even as warnings. They are warnings to a If there be any universal objection to retroparticular class, which stands in great need of spective punishment, there is no more to be warnings-to favourites and ministers. They said. But such is not the opinion of Mr. Halremind persons of this description, that there lam. He approves of the mode of proceeding. may be a day of reckoning for those who ruin He thinks that a punishment not previously and enslave their country in all the forms of affixed by law to the offences of Strafford, law. But this is not all. Warning is, in or- should have been inflicted; that he should have dinary cases, the principal end of punishment; been degraded from his rank, and condemned but it is not the only end. To remove the of- to perpetual banishment, by act of Parliament; fender, to preserve society from those dangers but he sees strong objections to the taking which are to be apprehended from his incorri- away of his life. Our difficulty would have gible depravity, is often one of the ends. In the been at the first step, and there only. Indeed, case of such a knave as Wild, or such a ruffian we can scarcely conceive that any case, which as Thurtell, it is a very important end. In the does not call for capital punishment, can call case of a powerful and wicked statesmen, it is for retrospective punishment. We can scarceinfinitely more important; so important, as ly conceive a man so wicked and so dangerous, alone to justify the utmost severity, even that the whole course of law must be disturb though it were certain that his fate would not ed in order to reach him; yet not so wicked as deter others from imitating his example. At to deserve the severest sentence, nor so dangerpresent, indeed, we should think it extremely ous as to require the last and surest custodypernicious to take such a course, even with a that of the grave. If we had thought that Strafworse minister than Strafford, if a worse could ford might be safely suffered to live in France, exist; for, at present, Parliament has only to we should have thought it better that he should withhold its support from a cabinet, to produce continue to live in England, than that he should an immediate change of hands. The case was be exiled by a special act. As to degradation, it widely different in the reign of Charles the First. was not the earl, but the general and the statesThat prince had governed for eleven years man, whom the people had to fear. Essex said, without any Parliament; and even when Par-on that occasion, with more truth than eloliament was sitting, had supported Bucking-quence, "Stone-dead hath no fellow." And ham against its most violent remonstrances.

often during the civil wars the Parliament had reason to rejoice, that an irreversible law and an impassable barrier protected them from the valour and capacity of Strafford.

dour; and may at the present time boast of members, with whom Say and Hampden would have been proud to act.

Mr. Hallam is of opinion that a bill of pains and penalties ought to have been passed against Strafford; but he draws a distinction less just, we think, than his distinctions usual- It is remarkable that neither Hyde nor Falkly are. His opinion, so far as we can collect land voted against the bill of attainder. There it, is this; that there are almost insurmounta- is, indeed, reason to believe that Falkland ble objections to retrospective laws for capital spoke in favour of it. In one respect, as Mr. punishment; but that where the punishment Hallam has observed, the proceeding was hostops short of death, the objections are compa- nourably distinguished from others of the same ratively trifling. Now the practice of taking kind. An act was passed to relieve the childthe severity of the penalty into consideration, ren of Strafford from the forfeiture and corwhen the question is about the mode of proce- ruption of blood, which were the legal conse dure and the rules of evidence, is no doubt suf- quences of the sentence. The crown had never ficiently common. We often see a man con- shown equal generosity in a case of treason. victed of a simple larceny, on evidence on The liberal conduct of the Commons has been which he would not be convicted of a burglary. fully and most appropriately repaid. The house It sometimes happens that a jury, when there of Wentworth has since been as much distinis strong suspicion, but not absolute demon-guished by public spirit as by power and splenstration, that an act, unquestionably amounting to murder, was committed by the prisoner before them, will find him guilty of manslaughter; but this is surely very irrational. The rules of evidence no more depends on the magnitude of the interests at stake than the rules of arithmetic. We might as well say, that we have a greater chance of throwing a size when we are playing for a penny than when we are playing for a thousand pounds, as that a form of trial which is sufficient for the purposes of justice, in a matter affecting liberty and property, is insufficient in a matter affecting life. Nay, if a mode of proceeding be too lax for capital cases, is, a fortiori, to lax for all others; for, in capital cases, the principles of human nature will always afford considerable security. No judge is so cruel as he who indemnifies himself for scrupulosity in cases of blood, by license in affairs cf smaller importance. The difference in tale on the one side far more than makes up for the difference in weight on the other.

