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times. The whole principle of his government | pelled to serve in the army. Money, however,

was resistance to public opinion; nor did he make any real concession to that opinion till it mattered not whether he resisted or conceded; till the nation, which had long ceased to love him or to trust him, had at last ceased to fear him.

came in slowly: and the king was compelled to summon another Parliament. In the hope of conciliating his subjects, he set at liberty the persons who had been imprisoned for refusing to comply with his unlawful demands. Hampden regained his freedom; and was immediately re-elected burgess for Wendover.

Early in 1628 the Parliament met. During its first session, the Commons prevailed on the king, after many delays and much equivocation, to give, in return for five subsidies, his full and solemn assent to that celebrated instrument, the second great charter of the liberties of England, known by the name of the Petition of Right. By agreeing to this act, the king bound himself to raise no taxes without the consent of Parliament, to imprison no man except by legal process, to billet no more soldiers on the people, and to leave the cognisance of offences to the ordinary tribunals.

In the summer this memorable Parliament was prorogued. It met again in January, 1629. Buckingham was no more. That weak, violent, and dissolute adventurer, who, with no talents or acquirements but those of a mere courtier, had, in a great crisis of foreign and domestic politics, ventured on the part of prime minister, had fallen, during the recess of Parliament, by the hand of an assassin. Both before and after his death, the war had been feebly and unsuccessfully conducted. The king had continued, in direct violation of the Petition of Right, to raise tonnage and poundage, without the consent of Parliament. The troops had again been billeted on the people; and it was clear to the Commons, that the five subsidies which they had given, as the price of the national liberties, had been given in vain.

His first Parliament met in June, 1625. Hampden sat in it as burgess for Wendover. The king wished for money. The Commons wished for the redress of grievances. The war, however, could not be carried on without funds. The plan of the Opposition was, it should seem, to dole out supplies by small sums in order to prevent a speedy dissolution. They gave the king two subsidies only, and proceeded to complain that his ships had been employed against the Huguenots in France, and to petition in behalf of the Puritans who were persecuted in England. The king dissolved them, and raised money by letters under his privy seal. The supply fell far short of what he needed; and, in the spring of 1626, he called together another Parliament. In this Parliament, Hampden again sat for Wendover. The Commons resolved to grant a very liberal supply, but to defer the final passing of the act for that purpose till the grievances of the nation should be redressed. The struggle which followed far exceeded in violence any that had yet taken place. The Commons impeached Buckingham. The king threw the managers of the impeachment into prison. The Commons denied the right of the king to levy tonnage and poundage without their consent. The king dissolved them. They put forth a remonstrance. The king circulated a deciaration vindicating his measures, and committed some of the most distinguished members of the Opposition to close custody. Money was raised by a forced loan, which was appor- They met accordingly in no complying hu tioned among the people according to the rate mour. They took into their most serious conat which they had been respectively assessed sideration the measures of the government to the last subsidy. On this occasion it was concerning tonnage and poundage. They that Hampden made his first stand for the fun- summoned the officers of the custom-house to damental principle of the English constitution. their bar. They interrogated the barons of He positively refused to lend a farthing. He the exchequer. They committed one of the was required to give his reasons. He answer- sheriffs of London. Sir John Eliot, a distined, "nat he could be content to lend as well guished member of the opposition, and an as others, but feared to draw upon himself intimate friend of Hampden, proposed a resothat curse in Magna Charta which should | lution condemning the unconstitutional impoDe read twice a year against those who in-sition. The speaker said that the king had fringe it." For this noble answer the Privy commanded him to put no such question to Council committed him close prisoner to the Gate-House. After some time, he was again brought up; but he persisted in his refusal, and was sent to a place of confinement in Hampshire.

