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Vane, member for Hull, and Joint-treasurer of the Navy; all sat in this quarter, on the Speaker's right. Near them sat also Mr. Edward Nicholas, clerk of the Council, soon to be Sir Edward and Secretary of State in place of Windebank, now an anxious auditor and spectator of this memorable debate, which he was there to report to the King. Between these members and Hyde, on the same side of the house, sat the member for Wilton, Sir Benjamin Rudyard; Sir Walter Earle; William Strode; and lawyer Glyn, the member for Westminster. Mr. Herbert Price, the member for Brecon, with Mr. Wilmot, member for Tamworth, and a knot of young courtiers, sat at the lower end of the house on the same side, immediately on the left at entering. John Hampden sat on the other side, behind Pym; and between him and Harry Marten, sat Edmund Waller; on one of the back benches, Cromwell; not far from him, Denzil Holles; and under the gallery, the member for Oxford University, the learned Mr. Selden.' Near him sat lawyer Maynard, the other member for Totness; and over them, in the gallery itself, that successful lawyer Mr. Holborne; Sir Edward Dering; and the member for Leicestershire, Sir Arthur Haselrig. But our list must come to a close. The reader has been detained too long from the debate on the Great Remonstrance.

Hyde opened it, in a speech of great warmth and great length. The general ground of objection he took was that a Declaration so put forth was without precedent; and he questioned the power of the House, in so far as this was defined by the words used in the writs of election, to make, alone, a remonstrance to the people, without the

1 "I said that I did prize what66 soever should fall from the pen or "tongue of that learned gentleman "under the gallery-and then I "looked towards Mr. Selden, &c."

2 Mr. Philip Warwick, young courtier as he was, and admirer of all things courtly, could yet detect

the points in which the King's principal advocate in the house was weak, as well for himself as his cause. "Mr. "Hyde's language and style," he remarks, were very suitable to busi"ness, if not a little too redundant." -Memoirs, p. 196.

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concurrence of the Lords. Arguing from this, he asserted that the form of the Declaration touched the honour of the King, and that it ought not, for that reason, to be made public or circulated among the people. Such a publication could only be justified by having peace for its end, and here every such object would be frustrated. In the Remonstrance itself, apart from these considerations, he did not deny that there might be a propriety. The members of the house were accused to have done nothing either for King or kingdom. It was right to repel that charge. But if a parliament must make an apology, let them show what they had done without looking too far back. They may desire themselves to see, but they should not divulge, their own infirmities, any more than a general the defects of his army to the enemy. All was true, if expressed modestly. But such passages as Sir John Eliot's imprisonment under the King's own hand, and his wanting bread,' were ill-expressed. Let them be chary of Majesty. They stood upon their liberties even, for the Sovereign's sake lest he should be King of mean subjects, or they subjects of a mean King.

Lord Falkland rose immediately after Hyde, and, as his wont was, spoke with greater passion in his warmth and earnestness; his thin high-pitched voice breaking

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1 In Sir Ralph Verney's Note of the debate (p. 121), this passage stands, "Sir John Eliot's imprison"ment under the King's own hand, "and the King's wanting bread, ill 'expressed." It is clear, however, that the words marked in italics are a repetition by mistake from the previous line. Clarendon in his History (ii. 51) affects to quote, in the exact words of the Remonstrance as it passed ("after many unbecoming ex"pressions were cast out"), the passage respecting Eliot; and he quotes it in inverted commas, thus: "One of "which died in prison, for want of "ordinary refreshment, whose blood "still cried for vengeance."

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"want of ordinary refreshment in the history, is clearly the same as "wanting bread" in the speech; yet certainly the Remonstrance as printed says no such thing, and the words, if ever there, must have been among the unbecoming expressions cast out. The passage really runs thus: "Of "whom one died by the cruelty and "harshness of his imprisonment, "which would admit of no relaxa"tion, notwithstanding the imminent danger of his life did sufficiently appear by the declaration of his physician. And his release, or at "least his refreshment, was sought by 'many humble petitions. And his "blood still cries, &c."

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into a scream, and his little, spare, slight frame trembling with eagerness. He ridiculed the pretension set up in the Declaration to claim any right of approval over the councillors whom the King should name; as if priest and clerk should divide nomination and approval between them. He denounced it as unjust that the concealing of delinquents should be cast upon the King. He said (forgetting a former speech of his own going directly to this point)' it was not true to allege that Laud's party in the Church were in league with Rome; for that Arminians agreed no more with Papists than with Protestants. And with the power to make laws, why should they resort to declarations? Only where no law was available, were they called to substitute orders and ordinances to command or forbid. Reminding them of the existing state of Ireland, and of the many disturbances in England, he warned them that it was of a very dangerous consequence at that time to set out any remonstrance: at least such a remonstrance as this, containing many harsh expressions. Above all, it was dangerous to declare what they intended to do hereafter, as that they would petition his Majesty to take advice of his parliament in the choice of his privy council; and it was of the very worst example to make such allusion as that wherein they declared that already they had committed a bill to take away bishops' votes. He pointed out the injustice of imputing to the bishops generally the description of the Scotch war as bellum episcopale, which he asserted had been so used by only one of them. He very hotly condemned the expression of "bringing in idolatry," which he characterised as a charge of a high crime against all the bishops in the land. And he denounced it as a manifest contradiction and absurdity, that after reciting, as they had indeed sufficient cause to do, the many good laws passed by a parliament of which bishops and Popish lords were component members, they should end by declaring that while bishops and Popish

1 See ante, p. 39.

lords continued to sit in parliament no good laws could be made.

