as to Over

the inference they might elfe have led to. In plain words I believe James to have had as little to do with Overbury's death as with Prince Henry's, and that fufpicions even more Innocent deteftable rest upon no fair evidence. Enough try and otherwife has here been faid to explain the Prince contempt and dislike, which, several years be- Henry. fore his death, had faftened upon his name, and were the inheritance of his race.

bury and

Let an intelligent foreigner defcribe for Opinions us the opinion of their ruler, which had be- of the come generally prevalent among the English people. people. "Confider for pity's fake," fays M. de Beaumont, in one of his despatches, "what must be the ftate and condition of a

the

prince, whom the preachers publicly from "the pulpit affail; whom the comedians of Contempt "the metropolis covertly bring upon the ftage; of the "whose wife attends thofe reprefentations in perfon of "order to enjoy the laugh against her husband; vereign. "whom the Parliament braves and defpifes; "and who is univerfally hated by the whole "people." The Frenchman's great master, Henri Quatre, fhortly before he fell by the hand of an affaffin, had fpoken of the effects of fuch contempt when directed against the perfon of a Sovereign, as marvellous and horrible and in this cafe alfo they were Legacy to destined to prove marvellous and horrible, in Charles I. the fecond generation.

Moft exciting incident before the

war.

THE DEBATES ON

THE GRAND REMONSTRANCE.

NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER, 1641.

§ 1.

PREFATORY.

If the question were put to any thoroughly informed ftudent of our Great Civil War, into what fingle incident of the period before the actual outbreak would appear to have been concentrated the largest amount of party paffion, he could hardly fail at once to fingle out the Grand Remonftrance. And if he were then asked to name, out of all the party encounters of the time, that of which the subject matter and antecedents have been moft unaccountably flurred over by hiftorians, he must perforce give the fame anfwer. It follows glected by that the writers of hiftory have in this cafe hiftorians. thought of fmall importance what the men

Moft ne

whofe deeds they record accounted to be of the greatest, and it will be worth inquiring how far the later verdict is just.

Happily, the means exift of forming a judgment as to the particular subject, on grounds not altogether uncertain or unfafe. The Grand Remonftrance itself remains.

printed in

Under maffes of dull and lifeless matter heaped Remonup in Rushworth's ponderous folios, it has trance lain undisturbed for more than two centuries; Rushbut it lives ftill, even there, for those who care worth. to study its contents, and they who fo long have turned away from it unftudied, may at leaft plead the excufe of the dreary and deterring companionship around it. The truth,

Claren

tion of

however, is, that to the art and difingenuoufnefs of Clarendon it is really due, in this instance as in so many others, that those who Misleadhave written on the conflict of parties before ing of the civil war broke out, have been led off to don. a falfe iffue. He was too near the time of the Remonftrance when he wrote, and he had played too eager a part in the attempt to obftruct and prevent its publication to the people, not to give it prominence in his Hiftory; but he found it easier to falfify and Falfificamifrepresent the debates concerning it, of which Debates. there was no published record, than to pass altogether in filence the statements made in it, diffused as they had been, some score of years earlier, over the length and breadth of the land. Indeed it also better served the purpose he had, fo to garble and mifquote thefe; and Mifitatefrom the fragment of a fummary he gave, fill- ments followed by ing fome fix pages of the octavo edition of his all. book, Hume and the hiftorians of the last century derived manifeftly the whole of what they knew of the Grand Remonstrance. But even the more careful and lefs prejudiced hiftorians of our own century have not shown that they knew much more.

Upon the debate in the Houfe before it was

War

wick's

put to the vote, as referred to by Hyde, all writers have dwelt; and of course every one has copied and reproduced thofe graphic Sir Philip touches of Philip Warwick, the young courtier and follower of Hyde, afterwards the faithful account. fervant of the King, in which he gives his verfion of what the Remonftrance was, how it originated, and what an exciting debate it led to. How fome leading men in the House, as he fays, jealous of the propofed entertainment to be given by the City to the King on his return from Scotland, had got up an entertainment of their own in the shape of a libel (the Remonftrance, that is), than which fouler or blacker could not be imagined, against his perfon and Extraor- government; and how it paffed fo' tumultuoufly, two or three nights before the king came to town, that at three o'clock in that November morning when they voted it, he thought they would all have fat in the Valley of the Shadow of Death: for they would, like Joab's and Abner's young men, all have catched at each other's locks, and fheathed their swords in each other's bowels, had not the fagacity and great calmnefs of Mr. Hampden, by a den's in- fhort fpeech, prevented it, and led them to defer their angry debate until the next morning.* Doubtless a scene to be remembered, and which naturally has attracted all attentions fince; but that out of the many who have fo adopted it, and, from the mere reading it, felt fome fhare in the excitement it pourtrays, not one fhould have been moved to make clofer

dinary scene.

Hamp

fluence.

Memoires of the Reign of King Charles the First, by Sir Philip Warwick, Knight, (Ed. 1702) 201-2.

references

followed.

inquiry into what the fo-called "libel" really Various was that fo had roused and maddened the par- to Great tifans of the King, may fairly be matter of Remonfurprise. Hallam is content to give fome strance. eight or nine lines to it, in which its contents are not fairly reprefented. Lingard difpofes of it in fomething lefs than a dozen lines. Macaulay has only occafion incidentally to introduce it, and a fimple mention of it is all that falls within the plan of Carlyle. Godwin paffes over it in filence; and fuch few lines as Difraeli (in his Commentaries) vouchfafes to it, are an entire mif-ftatement of its circumftances and falfification of its contents. It is Clarendon not neceffary to advert fpecifically to other hif- generally tories and writings connected with the period; but the affertion may be confidently made, that in all the number there is not one, whatever its indications of research and originality in other directions may be, which prefents reasonable evidence of any better or more intimate knowledge of the Grand Remonftrance than was derivable from the garbled page of Clarendon. The purpose of this work is to Purpose of remove that reproach from the ftudy of this the preperiod of hiftory; not merely by endeavouring to present in some detail, and with explanatory illustration from manufcript and contemporary papers, an abstract of the contents of the Remonftrance, but by reproducing, from records as yet untouched, fuch accurate and detailed descriptions of the debates that attended its paffage through the House, as may Written perhaps alfo reproduce, and reanimate with from MS. their old truth and vividness, the actual circum

I

fent work.

records.