The government went on, oppressing at home, and blundering in all its measures abroad. A war was foolishly undertaken against France, and more foolishly conducted. Buckingham led an expedition against Rhé, and failed ignominiously. In the mean time, soldiers were billeted on the people. Crimes, of which ordinary justice should have taken cognisance, were punished by martial law. Nearly eighty gentlemen were imprisoned for refusing to contribute to the forced loan. The ower people, who showed any signs of insubriination, were pressed into the fleet, or com

the vote. This decision produced the most violent burst of feeling ever seen within the walls of Parliament. Hayman remonstrated vehemently against the disgraceful language which had been heard from the chair. Eliot dashed the paper which contained his resolution on the floor of the House. Valentine and Hollis held the speaker down in his seat by main force, and read the motion amidst the loudest shouts. The door was locked; the key was laid on the table. Black Rod knocked for admittance in vain. After passing several strong resolutions, the House adjourned.-On the day appointed for its meeting, it was dissolved by the king, and several of its most eminent members, among whom were Hollis and Sir John Eliot, were committed to prison.

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LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN.

Though Hampden had as yet taken little part in the debates of the House, he had been a member of many very important committees, and had read and written much concerning the law of Parliament. A manuscript volume of Parliamentary Cases, which is still in existence, contains many extracts from his notes. He now retired to the duties and pleasures of a rural life. During the eleven years which followed the dissolution of the Parliament of 1628, he resided at his seat in one of the most beautiful parts of the county of Buckingham. The house, which has, since his time, been greatly altered, and which is now, we believe, almost entirely neglected, was then an old English mansion, built in the days of the Plantagenets and the Tudors. It stood on the brow of a hill which overlooks a narrow valley. The extensive woods which surround it One of those were pierced by long avenues. avenues the grandfather of the great statesman cut for the approach of Elizabeth; and the opening, which is still visible for many miles, retains the name of the Queen's Gap. In this delightful retreat Hampden passed several years, performing with great activity all the duties of a landed gentleman and a magistrate, and amusing himself with books and with fieldsports.

For

will, in the intermissions of action, add study to practice, and adorn that lively spirit with flowers of contemplation, he will raise our expectations of another Sir Edward Vere, that had this character-all summer in the field, ali winter in his study-in whose fall fame makes this kingdom a great loser; and, having taken this resolution from counsel with the highest wisdom, as I doubt not you have, I hope and pray that the same Power will crown it with a blessing answerable to our wish. The way you take with my other friend shows you to be none of the Bishop of Exeter's converts;* of whose mind neither am I superstitiously. But had my opinion been asked, I should, as vulgar conceits use to do, have showed my power rather to raise objections than to answer thein. A tempert between France and Oxford might have taken away his scruples, with more advantage to his years. although he be one of those that, if his age were looked for in no other book but that of the mind, would be found no ward if you should die to-morrow; yet it is a great hazard, methinks, to see so sweet a disposition guarded with no more, amongst a people whereof many make it their religion to be superstitious in ill manners. But God, who only knoweth the impiety, and their behaviour to be affected in periods of life and opportunities to come, hath designed him, I hope, for his own service be time, and stirred up your providence to husband him so early for great affairs. Then shall he be sure to find Him in France that Abraham did in Sechem and Joseph in Egypt, Sir John Eliot employed himself, during his under whose wing alone is perfect safety." imprisonment, in writing a treatise on govern Part of the correspondence relates to the ment, which he transmitted to his friend. two sons of Sir John Eliot. These young Hampden's criticisms are strikingly charac men were wild and unsteady; and their father, teristic. They are written with all that "flowThe objections are insinuated who was now separated from them, was na- ing courtesy" which is ascribed to him by turally anxious about their conduct. He at Clarendon. ength resolved to send one of them to France, with so much delicacy, that they could scarceand the other to serve a campaign in the Lowly gall the most irritable author. We see, too, Countries. The letter which we subjoin shows how highly Hampden valued in the writings that Hampden, though rigorous towards him- of others that conciseness which was one of self, was not uncharitable towards others, and the most striking peculiarities of his own elothat his puritanism was perfectly compatible quence. Sir Joba Eliot's style was, it seems, with the sentiments and the tastes of an accom- too diffuse, and it is impossible not to admire plished gentleman. It also illustrates admi- the skill win which this is suggested. "The rably what has been said of him by Clarendon: piece," says Hampden, "is as complete an "He was of that rare affability and temper in image of the pattern as can be drawn by lines -a lively character of a large mind-the subdebate, and of that seeming humility and submission of judginent, as if he brought no opi- jec', method, and expression, excellent and nion of his own with him, but a desire of hemogenial, and to say truth, sweetheart, Sone what exceeding my commendations. My information and instruction. Yet he had so subtle a way of interrogating, and, under vords cannot render them to the life. Yet cover of doubts, insinuating his objections to show my ingenuity rather than wit-would that he infused his own opinions into those not a less model have given a full representa contraction of parts? I desire to learn. from whom he pretended to learn and receive tion of that subject-not by diminution but by them." dare not say.-The variations upon each pai

