A forced loan.

In this hope a proclamation was issued which set forth some of the embarrassments, and declared the good intentions of the government. It was acknowledged to be highly proper, in ordinary cases, that the money necessary to carry on such enterprises should be obtained through the medium of parliament, but the danger at this juncture was said to be peculiarly urgent, and not to admit of so tedious a process. The plan proposed was that of a general loan. The rate of the last subsidy was to determine the amount of each man's property, and the assistance required was to be about four subsidies in amount. It was carefully stated, however, that the money thus raised was not to be regarded as a tax, but strictly as a loan, and to be repaid from the next parliamentary supply; and while the king endeavoured to rouse the bishops and the people generally, the archbishop of Canterbury exhorted the clergy of all ranks to employ their diligence, "both in their preachings and private conferences, to stir up all sorts of people to express their zeal to God and duty to the king." The commissioners chosen to conduct this dangerous experiment were privately instructed to treat with each man alone; to insist in all cases on the prescribed sum; to examine such as should refuse on oath; to demand a statement of the motives of their disobedience, and the names of their advisers; to enjoin the strictest secrecy on the persons delivering such information; and to make a full report to the privy council concerning all persons who should persist in a refusal*.

It had been said that the monarch was a mere tool in the hands of the favourite; but Buckingham was now absent, and Oppressive Charles appears to have determined on making it evident conduct of the that the arbitrary proceedings which had been so gene- government. rally ascribed to the influence of another were the effect of his own inclination. The loan proved to be unpopular, and many chose rather to brave the displeasure of the government than to concur with its policy. Some of these were persons in humble life, who found their punishment in being forced from their homes and made to serve in the army or navy; while their more opulent neighbours were called before the council table, and from that lawless tribunal were sent to some distant prison. Several gentlemen thus committed added to their first offence by suing to the court of king's bench for their writ of habeas corpus, that they might thus obtain the protection which the law, if allowed its due course, would have afforded them. These confessors in the cause of civil freedom were sir Thomas Darnel, sir John Corbet, sir Walter Earl, sir John Heveningham, and sir Edward Hampden †.

Rushworth, i. 417-426. Bibliotheca Regia, 298-305. Rymer, xviii. 764, 835-842. Parl. Hist. ii. 207-258, passim.

+ Strafford Papers, i. 36-41. Rushworth, i. 426.

It appeared that the commitment of these persons was simply by order The liberty of of the king and council, and without any mention of the subject matters laid to their charge. This arbitrary form of comargued before the judges. mitment was declared by the counsel for the prisoners to Nov. 7-27. be illegal, and their liberation was demanded, or, at least, that they should be admitted to bail. But the court refused in both cases, and the knights were returned to their confinement. This, however, was not done until the right of any government to imprison Englishmen, except on the ground of some alleged violation of the law, was argued with a freedom and fullness which left an impression on the nation with regard to that important subject that no subsequent course of affairs has been found sufficient to efface. A constitution purporting to give the power of making laws to the nation is a mockery, if at the same time it shall confer on the government the right to create offences without regard to the laws so made. Our protection against wrong, not only requires that the power of legislation should be vested in the community, but that it should pertain to that power to determine what acts may or may not be visited with punishment. The liberty of the subject was ably defended in this instance by Noy and Selden. Heath, the attorney-general, laboured to support the pretensions of the crown. It was not denied that the members of the council, in virtue of their general office as magistrates, might order individuals charged with any offence against the law into custody. But it was argued that members of council, in common with other magistrates, were bound to assign a lawful cause for every degree of restraint laid upon the person of the subject, that by this means the proper authorities might be enabled to determine whether the parties deprived of their personal freedom should be released, admitted to bail, or otherwise dealt with. If this course of proceeding was not what the law required, it must follow that the ministers of the crown might deprive any man of his liberty at pleasure, and for as long a period as might appear to them expedient. It was argued that, as a protection against this evil, Magna Charta had provided, that "no freeman should be taken or imprisoned, except by lawful judgment of his peers, or the law of the land;" and in confirmation of this memorable provision, a series of statutes founded upon it were now cited. It was not required that the process of a regular indictment should precede the taking of an accused party into custody, but merely that his commitment should be accompanied with a warrant stating its cause. It was also shown that no command of the sovereign, in whatever manner issued, could justify the imprisonment of a subject, the only authority for such an act, known to the constitution, being the seal of a court. Instances were adduced from the Tudor reigns of persons thus imprisoned by the privy council, or by the immediate authority of the crown, but who, on suing for their

