called to remove the distractions of the Church. For the present no attention was paid to this suggestion, which had already been heard of on several occasions since the first meeting of Parliament. It is probable that Pym felt it to be hopeless to expect any such Church reform as he regarded necessary, so long as a compact body of twenty-six episcopal votes was opposed to him in the House of Lords. The new Bill was pushed rapidly through the Commons. It was read a third time only two days after its introduction.'

Oct. 23.

the Lords.

Oct. 24.

When the Bill was sent up to the Lords, some who wished it ill believed that it would be allowed to pass. Its introducFeeling of tion a second time was evidently intended to form the basis of a compromise. Yet there was a large party amongst the Peers which was against all concession. The vigour of the sects during the vacation, and the violence with which the orders of the House of Commons had been in some places executed, had produced a feeling of irritation in many of the Peers, which was increased by the not unnatural resentment roused by an attempt to alter the ancient constitution of their own House, It was observed that on the day after the Bill was sent up, which happened to be a Sunday, an unusual number of Lords travelled down to Oatlands to pay their respects to the Queen.3 On Monday an incident occurred which showed how intense was the bitterness of the hatred of. which Pym had by this time become the object. A letter was delivered to him in his place in the House. As soon A plague-rag as he had opened it, a rag, foul with the foulness of sent to Pym. a plague-sore, dropped on the floor. The letter in which it was enclosed termed him a traitor and a taker of bribes, and assured him that if he did not die of the infection now conveyed to him, a dagger would be found to rid the world of his presence.4

Oct. 25.

In the first months of the Long Parliament, Pym and his

1 D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 31 b. Dering's Speeches, 92, 2 Nicholas to the King, Oct. 25, Evelyn's Memoirs, ii. App. 44.

8 Giustinian to the Doge,

Oct. 29, Ven. Transcripts. R. O.

Nov. 8'

D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 36 b.

Pym's pro

friends had had the advantage of opposing vague and indefinite schemes. No one could tell precisely what the posal stirs up primitive Episcopacy of their adversaries would come opposition. to be in practice. That advantage they had now thrown away. After all that had been said and done in support of the Root-and-Branch Bill, it was impossible to imagine that the present Bishops' Exclusion Bill was Pym's last word on Church reform. What he wanted, it seemed, was to diminish the majority against him in the House of Lords before producing that scheme which appeared all the more dangerous because he had given no hint what its nature was to be. He would pro

bably have gained far more than he would have lost by bringing forward now a complete but moderate plan of ecclesiastical reform. Unfortunately, he, too, had none of those powers of constructive statesmanship which were most needed at this crisis of our history.

The King's manifesto circulated

Peers.

Not only was the advantage of definiteness of plan lost to Pym, but it had already passed over to the other side. On the 25th Nicholas had been circulating amongst the Peers an extract from a letter which had just reached amongst the him from the King. "I hear," wrote Charles, "it is reported that at my return I intend to alter the government of the Church of England, and to bring it to that form as it is here. Therefore I command you to assure all my servants that I am constant to the discipline and doctrine of the Church of England established by Queen Elizabeth and my father, and that I resolve-by the grace of God—to die in the maintenance of it." 1

The mani

Charles had at last found an object to stand up for which was higher than his own prerogative. By this manifesto festo practi- he was to abide till the last solemn scene of his life. cally a declaration of It gave him the hearts of all who, from various causes, distrusted Puritan domination. In the mouth of any man less liable than himself to prefer intrigue to statesmanship

war.

This appears to have been the form in which the extract was circulated, but there was an earlier one. The King's Apostyle, Oct. 12. Nicholas to the King, Oct. 25, Evelyn's Memoirs, ii. App. 37, 44. The King to Nicholas, Oct. 18, S. P. Dom.

it would, with some modification, have secured a firm foundation for the constitutional monarchy. So deeply-rooted was the monarchical feeling in England that even after it had been chilled by years of misgovernment, it was ready to spring up again with fresh life the moment that the causes of distrust had been removed. In the mouth of Charles, unfortunately, the manifesto was a declaration of war. He had no thought of making room for so many of the Puritan party as would be content to enter into a compromise with their fellow-subjects. Yet Puritanism was still a mighty force in England, and it was not for Charles to hope permanently to exclude it from the Church, any more than it was for Pyn to hope to make it permanently dominant in the Church.

