A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century Part 31

The scheme of the contract was as little successful as that of the union of the two kingdoms. The parties were contented with merely removing the occasion for an immediate rupture; and after some short prorogations Parliament was finally dissolved.

The King, who felt himself aggrieved by its whole att.i.tude as well as by many single expressions, was reluctant to call another. In order to meet his extraordinary necessities recourse was had to various old devices and to some new ones; for instance, the creation of a great number of baronets in 1612, on payment of considerable sums: but notwithstanding all this, in the year 1613 matters had gone so far, that neither the amba.s.sadors to foreign courts, nor even the troops which were maintained could be paid. In the garrison of Brill a mutiny had arisen on this account; the strongholds on the coast and the fortifications on the adjacent islands went to ruin. For this as well as for other reasons the death of the Earl of Salisbury was a misfortune. The man on whom James I next bestowed his princ.i.p.al confidence, Robert Carr, then Lord Rochester, later Earl of Somerset, was already condemned by the popular voice because he was a Scot, who moreover had no other merit than a pleasing person, which procured him the favour of the King. The authority enjoyed by the Howards had already provoked dissatisfaction. The Prince of Wales had been their decided adversary, and this enmity was kept up by all his friends.

Robert Carr, however, thought it advisable to win over to his side this powerful family to which he had at first found himself in opposition. Whether from personal ambition or from a temper that really mocked at all law and morality he married Frances Howard, whose union with the Earl of Ess.e.x had to be dissolved for this object.[372] The old enemies of the Howards, the adherents of the house of Ess.e.x, many of whom had inherited this enmity, now became the opponents of the favourite and his government. When at last urgent financial necessities allowed no other alternative, and absolutely compelled the issue of a summons for a new parliament, the contending parties seized the opportunity of confronting one another. The creatures of the government neglected no means of controlling the elections by their influence; but they were everywhere encountered by the other party, who were favoured by the increasing dissatisfaction of the people.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1614.]

At the opening of Parliament in April 1614, and on two occasions afterwards, the King addressed the Lower House. Among all the scholastic distinctions, complaints of the past, and a.s.surances for the future, in which after his usual fashion he indulges, we can still perceive the fundamental idea, that if even the subsidies which he required and asked were granted him, he would notwithstanding agree to no conditions on his side, and take upon himself no distinct pledges.

He was resolved no longer to play the game of making concessions in order to ask for something in return, as he had done some years before; he found that far beneath his dignity. Still less could he consent that all the grievances that might have arisen should be heaped up and presented to him, for that would be injurious to the honour of the government. Each one, he said, might lay before him the grievances which he experienced in his own town or in his own county; he would then attend to their redress one by one. In the same way he would deal with each House separately. If he is reproached with endeavouring to extend his prerogatives he denies the charge; but he affirms that he cannot allow them to be abridged, but that, in exercising them, he would behave as well as the best prince England ever had.[373] He has no conception of a relation based on mutual rights; he acknowledges only a relation of confidence and affection.

In return for liberal concessions he promises liberal favour.

This was a view of things resting upon a patriarchal conception of kingly power, in favour of which a.n.a.logies might no doubt have been found in the early state of the kingdoms of the West, but which was now becoming more and more obsolete. What had still been possible under Elizabeth, when the sovereign and her Parliament formed one party, was no longer so now; especially as a man who had attracted universal hatred stood at the head of affairs. Besides this a dispute was already going on which we cannot pa.s.s over in silence.

It arose upon the same matter which had caused such grave embarra.s.sment to the Earl of Salisbury, the unlimited exercise of the right of levying tonnage and poundage entirely at the discretion of the government. It was affirmed that the Custom-House receipts had increased more than twentyfold since the commencement of James's reign, and that a great part of the increased returns was enjoyed by favoured private individuals. The Lower House demanded first of all an examination into the right of the government, and declared that without it they would not proceed to vote any grant.[374]

In the Lower House itself on one occasion a lively debate arose on the subject. The opinion was advanced on the part of the friends of the government that, in this respect as in others, a difference existed between hereditary and elective monarchies, that in the first cla.s.s, which included England, the prerogative was far more extensive than in the latter. Henry Wotton, and Winwood, who had been long employed on foreign emba.s.sies, explained what a great advantage in regard to their collective revenues other states derived from indirect taxes and customs. But by this statement they awakened redoubled opposition.

