" not now think fit to rise, but we will still sit. I desire "that we may sit according to the ancient use of parliaments, having the use as well of our eyes as of our "ears; and that lights may be brought in." 66 On this very day, Nicholas had written somewhat more hopefully to the King that the House had been the day before so employed about Irish affairs, that they meddled not with their Declaration: but after a very few days he has, less eagerly, to report that they have been making up for lost time. "The House of Commons," he wrote, "hastens by all means the finishing of the Declaration or "Remonstrance; and for the more speedy expediting of "it, they have at the committee passed by many particulars to avoid the delay of long debates.' In those few words were also expressed the steady perseverance and tenacity of what was truly to be called His Majesty's Opposition. Every inch of the ground was so contested indeed, that only the most watchful and resolute determination could avail to maintain any part of it unimpaired; and all the forms of the House were exhausted in pretences for delay. The whole of the sitting of Monday, the 15th of November, was taken up with the discussion of the single clause which ultimately stood as the hundred and ninetieth. In this, adverting to the charges brought by the ill-affected party against the leaders of the House of Commons, it was affirmed, in contradiction of those charges, that not the meddling of the Commons with the power of episcopacy, but the idolatry and popish ceremonies introduced into the Church by command of the bishops themselves, were the causes why sectaries and conventicles abounded in England, and why Englishmen, seeking liberty of worship, had been driven into exile. A debate of extraordinary vehemence arose upon this word command. It was led by Sir Edward Dering, the member for Kent,' who but 1 Poor Sir Edward Dering got himself only laughed at for his pains in going suddenly over to Hyde's party on this question of the Remonstrance. He lost his seat in the house shortly after, and failed to obtain any stand a little while before had moved the reading of a bill for extirpating bishops, deans, and chapters; and it was supported by Lord Falkland, who, on the 8th of the preceding February, had distinctly charged the bishops with having destroyed unity under pretence of uniformity, with having brought in superstition and scandal under the titles of reverence and decency, with having defiled the Church by adorning the churches, and destroyed of the gospel as much as they could without bringing themselves into danger of being destroyed by the law. With a pettifogging worthier of Hyde than of himself, Falkland now joined Dering in asking where proof was to be found that the bishops had issued any "command" for the introduction of idolatry. Who hath read this command? they asked. "Who hath heard it? Who hath seen this com"manded idolatry?" The day closed while yet the debate had not; an order being made that the Remonstrance should be resumed the next day at ten o'clock, and that meanwhile the clause which had then been debated so much, should be recommitted to the committee that originally drafted it, to prepare it in such a manner as might be agreeable to the sense of the House. On Tuesday, the 16th, the debate was resumed accordingly; but the obnoxious word remained in the clause as again introduced, and after further hot debate, the question of whether it should stand passed to a division. It was carried in the affirmative by a majority of 25, Sir Thomas Barrington, the member for Colchester, and Sir Martin Lumley, the member for Essex, being tellers for the 124 ayes, and Sir Edward Dering, with Sir Hugh Cholmley, the member for Scarborough, for the ing with the Royalists. Yet he seems to have been an eloquent and on the whole a well-meaning man, and hardly to have deserved the sneers of Clarendon; who in his History (i. 416) characterises him as a man of levity and vanity, easily flattered by being commended; and goes so far as to assert that his 'greatest "motive" in moving the trenchant bill against the bishops, was that he might have the opportunity of applying the two lines from Ovid, Cuncta prius tentanda, sed immedicabile vulnus Ense recidendum est, ne pars sincera trahatur ! 99 noes. The discussion on this day again occupied nearly all the sitting, and was only at last closed by the compromise of laying aside some clauses in which. exception had been taken to parts of the Liturgy as savouring of superstition. Other changes, comprising some additions, were also assented to; and these, with the Declaration as amended thus far, were referred to "the "same committee that was appointed for penning of it, "and they are to bring it back to the house with all con"venient speed." A further concession to the Opposition was at the same time made, in the addition to that committee of the names of Culpeper and Falkland. The two following days, Wednesday and Thursday, the 17th and 18th of November, were silent as to the Remonstrance, but filled with matters of grave import having a direct bearing upon it. Complaints had been made of unauthorised and exaggerated accounts sent abroad of the recent proceedings of the House, and after debate an order was issued for peremptory suppression of all present printing, "or venting in manuscript," of the Diurnal Occurrences of parliament. The examinations as to the new army plot were also completed, the evidence leaving little doubt as to the design having been known to the King; and Pym moved and carried a resolution," that, in "the examinations now read unto us, we did conceive "there was sufficient evidence for us to believe that there was a second design to bring up the army to overawe "the deliberations of this House." 