1625 TONNAGE AND POUNDAGE. 365 which had been smothered in 1621 and 1624, when the Commons were looking forward to co-operation with the Crown in war, was certain to break out afresh when there was no longer any such prospect. Even if there had been no change in this respect, it is hard to see how the question could have been avoided when the beginning of a new reign opened up the whole subject by the introduction of a new Bill for the grant of tonnage and poundage. Phelips took up a position which was logically unassailable. If the King, he said, possessed the right of imposing duties upon merchandise at his own pleasure, why was Parliament asked to grant that which belonged already to the Crown? In spite of Heath's opposition, the House resolved to grant tonnage and poundage for one year only. There ✓ would thus be time to consider the questions which had been raised. The Bill thus drawn was carried up to the House of Lords and was there read once. It is not necessary to suppose a deliberate intention to defeat it, but neither, it the House of would seem, was there any desire to hurry it on ; and the Bill was swept away by the tide of events which brought the session to a hurried close.2 The Bill dropped in Lords. A few days more, and the members of the House would be dispersed to every part of England. With the plague demanding its victims in London alone at the rate of 370 a week, more than a third of the total death-rate, the Commons could afford to wait for a more convenient opportunity to discuss the issues raised by Montague's book, or even to settle the vexed question of the impositions. Charles, however, could not afford to wait. In the full belief that the Commons would grant him, without hesitation, any sum for which he chose to ask, he had entered into the most extensive engagements with foreign powers. Was he now to acknowledge to The King's financial c'ifficulties. 1 "Kings ever received it as a gift of the subject, and were therewith contented, without charging them with any other way of imposition. For if they had any such power it were altogether unneedful to pass." Fawsley Debates, 43. The speech is toned down in the Journals. 2 The speeches in the Fawsley Debates seem to me to warrant the conclusion that far more than a mere adjustment of rates was at issue. Meade to Stuteville, July 2, Court and Times, i. 39. the King of France and the King of Denmark that he had promised more than he could perform? Was he to disperse his fleet and send his pressed landsmen to their homes? And yet this, and more than this, must be done, if no more than a beggarly sum of 140,000l. was to find its way into the Exchequer. If on July he had submitted to hard fate, and had consented to end the session, further reflection did not render more endurable the rebuff with which he had been met Who can wonder if he made one more effort to supply his needs? He deter for a further grant. The King was at this time at Hampton Court, whitler he had fled in hot haste as soon as he learned that the plague had broken out amongst his attendants at Whitehall. Late on mines to ask the evening of the 7th Buckingham hurried up from York House, assembled his followers, and told them that an additional supply must be asked for the next morning.' It is said that on account of the lateness of the hour many of the leading members of the Court party were absent. At all events when Sir Humphrey May heard, on the following morning, what Buckingham's intentions were, he resolved to keep back the proposed motion till he had remonstrated with the Duke. For the purpose of conveying this remonstrance May selected Eliot, as one who had stood high in Buckingham's favour, and who was likely to set forth the arguments against the step which the Duke was taking in the most persuasive manner. That Eliot had already seen reasons to distrust his influential patron is likely enough; but there had been nothing approaching to a breach between them, and there is no reason to suppose that, at this time, Eliot was inclined to go farther than May, or that, although he could hardly have thought Buckingham capable of taking the lead in the national councils, he had any July 8. May sends Eliot to remonstrate with the Duke. Locke to Carleton, July 9, S. P. Dom. iv. 29. 2 The authority for all this is Eliot's Negotium Posterorum. I do not see any reason to suppose that things happened in the main otherwise than he tells them, though his view of the position is evidently coloured by the misconception that the Commons had already done all that the King could reasonably ask, even from Charles's own point of view. 1625 ELIOT AND BUCKINGHAM. 367 wish to bear hardly on him, or to deprive him of the confidence of his sovereign. What followed may best be told in Eliot's own words, written with such recollection of the scene as he was able to command after some years had passed. 