The beginnings of this formidable insurrection were strangely neglected by the king and his advisers. But towards the close of the year 1638, the danger became pressing. An army was raised; and early in the following spring Charles marched northward, at the head of a force sufficient, as it seemed, to reduce the Covenanters to submission.

But Charles acted, at this conjuncture, as he acted at every important conjuncture throughout his life. After oppressing, threatening, and blustering, he hesitated and failed. He was bold in the wrong place, and timid in the wrong place. He would have shown his wisdom by being afraid before the liturgy was read in St. Giles's church. He put off his fear till he had reached the Scottish border with his troops. Then, after a feeble campaign, he concluded a treaty with the insurgents, and withdrew his army. But the terms of the pacification were not observed. Each party charged the other with foul play. The Scots refused to disarm. The king found great difficulty in reassembling his forces. His late expedition had drained his treasury. The revenues of the next year had been anticipated. At another time, he might have attempted to make up the deficiency by illegal expedients: but such a course would clearly have been dangerous when part of the island was in rebellion. It was necessary to call a Parliament. After eleven years of suffering, the voice of the nation was to be heard once more.

In April, 1640, the Parliament met; and the king had another chance of conciliating his people. The new House of Commons was, beyond all comparison, the least refractory House of Commons that had been known for many years. Indeed, we have never been able to understand how, after so long a period of misgovernment, the representatives of the nation should have shown so moderate and so loyal a disposition. Clarendon speaks with admiration of their dutiful temper. "The House generally," says he, "was exceedingly disposed to please the king and to do him service." "It could never be hoped," he observes elsewhere, "that more sober or dispassionate men would ever meet together in that place, or fewer who brought ill purposes with them."

In this Parliament Hampden took his seat as member for Buckinghamshire; and thenceforward till the day of his

death gave himself up, with scarcely any intermission, to public affairs. He took lodgings in Gray's Inn Lane, near the house occupied by Pym, with whom he lived in habits of the closest intimacy. He was now decidedly the most popular man in England. The Opposition looked to him as their leader. The servants of the king treated him with marked respect. Charles requested the Parliament to vote an immediate supply, and pledged his word that if they would gratify him in this request, he would afterwards give them time to represent their grievances to him. The grievances under which the nation suffered were so serious, and the royal word had been so shamefully violated, that the Commons could hardly be expected to comply with this request. During the first week of the session the minutes of the proceedings against Hampden were laid on the table by Oliver St. John, and the committee reported that the case was matter of grievance. The king sent a message to the Commons, offering, if they would vote him twelve subsidies, to give up the prerogative of ship-money. Many years before he had received five subsidies in consideration of his assent to the Petition of Right. By assenting to that petition, he had given up the right of levying ship-money, if he ever possessed it. How he had observed the promises made to his third Parliament all England knew; and it was not strange that the Commons should be somewhat unwilling to buy from him over and over again their own ancient and undoubted inheritance.

His message, however, was not unfavourably received. The Commons were ready to give a large supply, but they were not disposed to give it in exchange for a prerogative of which they altogether denied the existence. If they acceded to the proposal of the king, they recognised the legality of the writs of ship-money.

Hampden, who was a greater master of parliamentary tactics than any man of his time, saw that this was the prevailing feeling, and availed himself of it with great dexterity. He moved that the question should be put, "Whether the House would consent to the proposition made by the king as contained in the message." Hyde interfered, and proposed that the question should be divided; that the sense of the House should be taken merely on the point, "Supply,

or no supply?" and that the manner and the amount should be left for subsequent consideration.

The majority of the House was for granting a supply, but against granting it in the manner proposed by the king. If the House had divided on Hampden's question, the court would have sustained a defeat; if on Hyde's, the court would have gained an apparent victory. Some members called for Hyde's motion, others for Hampden's. In the midst of the uproar the secretary of state, Sir Harry Vane, rose and stated that the supply would not be accepted unless it were voted according to the tenor of the message. Vane was supported by Herbert, the solicitor-general. Hyde's motion was therefore no further pressed, and the debate on the general question was adjourned till the next day.

On the next day the king came down to the House of Lords, and dissolved the Parliament with an angry speech.

His conduct on this occasion has never been defended by any of his apologists. Clarendon condemns it severely. "No man," says he, "could imagine what offence the Commons had given." The offence which they had given is plain. They had, indeed, behaved most temperately and most respectfully. But they had shown a disposition to redress wrongs and to vindicate the laws; and this was enough to make them hateful to a king whom no law could bind, and whose whole government was one system of wrong.

