CHAPTER V. IMPEACHMENT OF THIRTEEN BISHOPS PREPARATIONS FOR A RECESS SIX WEEKS OF LULL, AND VIEW OF THE STATE OF THE rejection by the Lords of the Bill of the Commons for the exclusion of Bishops from Parliament was still the great topic of public interest in England (July 1641). What would the Commons do? IMPEACHMENT OF THIRTEEN BISHOPS. The policy of the Commons was peculiar. Forsaking for the moment the Root-and-Branch Bill which had been introduced by Deering, and allowing that Bill to hang in the imagination of the public, as a mere proposition for the future, in contrast with Bishop Williams's draft of a Limited Episcopacy Bill proposed in the Lords, they turned all their energy into a course of action for immediately clearing the way. This consisted in the impeachment of as many of the existing Bishops as possible on personal charges. If they had failed to abolish the Episcopal Bench in the House of Lords by a direct legislative measure, they had the means at least of thinning that Bench by putting on trial a good many of its occupants for past offences. Again and again had the subject of the Convocation of 1640 and its illegal canons been discussed in Parliament, by the Lords as well as by the Commons. Not only had resolutions. been passed as early as December declaring the Canons void, but a Bill had been introduced into the Commons (April 1641) "for punishing and fining of the members of the late Convocation of the Provinces of Canterbury and York." According to this Bill, Laud's fine was to be 20,0007.; the other Bishops implicated were to pay fines of from 1,000l. to 10,000l., according to their degrees of culpability; and then there was to be a shower of fines, in such sums as 2007., 300%, and 5007., among the Deans, Archdeacons, and Proctors of the Convocation. If the application of this Bill had been waived, it had been conditionally on the good behaviour of those whom it threatened; and now that, in the opinion of the Commons, this good behaviour, on the part of the Bishops at least, had ceased, a new attack upon them seemed justifiable. In short, on the 4th of August there was sent up to the Lords a formal impeachment of thirteen of the Bishops collectively--Wren, Pierce, Hall, Warner, Owen of St. Asaph, Skinner, Goodman, Coke, Roberts, Wright, Owen of Llandaff, Towers, and Curle-on account of their co-operation with Laud in the illegal canons and other acts of the late Convocation.2 It was prayed of the Lords that the impeached Bishops "might be forthwith put "to their answers in the presence of the Commons, and that "such further proceedings might be had against them as to "law and justice should appertain." The intention was to intimidate the Bishops, so as to induce them voluntarily to withdraw from the House. That object gained, the impeachment would have been dropped. The Bishops, however, having resolved to stand to their defence, the Commons had to make up their minds for a prolonged battle. Accordingly, from the beginning of August all the miscellaneous activity that had hitherto been rife against Episcopacy, the Liturgy, Deans, and Chapters, &c., was transmuted into the form of a battle between the Commons and the Bishops personally. Hardly had the battle been declared (Aug. 4) when an event happened which was to interrupt it, and to lead, moreover, to a temporary cessation of all public business whatsoever. 1 Parl. Hist. II. 772-3. 2 Rushworth, IV. 359, and Commons Journals, Aug. 4, 1641. PREPARATIONS FOR A RECESS. We have seen that by the end of June the long and purposely-protracted proceedings of the Scottish Treaty had been so far wound up that most of the Scottish Commissioners had gone home, and nothing remained to prevent the final signature of the Treaty and the disbanding of the two armies but some arrangements of detail. Now, exactly three days after the impeachment of the Bishops, or on Saturday the 7th of August, the completed Treaty between the two kingdoms was signed. It arranged for the payment of the Scottish indemnity and arrears in three annual instalments; it confirmed the past acts of the Scottish Parliament and guaranteed its future freedom; and it promised a good understanding between the two countries in future, to be shown by endeavours on both sides to attain to a unity of religion.1 This Treaty having been signed, the clasp which for near a twelvemonth had united the two nations was unfastened, and the two were to fall asunder with mutual expressions of goodwill. But what was the surprise of the English Parliament when, on the very day of the signing of the Treaty, the King, going to the Lords, informed them of his intention of paying an immediate visit to Scotland! It was one of the provisions of the Treaty that the King would show his regard for the Scots by occasionally visiting them, or sending the Prince of Wales to reside among them; and since May there had been