to turn the House from their purpose, though not till he had forced on a division.

D'Ewes returned to his seat just as they were about to divide on the question for candles, and by the very sound, he says, the Ayes declared themselves to be far more than the Noes; but the Noes persisted in dividing, and, "sitting "still" in the house with Sir Robert Hatton and Mr. John Russel (who had succeeded Lord William on the old Earl's

ever to be remembered Mr. Hales of Eton-" who would often say that he "would renounce the religion of the "Church of England to-morrow, if it "obliged him to believe that any "other Christians should be damned; "and that nobody would conclude "another man to be damned, who did "not wish him so;-than whom no "man was more strict and severe to "himself, yet to other men so chari"table as to their opinions, that he "thought that men not erring were

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more in fault for their carriage to"wards men who erred, than the men "themselves were ;--and who thought "that pride and passion, more than 66 conscience, were the cause of all sepa"ration from each other's communion; "and frequently said, that that only

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kept the world from agreeing upon "such a liturgy as might then bring "them into one communion" (Life, i. 60-1). Chillingworth was another of the very little men. Sidney Godolphin, also belonging to the same diminutive class, amazed the tall and well-formed Mr. Hyde by presenting so large an understanding and so unrestrained a fancy in so very small a body as he possessed-the smallest indeed, as it would seem, of all, for Falkland used merrily to say that he thought what charmed him most to be so much in Godolphin's company was the sense of finding himself there "the properer

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man. But the prince of all the little men was Falkland himself.

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or more disappointed this general "and customary prejudice. That "little person and small stature was quickly found to contain a great heart, a courage so keen, and a "nature so fearless, that no com"position of the strongest limbs, and "most harmonious and proportioned "presence and strength, ever more "disposed any man to the greatest "enterprise, it being his greatest "weakness to be too solicitous for "such adventures; and that untuned "tongue and voice easily discovered "itself to be supplied and governed "by a mind and understanding so "excellent, that the wit and weight "of all he said carried another kind "of lustre and admiration in it, and

death as Pym's colleague in the representation of Tavistock) for tellers, proved to be only 53 in number, whereas the Ayes who went out, with Denzil Holles and Sir John Clotworthy as tellers, were 152. Upon this, candles were brought; and again the debate went on not less warmly than before. For more than two hours longer, says D'Ewes, it was argued with great vehemence pro and con, until at last the question was put for the printing. Then went forth the Yeas, in number 135, with Denzil Holles and Sir Walter Earle for tellers; the tellers for the Noes, who stayed in the house, being Sir John Culpeper and Mr. John Ashburnham, the member for Hastings, and their numbers 83. Amid considerable excitement, the order was then given for immediate printing of the Remonstrance concerning the state of the kingdom; the Grand Remonstrance, as it came to be thereafter called, to distinguish it from the many other similar state papers of less importance and less interest for the people, which were issued during the Even now, however, it required all the temper and control of the leaders to avoid a mutiny. The claim to protest was, at this point, once more revived; and Sir Nicholas Slanning, heading the protesters, did his best to bring his own warning true. Some sixty members having joined him, they formally demanded that their protestation might be entered by order of the House; but the growing excitement was happily allayed by the art with which Pym, in appearing to yield to that proposal, in reality yielded nothing. The demand was turned into an order for an adjournment " to take into consideration the matter touching protestations in this house;" and the following Friday having been fixed for the purpose of such consideration, the House rose at seven o'clock.

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So closed the last debate on the Grand Remonstrance, which then found its way, after a succession of scenes and struggles as worthy of remembrance, though not until now remembered, as any in our history, to the audience for whom it was designed. Neither Hampden nor Pym spoke further, when the day for discussion of the right of

VOL. I.

I

protesting came.' They left it to the King's ex-secretary, old Sir Henry Vane, to point out how irreconcileable any such right would be with the precedents, the usages, and the proceedings of the Commons' house. They listened without replying to a long speech from Hyde, who, admitting there was no precedent for the claim, yet urged that neither was there a precedent for the printing of a Declaration, and that, a precedent in a case unprecedented being nothing to the purpose, they must act according to reason. They listened, still unmoved, to the significant allusion of Mr. Holborne, who, putting the case of an order having passed the House which might carry grave consequences, enlarged upon the hard position of those who, having no right to protest, would be involved in such consequences, " and perhaps lose their heads in "the crowd when there was nothing to show who was "innocent." Their part in the affair was done, their weapon thrown, and none of those contingent or possible events had any alarms for them. They called upon the Speaker to put the resolution that in no circumstances should a protestation be desired in that house, or admitted if desired; and they voted and carried it.

