B. But what are the points they disagree in? Is there any controversy between Bishop and Presbyterian concern- ing the divinity or humanity of Christ? Do either of them deny the Trinity, or any article of the creed? Does either party preach openly, or write directly, against justice, charity, sobriety, or any other duty necessary to salvation, except only the duty *we owe* to the King; and not that neither, but when they have a mind either to rule or destroy the King? Lord have mercy upon us! Can nobody be saved that understands not their disputations? Or is there more 1 obscure men that could.
Dialogue 2. BEHEMOTH. 63 requisite, either of faith or honesty, for the salvation of one man than of another? What needs so much preaching of faith to us that are no heathens, and that believe already all that Christ and his apostles have told us is necessary to salvation, and more too? Why is there so little preaching of justice? I have indeed heard righteousness often recom- mended to the people, but I have seldom heard the word justice occur in their sermons; nay, though in the Latin and Greek Bible the word justice occur exceeding often, yet in the English, though it be a word that every man understands, the word righteousness (which few understand to signify the same, but take it rather for Tightness of opinion, than of action or intention), is put in the place of it.
A. I confess I know very few controversies amongst Christians, of points necessary to salvation. They are the questions of authority and power over the Church, or of profit, or of honour to Churchmen, that for the most part raise all the controversies. For what man is he, that will trouble himself and fall out with his neighbours for the saving of my soul, or the soul of any other than himself? When the Presbyterian ministers and others did so seriously preach sedition, and animate men to rebellion in these late wars; who was there that had not a benefice, or having one feared not to lose it, or some other part of his main- tenance, by the alteration of the Government, that did voluntarily, without any eye to reward, preach so earnestly against sedition, as the other party preached for it? I con- fess, that for aught I have observed in history, and other writings of the heathens, Greek and Latin, that those heathens were not at all behind us in point of virtue and moral duties, notwithstanding that we have had much preaching, and they none at all. I confess also, that con- sidering what harm may proceed from a liberty that men have, upon every Sunday and oftener, to harangue all the people of a nation at one time, whilst the state is ignorant ol what they will say; and that there is no such thing per- mitted in all the world out of Christendom, nor therefore 64 BEHEMOTH. Dialogue 2.
any civil wars about religion; I have thought much preach- ing an inconvenience. Nevertheless, I cannot think that preaching to the people the points of their duty, both to God and man, can be too frequent; so it be done by grave, discreet, and ancient men, that are reverenced by the people; and not by light quibbling young men, whom no congrega- tion is so simple as to look to be taught by (as being a thing contrary to nature), or to pay them any reverence, or to care what they say, except some few that may be delighted with their jingling. I wish with all my heart, there were enough of such discreet and ancient men, as might suffice for all the parishes of England, and that they would under- take it. But this is but a wish; I leave it to the wisdom of the State to do what it pleaseth.
B. What did they next?
A. Whereas the King had sent prisoners into places remote from London, three persons that had been con- demned for publishing seditious doctrine, some in writing, some in public sermons; the Parliament (whether with his Majesty's consent or no, I have forgotten), caused them to be released and to return to London; meaning (I think) to try how the people would be pleased therewith, and, by consequence, how their endeavours to draw the people's affections from the King had already prospered. When these three came through London, it was a kind of triumph, the people flocking together to behold them, and receiving them with such acclamations, and almost adoration, as if they had been let down from heaven; insomuch as the Parliament was now sufficiently assured of a great and, tumultuous party, whensoever they should have occasion to use it. On confidence whereof they proceeded to their next plot, which was to deprive the King of such ministers as by their wisdom, courage, and authority, they thought most able to prevent, or oppose their further designs against the King. — And first, the House of Commons resolved to impeach the Earl of Strafford, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, of high-treason.
Dialogue 2. BEHEMOTH. 65 B, What was that Earl of Strafford before he had that place? And how had he offended the Parliament or given them cause to think he would be their enemy? For I have heard that in former Parliaments he had been as parlia- mentary as any other.