They were told that the raising of these imposts in France had not been approved by the Estates and was in fact illegal; that the King of Spain had been forced to atone for the attempt to introduce them into the Netherlands by the loss of the greater part of the provinces.

Thomas Wentworth especially broke out into violent invectives against the neighbouring sovereigns, which even called forth remonstrances from the emba.s.sies. He warned the King of England that in his case also similar measures would lead to his complete ruin.[375] It was not only urged that England ought not to take example by any foreign country, but the very distinction drawn between elective and hereditary monarchies suggested a question whether England after all was so entirely a hereditary monarchy as was a.s.serted. It was asked if it might not rather be said that James I, who was one of a number of claimants who had all equally good rights, owed his accession to a voluntary preference on the part of the nation, which might be regarded as a sort of election. These were ideas of unlimited range, and flatly contradicted those which James had formed on the rights of birth and inheritance. He felt himself outraged by their expression in the Lower House.

In order to give the force of a general resolution to their a.s.sertion, that in England the prerogative did not include the fixing of the amount of taxes and customs without the consent of Parliament, the Commons had made proposals for a conference with the Upper House. But hereupon the higher clergy declared themselves hostile, not only to their opinion, but even to the bare project of a conference. Neil, Bishop of Lincoln, affirmed that the oath taken to the King in itself forbade them to partic.i.p.ate in such a conference; that the matter affected not so much a branch of the royal prerogative as its very root; that the Lords moreover would have to listen to seditious speeches, the aim and intention of which could only be to bring about a division between the King and his subjects. The Lord Chancellor had asked the judges for their opinion; but they had declined to give any.

The result was that the Upper House did not accede to the proposal of a conference.

The Commons were greatly irritated at the resistance which was offered to their first step. They too in conferences which related to other matters disdained to enter into the subjects brought before them. They complained loudly of the insulting expressions of the bishop which had been repeated to them. An exculpatory statement of the Upper House did not content them; they demanded full satisfaction as in an affair of honour, and until this had been furnished them they declared themselves determined to make no progress with any other matter.

The King however on his side now lost patience at this. He considered that an attack was made on the highest power when the general progress of business was hindered for the sake of a single question, and he appointed a day on which this affair of the subsidy must be disposed of. He said that, if it were not settled, he would dissolve Parliament.

One would not expect such a declaration to change the temper of the Lower House. Speeches were heard still more violent than those previously made. The Scots, to whose influence every untoward occurrence was imputed, were threatened with a repet.i.tion of the Sicilian Vespers. There were other members however who counselled moderation; for it almost appeared as if the dissolution of this Parliament might be the dissolution of all parliaments. Commissioners were once more sent to the King in order to give another turn to the negotiations. The King declared that he knew full well how far his rights extended, and that he could not allow his prerogatives to be called in question.[376]

These pa.s.sionate ebullitions of feeling against the Scots, although they referred to matters of a more alarming, but happily of an entirely different nature, made the King anxious lest the destruction of his favourites, or even his own ruin, might be required to content his adversaries. On the 7th of June he dissolved Parliament. He thought himself ent.i.tled to bring up for punishment the loudest and most reckless speakers, as well as some other noted men from whom these speakers had received their impulse, for instance Cornwallis, the former amba.s.sador in Spain. He considered that they had intended to upset the government: not only had they failed, but they themselves must atone for the attempt.[377]

The estrangement was not too great to allow the hope of a reconciliation. It had been represented to the King that he ought not to be ready to regard financial concessions as a compliance unbecoming to the crown, for that in these matters he was at no disadvantage as compared with any person or any foreign power; that on the contrary the decision always proceeded from himself; that he was the head who cared for the welfare of the members. It was said that he need by no means fear that men would make use of his wants to lay fetters on him; that bonds laid by subjects on their sovereigns were merely cobwebs which he might tear asunder at any moment. Even Walter Ralegh had stated this.[378] But the King had no inclination, after the Parliament had repelled his overtures with rude opposition, to expose himself by summoning a new one to new attacks on his prerogatives as he understood them. By the voluntary or forced contributions of different corporations, especially of the clergy and of the great men of the kingdom, he was placed in a condition to carry on his government in the ordinary way. Every measure which would have necessitated a great outlay was avoided.

