the counsellor most trusted

in political and military affairs. He had been one of the most

distinguished members of the opposition, and felt towards those

whom he had deserted that peculiar malignity which has, in all

ages, been characteristic of apostates. He perfectly understood

the feelings, the resources, and the policy of the party to which

he had lately belonged, and had formed a vast and deeply

meditated scheme which very nearly confounded even the able

tactics of the statesmen by whom the House of Commons had been

directed. To this scheme, in his confidential correspondence, he

gave the expressive name of Thorough. His object was to do in

England all, and more than all, that Richelieu was doing in

France; to make Charles a monarch as absolute as any on the

Continent; to put the estates and the personal liberty of the

whole people at the disposal of the crown; to deprive the courts

of law of all independent authority, even in ordinary questions

of civil right between man and man; and to punish with merciless

rigour all who murmured at the acts of the government, or who

applied, even in the most decent and regular manner, to any

tribunal for relief against those acts.12


This was his end; and he distinctly saw in what manner alone this

end could be attained. There was, in truth, about all his notions

a clearness, a coherence, a precision, which, if he had not been

pursuing an object pernicious to his country and to his kind,

would have justly entitled him to high admiration. He saw that

there was one instrument, and only one, by which his vast and

daring projects could be carried into execution. That instrument

was a standing army. To the forming of such an army, therefore,

he directed all the energy of his strong mind. In Ireland, where

he was viceroy, he actually succeeded in establishing a military

despotism, not only over the aboriginal population, but also over

the English colonists, and was able to boast that, in that

island, the King was as absolute as any prince in the whole world

could be.13


The ecclesiastical administration was, in the meantime,

principally directed by William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury.

Of all the prelates of the Anglican Church, Laud had departed

farthest from the principles of the Reformation, and had drawn

nearest to Rome. His theology was more remote than even that of

the Dutch Arminians from the theology of the Calvinists. His

passion for ceremonies, his reverence for holidays, vigils, and

sacred places, his ill concealed dislike of the marriage of

ecclesiastics, the ardent and not altogether disinterested zeal

with which he asserted the claims of the clergy to the reverence

of the laity, would have made him an object of aversion to the

Puritans, even if he had used only legal and gentle means for the

attainment of his ends. But his understanding was narrow; and his

commerce with the world had been small. He was by nature rash,

irritable, quick to feel for his own dignity, slow to sympathise

with the sufferings of others, and prone to the error, common in

superstitious men, of mistaking his own peevish and malignant

moods for emotions of pious zeal. Under his direction every

corner of the realm was subjected to a constant and minute

inspection. Every little congregation of separatists was tracked

out and broken up. Even the devotions of private families could

not escape the vigilance of his spies. Such fear did his rigour

inspire that the deadly hatred of the Church, which festered in

innumerable bosoms, was generally disguised under an outward show

of conformity. On the very eve of troubles, fatal to himself and

to his order, the Bishops of several extensive dioceses were able

to report to him that not a single dissenter was to be found

within their jurisdiction.14


The tribunals afforded no protection to the subject against the

civil and ecclesiastical tyranny of that period. The judges of

the common law, holding their situations during the pleasure of

the King, were scandalously obsequious. Yet, obsequious as they

were, they were less ready and less efficient instruments of

arbitrary power than a class of courts, the memory of which is

still, after the lapse of more than two centuries, held in deep

abhorrence by the nation. Foremost among these courts in power

and in infamy were the Star Chamber and the High Commission, the

former a political, the latter a religious inquisition. Neither

was a part of the old constitution of England. The Star Chamber

had been remodelled, and the High Commission created, by the

Tudors. The power which these boards had possessed before the

accession of Charles had been extensive and formidable, but had

been small indeed when compared with that which they now usurped.

