attainder of Strafford and the lords, when a mob was at the door, and Mr. Hollis (who afterwards sat in judgment upon some of his colleagues) desired, in compliance with the demand of that mob, to know the names of those who were opposed to the wishes of the Commons, passed, under that intimidation, a bill which they had twice before rejected. The moderate part of the members in that assembly might have out-voted the promoters of rebellion, four to one; but, in fear of their lives, they either left the house or acquiesced in motions which they abhorred. The condition of the House of Commons was worse; because there the men of worst intentions were also the men of greatest ability, “and the number of the weak and wilful," says Clarendon, "who naturally were to be guided by them, always made up a major part so that from the beginning they were always able to cary whatsoever they set their hearts visibly upon; at least to discredit or disgrace any particular man, against whom they thought necessary to proceed, albeit of the most unblemished reputation, and upon the most frivolous suggestions." They waged war in parliament, as Cromwell did afterwards in Ireland, upon the principle of destroying all who opposed them, and the success was the same. At the most important debates there was seldom a fifth part of the members present, and often not more than twelve or thirteen in the House of Lords.

It is especially worthy of notice that the very faults for which the King's government was most severely reproached, were committed by the Parliament in a far greater degree, and with every possible aggravation. One of the accusations against Charles was that he suffered himself to be guided by clerical counsellors; and the argument upon which they chiefly insisted in support of the bill for taking away the bishops' votes in parliament was "that their intermeddling with temporal affairs was inconsistent with, and destructive to, the exercise of their spiritual function;" "whilst their reformation," it has been truly observed, “both in Scotland and this kingdom, was driven on by no men so much as those of their clergy, who were their instruments; as without doubt the Archbishop of Canterbury had never so great an influence upon the councils at court as Dr. Burgess and Mr. Marshal had upon the Houses: neither did all the bishops of Scotland together meddle so much in temporal affairs as Mr. Henderson

had done." The breaches of privilege which Charles had committed were represented by them as destructive to the freedom of parliament; and yet their conduct, both to the King and to the House of Peers, was an absolute rooting up of all privileges. One of the most unpopular acts of the King had been the levying of ship-money without the consent of the parliament; an impost then only of doubtful legality, yet equally levied, excellently applied, and so light in itself that the payment which Hampden honourably disputed was only twenty shillings upon an estate of 500% a year. The parliament did not scruple, without consent of the King, to demand the twentieth part of every man's property in London, or so much as their seditious mayor and three other persons as seditious as himself might please to call a twentieth, to be levied by distress if the parties refused payment; and if the distress did not cover the assessment, then the defaulter was to be imprisoned where and as long as a Committee of the House of Commons should think proper, and his family was no longer to remain in London, or the suburbs, or the adjoining counties. With an impudence of slander which would be in credible, if anything were too bad to be believed of thoroughly factious men which will serve their purposes, they accused the King of exciting the massacre in Ireland, and fomenting the rebellion there; and they themselves employed the money and the means which were prepared for quelling that rebellion, in carrying on a war against the King at home.

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The King more than once in his declarations reminded them of a speech of Pym's, which they had heard deservedly applauded when it was directed against his measures; but which now bore against their own with greater force. "The law," said that powerful speaker, "is that which puts a difference betwixt good and evil, just and unjust; if you take away the law, all things will be in a confusion; every man will become a law unto hime self, which, in the depraved condition of human nature, must needs produce many great enormities. Lust will become a law, and envy will become a law, covetousness and ambition will be come laws, and what dictates, what decisions such laws will pros duce, may easily be discerned it may indeed by sad instances over the whole kingdom." And then the King set before them a picture of their own conduct, so ably and so truly drawn, that,

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if men were governed by their reason and not by their passions, that excellent paper alone would have given him the victory over all his enemies. In another declaration the King said "whoso ever harboured the least thought in his breast of ruining or violating the public liberty, or religion of the kingdom, let him be accursed and he should be no counsellor of his that would not say Amen." That which he charged the leaders of parliament with," was invading the public liberty; and his presumption might be very strong and vehement, that though they had no mind to be slaves, they were not unwilling to be tyrants. What is tyranny," said he, “but to admit no rules to govern by, but their own wills? And they knew the misery of Athens, was at the highest, when it suffered under the Thirty Tyrants." Hobbes, whose resolute way of thinking was more in accord with the temper of Cromwell's government than of the King's, speaks with contempt of these declarations; but if Charles had been served, or known how to serve himself, as ably with the sword as with the pen, the struggle would soon have been decided in his favour. What has been said of the son,*. that he never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one, might more truly be said of the father: in him, however, it proceeded from what, in other times and other circumstances, would have been a virtue. In speaking, he expressed his own judgment; in acting, he yielded to that of others, and was ruined by want of confidence in himself, and by the fear of doing wrong.