It is plain however into what a disagreeable position he was thus brought. His whole method of government was based upon the superiority of England. He had at that time brought the system of the Church in Scotland nearer to the English model. The bishops in that country had even received their consecration from the English. But he had not effected this without violent acts of usurpation. He had been obliged to remove his most active opponents out of the country; but even in their absence they kept up the excitement of men's feelings by their writings. The Presbyterians saw in everything which he succeeded in doing, the work of cunning on the one side and treachery on the other, and gave vent to the deepest displeasure at his deviation from their solemn Covenant with G.o.d.

Relying on the right of England, but for the first time inviting immigrants from Scotland, James undertook the systematic establishment of colonies in Ireland. The additional strength however which by this means accrued to the Protestant and Teutonic element entirely annihilated all leanings which had been shown in his favour at his accession to the crown, and aroused against him the strongest national and religious antipathies of the native population in that country.

He then met with this opposition in Parliament which hampered all his movements. It was foreign to his natural disposition to think of effecting a radical removal of the misunderstanding that had arisen.

On the contrary he kept adding fresh fuel to it on account of the deficiencies of his government, which began to impair his former importance. The immediate consequence was that in foreign affairs he was no longer able to maintain the position which he had taken up as vigorously as might have been wished. His allies pressed him incessantly to bestow help on them: but if even he had wished it, this was no longer in his power. It was not that Parliament in withholding his supplies had disapproved of the object which they were intended to serve. On the contrary the Parliament lamented that this object was not pursued with sufficient earnestness; but it wished above all to extend its right of sanction over the whole domain of the public revenues. But the King was not inclined to treat with Parliament for the supplies of money required; he feared to incur the necessity of repaying its grants by concessions which would abridge the ancient rights of his crown. The centre of gravity of public affairs must lie somewhere or other. The question was already raised in England whether for the future it was to be in the power of the King and his ministers, or in the authority of Parliament.

NOTES:

[364] Letter to the Lords, anno 1607: in Strype, Annals iv. 560.

[365] Antonio Correro, 25 Giugno 1608: 'Con l'autorita ch'egli tiene con li mercanti di questa piazza li ha indutti a sottoporsi ad una nova gravezza posta sopra le merci che vengono e vanno da questo regno.'

[366] Molino: 'La gabella dei pupilli porge materia grande a sudditi di dolorsene e d'esclamare sino al celo studiando ogn'uno di liberasi da simili bene.--Se uno aveva due campi di questa ragione e cento d'altra natura, i due hanno questa forza, di sottomettere i cento alla medesima gravezza.'

[367] Beaulieu to Trumbull. Winwood, Memorials iii. 123.

[368] Carleton to Edmonds: Court and Times of James I, i. 12, 123.

[369] Chamberlain to Winwood. Mem. iii. 175. 'Yf the practise should follow the positions, we should not leave to our successor that freedome we received from our forefathers.'

[370] Tommaso Contarini, 23 Giugno 1610: 'Che le loro persone, come representanti le communita, siano di maggior qualita che li signori t.i.tolati quali representano le loro sole persone, il che diede grandissimo fastidio al re.'

[371] Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors ii. 225.

[372] Lorking, writing to Puckering (The Court and Times of James the First i. 254), remarks as early as July 1613 on the first mention of the marriage, that its design was 'to reconcile him (Lord Rochester) and the house of Howard together, who are now far enough asunder.'

[373] The King's second speech. Parliamentary History v. 285.

[374] A. Foscarini 1614, 20 Giugno. 'Il re ha sempre avuto seco (on his side) la camera superiore e parte dell'inferiore: il rimanente ha mostrato di voler contribuir ogni quant.i.ta di sussidio ma a conditione che si vedesse prima qual fosse l'autorita del re, sull'impor gravezze.'

[375] Chamberlain to Carleton, May 28. Court and Times of James I, i.

312.

[376] According to a report furnished by A. Foscarini: 'Elessero 40 d'essi a quali diede Lunedi audienza S. M.--dissero che la supplicavano per tanto lasciar per ultima da risolvere la materia di danari.' Unfortunately we have only very scanty information about this Parliament.

[377] Extract from a letter of Winwood to Carleton, June 16. Green, Calendar of State Papers, James I, vol. ii. 237.

[378] The Prerogative of Parliaments. Works viii. 154.

