|
They met accordingly in no complying humor. They took into their most serious
consideration the measures of the government concerning tonnage and poundage.
They summoned the officers of the custom-house to their bar. They interrogated
the barons of the exchequer. They committed one of the sheriffs of London. Sir
John Eliot, a distinguished member of the Opposition, and an intimate friend of
Hampden, proposed a resolution condemning the unconstitutional imposition. The
Speaker said that the King had commanded him to put no such question to the
vote. This decision produced the most violent burst of feeling ever seen within
the walls of Parliament. Hayman remonstrated vehemently against the disgraceful
language which had been heard from the chair. Eliot dashed the paper which
contained his resolution on the floor of the House. Valentine and Hollis held
the Speaker down in his seat by main force, and read the motion amidst the
loudest shouts. The door was locked. The key was laid on the table. Black Rod
knocked for admittance in vain. After passing several strong resolutions, the
House adjourned. On the day appointed for its meeting it was dissolved by the
King, and several of its most eminent members, among whom were Hollis and Sir
John Eliot, were committed to prison.
Though Hampden had as yet taken little part in the debates of the House, he had
been a member of many very important committees, and had read and written much
concerning the law of Parliament. A manuscript volume of Parliamentary cases,
which is still in existence, contains many extracts from his notes.
He now retired to the duties and pleasures of a rural life. During the eleven
years which followed the dissolution of the Parliament of 1628, he resided at
his seat in one of the most beautiful parts of the county of Buckingham. The
house, which has since his time been greatly altered, and which is now, we
believe, almost entirely neglected, was an old English mansion, built in the
days of the Plantagenets and the Tudors. It stood on the brow of a hill which
overlooks a narrow valley. The extensive woods which surround it were pierced by
long avenues. One of those avenues the grandfather of the great statesman had
cut for the approach of Elizabeth; and the opening which is still visible for
many miles, retains the name of the Queen's Gap. In this delightful retreat,
Hampden passed several years, performing with great activity all the duties of a
landed gentleman and a magistrate, and amusing himself with books and with field
sports.
He was not in his retirement unmindful of his persecuted friends. In particular,
he kept up a close correspondence with Sir John Eliot, who was confined in the
Tower. Lord Nugent has published several of the Letters. We may perhaps be
fanciful; but it seems to us that every one of them is an admirable illustration
of some part of the character of Hampden which Clarendon has drawn.
Part of the correspondence relates to the two sons of Sir John Eliot. These
young men were wild and unsteady; and their father, who was now separated from
them, was naturally anxious about their conduct. He at length resolved to send
one of them to France, and the other to serve a campaign in the Low Countries.
The letter which we subjoin shows that Hampden, though rigorous towards himself,
was not uncharitable towards others, and that his Puritanism was perfectly
compatible with the sentiments and the tastes of an accomplished gentleman. It
also illustrates admirably what has been said of him by Clarendon: "He was of
that rare affability and temper in debate, and of that seeming humility and
submission of judgment, as if he brought no opinion of his own with him, but a
desire of information and instruction. Yet he had so subtle a way of
interrogating, and, under cover of doubts, insinuating his objections, that he
infused his own opinions into those from whom he pretended to learn and receive
them."
The letter runs thus: "I am so perfectly acquainted with your clear insight into
the dispositions of men, and ability to fit them with courses suitable, that,
had you bestowed sons of mine as you have done your own, my judgment durst
hardly have called it into question, especially when, in laying the design, you
have prevented the objections to be made against it. For if Mr. Richard Eliot
will, in the intermissions of action, add study to practice, and adorn that
lively spirit with flowers of contemplation, he will raise our expectations of
another Sir Edward Vere, that had this character--all summer in the field, all
winter in his study--in whose fall fame makes this kingdom a greater loser; and,
having taken this resolution from counsel with the highest wisdom, as I doubt
not you have, I hope and pray that the same power will crown it with a blessing
answerable to our wish. The way you take with my other friend shows you to be
none of the Bishop of Exeter's converts1; of whose mind neither am I superstitiously. But had my
opinion been asked, I should, as vulgar conceits use me to do, have showed my
power rather to raise objections than to answer them. A temper between France
and Oxford might have taken away his scruples, with more advantage to his years.
