The King threw the managers of the impeachment into prison. The Commons
denied the right of the King to levy tonnage and poundage without their
consent. The King dissolved them. They put forth a remonstrance. The
King circulated a declaration vindicating his measures, and committed
some of the most distinguished members of the Opposition to close
custody. Money was raised by a forced loan, which was apportioned among
the people according to the rate at which they had been respectively
assessed to the last subsidy. On this occasion it was, that Hampden
made his first stand for the fundamental principle of the English
constitution. He positively refused to lend a farthing. He was required
to give his reasons. He answered, “that he could be content to lend
as well as others, but feared to draw upon himself that curse in Magna
Charta which should be read twice a year against those who infringe it.”
 For this spirited answer, the Privy Council committed him close prisoner
to the Gate House. After some time, he was again brought up; but he
persisted in his refusal, and was sent to a place of confinement in
Hampshire.

The government went on, oppressing at home, and blundering in all its
measures abroad. A war was {445}foolishly undertaken against France, and
more foolishly conducted. Buckingham led an expedition against Rhe, and
failed ignominiously. In the mean time soldiers were billeted on the
people. Crimes of which ordinary justice should have taken cognisance
were punished by martial law. Near eighty gentlemen were imprisoned for
refusing to contribute to the forced loan. The lower people who showed
any signs of insubordination were dressed into the fleet, or compelled
to serve in the army. Money, however, came in slowly; and the King was
compelled to summon another Parliament. In the hope of conciliating
his subjects, he set at liberty the persons who had been imprisoned
for refusing to comply with his unlawful demands. Hampden regained his
freedom, and was immediately reelected burgess for Wendover.

Early in 1628 the Parliament met. During its first session, the Commons
prevailed on the King, after many delays and much equivocation, to
give, in return for five subsidies, his full and solemn assent to that
celebrated instrument, the second great charter of the liberties of
England, known by the name of the Petition of Right. By agreeing to this
act, the King bound himself to raise no taxes without the consent of
Parliament, to imprison no man except by legal process, to billet no
more soldiers on the people, and to leave the cognisance of offences to
the ordinary tribunals.

In the summer, this memorable Parliament was prorogued. It met again in
January, 1629. Buckingham was no more. That weak, violent, and dissolute
adventurer, who, with no talents or acquirements but those of a mere
courtier, had, in a great crisis of foreign and domestic politics,
ventured on the part of {446}prime minister, had fallen, during the
recess of Parliament, by the hand of an assassin. Both before and after
his death the war had been feebly and unsuccessfully conducted. The King
had continued, in direct violation of the Petition of Righ, to raise
tonnage and poundage without the consent of Parliament. The troops had
again been billeted on the people; and it was clear to the Commons that
the five subsidies which they had given as the price of the national
liberties had been given in vain.

They met accordingly in no complying humour. 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 {447}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 uf
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 {448}of some part of the character
of Hampden which Clarendon has drawn.

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--{449}in whose fall fame makes this
kingdom a great 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 converts; (1) of whose mind neither am I superstitiously. But
had my opinion been asked, I should, as vulgar conceits use 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 to-morrow, 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 behaviour to be affected in ill 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 Sechem 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

     (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.

{450}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 favourite 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. {451}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 mean time, 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 recognising 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 honourable
death.

All the promises of the King were violated without scruple or shame.
The Petition of Right, to which he had, in consideration of monies duly
numbered, given a solemn assent, was set at nought. 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 {452}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 every thing 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 mitres 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 counsellors 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 valour 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 {453}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
lay 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 favourite
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! {454}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 canvass 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 defence, 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 equalled 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 {455}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
favourite 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 the 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 licence.
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 uf 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 {456}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 favour. 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.
{457}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. {458}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 favour 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 favour. 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 demeanour, 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.” {459}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 mis-government 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 {460}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 {461}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 mis-government, 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
{462}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 unfavourably 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 {463}of the King, they
recognised 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.

On the next day the King came down to the House of Lords, and dissolved
the Parliament with an angry speech. His conduct on this occasion has
never been defended by any of his apologists. Clarendon condemns it
severely. “No man,” says he, “could imagine what offence the Commons
had given.” The {464}offence which they had given is plain. They had,
indeed, behaved most temperately and most respectfully. But they had
shown a disposition to redress wrongs and to vindicate the laws; and
this was enough to make them hateful to a king whom no law could bind,
and whose whole government was one system of wrong.

The nation received the intelligence of the dissolution with sorrow
and indignation. The only persons to whom this event gave pleasure were
those few discerning men who thought that the maladies of the state were
beyond the reach of gentle remedies. Oliver St. John’s joy was too great
for concealment. It lighted up his dark and melancholy features, and
made him, for the first time, indiscreetly communicative. He told Hyde
that things must be worse before they could be better, and that the
dissolved Parliament would never have done all that was necessary. St.
John, we think, was in the right. No good could then have been done by
any Parliament which did not fully understand that no confidence could
safely be placed in the King, and that, while he enjoyed more than the
shadow of power, the nation would never enjoy more than the shadow of
liberty.

As soon as Charles had dismissed the Parliament, he threw several
members of the House of Commons into prison. Ship-money was exacted
more rigorously than ever; and the Mayor and Sheriffs of London
were prosecuted before the Star Chamber for slackness in levying it.
Wentworth, it is said, observed, with characteristic insolence and
cruelty, that things would never go right till the Aldermen were hanged.
Large sums were raised by force on those counties in which the troops
were quartered. All the wretched shifts of a {465}beggared exchequer
were tried. Forced loans were raised. Great quantities of goods were
bought on long credit and sold for ready-money. A scheme for debasing
the currency was under consideration. At length, in August, the King
again marched northward.