Guided chiefly by the violent spirit of the primate, and free

from the control of Parliament, they displayed a rapacity, a

violence, a malignant energy, which had been unknown to any

former age. The government was able through their

instrumentality, to fine, imprison, pillory, and mutilate without

restraint. A separate council which sate at York, under the

presidency of Wentworth, was armed, in defiance of law, by a pure

act of prerogative, with almost boundless power over the northern

counties. All these tribunals insulted and defied the authority

of Westminster Hall, and daily committed excesses which the most

distinguished Royalists have warmly condemned. We are informed by

Clarendon that there was hardly a man of note in the realm who

had not personal experience of the harshness and greediness of

the Star Chamber, that the High Commission had so conducted

itself that it had scarce a friend left in the kingdom, and that

the tyranny of the Council of York had made the Great Charter a

dead letter on the north of the Trent.


The government of England was now, in all points but one, as

despotic as that of France. But that one point was all important.

There was still no standing army. There was therefore, no

security that the whole fabric of tyranny might not be subverted

in a single day; and, if taxes were imposed by the royal

authority for the support of an army, it was probable that there

would be an immediate and irresistible explosion. This was the

difficulty which more than any other perplexed Wentworth. The

Lord Keeper Finch, in concert with other lawyers who were

employed by the government, recommended an expedient which was

eagerly adopted. The ancient princes of England, as they called

on the inhabitants of the counties near Scotland to arm and array

themselves for the defence of the border, had sometimes called on

the maritime counties to furnish ships for the defence of the

coast. In the room of ships money had sometimes been accepted.

This old practice it was now determined, after a long interval,

not only to revive but to extend. Former princes had raised

shipmoney only in time of war: it was now exacted in a time of

profound peace. Former princes, even in the most perilous wars,

had raised shipmoney only along the coasts: it was now exacted

from the inland shires. Former princes had raised shipmoney only

for the maritime defence of the country: It was now exacted, by

the admission of the Royalists themselves. With the object, not

of maintaining a navy, but of furnishing the King with supplies

which might be increased at his discretion to any amount, and

expended at his discretion for any purpose.


The whole nation was alarmed and incensed. John Hampden, an

opulent and well born gentleman of Buckinghamshire, highly

considered in his own neighbourhood, but as yet little known to

the kingdom generally, had the courage to step forward, to

confront the whole power of the government, and take on himself

the cost and the risk of disputing the prerogative to which the

King laid claim. The case was argued before the judges in the

Exchequer Chamber. So strong were the arguments against the

pretensions of the crown that, dependent and servile as the

judges were, the majority against Hampden was the smallest

possible. Still there was a majority. The interpreters of the law

had pronounced that one great and productive tax might be imposed

by the royal authority. Wentworth justly observed that it was

impossible to vindicate their judgment except by reasons directly

leading to a conclusion which they had not ventured to draw. If

money might legally be raised without the consent of Parliament

for the support of a fleet, it was not easy to deny that money

might, without consent of Parliament, be legally raised for the

support of an army.


The decision of the judges increased the irritation of the

people. A century earlier, irritation less serious would have

produced a general rising. But discontent did not now so readily

as in an earlier age take the form of rebellion. The nation had

been long steadily advancing in wealth and in civilisation. Since

the great northern Earls took up arms against Elizabeth seventy

years had elapsed; and during those seventy years there had been

no civil war. Never, during the whole existence of the English

nation, had so long a period passed without intestine

hostilities. Men had become accustomed to the pursuits of

peaceful industry, and, exasperated as they were, hesitated long

before they drew the sword.


This was the conjuncture at which the liberties of the nation

were in the greatest peril. The opponents of the government began

to despair of the destiny of their country; and many looked to

the American wilderness as the only asylum in which they could

enjoy civil and spiritual freedom. There a few resolute Puritans,

who, in the cause of their religion, feared neither the rage of

the ocean nor the hardships of uncivilised life, neither the

fangs of savage beasts nor the tomahawks of more savage men, had

built, amidst the primeval forests, villages which are now great

and opulent cities, but which have, through every change,

retained some trace of the character derived from their founders.

The government regarded these infant colonies with aversion, and

attempted violently to stop the stream of emigration, but could

not prevent the population of New England from being largely

recruited by stouthearted and Godfearing men from every part of

the old England. And now Wentworth exulted in the near prospect

of Thorough. A few years