A. His name was Sir Thomas Wentworth, a gentleman both by birth and estate very considerable in his own county, which was Yorkshire; but more considerable for his judgment in the public affairs, not only of that county, but generally of the kingdom; and was therefore often chosen for the Parliament, either as a Burgess for some borough, or else Knight of the shire. For his principles of politics, they were the same that were generally proceeded upon by all men else that were thought fit to be chosen for the Parlia- ment; which are commonly these: to take for the rule of justice and government the judgments and acts of former Parliaments, which are commonly called precedents; to endeavour to keep the people from being subject to extra- parliamentary taxes of money, and from being with parlia- mentary taxes too much oppressed; to preserve to the people their liberty of body from the arbitrary power of the King out of Parliament; to seek redress of grievances.
B. What grievances?
B. What grievances?
A. The grievances were commonly such as these: the King's too much liberality to some favourite; the too much power of some minister or officer of the commonwealth; the misdemeanour of judges, civil or spiritual; but especially all unparliamentary raising of money upon the subjects. And commonly of late, till such grievances be redressed, they refuse, or at least make great difficulty, to furnish the King with money necessary for the most urgent occasions of the commonwealth.
B. How then can a King discharge his duty as he ought to do, or the subject know which of his masters he is to obey? For here are manifestly two powers, which, when they chance to differ, cannot both be obeyed.
A. It is true; but they have not often differed so much 6 66 BEHEMOTH. Dialogue?..
to the danger of the commonwealth, as they have done in this Parliament, 1640. In all the Parliaments of the late King Charles before the year 1640, my Lord of Strafford did appear in opposition to the King's demands as much as any man; and was for that cause very much esteemed and cried up by the people as a good patriot, and one that cour- ageously stood up in defence of their liberties; and for the same cause was so much the more hated, when afterwards he endeavoured to maintain the royal and just authority of his Majesty.
B. How came he to change his mind so much as it seems he did?
A. After the dissolution of the Parliament holden in the year 1627 and 1628, the King, finding no money to be gotten from Parliaments which he was not to buy with the blood of such servants and ministers as he loved best, abstained a long time from calling any more, and had abstained longer if the rebellion of the Scots had not forced him to it. During that Parliament the King made Sir Thomas Wentworth a baron, recommended to him for his great ability, which was generally taken notice of by the disservice he had done the King in former Parliaments, but which might be useful for him in the tjmes that came on: and not long after he made him of the Council, and after that again Lieutenant of Ireland, which place he dis- charged with great satisfaction and benefit to his Majesty, and continued in that office, till, by the envy and violence of the Lords and Commons of that unlucky Parliament of 1640, he died. In which year he was made general of the King's forces against the Scots that then entered into Eng- land, and the year before, Earl of Strafford. The pacifica- tion being made, and the forces on both sides disbanded, and the Parliament at Westminster now sitting, it was not long before the House of Commons accused him to the House of Lords of High-Treason.
B. There was no great probability of his being a traitor to the King, from whose favour he had received his great- Dialogue 2. BEHEMOTH. 67 ness, and from whose protection he was to expect his safety. What was the treason they laid to his charge?
A. Many articles were drawn up against him, but the sum of them was contained in these two: first, that he had traitorously endeavoured to subvert the fundamental laws and government of the realm; and in stead thereof to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government against law: secondly, that he had laboured to subvert the rights of Parliaments, and the ancient course of Parliamentary proceedings.
B. Was this done by him without the knowledge of the King?
A. No.
B. Why then, if it were treason, did not the King him- self call him in question by his attorney? What had the House of Commons to do, without his command, to accuse him to the Lords? They might have complained to the King, if he had not known it before. I understand not this law.
A. Nor I.
B. Had this been by any former statutes made treason?
A. Not that I ever heard of; nor do I understand how anything can be treason against the King, that the King, hearing and knowing, does not think treason. But it was a piece of that Parliament's artifice, to put the word traitor- ously to any article exhibited against any man whose life they meant to take away.
B. Was there no particular instance of action or words, out of which they argued that endeavour of his to subvert the fundamental laws of Parliament, whereof they accused him?
A. Yes; they said he gave the King counsel to reduce the Parliament to their duty by the Irish army, which not long before my Lord of Strafford himself had caused to be levied there for the King's service. But it was never proved against him, that he advised the King to use it against the Parliament.
B. What are those laws that are called fundamental? For I understand not how one law can be rnore fundamental BEHEMOTH. Dialogue 2.
than another, except only that law of nature that binds us all to obey him, whosoever he be, whom lawfully and for our own safety, we have promised to obey; nor any other fundamental law to a King, but salus popult, the safety and well-being of his people.
