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Book I,
Chap. II.
LIFE OF

SIR ROBERT

COTTON.

or Marston Moor. They know that the marshalling of the forces which, at a period antecedent to that famous Petition, succeeded in winning a safe place on the fleshy tables' of the hearts of Englishmen for those political immunities it embodied-after the first written record had been vainly torn from the Council Book-was a feat of arms not less brilliant, in its way, than was that arraying of Ironsides, on much later days of the long strife, which resulted in 'Darwen stream with blood of Scots imbued,' and placed Worcester's laureat wreath on the brow of CROMWELL. There are many senses in which we have all of us (or nearly all) learnt to see the truth of the familiar words, Peace hath her victories, not less renown'd than War,' but in no sense have those words a deeper truth than when we simply invert MILTON'S Own application of them. By him they were pointed at something yet to be done, and which, as he hoped, might be done by CROMWELL. Nowadays, the historian has good ground to point them at an earlier victory, won when the great soldier was but looking on at the parliamentary contest, which he could not much advance, and might very possibly have seriously impeded. The one thing which has transmuted Robert COTTON from the status of a dead antiquary into that of a living English worthy, is his close fellowship with ELIOT, RUDYARD, and Prм. His rights to a place amongst our national worthies is due-more than all else-to the fact that the services which he rendered in that strife of heroes were services which one man, and only one, throughout broad England had made himself capable of rendering. COTTON could no more have led the parliamentary phalanx, than he could have led the Ironsides. To stir men's minds as ELIOT or PYм could stir them was about as much in his power as it was to have invented logarithms, or to have written 'Lear.'

But if he could not command the army, he could furnish the arsenal. At that day and under the then circumstances that service was priceless.

Sir Robert COTTON's best and most memorable parlia mentary service was rendered under CHARLES; not under JAMES. But there is one incident in his public career which occurred just before the change in the wearers of the Crown that has a claim to mention, even in so brief a memoir as this.

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Among the revenges wrought by the whirligigs of time' before JAMES went to his grave, was the necessity laid upon him to direct a search for precedents how best to put a mark of disgrace on a Spanish Ambassador for misconduct in his office. The man selected by the Duke of Buckingham to make the search, and to report upon it, was Sir Robert COTTON. Some weeks before he had been chosen to draw up, in the name of both Houses of Parliament, a formal address to the King for the rupture of the Spanish match.

Book 1,
LIFE OF

Chap. II.

SIR ROBERT
COTTON.

THE SEARCH
DENTS

FOR PRECE

AGAINST
AMBAS-

When BUCKINGHAM made that famous speech at the Conference of Lords and Commons on the relations between England and Spain, to which COTTON's well-known Remonstrance of the treaties of Amity and Marriage of the SADORS. Houses of Austria and Spain with the Kings of England,* was to serve as a preface, he spoke with considerable force and incisiveness. His arguments were not hampered 1624. by many anxieties about consistency with his own antece

*Such is the title in Cottoni Posthuma. In MS. Harl. 180-apparently given by Cotton himself to Sir S. D'Ewes-the title is 'A Declaration against the Matche,' &c. In that copy, this note occurs at the end, in Sir Symonds' hand :-'Thus far only, as Sir Robert Cotton himself told me, he proceeded; leaving the rest to be added. . . according to the relation.. declared before the greater part of both Houses by . . . the Duke of Buckingham.'-MS. Harl. 180, fol. 169.

27 April.

Book I,
Chap. II.

LIFE OF

SIR ROBERT

COTTON.

dents. His words were chosen with a view to clinch his arguments to English minds rather than to spare Spanish susceptibilities. The ambassadors-there were then, I think, two of them-were furious at a degree of plainspeaking to which they had been little accustomed. They appealed to the King. They knew that the versatile favourite, once loved, was now dreaded. They tried to work on the King's cowardice. The Duke, they told His Majesty, had plotted the calling of Parliament expressly to have a sure tool with which to keep him in control, should he prove refractory to the joint schemes of the Duke and Prince CHARLES. They will confine your Majesty's sacred person,' said they, 'to some place of pleasure, and transfer the regal power upon the Prince.'