CHAPTER VI.

SURVEY OF THE LITERATURE OF THE EPOCH.

The times in which great political struggles are actually going on are not the most favourable for production in the fields of literature and art. These flourish best in the preceding or following ages, during which the impulse attending those movements begins or continues to be felt. Just such an epoch was the period of thirty or forty years between the defeat of the Armada and the outbreak of the Parliamentary troubles, a period comprising the later years of Queen Elizabeth and the earlier years of King James I. This was the epoch in which the English nation attained to a position of influence on the world at large, and in which at the same time those far-reaching differences about the most important questions of the inner life of the nation arose. The antagonism of ideas which stirred men's minds generally could not but reproduce itself in literature. But we also see other grand products of the age far transcending the limits of the present struggle. Our survey of the history will gain in completeness if we cast even but a transient glance, first at the former and then at the latter cla.s.s of these products.

In Scotland the studies connected with cla.s.sical antiquity were prosecuted with as much zeal as anywhere else in Europe; not however in order to imitate its forms in the native idiom, which no one at that time even in Germany thought of doing, but in order to use it in learned theological controversies, and to maintain connexion with brother Protestants of other tongues. S. Andrew's was at one time a centre for Protestant learning: Poles and Danes, Germans and French visited this university in order to study under Melville. Even Latin verse was written with a certain elegance. A fit monument of these studies and their direction is to be found in Buchanan's History of Scotland, a work without value for the earlier period, and full of party spirit in describing his own, as Buchanan is one of the most violent accusers of Mary Stuart, but pervaded by that warmth and decision which carry the reader along with it: at that time it was read all over the world. Buchanan and Melville were among the champions of popular ideas on the const.i.tution of states and the relations between sovereign and people. It cannot be affirmed that cla.s.sical studies were without influence upon their views, but the doctrine to which they adhered grew out of a different root. It rests historically upon the doctrine of the superiority of the Church, and the councils representing the Church, over the Papacy, as it was put forth in the fifteenth century at Paris. A Scottish student there, John Major, made this doctrine his own, and after his return to his native country, when he himself had obtained a professorship, he applied it to temporal relations. The positions of the advocates of the councils affirmed that the Pope, it was true, received his authority from G.o.d, but that he might be again deprived of it in cases of urgent necessity by the Church, which virtually included the sum of all authority in itself. In the same way John Major taught that an original power transmitted from father to son pertained to kings, but that the fundamental authority resided in the people; so that a king mischievous to the commonwealth, who showed himself incorrigible, might be deposed again. His scholars, who took so large a part in the first disturbances in Scotland, and their scholars in turn, firmly maintained this doctrine. They differed from their contemporaries the Jesuits, who considered the monarchy to be an inst.i.tution set up by the national will, in ascribing to it a divine right, but they urged that a king existed for the sake of the people, and that as he was bound by the laws agreed on by common consent, resistance to him was not only allowed, but under certain circ.u.mstances might even be a duty. We must also remark the opposite view, which was developed in contradiction to this, but yet rested on the same foundation. It was admitted that the king, if the people were considered as a whole, existed for their sake, and not the people for his; but the king, it was said, was at the same time the head of the people; he possessed superiority over all individuals: there was no one who could say in any case that the contract between king and people had been broken: no such general contract existed at all; there could be no question at all of resistance, much less of deposition, for how could the members rebel against the head? King James maintained that the legislative power belonged to the king by divine and human right, that he exercised it with the partic.i.p.ation of his subjects, and always remained superior to the laws. His position rests on these views, in the development of which he himself had certainly a great share; he, like his opponents, had his political and ecclesiastical adherents. In the Scottish literature of the time both tendencies are embodied in important historical works; the latter princ.i.p.ally in Spottiswood's Church History, which represents the royalist views and is not without merit in point of form, so that even at the present day it can be read with pleasure; the former in contemporary notices of pa.s.sing events which were composed in the language and even in the dialect of the country, and which in many places are the foundation even of Buchanan's history. They are the most direct expression of national and religious views, as they found vent in the a.s.semblies of preachers and elders; in them we feel the life-breath of Presbyterianism.

Calderwood and the younger Melville, who collected everything which came to hand, espoused the popular ideas; for information on facts and their causes they are invaluable, although in respect of form they do not rival Spottiswood, who, like them, employs the language of the country.