The Scots advanced into England to meet him. It is by no means
improbable that this bold step was taken by the advice of Hampden, and
of those with whom he acted; and this has been made matter of grave
accusation against the English Opposition. It is said that to call in
the aid of foreigners in a domestic quarrel is the worst of treasons,
and that the Puritan leaders, by taking this course, showed that they
were regardless of the honour and independence of the nation, and
anxious only for the success of their own faction. We are utterly unable
to see any distinction between the case of the Scotch invasion in
1640, and the case of the Dutch invasion in 1688; or rather, we see
distinctions which are to the advantage of Hampden and his friends. We
believe Charles to have been a worse and more danserons king than his
son. The Dutch were strangers to us, the Scots a kindred people speaking
the same language, subjects of the same prince, not aliens in the eye of
the law. If, indeed, it had been possible that a Scotch army or a Dutch
army could have enslaved England, those who persuaded Leslie to cross
the Tweed, and those who signed the invitation to the Prince of Orange,
would have been traitors to their country. But such a result was out of
the question. All that either a Scotch or a Dutch invasion could do was
to give the public feeling of England an opportunity to show
itself. Both expeditions would have ended in complete and ludicrous
{466}discomfiture, had Charles and James been supported by their
soldiers and their people. In neither case, therefore, was the
independence of England endangered; in both cases her liberties were
preserved.

The second campaign of Charles against the Scots was short and
ignominious. His soldiers, as soon as they saw the enemy, ran away as
English soldiers have never run either before or since. It can scarcely
be doubted that their flight was the effect, not of cowardice, but of
disaffection. The four northern counties of England were occupied by the
Scotch army, and the King retired to York.

The game of tyranny was now up. Charles had risked and lost his last
stake. It is not easy to retrace the mortifications and humiliations
which the tyrant now had to endure, without a feeling of vindictive
pleasure. His army was munitions; his treasury was empty; his people
clamoured for a Parliament; addresses and petitions against the
government were presented. Strafford was for shooting the petitioners by
martial law; but the King could not trust the soldiers. A great council
of Peers was called at York; but the King could not trust even the
Peers. He struggled, evaded, hesitated, tried every shift, rather than
again face the representatives of his injured people. At length no shift
was left. He made a truce with the Scots, and summoned a Parliament.

The leaders of the popular party had, after the late dissolution,
remained in London for the purpose of organizing a scheme of opposition
to the court. They now exerted themselves to the utmost. Hampden, in
particular, rode from county to county, exhorting the electors to give
their votes to men worthy of their confidence. The great majority of
the returns was on the side {467}of the Opposition. Hampden was himself
chosen member both for Wendover and Buckinghamshire. He made his
election to serve for the county.

On the third of November, 1640, a day to be long remembered, met that
great Parliament, destined to every extreme of fortune, to empire and
to servitude, to glory and to contempt; at one time the sovereign of its
sovereign, at another time the servant of its servants. From the first
day of meeting the attendance was great; and the aspect of the members
was that of men not disposed to do the work negligently. The dissolution
of the late Parliament had convinced most of them that half measures
would no longer suffice. Clarendon tells us, that “the same men who, six
months before, were observed to be of very moderate tempers, and to wish
that gentle remedies might be applied, talked now in another dialect
both of kings and persons; and said that they must now be of another
temper than they were the last Parliament.” The debt of vengeance was
swollen by all the usury which had been accumulating during many years;
and payment was made to the full.

This memorable crisis called forth parliamentary abilities such as
England had never before seen. Among the most distinguished members
of the House of Commons were Falkland, Hyde, Digby, young Harry Vane,
Oliver St. John, Denzil Hollis, Nathaniel Fiennes. But two men exercised
a paramount influence over the legislature and the country, Pym and
Hampden; and, by the universal consent of friends and enemies, the first
place belonged to Hampden.

On occasions which required set speeches Pym generally took the lead.
Hampden very seldom rose till late in a debate. His speaking was of that
kind which {468}has, in every age, been held in the highest estimation
by English Parliaments, ready, weighty, perspicuous, condensed. His
perception of the feelings of the House was exquisite, his temper
unalterably placid, his manner eminently courteous and gentlemanlike.
“Even with those,” says Clarendon, “who are able to preserve themselves
from his infusions, and who discerned those opinions to be fixed in him
with which they could not comply, he always left the character of an
ingenious and conscientious person.” His talents for business were as
remarkable as his talents for debate. “He was,” says Clarendon, “of
an industry and vigilance not to be tired out or wearied by the most
laborious, and of parts not to be imposed upon by the most subtle
and sharp.” Yet it was rather to his moral than to his intellectual
qualities that he was indebted for the vast influence which
he possessed. “When this parliament began,”--we again quote
Clarendon,--“the eyes of all men were fixed upon him, as their _patriae
pater_, and the pilot that must steer the vessel through the tempests
and rocks which threatened it. And I am persuaded his power and interest
at that time were greater to do good or hurt than any man’s in the
kingdom, or than any man of his rank hath had in any time; for his
reputation of honesty was universal, and his affections seemed so
publicly guided, that no corrupt or private ends could bias them.. . .
He was indeed a very wise man, and of great parts, and possessed with
the most absolute spirit of popularity, and the most absolute faculties
to govern the people, of any man I ever knew.”

It is sufficient to recapitulate shortly the acts of the Long Parliament
during its first session. Strafford and Laud were impeached and
imprisoned. Strafford {469}was afterwards attainted by Bill, and
executed. Lord Keeper Finch fled to Holland, Secretary Windebank to
France. All those whom the King had, during the last twelve years,
employed for the oppression of his people, from the servile judges
who had pronounced in favour of the crown against Hampden, down to
the sheriffs who had distrained for ship-money, and the custom-house
officers who had levied tonnage and poundage, were summoned to answer
for their conduct. The Star Chamber, the High Commission Court, the
Council of York, were abolished. Those unfortunate victims of Laud who,
after undergoing ignominious exposure and cruel manglings, had been
sent to languish in distant prisons, were set at liberty, and conducted
through London in triumphant procession. The King was compelled to give
the judges patents for life or during good behaviour. He was deprived
of those oppressive powers which were the last relics of the old feudal
tenures. The Forest Courts and the Stannary Courts were reformed. It
was provided that the Parliament then sitting should not be prorogued or
dissolved without its own consent, and that a Parliament should be held
at least once every three years.

Many of these measures Lord Clarendon allows to have been most salutary;
and few persons will, in our times, deny that, in the laws passed
during this session, the good greatly preponderated over the evil. The
abolition of those three hateful courts, the Northern Council, the
Star Chamber, and the High Commission, would alone entitle the Long
Parliament to the lasting gratitude of Englishmen.

