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honesty of men who, dissenting from almost all Christendom, would suffer none to dissent from themselves; who demanded freedom of conscience, yet refused to grant it; who execrated persecution, yet persecuted; who urged reason against the authority of one opponent, and authority against the reasons of another. Bonner at least acted in accordance with his own principles. Cranmer could vindicate himself from the charge of being a heretic, only by arguments which made him out to be a murderer.

She died; and the kingdom passed to one who was, in his own opinion, the greatest mas ter of kingcraft that ever lived; who was, in truth, one of those kings whom God seems to send for the express purpose of hastening revolutions. Of all the enemies of liberty whom Britain has produced, he was at once the most harmless and the most provoking. His office resembled that of the man who, in a Spanish bull-fight, goads the torpid savage to fury, by shaking a red rag in the air, and now and then throwing a dart, sharp enough to sting, but too Thus the system on which the English small to injure. The policy of wise tyrants princes acted with respect to ecclesiastical af- has always been to cover their violent acts fairs for some time after the Reformation, was with popular forms. James was always oba system too obviously unreasonable to be truding his despotic theories on his subjects lasting. The public mind moved while the without the slightest necessity. His foolish government moved; but would not stop where talk exasperated them infinitely more than the government stopped. The same impulse forced loans or benevolences would have done, which had carried millions away from the Yet, in practice, no king ever held his prerogaChurch of Rome, continued to carry them for- tives less tenaciously. He neither gave way ward in the same direction. As Catholics had gracefully to the advancing spirit of liberty, become Protestants, Protestants became Puri- nor took vigorous measures to stop it, but tans; and the Tudors and Stuarts were as un-retreated before it with ludicrous haste, blusable to avert the latter change as the Popes tering and insulting as he retreated. The had been to avert the former. The dissenting | English people had been governed for nearly party increased, and became strong under a hundred and fifty years by princes who, every kind of discouragement and oppression. whatever might be their frailties or their vices, They were a sect. The government persecuted them, and they became an opposition. The old constitution of England furnished to them the means of resisting the sovereign without breaking the laws. They were the majority of the House of Commons. They had the power of giving or withholding supplies; and, by a judicious exercise of this power, they might The follies and vices of the man increased hope to take from the Church its usurped the contempt which was produced by the authority over the consciences of men; and feeble policy of the sovereign. The indecofrom the Crown some part of the vast preroga-rous gallantries of the Court, the habits of tive which it had recently acquired at the expense of the nobles and of the Pope.

had all possessed great force of character and who, whether beloved or hated, had always been feared. Now, at length, for the first time since the day when the sceptre of Henry the Fourth dropped from the hand of his lethargic grandson, England had a king whom she despised.

gross intoxication in which even the ladies indulged, were alone sufficient to disgust a The faint beginnings of this memorable con- people whose manners were beginning to be test may be discerned early in the reign of strongly tinctured with austerity. But these Elizabeth. The conduct of her last Parliament were trifles. Crimes of the most frightful made it clear that one of those great revolutions kind had been discovered; others were suswhich policy may guide, but cannot stop, was pected. The strange story of the Gowries was in progress. It was on the question of Mono- not forgotten. The ignominious fondness of polies that the House of Commons gained its the king for his minions, the perjuries, the sor. first great victory over the throne. The con- ceries, the poisonings, which his chief favour duct of the extraordinary woman who then ites had planned within the walls of his palace, governed England is an admirable study for the pardon which, in direct violation of his politicians who live in unquiet times. It shows duty, and of his word, he had granted to the how thoroughly she understood the people mysterious threats of a murderer, made him an whom she ruled, and the crisis in which she object of loathing to many of his subjects. was called to act. What she held, she held What opinion grave and moral persons refirmly. What she gave, she gave graciously. siding at a distance from the court entertained She saw that it was necessary to make a con- respecting him, we learn from Mrs. Hutchincession to the nation: and she made it, not son's Memoirs. England was no place, the grudgingly, not tardily, not as a matter of bar-seventeenth century no time, for Sporus and gain and sale, not, in a word, as Charles the First would have made it, but promptly and cordially. Before a bill could be framed or an address presented, she applied a remedy to the evil of which the nation complained. She expressed in the warmest terms her gratitude to her faithful Commons for detecting abuses which interested persons had concealed from

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Locusta.

