very few indeed, and these only occasional stragglers, had quitted the house before the great division. Two divisions on minor points preceded it, as we have seen, with some interval interposed; yet upon the first, three hundred and ten members divided, and upon the second, three hundred and eight; and these, being more than three fifths of the entire House, were certainly as large an assemblage as had been mustered since the Recess within its walls.' What, then, were the numbers on the third and most important division? They had been reduced by simply one vote, and this in all probability the vote of Secretary Nicholas. I quote the entry from the Journals (ii. 322). "The question being proposed, whether this Declaration, "thus amended, shall pass; the question was put, whether "this question should be first put ? and it went with the "Yeas: And then the question was put, whether this "Declaration, thus amended, shall pass? The house was "divided. Sir Frederick Cornwallis and Mr. Strangways, tellers for the Noe, 148; Sir John Clotworthy and "Mr. Arth. Goodwyn, tellers for the Yea, 159. Resolved, upon the question, that this Declaration, thus amended, "shall pass." 66 66 The question so long and desperately debated had hardly thus been settled, however, when that new question arose which was to create a new and worse agitation, and to carry almost to the pitch of frenzy the excited passions of the House. As soon as the vote was declared, Clarendon proceeds to say in his History (ii. 42), "Mr. Hampden moved that there might be an order entered for the present printing it, which 66 66 66 66 666 1 produced a sharper debate than the former. It appeared "then" (as if this had not been avowed all through the debate), "that they did not intend to send it up to the house of peers for their concurrence; but that it was upon the matter an appeal to the people, and to infuse "jealousies into their minds. It had never been the custom to publish any debates or determinations of the "House, which were not regularly first transmitted to the "house of peers; nor was it thought, in truth, that the "House had authority to give warrant for the printing of anything; all which was offered by Mr. Hyde, with some warmth, as soon as the motion was made for the "printing it: and he said, 'he did believe the printing it "in that manner was not lawful; and he feared it would produce mischievous effects; and therefore desired the "leave of the House, that if the question should be put, "and carried in the affirmative, that he might have liberty to enter his protestation;' which he no sooner "said than Geoffrey Palmer (a man of great reputation, "and much esteemed in the house) stood up, and made "the same motion for himself, 'that he might likewise 'protest.' When immediately together, many after"wards, without distinction, and in some disorder, cried out 'They did protest:' so that there was after scarce any quiet and regular debate. But the House by degrees being quieted, they all consented, about two of the "clock in the morning, to adjourn till two of the clock the 'next afternoon." 666 666 666 66 66 66 66 So did the chief actor in a very memorable scene, writing deliberately in his exile a few years after the event, when nothing of the dignities, the responsibilities, or the trials incident to his later life, had occurred to impair or preoccupy his memory, describe the close of a stormy debate in which he had taken so prominent a 1 The first editors of Clarendon seem to have been so startled by his use of this word, in direct contradiction of a well-known fact, that they The substituted "seldom" for it. genuine text was only restored thirtytwo years ago. 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. 66 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 which such statements made by him 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 I 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 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 66 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, even assuming the feeling reflected in these passages to have been entertained by members on both sides of the house, Hampit is necessarily the true one. den's was a character, more than most men's, open to misconception. 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, He 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 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 |