met at Westminster REBELS; though the King again and again importuned them to it, and took their refusal so ill, that, in one of his letters to the Queen, he called them in derision his Mungrel Parliament.' Thus far Dr. Welwood. Let us now hear the account the Earl of Clarendon gives of the beginning of the civil war *. The rebellion of Ireland, says that noble historian, which was highly detrimental to the King's affairs that began to recover life, broke out in all parts of the kingdom, during his Majesty's stay in Scotland, and made a wonderful impression upon the minds of men, who were induced to believe, that it was influenced by the court; the scandal of which aspersion stuck upon. the Queen's skirts. Some time after, the King commanded his attorneygeneral to accuse the Lord Kimbolton, and five commoners, of hightreason; and, the next day, his Majesty, attended by his ordinary guard and some few gentlemen, came to the house of commons; and, commanding his attendants to wait without, himself, with the prince elector his nephew, went into the house, to the great astonishment of all, to demand the impeached members: but finding, as he said, the birds were all flown, he returned to Whitehall, and the house, in great disorder, adjourned till the next day. When the Lord Digby, the only person that gave the counsel, found the ill success of the impeachment in both houses, he advised the King to go the next morning to the Guildhall, and acquaint the mayor and aldermen of the grounds of it. As he passed through the city, the rude people crouded together, crying out, "Privilege of parliament, privilege of parliament." However, the King, though much mortified, pursued his resolution, and, having dined with one of the sheriffs, he returned to Whitehall; and, the next day, a proclamation came forth, for the apprehension of the accused members, forbidding any persons to conceal, or entertain them. These proceedings of the King created a wonderful change in the minds of all sorts of people; all the former noise of plots against the parliament, which before had been laughed at, was now thought to be built upon good grounds; and what hitherto had been only whispered of Ireland, was now talked aloud, and published in print. They, who with the greatest courage had thwarted seditious practices, were now confounded with the thoughts of what had been done, and what was like to follow. Though they were far from imagining the accused members had been much wronged, yet they thought they had been called to an account at a very unseasonable time; and the exposing the dignity and safety of the King, in his coming in person, in that manner, to the house of commons, and going the next day to the Guildhall, where he met with such reproaches to his face, added to their anger and indignation: all which was justly charged upon the Lord Digby, who was before less beloved than he deserved, and was now the most universally hated of any man in the nation; and yet continued in his Majesty's confidence.When the King perceived how ill his accusation against the five members succeeded, and that all, who expressed any signal zeal to his service, would be removed from him, under the notion of delinquents, he resolved the Queen should remove to Portsmouth, and that himself would • See Clarendon's History of the Rebellion. But go to Hull (where his magazine lay ;) and that, being secured in those places of strength, whither his friends might resort and be protected, he would sit quiet, till the angry part could be brought to reason. this resolution was discovered to the leading members, who obtained orders from the parliament, for securing Hull and Portsmouth; for which reason, and a promise from several lords, that they would vigorously unite to support the regal power, together with the extreme fear the Queen had of danger, that counsel was laid aside, and it was concluded the Queen should transport herself to Holland, there to provide arms and ammunition; and the King retire to York, and listen to no particulars, till he knew how far the alteration would extend. Hitherto the greatest acts of hostility, excepting Sir John Hotham's denying the King entrance into Hull, were no more than votes and orders; but now the King saw he was so far from having Hull restored, that the garison there increased daily, so that Sir John Hotham was better able to take York, than his Majesty to recover Hull; and therefore he thought it now high time to follow their example, and put himself into a posture of defence. Hereupon, such gentlemen, as were willing, bisted themselves, by his Majesty's appointment, into a troop of horse, of whom the Prince of Wales was made captain; which, with one regiment of trained-bands, was his body-guard. As soon as they heard at London, that the King actually had a guard, these votes were published by both houses: "That the King, seduced by evil counsellors, intended to make war against the parliament: that, whensoever he did so, it would be a breach of the trust reposed in him, contrary to his oath, and tending to the dissolution of the government: and that whosoever shall serve him, or assist him in such wars, were traytors, by the fundamental laws of the kingdom, and had been so adjudged by two acts of parliament, 2 Rich. II. and 1 Hen. IV." These votes were sent to the King at York, with a petition, that he would disband his new-raised forces, and content himself with his ordinary guard; otherwise they should hold themselves bound with their utmost care to serve the parliament, and secure