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Yet even those who admit that this was true, may ask whether Pym was wise in deciding to anticipate the conflict. Every effort

which Charles had hitherto made to bring force to Was Pym wise in bear on Parliament had failed miserably. Every demaking it? tected plot had only served to bring into clearer light the unanimity of both Houses and of both parties in the face of such dangers as these. Neither Hyde nor Falkland in the Commons, nor Bristol in the Lords, had any wish to see Parliament the mere creature of the King. Up to the end of October, greatly as the strain of this situation would have tried the patience of the most enduring statesman, Pym's wisest course undoubtedly had been to stand on the defensive, relying on the nation itself to resist any rash act of the King's. Charles had no longer any military force openly at hand; and even if he thought himself able to rely on some occult support, it was in the highest degree improbable that he would have skill enough to avail himself of it at the critical moment.

An army necessary.

Since the last week in October all such considerations had lost their weight. Whatever else might be the result of the Irish Rebellion, it was certain that a new army must be called into existence to suppress it, and that if this army were officered by the King's creatures, it would be dangerous to the Parliamentary liberties of England. The risk of military violence from the discredited, ill-disciplined army of the North in the spring and summer was nothing to the risk of military violence if it was to come from an army flushed with victory and steeled to discipline under leaders which it had learned to trust. It might be argued indeed that the suppression of the rebellion was a matter of such transcendent importance that the House was bound to run the risk of seeing the establishment of a military despotism in England rather than interpose the slightest delay in the transmission of succour to the endangered colony. Such, however, was not the view of Pym, and those who adopt it must carry the argument into a region too purely speculative to make it in any way necessary to follow them.

Nor was it only in respect to Ireland that the majority of the Commons was laying hands on the executive powers. Two

Nov. 6. Cromwell

nioves to entrust

E: sex with

days earlier Cromwell had carried a motion that the Lords should be asked to join in a vote giving Essex power from the House to command the trained bands south of the Trent in defence of the kingdom. It is true that this was only what Essex had authority from the King to do; but the addition of a clause 'that this power' might continue till this Parliament shall take further orders' was an open attack on the prerogative.1

power over the trained bands.

Nov. 8. The Episcopalian party now Royalist.

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Whether Pym's motion were justifiable or not, it was the signal for the final conversion of the Episcopalian party into a Royalist party. That party, in a minority in the Commons, was in a majority in the Lords. To baffle the Puritans had now become its chief object. For the sake of that it was ready to trust the King, and to take its chance of what the Irish campaign might bring forth. On the religious ground there was no longer any hope of compromise. Neither party had sufficient breadth of view to perceive the necessity of giving satisfaction to the legitimate demands of the other.2

The Re

A

Diffident of support in the Upper House, the leaders of the majority in the Commons fell back upon the people. The oftenproposed and often-postponed Remonstrance was read monstrance in the Lower House before the close of the eventful sitting of the 8th, and it was ordered that its consideration, clause by clause, should commence on the following day. In the oblivion which falls even upon the proceedings of

read.

C. F. ii. 305. D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 106 h.

2 The state of feeling in the Upper House is well expressed in the following extract :—" "The Bill for removing the bishops out of our House sticks there, and whether we shall get it passed or not is very doubtful, unless some assurance be given that the rooting out of the function is not intended. The House of Commons have made a Remonstrance," i.e. the Additional Instruction, "and have desired us to join them in it, wherein they do, in the general, humbly pray His Majesty that he would be pleased to change his counsels, and for the future not to admit of any Councillor or Minister of State, but such as the Parliament shall approve of, and may confide in. This stops likewise in our House, and I believe will hardly pass with us without some alteration."-Northumberland to Roe, Nov. 12, S. P. Dom.

ance.

the most famous of Parliaments, this Remonstrance—the Grand Its import Remonstrance, as posterity has agreed to call itstands out as the starting-point of a new quarrel. To the historian, it is but a link in the chain of causation which was hurrying the nation into a civil war. So much of it as related to religion was an answer to the King's declaration in support of the doctrine and discipline of the Church which had recently been circulated amongst the Peers.1 In political matters it merely defined the position taken up by the Commons in the Additional Instruction. That which specially distinguished it, was the intention of its framers to use it as an appeal to the nation, rather than as an address to the Crown.

ter.

