THE REIGNS OF JAMES I. AND CHARLES I.

While the Protestants in Germany were struggling for religious liberty, and the Parliaments of France for political privileges, there was a contest going on in England for the attainment of the same great ends. With the accession of James I. a new era commences in English history, marked by the growing importance of the House of Commons, and their struggles for civil and religious liberty. The Commons had not been entirely silent during the long reign of Elizabeth, but members of them occasionally dared to assert those rights of which Englishmen are proud. The queen was particularly sensitive to any thing which pertained to her prerogative, and generally sent to the Tower any man who boldly expressed his opinion on subjects which she deemed that she and her ministers alone had the right to discuss. These forbidden subjects were those which pertained to the management of religion, to her particular courts, and to her succession to the crown. She never made an attack on what she conceived to be the constitution, but only zealously defended what she considered as her own rights. And she was ever sufficiently wise to yield a point to the commons, after she had asserted her power, so that concession, on her part, had all the appearance of bestowing a favor. She never pushed matters to extremity, but gave way in good time. And in this policy she showed great wisdom; so that, in spite of all her crimes and caprices, she ever retained the affections of the English people.

The Accession of James I. son of her rival Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, ascended the throne, (1603,) under the title of James I., and was the first of the Stuart kings. He had been king of Scotland under the title of James VI., and had there many difficulties to contend with, chiefly in consequence of the turbulence of the nobles, and the bigotry of the reformers. He was eager to take possession of his English inheritance, but was so poor that he could not begin his journey until Cecil sent him the money. He was crowned, with great ceremony, in Westminster Abbey, on the 25th of June.

The first acts of his reign were unpopular; and it was subsequently disgraced by a continual succession of political blunders. To detail these, or to mention all the acts of this king, or the events of his inglorious reign would fill a volume larger than this History. Moreover, from this period, modern history becomes very complicated and voluminous, and all that can be attempted in this work is, an allusion to the principal events.

The The Genius of the Reign of James. genius of this reign is the contest between royal prerogative and popular freedom. The proceedings in parliament were characterized by a spirit of boldness and resistance never before manifested, while the speeches and acts of the king were marked by an obstinate and stupid pertinacity to those privileges which absolute kings extorted from their subjects in former ages of despotism and darkness. The boldness of the Commons and the bigotry of the king led to incessant disagreement and discontent; and, finally, under Charles I., to open rupture, revolution, and strife.

The progress of this insurrection and contest furnishes one of the most important and instructive chapters in the history of society and the young student cannot make himself too familiar with details, of which our limits forbid a description.

The great Puritan contest here begins, destined not to be closed until after two revolutions, and nearly a century of anxiety, suffering, and strife. Providence raised up, during the whole of the Stuart dynasty, great patriots and statesmen, who had an eye to perceive the true interests and rights of the people, and a heart and a hand to defend them. No period and no nation have ever been more fertile in great men than England was from the accession of James I. to the abdication of James II., a period of eighty-five years. Shakspeare, Raleigh, Coke, Bacon, Cecil, Selden, Pym, Wentworth, Hollis, Leighton, Taylor, Baxter, Howe, Cromwell, Hampden, Blake, Vane, Milton, Clarendon, Burnet, Shaftesbury, are some of the luminaries which have shed a light down to our own times, and will continue to shine through all future ages. They were not all contemporaneous, but they all took part, more or less, on one side or the other, in the great contest of the seventeenth century. Whether statesmen, warriors, poets, or divines, they alike made their age an epoch, and their little island the moral centre of the world.

But we must first allude to some of the events of the reign of James I., before the struggle between prerogative and liberty attracted the attention of Europe.

One of the first was the Conspiracy of Sir Walter Raleigh. conspiracy against the king, in which Lord Cobham and Sir Walter Raleigh were engaged. We lament that so great a favorite with all readers as Sir Walter Raleigh, so universal a genius, a man so learned, accomplished, and brave, should have even been suspected of a treasonable project, and without the excuse of some traitors, that they wished to deliver their country from tyranny. But there is no perfection in man. Sir Walter was restless and ambitious, and had an eye mainly to his own advantage. His wit, gallantry, and chivalry were doubtless very pleasing qualities in a courtier, but are not the best qualities of a patriot. He was disappointed because he could not keep pace with Cecil in the favor of his sovereign, and because the king took away the monopolies he had enjoyed. Hence, in conjunction with other disappointed politicians, he was accused of an attempt to seize the king\'s person, to change the ministry, and to place the Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne. Against Raleigh appeared no less a person than the great Coke, who prosecuted him with such vehemence that Raleigh was found guilty, and condemned to death. But the proofs of his guilt are not so clear as the evidence of his ambition; and much must be attributed to party animosity. Though condemned, he was not executed; but lived to write many more books, and make many more voyages, to the great delight both of the cultivated and the adventurous. That there was a plot to seize the king is clear, and the conspirators were detected and executed. Raleigh was suspected of this, and perhaps was privy to it; but the proofs of his crime were not apparent, except to the judges, and to the attorney-general, Coke, who compared the different plots to Samson\'s foxes, joined in the tails, though their heads were separated.