. . . For although he be one of those that, if his age were looked for in no
other book but that of the mind, would be found no ward if you should die
tomorrow, yet it is a great hazard, methinks, to see so sweet a disposition
guarded with no more, amongst a people whereof many make it their religion to be
superstitious in impiety, and their behavior to be affected in all manners. But
God, who only knoweth the periods of life and opportunities to come, hath
designed him, I hope, for his own service betime, and stirred up your providence
to husband him so early for great affairs. Then shall he be sure to find Him in
France that Abraham did in Shechem and Joseph in Egypt, under whose wing alone
is perfect safety."
Sir John Eliot employed himself, during his imprisonment, in writing a treatise
on government, which he transmitted to his friend. Hampden's criticisms are
strikingly characteristic. They are written with all that "flowing courtesy"
which is ascribed to him by Clarendon. The objections are insinuated with so
much delicacy that they could scarcely gall the most irritable author. We see
too how highly Hampden valued in the writings of others that conciseness which
was one of the most striking peculiarities of his own eloquence. Sir John
Eliot's style was, it seems, too diffuse, and it is impossible not to admire the
skill with which this is suggested. "The piece," says Hampden, "is as complete
an image of the pattern as can be drawn by lines, a lively character of a large
mind, the subject, method, and expression, excellent and homogeneal, and, to say
truth, sweetheart, somewhat exceeding my commendations. My words cannot render
them to the life. Yet, to show my ingenuity rather than wit, would not a less
model have given a full representation of that subject, not by diminution but by
contraction of parts? I desire to learn. I dare not say. The variations upon
each particular seem many; all, I confess, excellent. The fountain was full, the
channel narrow; that may be the cause; or that the author resembled Virgil, who
made more verses by many than he intended to write. To extract a just number,
had I seen all his, I could easily have bid him make fewer; but if he had bade
me tell him which he should have spared, I had been posed."
This is evidently the writing not only of a man of good sense and natural good
taste, but of a man of literary habits. Of the studies of Hampden little is
known. But as it was at one time in contemplation to give him the charge of the
education of the Prince of Wales, it cannot be doubted that his acquirements
were considerable. Davila, it is said, was one of his favorite writers. The
moderation of Davila's opinions and the perspicuity and manliness of his style
could not but recommend him to so judicious a reader. It is not improbable that
the parallel between France and England, the Huguenots and the Puritans, had
struck the mind of Hampden, and that he already found within himself powers not
unequal to the lofty part of Coligni.
While he was engaged in these pursuits, a heavy domestic calamity fell on him.
His wife, who had borne him nine children, died in the summer of 1634. She lies
in the parish church of Hampden, close to the manor-house. The tender and
energetic language of her epitaph still attests the bitterness of her husband's
sorrow, and the consolation which he found in a hope full of immortality.
In the meantime, the aspect of public affairs grew darker and darker. The health
of Eliot had sunk under an unlawful imprisonment of several years. The brave
sufferer refused to purchase liberty, though liberty would to him have been
life, by recognizing the authority which had confined him. In consequence of the
representations of his physicians, the severity of restraint was somewhat
relaxed. But it was in vain. He languished and expired a martyr to that good
cause for which his friend Hampden was destined to meet a more brilliant, but
not a more honorable death.
All the promises of the king were violated without scruple or shame. The
Petition of Right to which he had, in consideration of moneys duly numbered,
given a solemn assent, was set at naught. Taxes were raised by the royal
authority. Patents of monopoly were granted. The old usages of feudal times were
made pretexts for harassing the people with exactions unknown during many years.
The Puritans were persecuted with cruelty worthy of the Holy Office. They were
forced to fly from the country. They were imprisoned. They were whipped. Their
ears were cut off. Their noses were slit. Their cheeks were branded with red-hot
iron. But the cruelty of the oppressor could not tire out the fortitude of the
victims. The mutilated defenders of liberty again defied the vengeance of the
Star-Chamber, came back with undiminished resolution to the place of their
glorious infamy, and manfully presented the stumps of their ears to be grubbed
out by the hangman's knife. The hardy sect grew up and flourished in spite of
everything that seemed likely to stunt it, struck its roots deep into a barren
soil, and spread its branches wide to an inclement sky. The multitude thronged
round Prynne in the pillory with more respect than they paid to Mainwaring in
the pulpit, and treasured up the rags which the blood of Burton had soaked, with
a veneration such as miters and surplices had ceased to inspire.