It is somewhat curious that the admirers of Strafford should also be, without a single exception, the admirers of Charles; for whatever we may think of the conduct of the Parliament towards the unhappy favourite, there can be no doubt that the treatment which he received from his master was disgraceful. Faithless alike to his people and his tools, the king did not scruple to play the part of the cowardly approver, who hangs his accomplice. It is good that there should be such men as Charles in every league of villany. It is for such men that the offers of pardon and reward, which appear after a murder, are intended. They are indemnified, remunerated, and despised. The very magistrate who avails himself of their assistance looks on them as wretches more degraded than the criminal whom they betray. Was Strafford innocent? was he a meritorious servant of the crown? If so, what shall we

he broke them; the cruel indifference with which he threw away his useless or damaged tools, rendered him, at least till his character was fully exposed, and his power shaken to its foundations, a more dangerous enemy to the constitution than a man of far greater talents and resolution might have been. Such princes may still be seen-the scandals of the southern thrones of Europe; princes false alike to the accomplices who have served them, and to the opponents who have spared them; princes who, in the hour of danger, concede every thing, swear every thing, hold out their

every minister of their tyranny, and await with meek and smiling implacability the blessed day of perjury and proscription.

think of the prince, who, having solemnly pro- | to attain his ends; the readiness with which mised him that not a hair of his head should he gave promises; the impudence with which be hurt, and possessing an unquestioned constitutional right to save him, gave him up to the vengeance of his enemies? There were some points which we know that Charles would not concede, and for which he was willing to risk the chances of civil war. Ought not a king, who will make a stand for any thing, to make a stand for the innocent blood? Was Strafford guilty? Even on this supposition, it is difficult not to feel disdain for the partner of his guilt-the tempter turned punisher. If, indeed, from that time forth, the conduct of Charles had been blameless, it might have been said that his eyes were at last open-cheeks to every smiter, give up to punishment ed to the errors of his former conduct, and that in sacrificing to the wishes of his Parliament, a minister whose crime had been a devotion too zealous to the interests of his prerogative, he gave a painful and deeply humiliating proof of the sincerity of his repentance. We may describe his behaviour on this occasion in terms resembling those which Hume has employed, when speaking of the conduct of Churchill at the Revolution. It required ever after the most rigid justice and sincerity in his dealings with his people to vindicate it. His subsequent dealings with his people, however, clearly showed, that it was not from any respect for the constitution, or from any sense of the deep criminalty of the plans in which Strafford and himself had been engaged, that he gave up his minister to the axe. It became evident that he had abandoned a servant who, deeply guilty as to all others, was guiltless to him alone, solely in order to gain time for maturing other schemes of tyranny, and purchasing the aid of other Wentworths. He who would not avail himself of the power which the laws gave him to save a friend, to whom his honour was pledged, soon showed that he did not scruple to break every law and forfeit every pledge, in order to work the ruin of his opponents.