The proceeding against Strafford undoubtedly seems hard to people living
in our days. It would probably have seemed merciful and moderate to
people living in {470}the sixteenth century. It is curious to compare
the trial of Charles’s minister with the trial, if it can be so called,
of Lord Seymour of Sudeley, in the blessed reign of Edward the Sixth.
None of the great reformers of our Church doubted the propriety of
passing an act of Parliament for cutting off Lord Seymour’s head without
a legal conviction. The pious Cranmer voted for that act; the pious
Latimer preached for it; the pious Edward returned thanks for it; and
all the pious Lords of the council together exhorted their victim
to what they were pleased facetiously to call “the quiet and patient
suffering of justice.”

But it is not necessary to defend the proceedings against Strafford by
any such comparison. They are justified, in our opinion, by that which
alone justifies capital punishment or any punishment, by that which
alone justifies war, by the public danger. That there is a certain
amount of public danger which will justify a legislature in sentencing
a man to death by retrospective law, few people, we suppose, will
deny. Few people, for example, will deny that the French Convention was
perfectly justified in placing Robespierre, St. Just, and Couthon under
the ban of the law, without a trial. This proceeding differed from the
proceeding against Strafford only in being much more rapid and violent.
Strafford was fully heard. Robespierre was not suffered to defend
himself. Was there, then, in the case of Strafford, a danger sufficient
to justify an act of attainder? We believe that there was. We believe
that the contest in which the Parliament was engaged against the King
was a contest for the security of our property, for the liberty of our
persons, for every thing which makes us to differ from the subjects of
Don Miguel. We believe that the cause of the {471}Commons was such as
justified them in resisting the King, in raising an army, in sending
thousands of brave men to kill and to be killed. An act of attainder is
surely not more a departure from the ordinary course of law than a civil
war. An act of attainder produces much less suffering than a civil
war. We are, therefore, unable to discover on what principle it can be
maintained that a cause which justifies a civil war will not justify an
act of attainder.

Many specious arguments have been urged against the retrospective law by
which Strafford was condemned to death. But all these arguments proceed
on the supposition that the crisis was an ordinary crisis. The attainder
was, in truth, a revolutionary measure. It was part of a system of
resistance which oppression had rendered necessary. It is as unjust to
judge of the conduct pursued by the Long Parliament towards Strafford on
ordinary principles, as it would have been to indict Fairfax for murder
because he cut down a cornet at Naseby. From the day on which the Houses
met, there was a war waged by them against the King, a war for all that
they held dear, a war carried on at first by means of parliamentary
forms, at last by physical force; and, as in the second stage of that
war, so in the first, they were entitled to do many things which, in
quiet times, would have been culpable.

We must not omit to mention that those who were afterwards the most
distinguished ornaments of the King’s party supported the bill of
attainder. It is almost certain that Hyde voted for it. It is quite
certain that Falkland both voted and spoke for it. The opinion of
Hampden, as far as it can be collected from a very obscure note of one
of his speeches, seems to have been that the proceeding by Bill was
unnecessary, {472}and that it would be a better course to obtain
judgment on the impeachment.

During this year the Court opened a negotiation with the leaders of the
Opposition. The Earl of Bedford was invited to form an administration on
popular principles. St. John was made solicitor-general. Hollis was to
have been secretary of state, and Pym chancellor of the exchequer. The
post of tutor to the Prince of Wales was designed for Hampden. The death
of the Earl of Bedford prevented this arrangement from being carried
into effect; and it may be doubted whether, even if that nobleman’s
life had been prolonged, Charles would ever have consented to surround
himself with counsellors whom he could not but hate and fear.

Lord Clarendon admits that the conduct of Hampden during this year was
mild and temperate, that he seemed disposed rather to soothe than to
excite the public mind, and that, when violent and unreasonable motions
were made by his followers, he generally left the House before the
division, lest he should seem to give countenance to their extravagance.
His temper was moderate. He sincerely loved peace. He felt also great
fear lest too precipitate a movement should produce a reaction. The
events which took place early in the next session clearly showed that
this fear was not unfounded.

During the autumn the Parliament adjourned for a few weeks. Before the
recess, Hampden was despatched to Scotland by the House of Commons,
nominally as a commissioner, to obtain security for a debt which the
Scots had contracted during the late invasion; but in truth that he
might keep watch over the King, who had now repaired to Edinburgh, for
the {473}purpose of finally adjusting the points of difference which
remained between him and his northern subjects. It was the business of
Hampden to dissuade the Covenanters from making their peace with the
Court, at the expense of the popular party in England.

While the King was in Scotland, the Irish rebellion broke out. The
suddenness and violence of this terrible explosion excited a strange
suspicion in the public mind. The Queen was a professed Papist. The King
and the Archbishop of Canterbury had not indeed been reconciled to the
See of Rome; but they had, while acting towards the Puritan party with
the utmost rigour, and speaking of that party with the utmost contempt,
shown great tenderness and respect towards the Catholic religion and
its professors. In spite of the wishes of successive Parliaments, the
Protestant separatists had been cruelly persecuted. And at the same
time, in spite of the wishes of those very Parliaments, laws which were
in force against the Papists, and which, unjustifiable as they were,
suited the temper of that age, had not been carried into execution. The
Protestant nonconformists had not yet learned toleration in the school
of suffering. They reprobated the partial lenity which the government
showed towards idolaters, and, with some show of reason, ascribed to bad
motives conduct which, in such a king as Charles, and such a prelate
as Laud, could not possibly be ascribed to humanity or to liberality
of sentiment. The violent Arminianism of the Archbishop, his childish
attachment to ceremonies, his superstitious veneration for altars,
vestments, and painted windows, his bigoted zeal for the constitution
and the privileges of his order, his known opinions respecting the
celibacy of the clergy, had excited great disgust {474}throughout that
large party which was every day becoming more and more hostile to Rome,
and more and more inclined to the doctrines and the discipline of
Geneva. It was believed by many that the Irish rebellion had been
secretly encouraged by the Court; and, when the Parliament met again in
November, after a short recess, the Puritans were more intractable than
ever.