The most memorable event at this time in the domestic history of the kingdom was the Gunpowder Plot. Gunpowder Plot, planned by Catesby and other disappointed and desperate Catholics for the murder of the king, and the destruction of both houses of parliament. Knowing the sympathies of James for their religion, the Catholics had expected toleration, at least. But when Persecution of the Catholics. persecution continued against them, some reckless and unprincipled men united in a design to blow up the parliament. Percy, a relation of the Earl of Northumberland, was concerned in the plot, and many of the other conspirators were men of good families and fortunes, but were implacable bigots. They hired a cellar, under the parliament house, which had been used for coals; and there they deposited thirty-one barrels of gunpowder, waiting several months for a favorable time to perpetrate one of the most horrid crimes ever projected. It was resolved that Guy Fawkes, one of the number, should set fire to the train. They were all ready, and the 5th of November, 1605, was at hand, the day to which parliament was prorogued; but Percy was anxious to save his kinsman from the impending ruin, Sir Everard Digby wished to warn some of his friends, and Tresham was resolved to give his brother-in-law, Lord Mounteagle, a caution. It seems that this peer received a letter so peculiar, that he carried it to Cecil, who showed it to the king, and the king detected or suspected a plot. The result was, that the cellar was explored by the lord chamberlain, and Guy Fawkes himself was found, with all the materials for striking a light, near the vault in which the coal and the gunpowder were deposited. He was seized, interrogated, tortured, and imprisoned; but the wretch would not reveal the names of his associates, although he gloried in the crime he was about to commit, and alleged, as his excuse, that violent diseases required desperate remedies, the maxim of the Jesuits. But most of the conspirators revealed their guilt by flight. They might have escaped, had they fled from the kingdom; but they hastened only into the country to collect their friends, and head an insurrection, which, of course, was easily suppressed. The leaders in this plot were captured and executed, and richly deserved their fate, although it was clear that they were infatuated. But in all crime there is infatuation. It was suspected that the Jesuits were at the bottom of the conspiracy; and the whole Catholic population suffered reproach from the blindness and folly of a few bigots, from whom no sect or party ever yet has been free. But there is no evidence that any of the Catholic clergy were even privy to the intended crime, which was known only to the absolute plotters. Some Jesuits were indeed suspected, arrested, tortured, and executed; but no evidence of guilt was brought against them sufficient to convict them. But their acquittal was impossible in such a state of national alarm and horror. Nothing ever made a more lasting and profound impression on the English mind than this intended crime; and it strengthened the prejudices against the Catholics even more than the persecutions under Queen Mary. Had the crime been consummated, it would only have proved a blunder. It would have shocked and irritated the nation beyond all self-control; and it is probable that the whole Catholic population would have been assassinated, or hunted out, as victims for the scaffold, in every corner of England. It proved, however, a great misfortune, and the severest blow Catholicism ever received in England. Thus God overrules all human wickedness. There was one person who suffered, in consequence of the excited suspicions of the nation, whose fate we cannot but compassionate; and this person was the Earl of Northumberland, who was sentenced to pay a fine of thirty thousand pounds, to be deprived of all his offices, and to be imprisoned in the Tower for life, and simply because he was the head of the Catholic party, and a promoter of toleration. Indeed, penal statutes against the Catholics were fearfully multiplied. No Catholic was permitted to appear at court, or live in London, or within ten miles of it, or remove, on any occasion, more than five miles from his home, without especial license. No Catholic recusant was permitted to practise surgery, physic, or law; to act as judge, clerk, or officer of any court or corporation; or perform the office of administrator, executor, or guardian. Every Catholic who refused to have his child baptized by a Protestant, was obliged to pay, for each omission, one hundred pounds. Every person keeping a Catholic servant, was compelled to pay ten pounds a month to government. Moreover, every recusant was outlawed; his house might be broken open; his books and furniture destroyed; and his horses and arms taken from him. Such was the severe treatment with which the Catholics, even those who were good citizens, were treated by our fathers in England; and this persecution was defended by some of the greatest jurists, divines, and statesmen which England has produced. And yet some maintain that there has been no progress in society, except in material civilization!

One of the peculiarities of the reign of James was, the ascendency which favorites obtained over him, so often the mark of a weak and vacillating mind. Henry VIII. and Elizabeth had their favorites; but they were ministers of the royal will. Moreover, they, like Wolsey, Cromwell, Burleigh, and Essex, were great men, and worthy of the trust reposed in them. But James, with all his kingcraft and statecraft, with all his ostentation and boasts of knowledge and of sagacity, reposed his confidence in such a man as Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. It is true he also had great men to serve him; Cecil was his secretary, Bacon was his chancellor, and Coke was his chief justice. But Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset. Carr and Villiers rose above them all in dignity and honor, and were the companions and confidential agents of their royal master.