He was not in his retirement unmindful of his prosecuted friends. In particular, he kept up a close correspondence with Sir John Eliot, who was confined in the Tower. Lord Nugent has published several of the letters. We may perhaps be fanciful; but it seems to us that every one of them is an admirable illustration of some part of the character of Hampden which Clarendon has drawn.

The letter runs thus: "I am so perietly acquainted with your clear insight ir .o the dispositions of men, and ability to .t them with courses suitable, that, had you sestowed Fons of mine as you have done your own, my udgment durst hardly have called it into question, especially when, in laying the deign, you have prevented the objections to be aade against it. For if Mr. Richard Eliot

*Lord Nugent, we think, has misunderstood this pas sage. Hampden seems to allude to Bishop Hall's six satire, in which the custom of sending young me abroad is censured, and an academic life recommende We have a general recollection that there is somethi to the same effect in Hall's prose works; but we ha

not time to search them.

"A middle course-a compromise."

ticular seem many-all, I confess, excellent. | every thing that seemed likely to stunt it, struck The fountain was full, the channel narrow; its roots deep into a barren soil, and spread its that may be the cause; or that the author re-branches wide to an inclement sky. The mul sembled Virgil, who made more verses by many than he intended to write. To extract a just number, had I seen all his, I could easily have bid him make fewer; but if he had bade me tell which he could have spared, I had been posed."

This is evidently the writing, not only of a man of good sense and good taste, but of a man of literary habits. Of the studies of Hampden little is known. But as it was at one time in contemplation to give him the charge of the education of the Prince of Wales, it cannot be doubted that his acquirements were considerable. Davila, it is said, was one of his favourite writers. The moderation of Davila's opinions, and the perspicuity and manliness of his style, could not but recommend him to so judicious a reader. It is not improbable that the parallel between France and England, the Huguenots and the Puritans, had struck the mind of Hampden, and that he already felt within himself powers not unequal to the lofty part of Coligni. While he was engaged in these pursuits, a heavy domestic calamity fell on him. His wife, who had borne him nine children, died in the summer of 1634. She lies in the parish church of Hampden, close to the manor-house The tender and energetic language of her epitaph still attests the bitterness of her husband's sorrow, and the consolation which he found in a hope full of immortality.

In the mean time, the aspect of public affairs grew darker and darker. The health of Eliot had sunk under an unlawful imprisonment of several years. The brave sufferer refused to purchase liberty, though liberty would to him have been life, by recognising the authority which had confined him. In consequence of the representations of his physicians, the severity of restraint was somewhat relaxed. But it was in vain. He languished and expired a martyr to that good cause, for which his friend Hampden was destined to meet a more brilliant | but not a more honourable death.

All the promises of the king were violated without scruple or shame. The Petition of Right, to which he had, in consideration of moneys duly numbered, given a solemn assent, was set at naught. Taxes were raised by the royal authority. Patents of monopoly were granted. The old usages of feudal times were made pretexts for harassing the people with exactions unknown during many years. The Puritans were persecuted with cruelty worthy of the Holy Office. They were forced to fly from the country. They were imprisoned. They were whipped. Their ears were cut off. Their noses were slit. Their cheeks were branded with red-hot iron. But the cruelty of the oppressor could not tire out the fortitude of the victims. The mutilated defenders of liberty again defied the vengeance of the StarChamber, came back with undiminished resolution to the place of their glorious infamy, and manfully presented the stumps of their ears to be grubbed out by the hangman's knife. The nardy sect grew up and flourished, in spite of

titude thronged round Prynne in the pillory with more respect than they paid to Mainwar ing in the pulpit, and treasured up the rags which the blood of Burton had soaked, with a veneration such as rochets and surplices had 2 ceased to inspire.