This was not all. The most ridiculous weaknesses seemed to meet in the wretched Solomon of Whitehall; pedantry, buffoonery garrulity, low curiosity, the most contemptible personal cowardice. Nature and education had done their best to produce a finished spe cimen of all that a king ought not to be. His awkward figure, his rolling eye, his rickety walk, his nervous tremblings, his slobbering mouth, his broad Scotch accent, were impe fections which might have been found in the

After redressing internal grievances, the Commons proceeded to take into considera. tion the state of Europe. The king flew into a rage with them for meddling with such matters, and, with characteristic judgment, drew them into a controversy about the origin of the House and of its privileges. When he found that he could not convince them, he dissolved them in a passion, and sent some of the leaders of the Opposition to ruminate on his logic in prison.

best and greatest man. Their effect, however, | convenient to leave England. A greater name was to make James and his office objects of is to be added to the ignominious list. By this contempt; and to dissolve those associations Parliament was brought to justice that illus. which had been created by the noble bearing trious philosopher, whose memory genius has of preceding monarchs, and which were in half redeemed from the infamy due to servility, themselves no inconsiderable fence to royalty. to ingratitude, and to corruption. The sovereign whom James most resembled was, we think, Claudius Cæsar. Both had the same feeble and vacillating temper, the same childishness, the same coarseness, the same poltroonery. Both were men of learning; both wrote and spoke-not, indeed, well-but still in a manner in which it seems almost incredible that men so foolish should have written or spoken. The follies and indecencies of James are well described in the words which Suetonius uses respecting Claudius: "Multa talia, etiam privatis deformia, necdum principi, neque infacundo, neque indocto, immo etiam pertinaciter liberalibus studiis dedito." The description given by Suetonius of the manner in which the Roman prince transacted business, exactly suits the Briton. "In cognoscendo ac decernendo mira varietate animi fuit, modo circumspectus et sagax, modo inconsultus ac præceps, non nunquam frivolus amentique similis." Claudius was ruled successively by two bad women; James success-out their errand. The great master of kingively by two bad men. Even the description of the person of Claudius, which we find in the ancient memoirs, might, in many points, serve for that of James. "Ceterum et ingredientem destituebant poplites minus firmi, et remisse quid vel serio agentem multa dehonestabant: risus indecens; ira turpior, spumante ictu, præterea linguæ titubantia."

During the time which elapsed between this dissolution and the meeting of the next Parliament, took place the celebrated negotiation respecting the Infanta. The would-be despot was unmercifully browbeaten. The would-be Solomon was ridiculously overreached. "Steenie," in spite of the begging and sobbing of his dear "dad and gossip," carried off "baby Charles" in triumph to Madrid. The sweet lads, as James called them, came back safe, but with

craft, in looking for a Spanish match, found a Spanish war. In February, 1624, a Parlia ment met, during the whole sitting of which James was a mere puppet in the hands of his "baby," and of his "poor slave and dog." The Commons were disposed to support the king in the vigorous policy which his son and his favourite urged him to adopt. But they were The Parliament which James had called not disposed to place any confidence in their con after his accession had been refractory. feeble sovereign and his dissolute courtiers, His second Parliament, called in the spring or to relax in their efforts to remove public of 1814, had been more refractory still. It had grievances. They therefore lodged the money been dissolved after a session of two months; which they voted for the war in the hands and during six years the king had governed of parliamentary commissioners. They imwithout having recourse to the legislature. peached the treasurer, Lord Middlesex, for During those six years, melancholy and dis-corruption, and they passed a bill by which graceful events, at home and abroad, had followed one another in rapid succession;-the divorce of Lady Essex, the murder of Overbury, the elevation of Villiers, the pardon of Somerset, the disgrace of Coke, the execution of Raleigh, the battle of Prague, the invasion of the Palatinate by Spinola, the ignominious flight of the son-in-law of the English king, the depression of the Protestant interest all over the Continent. All the extraordinary modes by which James could venture to raise money had been tried. His necessities were greater than ever; and he was compelled to summon the Parliament in which Hampden made his first appearance as a public man.