Robert Carr was a Scottish gentleman, poor and cunning, who had early been taught that personal beauty, gay dress, and lively manners, would make his fortune at court. He first attracted the attention of the king at a tilting match, at which he was the esquire to Lord Dingwall. In presenting his lord\'s shield to the king, his horse fell and threw him at James\'s feet. His leg was broken, but his fortune was made. James, struck with his beauty and youth, and moved by the accident, sent his own surgeon to him, visited him himself, and even taught him Latin, seeing that the scholastic part of his education had been neglected. Indeed, James would have made a much better schoolmaster than king; and his pedantry and conceit were beyond all bounds, so that Bacon styled him, either in irony or sycophancy, "the Solomon of the age." Greatness and Fall of Somerset. Carr now became the pet of the learned monarch. He was knighted, rich presents were bestowed on him, all bowed down to him as they would have done to a royal mistress; and Cecil and Suffolk vied with each other in their attempts to secure the favor of his friends. He gradually eclipsed every great noble at court, was created Viscount Rochester, received the Order of the Garter, and, when Cecil, then Earl of Salisbury, died, received the post of the Earl of Suffolk as lord chamberlain, he taking Cecil\'s place as treasurer. Rochester, in effect, became prime minister, as Cecil had been. He was then created Earl of Somerset, in order that he might marry the Countess of Essex, the most beautiful and fascinating woman at the English court. She was daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and granddaughter of the old Duke of Norfolk, executed in 1572, and, consequently, belonged to the first family in the realm. She was married to Essex at the age of thirteen, but treated him with contempt and coldness, being already enamored of the handsome favorite. That she might marry Carr she obtained a divorce from her husband on the most frivolous grounds, and through the favor of the king, who would do any thing for the man he delighted to honor. She succeeded in obtaining her end, and caused the ruin of all who opposed her wishes. But she proved a beautiful demon, a fascinating fury, as might be expected from such an unprincipled woman, although ennobled by "the blood of all the Howards." Her reign lasted, however, only during the ascendency of her husband. For a time, "glorious days were succeeded by as glorious nights, when masks and dancings had a continual motion, and when banquetings rapt up the spirit of the sacred king, and kept it from descending to earthly things." But whatever royal favor stamps, royal favor, like fashion, leaves. Carr was supplanted by Villiers, and his doom was sealed. For the murder of his old friend Sir Thomas Overbury, who died in the Tower, as it was then supposed by poison, he and his countess were tried, found guilty, and disgraced. But he was not executed, and, after a few years\' imprisonment, retired to the country, with his lady, to reproach and hate each other. Their only child, the Lady Anna Carr, a woman of great honor and virtue, married the first duke of Bedford, and was the mother of Lord Russell who died on the scaffold, a martyr to liberty, in the reign of Charles II. The origin of the noble families of England is curious. Some few are descended from successful Norman chieftains, who came over with William the Conqueror, and whose merit was in their sword. Others are the descendants of those who, as courtiers, statesmen, or warriors, obtained great position, power, and wealth, during former reigns. Many owe their greatness to the fact that they are the offspring of the illegitimate children of kings, or the descendants of the ignoble minions of kings. Some few are enrolled in the peerage on account of their great wealth; and a still smaller number for the eminent services they have rendered their country like Wellington, Brougham, or Ellenborough. A vast majority can boast only the merit or the successful baseness of their ancestors. But all of them are interlinked by marriages, and therefore share together the glory or the shame of their progenitors, so far as glory and shame can be transmitted from father to son, independently of all individual virtue or vice.

Carr was succeeded in the royal favor by Duke of Buckingham. Villiers, and he, more fortunate, ever retained the ascendency over the mind and heart of James, as well as of his son Charles I. George Villiers owed his fortune, not to his birth or talents, but to his fine clothes, his Parisian manners, smooth face, tall figure, and bland smiles. He became cup-bearer, then knight, then gentleman of the privy council, then earl, then marquis, and finally duke of Buckingham, lord high admiral, warden of the Cinque Ports, high steward of Westminster, constable of Windsor Castle, and chief justice in eyre of the parks and forests. "The doting and gloating king" had taught Somerset Latin; he attempted to teach Buckingham divinity, and called him ever by the name of "Steenie." And never was there such a mixture of finery, effeminacy, insolence, and sycophancy in any royal minion before or since. Beau Brummell never equalled him in dress, Wolsey in magnificence, Mazarin in peculation, Walpole in corruption, Jeffries in insolence, or Norfolk in pride. He was the constant companion of the king, to whose vices he pandered, and through him the royal favor flowed. But no rewards, or favors, or greatness satisfied him; not so much because he was ambitious, as because, like a spoiled child, he did not appreciate the magnitude of the gifts which were bestowed on him. Nor did he ever know his place; but made love to the queen of France herself, when he was sent on an embassy. He trampled on the constitution, subverted the laws, ground down the people by taxes, and taught the king to disregard the affections of his subjects, and to view them as his slaves. But such a triumph of iniquity could not be endured; and Buckingham was finally assassinated, after he had gained an elevation higher than any English subject ever before attained, except Wolsey, and without the exercise of any qualities which entitled him to a higher position than a master of ceremonies at a fashionable ball. It is easy to conceive that such a minion should arrive at power under such a monarch as James; but how can we understand that such a man as Lord Bacon. Lord Bacon, the chancellor, the philosopher, the statesman, the man of learning, genius, and wisdom, should have bowed down to the dust, in vile subserviency, to this infamous favorite of the king. Surely, what lessons of the frailty of human nature does the reign of James teach us! The most melancholy instance of all the singular cases of human inconsistency, at this time, is the conduct of the great Bacon himself, who reached the zenith of his power during this reign. It is not the receiving of a bribe, while exercising the highest judicial authority in the land, on which alone his shame rests, but his insolent conduct to his inferiors, his acquiescence in wrong, his base and unmanly sycophancy, his ingratitude to his friends and patrons, his intense selfishness and unscrupulous ambition while climbing to power, and, above all, his willingness to be the tool of a despot who trampled on the rights and liberties which God had given him to guard; and this in an age of light, of awakened intelligence, when even his crabbed rival Coke was seeking to explode the abuses of the Dark Ages. But "the difference between the soaring angel and the creeping snake, was but a type of the difference between Bacon the philosopher and Bacon the attorney-general, Bacon seeking for truth and Bacon seeking for the Seals." As the author of the Novum Organum, as the pioneer of modern science, as the calm and patient investigator of nature\'s laws, as the miner and sapper of the old false systems of philosophy which enslaved the human mind, as the writer for future generations, he has received, as he has deserved, all the glory which admiring and grateful millions can bestow, of his own nation, and of all nations. No name in British annals is more illustrious than his, and none which is shaded with more lasting shame. Pope alone would have given him an immortality as the "wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." The only defence for the political baseness of Bacon—and this is insufficient—is, that all were base around him. The years when he was in power are among the darkest and most disgraceful in English history.