It might perhaps be said that it was in Scotland that the two systems arose which since that time, although in various shapes, have divided Britain and Europe. In the historians just mentioned we might see the types of two schools, whose opposite conceptions of universal and especially of English history, set forth by writers of brilliant ability, have exercised the greatest influence upon prevailing ideas.

In England these ideas certainly gained admission, but they did not make way at that time. When Richard Hooker expresses the popular ideas as to the primitive free development of society, this is done princ.i.p.ally in order to point out the extensive authority of the legislative power even over the clergy, and to defend the ecclesiastical supremacy of the English crown, which had been established by the enactments of that very power. The question was mooted how far the sovereign was above the laws. Many wished to derive these prerogatives from the laws; others rejected them. Among those who maintained them unconditionally Walter Ralegh appears, in whose works we find a peculiar deduction of them in the statement that the sovereign, according to Justinian's phrase, was the living law: he derives the royal authority from the Divine Will, which the will of man could only acknowledge. He says in one place that the sovereign stands in the same relation to the law, as a living man to a dead body.

What a remarkable work would it have been, had Walter Ralegh himself recorded the history of his time. But the opposition between parties was not so outspoken in England as in Scotland; it had not to justify itself by general principles, to which men could give their adhesion; it contained too much personal ill-feeling and hatred for any one who was involved in the strife to have been able to find satisfaction in expressing himself on this head. The history of the world which Walter Ralegh had leisure to write in his prison, is an endeavour to put together the materials of Universal History as they lay before him from ancient times, and so make them more intelligible. He touches on the events of his age only in allusions, which excited attention at the time, but remain obscure to posterity.

In direct opposition to the Scots, especially to Buchanan, Camden, who wrote in Latin like the former, composed his Annals of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. His contemporary, De Thou, borrowed much from Buchanan. Camden reproaches him with this, partly because in Scotland men preached atrocious principles with regard to the authority of the people and their right of keeping their kings in order. The elder Cecil had invited him to write the history of the Queen, and had communicated to him numerous doc.u.ments for this purpose, which were either in his own possession or belonged to the national archives.

Camden set cautiously to work, and went slowly on. He has himself depicted the trouble it cost him to decipher the historical contents of these scattered and dusty papers. He has certainly not surmounted all the difficulties which stand in the way of composing a contemporary history. Here and there we find even in his pages a regard paid to the living, especially to King James himself, which we would rather see away. But such pa.s.sages are rare. Camden's Annals take a high rank among histories of contemporary transactions. They are of such authenticity in regard to facts, and show so intimate an acquaintance with causes gathered from trustworthy information, that we can follow the author, even where we do not possess the doc.u.ments to which he refers. His judgments are moderate and at the same time in all important questions they are decided.

When we read Camden's letters we become acquainted with a circle of scholars engaged in the severest studies. In his Britannia, which gives a more complete and instructive picture of the country than any other work, they all took a lively interest. Their works are clumsy and old-fashioned, but they breathe a spirit of thoroughness and breadth which does honour to the age. With what zeal were ecclesiastical antiquities studied in Cambridge, after Whitaker had pointed the way! Men sought to weed out what was spurious, and in what was genuine to set aside the part due to the accidental forms of the time, and to penetrate to the bottom of the sentiments, the belief, and activity of the writers. The const.i.tution of the Church naturally led them to devote special study to the old provincial councils. For the history of the country they referred to the monuments of Anglo-Saxon times, and began even in treating of other subjects to bring the original sources to light. Everywhere men advanced beyond the old limits which had been drawn by the tradition of chroniclers and the lack of historical investigation hitherto shown.

Francis Bacon was attracted by the task of depicting at length a modern epoch, the history of the Tudors, with the various changes which it presented and the great results it had introduced, in which he saw the unity of a connected series of events. Yet he has only treated the history of the first of that line. He furnishes one of the first examples of exact investigation of details combined with reflective treatment of history, and has exercised a controlling influence on the manner and style of writing English history, especially by the introduction of considerations of law, which play a great part in his work. The political points of view which are present to the author are almost more those of the beginning of the seventeenth than those of the beginning of the sixteenth century. But these epochs are closely connected with each other. For what Henry VII established is just what James I, who loved to connect himself immediately with the former monarch, wished to continue. Bacon was a staunch defender of the prerogative.