A Child's History of England

by Dickens, Charles

  more abominable in history than the adulation that was lavished on

  this King, and the vice and corruption that such a barefaced habit

  of lying produced in his court. It is much to be doubted whether

  one man of honour, and not utterly self-disgraced, kept his place

  near James the First. Lord Bacon, that able and wise philosopher,

  as the First Judge in the Kingdom in this reign, became a public

  spectacle of dishonesty and corruption; and in his base flattery of

  his Sowship, and in his crawling servility to his dog and slave,

  disgraced himself even more. But, a creature like his Sowship set

  upon a throne is like the Plague, and everybody receives infection

  from him.

  CHAPTER XXXIII - ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE FIRST

  BABY CHARLES became KING CHARLES THE FIRST, in the twenty-fifth

  year of his age. Unlike his father, he was usually amiable in his

  private character, and grave and dignified in his bearing; but,

  like his father, he had monstrously exaggerated notions of the

  rights of a king, and was evasive, and not to be trusted. If his

  word could have been relied upon, his history might have had a

  different end.

  His first care was to send over that insolent upstart, Buckingham,

  to bring Henrietta Maria from Paris to be his Queen; upon which

  occasion Buckingham - with his usual audacity - made love to the

  young Queen of Austria, and was very indignant indeed with CARDINAL

  RICHELIEU, the French Minister, for thwarting his intentions. The

  English people were very well disposed to like their new Queen, and

  to receive her with great favour when she came among them as a

  stranger. But, she held the Protestant religion in great dislike,

  and brought over a crowd of unpleasant priests, who made her do

  some very ridiculous things, and forced themselves upon the public

  notice in many disagreeable ways. Hence, the people soon came to

  dislike her, and she soon came to dislike them; and she did so much

  all through this reign in setting the King (who was dotingly fond

  of her) against his subjects, that it would have been better for

  him if she had never been born.

  Now, you are to understand that King Charles the First - of his own

  determination to be a high and mighty King not to be called to

  account by anybody, and urged on by his Queen besides -

  deliberately set himself to put his Parliament down and to put

  himself up. You are also to understand, that even in pursuit of

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  this wrong idea (enough in itself to have ruined any king) he never

  took a straight course, but always took a crooked one.

  He was bent upon war with Spain, though neither the House of

  Commons nor the people were quite clear as to the justice of that

  war, now that they began to think a little more about the story of

  the Spanish match. But the King rushed into it hotly, raised money

  by illegal means to meet its expenses, and encountered a miserable

  failure at Cadiz, in the very first year of his reign. An

  expedition to Cadiz had been made in the hope of plunder, but as it

  was not successful, it was necessary to get a grant of money from

  the Parliament; and when they met, in no very complying humour,

  the, King told them, 'to make haste to let him have it, or it would

  be the worse for themselves.' Not put in a more complying humour

  by this, they impeached the King's favourite, the Duke of

  Buckingham, as the cause (which he undoubtedly was) of many great

  public grievances and wrongs. The King, to save him, dissolved the

  Parliament without getting the money he wanted; and when the Lords

  implored him to consider and grant a little delay, he replied, 'No,

  not one minute.' He then began to raise money for himself by the

  following means among others.

  He levied certain duties called tonnage and poundage which had not

  been granted by the Parliament, and could lawfully be levied by no

  other power; he called upon the seaport towns to furnish, and to

  pay all the cost for three months of, a fleet of armed ships; and

  he required the people to unite in lending him large sums of money,

  the repayment of which was very doubtful. If the poor people

  refused, they were pressed as soldiers or sailors; if the gentry

  refused, they were sent to prison. Five gentlemen, named SIR

  THOMAS DARNEL, JOHN CORBET, WALTER EARL, JOHN HEVENINGHAM, and

  EVERARD HAMPDEN, for refusing were taken up by a warrant of the

  King's privy council, and were sent to prison without any cause but

  the King's pleasure being stated for their imprisonment. Then the

  question came to be solemnly tried, whether this was not a

  violation of Magna Charta, and an encroachment by the King on the

  highest rights of the English people. His lawyers contended No,

  because to encroach upon the rights of the English people would be

  to do wrong, and the King could do no wrong. The accommodating

  judges decided in favour of this wicked nonsense; and here was a

  fatal division between the King and the people.