But that which Hampden had feared had come to pass. A reaction had taken
place. A large body of moderate and well-meaning men, who had heartily
concurred in the strong measures adopted before the recess, were
inclined to pause. Their opinion was that, during many years, the
country had been grievously misgoverned, and that a great reform
had been necessary; but that a great reform had been made, that the
grievances of the nation had been fully redressed, that sufficient
vengeance had been exacted for the past, that sufficient security had
been provided for the future, and that it would, therefore, be
both ungrateful and unwise to make any further attacks on the royal
prerogative. In support of this opinion many plausible arguments have
been used. But to all these arguments there is one short answer. The
King could not be trusted.

At the head of those who may be called the Constitutional Royalists
were Falkland, Hyde, and Culpeper. All these eminent men had, during the
former year, been in very decided opposition to the Court. In some of
those very proceedings with which their admirers reproach Hampden, they
had taken a more decided part than Hampden. They had all been concerned
in the impeachment of Strafford. They had all, there is reason to
believe, voted for the Bill of Attabuler. {475}Certainly none of them
voted against it. They had all agreed to the act which made the consent
of the Parliament necessary to a dissolution or prorogation. Hyde had
been among the most active of those who attacked the Council of York.
Falkland had voted for the exclusion of the bishops from the Upper
House. They were now inclined to halt in the path of reform, perhaps to
retrace a few of their steps.

A direct collision soon took place between the two parties into which
the House of Commons, lately at almost perfect unity with itself, was
now divided. The opponents of the government moved that celebrated
address to the King which is known by the name of the Grand
Remonstrance. In this address all the oppressive acts of the preceding
fifteen years were set forth with great energy of language; and, in
conclusion, the King was entreated to employ no ministers in whom the
Parliament could not confide.

The debate on the Remonstrance was long and stormy. It commenced at nine
in the morning of the twenty-first of November, and lasted till after
midnight. The division showed that a great change had taken place in the
temper of the House. Though many members had retired from exhaustion,
three hundred voted; and the Remonstrance was carried by a majority
of only nine. A violent debate followed, on the question whether
the minority should be allowed to protest against this decision. The
excitement was so great that several members were on the point of
proceeding to personal violence. “We had sheathed our swords in each
other’s bowels,” says an eye-witness, “had not the sagacity and great
calmness of Mr. Hampden, by a short speech, prevented it.” The House
did not rise till two in the morning. {476}The situation of the Puritan
leaders was now difficult and full of peril. The small majority which
they still had might soon become a minority. Out of doors, their
supporters in the higher and middle classes were beginning to fall off.
There was a growing opinion that the King had been hardly used. The
English are always inclined to side with a weak party which is in the
wrong, rather than with a strong party which is in the right. This may
be seen in all contests, from contests of boxers to contests of faction.
Thus it was that a violent reaction took place in favour of Charles the
Second against the Whigs in 1681. Thus it was that an equally violent
reaction took place in favour of George the Third against the coalition
in 1784. A similar reaction was beginning to take place during the
second year of the Long Parliament. Some members of the Opposition “had
resumed,” says Clarendon, “their old resolution of leaving the kingdom.”
 Oliver Cromwell openly declared that he and many others would have
emigrated if they had been left in a minority on the question of the
Remonstrance.

Charles had now a last chance of regaining the affection of his people.
If he could have resolved to give his confidence to the leaders of the
moderate party in the House of Commons, and to regulate his proceedings
by their advice, he might have been, not, indeed, as he had been, a
despot, but the powerful and respected king of a free people. The nation
might have enjoyed liberty and repose under a government with Falkland
at its head, checked by a constitutional Opposition under the conduct
of Hampden. It was not necessary that, in order to accomplish this happy
end, the King should sacrifice any part of his lawful prerogative, or
submit to any conditions inconsistent {477}with his dignity. It was
necessary only that he should abstain from treachery, from violence,
from gross breaches of the law. This was all that the nation was then
disposed to require of him. And even this was too much.

For a short time he seemed inclined to take a wise and temperate course.
He resolved to make Falkland secretary of state, and Culpeper chancellor
of the exchequer. He declared his intention of conferring in a short
time some important office on Hyde. He assured these three persons that
he would do nothing relating to the House of Commons without their joint
advice, and that he would communicate all his designs to them in the
most unreserved manner. This resolution, had he adhered to it, would
have averted many years of blood and mourning. But “in very few days,”
 says Clarendon, “he did fatally swerve from it.”

On the third of January 1642, without giving the slightest hint of his
intention to those advisers whom he had solemnly promised to consult, he
sent down the attorney-general to impeach Lord Kimbolton, Hampden, Pym,
Hollis, and two other members of the House of Commons, at the bar of the
Lords, on a charge of High Treason. It is difficult to find in the whole
history of England such an instance of tyranny, perfidy, and folly. The
most precious and ancient rights of the subject were violated by this
act. The only way in which Hampden and Pym could legally be tried for
treason at the suit of the King, was by a petty jury on a bill found
by a grand jury. The attorney-general had no right to impeach them. The
House of Lords had no right to try them.

The Commons refused to surrender their members. The Peers showed no
inclination to usurp the unconstitutional {478}jurisdiction which the
King attempted to force on them. A contest began, in which violence and
weakness were on the one side, law and resolution on the other. Charles
sent an officer to seal up the lodgings and trunks of the accused
members. The Commons sent their sergeant to break the seals. The tyrant
resolved to follow up one outrage by another. In making: the charge,
he had struck at the institution of juries. In executing the arrest, he
struck at the privileges of Parliament. He resolved to go to the House
in person with an armed force, and there to seize the leaders of the
Opposition, while engaged in the discharge of their parliamentary
duties.