Allusion has been made to the reign of favorites; but this was but a small part of the evils of the times. Every thing abroad and at home was mismanaged. Patents of monopolies were multiplied; the most grievous exactions were made; indefensible executions were ordered; the laws were perverted; justice was sold; and an ignominious war was closed by a still more ignominious peace. Trial and Execution of Raleigh. The execution of Raleigh was a disgrace to the king, the court, and the nation, because the manner of it was so cowardly and cruel. He had been convicted, in the early part of the reign, of treason, and committed to the Tower. There he languished twelve years, amusing himself by writing a universal history, and in seeking the elixir of life; for, in the mysteries of chemistry, and in the mazes of historical lore, as in the intrigues of courts, and dangers of camps, he was equally at home.

He was released from his prison in order to take command of an adventurous expedition to Guiana in quest of gold. In a former voyage he had visited the banks of the Oronoco in quest of the city of Manoa, where precious stones and gold existed in exhaustless treasures. That El Dorado he could not find; but now, in prison, he proposed to Secretary Winwood an expedition to secure what he had before sought in vain. The king wavered a while between his cupidity and fear; for, while he longed for gold, as the traveller does for water on the desert of Sahara, he was afraid of giving offence to the Spanish ambassador. But his cupidity was the stronger feeling, and Raleigh was sent with fourteen ships to the coasts of South America. The expedition was in every respect unfortunate to Raleigh and to the king. The gallant commander lost his private fortune and a promising son, the Spaniards attacked his armament, his troops mutinied and deserted, and he returned to England, with a sullied fame, to meet a disappointed sovereign and implacable enemies. In such times, failure is tantamount to crime, and Raleigh was tried for offences he never committed. The most glaring injustice, harshness, and sophistry were resorted to, even by Bacon; but still Raleigh triumphantly defended himself. But no innocence or eloquence could save him; and he was executed on the sentence which had been pronounced against him for treason fifteen years before. To such meanness and cowardice did his enemies resort to rid the world of a universal genius, whose crime—if crime he ever committed—had long been consigned to oblivion.

But we cannot longer dwell on the lives of eminent individuals during the reign of James. However interesting may be the details of their fortunes, their history dwindles into insignificance when compared with the great public injuries which an infatuated monarch inflicted. Not cruel in his temper, not stained by personal crimes, quite learned in Greek and Latin, but weak and ignorant of his duties as a king, Encroachments of James. he was inclined to trespass on the rights of his subjects. As has been already remarked, the genius of his reign was the contest between prerogative and liberty. The Commons did not acquiesce in his measures, or yield to his wishes, as they did during the reign of Elizabeth. He had a notion that the duty of a king was to command, and that of the subject was to obey, in all things; that kings ruled by divine right, and were raised by the Almighty above all law. But such notions were not approved by a parliament which swarmed with Puritans, and who were not careful to conceal their views from the king. They insisted on their privileges as tenaciously as the king insisted on his prerogative, and often came into collision with him. And they instituted an inquiry into monopolies, and attacked the monstrous abuses of purveyance, and the incidents of feudal tenure, by which, among other things, the king became guardian to wards, and received the profits of their estates during their minority. These feudal claims, by which the king, in part, received his revenue, were every year becoming less valuable to the crown, and more offensive to the people. The king, at length, was willing to compound, and make a bargain with the Commons, by which he was to receive two hundred thousand pounds a year, instead of the privileges of wardship, and other feudal rights. But his necessities required additional grants, which the Commons were unwilling to bestow; and the king then resorted to the sale of monopolies and even peerages, sent the more turbulent of the Commons to prison, and frequently dissolved parliament. He was resolved to tax the people if supplies were not granted him, while the Commons maintained that no taxation could be allowed without their consent. Moreover, the Commons refused to grant such supplies as the king fancied he needed, unless certain grievances were redressed, among which was the High Commission Court, an arbitrary tribunal, which fined and imprisoned without appeal. But James, though pressed for money, stood firm to his notions of prerogative, and supplied his most urgent necessities by illegal means. People were dragged to the Star Chamber, on all kinds of accusations, that they might be sentenced to pay enormous fines; new privileges and monopolies were invented, and new dignities created. Baronets, who are hereditary knights, were instituted, and baronetcies were sold for one thousand pounds each.

But the monopolies which the king granted, in order to raise money, did not inflame the Commons so much as the projected marriage between the prince of Wales and the infanta of Spain. James flattered himself that this Spanish match, to arrange which he had sent Buckingham to the court of Madrid, would procure the restitution of the Palatinate to the elector, who had been driven from his throne. But the Commons thought differently. They, as well as the people generally, were indignant in view of the inactivity of the government in not sending aid to the distressed Protestants of Germany; and the loss of the Palatinate was regarded as a national calamity. They saw no good which would accrue from an alliance with the enemies and persecutors of these Protestants; but, on the other hand, much evil. As the constitutional guardians, therefore, of the public welfare and liberty, Quarrel between James and Parliament. they framed a remonstrance to the king, representing the overgrown power of Austria as dangerous to the liberties of Europe, and entreated his majesty to take up arms against Spain, which was allied with Austria, and by whose wealth Austrian armies were supported.