writ, were released or admitted to bail. It was, however, very wisely observed, that the question, after all, was not one that should rest on precedent, "but upon the fundamental laws and statutes of the realm, and that precedents, though they look one way or the other, were to be brought back to the laws by which the kingdom is governed."

In opposing the argument of the advocates of liberty, the attorneygeneral had little to urge except what was grounded on the sort of precedent which had been afforded by the conduct of the English government in having not unfrequently violated these provisions of the law. The arguments, indeed, usually employed to justify those stretches of the prerogative were much dwelt upon, but the statutes designed to prevent such dangerous outbreaks of power remained, and it was manifest from these proceedings that the people now very generally demanded that those securities which the patriotism of former times had bequeathed to them should not only exist in the form of acknowledged law, but be accounted sacred, so as not to be invaded on the part of the crown under any pretext.

But the time to urge this demand with success had not arrived. The decision of the judges in this case, and a decision pro- Unconstitunounced after much deliberation, was in substance that tional decision of the judges. whatever the men of past times may have done to secure Nov. 27. the personal freedom of their descendants, was to be a rule to the monarch and his council only at such times and in such cases as should be deemed by them expedient, When the government demanded money, however illegally, and to whatever extent, the subject was to bear in mind that there was a power inherent in the crown which would authorise the sovereign to punish the disobedient with indefinite imprisonment*.

Nor was imprisonment, or the forcing of the common people into the army or navy, the only means of punishment resorted to at this juncture. Sir Peter Hayman refused the loan exacted from him, and in consequence found himself obliged to go to the Palatinate on the business of the crown; Glanvil, the distinguished lawyer, was chargeable with the same offence, and made to accept an office in the navy; while many of the people were exposed to much cost and outrage in having the soldiers who had returned from the Cadiz expedition quartered upon them t.

State Trials, iii. 1-234. Rushworth, i. 458–462. Parl. Hist. ii. 245-258. We learn from a MS. letter of the time that the counsel for the prisoners in this case were heard "with wonderful applause, even with shoutings and clapping of hands," which is noticed as very unusual on such occasions. Harleian MSS. cited in Forster's Life of sir John Eliot.

Parl. Hist. ii. 256, 257. Rushworth, i. 418-420. Strafford Papers, i. 40. Wentworth, in the short day of his patriotism, described these " companies of guests" as violating the wives and daughters of freemen before their face, and the passage in Rushworth is to that effect. Parl. Hist. i. 236.

