University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.

After that mighty trial of the strength of parties—the
bill of general remonstrance—had passed
through the house, there followed a short pause—a
lull, as it were, in the loud tempest of commotion
—a breathing-space snatched from the midst of
battle. With the exception of a short and somewhat
turbulent debate on the day following that of
the main question, originating in a wish on the part
of the puritanic leaders to punish those who had

protested on the previous night, but resulting merely
in a penalty of form inflicted on one person, Jeffry
Palmer—the commons seemed to relax in the vigour
of their defensive warfare against the crown.
The bill for regulation of the militia and prevention
of forcible impressment, unless in case of actual
invasion, was, it is true, brought forward, but without
any of that inveterate and rancorous spirit
which had signalized their earlier measures. The
king, on his return from Scotland, was received—
chiefly in consequence of the exertions of Sir Richard
Gourney, the lord mayor of London, an active
and uncompromising loyalist—with loud, if not sincere,
manifestations of welcome and affection—was
feasted at the Guildhall with more than ordinary
splendour, and hailed, as he passed to and fro the
city, with thundering acclamations by the wavering
and worthless populace. A farther triumph still
awaited him in the address presented at his residence
of Hampton Court, by aldermen deputed
from the city, requesting him to take up his abode
among them, and to hold his court, as heretofore,
in his palace of Whitehall. This loyal and well-timed
address—reputed, as it was, to be distasteful
in no small degree to parliament—was graciously
accepted; the deputies all knighted, and the request
granted joyfully. The bills, moreover, most obnoxious
to the king—that principally which would
exclude the bishops' votes—made but slow progress,
and, even should it pass the commons, was
not expected to receive the sanction of the lords.
Falkland and Colepepper, heretofore active members
of the reforming party, although moderate and
wary, now having taken office openly—the former
being secretary of state in lieu of Vane, the latter
chancellor of the exchequer—held nightly conferences
at the house of Hyde for the well and
wisely ordering the shaken and dismantled principles
of government; and would, as it seems probable,
have met with eminent success in their beneficent
and patriotic measures, had it not been for
secret influences and the prevalence of counsellors
behind the throne, unseen and unsuspected, but exercising—and
for ends most infamous and selfish—
a power, to which, unhappily for him and for his
kingdom, the mind of Charles, easily led, and prone
to arbitrary counsels, though obstinate and inaccessible
to aught of argument unsuited to his own
opinions, yielded complete obedience. Such was
the state of matters—things gradually looking
brighter and more bright for the royal party, and
the remonstrant leaders, Hampden especially, not
only becoming less violent in their opposition, but
beginning to judge more favourably of the king's
motives and intent—when the insane and childish
protest of the bishops, instigated to it by the proud
and angry Williams, was sent forth, declaring “all
laws, orders, votes, resolutions, and determinations
already passed, or such as shall hereafter pass,
during their absence from that most honourable
house”—compulsory, as they affirmed it—“null
and of none effect.” The consequence was an
immediate and almost unanimous vote, both of the
lords and commons, for the committal of the prelates
to the tower—one solitary member only so far
opposing it, as to declare that he believed them utterly
insane, and therefore recommended Bedlam,
rather than the tower, as a fit place for their detention.
Then came reports of plots—rumours of aggressions
meditated on the lower house—doubts,
and despondencies, and wrath, and panics! It was
believed on all sides, that, without confident assurance
of support, the bishops had not dared to rush
to such extremities. Petitions were poured in from
every quarter! One from the city, setting forth
that, since their loyal gratulations on his majesty's
return had been misconstrued as though they would
disown the doings of the parliament, they now declared
their full resolve to live and die with them
for the good of the commonwealth. Addresses
multiplied, and were accompanied, even to the palace,
by such crowds, that, in a message to the common
council, the king complained of the tumultuous
assemblages daily increasing, to the disturbance of
his palace of Whitehall. On the same day the
parliament petitioned him to grant to them a guard,
commanded by the Earl of Essex—that detailed
for their protection during his absence in the north
having been instantly disbanded on his late return
—on account of a malignant party now daring
openly to threaten them with violence. To this
request, reasonable as after events proved it to have
been, the self-willed monarch returned a negative,
though offering that such a guard should wait on
them—under a leader of his own choice, utterly
subservient to his will—“as he would be answerable
for to Almighty God!” This proposition they
of course declined, perceiving, doubtless, that the
guard so ordered would be more like to militate
against their liberties, if not their persons, than to
defend them from external outrage. It was upon
the very day that followed this insidious offer—for
such it must be deemed—that, urged by his worst
counsellor, the false and faithless Henrietta, to that
most rash and headlong step which rendered his
affairs for ever irretrievable, and reconciliation with
his subjects hopeless—elated still by his reception
in the city, and heedless of the daily proofs of public
feeling and opinion, he went on to commit his
last and desperate aggression on the privilege of
parliament—an aggression! which, had they tamely
borne, his throne would have been fixed for ever
on the firm basis of despotic rule, and England
would have lain a fettered captive at his tyrannous
footstool. It was on the next day, while the protestation—that
he would be answerable to Almighty
God for the safe-guarding of their liberties and persons—was
yet fresh on his lips, that he struck that
blow at the very existence of parliaments, which,
had it fallen as intended, must have destroyed them
root and branch. For, on the afternoon of that
eventful day, Herbert, the king's attorney-general,
entered the house of peers, then sitting, and, drawing
out a paper in the king's own writing, read it
aloud; by which the Lord Kimbolton, present there
and then—and of the commons, Denzil Hollis, and
Sir Arthur Hazlerig, Pym, Strode, and Hampden,
stood each and all accused of treason, as conspirators
against the king and constitution. The peers
sat actually panic-stricken and aghast at this tremendous
stroke of folly and misgovernment, hearing
in sullen silence the grave accusation, while
Kimbolton, springing to his feet, with eloquent and
strenuous indignation, professed his total innocence;
nor was there any lord so hardy to so
much as move for his committal on his majesty's
behalf, Meanwhile the commons' house was entered
by the king's sergeant, demanding that the
speaker should deliver up the bodies of the members
named above, to answer to a charge of treason—bearing
no warrant or authority from magistrate
or counsellor, but acting solely at the king's
behest, and without intervention of the law. News
came at the same instant that the private lodgings
of those members had been visited by royal messengers,
their trunks and studies sealed up, and
their papers violently seized. With bold and masculine
resolve, well suited to the peril of the crisis,
did the house meet this haughty and high-handed
insolence! The sergeant, having gone through his
message, was desired to avoid the chamber; but
word was sent the monarch by a deputation, assuring
him those members should be instantly forthcoming
so soon as any legal charge should be preferred
against them—the house declaring, by a powerful
vote, those violent acts of seizure breaches
of privilege, audacious, and illegal!—empowering
their members to resist; calling on all men to abet
and aid them in resisting such attempts upon their
liberties as freeborn Britons; and instantly adjourning
for the night until the wonted hour on the
morrow.

