Chap. II. SIR ROBERT The Privy Council was divided in opinion. There was a BOOK I, desire for the advice of statesmen who were not at the LIFE OF Board, but who were known to have studied a subject COTTON. beset with many difficulties. Among these, Sir Robert COTTON was consulted. He appeared at the Council Table on the 2nd of September, 1626, and we have a report of his speech to the Lords, which from several points of view is notable. But a preliminary word or two needs to be said on what may seem the singularity that a man who, in 1625, was fighting zealously beside the Parliamentary patriots, should, in 1626, be speaking at the Council Council Table as a quasi-councillor of the Crown. MS. LANSD., ff. 141-152. (B. M.) Registers, v sim. (C. O.) It might be sufficient to point attention to the obvious and vi, pasdifference between questions affecting the liberty of the subject, and questions of mere administration, were this the only occasion-or were it a fair sample of the only class of occasions-in which COTTON appears as an unofficial Councillor. But the fact is otherwise. And it is best to be explained, partly, by the unsettled character of party connection during the political strife of CHARLES' reign, as well as long afterwards, and partly by peculiarities belonging to the man himself. There are not many statesmen, even of that period, of whom it could be said as the able biographer of Sir John ELIOT says of Sir Robert COTTON: 'He acted warmly with vol. i, p 468. ELIOT and with the patriots in the first Parliament of CHARLES. At the opening of the third, he was tendering counsel to the King, of which the obsequious forms * It has been printed by Howell in the Cottoni Posthuma of 1651, pp. 283294; and is followed by The Answer of the Committees appointed by Your Lordships to the Propositions delivered by some Officers of the Mint for inhauncing His Majesties monies of gold and silver. The Answer' as well as the speech, appears to be from Sir Robert's pen. Life of Sir John Eliot, BOOK I, have yet left no impression unfavourable to his uprightness and honour.' The result is unusual. How came it to Perhaps the preceding pages may have already suggested to the reader's mind more than one possible and plausible answer to this question. Here it may suffice to say that while Sir Robert COTTON was plainly at one with the Parliamentarian leaders in the main points of their civil policy, he never went to the extreme lengths of the puritanic faith, either in things secular, or in matters pertaining to Religion. On some religious questions he differed from them widely. In secular matters, a tyrannic Parliament would have been as little to his liking as a despotic king. Neither friend nor enemy-GONDOMAR excepted-ever called him a Puritan (or pretended-Puritan) in his lifetime, any more than they would have called him a Republican. His ultimate divergence was not cloaked. It was no bar to the entire respect, or to the love and close fellowship, of men like ELIOT, just because it was frankly avowed, and had no selfish aim. COTTON,-had he lived long enough, would probably have ranged himself, at last, with the Cavaliers, rather than with the Roundheads. would have had FALKLAND's misgivings, and FALKLAND'S sorrow, but I think he would not have lacked FALKLAND'S self-devotion also. He And, in another point, he resembled Lord FALKLAND. Both would have advised CHARLES to yield much of socalled 'prerogative.' Neither of them would have bade him to yield a grain of true royal honour. In later years, some words which COTTON wrote,-in 1627,-for the King's eye may well have come back painfully into CHARLES' memory: To expiate the passion of the People,' said Sir Robert, with sacrifice of any of His Majesty's servants, I have ever found to be no fatal to the Master than to the Minister, in end.' less BOOK I, the LIFE OF Chap. II. SIR ROBERT THE ADVICE GIVEN BY SIR R. COTTON ON MINT ArOthers FAIRS. The question of the Coinage, on which he was called into Council in September 1626, had caused no small measure of discussion whilst JAMES was still on the throne. Many merchants of London had raised the old and hacknied cry of complaint against an alleged 'vast transportation of gold and silver from England' to the Continent. said that the complaint, if not groundless, was misdirected. The following Minute of the Privy Council will shew how the question stood in that early stage. It was drawn up in November, 1618. Being by Your Majesty's commandment to take into our consideration the state of the Mint and to advise of the way or means how to bring bullion more plentifully into the Kingdom, and to be coined there, as also how to stop the great exportation of treasure out of the Realm,—a matter of which the State hath been jealous: For our better information and Your Majesty's satisfaction we thought it fit first to know from the Office of your Mint what quantity of gold and silver hath been there coined in the last seven years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth and the seven years last past of Your Majesty. And we find that in the said seven years of the Queen there was coined in gold and silver of all sorts £948,713 sterling, whereas in the seven late years of Your Majesty's reign there hath been coined of all sorts, in gold and silver, £1,603,998. So as, comparing the one with the other, there hath been coined of both species in the said seven years of Your Majesty's reign £655,285 sterling, more than in the seven years aforesaid of the Queen, the difference being almost Council to the King, 30 Nov., 1618; James I, vol. iv, p. 45. (c.o.) BOOK I, Chap. II. LIFE OF COTTON. three parts to one. Next we required a certificate from the Goldsmiths of London of the Plate that hath been SIR ROBERT made in those years within the City of London; and it appeareth that there was made and stamped in their hall the last seven years of Queen Elizabeth of silver plate the worth of £22,187 more than in the seven later years of Your Majesty's reign. But upon the whole matter we cannot find and do humbly certify the same unto Your Majesty as our opinion that there hath been of late any such vast transportation of gold and silver into France and the Low Countries as was supposed; neither that there is any such notorious diminution of treasure generally in the Kingdom-at the least of gold-since it is apparent that there hath been a far greater quantity in the total coined within these seven years last past than in the last seven years of the late Queen. Besides Your Majesty may be pleased to observe that the making of so much silver plate cannot be the principal cause of the decay of the Mint since there was more plate made in London [in] those last seven years of the Queen,-when there came more silver to be coined in the Mint, than there hath been used of late years, when silver in the Mint hath been so scarce though Gold more plentiful. In the mean time we do humbly offer that there is no necessity Registers of Privy Council, as above, p. 46. (C. O.) to raise your coin, either in the one kind or in the other. But rather that the same may draw with it many inconveniences; and because the noise thereof through the City of London and from thence to other parts of the Realm, as we understand, hath already done hurt and in some measure interrupted and distracted the course of general commerce, we think it very requisite that some signification be forthwith made from this Table that Your Majesty hath no purpose at this Book I, time to raise your coins.' Chap. II. SIR ROBERT In his address at the Board, Sir Robert made an almost exhaustive examination of the history of the English Mint. He did it with much brevity and pith. His views about foreign trade are, of course, not free from the fallacies. which were accepted as aphorisms by very nearly every statesman then living. But his advice on the immediate question at issue is marked by sound common sense, by insight and practical wisdom. His speech told, and he followed it up by framing, as Chairman of a Committee, (1) an Answer to the Propositions delivered by some Officers MS. LANSD., of the Mint; and (2) Certain General Rules collected con- 152 (B. M) cerning Money and Bullion out of the late Consultation at [Compare the Court. Copies of both exist amongst the Harleian and Proceedings Lansdowne MSS., and both, together with the Speech, are printed in the Posthuma (although not without some of the Editor's characteristic inaccuracies). The next question which it was Sir Robert's task to discuss before the Privy Council was a much more momentous question than that of the Coinage. It was, potentially, both to Sovereign and to people, an issue of life or death. 811, ff. 148 Report of in the House of Commons, Feb. 1621. (Parl. Hist., vol. i, c. 1188 1191).] |