had usually granted it as of their special favour in the beginning of each reign, except to Henry the Eighth, who had it not conferred on him by parliament till the sixth year of his sitting on the throne. Although he had continued to receive it from the beginning, yet he thought it necessary to have the sanction of parliament to ensure it to him, which certainly implied that it was not an inherent privilege of the crown. Upon this argument, the commons founded their objections to the levying it in the present reign; it was a tax they had not yet granted, and it had been granted by them in every preceding reign. They refused, therefore, to grant it now; and insisted the king could not levy it without their permission.

This bred a long contest, as may be supposed, between the commons and the crown. The officers of the custom-house were summoned before the commons, to give an account by what authority they seized the goods of the merchants, who had refused to pay these duties. The barons of the exchequer were questioned concerning their decrees on that head; the sheriff of London was committed to the Tower for his activity in supporting the custom-house officers. These were bold measures; but the commons went still farther, by a resolution to examine into religious grievances, and a new spirit of intolerance began to appear. The king, therefore, re- A. D. solved to dissolve a parliament, which he 1629. found himself unable to manage; and Sir

John Finch, the speaker, just as the question concerning tonnage and poundage was going to be put, rose up and informed the house that he had a command from the king to adjourn.

Nothing could exceed the consternation and indignation of the commons upon this information. Just at a time they were carrying their most favourite

vourite points to a bearing, to be thus adjourned, and the parliament dissolved, rendered them furious. The house was in an uproar; the speaker was pushed back into his chair, and forcibly held in it by Hollis and Valentine, till a short remonstrance was framed, and passed by acclamation rather than vote. In this hasty production, Papists and Arminians were declared capital enemies to the state. Tonnage and poundage was condemned as contrary to law; and not only those who raised that duty, but those who paid it, were considered as guilty of capital crimes.

In consequence of this violent procedure, Sir Miles Hobart, Sir Peter Heyman, Selden, Coriton, Long and Strode, where by the king's order, committed to prison under pretence of sedition. But the same temerity that impelled Charles to imprison them, induced him to grant them a release. Sir John Elliot, Hollis, and Valentine, were summoned before the King's Bench; but they refusing to appear before an inferior tribunal, for faults committed in a superior, they were condemned to beimprisoned duringthe king's pleasure, to pay a fine, the two former of a thousand pounds each, and the latter of five hundred, and to find sureties for their good behaviour. The members triumphed in their sufferings, while they had the whole kingdom as spectators and applauders of their fortitude.

In the mean time, while the king was thus distressed by the obstinacy of the commons, he felt a much severer blow in the death of his favourite, the duke of Buckingham, who fell a sacrifice to his unpopularity. It had been resolved once more to undertake the raising of the siege of Rochelle; and the earl of Denbigh, brother in-law to Buckingham, was sent thither, but returned without effecting any thing. In order to repair this dis

grace,

grace, the duke of Buckingham went in person to Portsmouth to hurry on another expedition, and to punish such as had endeavoured to defraud the crown of the legal assessments. In the general discontent that prevailed against this nobleman, it was daily expected that some severe measureswould be resolved on; and he was stigmatized as the ty rant and the betrayer of his country,, There was one Felton, who caught the general contagion; an Irishman of a good family, who had served under the duke as lieutenant, but had resigned, on being refused his rank on the death of his captain, who had been killed at the isle of Rhé. This man was naturally melancholy, courageous, and enthusiastic; he felt for his country, as if labouring under a calamity which he thought it in the power of his single arm to remove. He therefore resolved to kill the duke, and thus revenge his own private injuries, while he did service also to God and man. Animated in this manner with gloomy zeal and mistaken patriotism, he travelled downl to Portsmouth alone, and entered the town while the duke was surrounded by his levee, and giving out the necessary orders for embarkation. He was at that time engaged in conversation with one Soubize, and other French gentlemen; and a difference of sentiments having arisen in the conference, it was attended with all those violent gesticulations with which foreigners generally enforce their meaning. The conversation being finished, the duke drew towards the door; and while he was speaking to one of his colonels, Felton struck him over that officer's shoulder in the breast with his knife. The duke had only time to say, "The " villain has killed me," when he fell at the colonel's feet, and instantly expired. No one had seen the blow, the person who gave it; but in the confusou it was generally supposed that he VOL. III.

nor

G

was murdered by one of the Frenchmen, who appeared so violent in their motions but a little before. They were accordingly secured, as for certain punishment: but in the mean time an hat was picked up, on the inside of which was sewed a paper, containing four or five lines of the remonstrance of the commons against the duke; and under these lines a short ejaculation, desiring aid in the attempt. It was now concluded that this hat must belong to the assassin; and while they were employed in conjectures whose it should be, a man without an hat was seen walking very composedly before the door, and was heard to cry out, I am he. He disdained denying a murder in which he gloried; and averred, that he looked upon the duke as an enemy to his country, and as such deserving to suffer. When asked at whose instigation he had performed that horrid deed? he answered, that they need not trouble themselves in that enquiry; that his conscience was his only prompter, and that no man on earth could dispose him to act against its dictates. He suffered with the same degree of constancy to the last ; nor were there many wanting who admired not only his fortitude, but the action for which he suffered.

The king had always the highet regard for Buckingham, and was extremely mortified at his death; he began to perceive that the tide of popularity was entirely turned from him, and that the house of commons only served to encrease the general discontent. He felt therefore a disgust against parliaments; and he was resolved not to call any more, till he should see greater indications of a compliant disposition in the nation. Having lost his favourite Buckingham, he became more his own minister, and never afterwards reposed such unlimited confidence in any other. But though the minister of the crown was changed, the mea

sures

sures still continued the same; the same disregard to the petitions of the people, the same desire of extending and supporting the prerogative, the same temerity, and the same weakness of condescension.

→→His first measure, however, now being left with out a minister and a parliament, was

a prudent one. He made peace with A. D., the two crowns, against whom he had 1629. hitherto waged war, which had been entered upon without necessity, and conducted without glory. Being freed from these embarrassments, he bent his whole attention to the management of the internal policy of the kingdom, and took two men as his associates in this task, who still acted an under part to himself. These were Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards created earl of Strafford; and Laud, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury.

Strafford, by his eminent talents and abilities, merited all the confidence which the king reposed in him. His character was stately and austere; more fitted to procure esteem than love; his fidelity to the king was unshaken; but in serving the interests of the crown, he did not consider himself as an agent also for the benefit of the people. As he now employed all his counsels to support the prerogative, which he formerly had endea voured to diminish, his actions are liable to the imputation of self-interest and ambition, but his good character in private life made up for that seeming duplicity of public conduct.

Laud was in the church somewhat resembling Strafford in the state, rigid, severe, punctual, and industrious. His zeal was unrelenting in the cause of religion, and the forms as established in the reignof queen Elizabeth seemed essentialyconnected with it. His desire to keep these on their