A. This Parliament, in the use of their words, when they accused any man, never regarded the signification of them, but the weight they had to aggravate their accusation to the ignorant multitude, which think all faults heinous that are expressed in heinous terms, if they hate the person accused, as they did this man, not only for being of the King's party, but also for deserting the Parliament's party as an apostate.
B. I pray you tell me also what they meant by arbitrary government, which they seemed so much to hate? Is there any governor of a people in the world that is forced to govern them, or forced to make this and that law, whether he will or no? I think not: or if any be, he that forces him does certainly make laws, and govern arbitrarily.
'A. That is true; and the true meaning of the Parliament was, that not the King, but they themselves, should have the absolute government, not only of England, but of Ireland, and (as it appeared by the event)' of Scotland also. B. How the King came by the government of Scotland and Ireland by descent from his ancestors, everybody can tell; but if the King of England and his heirs should chance (which God forbid) to fail, I cannot imagine what title the Parliament of England can acquire thereby to either of those nations.
A. Yes; they will say they had been conquered anciently by the English subjects' money.
B. Like enough, and suitable to the rest of their impu- dence.
A. Impudence in democratical assemblies '* does almost 1 After " dembcratical assemblies," there follows in the MS. an illegible ioord and these further words: " and generally in all assemblies," which have been erased.
Dialogue 2. BEHEMOTH. 69 all that's done; 'tis the goddess of rhetoric, and carries proof with it. For what ordinary man will not, from so great boldness of affirmation, conclude there is great proba- bility in the thing affirmed? Upon this accusation he was brought to his trial in Westminster Hall before the House of Lords, and found guilty, and presently after declared traitor by a bill of attainder, that is, by Act of Parliament.
B. It is a strange thing that the Lords should be induced, upon so light grounds, to give a sentence, or give their assent to a bill, so prejudicial to themselves and their posterity.
A. It was not well done, and yet, as it seems, not igno- rantly; for there is a clause in the bill, that it should not be taken hereafter for an example, that is for a prejudice, in the like case hereafter.
B. That is worse than the bill itself; and is a plain confession that their sentence was unjust For what harm is there in the examples of just sentences? Besides, if hereafter the like case should happen, the sentence is not at all made weaker by such a provision.
A. Indeed I believe that the Lords, most of them, ♦following the principles of warlike and savage natures, envied his greatness, but yet* were not of themselves willing to condemn him of treason. They were awed to it by the clamour of common people that came to Westminster, crying out, " Justice, Justice against the Earl of Strafford! " The which were caused to flock thither by some of the House of Commons, that were well assured, after the triumphant welcome of Prynne, Burton, and Bastwiek, to put the people into tumult upon any occasion they desired. They were awed unto it partly also by the House of Commons itself, which if it desired to undo a Lord, had no more to do but to vote him a Delinquent.
B. A delinquent; what is that? A sinner, is it not? Did they mean to undo all sinners?
A. By delinquent they meant only a man to whom they would do all the hurt they could. But the Lords did no 7o BEHEMOTH. Dialogue 2.
yet, I think, suspect they meant to cashier their whole House.
B. It is a strange thing the whole House of Lords should not perceive that the ruin of the King's power, and the weakening of it, was the ruin or weakening of themselves. For they could not think it likely that the people ever meant to take the sovereignty from the King to give it to them, who were few in number, and less in power than so many Commoners, because less beloved by the people.
A. But it seems not so strange to me. For the Lords, for their personal abilities, as they were no less, so also they were no more skilful in the public affairs, than the knights and burgesses. For there is no reason to think, that if one that is to-day a knight of the shire in the* lower House, be to-morrow made a Lord and a member of the higher House, he is therefore wiser than he was before. They are all, of both Houses, prudent and able men as any in the land, in the business of their private estates, which require nothing but diligence and natural wit to govern them. But for the government of a commonwealth, neither wit, nor prudence, nor diligence, is enough, without infallible rules and the true science of equity and justice.
B. If this be true, it is impossible that any commonwealth in the world, whether monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, should continue long without change, or sedition tending to change, either of the government or of the governors.
