Constitutional History of England Volume II Part 3

[12] Whitelock, 16; Kennet, 63. We find in Rymer, xix. 279, a commission, dated May 6, 1631, enabling the privy-council at all times to come, "to hear and examine all differences which shall arise betwixt any of our courts of justice, especially between the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions," etc. This was in all probability contrived by Laud, or some of those who did not favour the common law.

But I do not find that anything was done under this commission, which, I need hardly say, was as illegal as most of the king's other proceedings.

[13] 2 Inst. 593. The regulations contained in the statute de militibus, 1 Ed. II., though apparently a temporary law, seem to have been considered by c.o.ke as permanently binding. Yet in this statute the estate requiring knighthood, or a composition for it, is fixed at 20 per annum.

[14] According to a speech of Mr. Hyde in the long parliament, not only military tenants, but all others, and even lessees and merchants, were summoned before the council on this account. _Parl. Hist._ ii.

948. This was evidently illegal; especially if the Statutum de militibus was in force, which by express words exempts them. See Mr.

Brodie's _Hist. of British Empire_, ii. 282. There is still some difficulty about this, which I cannot clear up, nor comprehend why the t.i.tle, if it could be had for asking, was so continually declined; unless it were, as Mr. B. hints, that the fees of knighthood greatly exceeded the composition. Perhaps none who could not prove their gentility were admitted to the honour, though the fine was extorted from them. It is said that the king got 100,000 by this resource.

Macauley, ii. 107.

[15] Rushworth Abr. ii. 102.

[16] Strafford's _Letters_, i. 335.

[17] _Id._ pp. 463, 467.

[18] _Id._ ii. 117. It is well known that Charles made Richmond Park by means of depriving many proprietors not only of common rights, but of their freehold lands. Clarendon, i. 176. It is not clear that they were ever compensated; but I think this probable, as the matter excited no great clamour in the long parliament. And there is in Rymer, xx. 585, a commission to Cottington and others, directing them to compound with the owners of lands within the intended enclosures.

Dec. 12, 1634.

[19] Kennet, 64; Rushworth's Abridg. ii. 132; Strafford's _Letters_, i. 446; Rymer, xix. 323; Laud's _Diary_, 51.

[20] Rymer, xx. 340.

[21] Kennet, 74, 75. _Strafford Letters_, i. 358. Some petty sea-ports in Suss.e.x refused to pay s.h.i.+p-money; but finding that the sheriff had authority to distrain on them, submitted. The deputy-lieutenants of Devons.h.i.+re wrote to the council in behalf of some towns a few miles distant from the sea, that they might be spared from this tax, saying it was a novelty. But they were summoned to London for this, and received a reprimand for their interference. _Id._ 372.

[22] _Clarendon State Papers_, i. 49, and ii. Append. p. xxvi.

[23] This curious intrigue, before unknown, I believe, to history, was brought to light by Lord Hardwicke. _State Papers_, ii. 54.

[24] See _Clarendon State Papers_, i. 490, for a proof of the manner in which, through the Hispano-popish party in the cabinet, the house of Austria hoped to dupe and dishonour Charles.

[25] _Clarendon State Papers_, i. 109, _et post_. Five English s.h.i.+ps out of twenty were to be at the charge of the King of Spain. Besides this agreement, according to which the English were only bound to protect the s.h.i.+ps of Spain within their own seas, or the limits claimed as such, there were certain secret articles, signed Dec. 16, 1634; by one of which Charles bound himself, in case the Dutch should not make rest.i.tution of some Spanish vessels taken by them within the English seas, to satisfy the court of Spain himself out of s.h.i.+ps and goods belonging to the Dutch; and by the second, to give secret instructions to the commanders of his s.h.i.+ps, that when those of Spain and Flanders should encounter their enemies at open sea, far from his coasts and limits, they should a.s.sist them if over-matched, and should give the like help to the prizes which they should meet, taken by the Dutch, that they might be freed and set at liberty; taking some convenient pretext to justify it, that the Hollanders might not hold it an act of hostility. But no part of this treaty was to take effect till the Imperial ban upon the Elector Palatine should be removed.

_Id._ 215.

[26] _Clarendon State Papers_, i. 721, 761.

[27] _Strafford Papers_, ii. 52, 53, 60, 66. Richlieu sent d'Estrades to London, in 1637, according to Pere Orleans, to secure the neutrality of England in case of his attacking the maritime towns of Flanders conjointly with the Dutch. But the amba.s.sador was received haughtily, and the neutrality refused; which put an end to the scheme, and so irritated Richlieu, that he sent a priest named Chamberlain to Edinburgh the same year, in order to foment troubles in Scotland.

_Revol. d'Anglet._ iii. 42. This is confirmed by d'Estrades himself.

See note in _Sidney Papers_, ii. 447, and Harris's _Life of Charles_, 189; also Lingard, x. 69. The connection of the Scotch leaders with Richlieu in 1639 is matter of notorious history. It has lately been confirmed and ill.u.s.trated by an important note in Mazure, _Hist. de la Revolution en 1688_, ii. 402. It appears by the above-mentioned note of M. Mazure, that the celebrated letter of the Scots lords, addressed "Au Roy," was really sent, and is extant. There seems reason to think that Henrietta joined the Austrian faction about 1639; her mother being then in England, and very hostile to Richlieu. This is in some degree corroborated by a pa.s.sage in a letter of Lady Carlisle. _Sidney Papers_, ii. 614.

[28] _Sidney Papers_, ii. 613.

[29] _Clarendon State Papers_, ii. 16.

[30] See the instructions in Rushworth, ii. 214.