We will pass by the instances of oppression and falsehood which disgraced the early years of the reign of Charles. We will leave out of the question the whole history of his third Parliament, the price which he exacted for assenting to the Petition of Right, the perfidy with which he violated his engagements, the death of Eliot-the barbarous punishments inflicted by the Star Chamber, the ship-money, and all the measures, now universally con demned, which disgraced his administration from 1630 to 1640. We will admit, that it might be the duty of the Parliament, after punishing the most guilty of his creatures, after abolishing the inquisitorial tribunals, which had been the instruments of his ty ranny, after reversing the unjust sentences of his victims, to pause in its course. The concessions which had been made were great, the evils of civil war obvious, the advantages even of victory doubtful. The former errors of the king might be imputed to youth, to the pressure of circumstances, to the influence of evil counsel, to the undefined state of the law. We firmly believe, that if, even at this eleventh hour, Charles had acted fairly towards his people, if he had even acted fairly towards his own partisans, the House of Commons would have given him a fair chance of retrieving the public confidence. Such was the opinion of Clarendon. He distinctly states, that the fury of opposition had abated; that a reaction had The early measures of that Parliament, Mr. begun to take place; that the majority of those Hallam in general approves. But he consi- who had taken part against the king were deders the proceedings which took place after sirous of an honourable and complete reconthe recess in the summer of 1641, as mischie-ciliation; and that the more violent, or, as it vous and violent. He thinks, that from that time, the demands of the Houses were not warranted by any imminent danger to the constitution, and that in the war which ensued they were clearly the aggressors. As this is one of the most interesting questions in our history, we will venture to state, at some length, the reasons which have led us to form an opinion on it contrary to that of a writer whose judgment we so highly respect.

"Put not your trust in princes!" was the expression of the fallen minister, when he neard that Charles had consented to his death. The whole history of the times is a sermon on that bitter text. The defence of the Long Parliament is comprised in the dying words of its victim.

We will premise, that we think worse of King Charles the First than even Mr. Hallam appears to do. The fixed hatred of liberty, which was the principle of all his public conduct; the unscrupulousness with which he adopted any means which might enable him

soon appeared, the more judicious members of the party were fast declining in credit. The remonstrance had been carried with great difficulty. The uncompromising antagonists of the court, such as Cromwell, had begun to talk of selling their estates and leaving Eng land. The event soon showed that they were the only men who really understood how much inhumanity and fraud lay hid under the constitutional language and gracious demeanour of the king.

The attempt to seize the five members was undoubtedly the real cause of the war. From that moment, the loyal confidence with which most of the popular party were beginning to regard the king, was turned into hatred and

incurable suspicion. From that moment, the Parliament was compelled to surround itself with defensive arms; from that moment, the city assumed the appearance of a garrison; from that moment, it was that, in the phrase of Clarendon, the carriage of Hampden became fiercer, that he drew the sword and threw away the scabbard. For, from that moment, it must have been evident to every impartial observer, that in the midst of professions, oaths, and smiles, the tyrant was constantly looking forward to an absolute sway, and to bloody revenge.

The advocates of Charles have very dexterously contrived to conceal from their readers the real nature of this transaction. By making concessions apparently candid and ample, they elude the great accusation. They allow that the measure was weak, and even frantic, an absurd caprice of Lord Digby, absurdly adopted by the king. And thus they save their client from the full penalty of his transgression, by entering a plea of guilty to the minor offence. To us his conduct appears at this day, as at the time it appeared to the Parliament and the city. We think it by no means so foolish as it pleases his friends to represent it, and far more wicked.

!

In the first place, the transaction was illegal from beginning to end. The impeachment was illegal. The process was illegal. The service was illegal. If Charles wished to prosecute the five members for treason, a bill against them should have been sent to a grand jury. That a commoner cannot be tried for high treason by the Lords at the suit of the crown, is part of the very alphabet of our law. That no man can be arrested by a message or a verbal summons of the king, with or without a warrant from a responsible magistrate, is equally clear. This was an established maxim | of our jurisprudence in the time of Edward the Fourth. "A subject," said Chief Justice Markham to that prince, "may arrest for treason: the king cannot; for if the arrest be illegal, the party has no remedy against the king."

most extended ministry that ever existed, into a feeble opposition, and raised a king who was talking of retiring to Hanover, to a height of power which none of his predecessors had enjoyed since the Revolution. A crisis of this description was evidently approaching in 1642. At such a crisis, a prince of a really honest and generous nature, who had erred, who had seen his error, who had regretted the lost af fections of his people, who rejoiced in the dawning hope of regaining them, would be peculiarly careful to take no step which could give occasion of offence, even to the unreasonable. On the other hand, a tyrant, whose whole life was a lie, who hated the constitution the more because he had been compelled to feign respect for it, to whom his honour and the love of his people were as nothing, would select such a crisis for some appalling violation of law, for some stroke which might remove the chiefs of an opposition, and intimidate the herd. This Charles attempted. He missed his blow: but so narrowly, that it would have been mere madness in those at whom it was aimed to trust him again.

