the Lords were engaged in examining one Thomas Beale, a tailor, who asserted that he had overheard some perNov. 15. Two priests sons talking of their intention to murder no less than

plots.

captured. 108 members of the two Houses, and of a general Rumours of rising to take place on the 18th.' Further inquiry was ordered by the Lords, where the majority was, at all events, not Puritan. After that, a letter was read in the Commons, to the effect that fresh fortifications had been raised at Portsmouth, that a Frenchman had been constantly passing up and down between that town and Oatlands -- in other words, between Goring and the Queen-and that, lastly, 'the Papists and jovial clergymen there were merrier than ever.'2

Nov. 17.

recom

the Com

The Commons resolved to prepare an ordinance for putting the trained bands in a posture of defence under Essex in the south and Holland in the north, "and for securing Precautions the persons of the prime Papists." The Lords remended by coiled from trenching so far upon the authority of the King, and it was only after some hesitation that they agreed to bring in a Bill to give effect to the wishes of the other House in respect to the recusants, whilst they amended the ordinance by the insertion of words implying that no powers were conferred upon Essex and Holland in excess of those which had been given to them by the King's commission.3

mons.

Nothing could be made of Beale's story. Goring, being summoned to give an account of the state of Portsmouth, unblushingly declared that there was no truth whatever in the current rumours.4 Other charges against the Court could

Nov. 17.

neither be denied nor explained away. On the 17th Charles the evidence was read before the House of Cominculpated. mons, which put it beyond doubt that, in the second Army Plot, Legg had been the bearer of a petition to which the King's initials were affixed, in which the soldiers were expected to express their detestation of the leading members,

L. J. iv. 439.

2 D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 151 b.

L. 7. iv. 445-450.

• D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 167 b.

and to declare their readiness to march to London to suppress the tumults which those leaders had raised.1

Belief of the

The reading of this and other evidence was followed by a vote that it was proved 'that there was a second House in the design to bring up the army against the Parliament, and an intention to make the Scottish army stand as

second Army

Plot.

neutral.' 2

In the face

No doubt the production of this charge at such a moment was intended by Pym to influence the voting on the Remonstrance. In fact, its truth formed the strongest argument in behalf of the unusual course which he was taking. of a King who had recently appealed to military force, and who would soon have an opportunity of appealing to it again, it was necessary somewhat to shift the balance of the constitution. No doubt Charles might reply that he had only called on the army to repress tumults. The answer was obvious, that the tumults had been subsequent to a former appeal to the army.3

Nov. 20.

that there will be no great debate on the Remonstrance.

The way having thus been cleared, the House was ready for its last debate on the amended Remonstrance. There had been some intention of bringing the Remonstrance Expectation forward on the 20th. But the hour was late before it was reached. Its opponents asked for delay. Its supporters did not anticipate much further trouble. “Why,” said Cromwell to Falkland, "would you have "There would not have been time enough," was the reply, "for sure it will take some debate." “A very sorry' one," said Cromwell, contemptuously. He did not reckon on the resistance which would be aroused by the proposal to appeal to the people apart from the statements contained in the Remon'D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 157 b.

it put off?"

2 C. J. ii. 318.

4

Mr. Forster here introduces a debate on the Remonstrance as taking place on the 19th. Neither the Journals nor D'Ewes know anything of any such debate. Among Dering's speeches, indeed, there is one said to have been delivered on the 19th; but internal evidence shows this to have been a misprint for the 16th.

• Clarendon, iv, 51. This cannot, of course, be taken for more than a mere reminiscence.

Nov. 22.

on the Re

strance itself. In the end it was resolved that the reading of the manifesto of the Commons should be proceeded with at once, but that the debate on it should be fixed for the 22nd.1 At noon on the appointed day the discussion opened. Some few alterations, for the most part merely verbal, were made, but in the main the Remonstrance was to be Final debate accepted or rejected as it stood when it left the monstrance. committee. A special attempt to expunge the clause which spoke of the Bishops' Exclusion Bill in terms of commendation, was made and failed. In the general debate the speeches of the Royalist-Episcopalian party are disappointing to the reader. Hyde positively declared that the narrative part of the Remonstrance was true, and in his opinion modestly expressed, but that he thought it a pity to go back so far in the history of the reign. Falkland complained of the hard measure dealt out to the bishops and Arminians. Dering took the same line. Many bishops, he said, had brought in superstition, but not one idolatry. If the prizes of the lottery, as he called the bishoprics, were taken away, few would care to acquire learning.

Arguments of its oppo

nents.

