which he thought could not be less advantageous to himself.

A commission was openly granted to compound with the catholics, by dispensing with the penal laws enacted against them. A loan was required from the nobility and the city; the former contributed slowly, the latter refused on several pretences. Each of the maritime towns were required by order of council to arm, with the assistance of the adjacent counties, so many vessels as were appointed them. The city of London was rated at twenty ships. This taxation had been once imposed by Elizabeth; but when Charles tried to carry it some steps farther, it created violent discontents. Forced loans and benevolences were also recurred to, but with some moderation; till the defeat of the king of Denmark by the Imperialists, when money becoming more necessary than ever to repair the breach in the alliance, an act of council was passed, importing, that as the urgency of affairs admitted not the way of applying to parliament, the most speedy, equal, and convenient method of supply, was by a general loan from the subjects, according as every man was assessed in the rolls of the last subsidy, which was the precise sum which each would have paid, had the vote of four subsidies passed into a law; but care was taken to inform the people, that the sums thus exacted were not received as subsidies but as loans. These means, however authorised by precedents, and even by statute, were a violation of liberty, and tended so openly to render all parliaments superfluous, that a general alarm prevailed among the nation. Some who were most active in encouraging their neighbours to refuse the loan, and to insist upon their common rights and privileges, were by warrant of the council thrown into prison. Many of them attempted to defend the public liberties at their own

hazard and expence, and to demand their release not as a favour, but as their due, by the laws of their country. The special command of the king and council, issued for their commitment, was pleaded; and it was asserted, that it was not admitted by law as sufficient for refusing bail to the prisoners.

The question was brought to a solemn trial before the king's bench, and the whole kingdom was attentive to the issue of a cause of so great importance. It appeared beyond controversy, that personal liberty had been secured against arbitrary power in the crown by six several statutes, and by an article of the great charter, and that the courts of judicature had scarcely in any instance refused bail upon commitments by special command of the king, because the persons committed had seldom or ever dared to demand it.

Sir Randolph Crew, chief justice, had been displaced as unfit for the purposes of the court, and Sir Nicholas Hyde, esteemed more obsequious, had been appointed to that high office; yet the judges, by his direction, went no farther than to remand the gentlemen to prison and refuse the bail which was offered; the Attorney General insisting on having the question decided by a general judgment, they prudently declined complying, as the nation was already exasperated to the highest degree.

Ann. 1627.

The nation had at that time many other motives of complaint. The army which had made the fruitless expedition to Cadiz, was dispersed throughout the kingdom, and money was levied upon the counties for the payment of their quarters. The soldiers were billeted upon private houses, contrary to custom, which required that, in all ordinary cases, they should be quartered in inns and public

houses. Those who had refused or delayed the loan, were sure to be loaded with a great number of these disorderly guests. Many too of low condition, who had shewn a refractory disposition, were pressed into the service and enlisted in the fleet or army. Sir Peter Hayman, for the same reason, was dispatched on an errand to the Palatinate. Glenville, an eminent lawyer, had been obliged during the former interval of parliament to accept of an office in the navy.

A general complaint against the licentiousness of the soldiers had occasioned martial law to be exercised; and by a contradiction usually attending the ill-humour of the people, while they were exasperated by the outrages of the soldiers, they were still more so by the remedy which they thought worse than the disease.

Charles, baffled in every attempt against Austria for recovering the Palatinate, wantonly embroils himself with France without the least provocation, and engages at once in war with two powers, whose interest had been hitherto deemed incompatible. The little plausibility of all the motives he gave to that unaccountable rupture urged on by Buckingham, has induced the most respectable English historians, such as Clarendon and Hume, to ascribe it to an anecdote which is no less false than incredible respecting a pretended disappointment experienced by the Duke in his amours with the French queen through the jealousy and rivalship of Cardinal Richelieu, who, it is supposed, was also in love with that princess, though it is generally known that he had nothing more at heart than the humiliation of her family, and that he was always upon his guard against the intrigues which the queen and her court excited against him. But there is no necessity to recur to such slanderous tales against such great personages, to discover what the known character

The

of Buckingham sufficiently explains. His conduct in France and his hatred against Richelieu, were in great measure the counterpart of his conduct in Spain and of his hatred against Olivares, and the consequences were nearly the same, with this difference, that Charles' marriage with princess Henrietta being already made, could not be broken as had been that with the Infanta. As to the particulars of what passed in France on that occasion, the truth is, that when Charles married by proxy the princess Henrietta, Buckingham was sent over to Paris to receive the young queen and accompany her to England with all the pomp and honours generally attending such august alliances. handsomeness of his person, the gracefulness of his air, the splendour of his equipage, his address, his gaiety, and his magnificence were much admired. As long as he confined himself in the proper limits of a civil gallantry, the ladies of the court and the French queen herself, smiled to his homage. But in the journey to Amiens, whereto it was agreed that the French court should accompany the Princess Henrietta to deliver her into Buckingham's hands; this presumptuous man had the insolence to carry his ambitious addresses to the French queen herself, affecting on all occasions, such an ardent and romantic love, that these fits of ridiculous foppery were laughed at by the whole court. The king and queen equally surprised and displeased at this scandalous behaviour, directed Cardinal Richelieu to warn the duke, that this foolish indecent farce was carried too far, and that he must put an end to it. The cardinal did not, probably, much trouble himself about palliating by conciliating expressions the bitterness of the message. Buckingham highly offended at it, vowed the most violent hatred to the cardinal, and swore vengeance against him and against France.

He had not, however, entirely

given up all hopes of success towards the queen of France, and some time after he was preparing for a new embassy to Paris, when he was officially informed that Lewis would not admit him. This insult, which he had too much deserved, wounded him to the quick; he swore that he would see the queen in spite of all the power of France, and, from that moment he determined to engage England in a war with that kingdom.

He first took advantage of some quarrels excited by the queen's attendants, to persuade Charles to dismiss at once all her French servants, contrary to the articles of the marriage treaty. He encouraged the English ships of war, and privateers, to seize vessels belonging to French merchants, which he forthwith condemned as prizes by a sentence of the court of Admiralty. But finding that all these injuries produced only remonstrances and embassies, or at most reprisals, he strongly solicited Charles to embrace the protection of the distressed religionists in France, who were now besieged by a formidable army at Larochelle, a maritime town in France, that had long enjoyed its privileges independent of the French king, but that had for some years embraced the reformed religion. A fleet of one hundred sail, and an army of seven thousand men, were entrusted to the command of the duke, to relieve Larochelle; but the inhabitants refused to admit allies of whose coming they had not been previously informed, and Buckingham, after an injudicious attempt on the island of Rhé, was oblig ed to think of a retreat, but made it so unskilfully, that it was equivalent to a total rout. He returned to England having lost two thirds of his land forces, totally discredited both as an admiral and a general, though he was by no means deficient in personal bravery.