For the misgovernment of this disastrous period Charles himself is principally
responsible. After the death of Buckingham, he seems to have been his own prime
minister. He had, however, two counselors who seconded him, or went beyond him,
in intolerance and lawless violence, the one a superstitious driveller, as
honest as a vile temper would suffer him to be, the other a man of great valor
and capacity, but licentious, faithless, corrupt, and cruel.
Never were faces more strikingly characteristic of the individuals to whom they
belonged, than those of Laud and Strafford, as they still remain portrayed by
the most skilful hand of that age. The mean forehead, the pinched features, the
peering eyes, of the prelate, suit admirably with his disposition. They mark him
out as a lower kind of Saint Dominic, differing from the fierce and gloomy
enthusiast who founded the Inquisition, as we might imagine the familiar imp of
a spiteful witch to differ from an archangel of darkness. When we read His
Grace's judgments, when we read the report which he drew up, setting forth that
he had sent some separatists to prison, and imploring the royal aid against
others, we feel a movement of indignation. We turn to his Diary, and we are at
once as cool as contempt can make us. There we learn how his picture fell down,
and how fearful he was lest the fall should be an omen; how he dreamed that the
Duke of Buckingham came to bed to him, that King James walked past him, that he
saw Thomas Flaxney in green garments, and the Bishop of Worcester with his
shoulders wrapped in linen. In the early part of 1627, the sleep of this great
ornament of the church seems to have been much disturbed. On the fifth of
January, he saw a merry old man with a wrinkled countenance, named Grove, lying
on the ground. On the fourteenth of the same memorable month, he saw the Bishop
of Lincoln jump on a horse and ride away. A day or two after this he dreamed
that he gave the King drink in a silver cup, and that the King refused it, and
called for glass. Then he dreamed that he had turned Papist; of all his dreams
the only one, we suspect, which came through the gate of horn. But of these
visions our favorite is that which, as he has recorded, he enjoyed on the night
of Friday, the ninth of February 1627. "I dreamed," says he, "that I had the
scurvy: and that forthwith all my teeth became loose. There was one in especial
in my lower jaw, which I could scarcely keep in with my finger till I had called
for help." Here was a man to have the superintendence of the opinions of a great
nation!
But Wentworth,--who ever names him without thinking of those harsh dark
features, ennobled by their expression into more than the majesty of an antique
Jupiter; of that brow, that eye, that cheek, that lip, wherein, as in a
chronicle, are written the events of many stormy and disastrous years, high
enterprise accomplished, frightful dangers braved, power unsparingly exercised,
suffering unshrinkingly borne; of that fixed look, so full of severity, of
mournful anxiety, of deep thought, of dauntless resolution, which seems at once
to forebode and to defy a terrible fate, as it lowers on us from the living
canvas of Vandyke? Even at this day the haughty earl overawes posterity as he
overawed his contemporaries, and excites the same interest when arraigned before
the tribunal of history which he excited at the bar of the House of Lords. In
spite of ourselves, we sometimes feel towards his memory a certain relenting
similar to that relenting which his defense, as Sir John Denham tells us,
produced in Westminster Hall.
This great, brave, bad man entered the House of Commons at the same time with
Hampden, and took the same side with Hampden. Both were among the richest and
most powerful commoners in the kingdom. Both were equally distinguished by force
of character and by personal courage. Hampden had more judgment and sagacity
than Wentworth. But no orator of that time equaled Wentworth in force and
brilliancy of expression. In 1626 both these eminent men were committed to
prison by the King, Wentworth, who was among the leaders of the Opposition, on
account of his parliamentary conduct, Hampden, who had not as yet taken a
prominent part in debate, for refusing to pay taxes illegally imposed.