A. It is true; nor have any the greatest commonwealths in the world been long free from sedition. The Greeks had for awhile their petty kings, and then by sedition came to be petty commonwealths; and then growing to be greater commonwealths, by sedition again became monarchies; and all for want of rules of justice for the common people to take notice of; which if the people had known in the begin- ning of every of these seditions, the ambitious persons could never have had the hope to disturb their government after it had been once settled. For ambition can do little without hands, and few hands it would have, if the common people Dialogue 2. BEHEMOTH.
were as diligently instructed in the true principles of their duty, as they are terrified and amazed by preachers, with fruitless and dangerous doctrines concerning the nature of man's will, and many other philosophical points that tend not at all to the salvation of their souls in the world to come, nor to their ease in this life, but only to the direction towards the clergy of that duty which they ought to perform to the King. B. For aught I see, all the states of Christendom will be subject to these fits of rebellion, as long as the world lasteth.
A. Like enough; and yet the fault (as I have said) may be easily mended, by mending the Universities.
B. How long had the Parliament now sitten?
A. It began November the 3rd, 1640. My Lord of Straf- ford was impeached of treason before the Lords, November the 1 2 th, sent to the Tower November the 22 nd, his trial began March the 22nd, and ended April the 13th. After his trial he was voted guilty of high-treason in the House of Commons, and after that in the Lords' House, May the 6th; and on the 12th of May beheaded.
B. Great expedition; but could not the King, for all that, have saved him by a pardon?
A. The King had heard all that passed at his trial, and had declared himself unsatisfied concerning the justice of their sentence. And, I think, notwithstanding the danger of his own person from the fury of the people, and that he was counselled to give way to his execution, not only by such as he most relied on, but also by the Earl of Strafford himself, he would have pardoned him, if that could have preserved him against the tumult raised and countenanced by the Parliament itself, for the terrifying of those they thought might favour him. And yet the King himself did not stick to confess afterwards, that he had done amiss, in that he did not rescue him.
B. It was an argument of good disposition in the King. But I never read that Augustus Caesar acknowledged that he had done a fault, in abandoning Cicero to the fury of his enemy Antonius: perhaps because Cicero, having been 72 BEHEMOTH. Dialogue 2.
of the contrary faction to his father, had done Augustus no service at all out of favour to him, but only out of enmity to Antonius, and out of love to the senate, that is indeed out of love to himself that swayed the senate; as it is very likely the Earl of Strafford came over to the King's party for his own ends, having been so much against the King in former Parliaments.
A. We cannot safely judge of men's intentions. But, I have observed often, that such as seek preferment, by their stubbornness have missed of their aim; and on the other side, that those princes that with preferment are forced to buy the obedience of their subjects, are already, or must be soon after, in a very weak condition. For in a market where honour and power is to be bought with stubbornness, there will be a great many as able to buy as my Lord Strafford was.
B. You have read, that when Hercules fighting with the Hydra, had cut off any one of his many heads, there still arose two other heads in its place; and yet at last he cut them off all.
A. The story is told false. For Hercules at first did not cut off those heads, but bought them off; and afterwards, when he saw it did him no good, then he cut them off, and got the victory.
B. What did they next?
A. After the first impeachment of the Earl of Strafford, the House of Commons, upon December the 18th, accused the Archbishop of Canterbury also of high-treason, that is, of design to introduce arbitrary government, &c.; for which he was, February the 28th, sent to the Tower; but his trial •and execution were deferred a long time, till January the 10th, 1643, f° r tne entertainment of the Scots, that were come into England to aid the Parliament.
B. Why did the Scots think there was so much danger in the Archbishop of Canterbury? He was not a man of war, nor a man able to bring an army into the field; but he Was perhaps a very great politician.
Dialogue 2. BEHEMOTH. 73 A. That did not appear by any remarkable event of his counsels. I never heard but he was a very honest man for his morals, and a very zealous promoter of the Church- government by bishops, and that desired to have the service of God performed, and the house of God adorned, as suitable as was possible to the honour we ought to do to the Divine Majesty. But to bring, as he did, into the State his former controversies, I mean his squabblings in the University about free-will, and his standing upon punctilios concerning the service-book and its rubrics, was not, in my opinion, an argument of his sufficiency in affairs of State. — About the same time they passed an act (which the King consented to) for a triennial Parliament; wherein was enacted, that after this present Parliament there should be a Parlia- ment called by the King within the space of three years, and so from three years to three years, to meet at West- minster upon a certain day named in the act.
