CAMEO XXXI. PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT. (1641-1642.) CAMEO Return of Charles. 1641. THE Irish Rebellion as well as the meeting of Parliament brought the They therefore drew up what was called "The Great Remonstrance" on the state of the nation. It began by setting forth that there had been a coalition of wicked nobles, Papists and Arminian Bishops to subvert the liberties of the nation, and enumerated all the former grievances together with their own exertions to remedy them, including the execution of Strafford and prosecution of the Archbishop, and finally declaring that all their best efforts were frustrated by a combination of the malignant favourites at court with the popish lords, and illaffected Bishops in the House of Lords. This was brought forward on the 22nd of November. The House had been sitting since 8 A. M., and at noon had broken up for dinner. On meeting again the Remonstrance was called for. Lord Falkland and others would have put it off to another day. Oliver Cromwell demanded why, and Falkland said it was too late in the day, as there would certainly be a debate. "A very sorry one," said Cromwell, who thought it would have been carried easily, but there was a strong opposition, and the debate lasted not only all day, but till two o'clock at night, so that the less robust of the members were worn out, and were gone home before the division took place, and then it was carried by a majority of only nine. Cromwell had declared that if the Remonstrance had been defeated, he should have sold his property and taken his family to America. No doubt half of the Remonstrance was dictated by hatred to the Church, the other half by desire to obtain some safeguard that, in the case of a reaction, the King should not resume what he held to have been illegally forced from him, and treat the past resistance as treason. Sir Ralph Hopetown brought the Remonstrance to Charles on the 1st of December. He read it over and demurred at the supposed malignant faction. Then he came to a proposal to grant the lands of the Irish rebels to those who should put them down. "Catch the bear before selling his skin," he said. He asked several questions, but Hopetown said he had no liberty to answer him. He then asked if this petition was to be published, and Sir Ralph again refused to answer, though the Commons had a copy ready for instant publication. His answer was drawn up by Hyde, pointing out that the grievances had been redressed, declaring that he meant to maintain all the just rights of his subjects, and among them the seats of the Bishops in Parliament, and he maintained that he ought to have the free choice of his ministers. The printing of the Remonstrance had been at first rejected. It was now passed, and it had a powerful effect on the country, who took all for granted, and had not seen the declaration that the King was preparing. Charles now thought it well that the Lieutenant of the Tower should be a person less inclined to the Parliament than Sir William Balfour. No one had ever thought of interfering with this appointment, which came direct from the Crown, but the Commons thought proper to demand the cause of Balfour's dismissal, and petition the King on his behalf. This Charles disregarded, but his choice of a successor was unfortunate, for owing to an unexplained recommendation of Lord Digby's it fell on Sir Thomas Lunsford, a man whose attachment to the Crown might be trusted, but who was dissolute, violent, and irreligious, and naturally distrusted and dreaded by the Londoners. The merchants who sent their gold to the Tower to be coined, thought he might lay violent hands on it, and a request was sent to the Constable, Lord Newport, that he would always sleep there. The Commons petitioned the King to remove Lunsford and he did so substituting Sir John Byron. The Lords, however, had declined to join in the petition, thinking that the Tower was undeniably the King's own. This strengthened the САМЕО XXXI. The Great Remonstrance. 1641. CAMEO Popular Riots. 1641. growing dislike to the influence of the Bishops in the Upper House. Moreover, the Commons had passed a bill authorising the raising of 10,000 men to serve under the Earl of Leicester in Ireland, but the Lords were slow to pass it, and it was felt to be a critical matter, since by it the Parliament would be acknowledged to have the power of levying troops, and this the King could not allow to pass out of his own hands. He sent down a message promising to confirm the bill on condition that a proviso were added, securing the claims and privileges of the Crown. This raised a fresh storm, for it was held to be unauthorised interference with a measure before it was sent up to the King. He could plead that the Plantagenets had done the like, but little did any one reck of Plantagenet habits except when it was convenient to suppose that there had then been a golden age of parliaments, which was about to be restored. The Lords were as much affronted as the Commons, and the measure halted on its way. All this time there were tremendous uproars in the streets of London. On the disbanding of the army of the North, the guard round the Houses of Parliament had likewise been broken up by the King, but the members either were, or supposed themselves to be, in danger from plots of Popish recusants, Irish rebels, and malignants, as they called the Queen's friends, who certainly were not always reputable, and were given to intrigues like those of Paris. A disorderly rabble, chiefly consisting of apprentice boys, took upon themselves the guardianship of the Commons, and fulfilled it by howling at, and assaulting, every person of whom they disapproved, and the Bishops were especially obnoxious in their eyes, both on account of the notions of prelacy so diligently disseminated, and because their votes in the House of Lords were on the royal side. On his way from Scotland, Charles had translated Williams to York, and Ussher to Carlisle, and filled up four more sees, which was said to be for the sake of votes. A bill for the expulsion of Bishops from Parliament had passed the Commons, and was actually before the Lords. In the words of Butler's Hudibras "The oyster women locked their fish up, And some, for old suits, coats or cloak, No surplices or service book."" On one Monday morning, as Archbishop Williams