Upon the consequences hinted at by Holborne, upon the blow which so soon was levelled at the heads of the five leading men in these debates, and which had so fatal a recoil upon the King, it is no part of the design of this Essay to dwell. Its object was to restore a page of the English history of some importance, which time had been permitted to efface; and this has been accomplished. It is for the reader to apply its details to their further use, in illustration of already existing records, and determination of their value. It would lead the writer too far from the design to which he has purposely restricted him

1 The Friday originally fixed was changed to the following Monday, when the three principal speakers were Hyde, Holborne, and Vane, and it was finally "resolved upon the question,

"That in no case a Protestation ought "to be desired by any member of this "house, or admitted by this house, "being desired."

self, to attempt in this place any such application. Every one may do it, within the range of his acquaintance with the general history of the time; and to help to extend this range for all, some pains have been taken to render the notes appended to the Essay both a guide to research out of the common track of histories, and a warning against too ready or implicit belief in the most respected authorities. It is not desirable, even if it were possible, that Clarendon's History of the Rebellion should be deposed from the place it holds in our literature. Its rare beauties of thought and charm of style, the profound views of character and life which it clothes in language of unsurpassed variety and richness, its long line of noble and deathless portraits through which its readers move as through a gallery of full-lengths by Vandyke and Velasquez, have given and will assure to it its place as long as literature remains. But, for the purpose to which it has mainly been applied by many party writers since Clarendon's death, as well as by writers not prejudiced or partial, it should never have been used. The authority of its writer is at no time so worthless as when taken upon matters in which he played himself the most prominent part; and his imputations against the men with whom he was once leagued as closely as he was afterwards bitterly opposed to them, are never to be safely relied upon. With the very facts he laboured to misrepresent, he has been here confronted; and with the antagonists to whom he stood actually opposed upon the floor of the House of Commons, he has been again brought face to face. The Grand Remonstrance has itself been heard after long and unmerited oblivion, and Sir Simonds D'Ewes has spoken to us after a silence of more than two centuries. The result is decisive against Clarendon. It is not merely that he turned King's evidence against his old associates, but that his evidence is completely disproved.

An opinion has been expressed in the course of this Essay upon the importance of the Grand Remonstrance

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merely as a contribution to history, and upon the improbability of its being again displaced from the position here assigned to it. Certainly it is impossible that any one should speak of it hereafter as it has been described heretofore. In Mr. Disraeli's Commentaries on Charles the First's Reign, for example, a book which after his death was with final and scrupulous correction republished by his son, it is characterised as an historical memoir of all the infelicities of the reign, "with a very cautious omis"sion that all those capital grievances had no longer any existence." That such an assertion should be hazarded again is at least not conceivable. Amid much, too, that in the same book is as gravely passed off for truth, the Remonstrance is said to have been smuggled through the House of Commons by a trick. Its authors, we are informed, "assured the moderate men that its "intention was purely prudential; it was to mortify the "Court, and nothing more; after having been read, it "would remain in the hands of the Clerk, and never after"wards be called for; and so, when it was brought forward, to give it the appearance of a matter of little "moment, the morning was suffered to elapse on ordinary business, and it was produced late; but they overshot "their mark,' &c. &c. with much more to the same incredible purport! Surely not again can Clarendon lead his followers into such a quicksand of "history" as that; nor, with the Remonstrance itself in evidence, can the signal misrepresentation he left of its contents, and of the conduct and objects of its authors, be in future accepted against his own frequent and unconscious testimony to its deep and ineradicable impression upon the mass of the English people.

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That, after all, is its final and lasting vindication. It had become a necessity so to make appeal to the people. It may be true, or it may be false, that Cromwell would

1 Commentaries on the Reign of Charles I. By Isaac D'Israeli. Ed. 1851, ii. 294.