James was inflamed with indignation at this remonstrance, which militated against all his maxims of government; and he forthwith wrote a letter to the speaker of the House of Commons, commanding him to admonish the members "not to presume to meddle with matters of state which were beyond their capacity, and especially not to touch on his son\'s marriage." The Commons, not dismayed, and conscious of strength, sent up a new remonstrance in which they affirmed that they were entitled to interpose with their counsel in all matters of state, and that entire freedom of speech was their ancient and undoubted right, transmitted from their ancestors. The king, in reply, told the Commons, that "their remonstrance was more like a denunciation of war, than an address of dutiful subjects, and that their pretension to inquire into state affairs was a plenipotence to which none of their ancestors, even during the weakest reigns, had ever dared to aspire." He farther insinuated that their privileges were derived from royal favor. On this, the Commons framed another protest,—that the liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of parliament are the ancient and undoubted birthright of Englishmen, and that every member has the right of freedom of speech. This protest they entered upon their journals, upon which James lost all temper, ordered the clerk to bring him the journals, erased the protestation with his own hand, in presence of the judges and the council, and then dissolved the parliament.

Nothing else of note occurred in this reign, except the prosecution of the Spanish match, which was so odious to the nation that Buckingham, to preserve his popularity, broke off the negotiations, and by a system of treachery and duplicity as hateful as were his original efforts to promote the match. War with Spain was the result of the insult offered to the infanta and the court. An alliance was now made with France, and Prince Charles married Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV. The Commons then granted abundant supplies for war, to recover the Palatinate; and liberty of conscience was granted by the monarch, on the demands of Richelieu, to the Catholics—so long and, perseveringly oppressed.

Shortly after, (March 27, 1625,) King James Death of James I. died at Theobalds, his favorite palace, from a disease produced by anxiety, gluttony, and sweet wines, after a reign in England of twenty-two years; and his son, Charles I., before the breath was out of his body, was proclaimed king in his stead.

The course pursued by James I. was adopted by his son; and, as their reigns were memorable for the same struggle, we shall consider them together until revolution gave the victory to the advocates of freedom.

Charles I. was twenty-five years of age when he began his reign. In a moral and social point of view he was a more respectable man than his father, but had the same absurd notions of the royal prerogative, the same contempt of the people, the same dislike of constitutional liberty, and the same resolution of maintaining the absolute power of the crown, at any cost. He was moreover, perplexed by the same embarrassments, was involved in debt, had great necessities, and was dependent on the House of Commons for aid to prosecute his wars and support the dignity of the crown. But he did not consider the changing circumstances and spirit of the age, and the hostile and turbulent nature of his people. He increased, rather than diminished, the odious monopolies which irritated the nation during the reign of his father; he clung to all the old feudal privileges; he retained the detestable and frivolous Buckingham as his chief minister; and, when Buckingham was assassinated, he chose others even more tyrannical and unscrupulous; he insisted on taxing the people without their consent, threw contempt on parliament, and drove the nation to rebellion. In all his political acts he was infatuated, after making every allowance for the imperfections of human nature. A wiser man would have seen the rising storm, and might possibly have averted it. But Charles never dreamed of it, until it burst in all its fury on his devoted head, and consigned him to the martyr\'s grave. We pity his fate, but lament still more his blindness. And so great was this blindness, that it almost seems as if Providence had marked him out to be a victim on the altar of human progress.

With the reign of Charles commences unquestionably the most exciting period of English history, and a period to which historians have given more attention than to any other great historical era, the French Revolution alone excepted. The attempt to describe the leading events in this exciting age and reign would be, in this connection, absurd; and yet some notice of them cannot be avoided.

For more than ten centuries, The Struggle of Classes. great struggles have been going on in society between the dominant orders and sects. The victories gained by the oppressed millions, over their different masters, constitute what is called the Progress of Society. Defenders of the people have occasionally arisen from orders to which they did not belong. When, then, any great order defended the cause of the people against the tyranny and selfishness of another order, then the people have advanced a step in civil and social freedom.

When Feudalism weighed fearfully upon the people, "the clergy sought, on their behalf, a little reason, justice, and humanity, and the poor man had no other asylum than the churches, no other protectors than the priests; and, as the priests offered food to the moral nature of man, they acquired a great ascendency, and the preponderance passed from the nobles to the clergy." By the aid of the church, royalty also rose above feudalism, and aided the popular cause.

The church, having gained the ascendency, sought then to enslave the kings of the earth. But royalty, borrowing help from humiliated nobles and from the people, became the dominant power in Europe.

In these struggles between nobles and the clergy, and between the clergy and kings, Rise of Popular Power. the people had acquired political importance. They had obtained a knowledge of their rights and of their strength; and they were determined to maintain them. They liked not the tyranny of either nobles, priests, or kings; but they bent all their energies to suppress the power of the latter, since the two former had been already humiliated.

The struggle of the people against royalty is pre?minently the genius of the English Revolution. It is to be doubted whether any king could have resisted the storm of popular fury which hurled Charles from his throne. But no king could have managed worse than he, no king could be more unfortunately and unpropitiously placed; and his own imprudence and folly hastened the catastrophe.

The House of Commons, which had acquired great strength, spirit, and popularity during the reign of James, fully perceived the difficulties and necessities of Charles, but made no adequate or generous effort to relieve him from them. Some of the more turbulent rejoiced in them. They knew that kings, like other men, were selfish, and that it was not natural for people to part with their privileges and power without a struggle, even though this power was injurious to the interests of society. In the Middle Ages, barons, bishops, and popes had fought desperately in the struggle of classes; and it was only from their necessities that either kings or people had obtained what they demanded. King Charles, no more than Pope Boniface VIII., would surrender, as a boon to man, without compulsion, his supposed omnipotence.