talk of a visit to Scotland. as possible that year. Neither the Scots nor the English, however, had made sure of the matter; and both were now taken somewhat by surprise. The Commons sat till ten o'clock that night, so perplexed were they by the news; nay, they met on the next day, though it was Sunday, for further business arising out of the King's resolve-registering a caution, however, that this Sunday sitting should not be taken as a precedent. No persuasion could delay the King even for a fortnight. The Scottish Parliament and General Assembly were both then sitting, and his immediate presence 1 Rushworth, IV. 362–375; and Rapin, II. 367-8. in Scotland was important! In short, on Tuesday the 10th of August he did set out for Scotland, accompanied by his nephew the Prince-Elector Palatine, the young Duke of Lennox (then just created Duke of Richmond), and the Marquis of Hamilton. 1 In any circumstances this departure of the King would have had some effect on the progress of business in the English Parliament. As it was, it helped to bring on an interruption which was natural enough for other reasons. It was now the heat of summer; and again the Plague, then an annual dread in England, was at work in the lanes and alleys of the metropolis. In the third week of August there were 610 deaths in the city, of which 131 were by plague and 118 by small-pox. Among the recent victims to smallpox had been the Earl of Bedford, the Liberal leader in the Lords. He had died on the 9th of May. Several members of the Commons had since then died of plague, and others were in alarm, as living in infected houses. Moreover, apart from plague and the unusual heat of the weather-" this hot season," as Milton calls it in one of his pamphlets-some rest after so long a session was beginning to be necessary. For nine months they had been "making thunder and lightning," as Clarendon expresses it; and, after forging thunderbolts so long, even Titans needed a respite. The King's departure coinciding with these independent reasons for a vacation, it was found, after he was gone, that the attendancé in the Peers dwindled to about twenty on the average, and in the Commons to about 100. It became unavoidable, in these circumstances, to arrange for a formal recess. The chief difficulty was in the matter of the impeachment of the thirteen Bishops. When the Lords discussed the matter on the 11th of August, the day after the King's departure, the strong measure of the Commons seemed by no means to their taste; but on the 17th, after the Commons had reinforced their impeachment by fresh charges, the Lords acquiesced so far as to resolve that the thirteen must put in 1 Letter in S. P. O., of one "Thomas Wiseman," dated Aug. 26, 1641. answers, and that while their cause was pending they must not vote in the House, nor even be present in it on any occasion when their cause was in debate. Nothing else of consequence prevented a recess. On the 18th Commissioners were appointed by the two Houses to follow his Majesty into Scotland, so as both to be in attendance upon him and to act as honorary envoys to the Scottish Parliament. The new Earl of Bedford (who, however, did not go) and Lord Howard of Escrick were the Commissioners from the Lords; and Hampden, Nathaniel Fiennes, Sir William Armyn, and Sir Philip Stapleton were the Commissioners from the Commons. On the 20th some formal orders were issued respecting the disbanding of the English army in the north, and John Rushworth, the assistant clerk of the Commons, was instructed to go to York, and see them executed. On the 27th it was agreed that there should be a Recess of Parliament from the 8th of September to the 20th of October. Even after this agreement, it was with reluctance that the Root-and-Branch members of the Commons were induced to separate. One of their last acts was to offer some solace to the Puritan expectations of the country for the postponement of the complete measures of Church-reformation which had been promised. It took the form of certain orders of the Commons, agreed to on the 1st of September, for the regulation of public worship in all parishes, and also in all cathedral churches, until such time as Parliament should have reassembled. The churchwardens of every parishchurch or chapel, and the authorities of every cathedral church or college-chapel, were to see to the arrangement of the Communion-table as it had been before the late innovations; all crucifixes, scandalous pictures, images of the Virgin Mary, and tapers, candlesticks, and basins on the Communion-table, were to be removed; bowing at the name of Jesus, or in reverence at other times, was to be discontinued; sports and dancing on Sundays were to cease; and preaching on Sunday afternoons and at other times was to be encouraged. To these Resolutions the Root-and-Branch men would have added one allowing some alteration or option |