66 On Friday the 19th, Secretary Nicholas wrote with unconcealed alarm and misgiving to his master. "The "worst in all that business is, that it reflects on your 66 66 Majesty, as if you had given some instructions concerning the stirring up the army to petition the parlia"ment. I hope it will appear that your Majesty's "intentions were only to retain the army in their duty " and dependance on your Majesty." After which, in the same letter, Mr. Secretary went on to say, that there had been nothing done these two days by the Commons touching the Declaration remonstrating the bad effects of ill counsels; but it was thought that the same would be finished that week. There were, he added, divers well affected servants of his Majesty in the house who had continued to oppose the Remonstrance with unanswerable arguments; but it was verily thought that it would pass notwithstanding, and that it would be "ordered to be "printed" without transmission to the Lords. Upon which it is to be observed as beyond question, that manifestly there was no longer any concealment of the ultimate design of the leaders of the House of Commons. Thus early, the destination of the Remonstrance was known. Strode had indeed publicly argued upon the assumption of its being printed and diffused among the people, as a thing to be admitted; and any subsequent complaint, therefore, of being taken by surprise when the proposition for the printing was formally made, could have been but a sheer pretence on the part of its opponents. 1 While Nicholas was writing to the King, it had been brought back to the house from the committee, pursuant to the last order; certain amendments to it had been violently debated, having reference to portions of the service-book; these ultimately, upon concession by the majority, had been read and assented to, and certain other verbal alterations made; and another lengthened debate had given further opportunity for the "unanswerable” arguments on the one side, and the quiet and resolved answers on the other, which had now occupied the House, with small intermission, since the 9th of November. Why should you pass this unnecessary and unseasonable Declara 1 I subjoin a characteristic passage from a speech of Dering's delivered in this debate, as reported and preserved by himself. "Why, Sir, at one of 'your committees I heard it publicly "asserted by one of the committee "that some of our Articles do contain 66 some things contrary to Holy Scrip "ture It is un tion? urged Hyde and his friends once more. necessary to detail grievances, most of which are already fully redressed; and it is unseasonable to welcome home from Scotland, with such a volume of reproaches, the very author of that redress, and to assail his Majesty the King for what others have done amiss, and for what he himself hath reformed. We propose to pass it, was the determined answer of Pym and his associates, because we hold it to be necessary for the preservation and maintenance of the concessions which have so been made. We believe ourselves in danger of being deprived of all the good acts we have gained, if great care and vigilance be not still used to disappoint malignant counsels. They who most exalt the grace and bounty of the King in regard to those good acts, have been most busy to pervert the affections of the people from ourselves in regard to the same matter. For our own acquittal, therefore, we would let the kingdom know in what state we found it at our first convention, what fruit it hath received by our counsels, wherein we think the securities obtained are not yet sufficient, and such further measures as in our consciences we believe to be called for. Because, though the prime evil counsellors have been removed, there are others growing up in their places like to do quite as much mischief. - To which last home thrust, reply could not have been very easy! It was late in the afternoon, when, at the close of this debate, the order was moved and carried that the Declaration should be duly engrossed, and again brought in at two o'clock the next day. All which having been accomplished, the House was about to pass to other business, when D'Ewes informs us that Mr. Speaker Lenthal made an appeal ad misericordiam for himself. He showed that he had been sitting very late yesterday (Thursday 18th), that it was now past four o'clock, and that he really could not hold out daily to sit seven or eight hours. Whereon the indefatigable Mr. Pym, admitting the appeal, suggested that the House should rise, and that a grand committee should presently sit. |