*

the Rebellion, mention one act of James II. to which a parallel is not to be found in the history of his father. Let them lay their fingers on a single article in the declaration of right, presented by the two houses to William and Mary, which Charles is not 5 acknowledged to have violated. He had, according to the testimony of his own friends, usurped the functions of the legislature, raised taxes without the consent of Parliament, and quartered troops on the people in the most illegal and vexatious manner. 10 Not a single session of parliament had passed without some unconstitutional attack on the freedom of debate. The right of petition was grossly violated. Arbitrary judgments, exorbitant fines, and unwarranted imprisonments, were grievances of daily and hourly 15 Occurrence. If these things do not justify resistance, the Revolution was treason: if they do, the Great Rebellion was laudable.

But, it is said, why not adopt milder measures? Why, after the king had consented to so many re- 20 forms, and renounced so many oppressive prerogatives, did the Parliament continue to rise in their demands at the risk of civil war? The ship-money +

*The Declaration of Right. A Document asserting the ancient rights and liberties of England. On the assurance that these would be preserved by William, Parliament offered the crown to him and his wife.

+ Ship-money. One of Charles I.'s devices for raising money. He extended the tax formerly levied on maritime counties to every shire in the kingdom. It was John Hampden who first made a stand against this grievance.

had been given up. The Star-chamber* had been abolished. Provision had been made for the frequent convocation and secure deliberation of Parliaments. Why not pursue an end confessedly good, by peace5 able and regular means? We recur again to the analogy of the Revolution. Why was James driven from the throne? Why was he not retained upon conditions? He, too, had offered to call a free Parliament, and to submit to its decision all the matters Io in dispute. Yet we praise our forefathers, who preferred a revolution, a disputed succession, a dynasty of strangers, twenty years of foreign and intestine war, a standing army, and a national debt, to the rule, however restricted, of a tried and proved tyrant. 15 The Long Parliament acted on the same principle, and is entitled to the same praise. They could not trust the king. He had, no doubt, passed salutary laws. But what assurance had they that he would not break them? He had renounced oppressive 20 prerogatives. But where was the security that he would not resume them? They had to deal with a man whom no tie could bind, a man who made and broke promises with equal facility, a man whose honour had been a hundred times pawned-and 25 never redeemed.

* Star-Chamber. So called because it sat in a room known by that name. It was a court of members of the privy council, together with two chief justices, who by degrees usurped a power of punishing anything that could be called contempt for the king's authority. It finally became almost inquisitorial in its character.

Here, indeed, the Long Parliament stands on still stronger ground than the Convention of 1688. No action of James can be compared, for wickedness and impudence, to the conduct of Charles with respect to the Petition of Right.* The Lords and Commons 5 present him with a bill in which the constitutional limits of his power are marked out. He hesitates; he evades; at last he bargains to give his assent for five subsidies. The bill receives his solemn assent. The subsidies are voted. But no sooner is the tyrant 10 relieved, than he returns at once to all the arbitrary measures which he had bound himself to abandon, and violates all the clauses of the very act which he had been paid to pass.

For more than ten years the people had seen the 15 rights, which were theirs by a double claim, by immemorial inheritance and by recent purchase, infringed by the perfidious king who had recognised them. At length circumstances compelled Charles to summon another Parliament: another chance was 20 given them for liberty. Were they to throw it away as they had thrown away the former? Were they again to be cozened by le roi le veut? Were they

again to advance their money on pledges which had

* Petition of Right (1628)—a bill condemning Charles' illegal practices, arbitrary taxes, and imprisonment, forced billetings of soldiers upon the people, and exercise of martial law.

+ Le roi le veut—the king wishes it. The phrase by which is announced the royal assent to bills in Parliament. It is a survival from the time when French was the language of the court and of public business, particularly in the 13th century.

been forfeited over and over again? Were they to lay a second petition of right at the foot of the throne, to grant another lavish aid in exchange for another unmeaning ceremony, and then to take their departure, 5 till, after ten years more of fraud and oppression, their prince should again require a supply, and again repay it with a perjury? They were compelled to choose whether they would trust a tyrant or conquer him. We think that they choose wisely and nobly.

IO

The advocates of Charles, like the advocates of other malefactors against whom overwhelming evidence is produced, generally decline all controversy about the facts, and content themselves with calling testimony to character. He had so many private 15 virtues ! And had James II. no private virtues? Was even Oliver Cromwell, his bitterest enemies themselves being judges, destitute of private virtues? And what, after all, are the virtues ascribed to Charles? A religious zeal, not more sincere than that 20 of his son, and fully as weak and narrow-minded, and a few of the ordinary household decencies which half the tombstones in England claim for those who lie beneath them. A good father! A good husband ! Ample apologies indeed for fifteen years of persecu25 tion, tyranny, and falsehood.

We charge him with having broken his coronation oath—and we are told that he kept his marriage vow! We accuse him of having given up his people to the merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed and hard

hearted of prelates; and the defence is, that he took his little son on his knee and kissed him! We censure him for having violated the articles of the Petition of Right, after having, for good and valuable consideration, promised to observe them; and we are 5 informed, that he was accustomed to hear prayers at six o'clock in the morning! It is to such considerations as these, together with his Vandyke* dress, his handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he owes, we verily believe, most of his popularity with the pre- 10 sent generation.

For ourselves, we own that we do not understand the common phrase, a good man but a bad king. We can as easily conceive a good man and an unnatural father, or a good man and a treacherous friend. We 15 cannot, in estimating the character of an individual, leave out of our consideration his conduct in the most

important of all human relations. And if, in that relation, we find him to have been selfish, cruel, and deceitful, we shall take the liberty to call him a bad 20 man, in spite of all his temperance at table, and all his regularity at chapel.

We cannot refrain from adding a few words respecting a topic on which the defenders of Charles are fond of dwelling. If, they say, he governed his 25 people ill, he at least governed them after the example

* Vandyke (1599-1641)—a great portrait painter who, though a native of Flanders, spent the latter part of his life in England, and has left paintings of all the chief historical characters of Charles' court.