would be free. When he was once in Yorkshire he would easily find his way into Hull, and at Hull he would be in a position to receive supplies from the Continent. Charles yielded to his stronger partner. Never, he fondly promised her, would he surrender his command of the militia.' The bishops of Lords. In this temper he addressed himself to the demands of Parliament. It is needless to inquire whether, in some abstract constitutional system formed without reference to in the House any particular circumstances of time and place, the presence of bishops in Parliament is desirable or not. They had gained their place there when they had been the depositaries of the moral and intellectual force of the nation. In 1642 they were no more than an excrescence on political and religious life. They had made themselves the servants of the King, and apart from him they had no inherent strength by which they could stand. Few spoke in their defence, and most of those who did defended them not for their own sake, but for the sake of institutions which would fall more easily when they were gone from the political world. At his wife's bidding Charles consented to the Bill, which, by reducing them to their spiritual functions, gave them a fresh. chance of regaining the goodwill and admiration of their fellow-countrymen. At the same time he passed the Bill for The Bill for pressing passed. The King's pressing soldiers for Ireland, with the clause forbidding him to compel men to go out of their counties without permission from the Houses. He also offered to put in execution the laws against the recusants, and bound himself to grant no pardons in future to message. the Catholics without consent of Parliament, on condition that the seven priests who had been condemned in December might have their sentence commuted to banishment. He would also refer to Parliament all questions relating to the Church and the Liturgy, though he required that its recommendations should be submitted to him as a whole after the subject had been thoroughly discussed. He would leave nothing undone for the relief of Ireland, and, if Parliament saw 1 See Letters of Henrietta Maria, punished by Mrs. Everett Green. fit, he would venture his person in the war. Finally he wished the Houses to examine into the causes of the decay of trade.1 Feb. 14. Thanks from the Houses. Impeach. No wonder that, coupled with the former offer about the militia, this message drew forth warm expressions of thanks from both Houses. If only Charles could be trusted, everything might yet go well. Unluckily, that very afternoon, after the impeachment of the AttorneyGeneral for his conduct in relation to the accused members had been laid before the Lords, Pym brought up a packet of letters written by Digby from Middelburg, whither he had fled. One of them was addressed to the Queen, and in such a crisis it was resolved to break the seal. The contents were ominous of danger. "The humblest and most faithful servant you have in the ment of the Attorney- Digby's intercepted letter. world," wrote Digby, "is here at Middelburg, where I shall remain in the privatest way I can, till I receive instruction how to serve the King and your Majesty in these parts, if the King betake himself to a safe place where he may avow and protect his servants from rage and violence; but if, after all he hath done of late, he shall betake himself to the easiest and compliantest ways of accommodation, I am confident that then I shall serve him more by my absence than by all my industry." 2 The King's warrant to Digby's letter received an appropriate comment by the reading of the warrant by which the King had empowered Newcastle to take military possession of Hull.3 How was it possible to doubt that strong influence was being Newcastle. brought to bear upon the King to induce him to set Parliament at defiance? Even the most sanguine must have suspected that till the militia was actually in safe hands there could be no security for the State. On the 15th the arrangements previously made for the command ordinance. of the militia were embodied in an ordinance, and Feb. 15. The militia Feb. 22. Digby that ordinance was sent in the name of both Houses impeached. to the King. On the 22nd Digby was impeached. of high treason.1 1 L. F. iv. 580. • L. J. iv. 585. 2 L. J. iv. 582. Rushworth, iv. 554 L. 7. iv. 587, 602. Feb. 23. To the messengers who brought him the militia ordinance Charles refused to give an immediate answer. He had plainly made up his mind to say nothing till the Queen was in safety. On the 23rd she was under sail, carrying with her The Queen her daughter and the Crown jewels, full of hope and courage, and half believing that she had inspired her husband with something of her own resolution. After a tender farewell, Charles galloped along the cliffs in the direction in which the vessel was sailing, keeping his eyes fixed upon it to the last.1 sets sail. On the 26th the King was at Greenwich. Feb. 26. Charles at Greenwich. He sent for the Prince of Wales, and, in spite of the remonstrances of Parliament, he kept the lad with him. He was now buoyed up with a fresh hope as unsubstantial as were the many others which had melted away in his hands. The militia ordinance had given rise to some dissatisfaction in the City as overriding the municipal authority of the Lord Mayor, and there had been a movement amongst the citizens to resist it, of which George Benyon, a wealthy merchant, was the leading spirit. Charles had therefore drawn up a sharp answer to the message with which the Houses accompanied 2 Madame de