dened by the thought. The Lords had recently consented to a special measure for disarming the English Catholics, and though they had allowed Philips to leave the Tower, they had forbidden him to go near Whitehall, and might examine him on Dec. 8. the Queen's secrets at any moment. She, therefore, Sweeping threw her voice on the side of a thorough breach with the opponents of the Court. Northumberland, Essex, Saye, Hertford, Holland, and others were to be turned. out of the Council and dismissed from their offices.1

changes proposed.

Dec. 10.

Yet, if Charles could not make his wife discreet, for the present, at least, he refused to follow her in her mischievous course. It was quite in the spirit of Bristol's policy that he issued a proclamation on the 10th announcing that, The procla- though he was considering with his Parliament how religion. all just scruples might be removed, yet for the preservation of unity and peace he required obedience to the laws and statutes ordained for the establishment of the true religion.2

mation on

The proclamation thus issued was anything but a healing measure. Charles indeed held out some vague prospect of changes to which he might ultimately be induced to give his assent, but the immediate result would be to deprive the Puritan of his standing ground in the Church. The law, indeed, was on the King's side, but the law had ceased to be in accordance with the real wants of the nation..

The next day the weight of the City made itself felt in the opposite scale. Some 400 well-to-do merchants and tradesmen were borne in coaches to Westminster, to present to the Commons a petition in support of Pym's policy, in which they asked for the removal of the bishops and Catholic lords from Parliament. They asserted that the

Dec. 11. The City Petition.

"Sir H. Vane, Junior, voted at Court to be put out, and my Lord," i.e. Northumberland, "should go the same way if the feminine gender might have their will. The truth is there is such fashions at Court that, if some might be hearkened unto, the King should lose all the best friends and servants he hath, merely by malicious plots."---Smith to Pennington, Dec. 10, S. P. Dom. For other names see La Ferté's despatch of Dec.? Arch, des Aff. Étr. xlviii. fol. 4372 Rushworth, iv. 456.

17,

petition was signed by 20,000, and that many more signatures could easily have been procured. The Lord Mayor and his friends, they added, had endeavoured to throw obstacles in the way of the collection of signatures.1

the King's

Both parties were evidently anxious to keep as far as possible. within the letter of the law. On the day of the presentation Commission of the City petition Charles named a commission for reducing charged to bring his expenditure within the limits of expenditure. his income, so that he might be independent of tonnage and poundage if the Commons refused to dole it out to him any longer. On the following day he issued a proclamation summoning the numerous members who were absent from their places in the House of Commons to return to their duties before January 12,3 no doubt on the calculation that these careless and unpolitical personages would give their votes to him, and that he would thus find himself in harmony with a majority in both Houses.

Dec. 12.

Proclamation for the attendance

of members.

Dec. 14.

speech on the

Bill.

How could Charles hope that the month's interval which he needed to carry out this plan would pass over quietly? The Irish Rebellion would not brook delay. On the 14th The King's the King appeared in the Upper House to make Impressment what he doubtless regarded as a great concession. He would give his assent to the Impressment Bill, it only a clause saving the rights of both parties were substituted for the clause denying his right to levy men for service outside the limits of their own counties. To his intense astonishment, he found that the Lords were as sensitive as the Commons to any suggestion of the employment of a military force capable of being used against Parliament, and that they at once showed their resentment of his interference with a Bill still under discussion, Case of the by calling on him to name the persons upon whose seven priests. information he had acted. On the subject of toleration for the Catholics, too, the peers were of one mind with the Lower

27'

1 C. J. ii. 339. Giustinian to the Doge, Dec. 17, Ven. Transcripts. R. O. The Citizens' Humble Petition, E. 180.

2 Council Register, Dec. 11.

3 Rymer, xx. 505.

4 L. J. iv. 473.

House. The Commons had been clamouring for the blood of five out of seven priests who were lying under sentence of death. In their present indignation they asked that all seven should suffer, and to this the Lords raised no objection.1 The King, however, refused to give way, and the unhappy men remained in prison some time longer. The Lords were too dependent on the King for the success of their ecclesiastical policy to do more than testify their disapprobation. The Commons were under no such bond. Not only were they irritated by Charles's refusal to abandon his claim to levy an army for general service, but they knew that language was being freely used at Court which threw a sinister light on the reasons of his refusal. It had become a matter of common conversation that plans had been discussed for the trial and execution of the Parliamentary leaders. Whether Charles had done more than listen to these violent projects it is impossible to say. The Commons were goaded into taking a step in advance. They resolved to print the Remonstrance and to appeal to the people.3

Talk of executing the Parlia mentary leaders.