What was his purpose? Is it possible to believe that he had no definite
purpose, that he took the most important step of his whole reign without
having for one moment considered what might be its effects? Is it
possible to believe that he went merely for the purpose of making
himself a laughing-stock, that he intended, if he had found the accused
members, and if they had refused, as it was their right and duty to
refuse, the submission which he illegally demanded, to leave the House
without bringing them away? If we reject both these suppositions, we
must believe, and we certainly do believe, that he went fully determined
to carry his unlawful design into effect by violence, and, if necessary,
to shed the blood of the chiefs of the Opposition on the very floor of
the Parliament House. Lady Carlisle conveyed intelligence of the design
to Pym. The five members had time to withdraw before the arrival of
Charles. They left the House as he was entering New Palace Yard. He was
accompanied by about two hundred halberdiers of his guard, and by many
gentlemen of the Court armed {479}with swords. He walked up Westminster
Hall. At the southern end of the Hall his attendants divided to the
right and left, and formed a lane to the door of the House of Commons.
He knocked, entered, darted a look towards the place which Pym usually
occupied, and, seeing it empty, walked up to the table. The Speaker
fell on his knee. The members rose and uncovered their heads in profound
silence, and the King took his seat in the chair. He looked round the
House. But the five members were nowhere to be seen. He interrogated
the Speaker. The Speaker answered, that he was merely the organ of the
House, and had neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak, but according
to their direction. The King muttered a few feeble sentences about his
respect for the laws of the realm, and the privileges of Parliament, and
retired. As he passed along the benches, several resolute voices called
out audibly “Privilege!” He returned to Whitehall with his company of
bravoes, who, while he was in the House, had been impatiently waiting
in the lobby for the word, cocking their pistols, and crying “Fall on.”
 That night he put forth a proclamation, directing that the ports should
be stopped, and that no person should, at his peril, venture to harbour
the accused members.

Hampden and his friends had taken refuge in Coleman Street. The city
of London was indeed the fastness of public liberty, and was, in those
times, a place of at least as much importance as Paris during the
French Revolution. The city, properly so called, now consists in a great
measure of immense warehouses and counting-houses, which are frequented
by traders and their clerks during the day, and left in almost total
solitude during the night. It was then closely inhabited {480}by three
hundred thousand persons, to whom it was not merely a place of business,
but a place of constant residence. This great capital had as complete
a civil and military organization as if it had been an independent
republic. Each citizen had his company; and the companies, which now
seem to exist only for the sake of epicures and of antiquaries, were
then formidable brotherhoods, the members of which were almost as
closely bound together as the members of a Highland clan. How strong
these artificial ties were, the numerous and valuable legacies anciently
bequeathed by citizens to their corporations abundantly prove. The
municipal offices were filled by the most opulent and respectable
merchants of the kingdom. The pomp of the magistracy of the capital was
inferior only to that which surrounded the person of the sovereign. The
Londoners loved their city with that patriotic love which is found only
in small communities, like those of ancient Greece, or like those which
arose in Italy during the middle ages. The numbers, the intelligence,
the wealth of the citizens, the democratical form of their local
government, and their vicinity to the Court and to the Parliament, made
them one of the most formidable bodies in the kingdom. Even as soldiers
they were not to be despised. In an age in which war is a profession,
there is something ludicrous in the idea of battalions composed of
apprentices and shopkeepers, and officered by aldermen. But, in the
early part of the seventeenth century, there was no standing army in the
island; and the militia of the metropolis was not inferior in training
to the militia of other places. A city which could furnish many
thousands of armed men, abounding in natural courage, and not absolutely
untinctured with military discipline, {481}was a formidable auxiliary in
times of internal dissension. On several occasions during the civil war,
the train-bands of London distinguished themselves highly; and at the
battle of Newbury, in particular, they repelled the fiery onset of
Rupert, and saved the army of the Parliament from destruction.

The people of this great city had long been thoroughly devoted to the
national cause. Many of them had signed a protestation in which they
declared their resolution to defend the privileges of Parliament. Their
enthusiasm had, indeed, of late begun to cool. But the impeachment
of the five members, and the insult offered to the House of Commons,
inflamed them to fury. Their houses, their purses, their pikes, were at
the command of the representatives of the nation. London was in arms all
night. The next day the shops were closed; the streets were filled
with immense crowds; the multitude pressed round the King’s coach, and
insulted him with opprobrious cries. The House of Commons, in the mean
time, appointed a committee to sit in the city, for the purpose of
inquiring into the circumstances of the late outrage. The members of the
committee were welcomed by a deputation of the common council. Merchant
Tailors’ Hall, Goldsmiths’ Hall, and Grocers’ Hall, were fitted up for
their sittings. A guard of respectable citizens, duly relieved twice a
day, was posted at their doors. The sheriffs were charged to watch over
the safety of the accused members, and to escort them to and from the
committee with every mark of honour.

A violent and sudden revulsion of feeling, both in the House and out of
it, was the effect of the late proceedings of the King. The Opposition
regained in a few hours all the ascendency which it had lost. The
{482}constitutional royalists were filled with shame and sorrow. They
saw that they had been cruelly deceived by Charles. They saw that they
were, unjustly, but not unreasonably, suspected by the nation. Clarendon
distinctly says that they perfectly detested the counsels by which the
King had been guided, and were so much displeased and dejected at the
unfair manner in which he had treated them that they were inclined to
retire from his service. During the debates on the breach of privilege,
they preserved a melancholy silence. To this day, the advocates of
Charles take care to say as little as they can about his visit to the
House of Commons, and, when they cannot avoid mention of it, attribute
to infatuation an act which, on any other supposition, they must admit
to have been a frightful crime.

The Commons, in a few days, openly defied the King, and ordered the
accused members to attend in their places at Westminster and to resume
their parliamentary duties. The citizens resolved to bring back the
champions of liberty in triumph before the windows of Whitehall. Vast
preparations were made both by land and water for this great festival.

The King had remained in his palace, humbled, dismayed, and bewildered,
“feeling,” says Clarendon, “the trouble and agony which usually attend
generous and magnanimous minds upon their having committed errors;”
 feeling, we should say, the despicable repentance which attends the
man who, having attempted to commit a crime, finds that he has only
committed a folly. The populace hooted and shouted all day before the
gates of the royal residence. The tyrant could not bear to see
the triumph of those whom he had destined to the gallows and the
quartering-block. {483}On the day preceding that which was fixed for
their return, he fled, with a few attendants, from that palace which he
was never to see again till he was led through it to the scaffold.

On the eleventh of January, the Thames was covered with boats, and its
shores with the gazing multitude.