Motteville's Mémoires, ch. ix. Giustinian to the Doge, March Ven. Transcripts, R. O. The Queen's mingled feelings may be gathered from the following extract from a letter written after her arrival at the Hague: "Il faloit que le Roy et moy fisions toute nos affaires tout seuls, qui ne sont pas petites ; et à la fin la violance du Parlement a estté sy grande contre moy que pour esttre en seureté de ma vie, il m'a falu en aler; car après qu'ils ont jeté plusieurs imputations contre moy et m'accuser de avoir voulu changer le gouvernement de l'Estat et de la religion et que c'estoit moy qui encouragoit les Irlandois à une rebellion, ils ont dit publiquement que une Royne n'estoit que subjecte et que elle pouvoit estre punice comme une autre. Ce n'est pas toutefois la peur de la mort qui m'aye fait en aler, mais d'une prisone, en me separant du Roy monsr. que j'avoue m'ut estté plus insuportable que la mort, car cela orait ruiné toute nos affaires, et, estant en liberté, j'espère que je seray encore en estat de March le servir "The Queen to the Duchess of Savoy, 25 Lettres de , April Henriette-Marie à sa sœur, publiées par Hermann Ferrero. Feb. 25, Ven. Transcripts, R. O. 2 Giustinian to the Doge, March 7' their ordinance, though he allowed himself to be persuaded by Hyde to hold it back for further consideration. On the 27th he had a long interview with Hyde. Hyde, it was arranged, was to remain at Westminster, to watch the proceedings of Feb. 27. He accepts Hyde as his secret counsellor. Parliament, and to send notice to the King of all that it was desirable for him to know. He was also to accompany every message which left the Houses for the King with a secret despatch containing the answer which he judged most fitting to be given. Charles was to copy the proposed answer with his own hand, and to address it to Parliament as if it were his own.1 Charles's acceptance of Hyde as his unofficial adviser marks a new departure in the constitutional system of the English monarchy. Hyde's great achievement was to throw over the doctrine which Strafford had inherited from Hyde's constitutional Their per manent views. the Tudors, which taught that there was a preroga tive above the law, capable of developing out of itself special and transcendent powers to meet each emergency as it arose, whether Parliament approved or not. The King, according to Hyde, was to work in combination with his Parliament; but he was not to allow the House of Commons to force its will upon the House of Lords, still less was he to allow both Houses combined to compel him to give the Royal assent to Bills of which his conscience disapproved. That such a conception of the constitution could under any circumstances have been permanently adopted is absolutely impossible. It did not even attempt to solve the question of sovereignty, which Strafford had been prepared to solve in one way, and which Pym was now prepared to solve in another. It was the idea of an essentially mediocre statesman. It was based on negations, and provided so elaborately that nothing obnoxious should be done, that there was no room left for doing anything at all. Strafford and Pym were men of real, if limited, insight. Hyde removed no difficulties; he awoke no enthusiasm; he welded together no divergent elements. weakness, Yet, with all this, Hyde had at least a marvellous temporary 1 Clarendon's Life, ii. 24. 7 success. and tem- He gave the King a party, and that party, though defeated in the field and doomed to many years of proscription, rose again to embrace almost the whole nation for a time. The explanation of this success is not hard to find. Hyde's policy of negation was welcome to those who were indisposed to change, and in 1642 nearly half the nation, and in 1660 nearly the whole of the nation, was indisposed to change. All who feared the intolerant rule of Puritanism or the interference of shopkeepers and artisans in the affairs of government welcomed a theory which acknowledged the right of the King to stop a legislation which was not very likely to take the course of which they approved. Other causes, no doubt, combined with this pure conservatism. Hyde had on his side the traditional reverence for the King, combined with the more honourable reverence for the law, and it was tempting to dispense with the toilsome labour of investigating what the law ought to be in favour of the far easier task of accepting whatever existed as the perpetual rule of life. The Civil nearer. Undoubtedly Hyde's connection with Charles brought the Civil War nearer than it was before. He could gain for him a party. He could not gain for him a nation. If he War brought could not quite separate him from his old belief in his prerogative as something personally inherent in himself, or from those insane appeals to forces which never proved to be really on his side, he could at least render such attempts more infrequent, and could cover them, when they occurred, with the decent veil of constitutional argument. Men seemed to be listening to the voice of the law itself when they were only carried away by the sonorous eloquence of a pleader. Charles's Even now, indeed, Charles had something very different in view from the formation of a constitutional party. He had promised the Queen that he would listen to no terms of accommodation which did not imply the submission of the Parliamentary leaders. With the Prince in his hands, he would go to the. North and throw himself upon the known loyalty of his people there. Hull was to be seized, or, if the attempt failed, Newcastle or Berwick should be occupied |