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
A commission had likewise been granted, and some money remitted, in
order to raise a thousand German horse, and transport them into England.
These were supposed to be levied in order to support the projected
impositions or excises, though the number seems insufficient for such a
purpose,[*] The house took notice of this design in severe terms: and no
measure, surely, could be projected more generally odious to the whole
nation. It must, however, be confessed, that the king was so far
right, that he had now at last fallen on the only effectual method for
supporting his prerogative. But at the same time, he should have been
sensible that, till provided with a sufficient military force, all his
attempts in opposition to the rising spirit of the nation, must in
the end prove wholly fruitless; and that the higher he screwed up the
springs of government, while he had so little real power to retain them
in that forced situation, with more fatal violence must they fly out,
when any accident occurred to restore them to their natural action.
The commons next resumed their censure of Buckingham's conduct and
behavior, against whom they were implacable. They agreed to present
a remonstrance to the king, in which they recapitulated all national
grievances and misfortunes, and omitted no circumstance which could
render the whole administration despicable and odious. The compositions
with Catholics, they said, amounted to no less than a toleration,
hateful to God, full of dishonor and disprofit to his majesty, and of
extreme scandal and grief to his good people: they took notice of the
violations of liberty above mentioned, against which the petition of
right seems to have provided a sufficient remedy: they mentioned the
decay of trade, the unsuccessful expeditions to Cadiz and the Isle
of Rhé, the encouragement given to Arminians, the commission for
transporting German horse, that for levying illegal impositions; and all
these grievances they ascribed solely to the ill conduct of the duke of
Buckingham.[**] This remonstrance was, perhaps, not the less provoking
to Charles, because, joined to the extreme acrimony of the subject,
there were preserved in it, as in most of the remonstrances of that age,
an affected civility and submission in the language. And as it was the
first return which he met with for his late beneficial concessions, and
for his sacrifices of prerogative,--the greatest by far ever made by an
English sovereign,--nothing could be more the object of just and natural
indignation.
* Rushworth, vol. i. p. 612.
** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 619. Parl. Hist. vol viii. p. 219,
220, etc.