The Constitutional History of England. Hallam Henry

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ one was admitted to know so well as himself; redeeming, in an intrepid and patriotic old age, the faults which we cannot avoid perceiving in his earlier life.

      Arbitrary proceedings of the star-chamber.—The unconstitutional and usurped authority of the star-chamber over-rode every personal right, though an assembled parliament might assert its general privileges. Several remarkable instances in history illustrate its tyranny and contempt of all known laws and liberties. Two puritans having been committed by the high-commission court, for refusing the oath ex officio, employed Mr. Fuller, a bencher of Gray's Inn, to move for their habeas corpus; which he did on the ground that the high commissioners were not empowered to commit any of his majesty's subjects to prison. This being reckoned a heinous offence, he was himself committed, at Bancroft's instigation (whether by the king's personal warrant, or that of the council-board, does not appear), and lay in gaol to the day of his death; the archbishop constantly opposing his discharge for which he petitioned.573 Whitelock, a barrister and afterwards a judge, was brought before the star-chamber on the charge of having given a private opinion to his client, that a certain commission issued by the Crown was illegal. This was said to be a high contempt and slander of the king's prerogative. But, after a speech from Bacon in aggravation of this offence, the delinquent was discharged on a humble submission.574 Such too was the fate of a more distinguished person on a still more preposterous accusation. Selden, in his History of Tithes, had indirectly weakened the claim of divine right, which the high church faction pretended, and had attacked the argument from prescription, deriving their legal institution from the age of Charlemagne, or even a later æra. Not content with letting loose on him some stanch polemical writers, the bishops prevailed on James to summon the author before the council. This proceeding is as much the disgrace of England, as that against Galileo nearly at the same time is of Italy. Selden, like the great Florentine astronomer, bent to the rod of power, and made rather too submissive an apology for entering on this purely historical discussion.575

      Arabella Stuart.—Every generous mind must reckon the treatment of Arabella Stuart among the hard measures of despotism, even if it were not also grossly in violation of English law. Exposed by her high descent and ambiguous pretensions to become the victim of ambitious designs wherein she did not participate, that lady may be added to the sad list of royal sufferers who have envied the lot of humble birth. There is not, as I believe, the least particle of evidence that she was engaged in the intrigues of the catholic party to place her on the throne. It was, however, thought a necessary precaution to put her in confinement a short time before the queen's death.576 At the trial of Raleigh she was present; and Cecil openly acquitted her of any share in the conspiracy.577 She enjoyed afterwards a pension from the king, and might have died in peace and obscurity, had she not conceived an unhappy attachment for Mr. Seymour, grandson of that Earl of Hertford, himself so memorable an example of the perils of ambitious love. They were privately married; but on the fact transpiring, the council, who saw with jealous eyes the possible union of two dormant pretensions to the Crown, committed them to the Tower.578 They both made their escape; but Arabella was arrested and brought back. Long and hopeless calamity broke down her mind; imploring in vain the just privileges of an Englishwoman, and nearly in want of necessaries, she died in prison, and in a state of lunacy, some years afterwards.579 And this through the oppression of a kinsman, whose advocates are always vaunting his good nature! Her husband became the famous Marquis of Hertford, the faithful counsellor of Charles the First and partaker of his adversity. Lady Shrewsbury, aunt to Arabella, was examined on suspicion of being privy to her escape; and for refusing to answer the questions put to her, or, in other words, to accuse herself, was sentenced to a fine of £20,000, and discretionary imprisonment.580

      Somerset and Overbury.—Several events, so well known that it is hardly necessary to dwell on them, aggravated the king's unpopularity during this parliamentary interval. The murder of Overbury burst into light, and revealed to an indignant nation the king's unworthy favourite, the Earl of Somerset, and the hoary pander of that favourite's vices, the Earl of Northampton, accomplices in that deep-laid and deliberate atrocity. Nor was it only that men so flagitious should have swayed the councils of this country, and rioted in the king's favour. Strange things were whispered, as if the death of Overbury was connected with something that did not yet transpire, and which every effort was employed to conceal. The people, who had already attributed Prince Henry's death to poison, now laid it at the door of Somerset; but for that conjecture, however highly countenanced at the time, there could be no foundation. The symptoms of the prince's illness, and the appearances on dissection, are not such as could result from any poison, and manifestly indicate a malignant fever, aggravated perhaps by injudicious treatment.581 Yet it is certain that a mystery hangs over this scandalous tale of Overbury's murder. The insolence and menaces of Somerset in the Tower, the shrinking apprehensions of him which the king could not conceal, the pains taken by Bacon to prevent his becoming desperate, and, as I suspect, to mislead the hearers by throwing them on a wrong scent, are very remarkable circumstances to which, after a good deal of attention, I can discover no probable clue. But it is evident that he was master of some secret, which it would have highly prejudiced the king's honour to divulge.582

      Sir Walter Raleigh.—Sir Walter Raleigh's execution was another stain upon the reputation of James I. It is needless to mention that he fell under a sentence passed fifteen years before, on a charge of high treason, in plotting to raise Arabella Stuart to the throne. It is very probable that this charge was, partly at least, founded in truth;583 but his conviction was obtained on the single deposition of Lord Cobham, an accomplice, a prisoner, not examined in court, and known to have already retracted his accusation. Such a verdict was thought contrary to law, even in that age of ready convictions. It was a severe measure to detain for twelve years in prison so splendid an ornament of his country, and to confiscate his whole estate.584 For Raleigh's conduct in the expedition to Guiana, there is not much excuse to make. Rashness and want of foresight were always among his failings; else he would not have undertaken a service of so much hazard without obtaining a regular pardon for his former offence. But it might surely be urged that either his commission was absolutely null, or that it operated as a pardon; since a man attainted of treason is incapable of exercising that authority which it conferred upon him.585 Be this as it may, no technical reasoning could overcome the moral sense that revolted at carrying the original sentence into execution. Raleigh might be amenable to punishment for the deception, by which he had obtained a commission that ought never to have issued; but the nation could not help seeing in his death the sacrifice of the bravest and most renowned of Englishmen to the vengeance of Spain.586

      This unfortunate predilection for the court of Madrid had always exposed James to his subjects' jealousy. They connected it with an inclination at least to tolerate popery, and with a dereliction of their commercial interests. But from the time that he fixed his hopes on the union of his son with the infanta,587 the popular dislike to Spain increased in proportion to his blind preference. If the king had not systematically disregarded the public wishes, he could never have set his heart on this impolitic match; contrary to the wiser maxim he had laid down in his own Basilicon Doron, never to seek a wife for his son except in a protestant family. But his absurd pride made him despise the uncrowned princes of Germany. This Spanish policy grew much more odious after the memorable events of 1619, the election of the king's son-in-law to the throne of Bohemia, his rapid downfall, and the conquest of the Upper Palatinate by Austria. If James had listened to some sanguine advisers, he would in the first instance have supported the pretensions of Frederic. But neither his own views of public law nor true policy dictated such an interference. The case was changed after the loss of his hereditary dominions, and the king was sincerely desirous to restore him to the Palatinate; but he unreasonably expected that he could effect this through the friendly mediation of Spain, while the nation, not perhaps less unreasonably, were clamorous for his attempting it by force of arms. In this agitation of the public mind, he summoned the parliament that met in February 1621.588

      Parliament of 1621.—The king's speech on opening the session was, like all he had made on former occasions, full of hopes and promises, taking cheerfully his share of the blame as to past disagreements, and treating them as little likely to recur, though all their causes were still in operation.589 He displayed, however, СКАЧАТЬ