CHAPTER XXI.

1621.

Disaffection of the parliament.-Usher appointed to preach before the commons,—his conference with James.-Conduct of Laud.-King's speech against monopolies.-Case of attorney Yelverton.—King's speech respecting the affairs of the Palatine.—Supplies delayed.-Parliament adjourned. -Opposition lords-earls of Essex and Oxford,—earl of Southampton-his imprisonment.-Lord Say and Sele,earl of Warwick,―lord Spencer.—Insulting conduct of the earl of Arundel; his office of earl-marshal.-Competitors for the post of chancellor.-Sir Lionel Cranfield.-Dean Williams keeper of the seals.-Liberation of the earl of Northumberland,—of the earl and countess of Somerset. -Williams made bishop of Lincoln.-Circumstances of Laud's appointment to the see of St. David's.—Archbishop Abbot kills a man by chance,—proceedings respecting him. -Account of bishop Andrews,—Latin elegy on his death by Milton.

DURING the suspension of the use of parliaments in which James had for so many years persisted, the monarch, from a vain conceit of the reverence entertained for his wisdom and regal virtues, the favorite, from insolence and inexperience, and the courtiers, from habitual insensibility to the effects of abuses by which they profited, had all deceived themselves as to the sentiments entertained of their conduct by the nation at large; but the time

was

was now come when they were to be rudely awakened from their dream of self-complacency.

The proclamation against speaking of public affairs, was the more disregarded the oftener and the more urgently it was reiterated. Swarms of political libels flew abroad, in despite of the fetter of an imprimatur which then rested upon the press, and one of the sharpest of these, called "Tom Telltruth," was written under the guise of obedience to that clause of the royal proclamation which commanded all good subjects to give information of discourse held against the measures of government. Gondomar, whose extraordinary power over the mind of the king, and "more than parliament protections" of priests and jesuits, as they are called by Tom Tell-truth, had justly provoked the people, was violently insulted in the streets of London; and the house of commons began to take measures for the protection of the protestant religion. It was matter of notoriety, that several concealed catholics had gained admittance by court favor into the house itself; and for the purpose of reducing such members to a distressing dilemma, it was moved by the country party,-the designation which now first began to be appropriated to the opponents of the court, that the commons should go in a body and publicly receive the sacrament at St. Margaret's church. The resolution was the more displeasing to the king, as it was one which he could not decently oppose; and no other resource remained than to send for the preacher nominated by the house, and

VOL. II.

and to furnish him with the heads of what was deemed by his majesty a suitable discourse. This preacher was that very learned and pious divine the celebrated James Usher, who had already become known to the king by the following circumstances: It had appeared to the church of Ireland a proper assertion of its independence on that of England, to publish articles of its own, in which the pen of Usher had been chiefly employed. The Calvinistic doctrine of predestination, clearly laid down in some of these articles, and the judaical observance of the sabbath enjoined in others, had given occasion to some officious persons to accuse the compiler of the sin most fatal in that reign to clerical preferment,— that of puritanism: but James was prepossessed in his favor by the "Continuation of Jewel's Apology for the church of England;" a learned work and well seasoned with commentary on the Apocalypse, which Usher had dedicated to him some time before; and on his visiting England in 1619, fortified with an earnest letter of recommendation from the lorddeputy and council of Ireland to the English council, the monarch had deigned to appoint him an audience, and in person to examine him on points of doctrine and discipline. The Irish divine had passed this ordeal so satisfactorily, that his royal examiner, never slack in rewarding what he acknowledged as ecclesiastical merit, soon after nominated him to the see of Meath.

On this occasion, his majesty remarked to Usher, that he had but an unruly flock to look unto next

Sunday;

Sunday; adding, that he did not conceive how, after the late heats in the house, all the members could be in a fit state to partake of the sacred rite, and that he feared some would eat and drink their own condemnation: he required the bishop to tell them, that he hoped they were prepared, but wished them better prepared; to exhort them to affection and concord; and to teach them to love God first, and then their king and country; and especially to look upon the distressed state of Christendom, and to grant supplies for its relief; closing all with the favorite maxim which his majesty often repeated to his parliament," He twice gives who gives quickly.”

Thus tutored, Usher mounted the pulpit; but his distinguished zeal against the church of Rome, probably the circumstance which had recommended him to the choice of the house, led him to overlook the scope of the king's injunctions, and to dwell principally on the protestant notion respecting the presence of Christ in the sacrament, which he strongly distinguished from transubstantiation.

It may be worth noting, that the prebendaries of Westminster refused the pulpit of St. Margaret's to Usher on this occasion, asserting their own right to officiate before the parliament; and the service was in consequence performed in the Temple church. This opposition originated with Laud, who thus ominously commenced his political career by a bold defiance of the will of the house of commons.

Somewhat daunted by all these manifestations of the spirit of his people, the king went to the house Q 2

of

of lords previously to the Easter recess, and there pronounced a speech remarkable for the total omission of his favorite prerogative doctrines, and for a certain humble, and, as it were, penitential tone, which formed an extraordinary contrast with the boastful and arrogant strain in which he had hitherto thought proper to address the great council of the nation.

He began by stating, that whereas it had been his errand the last time he appeared in that place, to declare the "verity" of his proceedings, and the caution used by him in passing the patents now in question before them; it was his present purpose to express his readiness to put in execution whatever they should sentence respecting them. As the first proof of his sincerity in this matter, he mentioned the diligent search which he had caused to be made after the person of sir Giles Mompesson, who had fled. (The truth however was, that this delinquent had been suffered to escape through the influence of Buckingham, and was never brought to justice.) "I do assure you," he added, "had these things been complained of to me before the parliament, I would have done the office of a just king, and out of parliament would have punished them as severely, and peradventure more than ye now intend to do. But now that they are discovered to me in parliament, I shall be as ready in this way as I should have been in the other; for I confess I am ashamed, these things proving so as they are generally reported to be,—that it was not my good fortune to