This Parliament lasted about twelve months. During that time it visited with deserved punishment several of those who, during the preceding six years, had enriched themselves by peculation and monopoly. Michell, one of those grasping patentees, who had purchased of the favourite the power of robbing the nation, was fined and imprisoned for life. Mompesson, the original, it is said, of Massinger's Overreach," was outlawed and deprived of his ill-gotten wealth. Even Sir Edward Viliers. the brother of Buckingham, found it

patents of monopoly were declared illegal.

Hampden did not, during the reign of James, take any prominent part in public affairs. It is certain, however, that he paid great attention to the details of parliamentary business, and to the local interests of his own county. It was in a great measure owing to his exer tions, that Wendover and some other boroughs, on which the popular party could depend, recovered the elective franchise, in spite of the opposition of the court.

The health of the king had for some time been declining. On the 27th of March, 1625, he expired. Under his weak rule, the spirit of liberty had grown strong, and had become equal to the great contest. The contest was brought on by the policy of his successor. Charles bore no resemblance to his father He was not a driveller, or a pedant, or a huf foon, or a coward. It would be absurd to deny that he was a scholar and a gentleman, a man of exquisite taste in the fine arts, a man of strict morals in private life. His talents for business were respectable; his demeanour was kingly. But he was false, imperious, obstinate, narrowminded, ignorant of the temper of his people, unobservant of the signs of his

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times. The whole principle of his government | pelled to serve in the army. Money, however was resistance to public opinion; nor did he came in slowly and the king was compelled make any real concession to that opinion till to summon another Parliament. In the hope it mattered not whether he resisted or con- of conciliating his subjects, he set at liberty ceded; till the nation, which had long ceased the persons who had been imprisoned for reto love him or to trust him, had at last ceased fusing to comply with his unlawful demands. to fear him. Hampden regained his freedom; and was immediately re-elected burgess for Wendover.

of offences to the ordinary tribunals.

In the summer this memorable Parliament was prorogued. It met again in January, 1629, Buckingham was no more. That weak, violent, and dissolute adventurer, who, with no talents or acquirements but those of a mere courtier, had, in a great crisis of foreign and domestic politics, ventured on the part of prime minister, had fallen, during the recess of Parliament, by the hand of an assassin. Both before and after his death, the war had been feebly and unsuccessfully conducted. The king had continued, in direct violation of the Petition of Right, to raise tonnage and poundage, without the consent of Parliament. The troops had again been billeted on the people; and it was clear to the Commons, that the five subsidies which they had given, as the price of the national liberties, had been given in vain.

