The coronation of the king, which preceded the opening of Parliament by a few days, was attended, however, by sinister auguries, which looked unfavourable. As in the case of William the Conqueror, who was crowned by the Archbishop of York, instead of the Primate, Laud* officiated in place of the discarded Williams. The ceremony was according to the ancient forms, though curtailed of much of the ancient splendour. Sir Robert Cotton was in waiting, with the book of the time of Athelstan of the four Evangelists in Latin, on which for many hundreds of years the English Kings had sworn their coronation oaths; but his faithful services to the people during the parliaments of James were remembered against him, and himself and his book were put aside. When that portion of the ceremony came at which-the king standing bareheaded before the altar-the people had to perform their part of consenting to receive him for their sovereign, there was a dead silence, until the Lord Marshal commanded them to shout. And when all was over, and the king and his chief minister came wearily away, a remark made half gravely by Charles, as Buckingham offered him his hand, probably expressed, as Sir Simon D'Ewes remarks in his autobiography, what was in the minds of both alike :-"I have as much need to help you as you to assist me." Both were conscious of the coming storm, so soon about to burst in the impeachment of of the minister; and so pressing was the need to assist Buckingham, that it had been resolved in a council, held a few days before the coronation, to make concessions in religious matters by way of warding off or moderating political discontents. Methinks," wrote Laud in his diary, on that occasion, “I see a cloud arising and threatening the Church of England. God of His mercy dissipate it!" The prayer, for the moment, was perhaps thought to have been heard. The cloud did not break at that moment; but when it did, it overwhelmed the chief actors in that memorable scene. Buckingham was the first to fall beneath the stroke of a fanatic; Laud was beheaded, and Strafford, who, in the memorable contest with Sir John Savile, for the right of representing the great county of Yorkshire, first displayed the haughty disregard for the rights of the people, which eventually brought him to the scaffold.

The spirit with which Charles met the complaints of his people, will be understood by considering the language which he permitted himself so early in his reign to address to his faithful Commons. On the first rumour of their intention to

Laud's love of justice in civil affairs may be judged from an existing MS. note of his, on the back of a list of all the Parliaments which had met since the commencement of the Plan

tagenet dynasty. Opposite the date of Magna Charta, he writes, "It had an obscure birth from usurpation, and was fostered and showed to the world by rebellion."

call Buckingham to account for his flagrant abuse of government, the king wrote at once to the House as follows:-“ I must let you know that I will not allow any of my servants to be questioned amongst you, much less such as are of eminent place and near unto me. I see you especially aim at the Duke of Buckingham. I wonder what hath so altered your affection towards him? ... What he hath done since the last Parliament of my father's time to alter and change your minds, I wot not; but can assure you he hath not meddled or done anything concerning the public or commonwealth but by special directions and appointment and as my servant. I would you would hasten for my supply, or else it will be worse for yourselves; for if any evil happen, I think I shall be the last that shall feel it."

It is unnecessary to remark that this unbecoming language did not prevent the House of Commons, under the guidance of Eliot, from impeaching the Duke of Buckingham, which an angry dissolution alone prevented from continuing to its legitimate end. Had not Felton's knife arrested Buckingham in the midst of his mad career, he would probably have met with the same fate as that of Strafford. The way in which Charles received the intelligence of the Duke's assassination is singularly characteristic. The king was at morning prayers with his household when the news arrived, which it became the duty of Sir John Hippisley to convey to his master. He crossed amid the kneeling servants to where the king was in the same reverent posture, and whispered it in his ear. As Charles knelt, his head was bowed and his face concealed; but whatever may have been the shock to his mind on hearing such intelligence, no outward sign revealed it. He remained still and unmoved until prayers were over, when he proceeded with the same show of calmness to his chamber, and flung himself on his bed in a passion of tears.