The discontent excited by these proceedings was not confined to the puritan or patriot parties, but extended to the nation, with the exception of a few unprincipled courtiers, and that portion of the clergy who usually acted with them. The examples from the past usages of government, which had been adduced to justify such exercises of power, were sure to be in a great degree, if not wholly, inapplicable to the present state of affairs. They were manifest irregularities, resulting, in most cases, from exigencies to which no parallel could be shown in the present circumstances of the kingdom. In the worst times, they were as exceptions to the usual temper of the government, while the object now certainly meditated was to make them the rule. The end proposed was nothing less than the substitution of a systematic in the place of an occasional tyranny,—a change that could not be regarded without alarm and indignation, except by the weak or the dishonest. Charles was disposed to pursue this unpopular course principally from his want of money; and his want of money was the War with France. natural result of his determination neither to relinquish the war nor to allow the commons to entertain the question of grievances before proceeding to that of supplies; and, as though anxious to increase the difficulties which had led him to adopt such an arbitrary line of conduct, it was at this moment that the English monarch resolved on finding occasion for a war with France. This step, in common with so many of the same impolitic description, owed its origin to the influence of Buckingham. It is true, the attendants on Henrietta, who, at the command of Charles, had been sent back to Paris, had filled its circles with loud complaints against English perfidy, and their tales had obtained an easy credence where Charles expected that more confidence would have been reposed in him. There were also certain treaties between the French government and the churches of the protestant union, which had been made in part through the interference of the English crown, and the provisions of which, it was said, had not been strictly observed. But these circumstances alone would not have been sufficient to produce hostilities. Buckingham, who had made his professions of zeal in the cause of the Palatinate a cover under which to indulge his resentment against Spain, now affected a great concern for the independence of the Hugonots, for the purpose of venting his displeasure against the court of France, and particularly against Richelieu. But the people, who had fallen into the first snare, were more upon their guard with respect to the second.

During a visit to Paris, for the purpose of conducting Henrietta to England, the English favourite had received the most flattering attentions from the court of Louis. The scenes of gaiety which were prepared in honour of the royal nuptials suited both his taste and capacity much more than the difficulties which pertain to the wise government of kingdoms. As the favourite of two sovereigns, and the ad

miration of the most accomplished women in the most polished court of Europe, Buckingham presumed to indulge a romantic passion for the queen herself, the youthful Anne of Austria. But his conduct was marked; his subsequent intention to visit the French capital was checked by a message which forbade his approach; and the aspiring libertine swore, in the bitterness of his resentment, that he would still see the queen in spite of all the power of France. From this moment he became concerned to produce hostilities between the two crowns, as the means of making his enemies in the French capital sensible of his power, and in the hope of resuming his place there for the purpose of dictating the terms of reconciliation between the monarch of France and the insurgent forces arrayed against him. The dismissal of the queen's attendants he regarded as one step towards this object. He also employed himself, as lord admiral, in seizing a number of French vessels, under the pretence of their containing Spanish property, and at length appeared before Rochelle, the centre of the protestant power in France, with a fleet of a hundred sail, bearing an army of seven thousand men. But this enterprise also proved a failure; and Buck · ingham, after many losses, returned to England, subject to almost every reproach except that of cowardice*.

July 11.

Oct. 30.

Charles saw the use that would be made of this occurrence by the enemies of the favourite, whom he regarded as his own, Financial diffiand was careful to receive the dishonoured leader with culties-Third every expression of unabated confidence and affection. parliament. He spoke of preparing a more powerful armament without delay, and assured the unhappy protestants of Rochelle that more effectual aid should soon be rendered to them. But it was less difficult to indulge the imagination upon such plans than to provide the means necessary for carrying them into effect. Mention was made of a parliament, but Charles professed to "abominate the name." Other expedients were suggested, which, upon examination, were successively abandoned, as more likely to augment disaffection than to furnish the needed assistance. Charles at length consented that his third parliament should be assembled, this being the only method by which the requisite supplies could be obtained without the utmost hazard to the tranquillity of the kingdom. It was also deemed important, in consequence of these circumstances, that something should be done to allay the popular irritation which had been excited by the arbitrary conduct of the government. Archbishop Abbot had shown himself opposed to the unconstitutional policy of the court, and pretexts for his suspension were not wanting. But the primate was now restored to his functions; the earl of Bristol

* Clarendon Hist. i. 38. Cabala, 252, 253. Rushworth, 423-428, 462-466. Warwick's Memoirs, 18-28. Strafford Papers, i. 41. Hardwicke Papers, ii. 13 -51. Ellis's Letters, iii. 251. Bibliotheca Regia, 224-229. See also pp. 215218 of this volume.