Here their path separated. After the death of Buckingham, the King attempted to
seduce some of the chiefs of the Opposition from their party; and Wentworth was
among those who yielded to the seduction. He abandoned his associates, and hated
them ever after with the deadly hatred of a renegade. High titles and great
employments were heaped upon him. He became Earl of Strafford, Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland, President of the Council of the North; and he employed all his power
for the purpose of crushing those liberties of which he had been the most
distinguished champion. His counsels respecting public affairs were fierce and
arbitrary. His correspondence with Laud abundantly proves that government
without parliaments, government by the sword, was his favorite scheme. He was
angry even that the course of justice between man and man should be unrestrained
by the royal prerogative. He grudged to the courts of King's Bench and Common
Pleas even that measure of liberty which the most absolute of the Bourbons
allowed to the Parliaments of France. In Ireland, where he stood in place of the
King, his practice was in strict accordance with his theory. He set up the
authority of the executive government over that of the courts of law. He
permitted no person to leave the island without his license. He established vast
monopolies for his own private benefit. He imposed taxes arbitrarily. He levied
them by military force. Some of his acts are described even by the partial
Clarendon as powerful acts, acts which marked a nature excessively imperious,
acts which caused dislike and terror in sober and dispassionate persons, high
acts of oppression. Upon a most frivolous charge, he obtained a capital sentence
from a court-martial against a man of high rank who had given him offence. He
debauched the daughter-in-law of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and then
commanded that nobleman to settle his estate according to the wishes of the
lady. The Chancellor refused. The Lord Lieutenant turned him out of office and
threw him into prison. When the violent acts of the Long Parliament are blamed,
let it not be forgotten from what a tyranny they rescued the nation.
Among the humbler tools of Charles were Chief-Justice Finch and Noy the
Attorney-General. Noy had, like Wentworth, supported the cause of liberty in
Parliament, and had, like Wentworth, abandoned that cause for the sake of
office. He devised, in conjunction with Finch, a scheme of exaction which made
the alienation of the people from the throne complete. A writ was issued by the
King, commanding the city of London to equip and man ships of war for his
service. Similar writs were sent to the towns along the coast. These measures,
though they were direct violations of the Petition of Right, had at least some
show of precedent in their favor. But, after a time, the government took a step
for which no precedent could be pleaded, and sent writs of ship-money to the
inland counties. This was a stretch of power on which Elizabeth herself had not
ventured, even at a time when all laws might with propriety have been made to
bend to that highest law, the safety of the state. The inland counties had not
been required to furnish ships, or money in the room of ships, even when the
Armada was approaching our shores. It seemed intolerable that a prince who, by
assenting to the Petition of Right, had relinquished the power of levying
ship-money even in the out-ports, should be the first to levy it on parts of the
kingdom where it had been unknown under the most absolute of his predecessors.
Clarendon distinctly admits that this tax was intended, not only for the support
of the navy, but "for a spring and magazine that should have no bottom, and for
an everlasting supply of all occasions." The nation well understood this; and
from one end of England to the other the public mind was strongly excited.
Buckinghamshire was assessed at a ship of four hundred and fifty tons, or a sum
of four thousand five hundred pounds. The share of the tax which fell to Hampden
was very small; so small, indeed, that the sheriff was blamed for setting so
wealthy a man at so low a rate. But, though the sum demanded was a trifle, the
principle involved was fearfully important. Hampden, after consulting the most
eminent constitutional lawyers of the time, refused to pay the few shillings at
which he was assessed, and determined to incur all the certain expense, and the
probable danger, of bringing to a solemn hearing, this great controversy between
the people and the Crown. "Till this time," says Clarendon, "he was rather of
reputation in his own country than of public discourse or fame in the kingdom;
but then he grew the argument of all tongues, every man inquiring who and what
he was that durst, at his own charge, support the liberty and prosperity of the
kingdom."
Towards the close of the year 1636 this great cause came on in the Exchequer
Chamber before all the judges of England. The leading counsel against the writ
was the celebrated Oliver St. John, a man whose temper was melancholy, whose
manners were reserved, and who was as yet little known in Westminster Hall, but
whose great talents had not escaped the penetrating eye of Hampden. The
Attorney-General and Solicitor-General appeared for the Crown.
