leader of the Parliament appears to have passed in review the previous speakers, as his custom was in the great debates, and to have answered each. The boldness and plain speaking of his reference to the King was even for him remarkable.

To Hyde's appeal that the House should be chary above all things of the King's honour, Pym first replied that the honour of the King lay in the safety of the people, and that the members of that house had no choice now but to tell the truth. They had narrowly escaped great dangers, and the time was passed for concealment. The Plots had been very near the King. All had been driven home to the Court and the Popish party. To what the noble lord (Falkland) had objected against the alleged necessity of disallowing the votes of the Popish lords and their abettors the bishops, he answered that good laws passed in spite of those votes formed no answer to the assertion that the continued presence of such voters would prevent the future enactment of similar necessary laws. That debate itself might help to show how their dangers were increasing upon them; and "will any one deny," asked Pym, “ that "the Popish lords and the bishops do now obstruct us?" Nor could he see any breach of privilege in naming them; for had they not heretofore often complained of particular lords being away, and of miscarriages that lords had occasioned? Where also, he desired to know, should be the danger apprehended by "the noble learned lord" in the recommendation to his Majesty not to choose such counsellors as that house might be unable to approve. "We "have suffered so much by counsellors of the King's choosing," said Pym, "that we desire him to advise "with us about it." He maintained that this course was constitutional, and where was the objection to it? Many of the King's servants were known to have moved him about such counsellors, and why may not the parliament? He enlarged upon this; and illustrated the mischief of disregarding such advice by that quarrel with the first parliament upon the unwise treaty of peace with Spain,

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which had been fraught with so many evils. The same worthy lord, and the knight who spoke after him in the debate, had objected to the expression idolatry. But for himself, he declared his opinion that altar-worship was idolatry; and such worship had undoubtedly been enjoined by the bishops in all their cathedrals. Coupling afterwards Sir John Culpeper's assertion as to the danger of disturbing the existing Church government, with Sir Edward Dering's urgent appeal against the danger of permitting sectarianism to intrude into the liturgy or service, Pym avowed his readiness to join in a law against sectaries, and remarked that they would most surely prevent the evil by going to the root of what caused it. Let them take care, then, that no more of such pious and godly ministers as were now separatists beyond the sea, should be driven out of England for not reading the Book of Sports. Adverting next to what had fallen from opponents of the Declaration in admission of the slanders thrown out against parliament, Pym challenged them to show that anything but a Declaration could take away the accusations that had so been laid upon the members of that house. To Dering's remark against the suggestion of a more equal provision for ministers of the Church, that it would interfere with the great prizes, he replied that he held it best that learning should be better provided for in the general than extravagantly rewarded in the particular. Another learned knight on the opposite benches (Sir Benjamin Rudyard) had objected to what he termed the prophetical part of the Declaration, but he would remind the worthy member that the Declaration did not prophesy, but said simply that which it believed to be fit, and might easily be done. The member who followed him (Mr. Bagshaw) had questioned the propriety of asserting that the Court of Chancery had grown arbitrary and unjust in their jurisdiction, but to this he replied that not the Chancery alone but every English court had of late years usurped unjust and arbitrary jurisdiction. To the worthy knight opposite (Sir John Culpeper) who averred that a decla

VOL. I.

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ration going from this house alone, without having desired the lords to join, went but upon one leg, he answered that the matter of this particular declaration was in no respect fit for the lords. Many of the lords were accused in it. It also dealt throughout with subjects which had been agitated only in that house. The assertions made by the same honourable person, that all remonstrances should be addressed to the King, and that their writs of election did not warrant them to send any declarations to the people, were not borne out by the practice. Remonstrances were not in truth directed either to the King or the people, but showed the acts of the House. If it were desired to present the Declaration now before them to the King, it must be done by Petition prefixed to it; and for his own. part he inclined that such should be the course. Honourable speakers had complained of a direction to the people in this case, but where was it? Such had not been the purpose, nor was it necessary. It would suffice that its contents should reach the people, and be read by them. And when, by means of the Declaration, it became known throughout England how matters stood, and how the members of the house had been slandered, it would bind and secure to them the people's hearts.

