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

might probably suffice for the execution

of his great design. If strict economy were observed, if all

collision with foreign powers were carefully avoided, the debts

of the crown would be cleared off: there would be funds available

for the support of a large military force; and that force would

soon break the refractory spirit of the nation.


At this crisis an act of insane bigotry suddenly changed the

whole face of public affairs. Had the King been wise, he would

have pursued a cautious and soothing policy towards Scotland till

he was master in the South. For Scotland was of all his kingdoms

that in which there was the greatest risk that a spark might

produce a flame, and that a flame might become a conflagration.

Constitutional opposition, indeed, such as he had encountered at

Westminster, he had not to apprehend at Edinburgh. The Parliament

of his northern kingdom was a very different body from that which

bore the same name in England. It was ill constituted: it was

little considered; and it had never imposed any serious restraint

on any of his predecessors. The three Estates sate in one house.

The commissioners of the burghs were considered merely as

retainers of the great nobles. No act could be introduced till it

had been approved by the Lords of Articles. a committee which was

really, though not in form, nominated by the crown. But, though

the Scottish Parliament was obsequious, the Scottish people had

always been singularly turbulent and ungovernable. They had

butchered their first James in his bedchamber: they had

repeatedly arrayed themselves in arms against James the Second;

they had slain James the Third on the field of battle: their

disobedience had broken the heart of James the Fifth: they had

deposed and imprisoned Mary: they had led her son captive; and

their temper was still as intractable as ever. Their habits were

rude and martial. All along the southern border, and all along

the line between the highlands and the lowlands, raged an

incessant predatory war. In every part of the country men were

accustomed to redress their wrongs by the strong hand. Whatever

loyalty the nation had anciently felt to the Stuarts had cooled

during their long absence. The supreme influence over the public

mind was divided between two classes of malecontents, the lords

of the soil and the preachers; lords animated by the same spirit

which had often impelled the old Douglasses to withstand the

royal house, and preachers who had inherited the republican

opinions and the unconquerable spirit of Knox. Both the national

and religious feelings of the population had been wounded. All

orders of men complained that their country, that country which

had, with so much glory, defended her independence against the

ablest and bravest Plantagenets, had, through the instrumentality

of her native princes, become in effect, though not in name, a

province of England. In no part of Europe had the Calvinistic

doctrine and discipline taken so strong a hold on the public

mind. The Church of Rome was regarded by the great body of the

people with a hatred which might justly be called ferocious; and

the Church of England, which seemed to be every day becoming more

and more like the Church of Rome, was an object of scarcely less

aversion.


The government had long wished to extend the Anglican system over

the whole island, and had already, with this view, made several

changes highly distasteful to every Presbyterian. One innovation,

however, the most hazardous of all, because it was directly

cognisable by the senses of the common people, had not yet been

attempted. The public worship of God was still conducted in the

manner acceptable to the nation. Now, however, Charles and Laud

determined to force on the Scots the English liturgy, or rather a

liturgy which, wherever it differed from that of England,

differed, in the judgment of all rigid Protestants, for the

worse.


To this step, taken in the mere wantonness of tyranny, and in

criminal ignorance or more criminal contempt of public feeling,

our country owes her freedom. The first performance of the

foreign ceremonies produced a riot. The riot rapidly became a

revolution. Ambition, patriotism, fanaticism, were mingled in one

headlong torrent. The whole nation was in arms. The power of

England was indeed, as appeared some years later, sufficient to

coerce Scotland: but a large part of the English people

sympathised with the religious feelings of the insurgents; and

many Englishmen who had no scruple about antiphonies and

genuflexions, altars and surplices, saw with pleasure the

progress of a rebellion which seemed likely to confound the

arbitrary projects of the court, and to make the calling of a

Parliament necessary.


For the senseless freak which had produced these effects

Wentworth is not responsible.15 It had, in fact, thrown all his

plans into confusion. To counsel submission, however, was not in

his nature. An attempt was made to put down the insurrection by

the sword: but the King's military means and military talents

were unequal to the task. To impose fresh taxes on England in

defiance of law, would, at this conjuncture, have been madness.

No resource was left but a Parliament; and in the spring of 1640

a Parliament was convoked.