the publick peace.' Upon the King's denying their demand, they began to provide for the raising of an army: and here the same noble author thinks it not amiss to consider the method of God's justice, That the same principles should be used to the extorting all sovereign power from the crown, which the crown had a little before used to extend its authority beyond its bounds, to the prejudice of the just rights of the subject. A supposed necessity was then thought reason sufficient to create a power of taxing the subject, as they thought convenient, by writs of ship-money, never known before; and a supposed necessity is now more fatally con cluded a good plea to exclude the crown from the exercise of any power, by an ordinance of parliament, for ordering the militia, never before heard of; and the same maxim of 'Salus populi suprema lex,' which had been used to break in upon the liberty of the people, was applied for the destroying the rights of the crown. The King (pursues our author) conceiving the rumours spread abroad might induce many to believe he intended to raise a war against his parliament, he professed in council, and said, "He declared to all the world, that he ever had an abhor rence to such designs; but that all his endeavours aimed at a sure settlement of the protestant religion, the just privileges of parliament, the liberty of the subject, the law, peace, and prosperity of this kingdom." However, about this time, the King, by the advice of some eminent judges and lawyers, issued out a declaration concerning the militia, asserting the right of the crown in granting commissions of array for the better government thereof, and dispatched those commissions into all counties, expresly forbidding any obedience to be paid to the ordinance for the militia by both houses, under the penalty of high-treason. This only exasperated the paper-combates in declarations, each party insisting the law was on their side; to which the people yielded obedience, as they saw it for their conveniency. Some men, well-affected to the crown, and averse to the extravagant carriage of the House of Commons, could not conceal their aversion to the commission of array, as a thing unwarrantable by law; and many believed, if the King had applied himself to the old known way of lords lieutenants, and their deputies, it had been more beneficial to his service; for the people, having never heard of a commission of array, were easily blown up to a jealousy by the specious suggestions of the houses. Some time after, the King made a vain attempt upon Hull, and, upon his return to York, found himself, by an accident that fell out, under an absolute necessity of declaring The accident was, that Colonel Goring, governor of Portsmouth, had declared for his Majesty, and refused to obey the parliament; who had thereupon sent Sir William Waller, with an army under his command, to reduce that town. The King's affairs received a considerable reputation, in that so important a place as Portsmouth, and so good an officer as Goring was returned to his duty; whereupon, he forthwith published a declaration, in which he recited all the insolent rebellious actions of the two houses against him, forbidding all his subjects to pay any obedience to them; and at the same time published his proclamation, "requiring all men, who could bear arms, to come to him at Nottingham, where he intended to set up his royal standard; which all his good subjects were obliged to attend." Thus far the Earl of Clarendon. By all which passages it appears, that, after reciprocal provocations given, and many unwarrantable things done on both sides, two con tending parties, in the same nation, rose up in arms, endeavouring the one to conquer and destroy the other; and what is this but a civil war. war? The authors of the libels published against Dr. Kennet are so unfair, as to suspect the praises he bestows, in the first page of his sermon, upon King Charles, whom he sincerely and justly calls the martyr of the day, and one of the most virtuous and most religious of our English princes," as if, thereby, he only intended to conveigh the deadly poison more casily and effectually. But, to pass over these malicious slurs, let us proceed to the vindication of the Doctor's general positions; the first of which is, That a French interest and alliance was one of the leading causes of the King's murder. To prove this, Dr. Kennet justly remarks, That there was that frame and constitution in our ancestors, that their true English hearts • See his Sermon, p.7. had continually some secret aversion and antipathy to that neighbouring nation; and that England and France, like Rome and Carthage, stood always jealous and reviling one another. The old English aversation, contiuues he, seems to have begun with the Norman conquest; when our good fore-fathers, then lately secured by the best laws and liberties in the world, were invaded and subdued by a pretender from France; and they soon felt that foreign yoke to be so hard and grievous, that they would gladly have shaken it off; but, the more patience they were forced to, the more they hated those insolent new lords and masters, calling often for their old liberties and the laws of King Edward. This anger, and sort of aversion to the French, did continue fixed and rooted in the minds of our right English forefathers; and it was this inbred spirit of emulation, that so often led our English armies into the bowels of France, and, in the reprisals of honour, conquered that kingdom more than once, but never