The arguments of the counsel occupied many days; and the Exchequer Chamber took
a considerable time for deliberation. The opinion of the bench was divided. So
clearly was the law in favor of Hampden that, though the judges held their
situations only during the royal pleasure, the majority against him was the
least possible. Five of the twelve pronounced in his favor. The remaining seven
gave their voices for the writ.
The only effect of this decision was to make the public indignation stronger and
deeper. "The judgment," says Clarendon, "proved of more advantage and credit to
the gentleman condemned than to the King's service." The courage which Hampden
had shown on this occasion, as the same historian tells us, "raised his
reputation to a great height generally throughout the kingdom." Even courtiers
and crown-lawyers spoke respectfully of him. "His carriage," says Clarendon,
"throughout that agitation, was with that rare temper and modesty, that they who
watched him narrowly to find some advantage against his person, to make him less
resolute in his cause, were compelled to give him a just testimony." But his
demeanor, though it impressed Lord Falkland with the deepest respect, though it
drew forth the praises of Solicitor-General Herbert, only kindled into a fiercer
flame the ever-burning hatred of Strafford. That minister in his letters to Laud
murmured against the lenity with which Hampden was treated. "In good faith," he
wrote, "were such men rightly served, they should be whipped into their right
wits." Again he says, "I still wish Mr. Hampden, and others to his likeness,
were well whipped into their right senses. And if the rod be so used that it
smart not, I am the more sorry."
The person of Hampden was now scarcely safe. His prudence and moderation had
hitherto disappointed those who would gladly have had a pretence for sending him
to the prison of Eliot. But he knew that the eye of a tyrant was on him. In the
year 1637 misgovernment had reached its height. Eight years had passed without a
Parliament. The decision of the Exchequer Chamber had placed at the disposal of
the Crown the whole property of the English people. About the time at which that
decision was pronounced, Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton were mutilated by the
sentence of the Star-Chamber, and sent to rot in remote dungeons. The estate and
the person of every man who had opposed the court were at its mercy.
Hampden determined to leave England. Beyond the Atlantic Ocean a few of the
persecuted Puritans had formed, in the wilderness of Connecticut, a settlement
which has since become a prosperous commonwealth, and which, in spite of the
lapse of time and of the change of government, still retains something of the
character given to it by its first founders. Lord Saye and Lord Brooke were the
original projectors of this scheme of emigration. Hampden had been early
consulted respecting it. He was now, it appears, desirous to withdraw himself
beyond the reach of oppressors who, as he probably suspected, and as we know,
were bent on punishing his manful resistance to their tyranny. He was
accompanied by his kinsman Oliver Cromwell, over whom he possessed great
influence, and in whom he alone had discovered, under an exterior appearance of
coarseness and extravagance, those great and commanding talents which were
afterwards the admiration and the dread of Europe.
The cousins took their passage in a vessel which lay in the Thames, and which
was bound for North America. They were actually on board, when an order of
council appeared, by which the ship was prohibited from sailing. Seven other
ships, filled with emigrants, were stopped at the same time.
Hampden and Cromwell remained; and with them remained the Evil Genius of the
House of Stuart. The tide of public affairs was even now on the turn. The King
had resolved to change the ecclesiastical constitution of Scotland, and to
introduce into the public worship of that kingdom ceremonies which the great
body of the Scots regarded as Popish. This absurd attempt produced, first
discontents, then riots, and at length open rebellion. A provisional government
was established at Edinburgh, and its authority was obeyed throughout the
kingdom. This government raised an army, appointed a general, and summoned an
assembly of the Kirk. The famous instrument called the Covenant was put forth at
this time, and was eagerly subscribed by the people.
The beginnings of this formidable insurrection were strangely neglected by the
King and his advisers. But towards the close of the year 1638 the danger became
pressing. An army was raised; and early in the following spring Charles marched
northward at the head of a force sufficient, as it seemed, to reduce the
Covenanters to submission.
But Charles acted at this conjuncture as he acted at every important conjuncture
throughout his life. After oppressing, threatening, and blustering, he hesitated
and failed. He was bold in the wrong place, and timid in the wrong place. He
would have shown his wisdom by being afraid before the liturgy was read in St.