Falkland was followed by Sir Edward Dering, who was so well pleased himself with the speech he proceeded to deliver, that he afterwards committed it, with another spoken in the preliminary debates, to print, with a preface which cost him his seat in the house; and until very

1 Under date the 2nd February, 1641-2, D'Ewes gives curious and amusing evidence in his Journal of the anger awakened in wise grave men by this very silly publication of Sir Edward Dering's. Oliver Cromwell takes the lead in vehemently denouncing the book. D'Ewes himself chimes in as violently, for that "in "this scandalous, seditious, and 66 'vain-glorious volume," he does "so "overvalue himself as if able of him"self to weigh down the balance of "this house on either side, &c., &c." Then Sir Walter Earle moves to call in the book. But to this D'Ewes very sensibly objects, "for that by so "doing the price of it would rise from "fourteen pence to fourteen shillings, "and hasten a new impression." Finally, Cromwell moves and carries that the obnoxious volume shall be burnt "next Friday:" on which occasion doubtless Palace-yard was duly illuminated by the small bonfire. But perhaps there was really more reason than lies immediately on the surface for the resentment with which the House regarded the publication by its members of their speeches, unauthorised by itself. It gave some sort of sanction to another publication of a still more unauthorised description, which had lately become not uncommon, and by which many members suffered not a little. I quote one of the entries of D'Ewes in his Journal under date the 9th February, 1641-2. "After prayers I said that 66 much wrong was offered of late to "several members by publishing "speeches in their names which they

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"speech brought me by a stationer "to whom one John Bennet, a poet "lodging in Shoe-lane, sold it for "half-a-crown to be printed. "gives it as my speech at a confer(6 ence when there was no conference." This is probably one of the first glimpses to be got in our history of the now ancient and important pennya-lining fraternity. The danger and the annoyance, however, were greater from the interpolated and falsified versions, now also abundantly put forth, of speeches really spoken in the house, than from the pure inventions of which D'Ewes complained. I may add that the inventions were not limited to speeches only. Petitions affecting to represent the feeling of large classes of people were got up in the same way! On the 25th of January, 1641-2, the matter of a Royalist petition from Hertfordshire was before the house, and the subjoined curious entry is made in D'Ewes's Notes. "Thomas Hulbert, one of the framers "of the Hertfordshire petition, sent "for as a delinquent; also Martin "Eldred, one of the penners of the "same. The said Martin Eldred, "being called into the house, did "acknowledge that Thomas Hulbert,

a young scholar of Cambridge, did "draw the said false petition of "Hertfordshire in his presence; and "that they sold it to the said John "Greensmith, a stationer, for half-a66 crown, which the said Greensmith, "being called on, did likewise con"fess; and that he printed it. I "said there were now abiding in, and "about London, certain loose beggarly scholars who did in ale-houses

66 never spake. I had yesternight a

recently, this publication by the member for Kent was supposed to be the only fragment which had survived of the debates on the Grand Remonstrance. Nor was it by any means a bad speech, though for the interests of his party it was hardly a discreet one. They would fain indeed have prevented his rising so early in the debate, but as yet Pym resolutely kept his place, and the field was open to all

comers.

Dering began by enlarging on the importance of the matter in discussion as far transcending any mere bill or act of parliament. Of what was so put forth, he warned them, the three kingdoms were but the immediate or first supervisors; for all Christendom would be attracted by the glass therein set up, and would borrow it to view their deformities. Then let them not dismiss in haste what others would scan at leisure. It was to be considered, first, whether their constituents were looking for such a Declaration. If not, to what end did the House so decline? Wherefore such descension from a parliament to a people? The people looked not up for any so extraordinary courtesy. The better sort thought best of that House; and why should its members be told that the people were expectant for a Declaration. "My consti"tuents," continued Sir Edward, " don't want it. They do humbly and heartily thank you for many good laws

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"invent speeches, and make speeches
"of members in parliament, and of
"other
passages supposed to be
"handled in, or presented unto, this
"house. That the license of print-
"ing these scandalous pamphlets is
66 grown to a very great heighth,
"&c." Wherefore the indignant Sir
Simonds would have Mr. Thomas
Hulbert, and Mr. Martin Eldred,
and Mr. John Greensmith forthwith
conveyed to the Gate-house.

1 The gloom was broken by such additional brief notices as were supplied by the appearance, a few years ago, of Sir Ralph Verney's valuable Notes of Proceedings in the Long

Parliament, most intelligently edited by Mr. Bruce; but the existence of the manuscript materials which have supplied me with the main portions of the account now laid before the reader in this Essay, was not suspected, even so late as Mr. Bruce's publication. The report supplied in my text of the particular debate now in progress, is the result of a careful comparison of the notes of Verney and D'Ewes, each having been used to correct and complete the other. Fragments of Verney's notes, I should add, were known to Mr. Serjeant D'Oyley and Mr. Hallam some years before their publication by Mr. Bruce.

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