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

a plan by which the property of

every man in England was placed at the mercy of the Crown; but he

has been disgraced, ruined, and compelled to take refuge in a

foreign land. The ministers of tyranny have expiated their

crimes. The victims of tyranny have been compensated for their

sufferings. It would therefore be most unwise to persevere

further in that course which was justifiable and necessary when

we first met, after a long interval, and found the whole

administration one mass of abuses. It is time to take heed that

we do not so pursue our victory over despotism as to run into

anarchy. It was not in our power to overturn the bad institutions

which lately afflicted our country, without shocks which have

loosened the foundations of government. Now that those

institutions have fallen, we must hasten to prop the edifice

which it was lately our duty to batter. Henceforth it will be our

wisdom to look with jealousy on schemes of innovation, and to

guard from encroachment all the prerogatives with which the law

has, for the public good, armed the sovereign."


Such were the views of those men of whom the excellent Falkland

may be regarded as the leader. It was contended on the other side

with not less force, by men of not less ability and virtue, that

the safety which the liberties of the English people enjoyed was

rather apparent than real, and that the arbitrary projects of the

court would be resumed as soon as the vigilance of the Commons

was relaxed. True it was,-such was the reasoning of Pym, of

Hollis, and of Hampden-that many good laws had been passed: but,

if good laws had been sufficient to restrain the King, his

subjects would have had little reason ever to complain of his

administration. The recent statutes were surely not of more

authority than the Great Charter or the Petition of Right. Yet

neither the Great Charter, hallowed by the veneration of four

centuries, nor the Petition of Right, sanctioned, after mature

reflection, and for valuable consideration, by Charles himself,

had been found effectual for the protection of the people. If

once the check of fear were withdrawn, if once the spirit of

opposition were suffered to slumber, all the securities for

English freedom resolved themselves into a single one, the royal

word; and it had been proved by a long and severe experience that

the royal word could not be trusted.


The two parties were still regarding each other with cautious

hostility, and had not yet measured their strength, when news

arrived which inflamed the passions and confirmed the opinions of

both. The great chieftains of Ulster, who, at the time of the

accession of James, had, after a long struggle, submitted to the

royal authority, had not long brooked the humiliation of

dependence. They had conspired against the English government,

and had been attainted of treason. Their immense domains had been

forfeited to the crown, and had soon been peopled by thousands of

English and Scotch emigrants. The new settlers were, in

civilisation and intelligence, far superior to the native

population, and sometimes abused their superiority. The animosity

produced by difference of race was increased by difference of

religion. Under the iron rule of Wentworth, scarcely a murmur was

heard: but, when that strong pressure was withdrawn, when

Scotland had set the example of successful resistance, when

England was distracted by internal quarrels, the smothered rage

of the Irish broke forth into acts of fearful violence. On a

sudden, the aboriginal population rose on the colonists. A war,

to which national and theological hatred gave a character of

peculiar ferocity, desolated Ulster, and spread to the

neighbouring provinces. The castle of Dublin was scarcely thought

secure. Every post brought to London exaggerated accounts of

outrages which, without any exaggeration. were sufficient to move

pity end horror. These evil tidings roused to the height the zeal

of both the great parties which were marshalled against each

other at Westminster. The Royalists maintained that it was the

first duty of every good Englishman and Protestant, at such a

crisis, to strengthen the hands of the sovereign. To the

opposition it seemed that there were now stronger reasons than

ever for thwarting and restraining him. That the commonwealth was

in danger was undoubtedly a good reason for giving large powers

to a trustworthy magistrate: but it was a good reason for taking

away powers from a magistrate who was at heart a public enemy. To

raise a great army had always been the King's first object. A

great army must now be raised. It was to be feared that, unless

some new securities were devised, the forces levied for the

reduction of Ireland would be employed against the liberties of

England. Nor was this all. A horrible suspicion, unjust indeed,

but not altogether unnatural, had arisen in many minds. The Queen

was an avowed Roman Catholic: the King was not regarded by the

Puritans, whom he had mercilessly persecuted, as a sincere

Protestant; and so notorious was his duplicity, that there was no

treachery of which his subjects might not, with some show of

reason, believe him capable. It was soon whispered that the

rebellion of the Roman Catholics of Ulster was part of a vast

work of darkness which had been planned at Whitehall.


