hour of four in the morning the members poured forth unharmed.1

As they trooped out, Falkland asked Cromwell, 'whether there had been a debate.' "I will take your word for it another time," was the answer. "If the Remonstrance had been rejected, I would have sold all I had the next morning, and never have seen England any more; and I know there are many other honest men of this same resolution."

Cromwell and Falkland.

"2

It is likely enough that the two men never exchanged words again. With all his largeness of heart, Falkland had shrunk back, as Sir Thomas More had shrunk back before him, from the heat and dust of conflict, and had narrowed his intellect within the formalities of a Hyde and a Culpepper. Cromwell saw but part of the issue before his country, but what he saw he saw thoroughly. The strong Puritan faith of himself, and of those who felt as he did, was not to be crushed down by constitutional traditions. What was fair and just to those who cherished the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England he did not care to inquire; but he had clearly made up his mind what was to be done for those who regarded that doctrine and discipline as no more than another name for superstition. If the King and the House of Lords told them that there was no place for them in the English Church, they would appeal to the nation itself. If that appeal were made in vain, there was shelter for them beyond the Atlantic.

The Grand Remonstrance was to these men something far greater than a constitutional document. For them it was a challenge put forward on behalf of a religious faith. It is in vain to regret that the struggle which was at hand was not to be waged on mere political grounds. Political constitutions are valuable so far as they allow free play to the mental and spiritual forces of a nation. If each side in the conflict was in the right when it stood on the defensive, each side was in the wrong when it took the offensive.

No king, said one party, shall rob us of our religion. No

'D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 179.
2 Clarendon, iv. 52.

Parliamentary majority, said the other party, shall rob us of our religion. It was this, and this only, which gave to the great struggle its supreme importance. Neither party was contending for victory alone. Both were contending as well for that which was to them a Divine order of things in the world. No voice-alas! not even Falkland's-was raised to direct them to that more excellent way which might have led them in the paths of peace.

The Civil War was all the nearer for that night's work. It was the apprehension of this that roused the deeper feelings of the members in the discussion on the right of protest. The majority had made up their minds on the subject. On the

Nov. 25.

Palmer ordered to be sent to the lower.

25th it was voted that Palmer should be sent to the Tower. There he remained for twelve days, after which he was released on making submission to the House. The question of the right of protest seemed to be sufficiently settled in this practical way, and for some time nothing further was said about the matter.

80

1641.

Return of
Charles.

Argyle's

Scotland.

AMONGST the minority which had opposed the Remonstrance there were doubtless those who would still have admitted that some modification of Episcopacy, some reconsideration of the ceremonial observances of the Church, or even of its doctrinal formulas, might be advisable. But whether such as these were few or many, they could have no hope of success. In rallying round Charles they had planted themselves, whether they intended it or not, on the ground of resistance to all change. The King was now to be amongst them once more. All difficulties had been removed at Edinburgh by the simple process of his own complete surrer:der. Argyle had returned, with Hamilton and Lanark, as position in the undoubted master of the State. Offices were disposed of as he wished to dispose of them. What Pym was aiming at in England, was thoroughly realised in Scotland. Argyle's power rested on those very classes, the representatives of the counties and boroughs, which made up the House of Commons at Westminster. Against this strongly consolidated authority, the high feudal nobility raged in vain. Argyle was too politic to misuse his victory. Not only was the King declared to be totally guiltless of any share in the Incident, but there was a complete amnesty to all directly or indirectly concerned in it. Montrose and his friends were liberated from prison. Even Crawford found himself unexpectedly at liberty. Titles were scattered amongst the winners with a lavish hand. Argyle became a marquis and Hamilton a duke. The uncultivated old soldier, Alexander

Leslie, to whom was due so much of the discipline which had served his country in good stead, had already taken his seat in Parliament as Earl of Leven.

larity with

When Charles prepared to travel southward he knew that Pym was resolute to obtain from him those concessions which Its simi- he had been compelled to make to Argyle. It is that c'aimed needless to say that he would feel far more degraded by Pyni. in becoming a merely nominal King of England than he had felt in becoming a merely nominal King of Scotland. He knew, too, that his chance of resisting was far greater in England than it had been in Scotland. In the North the nation was practically one in religion, and its union in religion had been the cement which had bound together the Parliamentary Opposition before which Charles had succumbed at Edinburgh. In the South the nation was divided in religion. Charles, therefore, might hope to put himself at the head of a party strong in the nation itself, as well as strong within the walls of Parliament.

Charles's intentions.

It is impossible to say with any certainty what was the precise form which the future took in Charles's mind as he travelled southward. It is probable enough that he had himself no clear perception, at least of the details of his own projects. But it is not likely that he had fixed his heart upon the sweeping away of all that had been done since the meeting of Parliament, the revival of the Star Chamber and the High Commission, or the revival of ship-money and monopolies. Not only was his mind one which loved to dwell as much as possible on the technical legality of his actions; but the contest in which he was now engaged was to be fought out on other issues than those which had been the object of struggle in the summer. The law as it stood gave him all that he needed to maintain the passive resistance which seemed enough to hinder those changes in the Church against which he had set his face. Legally, the majority of the Commons could do nothing without the consent of the House of Lords, and that consent they had for the time not the slightest chance of obtaining. Το gain popularity and to wait till the majority in the Commons had made some mistake, was no doubt a policy fraught with danger, like all policy of mere obstruction; but it was un

doubtedly far more prudent than any recurrence to those illstarred plots upon which Charles's hopes had been wrecked before.

Even this course, however, required patience, and Charles had little patience; whilst his wife, under whose influence he would now again come, had less. To both of them Pym and Hampden were not merely leaders of a political Opposition to be defeated, but traitors to be punished. If the hope of obtaining in Scotland undeniable evidence of their share in the invitation of the Scottish army into England had been baffled, there was proof enough of treasonable conduct since. If Strafford had been sent to the block for attempting to alter the constitution, had not these men done as much? Had they not reduced the authority of the King to its lowest ebb? Were they not striving by the Bill for the exclusion of the bishops to beat down the true majority in the House of Lords? Had they not made use of the moment of danger in Ireland to threaten their Sovereign that, unless he would abandon his acknowledged right of selecting his counsellors at his pleasure, they would take out of his hands the management of the Irish war, and thereby place themselves in a position of military supremacy? It can hardly be doubted that Charles contemplated, long before his arrival in England, some course of action which would rid him of his enemies under the forms of law, as the Commons under the forms of law had rid themselves of Strafford.

Of such a course the first condition was to regain popularity, and of all places where popularity would be most useful the Popularity City of London was the first. Standing relatively

to be regained.

The City of
London.

higher in population and wealth in the seventeenth than it stands in the nineteenth century, its organisation gave it, in the absence of an organised national army, an influence to which there is nothing to be compared at the present day. The loans of the London citizens alone had made it possible for the House of Commons to disband the armies; and without the loans of the London citizens the House would find it impossible to provide for a campaign in Ireland. It was manifestly of the first consequence to the King to win London to his side.