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part. We shall shortly be able to test its accuracy. With how much accuracy the same writer had before described its commencement, has already been seen.' Of the similar spirit in which its progress had also been narrated, the reader who has here had all its details before him will be able to judge, when informed, still on Lord Clarendon's authority (ii. 594-5), that "the debate held many hours, in which the framers and contrivers of the "Declaration said very little, nor answered any reasons "that were alleged to the contrary: the only end of passing it, which was to incline the people to sedition, being a reason not to be given: but still called for the "question, presuming their number, if not their reason, "would serve to carry it; and after two of the clock in "the morning (for so long the debate continued, if that "can be called a debate where those only of one opinion "argued), when many had gone home, &c. &c." It may be doubted if history contains such another instance of flagrant and deliberate falsification of the truth, committed by one to whom the truth was personally known.

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Nor unworthy to rank beside it are the sentences first quoted, descriptive of what followed as to his own and Palmer's protestation when the Remonstrance had passed. It was not Hampden who moved the order for the printing, but Mr. Peard, the member for Barnstaple, a lawyer

1 See ante, p. 36.

2 It is somewhat strange that this particular misstatement should have been made by Clarendon, whose habit it is to represent Hampden as invariably, on such occasions, reserving himself in the back ground and putting others in the front. I am bound to add that Clarendon seems to have shared with others this habit, which I once thought peculiar to himself. For, as it is one of the objects of this Essay to show how entirely untrustworthy is his authority for any statement adverse to the leaders against Charles I., it is the more necessary not to omit any instance in

of the Middle Temple in good repute in his profession, and who had sat in the last as well as the present parliament. It was not then announced for the first time, but had substantially been confessed all through the debate, that the Declaration was meant as an appeal to the people. And so far from the desire to "protest" having arisen naturally and suddenly out of that announcement, we have seen, by the irrefragable evidence unconsciously afforded in Secretary Nicholas's letter to the King, that the protest had been concerted as a party move, and made known to the King's servants before the Declaration

Hampden, out of his serpentine "subtlety, did still put others to 66 move those businesses that he con"trived." It is impossible not to compare this with what Clarendon says (Hist. iv. 93) of Hampden's moderation during the first year of the Long Parliament, "that wise and

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dispassioned men plainly discerned "that that moderation proceeded "from prudence, and observation "that the season was not ripe, rather "than that he approved of the mode"ration; and that he begat many "opinions and notions, the education "whereof he committed to other "" men, so far disguising his own 'designs, that he seemed seldom to "wish more than was concluded." The reader will at the same time not too hastily conclude, that, assuming the feeling reflected in these passages to have been entertained by members on both sides of the house, it is necessarily the true one. Hampden's was a character, more than most men's, open to misconception. He was peculiarly self-reliant and selfcontained, and in a remarkable degree he had the faculty of silence. Until the time arrived for speaking, he had never the least disposition to utter what lay within the depths of his breast-alta mente repôstum.

On

no man of this great period is so unmistakeably impressed the qualities which set apart the high-bred English gentleman, calm, courteous,

reticent, self-possessed; but with a will and energy so indomitable, lying in those silent depths, that all who came within its reach came also under its control. Clarendon, though he still imparts his own colour to the feeling, gives it fairer expression in the passages where he speaks of his possessing" that seeming humility "and submission of judgment as if he "brought no opinion of his own with "him, but a desire of information and "instruction; yet had so subtle a way "of interrogating, and under the "notion of doubts, insinuating his "objections, that he left his opinions "with those from whom he pretended "to learn and receive them." iv. 92. And again: "He was not a man of "many words, and rarely begun the "discourse, or made the first entrance "upon any business that was assumed; "but a very weighty speaker, and "after he had heard a full debate, and "observed how the House was like to "be inclined, took up the argument, "and shortly, and clearly, and craf'tily, so stated it, that he com"monly conducted it to the conclu"sion he desired; and if he found "he could not do that, he was never "without the dexterity to divert the "debate to another time, and to pre

vent the determining anything in "the negative which might prove in"convenient in the future." i. 323-4. Here we have again the craft and the subtlety, but it is less "serpentine."

was voted. The intention was obvious. It was meant to divide, and by that means destroy, the authority of the House of Commons. It was a plan deliberately devised to exhibit, before the face of the country, the minority as in open conflict against the majority, and as possessed of rights to be exercised independently. The balance would be thus redressed'; and the King's party, outvoted in the house, would yet be a recognised power without its walls, and would carry thenceforward a share of its authority. Happily, the leaders saw the intention, and on the instant met and defeated it. The right to protest, they said, never had been, and never could be, admitted there. The House of Commons was indivisible. It acted with one will, and one power; and it exercised rights with which individual claims were incompatible. Its authority derived from the people, its privilege to address them, its power to tax them, rested upon a foundation which, what was asked for by Hyde and his friends, would at once undermine and overthrow.