B. But what if the King did not call it, finding it perhaps inconvenient, or hurtful to the safety osr peace of his people, which God hath put into his charge? For I do not well comprehend how any sovereign can well keep a people in order when his hands are tied, or when he hath any other obligation upon him than the benefit of those he governs; and at this time, for anything you have told me, they acknowledged the King for their sovereign.
A. I know not; but such was the act. And it was further enacted, that if the King did it not by his own command, then the Lord Chancellor or the Lord Keeper for the time being, should send out the writs of summons; and if the Chancellor refused, then the Sheriffs of the several counties should of themselves, in their next county-courts before the day set down for the Parliament's meeting, proceed to the election of the members for the said Parlia- ment.
B. But what if the sheriffs refused?
A. I think they were to be sworn to it: but for that, and other particulars, I refer you to the act 74 BEHEMOTH. Dialogue 2.
B. To whom should they be sworn, when there is no Parliament?
A. No doubt but to the King, whether there be a Parlia- ment sitting or no.
B. Then the King may release them of their oath. 1 Be- sides, if the King, upon the refusal, should fall upon them in his anger; who shall (the Parliament not sitting) protect either the Chancellor or the sheriffs in their disobedience?
A. I pray you do not ask me any reason of such things as I understand no better than you. I tell you only an act passed to that purpose, and was signed by the King in the middle of February, a little before the Archbishop was sent to the Tower. Besides this bill, the two Houses of Parlia- ment agreed upon another, wherein it was enacted, that the present Parliament should continue till both the Houses did consent to the dissolution of it; which bill also the King signed the same day he signed the warrant for the execution of the Earl of Strafford.
B. What a great progress made the Parliament *towards their ends, or at least* towards the ends of the most seditious Members of both Houses in so little time! They sat down in November, and now it was May; in this space of time, which is but half a year, they won from the King the adherence which was due to him from his people; they drove his faithfullest servants from him; beheaded the Earl of Strafford; imprisoned the Archbishop of Canter- bury; obtained a triennial Parliament after their own disso- lution, and a continuance of their own sitting as long as they listed: which last amounted to a total extinction of the King's right, in case that such a grant were valid; which I think it is not, unless the Sovereignty itself be in plain terms renounced, which it was not.
A. Besides, they obtained of the King the putting down the Star-chamber and High-Commission Courts.
1 The words of A:. "Besides...Courts," have been transposed to a wrong place, after " release them of their oath, " in the former edd.
Dialogue 2. BEHEMOTH. 75 B. But what money, by way of subsidy or otherwise, did they grant the King, in recompense of all these his large concessions?
A. None at all; but often promised they would make him the most glorious King that ever was in England; which were words that passed well enough for well meaning with the common people.
B. But the Parliament was contented now? For I cannot imagine what they could desire more from the King, than he had now granted them.
A. Yes; they desired the whole and absolute sovereignty, and to change the monarchical government into an oligarchy; that is to say, to make the Parliament, consisting of a few Lords and about four hundred Commoners, absolute in the sovereignty, for the present, and shortly after to lay the House of Lords aside. For this was the design of the Presbyterian ministers, who taking themselves to be, by divine right, the only lawful governors of the Church, endeavoured to bring the same form of Government into the civil state. And as the spiritual laws were to be made by their synods, so the civil laws should be made by the House of Commons; who, as they thought, would no less be ruled by them afterwards, than they formerly had been: wherein they were deceived, and found themselves outgone by their own disciples, though not in malice, yet in wit.
B. What followed after this?
A. In August following, the King supposing he had now sufficiently obliged the Parliament to proceed no further against him, took a journey into Scotland, to satisfy his subjects there, as he had done here; intending, perhaps, so to gain their good wills, that in case the Parliament here should levy arms against him, they should not be aided by the Scots: wherein he also was deceived. For though they seemed satisfied with what he did, whereof one thing was his giving way to the abolition of episcopacy; yet afterwards they made a league with the Parliament, and for money, when the King began to have the better of the Parliament, 76 BEHEMOTH. Dialogue 2.
invaded England in the Parliament's quarrel. But this was a year or two after.
