Church History, edit. Tierney, 1840, vol. iii. appendix no. xii. p. xlvi. The same influential writer, in his Admonition, said that she had injured England, ‘by great contempt and abasing of the ancient nobility, repelling them from due government, offices, and places of honour.’ Allen's Admonition to the Nobility and People of England and Ireland, 1588 (reprinted London, 1842), p. xv. Compare the account of the Bull of 1588, in De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol. x. p. 175: ‘On accusoit Elisabeth d'avoir au préjudice de la noblesse angloise élevé aux dignités, tant civiles qu'ecclésiastiques, des hommes nouveaux, sans naissance, et indignes de les posséder.’
347
To the philosophic historian this rebellion, though not sufficiently appreciated by ordinary writers, is a very important study, because it is the last attempt ever made by the great English families to establish their authority by force of arms. Mr. Wright says, that probably all those who took a leading part in it ‘were allied by blood or intermarriage with the two families of the Percies and Neviles.’ Wright's Elizabeth, 1838, vol. i. p. xxxiv.; a valuable work. See also, in Parl. Hist. vol. i. p. 730, a list of some of those who, in 1571, were attainted on account of this rebellion, and who are said to be ‘all of the best families in the north of England.’
But the most complete evidence we have respecting this struggle, consists of the collection of original documents published in 1840 by Sir C. Sharpe, under the title of Memorials of the Rebellion of 1569. They show very clearly the real nature of the outbreak. On 17th November 1569, Sir George Bowes writes, that the complaint of the insurgents was that ‘there was certaine counsellors cropen’ (i. e. crept) ‘in aboute the prince, which had excluded the nobility from the prince,’ &c., Memorials, p. 42; and the editor's note says that this is one of the charges made in all the proclamations by the earls. Perhaps the most curious proof of how notorious the policy of Elizabeth had become, is contained in a friendly letter from Sussex to Cecil, dated 5th January 1569 (Memorials, p. 137), one paragraph of which begins, ‘Of late years few young noblemen have been employed in service.’
348
Hallam, i. p. 130; Lingard, v. pp. 97, 102; Turner, xii. pp. 245, 247.
349
Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 241; an interesting passage. Turner (Hist. of England, vol. xii. p. 237) says, that Cecil ‘knew the tendency of the great lords to combine against the crown, that they might reinstate the peerage in the power from which the house of Tudor had depressed it.’
350
In 1572 the order of dukes became extinct; and was not revived till fifty years afterwards, when James I. made the miserable Villiers, duke of Buckingham. Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. i. p. 397. This evidently attracted attention; for Ben Jonson, in one of his comedies in 1616, mentions ‘the received heresy that England bears no dukes.’ Jonson's Works, edit. Gifford, 1816, vol. v. p. 47, where Gifford, not being aware of the extinction in 1572, has made an unsatisfactory note.
351
Clarendon (Hist. of the Rebellion, p. 216) truly calls it ‘the most prodigious and the boldest rebellion, that any age or country ever brought forth.’ See also some striking remarks in Warwick's Memoirs, p. 207.
352
‘From the beginning it may be said that the yeomanry and trading classes of towns were generally hostile to the king's side, even in those counties which were in his military occupation; except in a few, such as Cornwall, Worcester, Salop, and most of Wales, where the prevailing sentiment was chiefly royalist.’ Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 578. See also Lingard's Hist. of England, vol. vi. p. 304; and Alison's Hist. of Europe, vol. i. p. 49.
353
On this division of classes, which, notwithstanding a few exceptions, is undoubtedly true as a general fact, compare Memoirs of Sir P. Warwick, p. 217; Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. iii. p. 347; Clarendon's Hist. of the Rebellion, pp. 294, 297, 345, 346, 401, 476; May's Hist. of the Long Parliament, book i. pp. 22, 64, book ii. p. 63, book iii. p. 78; Hutchinson's Memoirs, p. 100; Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 104, vol. iii. p. 258; Bulstrode's Memoirs, p. 86.
354
Lord Clarendon says, in his grand style, ‘the rabble contemned and despised under the name of roundheads.’ Hist. of the Rebellion, p. 136. This was in 1641, when the title appears to have been first bestowed. See Fairfax Corresp. vol. ii. pp. 185, 320.
355
Just before the battle of Edgehill, in 1642, Charles said to his troops, ‘You are called cavaliers in a reproachful signification.’ See the king's speech, in Somers Tracts, vol. iv. p. 478. Directly after the battle, he accused his opponents of ‘rendering all persons of honour odious to the common people, under the style of cavaliers.’ May's Hist. of the Long Parliament, book iii. p. 25.
356
M. Saint-Aulaire (Hist. de la Fronde, vol. i. p. v.) says, that the object of the Frondeurs was, ‘limiter l'autorité royale, consacrer les principes de la liberté civile et en confier la garde aux compagnies souveraines;’ and at p. vi. he calls the declaration of 1648, ‘une véritable charte constitutionnelle.’ See also, at vol. i. p. 128, the concluding paragraph of the speech of Omer Talon. Joly, who was much displeased at this tendency, complains that in 1648, ‘le peuple tomboit imperceptiblement dans le sentiment dangereux, qu'il est naturel et permis de se défendre et de s'armer contre la violence des supérieurs.’ Mém. de Joly, p. 15. Of the immediate objects proposed by the Fronde, one was to diminish the taille, and another was to obtain a law that no one should be kept in prison more than twenty-four hours, ‘sans être remis entre les mains du parlement pour lui faire son procès s'il se trouvoit criminel ou l'élargir s'il étoit innocent.’ Mém. de Montglat, vol. ii. p. 135; Mém. de Motteville, vol. ii. p. 398; Mém. de Retz, vol. i. p. 265; Mém. d'Omer Talon, vol. ii. pp. 224, 225, 240, 328.
357
I use the word ‘parliament’ in the sense given to it by writers of that time, and not in the legal sense.
358
In May 1642, there remained at Westminster forty-two peers, Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 559; but they gradually abandoned the popular cause; and, according to Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1282, so dwindled, that eventually ‘seldom more than five or six’ were present.
359
These increasing democratic tendencies are most clearly indicated in Walker's curious work, The History of Independency. See among other passages, book i. p. 59. And Clarendon, under the year 1644, says (Hist. of the Rebellion, p. 514): ‘That violent party, which had at first cozened the rest into the war, and afterwards obstructed all the approaches towards peace, found now that they had finished as much of their work as the tools which they had wrought with could be applied to, and what remained to be done must be despatched by new workmen.’ What these new workmen were, he afterwards explains, p. 641, to be ‘the most inferior people preferred to all places of trust and profit.’ Book xi. under the year 1648. Compare some good remarks by Mr. Bell, in Fairfax Correspond. vol. iii. pp. 115, 116.
360
This was after the appointments of Essex and Bedford, and was in 1643. Ludlow's Mem. vol. i. p. 58; Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. i. p. 189.
361
‘When the king attempted to arrest the five members, Manchester, at that time Lord Kymbolton, was the only peer whom he impeached. This circumstance endeared Kymbolton to the party; his own safety bound him more closely to its interests.’ Lingard's England, vol. vi. p. 337. Compare Clarendon, p. 375; Ludlow, vol. i. p. 20. It is also said that Lord Essex joined the popular party from personal pique against the king.
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