BABY CHARLES became KING CHARLES THE FIRST,in the twenty-fifth year of his age.Unlike his father,he was usually amiable in his private character,and grave and dignified in his bearing;but,like his father,he had monstrously exaggerated notions of the rights of a king,and was evasive,and not to be trusted.If his word could have been relied upon,his history might have had a different end.
His first care was to send over that insolent upstart,Buckingham,to bring Henrietta Maria from Paris to be his Queen;upon which occasion Buckingham-with his usual audacity-made love to the young Queen of Austria,and was very indignant indeed with CARDINAL RICHELIEU,the French Minister,for thwarting his intentions.The English people were very well disposed to like their new Queen,and to receive her with great favour when she came among them as a stranger.But,she held the Protestant religion in great dislike,and brought over a crowd of unpleasant priests,who made her do some very ridiculous things,and forced themselves upon the public notice in many disagreeable ways.Hence,the people soon came to dislike her,and she soon came to dislike them;and she did so much all through this reign in setting the King (who was dotingly fond of her)against his subjects,that it would have been better for him if she had never been born.
Now,you are to understand that King Charles the First-of his own determination to be a high and mighty King not to be called to account by anybody,and urged on by his Queen besides-deliberately set himself to put his Parliament down and to put himself up.You are also to understand,that even in pursuit of this wrong idea (enough in itself to have ruined any king)he never took a straight course,but always took a crooked one.
He was bent upon war with Spain,though neither the House of Commons nor the people were quite clear as to the justice of that war,now that they began to think a little more about the story of the Spanish match.But the King rushed into it hotly,raised money by illegal means to meet its expenses,and encountered a miserable failure at Cadiz,in the very first year of his reign.An expedition to Cadiz had been made in the hope of plunder,but as it was not successful,it was necessary to get a grant of money from the Parliament;and when they met,in no very complying humour,the,King told them,'to make haste to let him have it,or it would be the worse for themselves.'Not put in a more complying humour by this,they impeached the King's favourite,the Duke of Buckingham,as the cause (which he undoubtedly was)of many great public grievances and wrongs.The King,to save him,dissolved the Parliament without getting the money he wanted;and when the Lords implored him to consider and grant a little delay,he replied,'No,not one minute.'He then began to raise money for himself by the following means among others.
He levied certain duties called tonnage and poundage which had not been granted by the Parliament,and could lawfully be levied by no other power;he called upon the seaport towns to furnish,and to pay all the cost for three months of,a fleet of armed ships;and he required the people to unite in lending him large sums of money,the repayment of which was very doubtful.If the poor people refused,they were pressed as soldiers or sailors;if the gentry refused,they were sent to prison.Five gentlemen,named SIR THOMAS DARNEL,JOHN CORBET,WALTER EARL,JOHN HEVENINGHAM,and EVERARD HAMPDEN,for refusing were taken up by a warrant of the King's privy council,and were sent to prison without any cause but the King's pleasure being stated for their imprisonment.Then the question came to be solemnly tried,whether this was not a violation of Magna Charta,and an encroachment by the King on the highest rights of the English people.His lawyers contended No,because to encroach upon the rights of the English people would be to do wrong,and the King could do no wrong.The accommodating judges decided in favour of this wicked nonsense;and here was a fatal division between the King and the people.
For all this,it became necessary to call another Parliament.The people,sensible of the danger in which their liberties were,chose for it those who were best known for their determined opposition to the King;but still the King,quite blinded by his determination to carry everything before him,addressed them when they met,in a contemptuous manner,and just told them in so many words that he had only called them together because he wanted money.The Parliament,strong enough and resolute enough to know that they would lower his tone,cared little for what he said,and laid before him one of the great documents of history,which is called the PETITION OF RIGHT,requiring that the free men of England should no longer be called upon to lend the King money,and should no longer be pressed or imprisoned for refusing to do so;further,that the free men of England should no longer be seized by the King's special mandate or warrant,it being contrary to their rights and liberties and the laws of their country.At first the King returned an answer to this petition,in which he tried to shirk it altogether;but,the House of Commons then showing their determination to go on with the impeachment of Buckingham,the King in alarm returned an answer,giving his consent to all that was required of him.He not only afterwards departed from his word and honour on these points,over and over again,but,at this very time,he did the mean and dissembling act of publishing his first answer and not his second-merely that the people might suppose that the Parliament had not got the better of him.