B. Before you go any further, I desire to know the ground and original of that right, which either the House of Lords, or House of Commons, or both together, now pretend to.
A. It is a question of things so long past, that they are now forgotten. Nor have we anything to conjecture by, but the records of our own nation, and some small and obscure fragments of Roman histories: and for the records, seeing they are of things done only, sometimes justly, some- times unjustly, you can never by them know what right they had, but only what right they pretended.
B. Howsoever, let me know what light we have in this matter from the Roman histories.
A. It would be top long, and an useless digression, to cite all the ancient authors that speak of the forms of those commonwealths, which were amongst our first ancestors the Saxons and other Germans, and of other nations, from whom we derive the titles of honour now in use in Eng- land; nor will it be possible to derive from them any argu- ment of right, but only examples of fact, which, by the ambition of potent subjects, have been oftener unjust than otherwise. And for those Saxons or Angles, that in ancient times by several invasions made themselves masters of this nation, they were not in themselves one body of a common- wealth, but only a league of divers petty German lords and states, such as was the Grecian army in the Trojan war, without other obligation than that which proceeded from their own fear and weakness. Nor were those lords, for the most part, the sovereigns at home in their own country, but chosen by the people for captains of the forces they brought with them. And therefore it was not without equity, when they had conquered any part of the land, and made some one of them king thereof, that the rest should have greater privileges than the common people and soldiers: amongst which privileges, a rnan may easily conjecture this Dialogue i. BEHEMOTH. 77 to be one; that they should be made acquainted, and be of council, with him that hath the sovereignty in matter of government, and have the greatest and most honourable offices both in peace and war. But because there can be no government where there is more than one sovereign, it cannot be inferred that they had a right to oppose the King's resolutions by force, nor to enjoy those honours and places longer than they should continue good subjects. And we find that the Kings of England did, upon every great occasion, call them together by the name of discreet and wise men of the kingdom, and hear their counsel, and make them judges of all causes, that during their sitting were brought before them. But as he summoned them at his own pleasure,, so had he also ever the power at his pleasure to dissolve them. The Normans also, that des- cended from the Germans, as we did, had the same cus- toms in this particular; and by this means, this privilege of the lords to be of the King's great council, and when they were assembled, to be the highest of the King's courts of justice, continued still after the Conquest to this day. But though there be amongst the lords divers names or titles of honour, yet they have their privilege only by the name of baron, a name received from the ancient Gauls; amongst whom, that name signified the King's man, or rather one of his great men: by which it seems to me, that though they gave him counsel when he required it, yet they had no right to make war upon him if he did not follow it.
B. When began first the House of Commons to be part of the King's great council?
A. I do not doubt but that before the Conquest some discreet men, and known to be so by the King, were called by special writ to be of the same council, though they were not lords; but that is nothing to the House of Commons. The knights of shires and burgesses were never called to Parliament, for aught that I know, till the beginning of the reign of Edward I., or the latter end of the reign of Henry III., immediately after the misbehaviour of the barons; and, 78 BEHEMOTH. Dialogue 2.
for aught any man knows, were called on purpose to weaken that power of the lords, which they had so freshly abused. Before the time of Henry III., the lords were descended, most of them, from such as in the invasions and conquests of the Germans were peers and fellow-kings, till one was made king of them all; and their tenants were their sub- jects, as it is this day with the lords of France. But after the time of Henry III., the kings began to make lords in the place of them whose issue failed, titulary only, without the lands belonging to their title; and by that means, their tenants being no longer bound to serve them in the wars, they grew every day less and less able to make a party against the King, though they continued still to be his great council. And as their power decreased, so the power of the House of Commons increased; but I do not find they were part of the King's council at all, nor judges over other men; though it cannot be denied, but a King may ask their advice, as well as the advice of any other. But I do not find that the end of their summoning was to give advice, but only, in case they had any petitions for redress of grievances, to be ready therewith them whilst the King had his great council about him. But neither they nor the lords could present to the King, as a grievance, that the King took upon him to make the laws; to choose his own privy- counsellors; to raise money and soldiers; to defend the peace and honour of the kingdom; to make captains in his army, and governors of his castles, whom he pleased. For this had been to tell the King, that it was one of their grievances that he was King.