To use merely the language of Clarendon in giving account of what followed thereupon, and simply to say that many members rose to speak without distinction and in some disorder, so that there was after scarce any quiet and regular debate, were to offer a faint version indeed of the truth. Never had those walls witnessed such a scene as now, from the report of eye-witnesses less prejudiced and partial, waits to be described.

Hardly had announcement been made of the division which carried the Remonstrance by a majority of eleven votes, when one more strenuous effort was made to have it addressed to the King. This was successfully resisted; Denzil Holles expressing his intention to move, on another occasion, that it should be referred to a committee to give effect to the modified suggestion already thrown out by Pym. Mr. Peard then moved that the Declaration might be printed, which was opposed with the greatest warmth and vehemence by Hyde and Culpeper; Hyde again giving utterance to the extraordinary

opinion he had ventured to express in the debate, that the House of Commons had no right to print without the Lords' concurrence. Wherefore, he added, if the motion were persisted in, he should ask the leave of the House to have liberty to enter his protest. Culpeper's speech in the same strain, replying to the determined objection made upon this, first very calmly by Pym, and then more excitedly by Denzil Holles, carried the excitement still higher; and in the midst of it were now heard several voices, and among them very conspicuously that of Palmer, crying out that they also protested. Some one then rose, and moved that the names of the protesters might be taken; but this being declared against the forms and orders, was not at the moment pressed. "So," according to D'Ewes's account, derived from Sir Christopher Yelverton, “this "matter was understood to be laid aside until a further "time of debate, when everybody thought the business "had been agreed upon, and that the House should have risen, it being about one of the clock of the morning ensuing, when Mr. Geoffrey Palmer, a lawyer of the "Middle Temple, stood up." He should not be satisfied, he said, for himself or those around him, unless a day were at once appointed for discussion of whether the right to protest did not exist in that House; and meanwhile he would move, with reference to such future discussion, that the Clerk should now enter the names of all those whose claim to protest would then have to be determined. At these words the excitement broke out afresh; loud cries of "All! All!" burst from every side where any of Hyde's party sat; and Palmer, carried beyond his first intention by the passion of the moment, cried out unexpectedly that he did for himself then and there protest, for himself and all the rest-" of his mind," he afterwards declared that he meant to have added, but for the storm which suddenly arose.

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The word All had fallen like a lighted match upon gunpowder. It was taken up, and passed from mouth to mouth, with an exasperation bordering on frenzy; and to

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those who in after years recalled the scene, under that sudden glare of excitement after a sitting of fifteen hours, -the worn-out weary assemblage, the ill-lighted dreary chamber, the hour sounding One after midnight, confused loud cries on every side breaking forth unexpectedly, and startling gestures of violence accompanying them,-it presented itself to the memory as a very Valley of the Shadow of Death. "All! all!" says D'Ewes, was cried from side to side; "and some waved their hats over their "heads, and others took their swords in their scabbards "out of their belts, and held them by the pummels in "their hands, setting the lower part on the ground; so, "as if God had not prevented it, there was very great "danger that mischief might have been done. All those "who cried All, all, and did the other particulars, were of the number of those that were against the "Remonstrance." And among them was the promising young gentleman of the King's house, Mr. Philip Warwick, the member for Radnor, who bethought him, as we have seen, of that brief scriptural comparison from the wars of Saul and David,' his application of which comprised all that, until now, was known to us of this extraordinary scene. He thought of what Abner said to Joab, and Joab to Abner, when they met on either side of the pool of Gibeon; and how, having arisen at the bidding of their leaders to make trial of prowess, their young men caught every one his fellow by the head, and thrust his sword in his fellow's side, and so fell down together: a result which might have followed here, had not the sagacity and great calmness of Mr. Hampden, by a short speech, prevented it.

It is not perhaps difficult to imagine, from what D'Ewes goes on to say of the short but memorable speech, with what exquisite tact and self-control this profound master of debate calmed down the passions of that dangerous hour. He saw at once that the motion

1 Second Book of Samuel, Chap. ii. v. 12-16.