  For all this, it became necessary to call another Parliament. The

  people, sensible of the danger in which their liberties were, chose

  for it those who were best known for their determined opposition to

  the King; but still the King, quite blinded by his determination to

  carry everything before him, addressed them when they met, in a

  contemptuous manner, and just told them in so many words that he

  had only called them together because he wanted money. The

  Parliament, strong enough and resolute enough to know that they

  would lower his tone, cared little for what he said, and laid

  before him one of the great documents of history, which is called

  the PETITION OF RIGHT, requiring that the free men of England

  should no longer be called upon to lend the King money, and should

  no longer be pressed or imprisoned for refusing to do so; further,

  that the free men of England should no longer be seized by the

  King's special mandate or warrant, it being contrary to their

  rights and liberties and the laws of their country. At first the

  King returned an answer to this petition, in which he tried to

  shirk it altogether; but, the House of Commons then showing their

  determination to go on with the impeachment of Buckingham, the King

  in alarm returned an answer, giving his consent to all that was

  required of him. He not only afterwards departed from his word and

  honour on these points, over and over again, but, at this very

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  time, he did the mean and dissembling act of publishing his first

  answer and not his second - merely that the people might suppose

  that the Parliament had not got the better of him.

  That pestilent Buckingham, to gratify his own wounded vanity, had

  by this time involved the country in war with France, as well as

  with Spain. For such miserable causes and such miserable creatures

  are wars sometimes made! But he was destined to do little more

  mischief in this world.
One morning, as he was going out of his

  house to his carriage, he turned to speak to a certain Colonel

  FRYER who was with him; and he was violently stabbed with a knife,

  which the murderer left sticking in his heart. This happened in

  his hall. He had had angry words up-stairs, just before, with some

  French gentlemen, who were immediately suspected by his servants,

  and had a close escape from being set upon and killed. In the

  midst of the noise, the real murderer, who had gone to the kitchen

  and might easily have got away, drew his sword and cried out, 'I am

  the man!' His name was JOHN FELTON, a Protestant and a retired

  officer in the army. He said he had had no personal ill-will to

  the Duke, but had killed him as a curse to the country. He had

  aimed his blow well, for Buckingham had only had time to cry out,

  'Villain!' and then he drew out the knife, fell against a table,

  and died.

  The council made a mighty business of examining John Felton about

  this murder, though it was a plain case enough, one would think.

  He had come seventy miles to do it, he told them, and he did it for

  the reason he had declared; if they put him upon the rack, as that

  noble MARQUIS OF DORSET whom he saw before him, had the goodness to

  threaten, he gave that marquis warning, that he would accuse HIM as

  his accomplice! The King was unpleasantly anxious to have him

  racked, nevertheless; but as the judges now found out that torture

  was contrary to the law of England - it is a pity they did not make

  the discovery a little sooner - John Felton was simply executed for

  the murder he had done. A murder it undoubtedly was, and not in

  the least to be defended: though he had freed England from one of

  the most profligate, contemptible, and base court favourites to

  whom it has ever yielded.

  A very different man now arose. This was SIR THOMAS WENTWORTH, a

  Yorkshire gentleman, who had sat in Parliament for a long time, and

  who had favoured arbitrary and haughty principles, but who had gone

  over to the people's side on receiving offence from Buckingham.

  The King, much wanting such a man - for, besides being naturally

  favourable to the King's cause, he had great abilities - made him

  first a Baron, and then a Viscount, and gave him high employment,

  and won him most completely.

  A Parliament, however, was still in existence, and was NOT to be

  won. On the twentieth of January, one thousand six hundred and

  twenty-nine, SIR JOHN ELIOT, a great man who had been active in the

  Petition of Right, brought forward other strong resolutions against

  the King's chief instruments, and called upon the Speaker to put

  them to the vote. To this the Speaker answered, 'he was commanded

  otherwise by the King,' and got up to leave the chair - which,

  according to the rules of the House of Commons would have obliged

  it to adjourn without doing anything more - when two members, named

  Mr. HOLLIS and Mr. VALENTINE, held him down. A scene of great

  confusion arose among the members; and while many swords were drawn

  and flashing about, the King, who was kept informed of all that was

  going on, told the captain of his guard to go down to the House and

  force the doors. The resolutions were by that time, however,

  voted, and the House adjourned. Sir John Eliot and those two

  members who had held the Speaker down, were quickly summoned before

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  the council. As they claimed it to be their privilege not to

  answer out of Parliament for anything they had said in it, they

  were committed to the Tower. The King then went down and dissolved

  the Parliament, in a speech wherein he made mention of these

  gentlemen as 'Vipers' - which did not do him much good that ever I

  have heard of.