Clarendon, who writes always with the feelings of a Christian, as well as the wisdom of a statesman, has some remarks upon the conduet of the parliament, drawn up with his characteristic candour.“ A man shall not unprofitably spend his contemplation, that, upon this occasion, considers the method of God's justice (a method terribly remarkable in many passages, and upon many persons, which we shall be compelled to remember in this discourse), that the same principles, and the same application of those principles, should be used to the wresting all sovereign power from the Crown, which the Crown had a little before made use of for the extending its authority and power beyond its bounds, to the prejudice of the just rights of the subject. A supposed necessity was then thought ground enough to create a • VDT] [* By Wilmot Lord Rochester.]` *¥y 3*©{}}D!i* {

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power, and a bare averment of that necessity, to beget a practice to impose what tax they thought convenient upon the subject, by writs of ship-money never before known; and a supposed necessity now, and a bare averment of that necessity, is as confidently, and more fatally, concluded a good ground, to exclude the Crown from the use of any power, by an ordinance never before heard of; and the same maxim of salus populi suprema lex, which had been used to the infringing the liberty of the one, made use of for the destroying the rights of the other." Reflections of this kind must often have arisen in the mind of Charles himself. When, in his father's life-time, taking part in Buckingham's animosities, he promoted the impeachment of the Earls of Bristol and Middlesex, James said to him, with a foresight which has almost a prophetic character, that he would live to have his belly full of parliamentary impeachments. But he was always more sinned against than sinning: the most unjustifiable of his measures proceeded from a mistaken judgment, not an evil intention; the most unpopular of them, and that which gave the greatest advantage to his enemies (the accusation of the six members), plainly arose from a perfect confidence in his own rectitude, and the goodness of his cause.

The melancholy warning which James gave his son proved the sagacity of that king, whose talents it has been too much the custom to decry. There is an expression of Laud's which bears with it even more of a prophetic appearance, from the accidental turn of the sentence. "At this time, the parliament tendered two, and but two bills to the King to sign: this to cut off Strafford's head was one; and the other was that this parliament should neither be dissolved nor adjourned, but by the consent of both houses: in which, what he cut off from himself, time will better shew than I can. God bless the King and his royal issue!" Charles's feelings upon that fatal bill which perpetuated the parliament, and thereby in fact transferred the sovereignty to it, are well stated in the Εικων Βασιλικη.† "By this act of the

[Clar. Hist., ed. 1826, vol. i., p. 41.]

The authenticity of this Book has been attacked and defended with such cogent arguments and strong assertions, that as far as relates to external proofs, perhaps there is scarcely any other question in bibliography so doubtful. The internal evidence is wholly in its favour. Had it been the work of Gauden, or of any person writing to support the royal cause, a higher tone

highest confidence, I hoped for ever to shut out and lock the door upon all present jealousies and future mistakes: I confess I did not thereby intend to shut myself out of doors, as some men have now requited me. A continual parliament, I thought, would but keep the commonweal in tune, by preserving laws in their due execution and vigour, wherein my interest lies more than any man's, since by those laws my rights as a king would be preserved, no less than my subjects; which is all I desired.⠀⠀ More than the law gives me I would not have, and less the meanest subject should not. I cannot say properly that I repent of that act, since I have no reflections upon it as a sin of my will, though an error of too charitable a judgment."

Charles appealed to that act with great force as a proof that he had no intention of recurring to arms. Sure," he says, “it had argued a very short sight of things, and extreme fatuity of mind in me, so far to bind my own hands at their request, if I had shortly meant to use a sword against them." When Hamps den spoke of the part which Cromwell might be expected to bear, in case they should come to a breach with the King, he deprecated such an event. But Hampden's studies were rather how to direct a civil war, than to avert one. Davila's history was 80 often in his hands, that it was called Colonel Hampden's prayerbook. The truth is, that a few men of daring spirit, great ability, and great popularity, some calling themselves saints because they were schismatics, others styling themselves philosophers because they were unbelievers, had determined to overthrow the existing government in church and state; which they knew to be feasible, because circumstances favoured them, and they scrupled at nothing to bring about their end. Their plan was to force from the King all they could, and when they should concerning episcopacy and prerogative would have been taken; there would have been more effort at justification; and there would not have been that inefficient but conscientious defence of fatal concessions; that penitent confession of sin where weakness had been sinful; that piety without alloy; that character of mild and even magnanimity; and that heavenly-mindedness, which render the Euxar Baσturn one of the most interesting books in our language.

There is very little testimony on Gauden's side, (strictly speaking, perhaps, none at all,) except his own.. There is a mass of testimony which shows that the king had the book continually in his hand, revised it much, and had many transcripts of it.-SOUTHEY, Quar. Rev., No. lxxiii., po 249.] dy 44,

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