It was not in the nature of things that a document thus prepared should contain a purely uncoloured description of past Its charac- events. If Charles had drawn up a similar narrative it would probably have been stained by equal exaggeration. Even writers the most prejudiced in favour of Royalty, if they only look facts in the face, have to assign a large share of blame for the misfortunes of this reign to Charles himself. It is no wonder that the authors of the Remonstrance assigned to him the whole. It was not to be expected that they should have discovered that they had themselves made many mistakes, and were likely to make many more, or that they should have avoided exaggerating the importance of that Catholic intrigue which, as we now know, was no mere creation of their own fancy.

the Catho

lics, the

the evil

The root of the mischief, they said, 'was a malignant and pernicious design of subverting the fundamental laws and prinAttack on ciples of government, upon which the religion and justice of the kingdom' were 'firmly established.' bishops, and This design was entertained by the Papists, the counsellors. bishops, and the evil counsellors. These men had fomented differences between the King and his people, had suppressed the purity and power of religion, had favoured Arminians, and had depressed those whom they called Puritans. They had countenanced 'such opinions and ceremonies' as

See page 39.

were 'fittest for accommodation with Popery, to increase ignorance, looseness, and profaneness in the people.' Further, they had done their best to alienate the King from his subjects by suggesting other ways of supply than the ordinary course of subsidies.'

If this was but a caricature, it was at least a caricature founded on truth. Motives were supplied or exaggerated, but the tendency of the acts which had been done was very much what the Remonstrance alleged it to have been.

Then followed a long list of enormities, commencing with. the very beginning of the reign. The Remonstrance told of

Acts of

Charles's

government

recounted.

the hasty dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, of the disasters of Buckingham's government, the breach of the privileges of the Commons, the imposition of unparliamentary taxation, the tyranny of the Ecclesiastical Courts, the imposition of a new Prayer Book on Scotland, followed by violent action against the Scots, and by the dissolution of the Short Parliament for its refusal to abet the designs of the Court against its brethren in the North. Then came a list of the good deeds of the existing Parliament. Wrong and oppression had been beaten down, and had been made legally impossible in the future. What was now needed was security. The authors of the two Army Plots had been busy in Ireland, and had 'kindled such a fire as nothing but God's infinite blessing upon the wisdom and endeavours of this State had been able to quench it.'

After this came a complaint against the bishops, and against the recusant lords who had returned to their places after the excitement about the Protestation had cooled down. Complaint against the They were charged with frustrating all the efforts after bishops and the recusant reformation made by the Commons.

lords.

On

What were these efforts after reformation? this all-important point, Pym had as little chance of arriving at a satisfactory solution as Hyde. He was animated by no large spirit of comprehension or toleration.

He had no broad

all men as much as

remedy to propose, which would give to they could legitimately claim. He was as unready to listen to Brooke's plea for the worship of the conventicle, as he was un

ready to listen to Hyde's plea for the worship of the cathedral From one party as loudly as from the other was heard the cry for uniformity of doctrine and discipline.

The Commons are calumniated.

"They infuse into the people," said the authors of the Remonstrance, "that we mean to abolish all Church government, and leave every man to his own fancy for the service and worship of God, absolving him of that obedience which he owes under God unto His Majesty, whom we know to be entrusted with the ecclesiastical law as well as with the temporal, to regulate all the members of the Church of England, by such rules of order and discipline as are established by Parliament, which is his great council in all affairs, both in Church and State.

Their plan of Church discipline.

"We confess our intention is, and our endeavours have been, to reduce within bounds that exorbitant power which the prelates have assumed unto themselves, so contrary both to the Word of God and to the laws of the land, to which end we passed the Bill for the removing them from their temporal power and employments; that so the better they might with meekness apply themselves to the discharge of their functions, which Bill themselves opposed, and were the principal instruments of crossing.

"And we do here declare that it is far from our purpose or desire to let loose the golden reins of discipline and government in the Church, to leave private persons or particular congregations to take up what form of Divine service they please; for we hold it requisite that there should be throughout the whole realm a conformity to that order which the laws enjoin according to the Word of God. And we desire to unburden the consciences of men of needless and superstitious ceremonies, suppress innovations, and take away the monuments of idolatry.

"And the better to effect the intended reformation, we desire there may be a general synod of the most grave, pious, learned, and judicious divines of this island, assisted with some from foreign parts professing the same religion with us; who may consider of all things necessary for the peace and good government of the Church, and represent the results of their

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