Chap. II. But if he could not command the army, he could furnish the Book I, arsenal. At that day and under the then circumstances LIFE OF that service was priceless. Sir Robert COTTON's best and most memorable parliamentary 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. 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. SIR ROBERT COTTON. THE SEARCH 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, LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. Relation of Proceedings, &c.; MS. LANSD., 811, 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.' 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 the Speakers of both Houses of Parliament, in person, be exhorted and required to make a fair discovery of the ff. 133-139. ground that led them so to inform the King.' 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 I, see presently) to be of extremely brief duration. Pen-service of this sort was eminently congenial with 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 so well how to choose for others. On one of these occasions 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. Chap. II. COTTON'S SPEECH IN THE PARLIA MENT AT 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, 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 I 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 Chap. II. LIFE OF SIR ROBERT writer, or as speaker) Sir Robert COTTON impressed on his Book I, fellow-members in that memorable sitting at Oxford. Both the pith and the sting of the Speech may be found in its concluding words: 'His Majesty hath . . . wise, religious, and worthy servants. In loyal duty, we offer our humble desires that he would be pleased to advise with them together; . . . not with young and single counsel.' Well would it have been for CHARLES, had he taken those simple words to heart, in good time. To us, and now, there is a special interest in an incidental passage of this speech which relates to SOMERSET. The reader has seen how Count GONDOMAR's secret testimony-just disinterred from Simancas-against SOMERSET, as well as against COTTON, has recently been dealt with by an eminent historian. It is worth our while to remember some other words on that subject spoken publicly in the Parliament at Oxford almost two centuries and a half agone. They were spoken in the ears of men whose eyes had looked with keen scrutiny into the Spanish envoy as well as into the English minister. SOMERSET was still living. Men who then sat in the Parliament Chamber knew every incident in his official life, and not a few incidents in his private life, as well as every charge by which-publicly or privately-he had been infamed. They knew, exactly, Sir Robert COTTON's position towards the fallen minister. If we choose to suppose that ELIOT was now speaking what COTTON wrote, the inference is unchanged. To those listeners Sir John and Sir Robert were known to be politically double and inseparable.' (See, also, heretofore, the footnote to p. 73.) EULOGY ON The facts being so, what is the course taken by the COTTON's speaker when he finds occasion to remind the House of LORD things that happened when My Lord of Somerset stood in state of grace, and had the trust of the Signet Seal ?' (August, SOMERSET'S POLICY 1625). |