Reign of Charles I. (Continued.) page 11

The question of the Self-denying Ordinance was vigorously debated for ten days in the commons. Vane seconded the motion of Tate, and another member observed that two summers had passed over, and they were not saved. Their victories, he said, the price of such invaluable blood, seemed to have been put into a bag with holes; the treasure was wasted, the country exhausted, the summer's victory was a mere winter's story, to be resumed in the spring, and the cause of it all was the contention of the commanders. A fast was appointed for imploring a blessing on the new project: the people of London, on the 12th of December, petitioned the house, thanking them for their proceedings, and, after serious debate and opposition, the bill was passed on the 19th, On the 21st it was sent up to the lords, where it was vigorously attacked by Essex, Manchester, and the rest of the lords affected, as a gross insult to, and libel on them, after all their services, and was, in fact, a disqualification of the whole nobility of England. On the loth of January the lords threw it out. Notwithstanding, the commons went on remodelling the army, fixed its numbers at twenty-one thousand effective men, namely, fourteen thousand foot, six thousand horse, and one thousand dragoons. They then nominated Sir Thomas Fairfax commander-in-chief instead of Essex; Skippon, the old train-band major, was made major-general; the lieutenant-general being left unnamed, the commons, spite of their own ordinance, resolving that Cromwell should hold that post, but avoiding to increase the opposition to the general measure by mentioning him.

On the 28th of January, the commons, having completed the organisation of the army and the appointment of the officers, again sent the ordinance up to the peers, who, seeing that they should be obliged to swallow it, moulded it into a more digestible shape, by insisting that all officers should be nominated by both houses, and that no one should be capable of serving who did not take the solemn League and Covenant within twenty days. But the lords were struck with an apprehension that the commons meant to do without them in the end, and they therefore exercised their rights in opposing the acts of the lower house. They refused to sanction one half of the officers appointed by Sir Thomas Fairfax, who had been introduced to the commons on the 18th of February, thanked for his past services, and complimented on his appointment. To remove the suspicion of the peers, the commons assured them by message that they had bound themselves to be as tender of the honours and rights of the peers as they were of their own. This pacified the lords, and yielding to a necessity too strong for them, Essex, Manchester, Denbigh, and the rest resigned their commands, and on the 3rd of April the Self-denying Ordinance was passed by the peers. Sir Thomas Fairfax proceeded to Windsor to remodel the army according to the new act. He did not find this an easy task; many, who were dismissed by the act or for their past conduct, were unwilling to be cashiered; others would not serve under the new officers; and Dalbier, who had been one of the worst counsellors of Essex, lay apart with eight troops of horse, as if he contemplated going over to the king. At length, however, he came in, and the work was completed.

Whilst these things had been occurring in the field and the parliament, events had occurred also both in England and Scotland, which, not to interrupt the course of the higher transactions, have been deferred. From the month of June, 1643, the synod of divines at Westminster had been at work endeavouring to establish a national system of faith and worship. This Westminster assembly consisted of one hundred and twenty individuals appointed by the lords and commons. They included not only what were called pious, godly, and judicious divines, but thirty laymen, ten lords, and twenty commoners, and with them sate the Scottish commissioners. The Scotch and English presbyterians had a large majority, and endeavoured to fix on this nation their gloomy, ascetic, and persecuting notions; but, as we have seen, they found a small but resolute party of a more liberal faith, the independents, including Vane, Selden, and others. whose bearing and spirit, backed by Cromwell, Whitelock, St. John, and others in parliament, were more than a match for this overbearing intolerance. On the subject of church government, therefore, there could be no agreement. Cromwell demanded from the house of commons an act of toleration, and that a committee should be formed of deputies from both houses and from the assembly to consider it. The subject was long and fiercely debated, the lords Say and Wharton, Sir Henry Vane, and St. John contending for the independence of the church from all bishops, synods, and ruling powers whatever. The only thing agreed upon was, that the English common prayer book should be thrown overboard, and a directory of worship introduced which regulated the order of the service, the administration of the sacrament, the ceremonies of marriage and burial - but left much liberty to the minister in the matter of his sermons. This directory was, by an ordinance of both houses, ordered to be observed both in England and Scotland.