His first Parliament met in June, 1625. Hampden sat in it as burgess for Wendover. Early in 1628 the Parliament met. During The king wished for money. The Commons its first session, the Commons prevailed on the wished for the redress of grievances. The king, after many delays and much equivocawar, however, could not be carried on without tion, to give, in return for five subsidies, his funds. The plan of the Opposition was, it full and solemn assent to that celebrated inshould seem, to dole out supplies by small strument, the second great charter of the libersums in order to prevent a speedy dissolution. ties of England, known by the name of the They gave the king two subsidies only, and Petition of Right. By agreeing to this act, the proceeded to complain that his ships had been king bound himself to raise no taxes without employed against the Huguenots in France, the consent of Parliament, to imprison no man and to petition in behalf of the Puritans who except by legal process, to billet no more solwere persecuted in England. The king dis-diers on the people, and to leave the cognisance solved them, and raised money by letters under his privy seal. The supply fell far short of what he needed; and, in the spring of 1626, he called together another Parliament. In this Parliament, Hampden again sat for Wendover. The Commons resolved to grant a very liberal supply, but to defer the final passing of the act for that purpose till the grievances of the nation should be redressed. The struggle which followed far exceeded in violence any that had yet taken place. The Commons impeached Buckingham. The king threw the managers of the impeachment into prison. The Commons denied the right of the king to levy tonnage and poundage without their consent. The king dissolved them. They put forth a remonstrance. The king circulated a deciaration vindicating his measures, and committed some of the most distinguished members of the Opposition to close custody. Money was raised by a forced loan, which was appor- They met accordingly in no complying hutioned among the people according to the rate mour. They took into their most serious conat which they had been respectively assessed sideration the measures of the government to the last subsidy. On this occasion it was concerning tonnage and poundage. They that Hampden made his first stand for the fun- summoned the officers of the custom-house to damental principle of the English constitution. their bar. They interrogated the barons of He positively refused to lend a farthing. He the exchequer. They committed one of the was required to give his reasons. He answer- sheriffs of London. Sir John Eliot, a distined, inat he could be content to lend as well guished member of the opposition, and an as others, but feared to draw upon himself intimate friend of Hampden, proposed a resothat curse in Magna Charta which should lution condemning the unconstitutional impobe read twice a year against those who in-sition. The speaker said that the king had fringe it." For this noble answer the Privy Council committed him close prisoner to the Gate-House. After some time, he was again brought up; but he persisted in his refusal, and was sent to a place of confinement in Hampshire.

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The government went on, oppressing at home, and blundering in all its measures abroad. A war was foolishly undertaken against France, and more foolishly conducted. Buckingham led an expedition against Rhé, and failed ignominiously. In the mean time, soldiers were billeted on the people. Crimes, of which ordinary justice should have taken cognisance, were punished by martial law. Nearly eighty gentlemen were imprisoned for tefusing to contribute to the forced loan. The ower people, who showed any signs of insubrdination. were pressed into the fleet, or com

commanded him to put no such question to the vote. This decision produced the most violent burst of feeling ever seen within the walls of Parliament. Hayman remonstrated vehemently against the disgraceful language which had been heard from the chair. Eliot dashed the paper which contained his resolu tion on the floor of the House. Valentine and Hollis held the speaker down in his seat by main force, and read the motion amidst the loudest shouts. The door was locked; the key was laid on the table. Black Rod knocked for admittance in vain. After passing severa strong resolutions, the House adjourned.-On the day appointed for its meeting, it was dissolved by the king, and several of its most eminent members, among whom were Hollis and Sir John Eliot, were committed to prison.

Though Hampden had as yet taken little part in the debates of the House, he had been a member of many very important committees, and had read and written much concerning the law of Parliament. A manuscript volume of Parliamentary Cases, which is still in existence, contains many extracts from his notes.

He now retired to the duties and pleasures of a rural life. During the eleven years which followed the dissolution of the Parliament of 1628, he resided at his seat in one of the most beautiful parts of the county of Buckingham. The house, which has, since his time, been greatly altered, and which is now, we believe, almost entirely neglected, was then an old English mansion, built in the days of the Plantagenets and the Tudors. It stood on the brow of a hill which overlooks a narrow valley. The extensive woods which surround it were pierced by long avenues. One of those avenues the grandfather of the great statesman cut for the approach of Elizabeth; and the opening, which is still visible for many miles, retains the name of the Queen's Gap. In this delightful retreat Hampden passed several years, performing with great activity all the duties of a landed gentleman and a magistrate, and amusing himself with books and with fieldsports.

He was not in his retirement unmindful of his prosecuted friends. In particular, he kept up a close correspondence with Sir John Eliot, who was confined in the Tower. Lord Nugent has published several of the letters. We may perhaps be fanciful; but it seems to us that every one of them is an admirable illustration of some part of the character of Hampden which Clarendon has drawn.