  As they refused to gain their liberty by saying they were sorry for

  what they had done, the King, always remarkably unforgiving, never

  overlooked their offence. When they demanded to be brought up

  before the court of King's Bench, he even resorted to the meanness

  of having them moved about from prison to prison, so that the writs

  issued for that purpose should not legally find them. At last they

  came before the court and were sentenced to heavy fines, and to be

  imprisoned during the King's pleasure. When Sir John Eliot's

  health had quite given way, and he so longed for change of air and

  scene as to petition for his release, the King sent back the answer

  (worthy of his Sowship himself) that the petition was not humble

  enough. When he sent another petition by his young son, in which

  he pathetically offered to go back to prison when his health was

  restored, if he might be released for its recovery, the King still

  disregarded it. When he died in the Tower, and his children

  petitioned to be allowed to take his body down to Cornwall, there

  to lay it among the ashes of his forefathers, the King returned for

  answer, 'Let Sir John Eliot's body be buried in the church of that

  parish where he died.' All this was like a very little King

  indeed, I think.

  And now, for twelve long years, steadily pursuing his design of

  setting himself up and putting the people down, the King called no

  Parliament; but ruled without one. If twelve thousand volumes were

  written in his praise (as a good many have been) it would still

  remain a fact, impossible to be denied, that for twelve years King

  Charles the First reigned in England unlawfully and despotically,

  seized upon his subjects' goods and money at his pleasure, and

  punished according to his unbridled will all who ventured to oppose

  him. It is a fashion with some people to think that this King's

  career was cut short; but I must say myself that I think he ran a

  pretty long one.

  WILLIAM LAUD, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the King's right-hand

  man in the religious part of the putting down of the people's

  liberties. Laud, who was a sincere man, of large learning but

  small sense - for the two things sometimes go together in very

  different quantities - though a Protestant, held opinions so near

  those of the Catholics, that the Pope wanted to make a Cardinal of

  him, if he would have accepted that favour. He looked upon vows,

  robes, lighted candles, images, and so forth, as amazingly

  important in religious ceremonies; and he brought in an immensity

  of bowing and candle-snuffing. He also regarded archbishops and

  bishops as a sort of miraculous persons, and was inveterate in the

  last degree against any who thought otherwise. Accordingly, he

  offered up thanks to Heaven, and was in a state of much pious

  pleasure, when a Scotch clergyman, named LEIGHTON, was pilloried,

  whipped, branded in the cheek, and had one of his ears cut off and

  one of his nostrils slit, for calling bishops trumpery and the

  inventions of men. He originated on a Sunday morning the

  prosecution of WILLIAM PRYNNE, a barrister who was of similar

  opinions, and who was fined a thousand pounds; who was pilloried;

  who had his ears cut off on tw
o occasions - one ear at a time - and

  who was imprisoned for life. He highly approved of the punishment

  of DOCTOR BASTWICK, a physician; who was also fined a thousand

  pounds; and who afterwards had HIS ears cut off, and was imprisoned

  for life. These were gentle methods of persuasion, some will tell

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  you: I think, they were rather calculated to be alarming to the

  people.

  In the money part of the putting down of the people's liberties,

  the King was equally gentle, as some will tell you: as I think,

  equally alarming. He levied those duties of tonnage and poundage,

  and increased them as he thought fit. He granted monopolies to

  companies of merchants on their paying him for them,

  notwithstanding the great complaints that had, for years and years,

  been made on the subject of monopolies. He fined the people for

  disobeying proclamations issued by his Sowship in direct violation

  of law. He revived the detested Forest laws, and took private

  property to himself as his forest right. Above all, he determined

  to have what was called Ship Money; that is to say, money for the

  support of the fleet - not only from the seaports, but from all the

  counties of England: having found out that, in some ancient time

  or other, all the counties paid it. The grievance of this ship

  money being somewhat too strong, JOHN CHAMBERS, a citizen of

  London, refused to pay his part of it. For this the Lord Mayor

  ordered John Chambers to prison, and for that John Chambers brought

  a suit against the Lord Mayor. LORD SAY, also, behaved like a real

  nobleman, and declared he would not pay. But, the sturdiest and

  best opponent of the ship money was JOHN HAMPDEN, a gentleman of

  Buckinghamshire, who had sat among the 'vipers' in the House of

  Commons when there was such a thing, and who had been the bosom

  friend of Sir John Eliot. This case was tried before the twelve

  judges in the Court of Exchequer, and again the King's lawyers said

  it was impossible that ship money could be wrong, because the King

  could do no wrong, however hard he tried - and he really did try

  very hard during these twelve years. Seven of the judges said that

  was quite true, and Mr. Hampden was bound to pay: five of the

  judges said that was quite false, and Mr. Hampden was not bound to