was on his way to Westminster with the Earl of Dover, he was surrounded and hemmed in by this scurrilous mob, shouting "No Bishop." He was provoked to lay hold of one of the foremost and worst, whereupon the whole host, many of them with swords as well as clubs, rescued their comrade, and hemmed in the Bishop with furious cries. CAMEO XXXI. David Hide, a soldier recently appointed to some command in Ireland, came to the Archbishop's help, sword in hand, and shouting that he would cut the throat of these Roundhead dogs who cried out Roundhead. against Bishops. The Archbishop escaped unhurt, but Hide was overpowered, disarmed, and dragged before the Commons, who cashiered him for the offence of drawing his sword against a foulmouthed rabble in defence of an old man! The honour of the invention of the term Roundhead lies between Hide and the Queen. It is said that the Court adopted it because, looking out of the window at one of these mobs, she exclaimed "Oh! what a handsome young Roundhead." At any rate it became the nickname of the party from the cropped heads of their rank and file, the 'prentices, since the gentlemen dressed like others of their degree. On that same Monday, Colonel Lunsford and thirty or forty of his comrades, by way of counter-demonstration, swaggered through the streets, whereupon hundreds of Londoners rushed out armed with clubs and swords, and surrounded Westminster with loud cries. The Lords sent out and bade them depart in the King's name, but they answered that they could not, because Lunsford and his crew were lying in wait. The Lord Mayor and Sheriffs appeased this tumult with difficulty, and the King, who was at Whitehall, called out the train bands to defend the palace. Williams, who was Dean of Westminster, the next day tried to examine some of the apprentices, but this brought an assault on the Abbey, the mob shouting that they would destroy the organ and the tombs of the kings. The Regalia were also kept there, and Williams had to summon all the servants of the Abbey together. They closed the doors, mounted the leads, and defended themselves with stones, whereby a gentleman called Sir Richard Wiseman was killed, as he certainly deserved for his sacrilegious attempt. On the 27th of December the rabble surrounded the House of Lords, and many of them penetrated into the outer hall, roaring that they would tear the Bishops to pieces. The King sent a proclamation to them to disperse, but it only made them more violent, and when darkness came on, the Marquis of Hertford came to the Bishops, and told them they were in great danger, for the mob were vowing to search every coach for them with torches, so that they could not escape. A message was sent to the Commons to interfere, but as their emissaries had stirred up this most disgraceful tumult, of course they would not meddle. At last the Earl of Manchester, who belonged to the popular party, undertook to see the Archbishop of York safely to his house, and the others succeeded in making their way home in the dark by various by-ways. The next day Williams assembled all his episcopal brethren whom he could bring together in his deanery, and there drew up a protest that, as they were an integral part of the constitution, and were debarred by violence from attending Parliament, every measure passed during their CAMEO XXXI. Protest of enforced absence would be invalid. Eleven prelates, besides the Archbishop himself, signed this, and it was perfectly legal. It was, however, like everything else, mismanaged. It ought to have the Bishops. been presented to the King in the House of Lords, but Williams took it privately to Charles to ask his opinion on it, and he, being afraid of the bill for the exclusion of the Bishops being passed before it was made, sent it off at once to the House by Lord Keeper Littleton, who read it, doing all in his power to inflame his hearers against the presumption of the Lords Spiritual. Information was sent to the Commons, who were secretly delighted, but pretended to be in a fury, and actually, in half-an-hour's time, impeached all the twelve of high treason. Great was the dismay of the poor Bishops, who had trusted Williams as a good lawyer, and had not supposed the document to have gone out of his hands, to find themselves all summoned as traitors, and forced to appear on their knees at the bar of the House. At eight o'clock on a cold frosty night, the 30th of December, they were all sent off to the Tower, except those of Durham and Lichfield, who being old and infirm, were committed to the custody of the Usher of the Black Rod, the foolish populace, meanwhile, rejoicing with bonfires and ringing of bells. Still, there was so little cause for their apprehension that the Commons failed in finding anything to indict them for. Even when their offence was reduced to misdemeanor, the lawyers could find no ground for prosecution, but it was not till after six weeks that they were released, and then only on bail, and the Commons objecting, they I were imprisoned again till May. Still, though their protest brought all this present trouble on them, it assisted in invalidating the other arbitrary proceedings of the Long Parliament. All these tumults made Charles grant a guard to the Parliament, bu: he intended to appoint it himself, and this was the last thing that the Commons desired, so they only had halberds stored in the House wherewith to defend themselves. Charles further strengthened himself by taking as his Secretary of State the moderate but loyal Lord Falkland, and making Sir John. Colpepper Chancellor of the Exchequer. Sir Edward Hyde though! he could be more useful to him out of office. The adherence of such men as these, and the general opinion that the needful reforms had been granted, made him believe that the time had come for stemming the current of revolution, and that the arrest of the foremost leaders would put an end to encroachments of the Commons. The impeachment by the Crown of factious members had been frequent in all the preceding reigns; he was perfectly within the rights established by precedent, but the temper of the times was utterly changed. The six whom he had decided to be most disloyal were Lord Kimbolton, Denzil Hollis, Sir Arthur Haselrigge, Hampden, Pym and Stroud, among the Commons. He had been much discomposed by hearing that there was an intention |