once more suffered this kingdom to be conquered by the French.' To deny this would betray an absolute ignorance of our English history, and therefore I shall not go about to illustrate it by examples. It is certain, that nothing could ever allay the natural aversion, the English have to the French, but the conformity in religion with some of the latter; and it was only upon that score, that the nation was well pleased with the seasonable assistance, which Queen Elisabeth yielded, from time to time, to the reformed of France. And, by the succours that politick princess was all along sending to the United Provinces, she put an invincible bar to the progress Spain and Rome were then making towards universal empire, and kept the balance of power even between the two great monarchies of Europe. * But the next prince, James the First, did not tread in her steps, while he governed. National, or the protestant interest was no where pursued; secret negotiations were carried on with the Pope; the protestants were not only oppressed in Germany, but reduced to the last extremity; and besieged in Montauban by Lewis the Thirteenth, and in Rochelle by Count Soissons and the Duke of Guise; and all, that was done towards their relief from hence, was by a mediation carried on without any vigour. And, which gave the people dreadful apprehensions, Spain, in those days, was still formidable, and an over-balance for all the rest of Europe; whose designs, instead of being opposed, were promoted by England, and the King meanly courted an alliance with his greatest enemy. The fear of universal monarchy awakened the whole kingdom, and brought on that parliament, which was assembled in 1621; where very plain remonstrances were presented to the throne, setting forth the dangers that threatened the nation, who still had a fresh sense of the calamities their ancestors had suffered, under the reign of Queen Mary. But Spanish gold had charmed our court; and that parliament was dismissed in anger, and several of the principal members were imprisoned, who could not sit silently and see their country lost. Thus this old prince chose rather to follow the dictates of his own will, and the peruicious advice of his favourites and ministers, than the faithful • See D'Avenant's Essay on Balance of Power, p. 8. Sect. 7. and disinterested counsel of his parliaments, who addressed to him to arm, and to enter into such leagues as might oppose the growth of the Spanish monarchy. But he entertained secret hopes, that so potent an alliance, as that with Spain appeared to be, would make him more powerful over his own people; and so, notwithstanding the representations of his Lords and Commons, in order to accomplish this match, he broke some of those wholesome and necessary laws, made against papists, which at last proved fatal to him and his posterity; for, by his rough dealings with the House of Commons, he then sowed the seeds of that discontent, which ended in the ruin of his son. The general clamours of the people, and their fear of the power of Spain, produced in that reign another parliamenr, which sat in 1623, and then the Spanish match was broken off." Hereupon, the states general of the United Provinces recommended a protestant lady to King James; but that prince, being resolved to have the daughter of a great King for his son, did fatally turn his eye to Henrietta Maria, daughter of France. The marriage-treaty was not so fair, smooth, and plausible in the progress, as in the entrance. For the French,perceiving that King James desired the match unmeasurably, abated of their forwardness, enlarged their demands in favour of the papists, as the Spaniards had done before; and strained the King to the concession of such immunities, as he had promised to his parliament he would never grant, upon the mediation of foreign princes*. Cardinal Richelieu, who began to have the sole management of the French King's affairs, in concert with Spada, the Pope's nuncio, took all imaginable precautions, by this treaty, to advance the Romish religion and interest, hoping, as indeed it proved, that the ecclesiasticks, the queen was allowed to bring over with her, would propagate the popish faith; and that the descendants of that marriage, who were to be under the tuition and government of their mother, till they came to the full age of thirteen, would by that time have sufficient. ly imbibed her religion, and should in time sit upon the English throne; which the protestants of this kingdom felt to their sorrow; for, of Hen riettta's two sons †, who reigned after their father, one did all along secretly favour the Roman catholicks, and, § after a continued dissi mulation, and a most scandalous life,' died in that ** persuasion; and the other ††, though not so dissolute in his manners, did not scruple to own his true sentiments, and, notwithstanding his solemn promise to maintain the protestant religion, by law established, endeavoured by open force to destroy it.' The conclusion of the marriage treaty was attended, in France, with many outward and voluntary expressions of joy, as, bonfires, and illuminations; but it was only by express orders from the privy-council, that the like was done in London. For as Dr. Kennet says very justly, our English people never could heartily approve any royal match into the court of France; and, wherever any such match was entered into by our former governors, it seems to have been against the genius of our See Rushworth's Collections, Vol. II p. 52. + Charles and James. # Charles II. Charles I. |