refusal that accompanied it, many of the House of Commons (men for the most part new to the House), lost all self-control; and they resolved that all business should be put aside till satisfaction had been given to the House. At this point the King intervened. He began now to perceive that, unless he would give way on the question of Impositions, he must expect nothing from the Commons: and on this point he would not yield. He now wrote rebuking them for abstaining from business, and telling them that it did not belong to them to dissolve Parliament. A deputation of forty members, headed by the Speaker, replied that they were unfit to treat of matters of moment until they had cleared themselves from recent imputations.

Nothing could now recall the Commons to business. Possibly oil was poured on the fire by some emissaries of the Parliamenthating Northampton and his friends; but distrust, the irritation of offended dignity, and the presence of two hundred new members in a House of three hundred, seem sufficient to explain everything. Bacon, hopeless of a good result, appears henceforth to have remained silent. Not even the explanation tendered by the wretched Bishop who had caused all this stir, accompanied with "solemn protestations upon his salvation," and "expressing with many tears his sorrow that his words were so misconstrued," could pacify their fury. In vain did the Lords assure the Lower House that if they had conceived that the Bishop had intended to cast any aspersion upon the latter, they would have punished him with severity; in vain did they hint at "the better expediting of his Majesty's business:" nothing passed now among the Commons but wild and incoherent speeches.

Naturally the King lost patience. On Friday, 3 June, he sent them a message that unless they proceeded forthwith to treat of Supply, he would dissolve on the following Thursday. So wrapt up had the House been in the consideration of their own dignity, that the King's resolution took them completely by surprise. The Bishop was forgotten; some would have again taken up the question of Impositions; others-and among these Wentworth-would have at once done something to satisfy the King. Others ranted against the King, courtiers, and Scotchmen. They could settle on nothing at once except a Committee

It

of the whole House to prepare an answer to his Majesty. was too late. The anti-Parliamentary party had triumphed. On Saturday the Speaker was (perhaps conveniently) ill, and the House did not sit: on Monday they were informed that, if they did not proceed to Supply at once, they would be dissolved on the following day (instead of Thursday); and accordingly on Tuesday, 7 June, 1614, Parliament was dissolved by commission.

It was believed by contemporaries-and on grounds deemed solid by modern authorities1-that some of the violent speeches in the House, those that had most irritated the King and had tended to the dissolution of Parliament, had been instigated by great persons, and especially by the "popishly-affected" Earl of Northampton, and Sir Charles Cornwallis, the late ambassador in Spain. It is probable that a friendly interview between James and the Spanish ambassador-together with the prospect of a rich portion from the Infanta whereby his debts might be paid, in the event of a marriage between Prince Charles and the Infanta-induced the King to precipitate the dissolution. But whatever part the Spanish wire-pullers may have had in animating the Parliament and the King with mutual resentments, there were other causes at work to produce this abortive result. First and foremost, there was the King's natural antipathy to popular assemblies of any kind, and especially to the English House of Commons; then the distrust inspired by the King's inconstant disposition, by his extravagant pretensions, and by the recent tendency of the King's servants (and more especially Bacon), to seize every occasion for straining and magnifying to the utmost the royal Prerogative. And this distrust must have been immensely increased by the royal speeches to the House, made, as it would seem, in accordance with Bacon's suggestions, and certainly in accordance with his extant Memorial, in whichwithout one word of mention of the fundamental question of Impositions which stood like a gulf between Crown and Commonshe endeavoured, at the cost of a few trifling concessions, to bribe them to bestow upon him such Supplies as would henceforth render him independent of them. Such tactics as these were too transparent. "If thou wilt be a servant unto this people 1 Spedding, v. 72; Gardiner, ii. 246.

this day, and wilt serve them, and speak good words to them, then they will be thy servants for ever,"-this was in effect the advice given by Bacon to James: but Pym and Wentworth and Sandys, and the other leaders of the popular party, knew their Bibles as well as Bacon, and were not to be taken in by the modern Solomon endeavouring to put in practice the counsel given by the astute elders to Solomon's foolish son.

Nor can Bacon probably be acquitted of having in other ways contributed indirectly to the ill-will between King and Commons. To win and bridle the lawyers" in the House; to "sever, intimidate, hold in hope" the popular party; to "engage and assure the Judges in omnem eventum;" to "make men perceive that it is not safe to combine and make parties in Parliament," -these were some of the courses that he suggested, and it was the suspicion of these and similar courses that went far to make agreement between King and Commons impossible. Bacon was not, like Northampton, guilty of a deliberate attempt to estrange the King from the Parliament; he honestly and earnestly desired to see them reconciled: but he would not, or could not, see the only means to a reconciliation; he shrank from the unpleasant task of telling the King that he must recede from the position he had taken up on the question of Impositions; it was not enough to promise that he would levy no more, and to confirm an Act of Parliament embodying that promise; they had been unjustifiable from the first and never ought to have been levied; and the right course was to acknowledge that they could not be justified, and to sweep away all that now existed: but this, though Bacon seems to have felt, he had not moral strength enough to say. And so it came to pass that his advice precipitated rather than delayed the collision. Do what he might, he could not have completely succeeded; for he could not have persuaded James to change his nature. But, doing what he did, he accelerated failure, and must be regarded as one of the main agents in bringing about the abortive results of the Addled Parliament, and in preparing the way for a Civil War.1