Not so the people generally. It is certain that a deep, vague sense of relief followed the announcement of the news, as it permeated gradually through the kingdom. A correspondent, writing to Lord Carlisle after the news had reached London only a few hours, describes the lower orders in the town already drinking healths to Felton, and that he had observed among the better class infinitely more of cheerful faces than sad ones. Hay wrote to the same nobleman that it was of no use attempting to conceal the extraordinary joy of the people. Even the College cellars at Oxford echoed the grief of certain Bachelors of Arts to have lost the honour of doing what was considered SO "brave a deed." Eliot, with more regard to Christian feeling, thus expressed himself on the occasion:-"The quarrell being begunn, all men were apprehensive of the injurie, and many did expresse it. Soe hard it is, wher publick wrongs are

done, to keep them from vindication or complaint. Minions maie enjoie the favor of their masters; but if they once abuse it, noe priviledg can protect them. The subjects' crie will followe them; and if it prevaile not upon earth, heaven will heare and help them. Justice is provided for their adversaries. Seldome they escape itt here; never hereafter. Vengeance does attend them; and when the offences done are soe hardlie left unpunished, this should make them more cautious in offending. The meeting of the Commons might have been prevented with much saftie; but, being mett, that crime was thought unpardonable. He that was the occasion of the trouble must have his share therein; and by that means or more, till the measure of his iniquities was full. And then, Vengeance must surprise him like a whirlwind, and noe favor or greatnesse may deliver him. But as his meritt, such must be his reward."

For the part which Eliot had taken in the impeachment of Buckingham, Charles sent him to the Tower; but, like every other action committed by that misguided monarch, it was attempted at a wrong moment. It was done while Parliament was sitting. The House of Commons at once interfered, resolutely refusing to proceed with any business until Eliot should be released; but they had already voted, and were preparing without a moment's delay a stern yet loyal remonstrance against such a violation of their privileges. Without a dissolution Charles had no alternative but to give way; and so, after some discreditable attempts on the part of the Court to justify the outrage, Eliot was released, and the House of Commons received back its most distinguished member in triumph.

So closed this affair on the king's part, as ignominiously ended as it was ill begun; a clumsy retreat from a position which there was neither the boldness to attempt to maintain, nor the good sense handsomely to abandon. A similar act of coercion had been attempted in the reign of Elizabeth, but with this mighty difference, as was shown when Eliot's case was discussed. Members had been before sent to the Tower, but not for words uttered in Parliament, one of whose most cherished privileges was freedom of speech within its walls, and the exclusive right of determining whether or not its limits were exceeded. But more than this, as regards the great queen; the moment she was conscious of having appeared to trespass on the privileges of her faithful Commons, nobody was more prompt in the way of redress. That is what her example might have taught the Stuarts, had they been capable of profiting by it. She understood, if ever ruler did, the art in which the highest government consists, of so conforming to the wants and necessities around it, as to make itself the true exponent of the legitimate wants of the people. Charles the First, unhappily, had no faithful counsellors to tell him this,

nor probably would he have listened had there been such at his side. After giving up everything that had sustained the prerogative while it had real work to do, he believed in it to the last as the only thing that could help him; and he was not the less ready to seize Pym and Hampden in 1641, because of his defeat and discomfiture to seize Eliot in 1626.

Between the time of the second and third Parliaments of Charles, a determined effort was made to supply the wants of the Government by means of a general forced loan. Universal was the resistance throughout the country to this novel mode of raising funds without the consent of Parliament. Sir John Eliot, for refusing, was selected from a multitude of other recusants, first sent to the Tower, then brought before the Council Table,* subsequently transferred a prisoner to the Gate House, where he remained until just before the election of the third Parliament, to which he was chosen as Member for the County of Cornwall, notwithstanding all the influence of the Court, which was unscrupulously exercised against him.