It was late in that November evening before Pym resumed his seat, but candles had been brought long ago, and the debate still went on. Orlando Bridgman, member for Wigan, so soon to be Sir Orlando and law dignitary to the King, rose next from among the group of lawyers seated near Hyde, and questioned Pym's view of the House's right to remonstrate or declare alone. They could only consent, counsel, and petition; and it was expressly said, in the indemnity of the Lords and Commons, that nothing should be reported out of either house, without consent of both houses. As for what had been said of the separatists driven beyond sea, he thought them a condition of men to be taken away, being they were not at all moderate. To the right of approval sought by the House for ever over all counsellors selected by the King, he

objected; and he thought the temporary ground alleged, of the necessity so to obtain security for a proper use of the money to be voted for the affairs of Ireland, a reason too particular to justify so general a demand.

Edmund Waller started up and spoke after Bridgman, and with ingenious and lively turns of expression, as his custom was. He thought the Declaration ill-named, he said. It was aimed more at the future than the past, and expostulated less with what had been done than with what was expected to be done. He thought it should be called, not a Remonstrance, but a Premonstrance. And how unnatural were all such expedients for expressing the will of that House. Laws were the children of the parliament, and it did not become them to destroy their offspring by means of orders and declarations. By what authority, too, did they claim the right to control the King in the choice of his counsellors? Freeholders had power to choose freely the members of the House of Commons to make laws, and yet the King must not choose counsellors to advise according to law without the approbation of the House. In one sense it might indeed be a Remonstrance, but it was a Remonstrance against the laws.

John Hampden now rose. Little remains of what he said, but sufficient proof that he must have spoken, as he did ever, with calm decision, yet with that rare temper universally attributed to him in debate, and which even to a discussion so angry and passionate as this, could bring its portion of affability and courtesy. What were the objections, he asked, to this Declaration? When that House discovered ill counsels, might it not say there were ill counsellors, and complain of them? When any man was accused, might he not say he had done his endeavour? "And," continued the member for Bucks, "we say no "more in this." The party opposed to the members of the house was prevalent, and it was therefore necessary for them to say openly that they had given their best advice. That was declared in the Remonstrance, and no counter remonstrance could come against them, being it was

wholly true. Quiet and merely suggestive, however, as Hampden's general tone in this speech seems to have been, yet at least once, in the course of it, he rose to a higher strain. We have seen that Dering enforced his argument against using the power and revenues of the Bishops in any attempt to strengthen the Church by so giving influence and increase to the general body of the clergy, by remarking that if any man could cut the moon out all into little stars, although the same amount of moon might still remain in small pieces, both light and influence would be gone. Taking up this extravagant illustration, Hampden claimed to apply it differently. He asked the House to remember what authority they had for believing that the stars were more useful to the Church than the moon. And then he quoted from the Book of Revelations the passage' under which the perfect Church, the spouse of Christ, is figured, and warned them that when the woman should be clothed with the sun, the moon would be under her feet, and her head would be circled with stars.

The House had now been sitting, without interval or rest, for a length of time unexampled in any one's experience. It was nearly nine o'clock before Hampden resumed his seat, yet still the cries for adjournment were resisted amid excitement and agitation visibly increasing. D'Ewes had himself left the house soon after four in the afternoon. He foresaw, as he tells us, that the debate in the issue would be long and vehement; and having been informed by Sir Christopher Yelverton, member for Bossiney, that those who wished well to the Declaration did intend to have it pass without the alteration of any one word, he did the rather absent himself ("being also somewhat ill of a cold taken yesterday ") because there were some particulars therein which he had formerly spoken against, and could not in his conscience assent unto, although

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1 "And there appeared a great "wonder in Heaven: A Woman "clothed with the sun, and the

moon under her feet, and upon her "head a crown of twelve stars."Revelations, xii. 1.