It was at a late hour in the evening of this
fatal day that several ladies of the court, richly
and splendidly attired, might have been seen collected
in a proud saloon, decked with the master-pieces
of Vandyke and Rubens, with tapestries of
Gobelins and Arras hangings, with cabinets of buhl
and marquetry, buffets of antique golden plate and
yet more costly porcelain, and all those priceless
luxuries which mark a royal dwelling. Among
this glittering group, and seemingly its principal,
was one—a lady of low, slender stature, and a
shape slightly awry, though, by skill of her tire-woman,
this defect was so disguised as to be scarce
perceptible. Her hands were delicate, and gemmed—as
were her ears, her neck, the bosom of her
robe, and the rich volumes of her jet-black hair—
with Indian brilliants. Her features were agreeable
and sprightly, yet such as could not properly
be praised as regular or beautiful; a pair of bright
black eyes and a coquettish smile forming their
chief attraction. Her conversation, lively, and perhaps
even brilliant, though flippant and unguarded,
was listened to by her attendant ladies, and by the
only cavalier admitted to the presence—a man of

noble bearing, easy yet dignified, and withal in
person eminently handsome—with an attention so
profound that it denoted—even without the bended
knee and the averted back—the speaker to be one
of royal rank. Music and cards were in the chamber,
and a most lovely girl, of some seventeen or
eighteen years, was dancing to the amatory strains
of some concealed musician, in a style which would
be now esteemed far too voluptuous, if not absolutely
meretricious, to be performed by the chaste
limbs of ladies, or looked upon by modest eyes.
Yet neither lansquenet, nor the soft melody, nor the
exciting graces of the beautiful dancer, appeared
sufficient to banish some uneasiness which lowered
over that fair company. The brow of Henrietta,
for she it was, was dark and gloomy, much against
its wont, and her ill-humour had been so far contagious
as to affect her bright companions with all
the outward signs of discontent and sorrow. While
she was talking earnestly to the Lord Digby, now
—since the flight of Jermyn, her adulterous paramour—her
most beloved and trusty counsellor, a
short and hasty step was heard without, accompanied
by a slight bustle, as if some more distinguished
personage had suddenly and by surprise
come on the unexpectant chamberlains and pages,
sole inmates of the antechamber. The door of
polished oak flew open, and, bearing evident marks
of discomposure in his lip depressed and overshadowed
brow, a gentleman of graceful presence entered
the apartment. Of that time of life when the
rashness and the fire of youth are tempered by the
sedateness of increasing years, although the face
has lost no trait of its attraction, nor the limbs of
their alert and agile motion, Charles Stuart—for the
new-comer was no other—was of a middle height,
but strong and well proportioned, excepting that
his legs were triflingly bowed outward, a circumstance
which, while detracting somewhat from the
grace and symmetry of his appearance, was favourable
more than otherwise to his accustomed exercise
of horsemanship—to which, indeed, it might
have been in some sort owing. His visage, of a
just and oval form, was pleasing, although dark-complexioned;
his features regular and comely,
with a full dark eye; gentle, and somewhat dull in
its expression, unless its owner were aroused to sudden
anger, when it could kindle up and flash as
brightly as the keenest; he wore mustaches, somewhat
unusually large and curling upward, with a
small pointed beard of that precise and formal cut
which is so often met with in the portraits of Vandyke.
The most remarkable trait, however, of his
whole appearance, was that continual cloud of mild
and softened melancholy from which his dignified
and stately aspect rarely or never brightened; for,
even when he smiled, it was a faint and transient
flash, scarce clearing up the gloom of that accustomed
sadness which brooded over his countenance—although
his disposition was cheerful more
