of the House of Lords, 1894. W. H. Price, English Patents of Monopoly, 1906. G. W. Prothero, Introduction to Select Statutes and Constitutional Documents, 1913. R. G. Usher, The Rise and Fall of the High Commission, 1913.

CHAPTER XII

KING WITHOUT PARLIAMENT

The reign of Charles I, at least to 1640, is a natural continuation of his father's. But Charles was more obstinate and more shortsighted than James, and parliament had now a clearer idea of what was at stake. For these reasons differences between them drifted more rapidly to extremes than in the earlier period. Charles had been brought up to believe implicitly the doctrine of the king's absolute power by divine right and, as this doctrine was strongly held in the church and at the court and had the sanction of judicial decisions, he was likely to be convinced of its errors only by the logic of events. The personality of Charles was an even more decided influence in shaping the history of his reign than his father's had been; it came again, as in the time of Henry III, greatly to the advantage of constitutional growth that a king not intellectually strong had an exalted idea of his position. While Charles was obstinate, he was also vacillating. He could not be convinced by argument, but his conduct could be influenced by currents of feeling to which he was exposed, and changed by the force of circumstances to contradict his professions. He wholly lacked the qualities so preeminent in the Tudors, tact and a keen instinct. for the drift of public feeling.

At his accession Charles was eager for a war with Spain. In less than three months he called his first parliament in hope of a large grant of money for the purpose, but the house of commons would grant only two subsidies. The house was less interested in the king's plans than in two other matters: to protect protestantism against what it believed to be new catholic dangers, and the determination which it

expressed in a formal resolution "to discover and reform the abuses and grievances of the realm and State." Impatiently Charles dissolved the parliament on August 12, nothing further having been done; no grant had been made even of tunnage and poundage. But the king could not get on without parliament, and his second met on February 6 next. It at once assumed an even higher tone than the first, and proceeded to prepare an impeachment of the Duke of Buckingham, the king's favorite minister, whom it believed responsible for the worst abuses. But this Charles would not permit. He summoned the commons to his presence and informed them that their first business was the granting of supplies, and that he would not permit his servants in high place near himself to be called in question for they had done nothing except at his command. The house was unmoved. It made no change in its plans but asserted vigorously its right to take action against anyone guilty of abuses in a position of trust. It promised the king a liberal supply but resolved to postpone making the grant actual until grievances were redressed. On May 8 the impeachment of Buckingham was brought up to the house of lords by the managers for the commons. Two of them, Sir John Eliot and Sir Dudley Digges, were immediately thrown into the Tower for things said in their speeches, and the commons at once resolved that they would do no further business until the release of their members. The king yielded with reluctance, but when the commons resolved that tunnage and poundage could not legally be collected unless granted and that no supply would be voted until Buckingham was removed, he dissolved his second parliament on June 15.

It is impossible not to see in the story of these fifteen months since Charles began to reign that parliament had moved boldly on to a higher plane. It had taken in full self-consciousness a new position of power in the state a position which had long been preparing but which had not 1 Gardiner, Documents, 3-44. Cheyney, Readings, 456-457,

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before been occupied. Not even the relatively powerful parliaments of the Lancastrian time, certainly no Tudor parliament, nor quite even any one of James's, showed the same spirit. These parliaments of Charles's feel themselves on a par with the king. They believe themselves able to stand over against him as an equal in determining the future. They are fully prepared to enter into conflict with him on even terms, and they know that they have formidable weapons, the privileges of parliament, impeachment, and the king's financial necessities, which they are prepared to use to the extreme in offence as well as defence. Here, as elsewhere in the century, the change is less in institutions than in a new consciousness of what they mean and how they can be used.

This new consciousness of the meaning of old institutions is strikingly to be seen in the speeches before the house of lords of the managers of the impeachment of Buckingham for the house of commons. Sir Dudley Digges used the words already quoted: "The laws of England have taught us that kings cannot command ill or unlawful things. And whatsoever ill events succeed, the executioners of such designs must answer for them." That is, the king can do no wrong in the constitutional sense of that phrase. In the closing speech for the prosecution, Sir John Eliot was still more definite. "My Lords," he said, "I will say that if his Majesty himself were pleased to have consented, or to have commanded, which I cannot believe, yet this could no way satisfy for the Duke, or make any extenuation of the charge, for it was the duty of his place to have opposed it by his prayers, and to have interceded with his Majesty to make known the dangers, the ill consequences that might follow." The modern doctrine of ministerial responsibility can hardly be more fully stated in the same number of words, though of course all that was implied in it was not yet seen. Here is, however, the principle that it was the minister's duty to resist the orders of the king if he knew that they were wrong, and to protest against the attempt of the king to carry out

his will contrary to the law; and because he did not do that the minister is responsible and must be held accountable.

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On the king's side there was also a formulation of the opposing doctrine which was as new in its explicit form, though it was logically involved in the king's theory of his own place in the state his definite assumption of responsibility for the acts of his ministers. In a message to the house of commons in regard to Buckingham, he said: "And for some particulars wherewith he hath been pressed, however he hath made his answer, certain it is that I did command him to do what he hath done therein. I would not have the House to question my servants, much less one that is so near me." The issue thus drawn between the king and parliament was one way of stating, though that was not yet understood, the fundamental constitutional issue which the seventeenth century was to settle. It involved also, at the beginning of Charles's reign, the tragedy of its close, for his insistence upon his own responsibility made compromise impossible.

It was easy for the king to send parliament home because it displeased him, but it was not so easy with no authorized taxation to meet the necessary expenses of the government. It would have been difficult even in time of peace, and in addition to his war with Spain Charles was rapidly drifting into a war with France, which broke out in the next year, 1627. He was forced to adopt the expedients of his father, and new ones also. Tunnage and poundage were continued without a grant; benevolences and forced loans were demanded and privy seals were issued; heavy debts were contracted; exemptions were sold; the maritime counties were ordered to furnish ships for the fleet, a medieval method of forming and equipping a navy which was not yet out of use, and the attempt was made to extend the obligation even to the inland counties. Altogether these expedients raised insufficient sums, and they excited bitter opposition. The forced loan was planned to be a regular tax, based on the assessment for the last subsidy and intended to be equal to five subsidies, but