16th of May, when he accepted his part in the proposed conference about Impositions, his name occurs in the Journals only twice, and that only as forming one of the select committee on the Bishop's case; nor is he mentioned by any contemporary newsman as having had anything to do with them) is to be accounted for, probably, by his sense of the peculiar condition upon which he held his place. His office having been decided to be a disqualification for the duties of a member, he could hardly obtrude his advice where it was not asked and where he could not hope that it would be acceptable. But that the dissolution was in any way owing to his action or advice, is an assumption entirely gratuitous, and in my opinion improbable in the highest degree. It is at variance with all the external and collateral evidence; which imputes the frustration to a set of persons both in the House and out of it,-in the House as actors, out of the House as instigators,—with whom he had neither sympathy nor influence; with whom in fact he had nothing to do. It is at variance also with everything we know of his wishes, hopes, fears, proceedings, and policy. Such an upset was in his opinion not merely a thing to be avoided, but of all possible issues the very worst that could happen. That the King should "once part with his Parliament with love and reverence," was in his opinion a thing "inestimable for his safety and service." The parting in this case was with mutual irritation and sense of wrong, upon terms mortifying to both, and not calculated to make either think better or kindlier of the other. It was satisfactory to those only who wished to see Parliamentary government brought into discredit. How far Bacon was from being one of them has appeared clearly enough already, and will appear more clearly still hereafter.

I cannot accept it as a sufficient account of the matter. For it leaves unexplained the particular difficulty. It does not explain why James hurried the dissolution, and so cut short a deliberation which might have ended in a vote of subsidies by the House of Commons.

1 See Vol. IV. p. 371.

74

CHAPTER III.

A.D. 1614. ЕТАТ. 54.

1.

WHEN both parties in a dispute lose their temper it is not likely that either of them will conduct it wisely. Though we do not know precisely what the provocation was upon which the King determined to send that peremptory message, we can hardly doubt that he would have done more wisely to refrain, at least until the contumacy of the House had expressed itself in some act for which the House as a body was more distinctly responsible than it could ever be for the speeches of individual members. As a body, the Lower House had involved itself in a very foolish quarrel, but it does not appear that it had yet passed any act or resolution to which just objection could be taken by the Crown. With regard to the Bishop, they had appointed a Committee to consider what further should be done, and that Committee had not concluded its deliberations. With regard to Impositions, they had appointed a Sub-Committee to argue the question in conference with the Lords, but the argument had not come off. With regard to the King's last message, the answer was still under consideration. With regard to supplies, they had delayed but they had not refused them. The remarks of Clarendon on the dissolutions of the earlier Parliaments of the succeeding reign seem to me to apply perfectly well to this. "And here," he says, "I cannot but let myself loose to say that no man can show me a source whence those waters of bitterness we now taste have more probably flowed, than from these unreasonable, unskilful, and precipitate dissolutions of Parliaments; in which, by an unjust survey of the passion, insolence, and ambition of particular persons, the Court measured the temper and affection of the country; and by the same standard the people considered the honour, justice, and piety of the Court: and so usually parted at those sad seasons with no other respect and charity one toward the other than accompanies persons who never meant to meet but in their own defence. In which the King had always

the disadvantage to harbour persons about him, who with their utmost industry, false information, and malice improved the faults and infirmities of the Court to the people, and again, as much as in them lay, rendered the people suspected, if not odious, to the King.... It is not to be denied that there were in all those Parliaments, especially in that of the fourth year, several passages and distempered speeches of particular persons, not fit for the dignity and honour of those places, and unsuitable to the reverence due to his Majesty and his councils. But I do not know any formed Act of either House (for neither the Remonstrance nor Votes of the last day were such) that was not agreeable to the wisdom and justice of great Courts upon those extraordinary occasions. And whoever considers the acts of power and injustice of some of the ministers, in those intervals of Parliament, will not be much scandalized at the warmth and vivacity of those meetings."1

The last sentence may require some modification; for the grievances which excited the Commons in 1614 were not so much acts of oppression by great men as pretensions of legal authority on the part of the Crown. But it may be truly said that whoever considers the nature and issues of those constitutional disputes, will excuse a good deal of warmth and vivacity on both sides. So uncertain as the consequences were of making the Crown absolutely dependent upon a vote of the Lower House for the means of carrying on the government, the King might well be excused for hesitating to throw away a source of revenue which the authorized interpreters of the law had hitherto declared to belong by law to him. So indefinite as the power was which the undisputed command of that source of revenue would have put into the King's hands, the Commons might well be excused for fighting hard to establish a check upon it. In proportion to the importance of the controversy was the passion with which on either side it was conducted. On both sides this passion bred intemperance. The King was ill advised in attempting to enforce a vote of supply by a threat of dissolution, and afterwards in committing some of the members to prison for speeches in the House which he was not obliged to know anything about; and for burning the notes which had been prepared by those who had had parts assigned them in the Committee of Conference. But he was a man whom nature had made at once extremely affectionate and extremely irritable; and though he had tried hard to be patient, yet when he found that the House was occupying itself in personal invectives against