than otherwise, and, if not buoyant, certainly neither
mournful nor despondent—and which, as fanciful
and superstitious men have oftentimes imagined,
is ominous of an untimely end. His dress,
of plain black velvet, slashed and lined with satin,
differed in nothing—save that upon the left side of
his cloak glittered the diamond star belonging to
the order of the garter—from the garb of any private
gentleman. He wore his hat above his sable
hair, long-curled and flowing, and in his hand he
carried a strong cane or ferule, with a crutch head
of gold, which he struck passionately upon the carpet
as he entered.

“The undutiful, disloyal varlets!” he exclaimed,

in tones of strong excitement. “The false, rebellious
knaves!—to deal thus with their sovereign!”
—and for several moments he paced to and fro the
room, regardless of the eager entreaties of his affrighted
wife to speak the cause of his distemperature.

“A message!” he burst forth at length, but in
a voice broken and faltering with passion. “To
me! to me a message! I tell you, Marie, an' they
have their will, I may indeed be called your majesty—be
served upon the knee—be waited on bareheaded—but
I shall be no more a king—nay, ten
times less the master even of myself, than the most
lowly gentleman in all my wide dominions. But
so shall it not be!—No! By God—never!” and
in a few disjointed sentences he told her how he
had demanded of the parliament the bodies of six
members, on a charge of treason against himself
and them—and had received, not prompt obedience
to his orders, but a message!

“And is it possible,” she cried, artful and evil
woman that she was, in feigned astonishment and
indignation—“and is it possible, my lord, that you
—you, heir to such a line of mighty sovereigns—
you, monarch of Great Britain—will be thus braved
and thwarted—will be controlled, defied, and trampled
on by such a scum of low and scurvy fellows
as this parliament? That you will brook to
have your crown robbed of its brightest jewels of
prerogative—your sceptre wrested from your hands
without one struggle? Would—wretched princess
that I am—oh, would to God that I had tarried in
my own glorious France, or that I had been wedded
to a MAN!”

“Madam, go to!” the king retorted sharply—
for, all uxorious as he was, and prone to hold her
slightest words as mandates to his will, his temper,
naturally hasty and unpliant, was aggravated now,

even beyond its wont, by the commingled influence
of anger and irresolution. “Be silent—and dare
not impugn our energy and courage. England and
you shall know, and that right speedily, that neither
will Charles Stuart brook insolence at home,
nor usurpation of his rights abroad! And for these
—rash and reckless rogues—they too shall learn
that I am yet a king!”

“Well said!—well said, my gracious sovereign!”
exclaimed Digby, with an exulting voice
and an elated eye. “Better to crush at once this
spawn of venomous and vicious serpents in the dark
den wherein they have engendered, than one by
one to scotch them, when they shall have crawled
forth to pollute the blessed daylight, and swelled
from grovelling reptiles to the full growth of rampant
dragons!”

“In this,” cried Henrietta—“in this most noble
wrath, again I recognise the worthiest, the most
high-souled of men! To-morrow shalt thou pull
these vile rogues by the ears from out their infamous
cabal! Else never look me in the face
again!”

“Brave girl,” replied the facile king, ruing already
his late burst of anger—“Brave, brave Marie,
and beautiful as brave!” and, throwing one arm
round her waist, he led her to a sofa at the farthest
end of the saloon, where, seating himself at her
side, he hung, with all the manifest and ardent passion
of a boy-lover over the wily Delilah, who—
prodigal in secret to another than himself of her
voluptuous charms—had yet the perfidy, and with
it too the power, to woo him, by a scanty and reluctant
show of public fondness, to measures, her
only interest in which was to bring back a banished
lover to her guilty arms—how ruinous soever they
might be, she recked not, to her too trusting husband.