Dec. 15. Printing of the Remonstrance.

Dec. 17. The Lords declare that no religion except the established

one is to be tolerated.

mons.

The Lords next took up the Declaration against toleration, which had been sent up from the ComOn the principle of intolerance both Houses were agreed. But they were not of one mind as to the only religion to be tolerated. The Declaration, as amended by the Lords, proclaimed that no religion should be tolerated 'in His Majesty's dominions of Agreement England and Ireland, but what is or shall be established by laws of this kingdom.' It speaks much for the alarm felt in the Commons that they accepted the amendment which recognised the binding character of the existing Church law, until it had been altered with the consent of the Lords and of the King. Bristol had been entrusted

Dec. 18.

of the Commons.

Bristol's policy.

C. F. ii. 342. L. 7. iv. 475.

16 26'

2 On ne parloit il y a quatre jours que de faire couper la tête à plusieurs de Parlement."-La Ferté's despatch, Dec. Arch. des. Aff. Étr. xlviii. fl 440.

• D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 244 b.

4 C. 7. ii. 349.

with the preparation of the amendment, and there can be little doubt that it represents his policy. Though a fair discussion might lead to some alterations in the Prayer-book, he trusted that it would leave the Prayer-book in the main what it had been before.1

Difficulties

in its way. Dec. 20.

The ministers'

petition.

Though such a policy was, at all events, worthy of trial, it is impossible to deny that men's minds were hardly in a temper tending to accommodation. The order of the King that the law of the Church should be obeyed till it was altered called forth a petition from certain ministers to the House of Commons, asking that they might not be compelled to use prayers against which their consciences protested, and which had been pronounced to be worthy of amendment by a committee of bishops and other grave divines, sitting by the direction of the House of Lords. "It seems," they said, "most equal that the consciences of men should not be forced upon that which a Parliament itself holds needful to consider the reformation of and give order in, till the same be accordingly done." Finally they asked that Convocation might be entirely passed by, and a free National Synod gathered to give advice to Parliament. Convocation gave a preponderating voice to the bishops and to the chapters, which had a strong Laudian element, whereas a synod would give expression to the general feeling of the clergy.

Question of
sending
Scots to
Ireland.

Whatever Bristol wished to do, it behoved him to do quickly. Yet, until the Irish difficulty was settled, there was no time to do anything. On the subject of the Impressment Bill the Lords were now seeking an understanding with the King rather than with the Commons, and had refused to agree to the landing of 10,000 Scots in Ireland till they could be quite sure that 10,000 English would be sent as well. They preferred that Ireland should remain in rebellion rather than that it should be conquered by Presbyterian Scotland. The Commons preferred that it should remain in rebellion rather than that the King should 1 L. F. iv. 480. 2 Nalson, ii. 764. * L. F. iv. 481.

have an army at his disposal which he might employ against the liberties of England.

4

Dec. 20. Right of protestation refused to members of the Cominons.

On the 20th a question of no slight importance was settled. A claim to protest had again been made by a member of the Commons, and the House now ruled that such a claim was inadmissible.1 No member was to shake himself clear of responsibility for the vote of the House. An expression which slipped from one of the minority left no doubt of the course which, under existing circumstances, it was desirable to take. "We must submit to a law," said Holborne, “when it is passed; but if we may not ask leave to protest, we shall be involved, and perhaps lose our heads in a crowd, when there is nothing to show who was innocent." 2 In the eyes of the minority, it seemed, the majority were traitors, engaged in subverting the constitution, and therefore liable to be sent to the block.

Modern.

Formally, the procedure of the House of Commons has ever since been ruled by that day's decision. No attempt to register a protest has again been made. Yet the practice. demand of Hyde and Holborne has been long ago virtually conceded. The printing of the division lists effects far more than any protest recorded in the journals.

The aim of the majority was to make that appear to be a fact which was not one. The world was to be asked to believe that the resolutions of the House were the resolutions of the whole body, and not those of a mere majority. The delusion could not be kept up for ever. It might be impossible to ascertain in what way a particular member had voted. There would be no difficulty in discovering on what side he had fought and bled at Edgehill or at Marston Moor.

The unity of

The unity of a representative body is not to be preserved by the enforcement of its forms. If the statesmanship be wanting which takes account even of defeated opponents, a representa- if those opponents are pushed to the wall and called tive body. upon to abandon, not merely their preferences, but all that is dearer to them than life itself, Parliamentary unity is D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 255.

2 Verney Notes, 136.