After some weeks of prelude, the first great parliamentary

conflict between the parties, which have ever since contended,

and are still contending, for the government of the nation, took

place on the twenty-second of November, 1641. It was moved by the

opposition, that the House of Commons should present to the King

a remonstrance, enumerating the faults of his administration from

the time of his accession, and expressing the distrust with which

his policy was still regarded by his people. That assembly, which

a few months before had been unanimous in calling for the reform

of abuses, was now divided into two fierce and eager factions of

nearly equal strength. After a hot debate of many hours, the

remonstrance was carried by only eleven votes.


The result of this struggle was highly favourable to the

conservative party. It could not be doubted that only some great

indiscretion could prevent them from shortly obtaining the

predominance in the Lower House. The Upper House was already

their own. Nothing was wanting to ensure their success, but that

the King should, in all his conduct, show respect for the laws

and scrupulous good faith towards his subjects.


His first measures promised well. He had, it seemed, at last

discovered that an entire change of system was necessary, and had

wisely made up his mind to what could no longer be avoided. He

declared his determination to govern in harmony with the Commons,

and, for that end, to call to his councils men in whose talents

and character the Commons might place confidence. Nor was the

selection ill made. Falkland, Hyde, and Colepepper, all three

distinguished by the part which they had taken in reforming

abuses and in punishing evil ministers, were invited to become

the confidential advisers of the Crown, and were solemnly assured

by Charles that he would take no step in any way affecting the

Lower House of Parliament without their privity.


Had he kept this promise, it cannot be doubted that the reaction

which was already in progress would very soon have become quite

as strong as the most respectable Royalists would have desired.

Already the violent members of the opposition had begun to

despair of the fortunes of their party, to tremble for their own

safety, and to talk of selling their estates and emigrating to

America. That the fair prospects which had begun to open before

the King were suddenly overcast, that his life was darkened by

adversity, and at length shortened by violence, is to be

attributed to his own faithlessness and contempt of law.


The truth seems to be that he detested both the parties into

which the House of Commons was divided: nor is this strange; for

in both those parties the love of liberty and the love of order

were mingled, though in different proportions. The advisers whom

necessity had compelled him to call round him were by no means

after his own heart. They had joined in condemning his tyranny,

in abridging his power, and in punishing his instruments. They

were now indeed prepared to defend in a strictly legal way his

strictly legal prerogative; but they would have recoiled with

horror from the thought of reviving Wentworth's projects of

Thorough. They were, therefore, in the King's opinion, traitors,

who differed only in the degree of their seditious malignity from

Pym and Hampden.


He accordingly, a few days after he had promised the chiefs of

the constitutional Royalists that no step of importance should be

taken without their knowledge, formed a resolution the most

momentous of his whole life, carefully concealed that resolution

from them, and executed it in a manner which overwhelmed them

with shame and dismay. He sent the Attorney General to impeach

Pym, Hollis, Hampden, and other members of the House of Commons

of high treason at the bar of the House of Lords. Not content

with this flagrant violation of the Great Charter and of the

uninterrupted practice of centuries, he went in person,

accompanied by armed men, to seize the leaders of the opposition

within the walls of Parliament.


The attempt failed. The accused members had left the House a

short time before Charles entered it. A sudden and violent

revulsion of feeling, both in the Parliament and in the country,

followed. The most favourable view that has ever been taken of

the King's conduct on this occasion by his most partial advocates

is that he had weakly suffered himself to be hurried into a gross

indiscretion by the evil counsels of his wife and of his

courtiers. But the general voice loudly charged him with far

deeper guilt. At the very moment at which his subjects, after a

long estrangement produced by his maladministration, were

returning to him with feelings of confidence and affection, he

had aimed a deadly blow at all their dearest rights, at the

privileges of Parliament, at the very principle of trial by jury.

He had shown that he considered opposition to his arbitrary

designs as a crime to be expiated only by blood. He had broken

faith, not only with his Great Council and with his people, but

with his own adherents. He had done what, but for an unforeseen

accident, would probably have produced a bloody conflict round

the Speaker's chair. Those who had the chief sway in the Lower

House now felt that not only their power and popularity, but

their lands and their necks, were staked on the event of the

struggle in which they were engaged. The flagging zeal of the