It deserves to be remarked, that the king had, a short time before, promised the most respectable royalists in the House of Commons, Falkland, Colepepper, and Hyde, that he would take no ineasure in which that House was concerned, without consulting them. On this occasion he did not consult them. His conduct astonished them more than any other members of the assembly. Clarendon says that they were deeply hurt by this want of confidence, and the more hurt, because, if they had been consulted, they would have done their utmost to dissuade Charles from so improper a proceeding. Did it never occur to Clarendon, will it not at least occur to men less partial, that there was good reason for this? When the danger to the throne seemed imminent, the king was ready to put himself for a time into the hands of those who, though they had disapproved of his past conduct, thought that the remedies had now become worse than the distempers. But we believe, that in heart The time at which Charles took this step he regarded both the parties in the Parliament also deserves consideration. We have already with feelings of aversion, which differed only said, that the ardour which the parliament had in the degree of their intensity; and that the displayed at the time of its first meeting had lawful warning which he proposed to give by considerably abated; that the leading oppo- immolating the principal supporters of the nents of the court were desponding, and that remonstrance, was partly intended for the intheir followers were in general inclined to mild-struction of those who had concurred in cener and more temperate measures than those suring the ship-money, and in abolishing the which had hitherto been pursued. In every Star Chamber. country, and in none more than in England, there is a disposition to take the part of those who are unmercifully run down, and who seem destitute of all means of defence. Every man who has observed the ebb and flow of public feeling in our own time, will easily recall examples to illustrate this remark. An English statesman ought to pay assiduous worship to Nemesis, to be most apprehensive of ruin when he is at the height of power and popularity, and to dread his enemy most, when most completely prostrated. The fate of the Coalition Ministry, in 1784, is perhaps the strongest instance in our history of the operation of this principle. A few weeks turned the ablest and

The Commons informed the king that their members should be forthcoming to answer any charge legally brought against them. The Lords refused to assume the unconstitutional offices with which he attempted to invest them. And what then was his conduct? He went, attended by hundreds of armed men, to seize the objects of his hatred in the House itself! The party opposed to him more than insinuated that his purpose was of the most atrocious kind. We will not condemn him merely on their suspicions; we will not hold him answerable for the sanguinary expressions of the loose brawlers who composed his train. We will judge of his conduct by itself alone. And we

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say, without hesitation, that it is impossible to | damental laws, and representative assemblies. acquit him of having meditated violence, and In the fifteenth century, the government of violence which might probably end in blood. Castile seems to have been as free as that of He knew that the legality of his proceedings our own country. That of Arragon was beyond was denied; he must have known that some all question far more so. In France, the soveof the accused members were not men likely reign was more absolute. Yet, even in France, to submit peaceably to an illegal arrest. There the States-general alone could constitutionally was every reason to expect that he would find impose taxes; and at the very time when the them in their places, that they would refuse to authority of those assemblies was beginning obey his summons, and that the House would to languish, the Parliament of Paris received support them in their refusal. What course such an accession of strength, as enabled it, would then have been left to him? Unless we in some measure, to perform the functions of suppose that he went on this expedition for the a legislative assembly. Sweden and Denmark sole purpose of making himself ridiculous, had constitutions of a similar description. we must believe that he would have had recourse to force. There would have been a scuffle; and it might not, under such circumstances, have been in his power, even if it were in his inclination, to prevent a scuffle from ending in a massacre. Fortunately for his fame, unfortunately, perhaps, for what he prized far more, the interests of his hatred and his ambition, the affair ended differently. The birds, as he said, were flown, and his plan was dis-government in their own hands. În France concerted. Posterity is not extreme to mark abortive crimes. And thus his advocates have found it easy to represent a step which, but for a trivial accident, might have filled England with mourning and dismay, as a mere error of judgment, wild and foolish, but perfectly innocent. Such was not, however, at the time, the opinion of any party. The most zealous royalists were so much disgusted and ashamed, that they suspended their opposition to the popular party, and, silently, at least, concurred in measures of precaution so strong as almost to amount to resistance.

