The City declares against the Catholic Lords and evil. Having first set forth their own complaints, the citizens asked that the persons of the Catholic Lords might be secured, and that the bishops, who were the main obstacles to the passage of good laws in the Upper the bishops. House, might be deprived of their votes. If this declaration expressed the real sense of the City, all the efforts of Charles's partisans to win London to their side would be made in vain. Nov. 13. The Commons follow The declaration of the City was the turning-point in the struggle. It came just after the impeached bishops had put in their answer in the House of Lords. It may be that the discovery that the City supported Pym's views Pym's lead. influenced some votes in the Commons. At all events, on the 13th they not only voted that the bishops' answer was frivolous, but they reconsidered their determination to restrict the immediate supply of Scottish troops to 1,000. They now resolved to ask for as many as 5,000, though 3,000 had been thought too much on the day before. Before night this proposal was agreed to by the Lords.1 In these last conflicts Hampden had been once more by the side of Pym. He had left Fiennes behind him at Edinburgh, and had hastened back to throw himself heart and soul into the Parliamentary struggle. With him there was no looking back. What he had seen in Scotland seems to have confirmed him in the belief that Charles could not be trusted. Hampden at Westminster. As soon as the immediate wants of Ireland had been provided for, the Remonstrance was once more taken up. On the 15th and 16th it finally passed through committee.2 As might have been expected, the only real struggle was over the ecclesiastical clauses. One of these, as committee. originally drawn, complained of the errors and superstitions to be found in the Prayer Book. The Episcopalians Nov. 16. The Remonstrance through 'D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. 142 b. 2 These were the third and fourth sittings. Mr. Forster intercalates (The Grand Remonstrance, 205) a fierce and long debate on the 12th which never existed except in his own imagination. The Commons were engaged on that day in discussing the question of sending troops to Ireland. mustered in such strength that their opponents were fain to submit to the excision of these words. They then proposed an amendment justifying the use of the Prayer Book 'till the laws had otherwise provided.' This alteration, however, they failed to carry, though they succeeded in preventing the insertion of an announcement that the Commons intended to dispose of the lands of the bishops and deans. Equally balanced as the parties appeared to be, the next effort of the Episcopalians was signally defeated. A statement that the bishops had brought idolatry and Popery into the Church was opposed by Dering, but was retained by the large majority of 124 to 99. The probable explanation is, that some members were in favour of the retention of the Prayer Book, who were not unwilling to pass a bitter condemnation on the past proceedings of the bishops.1 Nov. 15. The supposed Popish Plot. During the last two days the attention of the House had not been entirely absorbed by the Remonstrance. The horrors of the Irish Rebellion had revived the belief in a great Popish Plot for the extinction of Protestantism in the three kingdoms. There was doubtless a singular opportuneness in the circulation of the rumours which sprang up just at the time when the fate of the Remonstrance was at stake, and it is quite possible that Pym and Hampden did not at this moment care to scrutinise so closely the tales which reached their ears as they might under other circumstances have done. But it must not be forgotten that a real plot existed; and with Pym's knowledge of much--we cannot tell of how much-of the Queen's subtlest intrigues, he could hardly venture to disregard any information, however trivial it might seem. On the 15th the Speaker informed the House that two priests had been taken. The House ordered that they should be proceeded against according to law. In the meanwhile ' D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 153. All through his notes of this debate, D'Ewes speaks of his opponents as the party of Episcopacy, or the Episcopalian party. The words are in cypher, and have not been noticed by Mr. Forster. Mr. Sanford (Studies, 137) mentions them, but does not appear to have seized their importance. Nov. 15. Two priests captured. plots. the Lords were engaged in examining one Thomas Beale, a tailor, who asserted that he had overheard some persons talking of their intention to murder no less than 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 neither be denied nor explained away. Nov. 17. 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, 1 L. J. iv. 439. 2 D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 151 b. L. F. 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.' The reading of this and other evidence was followed by Belief of the 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 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. In the face 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 it put off?" "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. 2 C. F. ii. 318. • 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. |