574 



BRITAIN. 



Britain, 



16L>7. 



The royal 

 assent 

 granted to 

 the peti- 

 tion of 

 right. 



Proceed- 



made him bishop of St Asapli. From Mainwaring, the 

 commons proceeded to censure Buckingham; and the 

 tempest of public hatred seemed ready to burst over 

 his head, when it was diverted by the king's consent- 

 ing to a joint applicatiop from both houses, that the 

 Petition of Right should be sanctioned. When the 

 words of royal assent had been pronounced. " Let it 

 belaia as is desired," the house resounded with ac- 

 clamations ; and the whole nation heard of them with 



in remedy- 

 ing abuses 

 1628. 



June 26. 



The commons, however, had not yet done with 

 remedying public grievances. They called for the 

 abolition of a commission, which had been lately 

 granted to 33 crown officers, for levying money by 

 impositions or otherwise, in which form and cir- 

 cumstance (as it was expressed in the commission) 

 were to be dispensed with, rather than the substance 

 be lost or hazarded. They noticed another com- 

 mission for bringing 1000 German horse to England, 

 supposed to be levied for enforcing impositions. 

 They inveighed against the conduct of Buckingham ; 

 and asserted, that the levying of tonnage and pound- 

 age was a violation of the constitution. To prevent 

 the finishing, and presenting this remonstrance, the 

 king came suddenly to parliament, and ended the 

 session by prorogation. All the subsidies voted by 

 parliament were spent in equipping a fleet and army, 

 with a view to repair an ineffectualattempt, made by 

 the tarl of Denbigh, to relieve Rochelle. While 

 Buckingham was superintending the intended expe- 

 dition at Portsmouth a fanatical, and vindictive man 

 of the name of Felton, who had lately served as 

 lieutenant in the duke's anr.y, avenged his own 

 and the nation's quarrel, by plunging a knife into 

 the favourite's breast as he turned from speaking 

 with Soubize, and some Hugonot officers, to Sir 

 Thomas Fryar, over whose shoulder the murderer 

 struck his blow. Buckingham cried out " the villain 

 has killed me ;" and, pulling out the knife, breathed 

 his last. As the Frenchmen had been remonstrating 

 with the duke, the first suspicion fell upon them ; 

 but a hat was found near the door, with a paper, dis- 

 closing the motives of the deed, and a man, without 

 a hat, was seen walking composedly before the door, 

 who, being seized as the murderer, answered, " I 

 am he." Charles urged, that Felton should be tor- 

 tured, to discover his accomplices ; but the judges 

 declartd, that the practice, though formerly usual, 

 was altogether illegal. 



tjnsuccess- After Buckingham's death, the command of the 

 ful ai tempt fleet and army was conferred on the carl of Lindsay, 

 to relieve w h o attempted to relieve Rochelle, but without suc- 

 Aochellc. cess _ That city, hopeless of relief, submitted to 

 their Catholic countrymen, even in sight of the Eng- 

 lish fleet. By the death of Buckingham, neither 

 pretexts nor real causes for complaint were removed 

 from the commons. The royal favour shewn to 

 Mainwaring and other clergymen, obnoxious for si- 

 milar reasons ; the inhuman and arbitrary punish- 

 ments of thi Star Chamber; and, above all, the sub- 

 ject of tonnage and poundage, afforded unexhausted 

 of controversy and remonstrance. When 



Bucking- 

 ham assas- 

 sinated 



Charles opened the session of 1629, he had foreseen, 

 that the declarations of the commons would be re- 

 newed on this last topic; and absolutely conceded, 

 that he never considered the duties of tonnage and 

 poundage as any other than a gift from his people. 

 But the commons were not satisfied with a verbal 

 confession, they insisted, that he should entirely de- 

 sist from levying these duties ; a practical conse- 

 quence which, it must be allowed, most naturally- 

 followed from such a concession ; and which, it is not 

 surprising, that the assertors of liberty were anxious 

 to follow out, in treating with a monarch who was 

 evasive in confirming all concessions, and the muni- 

 ficent patron of the preachers of passive obedience. 

 Amidst political fermentation, the zeal of religion 

 was not dormant. Whilst the current of public be- 

 lief was running towards Puritanism, the favourers 

 of the established church were strongly tinctured 

 with Armmianism ; a creed now generally adopted in 

 the Church of England, but, at that time, held in 

 detestation almost equally with Popery. Among 

 the Puritans, indeed, there were many who were 

 distinguished, not by religious, but by political stern- 

 ness of principle ; and, unfortunately for the Ar- 

 mmian, it was generally coupled with slavish prin- 

 ciples in politics, because Laud, Neil, and the other 

 bishops, supposed to be tainted with that faith, were 

 the strenuous supporters of passive obedience. 



Sir John Elliot having framed a remonstrance in 

 the commons against toHnage and poundage, the 

 speaker, Sir John Finch, said, that he had a com- 

 mand from the king to adjourn, and put no question. 

 The whole house was in an uproar ; the speaker was 

 forcibly held in his chair by Hollis and Valentine, 

 till a remonstrance was passed by acclamation. Pa- 

 pists and Arminians, and those who should levy ton- 

 nage and poundage, were declared capital enemies to 

 the commonwealth. The doors being locked, the 

 gentleman usher of the House of Lords, who came 

 from the king, was shut out till the remonstrance was 

 finished. By the king's order, he took the mace 

 from the table ; and parliament was dissolved in a 

 few days. By an act of ill-timed severity, the king 

 commanded some of the leading members of the 

 house * to be thrown into prison for sedition ; and 

 three others were fined, and imprisoned by the court 

 of King's Bench, at the instance of the crown, \ 



It seemed, at last, to Charles, to be high time to 

 conclude a war, begun without necessity, and con- 

 ducted without glory. A treaty was accordingly 

 signed with France; and the Hugonots, as might be 

 expected, were abandoned. Peace was afterwards 

 concluded with Spain, without any stipulation in be- 

 half of the palatine ; but a general promise of good 

 offices for his restoration from the court of Madrid. 

 Charles, at this time, joined his good offices to those 

 of France, in mediating between Sweden and Poland, 

 in hopes of gaining the former to the cause of his 

 brother in-law. Gustavus did, indeed, adopt the 

 cause of the German Protestants, and accepted of seve- 

 ral thousand men, raised at Charles's expence, chief- 

 ly in Scotland, under the command of the Marquis 



the ci 



moii' 



poun 



Parl ; 



d:5SC 



Peac 



l-'i ar 



Sir Miles llubart, Sir Peter Hayman, Selden, Coriton, I'Ong, and Strode.- 

 fr Sir John JEUiot, HolBs, and Valentine. 