Let us overleap two or three hundred years, and contemplate Europe at the commencement of the eighteenth century. Every free constitution, save one, had gone down. That of England had weathered the danger; and was riding in full security. In Denmark and Sweden, the kings had availed themselves of the disputes which raged between the nobles and the commons, to unite all the powers of

the institution of the states was only maintained by lawyers, as a part of the ancient theory of their government. It slept a deep sleep-destined to be broken by a tremen dous waking. No person remembered the sittings of the three orders, or expected ever to see them renewed. Louis the Fourteenth had imposed on his Parliament a patient silence of sixty years. His grandson, after the war of the Spanish succession, assimilated the constitution of Arragon to that of Castile, and extinguished the last feeble remains of liberty in the Peninsula. In England, on the other hand, the Parliament was infinitely more pow erful than it had ever been. Not only was its legislative authority fully established, but its right to interfere, by advice almost equivalent

command, in every department of the executive government, was recognised. The appointment of ministers, the relations with foreign powers, the conduct of a war or a negotiation, depended less on the pleasure of the prince than on that of the two Houses.

From that day, whatever of confidence and loyal attachment had survived the misrule of seventeen years, was, in the great body of the people, extinguished, and extinguished forever. As soon as the outrage had failed, the hypo-to crisy recommenced. Down to the very eve of his flagitious attempt, Charles had been talking of his respect for the privileges of Parliament and the liberties of his people. He began again in the same style on the morrow; but it was too late. To trust him now would have been, not moderation, but insanity. What common security would suffice against a prince who was evidently watching his season with that cold and patient hatred which, in the long run, tires out every other passion ?

It is certainly from no admiration of Charles that Mr. Hallam disapproves of the conduct of the House in resorting to arms. But he thinks, that any attempt on the part of that prince to establish a despotism would have been as strongly opposed by his adherents as by his enemies; that the constitution might be considered as out of danger; or, at least, that it had more to apprehend from war than from the king. On this subject Mr. Hallam dilates at length; and with conspicuous ability. We will offer a few considerations, which lead us to incline to a different opinion.

What then made us to differ? Why was it that, in that epidemic malady of constitutions, ours escaped the destroying influence; or rather that, at the very crisis of the disease, a favourable turn took place in England, and in England alone? It was not surely without a cause that so many kindred systems of government, having flourished together so long, languished and expired at almost the same time.

It is the fashion to say, that the progress of civilization is favourable to liberty. The maxim, though on the whole true, must be limited by many qualifications and exceptions. Wherever a poor and rude nation, in which the form of government is a limited monarchy, receives a great accession of wealth and knowledge, it is in imminent danger of falling under arbitrary power.

In such a state of society as that which existed all over Europe during the middle ages, The constitution of England was only one it was not from the king, but from the nobles, of a large family. In all the monarchies of that there was danger. Very slight checks western Europe, during the middle ages, there sufficed to keep the sovereign in order. His existed restraints on the royal authority, fun-means of corruption and intimidation v'ere

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every violation of the laws which the sovereign might commit. They were so strong, that they might safely be careless. He was so feeble, that he might safely be suffered to encroach. If he ventured too far, chastisement and ruin were at hand. In fact, the people suffered more from his weakness than from his authority. The tyranny of wealthy and powerful subjects was the characteristic evil of the times. The royal prerogatives were not even sufficient for the defence of property and the maintenance of police.

very scanty. He had little money, little pa- | jealousy, and resent with prompt indignation, tronage, no military establishment. His armies resembled juries. They were draughted out of the mass of the people; they soon returned to it again; and the character which was habitual prevailed over that which was occasional. A campaign of forty days was too short, the discipline of a national militia too lax, to efface from their minds the feelings of civil life. As they carried to the camp the sentiments and interests of the farm and the shop, so they carried back to the farm and the shop the military accomplishments which they had acquired in the camp. At home they learned how to value their rights-abroad how to defend them.

