Constitutional History of England Volume I Part 31

Yet after this concession on the king's part, the French cabinet was encouraged by it to ask for "a direct and public toleration, not by connivance, promise, or _ecrit_ secret, but by a public notification to all the Roman catholics, and that of all his majesty's kingdoms whatsoever, confirmed by his majesty's and the prince's oath, and attested by a public act, whereof a copy to be delivered to the pope or his minister, and the same to bind his majesty and the prince's successors for ever." _Id._ p. 552. The amba.s.sadors expressed the strongest indignation at this proposal, on which the French did not think fit to insist. In all this wretched negotiation, James was as much the dupe as he had been in the former, expecting that France would a.s.sist in the recovery of the Palatinate, towards which, in spite of promises, she took no steps. Richlieu had said, "donnez-nous des pretres, et nous vous donnerons des colonels." _Id._ p. 538. Charles could hardly be expected to keep his engagement as to the catholics, when he found himself so grossly outwitted.

It was during this marriage-treaty of 1624, that the archbishop of Embrun, as he relates himself, in the course of several conferences with the king on that subject, was a.s.sured by him that he was desirous of re-entering the fold of the church. Wilson in Rennet, p. 786, note by Wellwood. I have not seen the original pa.s.sage; but Dr. Lingard puts by no means so strong an interpretation on the king's words, as related by the archbishop. Vol. ix. 323.

[693] Rennet, p. vi.; Rushworth; Lingard, ix. 353; Cabala, p. 144.

[694] "G.o.d alloweth (it is said in this homily, among other pa.s.sages to the same effect) neither the dignity of any person, nor the mult.i.tude of any people, nor the weight of any cause, as sufficient for the which the subjects may move rebellion against their princes." The next sentence contains a bold position. "Turn over and read the histories of all nations, look over the chronicles of our own country, call to mind so many rebellions of old time, and some yet fresh in memory; ye shall not find that G.o.d ever prospered any rebellion against their natural and lawful prince, but contrariwise, that the rebels were overthrown and slain, and such as were taken prisoners dreadfully executed." They ill.u.s.trate their doctrine by the most preposterous example I have ever seen alleged in any book, that of the Virgin Mary; who "being of the royal blood of the ancient natural kings of Jewry obeyed the proclamation of Augustus to go to Bethlehem. This obedience of this most n.o.ble and most virtuous lady to a foreign and pagan prince doth well teach us, who in comparison of her are both base and vile, what ready obedience we do owe to our natural and gracious sovereign."

In another homily ent.i.tled "On Obedience," the duty of non-resistance, even in defence of religion, is most decidedly maintained; and in such a manner as might have been inconvenient in case of a popish successor.

Nor was this theory very consistent with the aid and countenance given to the United Provinces. Our learned churchmen, however, cared very little for the Dutch. They were more puzzled about the Maccabees. But that knot is cut in Bishop Overall's _Convocation Book_, by denying that Antiochus Epiphanes had lawful possession of Palestine; a proposition not easy to be made out.

[695] Collier, 724; Neal, 495; Wood's _History of the University of Oxford_, ii. 341. Knight was sent to the Gate-house prison, where he remained two years. Laud was the chief cause of this severity, if we may believe Wood; and his own diary seems to confirm this.

[696] _Parl. Hist._ 877, 395, 410, etc.; Kennet, p. 30; Collier, 740, 743. This historian, though a non-juror, is Englishman enough to blame the doctrines of Sibthorp and Mainwaring, and, consistently with his high-church principles, is displeased at the suspension of Abbot by the king's authority.

[697] _State Trials_, ii. 1449. A few years before this, Abbot had the misfortune, while hunting deer in a n.o.bleman's park, to shoot one of the keepers with his cross-bow. Williams and Laud, who then acted together, with some other of the servile crew, had the baseness to affect scruples at the archbishop's continuance in his function, on pretence that, by some contemptible old canon, he had become irregular in consequence of this accidental homicide; and Spelman disgraced himself by writing a treatise in support of this doctrine. James, however, had more sense than the antiquary, and less ill-nature than the churchmen; and the civilians gave no countenance to Williams's hypocritical scruples.

Hacket's _Life of Williams_, p. 651; _Biograph. Britann._ art. Abbot; Spelman's Works, part 2, p. 3; Aikin's _James I._, ii. 259. Williams's real object was to succeed the archbishop on his degradation.

It may be remarked that Abbot, though a very worthy man, had not always been untainted by the air of a court. He had not scrupled grossly to flatter the king: (see his article in _Biograph. Brit._ and Aikin, i.

368) and tells us himself, that he introduced Villiers, in order to supplant Somerset; which, though well-meant, did not become his function. Even in the delicate business of promising toleration to the catholics by the secret articles of the treaty with Spain, he gave satisfaction to the king (_Hardwicke Papers_, i. 428), which could only be by compliance. This shows that the letter in Rushworth, ascribed to the archbishop, deprecating all such concessions, is not genuine. In Cabala, p. 13, it is printed with the name of the Archbishop of York, Matthews.

[698] The bishops were many of them gross sycophants of Buckingham.

Besides Laud, Williams, and Neile, one Field, Bishop of Landaff, was an abject courtier. See a letter of his in Cabala, p. 118, 4to edit. Mede says (27th May 1626), "I am sorry to hear they (the bishops) are so habituated to flattery that they seem not to know of any other duty that belongs to them." See Ellis's _Letters_, iii. 228, for the account Mede gives of the manner in which the heads of houses forced the election of Buckingham as Chancellor of Cambridge, while the impeachment was pending against him. The junior masters of arts, however, made a good stand; so that it was carried against the Earl of Berks.h.i.+re only by three voices.

[699] Those who may be inclined to dissent from my text, will perhaps bow to their favourite Clarendon. He says that in the three first parliaments, though there were "several distempered speeches of particular persons, not fit for the reverence due to his majesty," yet he "does not know any formed act of either house (for neither the remonstrance nor votes of the last day were such), that was not agreeable to the wisdom and justice of great courts upon those extraordinary occasions; and whoever considers the acts of power and injustice in the intervals of parliament, will not be much scandalised at the warmth and vivacity of those meetings." Vol. i. p. 8, edit. 1826.