This must have been a grievous spectacle to poor old archbishop Laud, who was still in prison, and in the turmoil of civil war by many totally forgotten. But the puritans of England and the people of Scotland needed only a slight reminder to demand the punishment of the man who, with so high a hand, had trodden down their liberties and their religion. This was given them by the lords, who, insisting on appointing ministers to livings in his gift, called on Laud to collate the vacant benefices to such persons as they should nominate. The king forbade him to obey. At length, in February 1643, the rectory of Chartham, in Kent, became vacant by the death of the incumbent, the lords nominated one person, the king another, and Laud, placed in a dilemma dangerous to his life under his circumstances, endeavoured to excuse himself by remaining passive. But the lords, in the month of April, sent him a peremptory order, and on his still delaying, sent a request to the commons to proceed with his trial. There were fourteen articles of impeachment already hanging over his head, and the commons appointed Prynne, still smarting under the ear-lopping, branding, and cruelties of the archbishop, to collect evidence and co-operate with a committee on the subject.

What an apparition must that earless man, with those livid brand marks on his cheeks, have been as he entered the cell of Laud, and told him that the day of retribution was come. Prynne collected all his papers, even the diary which he had been so long employed in writing, as the defence of Ms past life, and sought in every quarter for remaining victims and witnesses of his persecutions and cruelties, to bring them up against him. In six months the committee had collected evidence enough to furnish ten new articles of impeachment against him, and on the 4th of March, 1644, more than three years after his commitment, he was called upon to take his trial. He demanded time to consult his papers, and to have them for that purpose restored, to have counsel, and money out of the proceeds of his estate to pay his fees and other necessary expenses. He was not likely to find much more tenderness from his enemies than he had showed to them; the Scotch demanded stern justice upon him, as the greatest enemy which their country had known for ages. Time was given him till the 12th of March, when he was brought to the bar of the house of lords. There, after the once haughty but now humbled summits pontifex had been made to kneel a little, Mr. Serjeant Wild opened the case against him, and went over, at great length, the whole story of his endeavours to introduce absolutism in church and state in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the dreadful cruelties and oppressions which he had inflicted on the king's subjects in the Star-chamber and High Commission Courts.

When he had done, Laud defended himself from a written paper, contending that though he had leaned towards the law, he had never intended to overthrow the laws, and that he had in the church laboured only for the support of the external form of worship, which had been neglected. But the hearers had not forgotten the "Thorough," nor the utter suppression of all forms of religion but his own, the sweeping away utterly of the faith of Scotland, and the substitution of Arminianism and the liturgy.

It was not till the 2nd of September that Laud was called to the bar of the lords to deliver his recapitulation of the arguments in answer to his charges. Mr. Samuel Brown, a member of the commons, and a manager of the trial, replied to them. Laud was then allowed counsel to speak to the parts of law, who took the same course of defence as had been taken in the case of Stafford, declaring that the prisoner's offence did not amount to high treason, and the commons then adopted their plan in Strafford's case, of proceeding by attainder. He was, therefore, on the 2nd of November, brought to the bar of their own house, where Mr. Brown repeated the sum of the evidence produced in the lords, and Laud was called on to reply himself to the charges. He demanded time to prepare his answer, and obtained eight days. On the 11th of November he was heard, and Brown in reply; and the commons the same day passed their bill of attainder, finding him fully convicted of the offences charged against him. On the 16th they sent up this bill to the lords; but it was not till the 4th of January, 1645, that the lords also passed the bill, and soon after fixed the day of his execution for the 10th. The last effort to save the old man's life was by the production of a pardon which had been prepared at Oxford, as soon as the danger of his conviction was seen, and was signed and sealed by the king. This pardon was read in both houses, but was declared of no effect, the king having no power to pardon a crime adjudged by parliament. On the appointed day, the archbishop was beheaded on Tower Hill The news of his death made a deep impression on Charles. Both he and Strafford had died for the execution of his orders, and for the very same offence against the constitution for which he was now proscribed by parliament. In his eyes they were martyrs, not to his own crimes against the people, but to the lawless power of parliament. He had weakly surrendered the life of Strafford, but here parliament had proceeded without him; and he felt a deep satisfaction in the belief that God would punish them for this awful sin, and that their cause would dwindle and perish under his divine displeasure.

The fate of Laud has been greatly lamented, and there were many circumstances which caused men to regard his last days with commiseration. He had suffered severely from his confinement and anxiety of mind, and was overwhelmed by age and infirmities. Time had weakened the sense of his crimes, and circumstances had deprived him of any further power of evil. But, on the other hand, we must bear in mind that he had been a most determined traitor to all freedom of mind, conscience, and person; a fearful violator of the sacred guarantees of domestic life, and of personal feeling and existence, in the horrid places in the star-chamber; and as he was undoubtedly guilty of the highest possible kind of treason against the nation, the example of his punishment was salutary - a stern warning to future high-priests of political and ecclesiastical force.