will, in the intermissions of action, ada stud to practice, and adorn that lively spirit with flowers of contemplation, he will raise our expectations of another Sir Edward Vere, that had this character-all summer in the field, ali winter in his study-in whose fall fame makes this kingdom a great loser; and, having taken this resolution from counsel with the highest wisdom, as I doubt not you have, I hope and pray that the same Power will crown it with a blessing answerable to our wish. The way you take with my other friend shows you to be none of the Bishop of Exeter's converts; of whose mind neither am I superstitiously. But had my opinion been asked, I should, as vulgar conceits use to do, have showed my power rather to raise objections than to answer them. A tempert between France and Oxford might have taken away his scruples, with more advantage to his years. For although he be one of those that, if his age were looked for in no other book but that of the mind, would be found no ward if you should die to-morrow; yet it is a great hazard, methinks, to see so sweet a disposition guarded with no more, amongst a people whereof many make it their religion to be superstitious in impiety, and their behaviour to be affected in ill manners. But God, who only knoweth the periods of life and opportunities to come, hath designed him, I hope, for his own service be time, and stirred up your providence to husband him so early for great affairs. Then shall he be sure to find Him in France that Abraham did in Sechem and Joseph in Egypt, under whose wing alone is perfect safety."

Sir John Eliot employed himself, during his imprisonment, in writing a treatise on governPart of the correspondence relates to the ment, which he transmitted to his friend two sons of Sir John Eliot. These young Hampden's criticisms are strikingly charac men were wild and unsteady; and their father, teristic. They are written with all that "flow who was now separated from them, was na- ing courtesy" which is ascribed to him by turally anxious about their conduct. He at Clarendon. The objections are insinuated Length resolved to send one of them to France, with so much delicacy, that they could scarceand the other to serve a campaign in the Lowly gall the most irritable author. We see, too, Countries. The letter which we subjoin shows that Hampden, though rigorous towards himself, was not uncharitable towards others, and that his puritanism was perfectly compatible with the sentiments and the tastes of an accomplished gentleman. It also illustrates admirably what has been said of him by Clarendon: "He was of that rare affability and temper in debate, and of that seeming humility and submission of judgment, as if he brought no opinion of his own with him, but a desire of information and instruction. Yet he had so subtle a way of interrogating, and, under cover of doubts, insinuating his objections that he infused his own opinions into those from whom he pretended to learn and receive them."

The letter runs thus: "I am so perle tly acquainted with your clear insight ir to the dispositions of men, and ability to it them with courses suitable, that, had you sestowed sons of mine as you have done your own, my judgment durst hardly have called it into question, especially when, in laying the design, you have prevented the objections to be made against it. For if Mr. Richard Eliot

how highly Hampden value in the writings
of others that conciseness which was one of
the most striking peculiarities of his own elo-
quence. Sir Juba Eliot's style was, it seems,
too diffuse, and it is impossible not to admire
the skill win which this is suggested. "The
piece," says Hampden, "is as complete an
image of the pattern as can be drawn by lines
-a lively character of a large mind-the sub-
jec', method, and expression, excellent and
hemogenial, and to say truth, sweetheart,
somewhat exceeding my commendations. My
vords cannot render them to the life. Yet
to show my ingenuity rather than wit-would
not a less model have given a full representa
tion of that subject-not by diminution but by
contraction of parts? I desire to learn. I
dare not say. The variations upon each par

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ticular seem many-all, I confess, excellent. every thing that seemed likely to stun: it, struck The fountain was full, the channel narrow; its roots deep into a barren soil, and spread its that may be the cause; or that the author re- branches wide to an inclement sky. The mul sembled Virgil, who made more verses by titude thronged round Prynne in the pillory many than he intended to write. To extract with more respect than they paid to Mainwar a just number, had I seen all his, I could easily ing in the pulpit, and treasured up the rags have bid him make fewer; but if he had bade which the blood of Burton had soaked, with a me tell which he could have spared, I had been veneration such as rochets and surplices had posed." ceased to inspire.

