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astical

courts from 1641 to

1661;

jurisdiction which it exercised had been throughout a usurpation. This act, which took away the ex officio oath, also abolished the minor ecclesiastical courts by providing that no ecclesiastical judge should "award, impose, or inflict any pain, penalty, fine, amerciament, imprisonment, or other corporal punishment upon any of the king's subjects," for anything no ecclesi pertaining to the spiritual jurisdiction. There were therefore no ecclesiastical courts in England from 1641 down to 1661, when by 13 Chas. II. c. 12, s. 1, the entire system was restored, excepting only the ex officio oath and the high commission.1 By the cutting away of the abnormal powers which the extraordinary tribunals had acquired since the accession of the house of Tudor, the path was opened for the reëstablishment of the supremacy of law as now understood. The acts by which that result was accomplished, together with the rest enacted during the ten months preceding the recess, whose tenor permanent and effect have also been recited, constitute the permanent work of the work of the Long Parliament, which, with the exception of Parliament the compulsory clauses of the Triennial Act, was accepted at the Res- at the Restoration as a part of the permanent constitution toration. of the country, while everything enacted after the recess was at the same time rejected as temporary and worthless.2

Long

accepted

Long
Parliament

acting as

a whole;

its failure

to agree as

to the fate

of the episcopal office;

So long as the Long Parliament was able to act as a whole, irresistible to strike as one man against abuses that pressed alike upon while all, Charles was compelled to yield to an irresistible force, which tore from him not only the star chamber and the high commissions, but Strafford himself. The first check to its triumphal progress occurred when its members failed to agree among themselves as to the disposition which should be made of the episcopal office, - one faction contending for its entire abolition, the other for the retention of the bishops with diminished powers and subject to parliamentary supervision. By the division which occurred on that question on the 8th of February, 1641, the line was first roughly drawn between two political bodies that in the course of time have developed into the two parliamentary parties which, after having been known first as Roundheads and Cavaliers, then as Whigs and Tories, still survive under names so familiar at the pre2 Gardiner, Hist. Eng., vol. x. p. 34.

the origin

of political parties;

1 Cf. Sir J. F. Stephen, Hist. of the Crim. Law, vol. ii. p. 428.

with the

hastened to

a counter

conces

sions;

sent day. The first ray of hope which thus came to Charles through the break in the ranks of his adversaries was greatly brightened, when on the 10th of the following August he was settlement able to approve a bill confirming the treaty with the Scots, army of that promised a large sum as an indemnity and compensation the Scots; for their brotherly assistance in maintaining upon English soil, as a physical support to parliament, the army which was now to be disbanded.2 Immediately upon the consummation of that agreement, Charles hastened to Edinburgh, against the Charles remonstrance of the houses, intent upon the organization of a Edinburgh counter-revolution, which contemplated the pacification of Scot- to organize land, and the return of the king at the head of an army, to be revolution; composed of Scots as well as of recruits from the English forces in the north, with whose aid he hoped to crush the popular leaders and to reverse the results they had brought about. In furtherance of that design, Charles busied himself at Edinburgh, not only in yielding to all the demands of the assembly and estates, in attending the presbyterian worship, and lavishing made important favors upon the chiefs of the covenanters, but also in collecting evidences upon which to build up charges of treason against Pym and Hampden. As a preliminary to such pro- proofs of ceeding, the king assented to a design to seize and carry out treason of the realm Hamilton and Argyle, who were supposed to be Pym and Hampden; intriguing with the English popular leaders, a design which was frustrated only by the sudden withdrawal of both from the Scottish parliament to Kineil castle, a country house of Hamilton's. Under the apprehension naturally excited by the news of this "Incident," parliament reassembled after the recess, the "Incithat ended on the 20th of October, the day from which can parliament be traced more distinctly than ever before the beginnings of after the the two great English parties. The episcopal party, that had com been silently organized by Hyde, the future Lord Clarendon, tion of the now became the royalist party, which soon numbered in its party; 1 66 'Slight as the difference might be ately, and £220,000 after they should between those who took opposite sides cross the Tweed. on that day, their parting gave the colour to English political life which has distinguished it ever since, and which has distinguished every free government which has followed in the steps of our forefathers." - Gardiner, Hist. Eng., vol. ix. p. 281. 280,000 was to be paid immedi

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8 Balfour, vol. iii. pp. 58, 64, 66, 68, 69, 72, 78.

4 Foster, Grand Remonstrance, p. 154.

5 Baillie, vol. i. p. 392; Balfour, vol. iii. p. 94. See also Lingard, vol. vii. pp. 499-503.

sought

against

dent" in

recess;

composi

royalist

men who believed

tion of the

Puritan

fold a majority of the nobles and the opulent country gentlemen, with their dependents, the main body of the clergy, all laymen specially attached to episcopal government and the Anglican ritual, together with the rank and file of those who, as men of the world, shrank from the gloom of Puritan austerity. To this body of men, who had bitterly resented the policy of Strafford and Laud, it was evident that enough had been enough had done by the sweeping away of all those abuses of the conciliar been done; system which had perished under the reforming statutes already enacted. To men of this class it appeared dangerous to press further the victory over despotism, lest it should run into composi- anarchy. The opposition to this conservative element, which took its stand close to the throne as now limited, consisted of opposition, a formidable minority of the nobles, followed by the smaller freeholders of the country and the merchants and shopkeepers of the towns, who numbered in their ranks not only the whole body of protestant non-conformists, but also most of those members of the established church who still adhered to the Calvinistic opinions which Laud had attempted to make odious. To this body it was evident, in view of the menacing attitude which Charles now assumed, that unless they carried the revolution sufficiently far to obtain more substantial guarantees, a counter-revolution would soon sweep away all that revolution had been so far accomplished. This sense of apprehension, which the two army plots 2 and the Scotch "Incident" had be effective; greatly strengthened, deepened into terror when at the end of October all England was thrilled by the tales of horror and outrage that came from the Irish rising, in which the catholic and Celtic party in the unhappy isle, falsely claiming to act under the king's commission and in aid of his authority,3 were pressing pitiless war upon the English protestant settlers, for whose benefit they had been plundered without mercy.

who believed

that the

must be carried

farther to

the Irish rising.