The king ascended his throne burdened by the debts of his father, and by an expensive war, which the Commons incited, but would not pay for. They granted him, to meet his difficulties and maintain his honor, the paltry sum of one hundred and forty thousand pounds, and the duties of tonnage and poundage, not for life, as was customary, but for a year. Quarrel between the King and the Commons. Nothing could be more provoking to a young king. Of course, the money was soon spent, and the king wanted more, and had a right to expect more. But, if the Commons granted what the king required, he would be made independent of them, and he would rule tyrannically, as the kings of England did before him. So they resolved not to grant necessary supplies to carry on the government, unless the king would part with the prerogatives of an absolute prince, and those old feudal privileges which were an abomination in the eyes of the people. Charles was not the man to make such a bargain. Few kings, in his age, would have seen its necessity. But necessity there was. Civil war was inevitable, without a compromise, provided both parties were resolved on maintaining their ground. But Charles fancied that the Commons could be browbeaten and intimidated into submission; and, moreover, in case he was brought into collision with his subjects, he fancied that he was stronger than they, and could put down the spirit of resistance. In both of these suppositions he was wrong. The Commons were firm, and were stronger than he was, because they had the sympathy of the people. They believed conscientiously, especially the Puritans, that he was wrong; that God gave him no divine right to enslave them, and that they were entitled, by the eternal principles of justice, and by the spirit of the constitution, to civil and religious liberty, in the highest sense of that term. They believed that their rights were inalienable and absolute; that, among them, they could not be taxed without their own consent; and that their constitutional guardians, the Commons, should be unrestricted in debate. These notions of the people were ideas. On ideas all governments rest. No throne could stand a day unless the people felt they owed it their allegiance. When the main support of the throne of Charles was withdrawn, the support of popular ideas, and this support given to the House of Commons, at issue with the sovereign, what could he do? What could Louis XVI. do one hundred and fifty years afterwards? What could Louis Philippe do in our times? A king, without the loyalty of the people, is a phantom, a mockery, and a delusion, unless he have physical force to sustain him; and even then armies will rebel, if they feel they are not bound to obey, and if it is not for their interest to obey.

Now Charles had neither loyalty nor force to hold him on his throne. The agitations of an age of unprecedented boldness in speculations destroyed the former; the House of Commons would not grant supplies to secure the latter. And they would not grant supplies, because they loved themselves and the cause of the people better than they loved their king. In short, it was only by his concessions that they would supply his necessities. He would not make the concessions, and the contest soon ended in an appeal to arms.

But Charles was not without friends, and some of his The Counsellors of Charles. advisers were men of sagacity and talent. It is true they did not fully appreciate the weakness of the king, or the strength of his enemies; but they saw his distress, and tried to remove it. They, very naturally in such an age, recommended violent courses—to grant new monopolies, to extort fines, to exercise all his feudal privileges, to pawn the crown jewels, even, in order to raise money; for money, at all events, he must have. They advised him to arrest turbulent and incendiary members of the Commons, to prorogue and dissolve parliaments, to raise forced loans, to impose new duties, to shut up ports, to levy fresh taxes, and to raise armies friendly to his cause. In short, they recommended unconstitutional measures—measures which both they and the king knew to be unconstitutional, but which they justified on the ground of necessity. And the king, in his perplexity, did what his ministers advised. But every person who was sent to the Tower, every new tax, every sentence of the Star Chamber, every seizure of property, every arbitrary command, every violation of the liberties of the people, raised up new enemies to the king, and inflamed the people with new discontents.

At first the Commons felt that they could obtain what they wanted—a redress of grievances, if the king\'s favorite adviser and minister were removed. Besides, they all hated Buckingham—peers, commons, and people,—and all sought his downfall. He had no friends among the people, as Essex had in the time of Elizabeth. His extravagance, pomp, and insolence disgusted all orders; and his reign seemed to be an insult to the nation. Even the people regarded him as an upstart, setting himself above the old nobility, and enriching himself by royal domains, worth two hundred eighty-four thousand three hundred and ninety-five pounds. So the Commons violently attacked his administration, and impeached him. But he was shielded by the king, and even appointed to command an expedition to relieve La Rochelle, then besieged by Richelieu. Death of Buckingham — Petition of Right. But he was stabbed by a religious fanatic, by the name of Felton, as he was about to embark at Portsmouth. His body was removed to London, and he was buried with great state in Westminster Abbey, much lamented by the king, who lost his early friend, one of the worst ministers, but not the worst man, which that age despised, (1628.)

Meanwhile the indignant Commons persevered with their work. They passed what is called the "Petition of Right,"—a string of resolutions which asserted that no freeman ought to be detained in prison, without being brought to trial, and that no taxes could be lawfully levied, without consent of the Commons—the two great pillars of the English constitution, yet truths involved in political difficulty, especially in cases of rebellion. The personal liberty of the subject is a great point indeed; and the act of habeas corpus, passed in later times, is a great step in popular freedom; but, if never to be suspended, no government could guard against conspiracy in revolutionary times.

The Petition of Right, however, obtained the king\'s assent, though unwillingly, grudgingly, and insincerely given; and the Commons, gratified for once, voted to the king supplies.

But Charles had no notion of keeping his word, and soon resorted to unconstitutional measures, as before. But he felt the need of able counsellors. His "dear Steenie" was dead, and he knew not in whom to repose confidence.