Such a military force as this was a far stronger restraint on the regal power than the legislative assemblies. Resistance to an established government, in modern times so difficult and perilous an enterprise, was, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the simplest and easiest matter in the world. Indeed, it was far too simple and easy. An insurrection was got up then almost as easily as a petition is got up now. In a popular cause, or even in an unpopular cause favoured by a few great nobles, an army was raised in a week. If the king were, like our Edward the Second and Richard the Second, generally odious, he could not procure a single bow or halbert. He fell at once and without an effort. In such times a sovereign like Louis the Fifteenth, or the Emperor Paul, would have been pulled down before his misgovernment had lasted for a month. We find that all the fame and influence of our Edward the Third could not save his Madame de Pompadour from the effects of the public hatred.

That

The progress of civilization introduced a great change. War became a science; and, as a necessary consequence, a separate trade. The great body of the people grew every day more reluctant to undergo the inconveniences of military service, and better able to pay others for undergoing them. A new class of men, therefore-dependent on the crown alone; natural enemies of those popular rights, which are to them as the dew to the fleece of Gideon; slaves among freemen ; freemen among slaves-grew into importance. physical force, which in the dark ages had bolonged to the nobles and the commons, and had, far more than any charter or any assembly, been the safeguard of their privileges, was transferred entire to the king. Monarchy gained in two ways. The sovereign was strengthened, the subjects weakened. The great mass of the population, destitute of all military discipline and organization, ceased to exercise any influence by force on political transactions. There have, indeed, during the last hundred and fifty years, been many popular insurrections in Europe but all have failed, except those in which the regular army has been induced to join the disaffected.

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Hume, and many other writers, have hastily concluded, that in the fifteenth century the Those legal checks, which had been adeEnglish Parliament was altogether servile, quate to the purpose for which they were because it recognised, without opposition, designed while the sovereign remained deevery successful usurper. That it was not pendent on his subjects, were now found servile, its conduct on many occasions of in- wanting. The dykes, which had been sufficient ferior importance is sufficient to prove. But while the waters were low, were not high surely it was not strange, that the majority of enough to keep out the spring tide. The deluge the nobles, and of the deputies chosen by the passed over them; and, according to the excommons, should approve of revolutions which quisite illustration of Butler, the formal boundthe nobles and commons had effected. The aries which had excluded it now held it in. Parliament did not blindly follow the event of The old constitutions fared like the old shields war; but participated in those changes of pub- and coats of mail. They were the defences of lic sentiment, on which the event of war de-a rude age; and they did well enough against pended. The legal check was secondary and auxiliary to that which the nation held in its own hands. There have always been monarchies in Asia, in which the royal authority has been tempered by fundamental laws, though no legislative body exists to watch over them. The guarantee is the opinion of a community, of which every individual is a soldier. Thus the king of Caubul, as Mr. Elphinstone informs us, cannot augment the land revenue, or interfere with the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribunals.

In the European kingdoms of this description, there were representative assemblies. But it was not necessary that those assemblies should meet very frequently, that they should interfere with all the operations of the executive government, that they should watch with

the weapons of a rude age. But new and more formidable means of destruction were invented. The ancient panoply became useless; and it was thrown aside to rust in lumberrooms, or exhibited only as part of an idle pageant.

Thus absolute monarchy was established on the Continent. England escaped; but she escaped very narrowly. Happily, our insular situation and the pacific policy of James rendered standing armies unnecessary here, till they had been for some time kept up in the neighbouring kingdoms. Our public men had therefore an opportunity of watching the effects produced by this momentous change, in forms of government which bore a close analogy to that established in England. Everywhere they saw the power of the monarch increasing,