1 "The Civil War came about," says Professor Gardiner (History, ii. 209) "not because Coke's principles prevailed, but because half of Bacon's principles prevailed without the other"; and the next sentence explains wherein the other unfulfilled half of Bacon's principles consisted. "If James and his son had stood towards Parliament as Bacon wished them to stand, there would have been no

§30 TRIALS OF ST. JOHN AND PEACHAM

The death of Northampton (15 June) prevented him from obtaining the office of Lord Treasurer, which was bestowed upon the Earl of Suffolk. During the last year, the financial condition had been somewhat improved: but the new Treasurer succeeded (10 June), to an annual deficit of £101,000, which, even when diminished by the yearly instalment of the Dutch debt, was not less than £61,000; there were also other extraordinary expenses, and a debt of about £700,000.1

To relieve the King's necessities it was proposed that voluntary contributions should be made by the well-affected. Such contributions, rarely voluntary in fact (whatever they might be in name), and always tending to compulsion, might naturally be suspected by the popular party as superseding the action of Parliament; and Benevolences were expressly forbidden by an Act of Richard III. enacting "that the subjects and commons of this realm from henceforth should in no wise be charged by any charge or imposition called a Benevolence, or any such like charge, and that such exactions called a Benevolence shall be damned or annulled for ever." Accordingly Bacon warned the Council, first, that the term "Benevolence" ought not to be used, as being forbidden by Act of Parliament; and secondly, that no official recommendations of it must be issued. Moral pressure and no other was to be used. It was to be "given out abroad" that the King and the Prince daily inspected the names of the givers and the amounts of the gifts. Moreover, copies were to be " "spread abroad, especially of such as give most bountifully, that others danger to be feared from Coke." In other words, if James and his son could have become ideal monarchs, using for the good of the people that practically irresponsible power which Bacon desired to establish for them, then Bacon's statesmanship would have averted the Civil War. But surely statesmanship that depends on such an "if" must be pronounced no statesmanship at all, but a mere philosopher's dream. For some months before Bacon was preparing to manage and bridle this refractory Parliament, the King was severing himself from his Council and taking as his chief adviser his favourite Carr, a mere animal (though a high-spirited animal), as destitute of policy as of morality and refinement : "The Viscount Rochester (Carr) sheweth much temper and modesty without seeming to press or sway anything; but afterwards the King resolveth all business with him alone." Sarmiento's despatch, sent home by Digby, 22 Sept. 1613 (Gardiner, History, ii. 218).

1 Gardiner, History, ii. 260.

of their rank may perceive they cannot, without discredit and note, fall too low." But although no one was to be compelled to give, Bacon did not hesitate to recommend that no one should be permitted with impunity to dissuade others from giving: "That, howsoever no manner of compulsory means is to be used, nor no show thereof, yet if any malicious person shall deride or scorn or slander the frank disposition of the King's subjects, or purposely dissuade it, or seek to defeat it or divert it, that (he) be questioned and severely punished."

Both Bacon's warnings were disregarded. The Council sent. out circulars to sheriffs, justices of the peace, and mayors, recommending the Benevolence, and repeated them when the money came slowly in. A gentleman of Marlborough, named Oliver St. John, on receiving from the mayor an application to attend a meeting for the purpose of contributing, sent to the mayor a reply, to be laid before the meeting of the justices if he thought fit, in which he described the Benevolence not only as illegal but also as a perjury on the part of the King. The task of prosecuting this recalcitrant devolved upon Bacon. Instead of glossing over the use of the illegal word "Benevolence" (which he had himself dissuaded) the Attorney, justifies it by distinguishing between "a charge called a Benevolence" and "a Benevolence: "1

"There is a great difference between a Benevolence and an exaction called a Benevolence. . . . This was a true and pure Benevolence, not an imposition called a Benevolence which the statute speaks of. There is a great difference, I tell you (though Pilate would not see it), betweeen Rex Judæorum and se dicens Regem Judæorum. . . . . This was a Benevolence wherein every man had a prince's Prerogative, a negative voice; and this word, excuse moy, was peremptory.”

As Bacon himself had recommended the King to take steps to ensure that the contributors should perceive that they could not be niggardly" without discredit and note," it is obvious that this "prince's Prerogative" was rather shadowy; however, the offender had the letter of the law against him, and Coke himself had already declared to an assembly of justices that this Council" had done nothing contrary to the laws of the realm."

1 Coke also recognised this distinction, as will be seen below.