Armed vessels, decorated with streamers, were ranged in two lines from
London Bridye to Westminster Hall. The members returned upon the river
in a ship manned by sailors who had volunteered their services. The
train-bands of the city, under the command of the sheriffs, marched
along the Strand, attended by a vast crowd of spectators, to guard
the avenues to the House of Commons; and thus, with shouts and loud
discharges of ordnance, the accused patriots were brought back by the
people whom they had served and for whom they had suffered. The restored
members, as soon as they had entered the House, expressed, in the
warmest terms, their gratitude to the citizens of London. The sheriffs
were warmly thanked by the Speaker in the name of the Commons; and
orders were given that a guard selected from the train-bands of the
city, should attend daily to watch over the safety of the Parliament.

The excitement had not been confined to London. When intelligence of the
danger to which Hampden was exposed reached Buckinghamshire, it excited
the alarm and indignation of the people. Four thousand freeholders of
that county, each of them wearing in his hat a copy of the protestation
in favour of the privileges of Parliament, rode up to London to defend
the person of their beloved representative. They came in a body to
assure Parliament of their full resolution to defend its privileges.
Their petition was {484}couched in the strongest terms. “In respect,”
 said they, “of that latter attempt upon the honourable House of Commons,
we are now come to offer our service to that end, and resolved, in their
just defence, to live and die.”

A great struggle was clearly at hand. Hampden had returned to
Westminster much changed. His influence had hitherto been exerted rather
to restrain than to animate the zeal of his party. But the treachery,
the contempt of law, the thirst for blood, which the King had now shown,
left no hope of a peaceable adjustment. It was clear that Charles must
be either a puppet or a tyrant, that no obligation of law or of honour
could bind him, and that the only way to make him harmless was to make
him powerless.

The attack which the King had made on the five members was not merely
irregular in manner. Even if the charges had been preferred legally,
if the Grand Jury of Middlesex had found a true bill, if the accused
persons had been arrested under a proper warrant and at a proper time
and place, there would still have been in the proceeding enough of
perfidy and injustice to vindicate the strongest measures which the
Opposition could take. To Impeach Pym and Hampden was to impeach the
House of Commons. It was notoriously on account of what they had done as
members of that House that they were selected as objects of vengeance;
and in what they had done as members of that House the majority had
concurred. Most of the charges brought against them were common between
them and the Parliament. They were accused, indeed, and it may be with
reason, of encouraging the Scotch army to invade England. In doing this,
they had committed what was, in strictness of law, a high offence, the
{485}same offence which Devonshire and Shrewsbury committed in 1688.
But the King had promised pardon and oblivion to those who had been
the principals in the Scotch insurrection. Did it then consist with his
honour to punish the accessaries? He had bestowed marks of his favour on
the leading Covenanters. He had given the great seal of Scotland to one
chief of the rebels, a marquisate to another, an earldom to Leslie, who
had brought the Presbyterian army across the Tweed. On what principle
was Hampden to be attainted for advising what Leslie was ennobled
for doing? In a court of law, of course, no Englishman could plead an
amnesty granted to the Scots. But, though not an illegal, it was
surely an inconsistent and a most unkingly course, after pardoning and
promoting the heads of the rebellion in one kingdom, to hang, draw, and
quarter their accomplices in another.

The proceedings of the King against the five members, or rather against
that. Parliament which had concurred in almost all the acts of the
five members, was the cause of the civil war. It was plain that either
Charles or the House of Commons must be stripped of all real power In
the state. The best course which the Commons could have taken would
perhaps have been to depose the King, as their ancestors had deposed
Edward the Second and Richard the Second, and as their children
afterwards deposed James. Had they done this, had they placed on the
throne a prince whose character and whose situation would have been a
pledge for his good conduct, they might safely have left to that prince
all the old constitutional prerogatives of the Crown, the command of the
armies of the state, the power of making peers, the power of appointing
ministers, a veto on bills passed by the two Houses. {486}Such a prince,
reigning by their choice, would have been under the necessity of acting
in conformity with their wishes. But the public mind was not ripe for
such a measure. There was no Duke of Lancaster, no Prince of Orange, no
great and eminent person, near in blood to the throne, yet attached to
the cause of the people. Charles was then to remain King; and it was
therefore necessary that he should be king only in name. A William the
Third, or a George the First, whose title to the crown was identical
with the title of the people to their liberty, might safely be trusted
with extensive powers. But new freedom could not exist in safety under
the old tyrant. Since he was not to be deprived of the name of king,
the only course which was left was to make him a mere trustee, nominally
seised of prerogatives of which others had the use, a Grand Lama, a _Roi
Fainéant_, a phantom resembling those Dagoberts and Childeberts who wore
the badges of royalty, while Ebroin and Charles Martel held the real
sovereignty of the state.

The conditions which the Parliament propounded were hard, but, we are
sure, not harder than those which even the Tories, in the Convention of
1689, would have imposed on James, if it had been resolved that James
should continue to be king. The chief condition was that the command of
the militia and the conduct of the war in Ireland should be left to the
Parliament. On this point was that great issue joined, whereof the two
parties put themselves on God and on the Sword.

We think, not only that the Commons were justified in demanding for
themselves the power to dispose of the military force, but that it would
have been absolute insanity in them to leave that force at the disposal
of {487}the King. From the very beginning of his reign, it had
evidently been his object to govern by an army. His third Parliament had
complained, in the Petition of Right, of his fondness for martial law,
and of the vexations manner in which he billeted his soldiers on the
people. The wish nearest the heart of Strafford was, as his letters
prove, that the revenue might be brought into such a state as would
enable the King to keep a standing military establishment. In 1640,
Charles had supported an army in the northern counties by lawless
exactions. In 1641 he had engaged in an intrigue, the object of which
was to bring that army to London for the purpose of overawing the
Parliament. His late conduct had proved that, if he were suffered to
retain even a small body-guard of his own creatures near his person, the
Commons would be in danger of outrage, perhaps of massacre. The Houses
were still deliberating under the protection of the militia of London.
Could the command of the whole armed force of the realm have been, under
these circumstances, safely confided to the King? Would it not have been
frenzy in the Parliament to raise and pay an army of fifteen or twenty
thousand men for the Irish war, and to give to Charles the absolute
control of this army, and the power of selecting, promoting, and
dismissing officers at his pleasure? Was it not probable that this army
might become, what it is the nature of armies to become, what so many
armies formed under much more favourable circumstances have become,
what the army of the Roman republic became, what the army of the French
republic became, an instrument of despotism? Was it not probable that
the soldiers might forget that they were also citizens, and might be
ready to serve their general against their {488}country? Was it not
certain that, on the very first day on which Charles could venture to
revoke his concessions, and to punish his opponents, he would establish
an arbitrary government, and exact a bloody revenge?