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The framing of such an accusation, writes Sir Robert, in the Report which he addressed to BUCKINGHAM on 'Proceedings against Ambassadors who have miscarried themselves,' would, by the laws of the realm, amount to High Treason, had it been made by a subject. He then adduces a long string of precedents for the treatment of offending envoys; advises that the Spaniards should first be immediately confined to their own abode; and should then, by Relation of the Speakers of both Houses of Parliament, in person, be exhorted and required to make a fair discovery of the ground that led them so to inform the King.'

Proceedings,

&c.; MS.

LANSD., 811, ff. 133-139.

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If, says Sir Robert, they refuse as I believe they will' then are they authors of the scandal, and His Majesty should be addressed to send a letter of complaint to the King of Spain, requiring justice to be done according to the law of nations, which claim should the King of Spain refuse, the refusal would amount to a declaration of war.' This advice was given by COTTON to the Duke on the 27th of April, 1624. Its author's momentary favour with the

favourite of the now fast-rising sun was destined (as we shall Book 1, see presently) to be of extremely brief duration.

Chap. II.
LIFE OF

COTTON.

Pen-service of this sort was eminently congenial with SIR ROBERT Sir Robert COTTON's powers. To his vast knowledge of precedents he added much acumen and just insight in their application. Though never admitted to the Privy Council as a sworn councillor of the Crown, his service as an adviser on several great emergencies was conspicuous.

And it did not stand alone. Small as were his natural gifts for oratory, COTTON's earnestness in the strife of politics prompted him, more than once, to put aside his own sense of his disadvantages, and to endeavour himself to strike a good blow, with the weapons which he knew COTTON'S so well how to choose for others. On one of these occa- THE PARLIAsions he prepared a speech which proved very effective.

Curiously enough, whilst the best contemporary reports of that speech agree amongst themselves in substance; they differ as to the name of the speaker by whom it was actually uttered within the walls of the House of Commons. Internal evidence and external authority are also agreed that the speech, if not spoken, was at all events prepared by Sir Robert COTTON. On that point, all parties coincide. But according to one account, he both wrote and uttered it. According to another, he wrote it; but was prevented from the intended delivery, either by an accidental absence from the House, or by some inward and unwaivable misgiving which led him at the eleventh hour to hand over the task to the able and well-accustomed tongue of his comrade ELIOT.

SPEECH IN

MENT AT
Oxford.

1625.

10 August.

OR ELIOT'S?

If we turn, for help-in our strait-to the admirable COTTON's? biography of ELIOT, by Mr. FORSTER, we shall find that its author rather accepts the doubt, than solves it. Inclining

BOOK I, Chap. II. LIFE OF

SIR ROBERT

COTTON.

to the opinion that Sir John ELIOT was the actual utterer, he thinks nevertheless that the best course is to let the speech stand double and inseparable; a memorial of a fast friendship.' It was the friendship, I may add, of two statesmen who fought a good fight, side by side; until one of them was violently torn out of the arena, and thrust into a dungeon, in the hope that slow disease might unstring the eloquent tongue which honours could not bribe, and terrors could not silence.

In Sir Robert's posthumous tracts (as they were published by James HOWELL) this speech has been printed as unquestionably spoken by him who wrote it. But that publication as I have had occasion to show already, in relation to the Twenty-four Arguments'-carries no grain of authority. Spoken or simply composed by its author, the speech is alike memorable in English history, and in the personal life of the man himself.

The existence of the plague in London had led to the adjournment of the first Parliament of King CHARLES to Oxford. It was there, and on the 10th of August, 1625, that the speech which-whether it came from the lips of John ELIOT or of Robert COTTON-made a deep impression on the House, was spoken. It gave the key-note to not a few speeches of a subsequent date, and it contains passages which, in the event, came to have on their face something of the stamp of prophecy.

Retrenchment in expenditure,-Parliamentary curb on Royal favourites,-No trust of a transcendent power to any one Minister,-Less lavishness in the bestowal of honours and dignities won by suit, or purchase, rather than by public meed,-Wary distrust of Spain,-Abolition of unjust monopolies and oppressive imposts ;-these are amongst the earnest counsels which (whether it were as

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