The nation had been put into good humour by the prospect of

seeing constitutional government restored, and grievances

redressed. The new House of Commons was more temperate and more

respectful to the throne than any which had sate since the death

of Elizabeth. The moderation of this assembly has been highly

extolled by the most distinguished Royalists and seems to have

caused no small vexation and disappointment to the chiefs of the

opposition: but it was the uniform practice of Charles, a

practice equally impolitic and ungenerous, to refuse all

compliance with the desires of his people, till those desires

were expressed in a menacing tone. As soon as the Commons showed

a disposition to take into consideration the grievances under

which the country had suffered during eleven years, the King

dissolved the Parliament with every mark of displeasure.


Between the dissolution of this shortlived assembly and the

meeting of that ever memorable body known by the name of the Long

Parliament, intervened a few months, during which the yoke was

pressed down more severely than ever on the nation, while the

spirit of the nation rose up more angrily than ever against the

yoke. Members of the House of Commons were questioned by the

Privy Council touching their parliamentary conduct, and thrown

into prison for refusing to reply. Shipmoney was levied with

increased rigour. The Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs of London were

threatened with imprisonment for remissness in collecting the

payments. Soldiers were enlisted by force. Money for their

support was exacted from their counties. Torture, which had

always been illegal, and which had recently been declared illegal

even by the servile judges of that age, was inflicted for the

last time in England in the month of May, 1610.


Everything now depended on the event of the King's military

operations against the Scots. Among his troops there was little

of that feeling which separates professional soldiers from the

mass of a nation, and attaches them to their leaders. His army,

composed for the most part of recruits, who regretted the plough

from which they had been violently taken, and who were imbued

with the religious and political sentiments then prevalent

throughout the country, was more formidable to himself than to

the enemy. The Scots, encouraged by the heads of the English

opposition, and feebly resisted by the English forces, marched

across the Tweed and the Tyne, and encamped on the borders of

Yorkshire. And now the murmurs of discontent swelled into an

uproar by which all spirits save one were overawed.


But the voice of Strafford was still for Thorough; and he even,

in this extremity, showed a nature so cruel and despotic, that

his own pikemen were ready to tear him in pieces.


There was yet one last expedient which, as the King flattered

himself, might save him from the misery of facing another House

of Commons. To the House of Lords he was less averse. The Bishops

were devoted to him; and though the temporal peers were generally

dissatisfied with his administration, they were, as a class, so

deeply interested in the maintenance of order, and in the

stability of ancient institutions, that they were not likely to

call for extensive reforms. Departing from the uninterrupted

practice of centuries, he called a Great Council consisting of

Lords alone. But the Lords were too prudent to assume the

unconstitutional functions with which he wished to invest them.

Without money, without credit, without authority even in his own

camp, he yielded to the pressure of necessity. The Houses were

convoked; and the elections proved that, since the spring, the

distrust and hatred with which the government was regarded had

made fearful progress.


In November, 1640, met that renowned Parliament which, in spite

of many errors and disasters, is justly entitled to the reverence

and gratitude of all who, in any part of the world. enjoy the

blessings of constitutional government.


During the year which followed, no very important division of

opinion appeared in the Houses. The civil and ecclesiastical

administration had, through a period of nearly twelve years, been

so oppressive and so unconstitutional that even those classes of

which the inclinations are generally on the side of order and

authority were eager to promote popular reforms and to bring the

instruments of tyranny to justice. It was enacted that no

interval of more than three years should ever elapse between

Parliament and Parliament, and that, if writs under the Great

Seal were not issued at the proper time, the returning officers

should, without such writs, call the constituent bodies together

for the choice of representatives. The Star Chamber, the High

Commission, the Council of York were swept away. Men who, after

suffering cruel mutilations, had been confined in remote

dungeons, regained their liberty. On the chief ministers of the

crown the vengeance of the nation was unsparingly wreaked. The

Lord Keeper, the Primate, the Lord Lieutenant were impeached.

Finch saved himself by flight. Laud was flung into the Tower.

Strafford was put to death by act of attainder. On the day on

which this act passed, the King gave his assent to a law by which

he bound himself not to adjourn, prorogue, or dissolve the

existing Parliament without its own consent.


After ten months of assiduous toil, the Houses, in September

1641, adjourned for a short vacation; and the King visited

Scotland. He with difficulty pacified that kingdom by consenting,

not only to relinquish his plans of ecclesiastical reform, but

even to pass, with a very bad grace, an act declaring that

episcopacy was contrary to