CHAPTER VII.

THE LONG PARLIAMENT. (1640–1660.)

SECTION 1.-Constitutional Reforms.

THE General Election of 1640 was held amid the wildest excitement. Both parties had exerted their utmost efforts to secure the choice of their own candidates. Hampden and the other popular leaders had gone from shire to shire to address the electors, and exhort them to be true to themselves and the Constitution. The result was that the Court candidates were rejected on all sides, and a large constitutional majority returned to Westminster. When Parlia

ment met, November 3, the popular party were confident of success, relying on their own numbers, on the sympathy of the people, and the support of the Scotch army. To Charles, no doubt, it seemed that they were assembled simply to vote money for the payment of the Scots; but the parliamentary leaders regarded their summons as the prelude to sweeping reforms, which should restore the old balance of the Constitution, and create fresh guarantees for its future security. The presence of the Scotch army in the North of England and the demands of the Scots for money, were important elements in the political crisis, for they constituted a powerful check on the king's prerogative of dissolution; but the days had gone by when Parliament could be treated as a mere tax-raising machine. At the same time they were as yet resolved to do nothing new. Their work was to be based on old laws and old precedents, the rights they would claim were rights which they believed to be inherent in the Constitution.

An important sign of the times was to be found in the nomination of William Lenthall to be Speaker. Charles would have preferred one of his own adherents, but the turn of the elections had rendered this impossible. The nomina

tion, however, was acceptable to the leading men of the Commons, and Lenthall brought to the Chair a very fair knowledge of precedent, and, above all, an impartiality of conduct during political controversy which enabled him to fulfil his duties with a fuller appreciation of the true position of a Speaker than had characterized any of his prede

cessors.

The most prominent man among the Commons was, undoubtedly, Pym: not yet their recognized leader, and not to be until some months of conflict and terror had brought the strongest to the front by abasing all others; but the directing influence of a small body of men "who constituted the inspiring force of the parliamentary opposition." The Earl of Bedford and Hampden, the wisest and most temperate of the opposition in Lords and Commons, regarded him as their chief. Strode, St. John, Holles, Erle, and Fiennes, the strong men of Parliament, were content to follow his lead.

The debate of November 7 was a long outburst of suppressed complaint. Member after member presented petitions of grievances. At the end, Pym rose to direct the attention of Parliament to the root of the matter. "The distempers of the time," he said, "are well known. They need not repetition, for though we have good laws yet they want their execution, or if they are executed, it is in the wrong sense. There is a design to alter law and religion." He ran over quickly a long catalogue of evidence in support of his assertion, and moved that a committee be appointed to inquire into the danger of the kingdom.

On November 10, in view of a plot which had come to the ears of several members, Pym rose and moved that the doors should be locked. After a long discussion, during which Pym denounced Strafford as "an apostate from the cause of liberty become the greatest enemy to liberty," it was resolved by the universal consent of the whole House to impeach him; and Pym, followed by a crowd of members, carried up the message at once to the Lords.

The news was taken to Strafford himself. "I will go," he said with haughty indignation, “and look my accusers in the face." He entered the House with the imperious air and scowling brow of an angry dictator. But the spell of

his influence was broken, and his appearance was greeted by loud shouts of "Withdraw, withdraw." He was compelled to retire in confusion; but in a few minutes was summoned back to the House to hear on his knees the order of his committal to the custody of the Usher of the Black Rod. The House of Commons at once proceeded to draw up the grounds of his accusation. It was completed and carried up to the Lords by the 25th, and the Lords immediately committed Strafford to the Tower pending his trial.

This vigorous action, which can only be regarded as a measure of self-preservation, was followed by the impeachment of Archbishop Laud, Lord Keeper Finch, Secretary Windebank, and several of the judges, for their conduct during the period of Charles's arbitrary government. One of the judges, Berkeley, was actually presiding in the Court of King's Bench when Maxwell, the Usher of the Black Rod, entered with the order for his arrest. Maxwell ordered him to come down from the bench, and there was nothing for it but to obey. This arrest of a judge on the bench itself was perhaps a more striking proof of the power of Parliament than even the impeachment of Strafford.