Our own times furnish a parallel case. Suppose that a revolution
should take place in Spain, that the Constitution of Cadiz should be
reestablished, that the Cortes should meet again, that the Spanish
Prynnes and Burtons, who are now wandering in rags round Leicester
Square, should be restored to their country. Ferdinand the Seventh
would, in that case, of course repeat all the oaths and promises which
he made in 1820, and broke in 1828. But would it not be madness in the
Cortes, even if they were to leave him the name of King, to leave him
more than the name? Would not all Europe scoff at them, if they were
to permit him to assemble a large army for an expedition to America, to
model that army at his pleasure, to put it under the command of
officers chosen by himself? Should we not say that every member of
the Constitutional party who might concur in such a measure would most
richly deserve the fate which he would probably meet, the fate of
Riego and of the Empecinado? We are not disposed to pay compliments to
Ferdinand; nor do we conceive that we pay him any compliment, when we
say that, of all sovereigns in history, he seems to us most to resemble,
in some very important points, King Charles the First. Like Charles,
he is pious after a certain fashion; like Charles, he has made large
concessions to his people after a certain fashion. It is well for him
that he has had to deal with men who bore very little resemblance to the
English Puritans. {489}The Commons would have the power of the sword;
the King would not part with it; and nothing remained but to try the
chances of war. Charles still had a strong party in the country. His
august office, his dignified manners, his solemn protestations that he
would for the time to come respect the liberties of his subjects, pity
for fallen greatness, fear of violent innovation, secured to him many
adherents. He had with him the Church, the Universities, a majority of
the nobles and of the old landed gentry. The austerity of the Puritan
manners drove most of the gay and dissolute youth of that age to the
royal standard. Many good, brave, and moderate men, who disliked
his former conduct, and who entertained doubts touching his present
sincerity, espoused his cause unwillingly and with many painful
misgivings, because, though they dreaded his tyranny much, they dreaded
democratic violence more.

On the other side was the great body of the middle orders of England,
the merchants, the shopkeepers, the yeomanry, headed by a very large and
formidable minority of the peerage and of the landed gentry. The Earl of
Essex, a man of respectable abilities and of some military experience,
was appointed to the command of the parliamentary army.

Hampden spared neither his fortune nor his person in the cause.
He subscribed two thousand pounds to the public service. He took a
colonel’s commission in the army, and went into Buckinghamshire to
raise a regiment of infantry. His neighbours eagerly enlisted under
his command. His men were known by their green uniform, and by their
standard, which bore on one side the watchword of the Parliament, “God
with us,” and on the other the device of Hampden, “Vestigia {490}nulla
retrorsum.” This motto well described the line of conduct which he
pursued. No member of his party had been so temperate, while there
remained a hope that legal and peaceable measures might save the
country. No member of his party showed so much energy and vigour when it
became necessary to appeal to arms. He made himself thoroughly master
of his military duty, and “performed it,” to use the words of Clarendon,
“upon all occasions most punctually.” The regiment which he had raised
and trained was considered as one of the best in the service of the
Parliament. He exposed his person in every action, with an intrepidity
which made him conspicuous even among thousands of brave men. “He was,”
 says Clarendon, “of a personal courage equal to his best parts; so that
he was an enemy not to be wished wherever he might have been made a
friend, and as much to be apprehended where he was so, as any man could
deserve to be.” Though his military career was short, and his military
situation subordinate, he fully proved that he possessed the talents of
a great general, as well as those of a great statesman.

We shall not attempt to give a history of the war. Lord Nugent’s account
of the military operations is very animated and striking. Our abstract
would be dull, and probably unintelligible. There was, in fact, for some
time no great and connected system of operations on either side. The war
of the two parties was like the war of Arimanes and Oromasdes, neither
of whom, according to the Eastern theologians, has any exclusive domain,
who are equally omnipresent, who equally pervade all space, who carry on
their eternal strife within every particle of matter. There was a
petty war in almost every county. A town furnished {491}troops to the
Parliament while the manor-house of the neighbouring peer was garrisoned
for the King. The combatants were rarely disposed to march far from
their own homes. It was reserved for Fairfax and Cromwell to terminate
this desultory warfare, by moving one overwhelming force successively
against all the scattered fragments of the royal party.

It is a remarkable circumstance that the officers who had studied
tactics in what were considered as the best schools, under Vere in the
Netherlands, and under Gustavus Adolphus in Germany, displayed far less
skill than those commanders who had been bred to peaceful employments,
and who never saw even a skirmish till the civil war broke out. An
unlearned person might hence be inclined to suspect that the military
art is no very profound mystery, that its principles are the principles
of plain good sense, and that a quick eye, a cool head, and a stout
heart, will do more to make a general than all the diagrams of Jomini.
This, however, is certain, that Hampden showed himself a far better
officer than Essex, and Cromwell than Leslie.

The military errors of Essex were probably in some degree produced by
political timidity. He was honestly, but not warmly, attached to the
cause of the Parliament; and next to a great defeat he dreaded a great
victory. Hampden, on the other hand, was for vigorous and decisive
measures. When he drew the sword, as Clarendon has well said, he threw
away the scabbard. He had shown that he knew better than any public
man of his time how to value and how to practise moderation. But he
knew that the essence of war is violence, and that moderation in war
is imbecility. On several occasions, particularly during the operations
{492}in the neighbourhood of Brentford, he remonstrated earnestly with
Essex. Wherever he commanded separately, the boldness and rapidity of
his movements presented a striking contrast to the sluggishness of his
superior.

In the Parliament he possessed boundless influence. His employments
towards the close of 1642 have been described by Denham in some lines
which, though intended to be sarcastic, convey in truth the highest
eulogy. Hampden is described in this satire as perpetually passing
and repassing between the military station at Windsor and the House of
Commons at Westminster, as overawing the general, and as giving law to
that Parliament which knew no other law. It was at this time that he
organised that celebrated association of counties, to which his party
was principally indebted for its victory over the King.

