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THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



HISTORIC SKETCHES. IV. 



CHARLES I. WHEN THE COMMONS CRIED " PRIVILEGE." 



THE 4th of January, 1641-2, was one of the most momentous 

 days for England that ever dawned. Westminster Hall, which 

 had been the scene of so many an important national drama, 

 and which was yet to be the scene of many more, was the 

 place in which the events that made this day momentous 

 were enacted. The coronation and the fall of kings, the trial 

 and condemnation of great subjects, the meeting of the first 

 Parliament, the concession of- great national boons, those walls 

 had witnessed. The occasion about to be mentioned was, if 

 inferior to these in point of pomp and circumstance, second to 

 none of them in importance. The 4th of January, 1641, was 

 the day on which the great question was practically tried, 

 whether the King of England should or should not rule without 

 the aid of his Parliament. In various forms, more or less out- 

 rageous, the question had been submitted before. Henry VIII. 

 tried it, and so, with less pertinacity, did Elizabeth, and the 

 Parliament had withstood them. It was hardly likely that 

 what the men of 1530 and the men of 1601 had resisted, 

 against the influence and power of the great Tudors, their 

 descendants would accept in 1641 from the hands of Charles 

 Stuart. 



During the reign of JarueB I. 1603 to 1625 the House of 

 Commons had successfully striven to curb the royal power. 

 Popular rights which had long 1 lain dormant, and were likely to 

 rust for want of use, had been revived, not without opposition. 

 James I., the " British Solomon," or, as he was called by a wise 

 man of his own day, " the wisest fool in Europe," clung with 

 the tenacity of a leech to those attributes of royalty which a 

 small-hearted man would most value, and which were not the 

 less annoying because they were so petty. Not all petty, 

 though ; some of the claims which the Commons disallowed 

 were important enough. They re-established on the firmest 

 possible basis the principle, that the king has no right to levy, 

 under any pretence whatever, a tax upon his subjects, without 

 the consent of Parliament ; they procured the abolition of an 

 enormous abuse of the power to grant monopolies or patents ; 

 they asserted, in the most solemn manner, the inviolability of 

 the persons of Eiembers of Parliament, unless in cases of felony ; 

 and they revived the power which, Hallam says, " had lain like 

 a sword in the scabbard," unused since the reign of Henry VI., 

 a period of 175 years, to impeach the king's ministers for bad 

 conduct. They had impeached Lord Bacon and Lord Middlesex 

 for their misdemeanours in office, and these noblemen, as in all 

 cases where the House of Commons is the accuser, were tried 

 by the House of Lords. They were heavily punished ; but the 

 effect of their punishment was salutary beyond the cases imme- 

 diately concerned. Ministers feared the new edge of the old 

 weapon of the Commons, and were cautious beyond what they 

 had been ; and so the arm of the king was paralysed down quite 

 half its length. Some ministers there were in the next reign, 

 that of Charles I., who neglected the warning, or thought them- 

 selves able to despise it, and they fell like the Earl of Strafford 

 and like Laud, whose fall brought the king's head also to the 

 block. 



Having done so much, the Parliament many of the leading 

 spirits in James's Parliaments sat in the Parliaments of Charles I. 

 was not disposed, certainly, to recede. On the contrary, it 

 was bent on yet further restraining the royal power, by putting 

 checks on the Court of Star Chamber (an irregular tribunal, 

 acting above and without the law of the land, and of late years 

 much abused) and High Commission (an equally irregular and 

 illegal tribunal for ecclesiastical causes), by all the constitutional 

 means in their power. Unfortunately, the king was as much 

 resolved to win conquests for the royal prerogative as the 

 Commons were to win them from it. Without the ability, with- 

 out the brutality of Henry VIII., before which many obstacles 

 went down, Charles I. had all that monarch's greed of power, 

 and even more exalted notions of the nature of the royal 

 dignity. He rested his claims on the so-called " right divine 

 of kings," to govern rightly or wrongly, according to their 

 conscience, which had to give account to the King of kings, 

 but under no circumstances to the people committed to its 

 rare. He lacked the ferocity which was half the battle to 

 " bluff King Hal," and, linked with a certain amount of cruelty 

 which he had in common with him, wore a timidity and inde- 



cision which were fatal to success in his career as a tyrant. 