A number of remedial statutes were gradually passed. The irregular and arbitrary jurisdiction of the Court of High Commission, the Court of Star Chamber, and all the courts depending on the latter, were swept away, the principal victims of oppression released, and their condemnation and punishment denounced as illegal. The raising of shipmoney, and the judgment delivered against Mr. John Hampden on his disputing its legality, were both declared to be utterly illegal. A final declaration was registered against the practice of levying money unconstitutionally by a statute which enacted "that no custom or other charge whatsoever may be laid on any merchandise exported or imported without common consent of Parliament." Most important of all, perhaps, from our point of view, was the Triennial Act, the first attempt to regulate the intermission and duration of Parliament by statute. It enacted that Parliament should last for three years, and should not be intermitted for more than three: complicated provisions being added to admit of its being summoned by the Lord Chancellor, or

the Peers, or of its assembling on the sole initiative of the people in default of regular summons. Various other statutes completed the work, and, without depriving the monarchy of anything which it had anciently possessed, stamped with the brand of illegality most of the instruments of government and devices for raising money which Charles and James had made use of to support their arbitrary rule.

It is important to notice that Mr. Hyde and Lord Falkland, who became subsequently the leaders of the royalist party, were as convinced of the necessity of passing these highly constitutional measures as Mr. Pym and Mr. Hampden, or even Mr. Cromwell, who was already beginning to be known as a man who would go far and fearlessly. There was as yet no division in Parliament: all were earnestly intent on reform and the restoration of constitutional government; the later divisions into Royalists, Parliamentarians, and the Root and Branch party were not apparent. Culpepper, the third of the later moderate trio, was loudest in his denunciation of the illegal practices of the royal monopolists. Falkland contributed more than any other man to the passing of the resolutions against ship-money. The discussion on the impeachment of Finch elicited the assertion from Hyde that if it were treason to kill a judge, it was much more so to slay justice itself by illegal decisions. The earnestness of Parliament could not have been more conclusively shown than by their only allowing themselves four days' vacation at Christmas, 1640, and the zeal with which they worked for ten months at the work of reform.

The first faint mutterings of discord were, however, heard even in 1640, over the ecclesiastical questions. The debate on Episcopacy, February 8, 1641, brought out the strong divergence between the views of the two parties: the advocates of a democratic church, who were headed by Pym, Hampden, St. John, Holles, Fiennes, and the defenders of episcopacy, Falkland, Hyde, Culpepper, Selden, Hopton, and Waller, who followed the lead of Digby. Lord Digby, however, really stood on a very different basis to his companions: he secretly represented the Court, or rather the queen, to whose blandishments he had by now succumbed. His companions were merely inspired by an honest belief

that ecclesiastical reform might be best effected without the use of extreme measures: they had no leanings as yet to the Court or the queen. The efforts of the moderate party, after a long debate and a further discussion by a committee, successfully shelved the dangerous question of Episcopacy for the time.

Charles's policy appears to have been to yield on all disputed topics, simply in order to lull his enemies to a false security until such time when he had gathered sufficient strength to exact heavy vengeance. He no doubt hoped that a quarrel would soon break out between Parliament and the Scotch army, which would prove the ruin of both; but the Parliamentarians, scenting the danger, exerted their powers and resources to pay the wages of the Scots, and in addition voted them a present of £300,000, which secured their friendship and assistance on the firmest basis for the future. His assent was granted in pure duplicity, or, as he would have termed it, diplomacy, to the various unwelcome statutes presented to him, and without the slightest intention of observing them a day longer than necessity compelled. It was, moreover, most certainly with the same view of allaying suspicion that he consented to the impeachment of Strafford.

After a long delay, spent by both sides in procuring evidence, the trial of the Earl of Strafford began, March 22, 1641. Westminster Hall was fitted up for the occasion with a bar, a witness-box, seats for the Peers, the managers, the Lower House, and even for spectators. At the west end a throne had been erected, but it was empty, and the face of the king might have been seen peering anxiously from a box which had been specially arranged for him and the queen. With the view of preserving a certain effect of incognito, a lattice had been erected in front of it, but Charles's first act was to tear down the obstacle and exhibit himself to the full view of the managers.

On the 23d, Pym opened the case against Strafford with. the charges relating to his government in Ireland. He accused him of tyranny and oppression, and deduced the inference that he was ready to violate the laws of England as he had violated the laws of Ireland. Granted, however, that the charges were true, they did not constitute the offence of