Culpepper, for whom the ecclesiastical side of the question had little attraction, argued that the Commons had no right to draw up such a Remonstrance without the concurrence of the Lords, and no right at all to send it abroad amongst the people. Such a course, he said, was "dangerous to the public peace."

Such arguments were effective enough as criticism; but they were not the arguments of statesmen. Not one of these speakers even sketched out a policy for the future. Not one of them took any comprehensive view of the difficulties of the situation, or gave the slightest hint of the manner in which he proposed to deal with them.

Their weakness.

Against such speakers as these Pym's defence was easy. "The honour of the King," he said, "lies in the safety of the people, and we must tell the truth. The plots have been very near the King, all driven home to the Court and the Popish party." Culpepper's constitutional lore

Pym's speech.

'D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 178 b.

had ignored this important fact. Then turning to the fears which he knew to be felt amongst his opponents, Pym expressed his readiness that a law should be made against sectaries,' though he could not refrain from adding that many of the separatists who had emigrated to America had been driven from England for refusing to read the Book of Sports. "The Popish lords and bishops," he went on to say, "do obstruct us. . . . We have suffered so much by counsellors of the King's choosing that we desire him to advise with us about it, and many of his servants move him about them, and why may not the Parliament? Altar-worship is idolatry, and that was enforced by the bishops in all their cathedrals. This declaration will bend the people's hearts to us, when they see how we have been used."1

Continuance

After Pym sat down, the debate rolled on. But there was nothing of consequence to be added to what had been already said. Men were divided against one another, not so much by what was expressed in their speeches as by what was not expressed. Neither party would trust the other to model the Church according to its will.

of the debate.

The hot debate lasted till midnight. Candles had long ago been brought in, and it was by their dim and flickering light

The Remonstrance

passed.

that the fateful vote was taken. The Ayes were 159; the Noes 148. The majority was but 11.2 Peard, a strongly Puritan member, moved that the RemonQuestion of printing it. strance should be printed. The proposal meant that what had all along been intended by its framers should be carried into instant execution. It was to be sent forth as an appeal to the nation against the King. Hyde and Culpepper had already made up their minds as to the course to be taken.3 As soon as the division was announced they offered to enter their protestations. They were told that without the consent of the House it might not be done. The proposal for printing was then waived for the time,

Hyde and Culpepper protest.

Verney Notes, 121.

2 Mr. Forster (Grand Rem. 316) completely disposes of Clarendon's assertion that many on his side had left the House before the vote.

Nicholas to the King, Nov. 22, Evelyn's Memoirs, ii. App. 80.

and it seemed as if that long and stormy meeting would at last find an end.

The adjournment of the dispute was not enough for Geoffry Palmer. He rose to press the motion for the entry of a protest

Palmer's

"in the name of himself and all the rest." In the protest. excited temper of the minority, these rash words kindled a blaze of enthusiasm. Shouts of "All! All!" rose from every side. Some waved their hats wildly in the air. Others "took their swords in their scabbards out of their belts and held them by their pommels in their hands, setting the lower part on the ground." "I thought," wrote an eyewitness, we had all sat in the valley of the shadow of death ; for we, like Joab's and Abner's young men, had catched at each other's locks, and sheathed our swords in each other's bowels."

From this terrible catastrophe the House was saved by Hampden's presence of mind. In a dry, practical way, he asked Palmer 'how he could know other men's minds.' 2 The excited and wrathful crowd had their attention thus called away from the general question of the right to protest to the particular question of Palmer's right to speak in their names. Reason had time to re-assert its power, and all further discussion was postponed to another day. At the then unprecedented

' D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 180.

2 This is all that D'Ewes says. Mr Forster treated a remark of the note. taker's own as part of Hampden's speech. It is sad that a writer to whom all students of the period owe so much, can never be trusted in details. In a note at the foot of p. 320, Mr. Forster mentions D'Ewes's allusion to Hampden's" serpentine subtlety "as made on June 10. He should have said the 11th (Harl. MSS. clxiii. fol. 306 b). What is of greater importance is, that he agrees with Mr. Sandford in omitting to notice that the passage contains irrefragible evidence of having been written long after the. date under which it is inserted, so that it has no weight as contemporary evidence. "Mr. Edward Hyde,” wrote D'Ewes, "a young barrister of the Middle Temple (knighted afterwards upon the 25th day of March, 1643), made Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a Privy Councillor." It is evident from this that D'Ewes's remark was a mere a terthought after he had separated politically from Hampden. This may prove a warning against placing implicit reliance on D'Ewes's comments on persons.