The demon of despotism raised up an agent in the person of Earl of Strafford. Thomas Wentworth, a man of wealth, talents, energy, and indomitable courage; a man who had, in the early part of his career, defended the cause of liberty; who had even suffered imprisonment sooner than contribute to an unlawful loan, and in whom the hopes of the liberal party were placed. But he was bribed. His patriotism was not equal to his ambition. Seduced by a peerage, and by the love of power, he went over to the side of the king, and defended his arbitrary rule as zealously as he had before advocated the cause of constitutional liberty. He was created Viscount Wentworth, and afterwards earl of Strafford—the most prominent man of the royalist party, and the greatest traitor to the cause of liberty which England had ever known. His picture, as painted by Vandyke, and hung up in the princely hall of his descendant, Earl Fitzwilliam, is a faithful portrait of what history represents him—a cold, dark, repulsive, unscrupulous tyrant, with an eye capable of reading the secrets of the soul, a brow lowering with care and thought, and a lip compressed with determination, and twisted into contempt of mankind. If Wentworth did not love his countrymen, he loved to rule over them: and he gained his end, and continued the prime minister of absolutism until an insulted nation rose in their might, and placed his head upon the block.

Under the rule of this minister, whom every one feared, the Puritans every where fled, preferring the deserts of America, with freedom, to the fair lands of England, with liberty trodden under foot. The reigns of both James and Charles are memorable for the resistance and despair of this intrepid and religious sect, in which were enrolled some of the finest minds and most intelligent patriots of the country. Pym, Cromwell, Hazelrig, and even Hampden, are said to have actually embarked; but Providence detained them in England, they having a mission of blood to perform there. In another chapter, the Puritans, their struggles, and principles, will be more fully presented; and we therefore, in this connection, abstain from further notice. It may, however, be remarked, that they were the most inflexible enemies of the king, and were determined to give him and his minister no rest until all their ends were gained. They hated Archbishop Laud even more intensely than they hated Wentworth; and Laud, if possible, was a greater foe to religious and civil liberty. Strafford and Laud are generally coupled together in the description of the abuses of arbitrary power. The churchman, however, was honest and sincere, only his views were narrow and his temper irritable. His vices were those of the bigot—such as disgraced St. Dominic or Torquemada, but faults which he deemed excellencies. He was an enthusiast in high churchism and toryism; and his zeal in defence of royal prerogative and the divine rights of bishops has won for him the panegyrics of his friends, as well as the curses of his enemies. For Strafford, too, there is admiration, but only for his talents, his courage, his strength—the qualities which one might see in Milton\'s Satan, or in Carlyle\'s picture gallery of heroes.

While the king and his minister were raising forced loans and contributions, sending members of the House of Commons to the Tower, fining, imprisoning, and mutilating the Puritans, a new imposition called out the energies of a great patriot and a great man, John John Hampden. Hampden—a fit antagonist of the haughty Wentworth. This new exaction was a tax called ship money.

It was devised by Chief Justice Finch and Attorney-General Noy, two subordinate, but unscrupulous tools of despotism, and designed to extort money from the inland counties, as well as from the cities, for furnishing ships—a demand that Elizabeth did not make, in all her power, even when threatened by the Spanish Armada. Clarendon even admits that this tax was not for the support of the navy, "but for a spring and magazine which should have no bottom, and for an everlasting supply on all occasions." And this the nation completely understood, and resolved desperately to resist.

Hampden, though a wealthy man, refused to pay the share assessed on him, which was only twenty shillings, deeming it an illegal tax. He was proceeded against by the crown lawyers. Hampden appealed to a decision of the judges in regard to the legality of the tax, and the king permitted the question to be settled by the laws. The trial lasted thirteen days, but ended in the condemnation of Hampden, who had shown great moderation, as well as courage, and had won the favor of the people. It was shortly after this that Hampden, as some historians assert, resolved to leave England with his cousin Oliver Cromwell. But the king prevented the ships, in which they and other emigrants had embarked, from sailing. Hampden was reserved for new trials and new labors.

About a month after Hampden\'s condemnation, an Insurrection in Scotland. insurrection broke out in Scotland, which hastened the crisis of revolution. It was produced by the attempt of Archbishop Laud to impose the English liturgy on the Scottish nation, and supplant Presbyterianism by Episcopacy. The revolutions in Scotland, from the time of Knox, had been popular; not produced by great men, but by the diffusion of great ideas. The people believed in the spiritual independence of their church, and not in the supremacy of a king. The instant, therefore, that the Episcopal worship was introduced, by authority, in the cathedral of Edinburgh, there was an insurrection, which rapidly spread through all parts of the country. An immense multitude came to Edinburgh to protest against the innovation, and crowded all the houses, streets, and halls of the city. The king ordered the petitioners home, without answering their complaints. They obeyed the injunction, but soon returned in greater numbers. An organization of resistance was made, and a provisional government appointed. All classes joined the insurgents, who, menaced, but united, at last bound themselves, by a solemn league and covenant, not to separate until their rights and liberties were secured. A vast majority of all the population of Scotland—gentlemen, clergy, citizens, and laborers, men, women, and children—assembled in the church, and swore fealty to the covenant. Force, of course, was necessary to reduce the rebels, and civil war commenced in Scotland. But war increased the necessities of the king, and he was compelled to make peace with the insurgent army.