Protestantism

The cry of an Irish rebellion which threatened the annihilamenaced; tion of the protestant minority, and which stimulated the belief in the existence of a vast catholic conspiracy for the extinction

1 This has been well put by Macaulay, Hist. Eng, vol. i. pp. 50-52.

2 As to Pym's resolution concerning these plots, which contemplated the bringing up of the army to overawe the house, see Foster, Grand Remonstrance, p. 210.

8 The forged commission is in Rushworth, vol. iv. p. 400; Lingard (vol. vii. p. 510, note 1), with his usual frankness, says: "I have no hesitation in pronouncing it a forgery."

refused the

he would

councillors

to the

Remon

of protestantism in the three kingdoms, carried with it an appeal for aid that the popular leaders of the house could not neglect for a moment. That a new military force must be provided for the suppression of the rebellion was inevitable, and yet to put such a force in the hands of Charles was to create a new danger. This perplexing dilemma Pym boldly parliament met by a revolutionary motion made on the 5th of November, king an as "an additional instruction," that no attempt would be army unless made to assist the king in Ireland, unless he would dismiss the accept evil councillors about him, and "take such as might be ap- approved by them; proved by Parliament." This proposal to lay hold of the executive power through a responsible ministry was passed on the 8th, in a modified form, by a decided majority of the lower house. But the difficulty was that Pym's motion could not pass into law without the sanction of the lords, in which the episcopal-royalist party was in the majority. Thus menaced and baffled on every hand, the popular leaders resolved, under the form of an address to the crown, to appeal for support to the appeal the nation; and with that end in view, they now brought nation in forward the historic document known as the Grand Remon- the Grand strance, read in the lower house before the close of the sitting strance; of the 8th, in which they set forth in detail the long list of abuses upon the part of Charles' government, that had produced the conflict, the good measures already taken by them for their redress, together with definite and practical suggestions as to what still remained to be done, in order to make their work complete and enduring. The essence of this fa- essence mous manifesto, with its preamble and two hundred and six demand, numbered clauses, was embodied, however, in those parts of church it in which the popular leaders formulated (1) their plan of and a responsible church reform, and (2) the demand, already made by Pym in ministry; his "additional instruction," for a ministry directly responsible to parliament. As to the religious question, the Puritan popu- Puritan lar leaders averred that they had been slandered by their op- rations ponents, who strove to "infuse into the people that we mean upon the to abolish all church government, and leave every man to his question: 1 To the parliamentary committee in 3 For the full text, see Rushworth's Scotland. Collections, pt. iii. vol. i. p. 438. For the best commentaries upon it, see Foster, Grand Remonstrance, and Gardiner, Hist. Eng., vol. x. pp. 59–64.

2 152 to 110. D'Ewes' Diary, Harl. MSS., clxii. fol. 108 b. Two days before, the motion in its original form had been rejected by the house. Ibid.

of the

reform

decla

religious

own fancy for the service and worship of God, absolving him from that obedience which he owes under God unto His Majesty, whom we know to be intrusted with the ecclesiastical law as well as with the temporal, to regulate all the members of the Church of England, by such rules of order and discipline as are established by parliament, which is his great council in all affairs both in church and state." In reply to that charge authority they answered that while they did not intend to abolish the bishops, they did intend to greatly reduce their authority; minished; that while they did not "propose or devise to let loose the golden reins of discipline and government in the church, to leave private persons or particular congregations to take up what form of divine service they please; for we hold it requiconformity site that there should be throughout the whole realm a conupheld and formity to that order, which the laws enjoin according to the ceremonies words of God," they did propose "to unburden the consciences reformed; of men of needless and superstitious ceremonies, suppress in

of bishops

to be di

to be

to be

no toleration for

or sec

taries;

be granted

novations, and take away the monuments of idolatry." In a word, the old Puritan party within the church, speaking through the Remonstrance, demanded that the whole Laudian system should be supplanted by their own, to which all should be forced to conform by the law of the land. There was to be no toleration either of the Arminian element, which was stigmatized as "the malignant party," or of the sectaries who gathered outside of the state church in separate conventicles. supplies to As to the question of ministerial responsibility, the king was only to given clearly to understand that supplies could not be granted responsible for his support, unless he was willing to appoint such ambassadors and councillors for the management of his affairs, at home and abroad, as parliament could confide in. And with the inadequacy of the right of impeachment clearly in view, as illustrated by the cases of Strafford and Laud, the statement was made, as a reason for ministerial responsibility, in a new inadequacy form, that "it may often fall out that the commons may have of impeach- just cause to take exceptions at some men for being councilrecognized; lors, and yet not charge those men with crimes, for there be

ministers;

ments

grounds of difference which lie not in proof. There are others which, though they may be proved, yet are not legally criminal." The final debate on the Grand Remonstrance which took place on the 22d of November continued until

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