The nation received the intelligence of the dissolution with sorrow and indignation. The only persons to whom this event gave pleasure were those few discerning men who thought that the maladies of the state were beyond the reach of gentle remedies. Oliver St. John's joy was too great for concealment. It lighted up his dark and melanchply features, and made him, for the first time, indiscreetly communicative. He told Hyde that things must be worse before they could be better; and that the dissolved Parliament would never have done all that was necessary. St. John, we think, was in the right. No good could then have been done by any Parliament which did not adopt as its great principle that no confidence could safely be placed in the king, and that, while he enjoyed more than the shadow of power, the nation would never enjoy more than the shadow of liberty.

As soon as Charles had dismissed the Parliament, he

threw several members of the House of Commons into prison. Ship-money was exacted more rigorously than ever; and the mayor and sheriffs of London were prosecuted before the Star-Chamber for slackness in levying it. Wentworth, it is said, observed, with characteristic insolence and cruelty, that things would never go right till the aldermen were hanged. Large sums were raised by force on those counties in which the troops were quartered. All the wretched shifts of a beggared exchequer were tried. Forced loans were raised. Great quantities of goods were bought on long credit and sold for ready money. A scheme for debasing the currency was under consideration. At length, in August, the king again marched northward.

The Scots advanced into England to meet him. It is by no means improbable that this bold step was taken by the advice of Hampden, and of those with whom he acted; and this has been made matter of grave accusation against the English Opposition. To call in the aid of foreigners in a domestic quarrel, it is said, is the worst of treasons; and that the Puritan leaders, by taking this course, showed that they were regardless of the honour and independence of the nation, and anxious only for the success of their own faction. We are utterly unable to see any distinction between the case of the Scotch invasion in 1640 and the case of the Dutch invasion in 1688, or rather we see distinctions which are to the advantage of Hampden and his friends. We believe Charles to have been, beyond all comparison, a worse and more dangerous king than his son. The Dutch were strangers to us; the Scots a kindred people, speaking the same language, subjects of the same crown, not aliens in the eye of the law. If, indeed, it had been possible that a Dutch army or a Scotch army could have enslaved England, those who persuaded Lesley to cross the Tweed, and those who signed the invitation to the Prince of Orange, would have been traitors to their country. But such a result was out of the question. All that either a Scotch or a Dutch invasion could do was to give the public feeling of England an opportunity to show itself. Both expeditions would have ended in complete and ludicrous discomfiture had Charles and James been supported by their soldiers and their people. In neither case, therefore, was the independence of VOL. II.-8

England endangered; in neither case was her honour cou promised: in both cases her liberties were preserved.

The second campaign of Charles against the Scots was short and ignominious. His soldiers, as soon as they saw the enemy, ran away as English soldiers have never run either before or since. It can scarcely be doubted that their flight was the effect, not of cowardice, but of disaffection. The four northern counties of England were occupied by the Scotch army. The king retired to York.

The game of tyranny was now up. Charles had risked and lost his last stake. It is impossible to retrace the mortifications and humiliations which this bad man now had to endure without a feeling of vindictive pleasure. His army was mutinous; his treasury was empty; his people clamoured for a Parliament; addresses and petitions against the government were presented. Strafford was for shooting those who presented them by martial law, but the king could not trust the soldiers. A great council of Peers was called at York, but the king could not trust even the Peers. He struggled, he evaded, he hesitated, he tried every shift rather than again face the representatives of his injured people. At length no shift was left. He made a truce with the Scots, and summoned a Parliament.

The leaders of the popular party had, after the late dissolution, remained in London for the purpose of organizing a scheme of opposition to the court. They now exerted themselves to the utmost. Hampden, in particular, rode from county to county exhorting the electors to give their votes to men worthy of their confidence. The great majority of the returns was on the side of the Opposition. Hampden was himself chosen member for both Wendover and for Buckinghamshire. He made his election to serve for the

county.

On the 3d of November, 1640-a day to be long remembered-met that great Parliament, destined to every extreme of fortune-to empire and to servitude, to glory and to contempt;-at one time the sovereign of its sovereign, at another time the servant of its servants, and the tool of its tools. From the first day of its meeting the attendance was great, and the aspect of the members was that of men not disposed to do the work negligently. The dissolution of the late Parliament had convinced most of them that half