In the early part of 1643, the shires lying in the neighbourhood
of London, which were devoted to the cause of the Parliament, were
incessantly annoyed by Rupert and his cavalry. Essex had extended his
lines so far that almost every point was vulnerable. The young prince,
who, though not a great general, was an active and enterprising
partisan, frequently surprised posts, burned villages, swept away
cattle, and was again at Oxford before a force sufficient to encounter
him could be assembled.

The languid proceedings of Essex were loudly condemned by the troops.
All the ardent and daring spirits in the parliamentary party were eager
to have Hampden at their head. Had his life been prolonged, there
is every reason to believe that the supreme command would have been
intrusted to him. But it was decreed, that at this conjuncture, England
should lose {493}the only man who united perfect disinterestedness to
eminent talents, the only man who, being capable of gaining the victory
for her, was incapable of abusing that victory when gained.

In the evening of the seventeenth of June, Rupert darted out of Oxford
with his cavalry on a predatory expedition. At three in the morning
of the following day, he attacked and dispersed a few parliamentary
soldiers who lay at Postcombe. He then flew to Chinnor, burned the
village, killed or took all the troops who were quartered there, and
prepared to hurry back with his booty and his prisoners to Oxford.

Hampden had, on the preceding day, strongly represented to Essex
the danger to which this part of the line was exposed. As soon as he
received intelligence of Rupert’s incursion, he sent off a horseman with
a message to the General. The cavaliers, he said, could return only by
Chiselhampton Bridge. A force ought to be instantly despatched in that
direction for the purpose of intercepting them. In the mean time, he
resolved to set out with all the cavalry that he could muster, for
the purpose of impeding the march of the enemy till Essex could take
measures for cutting off their retreat. A considerable body of horse and
dragoons volunteered to follow him. He was not their commander. He did
not even belong to their branch of the service. But “he was,” says Lord
Clarendon, “second to none but the General himself in the observance
and application of all men.” On the field of Chalgrove he came up with
Rupert. A fierce skirmish ensued. In the first charge, Hampden was
struck in the shoulder by two bullets, which broke the bone, and lodged
in his body. The troops of the Parliament lost heart and gave way.
Rupert, after pursuing them for {494}a short time, hastened to cross the
bridge, and made his retreat unmolested to Oxford.

Hampden, with his head drooping, and his hands leaning on his horse’s
neck, moved feebly out of the battle. The mansion which had been
inhabited by his father-in-law, and from which in his youth he had
carried home his bride Elizabeth, was in sight. There still remains an
affecting tradition that he looked for a moment towards that beloved
house, and made an effort to go thither to die. But the enemy lay in
that direction. He turned his horse towards Thame, where he arrived
almost fainting with agony. The surgeons dressed his wounds. But there
was no hope. The pain which he suffered was most excruciating. But he
endured it with admirable firmness and resignation. His first care
was for his country. He wrote from his bed several letters to London
concerning public affairs, and sent a last pressing message to the
head-quarters, recommending that the dispersed forces should be
concentrated. When his public duties were performed, he calmly prepared
himself to die. He was attended by a clergyman of the Church of England,
with whom he had lived in habits of intimacy, and by the chaplain of
the Buckinghamshire Green-coats, Dr. Spurton, whom Baxter describes as a
famous and excellent divine.

A short time before Hampden’s death the sacrament was administered to
him. He declared that, though he disliked the government of the Church
of England, he yet agreed with that Church as to all essential matters
of doctrine. His intellect remained unclouded. When all was nearly over,
he lay murmuring faint prayers for himself, and for the cause in which
he died. “Lord Jesus,” he exclaimed, in the moment of the {495}last
agony, “receive my soul. O Lord, save my country. O Lord, be merciful
to----.” In that broken ejaculation passed away his noble and fearless
spirit.

He was buried in the parish church of Hampden. His soldiers, bareheaded,
with reversed arms and muffled drums and colours, escorted his body to
the grave, singing, as they marched, that lofty and melancholy psalm in
which the fragility’ of human life is contrasted with the immutability
of Him to whom a thousand years are as yesterday when it is passed, and
as a watch in the night.

The news of Hampden’s death produced as great a consternation in his
party, according to Clarendon, as if their whole army had been cut off.
The journals of the time amply prove that the Parliament and all its
friends were filled with grief and dismay. Lord Nugent has quoted a
remarkable passage from the next Weekly Intelligencer. “The loss of
Colonel Hampden goeth near the heart of every man that loves the good
of his king and country, and makes some conceive little content to be
at the army now that he is gone. The memory of this deceased colonel is
such, that in no age to come but it will more and more be held in honour
and esteem; a man so religious, and of that prudence, judgment, temper,
valour, and integrity, that he hath left few his like behind.”

He had indeed left none his like behind him. There still remained,
indeed, in his party, many acute intellects, many eloquent tongues,
many brave and honest hearts. There still remained a rugged and clownish
soldier, half fanatic, half buffoon, whose talents, discerned as yet
only by one penetrating eye, were equal to all the highest duties of the
soldier and the prince. {496}But in Hampden, and in Hampden alone, were
united all the qualities which, at such a crisis, were necessary to
save the state, the valour and energy of Cromwell, the discernment and
eloquence of Vane, the humanity and moderation of Manchester, the stern
integrity of Hale, the ardent public spirit of Sydney. Others might
possess the qualities which were necessary to save the popular party in
the crisis of danger; he alone had both the power and the inclination to
restrain its excesses in the hour of triumph. Others could conquer; he
alone could reconcile. A heart as bold as his brought up the cuirassiers
who turned the tide of battle on Marston Moor. As skilful an eye as his
watched the Scotch army descending from the heights over Dunbar. But
it was when to the sullen tyranny of Laud and Charles had succeeded
the fierce conflict of sects and factions, ambitious of ascendency and
burning for revenge, it was when the vices and ignorance which the old
tyranny had generated threatened the new freedom with destruction, that
England missed the sobriety, the self-command, the perfect soundness of
judgment, the perfect rectitude of intention, to which the history of
revolutions furnishes no parallel, or furnishes a parallel in Washington
alone.

END OF VOL. II.