THE

GREAT CIVIL WAR.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

IF the Petition of Rights, which in the third Parliament of Charles I. confirmed those liberties that were already the birthright of Englishmen, had been ingenuously assented to by the king, and taken by the brave and strong-minded men who were its authors for a final measure, it is possible the kingdom might have been spared the calamities of the following twenty years. But when, in the confidence of victory, the popular leaders proceeded to make that just and necessary enactment a vantage ground for direct attacks on the prerogative of the crown; and when, on the other hand, the distrustful sovereign withdrew, in effect, that assent to it which had diffused among the people universal joy; a breach was made, which the living generation, though they successively flung into it every thing dear to man, were never to see closed.

The triumphs of that assembly were achieved by

B

men whom, or whose like, even the great period we propose to sketch saw not again met together. The fiery Eliot, foremost, if not greatest, perished long ere another parliament was called - unhappily in prison. Sir Thomas Wentworth, satisfied with that noble victory, so large a share of which was his own, mindful to which of the great parties in the state was now due the devotion of his vast political genius, went over to the king.

His example was followed by Digges, Littleton, Noy, and others of inferior note. Yet, that the spirit of the party survived, and would survive, while one man in particular lived, was apparent from a now familiar anecdote of the time. That man was Pym; whose sterling eloquence, learning, application, and matchless tenacity of purpose, admirably fitted him for his office, as leader of an opposition so weighty in talent and vast in its designs. Wentworth, before carrying into effect his final resolve, sought an interview in private with his inflexible associate, in which he imparted his present views, suggesting the advantages that would accrue from conciliation.

"You need not," interrupted Pym, indignantly, at once perceiving Wentworth's drift, while visions of impeachment rose upon his sight, "to tell me that you have a mind to leave us. But remember what I say,—you are going to be undone. And remember, also, that though you leave us now, I will never leave you while your head is on your shoulders."

Refusing to pass a bill for supplies, which the wants of the executive rendered urgent, the third

parliament was dissolved in the midst of an ominous storm of contumacy on the part of the commons, and of disappointment and displeasure on that of the king. The representatives of the people retired to their homes, to brood over their personal wrongs and the despotism which now more than threatened the country, and to inflame, by their various statements of grievance, the popular discontent. The course pursued by the king had in it so much of inconsiderateness and obvious impolicy, beside what wilfulness may be imputed to it, as no hypothesis can explain, but one that includes a thorough conviction in the royal mind of its justice, in existing circumstances. He now commenced in earnest the fatal plan of governing by the bare force of prerogative, until a parliament could be convened with the prospect of a more complying temper. It is fair to acquit Charles of a wish to encroach upon the known rights of his people; but a crisis had arrived, when the people would no longer distinguish between such a wish and a resolution to maintain those adverse claims of the crown, which he had inherited from his predecessors, and thought himself bound to defend in his own person, and transmit, unimpaired, to his children. King Charles really desired to be the father of his people; but in his code of parental duty he included denial and correction with indulgence. We have no disposition to vindicate those infractions of the constitution, as now defined, which followed rapidly on each other. We cannot but observe, however, that, numerous and gross as they were, and directed equally

against the freedom and the property of the subject, there were never wanting powerful minds ready to expose and exaggerate, if they were unable to prevent them; while few mentioned, perhaps few believed, the advancing prosperity of the people, which their combined operation did not check.

The brightest track along the course of the years which followed, is, with all its errors, the path of Wentworth. Raised to the dignities of baron and viscount, and to the offices of a privy-counsellor and president of the Council of the North, this great statesman, on the dissolution of the parliament, instantly applied himself with characteristic ardour to the high but perilous duties of his presidency.

The Council of the North was a court erected at York, in the reign of Henry VIII., with jurisdiction over the five northern counties, in those times the theatre of frequent insurrection. The great and irregular powers exercised by this court, were, on Wentworth's appointment, enlarged to an almost unlimited extent. In administering them with strict but haughty and severe impartiality, he succeeded in the twofold object of bearing down with a high hand every show of disaffection towards the government, and of raising to an unprecedented amount the income derived from that part of the kingdom to the royal exchequer. Charles had soon to acknowledge, rather than discover, such extraordinary zeal and ability in his new minister, as manifestly qualified him to serve the state in a wider sphere. Wentworth was nominated lord-deputy of Ireland, without

being required to resign the chair of the northern presidency.

That ever-unhappy country was now for the first time governed by a hand vigorous and steady enough for the task. Wentworth made his appearance in Dublin with the pomp and ceremonial of royalty: it was his acknowledged principle of government to rule, not merely as a vice-king, but as the deputed sovereign of a conquered province. Benefits and severities he dispensed with a sternly equal hand; but even the severities of a master-mind, when first placed at the head of an arbitrary government, being for the most part merely the extinction of minor oppressions in the sovereign sway, are, for the people, blessings in disguise. One of the many historians who have poured their vials of angry censure on the proud head of Wentworth, bears this reluctant testimony: "the Richelieu of Ireland, he made that island wealthier in the midst of exactions, and, one might almost say, happier in the midst of oppressions."

The benefits conferred on Ireland by Wentworth were diffused through all her institutions. We trace them in a more than quadrupled revenue; in the church strengthened and made more efficient; in the courts of justice reformed; in the army disciplined; in commerce and manufactures cherished and extended; in a population wealthier, more peaceful, and more humane. Its concomitant excesses are illustrated (among other less-remembered instances) by the trial and sentencing to death of the Lord Mountnorris,