The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol. I., Part E.: From Charles I. to Cromwell — David Hume — John Shaqi
The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol. I., Part E.: From Charles I. to Cromwell
David Hume · en
The soldiers, ill paid and undisciplined, committed many crimes and
outrages, and much increased the public discontents. To prevent these
disorders, martial law, so requisite to the support of discipline, was
exercised upon the soldiers. By a contradiction which is natural when
the people are exasperated, the outrages of the army were complained
of; the remedy was thought still more intolerable.[v*] Though the
expediency, if we are not rather to say the necessity, of martial law
had formerly been deemed of itself a sufficient ground for establishing
it, men, now become more jealous of liberty, and more refined reasoners
in questions of government, regarded as illegal and arbitrary every
exercise of authority which was not supported by express statute or
uninterrupted precedent.
* Rushworth, vol. i. p. 419.
** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 419.
*** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 422.
**** Rushworth, vol i. p. 481.
v Parl. Hist. vol. vii. p. 310.
v** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 419. Whitlocke, p. 7.
It may safely be affirmed, that, except a few courtiers or
ecclesiastics, all men were displeased with this high exertion of
prerogative, and this new spirit of administration. Though ancient
precedents were pleaded in favor of the king's measures, a considerable
difference, upon comparison, was observed between the cases. Acts of
power, however irregular, might casually, and at intervals, be exercised
by a prince, for the sake of despatch or expediency, and yet liberty
still subsist in some tolerable degree under his administration.
But where all these were reduced into a system, were exerted without
interruption, were studiously sought for, in order to supply the
place of laws, and subdue the refractory spirit of the nation, it was
necessary to find some speedy remedy, or finally to abandon all hopes of
preserving the freedom of the constitution. Nor did moderate men esteem
the provocation which the king had received, though great, sufficient
to warrant all these violent measures. The commons as yet had nowise
invaded his authority: they had only exercised, as best pleased them,
their own privileges. Was he justifiable, because from one house of
parliament he had met with harsh and unkind treatment, to make, in
revenge, an invasion on the rights and liberties of the whole nation?