Giles's church. He put off his fear till he had reached the Scottish border with
his troops. Then, after a feeble campaign, he concluded a treaty with the
insurgents, and withdrew his army. But the terms of the pacification were not
observed. Each party charged the other with foul play. The Scots refused to
disarm. The King found great difficulty in re-assembling his forces. His late
expedition had drained his treasury. The revenues of the next year had been
anticipated. At another time, he might have attempted to make up the deficiency
by illegal expedients; but such a course would clearly have been dangerous when
part of the island was in rebellion. It was necessary to call a Parliament.
After eleven years of suffering, the voice of the nation was to be heard once
more.
In April 1640, the Parliament met; and the King had another chance of
conciliating his people. The new House of Commons was, beyond all comparison,
the least refractory House of Commons that had been known for many years.
Indeed, we have never been able to understand how, after so long a period of
misgovernment, the representatives of the nation should have shown so moderate
and so loyal a disposition. Clarendon speaks with admiration of their dutiful
temper. "The House, generally," says he, "was exceedingly disposed to please the
King, and to do him service." "It could never be hoped," he observes elsewhere,
"that more sober or dispassionate men would ever meet together in that place, or
fewer who brought ill purposes with them."
In this Parliament Hampden took his seat as member for Buckinghamshire, and
thenceforward, till the day of his death, gave himself up, with scarcely any
intermission, to public affairs. He took lodgings in Gray's Inn Lane, near the
house occupied by Pym, with whom he lived in habits of the closest intimacy. He
was now decidedly the most popular man in England. The Opposition looked to him
as their leader, and the servants of the King treated him with marked respect.
Charles requested the Parliament to vote an immediate supply, and pledged his
word that, if they would gratify him in this request, he would afterwards give
them time to represent their grievances to him. The grievances under which the
nation suffered were so serious, and the royal word had been so shamefully
violated, that the Commons could hardly be expected to comply with this request.
During the first week of the session, the minutes of the proceedings against
Hampden were laid on the table by Oliver St. John, and a committee reported that
the case was matter of grievance. The King sent a message to the Commons,
offering, if they would vote him twelve subsidies, to give up the prerogative of
ship-money. Many years before, he had received five subsidies in consideration
of his assent to the Petition of Right. By assenting to that petition, he had
given up the right of levying ship-money, if he ever possessed it. How he had
observed the promises made to his third Parliament, all England knew; and it was
not strange that the Commons should be somewhat unwilling to buy from him, over
and over again, their own ancient and undoubted inheritance.
His message, however, was not unfavorably received. The Commons were ready to
give a large supply; but they were not disposed to give it in exchange for a
prerogative of which they altogether denied the existence. If they acceded to
the proposal of the King, they recognized the legality of the writs of
ship-money.
Hampden, who was a greater master of parliamentary tactics than any man of his
time, saw that this was the prevailing feeling, and availed himself of it with
great dexterity. He moved that the question should be put, "Whether the House
would consent to the proposition made by the King, as contained in the message."
Hyde interfered, and proposed that the question should be divided; that the
sense of the House should be taken merely on the point whether there should be a
supply or no supply; and that the manner and the amount should be left for
subsequent consideration.
The majority of the House was for granting a supply, but against granting it in
the manner proposed by the King. If the House had divided on Hampden's question,
the court would have sustained a defeat; if on Hyde's, the court would have
gained an apparent victory. Some members called for Hyde's motion, others, for
Hampden's. In the midst of the uproar, the secretary of state, Sir Harry Vane,
rose and stated that the supply would not be accepted unless it were voted
according to the tenor of the message. Vane was supported by Herbert, the
Solicitor-General. Hyde's motion was therefore no further pressed, and the
debate on the general question was adjourned till the next day.
1 Hall, Bishop of Exeter, had written strongly, both in verse
and in prose, against the fashion of sending young men of quality to travel.
Previous |
Critical and Historical Essays, Volume I
| Next
Critical And Historical Essays, Volume I, Thomas Babbington Macaulay,
1843 |
|
Add/Correct a Link