The funda

ditions of

misunder

Both sides, in short, were driven by their antecedents to misunderstand the fundamental conditions of governmental con- ment. Charles believed that an existing system could government be maintained in the face of widely-felt dissatisfacstood. tion. Pym believed that a new system could be introduced by a mere Parliamentary majority in the face of a dissatisfaction equally widely felt. The one maintained that the House of Commons could effect no change without the assent of the King and the House of Lords. The other exalted the authority of an elected assembly whilst forgetting to inquire. whether its decisions were in conformity with the actual necessities of the nation.

Pvm and the King.

Yet if there were faults and errors on both sides Charles was personally overmatched by Pym. In coolness and dexterity the Parliamentary leader was far his superior. On the 26th, Pym stopped a proposal made by Holles, that the bishops who had been impeached for their part in the late canons should be accused of treason, whilst he himself carried a vote to ask the Lords to suspend the whole Episcopal Bench from the division on the Exclusion Bill, on the ground that they ought not to be judges in their own case, and to direct that the thirteen who had been already impeached should be sequestered from the House till their case had been decided.1 An attempt

Oct. 26. Pym asks that the bishops be suspended froi voting on the Exclusion Bill.

1 C. J. ii. 295. D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 40 b.

Oct. 28. Negative voice on appoint.

ments

claimed.

passionately supported by Strode to assert the claim of Parliament to a negative voice on ministerial appointments failed to secure the requisite support, and a simple petition was resolved on to express to the King the mere wish of the House on the subject. At the same time the Peers determined by a narrow majority to postpone consideration of the suspension of the bishops, and of the Exclusion Bill itself, till November 10, the day fixed for the opening of the proceedings against the impeached bishops.'

Action of the Peers.

The vacant be filled.

It is plain that the majority in both Houses was for the present fluctuating. Neither side wished to push matters to extremities. Charles had no such feeling. Far bishoprics to away at Edinburgh, without the possibility of consultation even with his devoted adherents, he announced his intention of filling five bishoprics which happened to be vacant. Williams was to be Archbishop of York. Hall and Skinner, who were both amongst the impeached prelates, were translated respectively to Norwich and Oxford. The other new bishops were no doubt excellent men, and one of their number, Dr. Prideaux, the Rector of Exeter College, and Professor of Divinity at Oxford, would have done credit to the Bench in any age. What was serious in the

matter was the indication of Charles's intention to nominate bishops as he had nominated them before, without any intimation that they were to hold their offices subject to future limitation.

Oct. 29. Feeling in the Com.

By the majority of the thin House which was now at Westminster, the appointment of the bishops was taken as an insult. Cromwell's vehemence carried the Commmons with him in a resolution to demand a conference with the Lords on the subject, and an early day, November 1, was fixed for the consideration of that strance to be Remonstrance on the state of the kingdom which

mons.

The Remon

considered. had been so often talked of in the earlier part of the year, but which had never been actually discussed.

' D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. 46 b. L. J. iv. 407.

Fresh plots suspected.

Before the appointed day arrived a fresh blow was aimed at the King. On October 30 Pym revealed what he knew of the Oct. 30. second Army Plot. O'Neill and Berkeley had been The second under examination, and their statements were now Army Plot denounced. read. It was deduced from their evidence that when Charles went to Scotland he had gone with the hope of obtaining military assistance in the North, and it is now known from other sources that the inference was correct. Pym asked whether the danger was at an end yet. Secret forces, he said, had been prepared, and the chief recusants in Hampshire had been meeting for consultation. The Prince of Wales, who should have remained at Richmond, under the charge of Hertford, who was now his governor, had been a frequent visitor at Oatlands where his mother was keeping her Court, and the lad could receive no good in body or soul from his mother. It was to be feared that a connection existed between these plots in England and recent events in Scotland. When Pym sat down it was ordered that Father Philips, and Monsigot, who had recently arrived on a mission from the Queen Mother, should be sent for, and that the Lords should direct Hertford to keep a stricter personal watch over the Prince. With this demand the Lords promptly complied.' Whether Pym's suspicions were well founded or not The Queen's language to it is impossible to say, but there is a serious corroLa Ferté. boration of them in the language which had been used by the Queen to the French ambassador less than a fortnight before. She then told him exultingly that her husband's affairs were in the best possible condition, and that more than 10,000 men were ready to assemble in his service on three days' notice. That which seemed to her to be an increase of strength, was in very truth the cause of incurable weakness.

1 C. F. ii. 299. D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 37 b. Arch. des Aff. Etr. xlviii. fol. 394.

21

2 La Ferté's despatch, Oct. 31'