XIV.

REIGN OF KING CHARLES I.

Reaching for a union of Churchmen and Papists. Charles-his HighChurch and High-Prerogative notions. Strafford. Laud. Huguenots of Rochelle. Book of the King's Chaplain. King and Commons appeal to the people. Illegal exactions. The Church Clergy side with tyranny. Overthrow of the Constitution. Cruelties of Laud.

THE reformers and the Homilies of the Church of England had declared concerning the Church of Rome, that for "nine hundred and odd years, * * the state thereof" was "so far wide from the nature of the true Church, that nothing can be more! The religion of Rome, the Homilies declared to be the "ungodly and counterfeit religion;† and the Roman Church to be "The idolatrous Church; * a foul, filthy old withered harlot; the foulest and filthiest that ever was seen." The new theologians, among whom Laud was most conspicuous, were now fond of acknowledging the Church of Rome, not simply as a true Church, a beloved sister, but as a MOTHER! The English reformers had treated the reformed Churches on the continent as true Churches; had held friendly correspondence with them, and had received their ministers as authorized and ordained ministers of the Church of Christ. Laud and his compeers handed over all out of the English or the Papal Church, to the uncovenanted mercies of God. "Laud," says Neale, " thought there was no salvation for Protestants out of the Church of England." His aim, and the aim of those of like sentiments, was now to make it appear, that there was, in the essentials of faith, no difference between the Church of England and that of Rome; and to seek for a union of Churchmen and Papists. Could the true Protestants in the nation submit to this? Could the friends of freedom tamely endure the yoke of despotism that was sought to be fastened on their necks? The contest of principle had already begun. The weak and foolish attempts of James to play the despot had roused the yeomanry of the nation to a spirit of resistance, against which such attempts could be safe no longer.

*2. Homily for Whitsunday. †3. Homily on Good Works. + Ibid.

At this juncture of affairs, Charles I. came to the throne on the 27th of March, 1625, a little more than four years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth.

In his own family Charles I. was a most amiable man. He was possessed of ordinary good sense; of more learning than is usual in a prince; he was a writer of no mean style or capacity for the day. Formal and stately in his manners, he was not, perhaps, more so than suited the notions of princely dignity at the time. His temper seems to have been mild and beneficent. Had he lived a century earlier, before the people had begun to understand their rights, or a century later, when they had taught their kings to respect them, Charles I. would probably have been as much beloved as any sovereign that ever sat on the English throne. Few of those sovereigns have maintained so good a private character, or have been blessed with so beneficent a disposition. "But the high idea of his own authority which he imbibed," says Hume, " made him incapable of giving way to the spirit of liberty which began to prevail among his subjects." These high notions of the regal prerogatives, Charles had learned from his father. James had commended to him the great work of "The Judicious Hooker," "as worthy of his study, even next unto the Bible;" and henceforth the support of High Church principles and regal prerogatives, was with Charles not only a matter of divine right, but of conscientious duty. When these despotic principles were about to lead him to the scaffold, Charles in his turn enjoined it upon his sons, Charles II., and James II., to "study the great work of the Judicious Hooker, even next unto the Bible." They did so, and followed it out to its natural results of despotism and popery, till Charles II. died a papist, and James II., from a staunch Churchman of the Puseyistic stamp, became a bigoted papist, and from the "Judicious Hooker" his native tyranny received that conscience and boldness, which ended in driving this last of the Stuarts from the throne.*

James himself declares that reading Heylin and "The Preface to Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity," " confirmed him in the opinion" "that those who changed the English religion were not of God." On the principles of English prelacy, as laid down by Hooker, he could not see why the Church of England should separate from Rome. "Submission," says James II., "is necessary to the peace of the Church; and when every man will expound the Scriptures, this makes way to all sects who pretend to build upon it "-(one might think that on this point the Bishop of Connecticut had been to school to King James II.; for this is his precise objection in his recent charge). "It is plain," continues James II., “that the Church of England does not pretend to infallibility; yet she acted as if she did; for ever since the Reformation she has persecuted those who differed from her, dissenters as well as papists, more generally than was known. And he could not see why dissenters might not separate from the Church of England, as well as she had done from the Church of Rome.-(Bishop Burnet, Hist of his own Life and Times.) Bishop Burnet says he had this account of James II.'s change of religion from James himself. “All due care was taken," James says, "to form him to a strict adherence to the Church of England; among other things much was said of the AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH,

The chief advisers and instruments in all the encroachments of Charles I. upon the liberties of his people, were THOMAS WENTWORTH, EARL OF STRAFFORD, AND LAUD, who succeeded to the supreme management of ecclesiastical affairs upon the sequestration of Archbishop Abbot, in 1627; and upon the death of that prelate, became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633.

Thomas Wentworth had signalized himself by his efforts against the royal prerogatives. Charles understood his character, and bought him up with office and a patent of nobility. From this time, fidelity to his master was his controlling principle. He regarded no rights, no constitutions, but bent all his energies to the support and enlargement of the royal prerogatives.

The character of LAUD appears to have been a combination of superstition, bigotry, intolerance, and ambition. Hume draws its outlines in the following words: "With unceasing industry, he studied to exalt the priestly and prelatical character. His zeal was unrelenting in imposing by rigorous measures his own tenets and pious ceremonies on the obstinate Puritans who had profanely dared to oppose him. In prosecution of his holy purposes, he overlooked every human consideration, all his enemies were imagined by him the declared enemies of loyalty and true piety; and every exercise of his anger, by that means, became in his eyes a merit and a virtue. This was the man who had acquired so great an ascendant over Charles; and who led him by the facility of his temper, into a conduct which proved fatal to himself, and to his kingdom."