 There were also stronger men opposed to him than resisted 

 Henry VIII. The luckless king had come in evil times for 

 him ; but the people of England reaped the benefit of his mis- 

 fortunes, and won many a fair privilege, which they left " as a 

 rich legacy unto their issue." 



Before Charles had been three years upon the throne, the 

 Commons, who had during that time suffered very greatly in 

 several particulars, presented for his signature the Petition of 

 Right, a statute which was not intended to declare, as it did not 

 declare, any new privilege, but merely set forth for the purpose 

 of having them confirmed some rights which had been invaded, 

 but of which the origin was as old as Magna Charta. The 

 petition contained but four demands, which the king was 

 required to grant, viz. : 



1. That no money should be levied in future, under any pre' 

 tence whatever, by virtue of the king's prerogative. 



2. That the committal to prison of Mr. Hampdcn and four 

 others for refusing to pay an unlawful impost, should bo 

 recognised as illegal. 



3. That soldiers should not be billeted on private persons. 



4. That no man should henceforth be tried by martial law. 



The petition was presented in 1628. Charles tried every expe- 

 dient, every shift and turn, in the hope of avoiding the necessity 

 of complying with it. When at length compelled to give some 

 answer, he gave a most unusual and evasive one, which clearly 

 showed his intention to ride rough-shod over the Act at the 

 first opportunity. It was only on the peremptory refusal of 

 the Commons to accept his qualified assent, and after much 

 pressure had been brought to bear, that he agreed to give the 

 royal assent in the usual way : fi Soit droit faist comme est 

 desire." (Let right be done as prayed.) 



Scarcely was the ink of his signature dry ere the king set 

 about to evade the petition. He levied fresh taxes under new 

 names ; he imprisoned six members of Parliament for their 

 conduct in the House ; vrith the help of the Earl of Strafford, 

 he attempted to govern the kingdom without a Parliament, and 

 with the help of Archbishop Laud, to govern despotically th& 

 Church. Sentences the most severe and cruel were procured in 

 the Star Chamber against those who resisted the Government, 

 and in the High Commission Court against those who offended 

 in matters ecclesiastical. So great was the oppression, both 

 in Church and State, that many, unable any longer to endure 

 it, sailed across the Atlantic, to seek in the New World a, 

 home and a soil in which freedom might flourish. Then came- 

 honourless wars, undertaken against the wish, and in favour of 

 the enemies, of the nation ; then came the troubles in Scotland, 

 which quickly throw off the yoke Charles tried to lay upon 

 it ; there were the disputes respecting the king's favourite, 

 Buckingham ; there were the trials and executions of Strafford 

 and Archbishop Laud ; the Irish rebellion ; the angry reception, 

 of the Grand Remonstrance ; and finally, there was the attempt 

 to arrest the five members of the House of Commons. 



This last was the drop that filled the bucket, and made it 

 overflow. Charles, indignant at the speech and behaviour of 

 Lord Kimbolton (son of the Earl of Manchester), and five 

 members of the Lower House (Sir Arthur Hazelrig, Messrs. 

 Hollis, Hampden, Pym, and Strode), during the recent differ- 

 ences between the king and the Parliament, in an evil hour 

 listened to the advice of Henrietta, his queen, and to the advice 

 of Lord Digby and the courtiers. They urged him to show 

 himself a king, advised him that no private gentleman would 

 suffer himself to be addressed as he had been by the accused, 

 and recommended the arrest of the members on a charge of 

 high treason. 



Orders were accordingly given, on 3rd of January, 1641, for the 

 arrest of the persons named. Their houses were occupied, their 

 studies sealed up, and their papers seized. A pursuivant went 

 down to the House of Commons, and, in the king's name, de- 

 manded the surrender of the accused. He was, however, sent 

 back without any definite answer ; the House voted that what 

 had been done by the royal officers was a breach of the privilege 

 of Parliament : and tho king, angry at the non-compliance with 

 his demand, resolved to go next day in person to the House, and. 

 himself arrest the accused men. 



Mr. Isaac D'lsraeli says, "When Charles went down to the 

 House to seize on the five leading members of the Opposition^ 

 the queen could not restrain her lively temper, and impatiently 