Speaking of this Parliament, the biographer of Sir John Eliot has justly observed:

"The Parliament that was to render itself more illustrious than any yet assembled in the old Chapel of St. Stephen, had now indeed brought itself together. There was to be only one in our English history more famous; and but for the work done in this its predecessor, reaffirming and strengthening the ancient liberties for the struggle which awaited them, that other and greater meeting could not have been. The third Parliament requires to be carefully studied, if the sublime patience of the English people, through the twelve years' trial that intervened before the Long Parliament met, is to be rightly understood, and if the acts of the Long Parliament itself are not to be judged superficially, or hastily condemned." (vol. ii. p. 113.)

The cause of this Parliament being one of the most memorable in English history, is the fact of its having passed the PETITION OF RIGHT, in the carrying of which Sir John Eliot played so prominent a part, and which in itself deserves to be characterized as our second Magna Charta. After a struggle, equalling in intensity what has been seen in our own day at the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, when every influence which the fears of the courtiers could suggest was brought to bear against that patriotic band, of which Eliot was the most distinguished chief; after enlarging the House of Peers, tampering with the House of Commons, and even questioning the judges in the hopes of escape, the King was compelled to give

his assent.

*Hampden's reply to the Council on the same occasion is very striking. "I could be content to lend as well as others, but I fear to draw upon myself that curse in Magua Charta which

should be read twice a year against those who infringe it." And Eliot's petition to the King, when a prisoner in the Gate House, is in the same noble strain. See vol. ii. pp. 87-92.

Mr. Forster describes the scene which took place on this occasion as follows:

"The last answer of the judges was handed in on Saturday the 31st of May, and prayers were hardly over in the Commons' House on the morning of Monday the 2nd of June, when they were summoned to attend the Lords. The King was already there. "Gentlemen,' he said, with a sullen abruptness, I am come hither to perform my duty. I think no man can think it long, since I have not taken so many days in answering the petition as ye spent weeks in framing it; and I am come hither to show you that, as well in formal things as in essential, I desire to give you as much content as in me lies.' The Lord Keeper said a few words; the petition was read, and nothing remained but the soit droit fait comme il est désiré, the form in which, for six centuries of the English monarchy, the royal assent to every statute so framed had been invariably and unalterably given. But, though never in all that time more anxiously expected, not to-day was the familiar sentence heard.

"Again Charles rose, and placed in the Lord Keeper's hands a paper, from which Coventry read what follows:-The King willeth that right be done according to the laws and customs of the realm; that the statutes be put in due execution; and that his subjects may have no cause to complain of any wrong or oppressions contrary to their just rights and liberties; to the preservation whereof he holds himself in conscience as well obliged, as of his own prerogative." These strange and unexpected words were listened to in profound silence. The Lords broke up, and the Commons, after returning to their house, and giving order that the answer just heard should be read on the following morning, immediately adjourned." (vol. ii. pp. 232, 233.)

A sense of something like despair appeared to have settled on the minds of the patriots. What availed their loyalty, if the king might be thus disloyal? Were the Commons of England to remain silent as to these things? They were the great council of the kingdom, and against such misgovernment of every part of the State it was their duty to protest. Mr. Forster considers that Eliot stood probably alone in still believing it to be not yet too late, and he drew others after him. "It has seemed to me," he says, "taking into account all the circumstances, that for swift application of those truest qualities of a statesman, sagacity and boldness, to an unexpected crisis of supreme danger, there is nothing in the story of these times that excels the conduct of Sir John Eliot on this memorable 8th of June."

The debate which ensued caused such an emotion of various passions, that "the like," says one describing the scene,

From the time of the Norman Conquest the royal assent to statutes had been given in the following form: For public bills the king saith, le roy le veult; for petitions of right, soit droit fait comme il est désiré; and in Vol. 64.-No. 327.

later times (as in the reign of the great Edward III., when the English language was first used in legislation), for bills of subsidies it is ever thus:the king heartily thanks his subjects for their good wills. (Parl. Hist. viii. 237.)

2 G