66 Upon this," he writes, speaking of himself in the third person, "he makes his passage and address, and coming to York House finds the Duke with his lady yet in bed. But, notice being given of his coming, the Duchess rose and withdrew into her cabinet, and so he was forthwith admitted and let in. Eliot ham. "The first thing mentioned was the occasion, and the fear that was contracted from that ground. The next was the honour of the King and respect unto his safety; from both argues with which were deduced arguments of dissuasion. For Buckingthe King's honour was remembered the acceptation that was made of the two subsidies which were passed and the satisfaction then professed, which the now proposition would impeach either in truth or wisdom. Again, the small number of the Commons that remained, the rest being gone upon the confidence of that overture, would render it as an ambuscade and surprise, which at no time could be honourable towards subjects, less in the entrance of the sovereign. The rule for that was noted. According to the success of the commencement, is the reputation afterwards. The necessity likewise of that honour was observed without which no Prince was great, hardly any fortunate. And on these grounds a larger superstructure was imposed, as occasionally the consequence did require. For his own safety many things were said, some more fit for use than for memory and report. The general disopinion was objected which it would work to him not to have opposed it, whose power was known to all men, and that the command coming by himself would render it as his act, of which imputation what the consequence might be nothing but divinity could judge, men that are much in favour being obnoxious to much envy. 1 "To these answers were returned, though weak, yet such as "Ut initia provenient, fama in cæteris est." Buckingham's an swers. implied no yielding: - That the acceptation which was made of the subsidies then granted was but in respect of the affection to the King, not for satisfaction to his business that the absence of the Commons was their own fault and error, and their neglect must not prejudice the State that the honour of the King stood upon the expectation of the fleet, whose design would vanish if it were not speedily set forth. Money there was wanting for that work, and therein the King's honour was engaged, which must outweigh all considerations for himself." Evidently the arguments of the two men were moving in different planes. Buckingham believed the Commons to have been wrong in refusing to vote larger supplies. Eliot, whatever he may have thought, was content to avoid the real point at issue, and only attempted to show that it would be inexpedient to ask the House to reverse the decision. It Buckingham's avowal. may have been prudent in Eliot to avoid all mention of the opinion which the members were doubtless passing on Buckingham's qualifications as a war minister. On the other hand, to ask a man so self-confident as Buckingham to withdraw from a course of action merely on the ground of its inexpediency was to court failure. "This resolution being left," the narrative continues, was a new way attempted, to try if that might weaken it. And to that end was objected the improbability of success, and if it did succeed, the greater loss might follow it by alienation of the affections of the subjects who, being pleased, were a fountain of supply, without which those streams would soon dry up. But nothing could prevail, there being divers arguments spent in that; yet the proposition must proceed without consideration of success, wherein was lodged this project, ―merely to be denied." Eliot's surprise. "Merely to be denied." Whatever words Buckingham may have used—and he was open enough of speech—such was the inference which Eliot drew from them. And more too, it seems, was behind, "This secret," Eliot tells us, "that treaty did discover, which drew on others' that sup i.e. This conversation discovered this secret, which led the way to the discovery of other secrets. ́ · 1625 What did mean? BUCKINGHAM'S INTENTIONS. 369 ported it, of greater weight and moment, shewing a conversion of the tide. For the present it gave that gentleman some wonder and astonishment: who, with the seal of privacy closed up those passages in silence, yet thereon grounded his observations for the future, that no respect of persons made him desert his country." What did Buckingham mean when he proposed to press for additional supply, 'merely to be denied'? That he wished, from pure gaiety of heart, to engage in a struggle Buckingham of prerogative against the country itself is an idea which needs only to be mentioned to be dismissed, especially as there is another interpretation of his words which exactly fits the circumstances of the case. If Buckingham really thought, as there is every reason to suppose that he thought, that he had been scandalously ill-treated by the Commons, that they had, without raising any open charge against him, deserted him in the midst of a war which he had undertaken on their invitation, he may well have believed himself justified in putting the question once more directly to them, with the distinct prevision that if they refused to help him he would stand better with the nation than if he allowed the war to languish for want of speaking a necessary word. Somehow or other the immediate crisis might be tided over, and the military operations on the Continent postponed. Somehow or another the equipment of the fleet might be completed. A great naval success, the capture of the Mexico fleet, or the destruction of some Spanish arsenal, would work wonders. Whatever blot attached to him through past failures-and Buckingham's failures were always, in his own eyes, the result of accident, his successes the result of forethought-would be wiped away. A second Parliament would gather round Charles of another temper than his first had been. The King who had done great things could ask, without fear of rebuff, for further means to accomplish things greater still. If this was Buckingham's intention-and his subsequent It does not follow that he would not have been glad to strengthen the Crown at the expense of the House of Commons, either by increasing its popularity, or by giving it a military force if he had seen his way to do either. See p. 195, note I. |