Eleven years had now elapsed since the dissolution of the last parliament, during which the king had attempted to rule without one, and had resorted to all the expedients that the ingenuity of the crown lawyers could suggest, in order to extort money. Imposts fallen into desuetude, monopolies abandoned by Elizabeth, royal forests extended beyond the limits they had in feudal times, fines past all endurance, confiscations without end, imprisonments, tortures, and executions,—all marked these eleven years. The sum for fines alone, in this period, amounted to more than two hundred thousand pounds. The forest of Rockingham was enlarged from six to sixty miles in circuit, and the earl of Salisbury was fined twenty thousand pounds for encroaching upon it. Individuals and companies had monopolies of salt, soap, coals, iron, wine, leather, starch, feathers, tobacco, beer, distilled liquors, herrings, butter, potash, linen cloth, rags, hops, gunpowder, and divers other articles, which, of course, deranged the whole trade of the country. Prynne was fined ten thousand pounds, and had his ears cut off, and his nose slit, for writing an offensive book; and his sufferings were not greater than what divers others experienced for vindicating the cause of truth and liberty.

At last, the king\'s necessities compelled him to summon another parliament. He had exhausted every expedient to raise money. His army clamored for pay; and he was overburdened with debts.

On the 13th of April, 1640, the new parliament met. It knew its strength, and was determined now, Long Parliament. more than ever, to exercise it. It immediately took the power into its own hands, and from remonstrances and petitions it proceeded to actual hostilities; from the denunciation of injustice and illegality, it proceeded to trample on the constitution itself. It is true that the members were irritated and threatened, and some of their number had been seized and imprisoned. It is true that the king continued his courses, and was resolved on enforcing his measures by violence. The struggle became one of desperation on both sides—a struggle for ascendency—and not for rights.

One of the first acts of the House of Commons was the impeachment of Strafford. He had been just summoned from Ireland, where, as lord lieutenant, he had exercised almost regal power and regal audacity; he had been summoned by his perplexed and desponding master to assist him by his counsels. Reluctantly he obeyed, foreseeing the storm. He had scarcely arrived in London when the intrepid Pym accused him of high treason. The Lords accepted the accusation, and the imperious minister was committed to the Tower.

The impeachment of Laud soon followed; but he was too sincere in his tyranny to understand why he should be committed. Nor was he feared, as Strafford was, against whom the vengeance of the parliament was especially directed. A secret committee, invested with immense powers, was commissioned to scrutinize his whole life, and his destruction was resolved upon. On the 22d of March his trial began, and lasted seventeen days, during which time, unaided, he defended himself against thirteen accusers, with consummate ability. Indeed, he had studied his charges and despised his adversaries. Under ordinary circumstances, he would have been acquitted, for there was not sufficient evidence to convict him of high treason; but an unscrupulous and infuriated body of men were thirsting for his blood, and it was proposed to convict him by bill of attainder; that is, by act of parliament, on its own paramount authority, with or without the law. The bill passed, in spite of justice, in spite of the eloquence of the attainted earl. He was condemned, and remanded to the Tower.

Had the king been strong he would have saved his minister; had he been magnanimous, he would have stood by him to the last. But he had neither the power to save him, nor the will to make adequate sacrifices. He feebly interposed, but finally yielded, and gave his consent to the execution of the main agent of all his aggressions on the constitution he had sworn to maintain. Strafford deserved his fate, although the manner of his execution was not according to law.

A few months after the execution of Strafford, an event occurred which proved exceedingly unfortunate to the royal cause; and this was the Rebellion of Ireland. rebellion of Ireland, and the massacre of the Protestant population, caused, primarily, by the oppressive government of England, and the harsh and severe measures of the late lord lieutenant. In the course of a few weeks, the English and Scottish colonies seemed almost uprooted; one of the most frightful butcheries was committed that ever occurred. The Protestants exaggerated their loss; but it is probable that at least fifty thousand were massacred. The local government of Dublin was paralyzed. The English nation was filled with deadly and implacable hostility, not against the Irish merely, but against the Catholics every where. It was supposed that there was a general conspiracy among the Catholics to destroy the whole nation; and it was whispered that the queen herself had aided the revolted Irish. The most vigorous measures were adopted to raise money and troops for Ireland. The Commons took occasion of the general spirit of discontent and insurrection to prepare a grand remonstrance on the evils of the kingdom, which were traced to a "coalition of Papists, Arminian bishops and clergymen, and evil courtiers and counsellors." The Commons recited all the evils of the last sixteen years, and declared the necessity of taking away the root of them, which was the arbitrary power of the sovereign. The king, in reply, told the Commons that their remonstrance was unparliamentary; that he could not understand what they meant by a wicked party; that bishops were entitled to their votes in parliament; and that, as to the removal of evil counsellors, they must name whom they were. The remonstrance was printed and circulated by the Commons, which was of more effect than an army could have been.

Thus were affairs rapidly reaching a crisis, when the attempt to seize five of the most refractory and able members of parliament consummated it. The members were Hollis, Hazelrig, Pym, Hampden, and Strode; and they were accused of high treason. This movement of the king was one of the greatest blunders and one of the most unconstitutional acts he ever committed. The Commons refused to surrender their members; and then the king went down to the house, with an armed force, to seize them. But Pym and others got intelligence of the design of Charles, and had time to withdraw before he arrived. "The baffled tyrant returned to Whitehall with his company of bravoes," while the city of London sheltered Hampden and his friends. The shops were shut, the streets were filled with crowds, and the greatest excitement prevailed. The friends of Charles, who were inclined to constitutional measures, were filled with shame. It was now feared that the king would not respect his word or the constitution, and, with all his promises, was still bent on tyrannical courses. All classes, but bigoted royalists, now felt that something must be done promptly, or that their liberties would be subverted.

Then it was, and not till then, that the Com............