There might still have remained some bulwark in the laws; but the Lord Chief Justice Finch was fond of declaring "that a requisition of the Council or Star-Chamber should always be good enough law for him." The judges held their offices at the pleasure of the crown: and it was the practice of Laud to send for their opinions beforehand; and both he and the Star-Chamber used often to remind the judges, that if they should not do his majesty's business to his satisfaction, a removal from office

and of the TRADITIONS from the Apostles IN SUPPORT OF EPISCOPACY; so that when he came to observe that there was more reason to submit to the Catholic Church than to any one particular Church, and that OTHER TRADITIONS might be taken on her word, AS WELL AS EPISCOPACY was received among us, he thought the step was not great, but that it was very reasonable to go over to Rome; and Dr. Seward having taught him to believe a REAL but inconceivable PRESENCE OF Christ in the sacrament, he thought this went more than half way to TRANSUBSTANTIATION." Here we have the process natural as life, and entirely logical. Can we wonder that the Puseyites are going over to Rome? Is there any logical ground short of that, on which High Churchmen can rest? To suppose that the incipient principles of this scheme will stop at any given limit short of essential Popery, is as contradictory to reason as it is to all the lessons of past history. There is a natural and inevitable logic, by which the masses will, in process of time, push out first principles to their legitimate conclusions It is impossible that High Church Episcopacy, or Puseyism, should finally rest anywhere short of essential Popery.

was the least they had to apprehend. Whatever soundness there might be in the decisions of the courts on other subjects, there was none in any matter of question between the royal prerogatives, the edicts of the Star-Chamber, and the rights and liberties of the people.

The first parliament of Charles "was almost entirely governed," says Hume, "by a set of men of the most uncommon capacity, and the largest views." Among them, were Sir Edward Coke, Digges, Elliot, Wentworth (afterwards created Earl of Strafford), Selden and Pym; names afterwards so conspicuous in the final struggle for freedom.

These men had stood against the encroachments of James. They saw with alarm the dangerous assumptions of the crown: and they determined to seize upon the first occasion, when the king should need supplies, to reduce his enormous prerogatives.

The nation had grown into a horror of Popery; yet the Roman titular Bishop of Chalcedon appeared in his pontifical robes in Lancashire, and appointed a bishop, vicar general, and archdeacons all over England. The king made fair promises, directly opposed to his marriage treaty with France; issued his proclamation against popish recusants; and then immediately arrested, by his special warrants, the course of the laws against Popery.

The government of France was now engaged in a series of massacres for exterminating the Huguenots from the kingdom. The Huguenots had gathered and stood for their lives in the town of Rochelle. The Catholics were besieging the town, but being destitute of shipping to block up the harbor, the French minister, Cardinal Richelieu, applied to Charles for the loan of some ships. The pretext to the seamen was, that they were to be employed against the Genoese, who, being allies of Spain, were regarded with dislike by France and England both. The fleet arrived on the coast of France, when the sailors learned that they were to fight against their Protestant brethren, the Huguenots of Rochelle! The sailors were enraged. They drew up a remon strance to their commander, signing all their names in a circle that none might be singled out as ringleaders, and declared that they would sooner be thrown overboard, or be hanged at the top of the masts, than fight against their Protestant brethren. This remonstrance they laid under the admiral's prayer-book. It was in vain that the admiral and the French officers endeavored to move the seamen from their determination. The whole squadron sailed for the Downs. Deception was now added to authority; and the usual terrors employed to overawe the mutineers. The seamen were assured that France had made peace with the Huguenots; and were persuaded to sail once more. King Charles sent his warrant to the admiral: "We command you," said he,

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"to consign your own ship immediately into the hands of the French admiral, with all her equipage, artillery, &c., and require the other seven to put themselves into the service of our dear brother, the French king; and in case of backwardness or refusal, we command you to use all forcible means, even to their sinking." Arrived once more at Dieppe, the sailors discovered the deception. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who commanded one of the vessels, broke through and returned to England. All the officers and sailors of the other ships deserted. "One gunner alone," says Hume,"preferred duty to his king to the cause of religion; and he was afterward killed in charging a cannon before Rochelle." The French manned the ships with sailors of their own religion; blocked up the harbor; destroyed the little fleet of the Rochellers; cut off their communication with their Protestant friends by sea; reduced them to a dreadful famine; took the last bulwark of the Protestant interest in France; and overwhelmed its inhabitants in butchery and blood. Great was the indignation of the Protestant people of England; and long and bitterly was this transaction remembered against their king.

One of the king's chaplains (Mr. Montague) published a book in which, as well as in other writings of his, he maintained "that the Church of Rome is, and ever was, a true Church; and had ever remained firm upon the same foundation of sacraments and doctrines instituted by God; that the doctrinal faith of Rome and of England is the same; that images are lawful for the instruction of the ignorant, and for exciting devotion; that saints are to be invoked in prayer, as having patronage and custody and power over certain persons and countries."

The Commons cited the author to their bar; a proceeding not uncommon in those days, however strange it appears now, when men are held answerable for their deeds, not to the legislature, but to the courts; and are liable to be deprived of their property or freedom, not by the mere votes of a legislature, but only after trial and sentence according to law.*

The Commons having cited Montague to their bar, LAUD defended his doctrines, and asserted the prerogatives of the ecclesiastical courts. The king expressed his displeasure with the Commons, and dissolved the Parliament.

As this was before Parliament had voted any supplies, Charles endeavored to supply his want by compulsory loans. But this did not relieve his necessities, while it greatly increased the rising discontent of the people. Forced to call another Parliament, he

* This arbitrary manner of proceeding seems to have been not uncommon, at least down to the time when the Colonial Assembly of Massachusetts voted that James Franklin (brother of Benjamin Franklin) "should no longer print the newspaper called the New England Courant."-Franklin's Life.