CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



ancient powers of the crown, before these powers 

 had been vitiated by the tyrannical Tudors, they 

 embodied the result in what was called a PETITION 

 OF RIGHT, which they presented to him as an 

 ordinary bill, or rather as a second Magna Charta. 

 for replacing the privileges of the people, and 

 which consisted of four articles: i. That no man 

 should be compelled to pay any money to the 

 state unless ordered by an act of parliament. 2. 

 That no man should be imprisoned for refusing 

 to pay such money, and that no free man should 

 be imprisoned without cause being shewn. 3. 

 That soldiers and marines should not be billeted 

 on private persons. 4. That no more commissions 

 should be issued for punishing persons by martial 

 law. With great difficulty, Charles was prevailed 

 upon to give his sanction to this bill (1628); but 

 his disputes with parliament soon after ran to 

 such a height, that he dissolved it in a fit of indig- 

 nation, resolving never more to call it together. 

 About the same time, his favourite minister, the 

 Duke of Buckingham, was assassinated at Ports- 

 mouth by a fanatic named John Felton. Charles's 

 chief counsellors now were Laud, archbishop of 

 Canterbury, a man of narrow and bigoted spirit, 

 and Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Straf- 

 ford, who endeavoured to make the king absolute 

 by a scheme which was called 'thorough.' For 

 some years, Charles governed the country entirely 

 as an irresponsible despot, levying taxes by his 

 own orders, and imprisoning such persons as were 

 obnoxious to him, in utter defiance of the Petition 

 of Right. The Puritans, or church-reformers, 

 suffered most severely under this system of things. 

 They were dragged in great numbers before 

 arbitrary courts, called the High Commission and 

 the Star Chamber, which latter professed to take 

 cognisance of offences against the king's pre- 

 rogative and against religion. 



Among the devices which were ultimately re- 

 sorted to, to raise money, was a levy of ' ship- 

 money,' which had formerly been levied in times 

 of war on the maritime counties, and which it was 

 now proposed to levy on every shire. At length, 

 John Hampden, a gentleman of Buckinghamshire, 

 resolved to undergo any personal inconvenience 

 rather than pay his twenty shillings of ship-money. 

 The case was tried in the Exchequer (1^37); and 

 as the judges could then be dismissed at the royal 

 pleasure, and were the humble servants of the 

 king in everything, Hampden lost his cause. He 

 roused, however, more effectually than ever, the 

 attention of the people to this question, and means 

 were not long wanting to check the king in his 

 unfortunate career. 



TROUBLES IN SCOTLAND THE NATIONAL 

 COVENANT. 



An attempt had been made by King James 

 to introduce Episcopacy into Scotland, because 

 it was thought dangerous to the English Church 

 that a form of worship resembling that of 

 the Puritans should be permitted to exist in any 

 part of the king's dominions ; and Charles settled 

 13 bishops over the Scottish Church, by whom 

 he hoped to govern its clergy as he did those of 

 England. But when he attempted, in 1637, to 

 introduce a new Book of Common Prayer into the 

 Scotch churches, the spirit of the people could no 

 longer be kept within bounds. On the Liturgy 



being opened in the principal church at Edinburgh, 

 the congregation rose in a violent tumult, and threw 

 their clasped Bibles, and the very stools they sat 

 on, at the minister's head ; and it was not till 

 the whole were expelled by force, that the worship 

 was permitted to proceed. Similar scenes occurr- 

 ing elsewhere, it was found necessary, by the 

 Scottish state-officers, to withdraw the obnoxious 

 Liturgy, till they should consult the king, who, 

 not dreading any mischief, gave orders that it 

 should be used as he had formerly directed, and 

 that the civil force should be employed in pro- 

 tecting the clergymen. It was found quite impos- 

 sible to obey such an order in the face of a united 

 Eeople, who, by committees assembled at Edin- 

 urgh, representing the nobles, ministers, gentry, 

 and burghers, endeavoured to awe the king into- 

 an abandonment of the late innovations. Finally, 

 the Scotch bound themselves (March 1638), under 

 a bond called the National Covenant, which was 

 signed by nineteen-twentieths of the adult popula- 

 tion, to resist their sovereign in every attempt he 

 might make to bring in upon them the errors of 

 Popery for such they held to be the forms of 

 worship and ecclesiastical government which 

 Charles had lately imposed upon their church. 

 This was followed by the calling together of a 

 General Assembly of the church. This body 

 formally purified the church from all the late 

 innovations, excommunicating the bishops, and 

 declaring the government of the clergy to rest, 

 as formerly, in the General Assembly, which 

 consisted of a selection of two clergymen from 

 each presbytery, with a mixture of lay elders, and 

 nothing to control its proceedings but their inter- 

 pretation of the will of the Divine founder of the 

 Christian religion. Early in the succeeding year, 

 the king, with great difficulty, collected an army 

 of 20,000 men, whom he led to the border of 

 Scotland, for the purpose of reducing these 

 despisers of his authority. The Scotch, however, 

 strengthened by devotional feeling, formed an 

 army equal in number, which was placed under 

 the command of General Alexander Leslie, an 

 officer who had served with distinction in the 

 long Protestant war carried on against the 

 Emperor of Germany. The Scottish army was 

 encamped on Dunse Law, a hill overlooking the 

 Border, where the duties of military parade were 

 mingled with prayers and preachings, such as 

 were never before witnessed in a camp. The 

 king, seeing the wavering of his own men, and 

 the steadfastness of the Scotch, was obliged to 

 open a negotiation, in which it was agreed to 

 disband both armies, and to refer the disputes 

 once more to a General Assembly and a Scottish 

 parliament. 



The king now adopted a new policy with the 

 turbulent people of Scotland. Having formerly 

 gained over some of the English patriots, he 

 thought he might be equally successful with the 

 lords of the Covenant, whom he therefore invited 

 to attend him at Berwick. A few obeyed the 

 summons ; but he failed with all except the Earl 

 (afterwards Marquis) of Montrose, a nobleman of 

 vigorous genius, whose ambition had been 

 wounded by his not having so high a place in the 

 councils of his countrymen as he thought he 

 deserved. In the new General Assembly and 

 parliament (1640), the votes were equally decisive 

 against Episcopacy. The king collected a second 