[31] Rushworth, 253. The same judge declared afterwards, in a charge to the grand jury of York, that s.h.i.+p-money was an inseparable flower of the Crown, glancing at Hutton and Croke for their opposition to it.

_Id._ 267.

[32] As it is impossible to reconcile the trifling amount of this demand with Hampden's known estate, the tax being probably not much less than sixpence in the pound, it has been conjectured that his property was purposely rated low. But it is hard to perceive any motive for this indulgence; and it seems more likely that a nominal sum was fixed upon in order to try the question; or that it was only a.s.sessed on a part of his estate.

[33] There seems to have been something unusual, if not irregular, in this part of the proceeding. The barons of the exchequer called in the other judges, not only by way of advice but direction, as the chief baron declares. _State Trials_, 1203. And a proof of this is, that the court of exchequer being equally divided, no judgment could have been given by the barons alone.

[34] _State Trials_, iii. 826-1252.

[35] Croke, whose conduct on the bench in other political questions was not without blemish, had resolved to give judgment for the king, but was withheld by his wife, who implored him not to sacrifice his conscience for fear of any danger or prejudice to his family, being content to suffer any misery with him, rather than to be an occasion for him to violate his integrity. Whitelock, p. 25. Of such high-minded and inflexible women our British history produces many examples.

[36] Laud writes to Lord Wentworth, that Croke and Hutton had both gone against the king very sourly. "The accidents which have followed upon it already are these: First, the faction are grown very bold.

Secondly, the king's monies come in a great deal more slowly than they did in former years, and that to a very considerable sum. Thirdly, it puts thoughts into wise and moderate men's heads, which were better out; for they think if the judges, which are behind, do not their parts both exceeding well and thoroughly, it may much distemper this extraordinary and great service." _Strafford Letters_, ii. 170.

[37] It is notoriously known that pressure was borne with much more cheerfulness before the judgment for the king, than ever it was before. Clarendon, p. 122.

[38] Rushworth Abr. ii. 341; _Clarendon State Papers_, i. 600. It is said by Heylin that the clergy were much spared in the a.s.sessment of s.h.i.+p-money. _Life of Laud_, 302.

[39] Rymer, _pa.s.sim_.

[40] _Id._ xix. 512. It may be curious to mention some of these. The best turkey was to be sold at 4_s._ 6_d._; the best goose at 2_s._ 4_d._; the best pullet, 1_s._ 8_d._; three eggs for a penny; fresh b.u.t.ter at 5_d._ in summer, at 6_d._ in winter. This was in 1634.

[41] _Id._ xx. 113.

[42] _Id._ 157.

[43] Rymer, xviii. 33, _et alibi_. A commission was granted to the Earl of Arundel and others, May 30, 1625, to enquire what houses, shops, etc., had been built for ten years past, especially since the last proclamation, and to commit the offenders. It recites the care of Elizabeth and James to have the city built in an uniform manner with brick, and also to clear it from under-tenants and base people who live by begging and stealing. _Id._ xviii. 97.

[44] Rymer, xix. 375.

[45] Rushworth Abr. ii. 232.

[46] Rushworth, ii. 79.

[47] _Id._ p. 313.

[48] Rushworth Abr. iii. 123; Whitelock, p. 35; _Strafford Letters_, i. 374, _et alibi_. See what Clarendon says, p. 293 (ii. 151, edit.

1826). The second of these tells us, that the city offered to build for the king a palace in St. James's park by way of composition, which was refused. If this be true, it must allude to the palace already projected by him, the magnificent designs for which by Inigo Jones are well known. Had they been executed, the metropolis would have possessed a splendid monument of Palladian architecture; and the reproach sometimes thrown on England, of wanting a fit mansion for its monarchs, would have been prevented. But the exchequer of Charles the First had never been in such a state as to render it at all probable that he could undertake so costly a work.

[49] _Strafford Letters_, i. 340.

[50] Rymer, xix. 699.

[51] _Id._ 198.

[52] Roger c.o.ke's _Detection of the Court of England_, i. 309. He was Sir Edward's grandson.

[53] Rymer, xx. 190.

[54] _Id._ xix. 740. See also 82.

[55] Hudson's "Treatise of the Court of Star-chamber," p. 51. This valuable work, written about the end of James's reign, is published in _Collectanea Juridica_, vol. ii. There is more than one ma.n.u.script of it in the British Museum.

In another treatise, written by a clerk of the council about 1590 (Hargrave MSS. ccxvi. 195), the author says: "There was a time when there grew a controversy between the star-chamber and the King's Bench for their jurisdiction in a cause of perjury concerning t.i.thes, Sir Nicholas Bacon, that most grave and worthy counsellor, then being lord-keeper of the great seal, and Sir Robert Catlyn, knight, then lord chief justice of the bench. To the deciding thereof were called by the plaintiff and defendant a great number of the learned counsellors of the law: they were called into the inner star-chamber after dinner, where before the lords of the council they argued the cause on both sides, but could not find the court of greater antiquity by all their books than Henry VII. and Richard III. On this I fell in cogitation how to find some further knowledge thereof." He proceeds to inform us, that by search into records he traced its jurisdiction much higher. This shows, however, the doubts entertained of its jurisdiction in the queen's time. This writer, extolling the court highly, admits that "some of late have deemed it to be new, and put the same in print, to the blemish of its beautiful antiquity." He then discusses the question (for such it seems it was), whether any peer, though not of the council, might sit in the star-chamber; and decides in the negative. "Ao. 5to. of her majesty," he says, in the case of the Earl of Hertford, "there were a.s.sembled a great number of the n.o.ble barons of this realm, not being of the council, who offered there to sit; but at that time it was declared unto them by the lord-keeper that they were to give place; and so they did, and divers of them tarried the hearing of the cause at the bar."