This is evidently the writing, not only of a man of good sense and good taste, but of a man of literary habits. Of the studies of Hampden little is known. But as it was at one time in contemplation to give him the charge of the education of the Prince of Wales, it cannot be doubted that his acquirements were considerable. Davila, it is said, was one of his favourite writers. The moderation of Davila's opinions, and the perspicuity and manliness of his style, could not but recommend him to so judicious a reader. It is not improbable that the parallel between France and England, the Huguenots and the Puritans, had struck the mind of Hampden, and that he already felt within himself powers not unequal to the lofty part of Coligni. While he was engaged in these pursuits, a heavy domestic calamity fell on him. His wife, who had borne him nine children, died in the summer of 1634. She lies in the parish church of Hampden, close to the manor-house The tender and energetic language of her cpitaph still attests the bitterness of her husband's sorrow, and the consolation which he found in a hope full of immortality.

In the mean time, the aspect of public affairs grew darker and darker. The health of Eliot had sunk under an unlawful imprisonment of several years. The brave sufferer refused to purchase liberty, though liberty would to him have been life, by recognising the authority which had confined him. In consequence of the representations of his physicians, the severity of restraint was somewhat relaxed. But it was in vain. He languished and expired a martyr to that good cause, for which his friend Hampden was destined to meet a more brilliant but not a more honourable death.

All the promises of the king were violated without scruple or shame. The Petition of Right, to which he had, in consideration of moneys duly numbered, given a solemn assent, was set at naught. Taxes were raised by the royal authority. Patents of monopoly were granted. The old usages of feudal times were made pretexts for harassing the people with exactions unknown during many years. The Puritans were persecuted with cruelty worthy of the Holy Office. They were forced to fly from the country. They were imprisoned. They were whipped. Their ears were cut off. Their noses were slit. Their cheeks were branded with red-hot iron. But the cruelty of the oppressor could not tire out the fortitude f the victims. The mutilated defenders of berty again defied the vengeance of the Star>Chamber, came back with undiminished resolution to the place of their glorious infamy, and manfully presented the stumps of their ears to be grubbed out by the hangman's knife. The nardy sect grew up and flourished, in spite of

For the misgovernment of this disastrous period, Charles himself is principally respon sible. After the death of Buckingham, he seemed to have been his own prime minister. He had, however, two counsellors who se conded him, or went beyond him, in intolerance and lawless violence; the one a superstitious driveller, as honest as a vile temper would suffer him to be; the other a man of great valour and capacity, but licentious, faithless, corrupt, and cruel.

Never were faces more strikingly character|istic of the individuals to whom they belonged, than those of Laud and Strafford, as they still remain portrayed by the most skilful hand of that age. The mean forehead, the pinched features, the peering eyes of the prelate suit admirably with his disposition. They mark him out as a lower kind of Saint Dominic, differing from the fierce and gloomy enthu siast who founded the Inquisition, as we might imagine the familiar imp of a spiteful witch to differ from an archangel of darkness. When we read his judgments, when we read the report which he drew up, setting forth that he had sent some separatists to prison, and imploring the royal aid against others, we feel a movement of indignation. We turn to his Diary, and we are at once as cool as contempt can make us. There we read how his picture fell down, and how fearful he was lest the fall should be an omen; how he dreamed that the Duke of Buckingham came to bed to him; that King James walked past him; that he saw Thomas Flaxage in green garments, and the Bishop of Worcester with his shoulders wrapped in linen. In the early part of 1627, the sleep of this great ornament of the church seems to have been much disturbed. On the 5th of January, he saw a merry old man with a wrinkled countenance, named Grove, lying on the ground. On the fourteenth of the same memorable month, he saw the Bishop of Lin coln jump on a horse and ride away. A day or two after this, he dreamed that he gave the king drink in a silver cup, and that the king refused it, and called for a glass. Then he dreamed that he had turned Papist-of all his dreams the only one, we suspect, which came through the gate of horn. But of these visions, our favourite is that which, as he has recorded, he enjoyed on the night of Friday the 9th of February, 1627. "I dreamed," says he, "that I had the scurvy; and that forthwith al! my teeth became loose. There was one in especial in my lower jaw, which I could scarcely keep in with my finger till I had called for help." Here was a man to have the superintendence of the opinions of a great nation!

But Wentworth-who ever names him with. out thinking of those harsh dark features, ennobled by their expressions into more than the

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