1 Hist. of the Rebellion, book i. p. 39.

Not that this last was so futile à proceeding as it is sometimes represented to be. Though it did not affect the value of the arguments, it prevented the publication.

the men he loved-most of them the friends and favourites of his youth, for he never cast a friend off-his patience failed him and he did a foolish thing. The Commons, on their side, were men too; and did their best to countenance and justify him in both these acts. By insisting on the punishment of the Bishop of Lincoln for what they considered slander of themselves, they deprived themselves of all right to maintain that speeches in the House, being offensive to persons out of the House, were exempt from punishment at the instance of the offended party. And by suspending all consideration both of the question of Impositions and the question of Supply, to make room first for the pursuit of such a quarrel as that, and then for intrusion into matters in which they had no constitutional right to interfere, they deprived themselves of all right to complain of the dissolution as interrupting them in the discharge of their proper duty. Their excuse is of the same kind as the King's excuse. They were angry because they could not get what they wanted: and they did foolish things.

But however the blame may be apportioned, the issue was not satisfactory to anybody except the enemies of Parliaments. To part without any reform accomplished or grievance redressed, was a disappointment to the popular party. To part without granting supplies was no satisfaction to them. It was not what they intended or what they wished. Those of them who were statesmen, and there were good statesmen among their leaders, could well understand both the evils and the dangers of an empty Exchequer; and though History may be content with pronouncing her censures and so pass on to the next case without asking more questions, the men of the time could not forget that censures remove no difficulties, and that the next question was, what the Government was to do? They saw the state so deep in debt (already more than half a million, which was more than a whole year's ordinary revenue, and still rapidly increasing) that it could not even borrow except at extravagant interest; Government security being the worst in the land. They saw the natural and constitutional remedy by Parliament twice tried in vain ; each time leaving the case worse than it was before; and for the present at least, all hope of relief from that quarter cut off: for though the last failure may have arisen from mismanagement, and might perhaps have been avoided, it was not the less past mending. The other sources of relief which remained available were not such as it was desirable to drive the King upon, either for his own sake or the people's. By straining the prerogative hard, something might no doubt be made of monopolies, of penal laws, of feudal tenures, of fines for disobeying proclamations, of raising rents, of new imposi

tions, and the like: but such remedies, though they might a little relieve the present symptoms, would but hurry on a more fatal disease. Something might possibly be done by a wealthy marriage for the Prince; but that must be with Spain, and the thought of such a thing was hateful to the people as a compromise with Antichrist. Something might be done by selling Crown property: but not without beggaring the inheritance of the Crown. Something also (and it was the least objectionable remedy) by the sale of titular honours; but not without depriving such honours of all their real value. What else? Had the failure of the Parliament been the King's fault alone, he might perhaps have partly recovered his position by recanting his But it is too evident that it was not so. It is too evident that the House of Commons could no longer be trusted either for understanding or for acting upon the true interests of the kingdom, even according to the most popular construction of them. The vir tuous and consistent and patriotic members, such as Sir Edwin Sandys, were no longer masters of the House. It had shown itself capable of becoming a factious assembly "careless how the world went," and its movements could no longer be answered for by anybody.

error.

Then again, putting aside the case of the King in his personal capacity, and of the Crown in its relation to the Commons, in what condition did this dissolution leave the people themselves? Abroad, there was Spain, with the Pope to back her, ready to invade on the first opportunity. What case so inviting to an invader, as that of a nation whose Government can raise no money? Ireland, with both Spain and the Pope at her back, was always ready to rebel: what better opportunity for rebellion? The Dutch would gladly beat the English merchants out of the markets of the world: how were they to be protected against foul play? The pirates of Algiers and Tunis were plundering them as they passed: how were they to be protected against robbery? At home, though there was no great evil pressing nor any great danger threatening, time was working changes as usual: new cases were arising which Government required new powers to meet; proclamations being but a voice, which could not be enforced without sanction of a previous law. Whatever good therefore was designed for the nation in that long array of bills prepared by the Government for the last Parliament, or in any others which the popular party designed to bring in, all that good was at a stand.

To call another Parliament immediately would have been a hazardous experiment,-as likely to do harm as good. But there was one way left by which those who regretted the state of things which had thus been brought about might help to rectify it. It can hardly