For the misgovernment of this disastrous period, Charles himself is principally responsible. After the death of Buckingham, he seemed to have been his own prime minister. He had, however, two counsellors who seconded him, or went beyond him, in intolerance and lawless violence; the one a superstitious driveller, as honest as a vile temper would suffer him to be; the other a man of great valour and capacity, but licentious, faithless, corrupt, and cruel.

Never were faces more strikingly characteristic of the individuals to whom they belonged, than those of Laud and Strafford, as they still remain portrayed by the most skilful hand of that age. The mean forehead, the pinched features, the peering eyes of the prelate suit admirably with his disposition. They mark him out as a lower kind of Saint Dominic, differing from the fierce and gloomy enthu siast who founded the Inquisition, as we might imagine the familiar imp of a spiteful witch to differ from an archangel of darkness. When we read his judgments, when we read the report which he drew up, setting forth that he had sent some separatists to prison, and imploring the royal aid against others, we feel a movement of indignation. We turn to his Diary, and we are at once as cool as contempt can make us. There we read how his picture fell down, and how fearful he was lest the fall should be an omen; how he dreamed that the Duke of Buckingham came to bed to him; that King James walked past him; that he saw Thomas Flaxage in green garments, and the Bishop of Worcester with his shoulders wrapped in linen. In the early part of 1627, the sleep of this great ornament of the church seems to have been much disturbed. On the 5th of January, he saw a merry old man with a wrinkled countenance, named Grove, lying on the ground. On the fourteenth of the same memorable month, he saw the Bishop of Lincoln jump on a horse and ride away. A day or two after this, he dreamed that he gave the king drink in a silver cup, and that the king refused it, and called for a glass. Then he dreamed that he had turned Papist-of all his dreams the only one, we suspect, which came through the gate of horn. But of these visions, our favourite is that which, as he has recorded, he enjoyed on the night of Friday the 9th of February, 1627. "I dreamed," says he, "that I had the scurvy; and that forthwith all my teeth became loose. There was one in especial in my lower jaw, which I could scarcely keep in with my finger till I had called for help." Here was a man to have the superintendence of the opinions of a great nation!

But Wentworth-who ever names him without thinking of those harsh dark features, ennobled by their expressions into more than the

LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN.

majesty of an antique Jupiter; of that brow, scribed even by the partial Clarendon as pow-
that eye, that cheek, that lip, wherein, as in a erful acts-acts which marked a nature exces-
chronicle, are written the events of many sively imperious-acts which caused dislike
stormy and disastrous years; high enterprise and terror in sober and dispassionate persons
accomplished, frightful dangers braved, power-high acts of oppression. Upon a most fri-
unsparingly exercised, suffering unshrink- volous charge, he obtained a capital sentence
ingly borne; of that fixed look, so full of se-
verity, of mournful anxiety; of deep thought,
of dauntless resolution, which seems at once
to forebode and defy a terrible fate, as it
lowers on us from the living canvass of Van-
dyke? Even at this day the haughty earl
overawes posterity as he overawed his con-
temporaries, and excites the same interest
when arraigned before the tribunal of history,
which he excited at the bar of the House of
Lords. In spite of ourselves, we sometimes
feel towards his memory a certain relenting,
similar to that relenting which his defence, as
Sir John Denham tells us, produced in West-
minster Hall.

from a court-martial against a man of high
rank who had given him offence. He debauch-
ed the daughter-in-law of the Lord Chan-
cellor of Ireland, and then commanded that
nobleman to settle his estate according to the
wishes of the lady. The chancellor refused.
The Lord-Lieutenant turned him out of office,
and threw him into prison. When the violent
acts of the Long Parliament are blamed, let it
not be forgotten from what a tyranny they
rescued the nation.

Among the humbler tools of Charles, were
Chief-justice Finch, and Noy, the attorney-
general. Noy had, like Wentworth, supported
the cause of liberty in Parliament, and had,
like Wentworth, abandoned that cause for the
sake of office. He devised, in conjunction
with Finch, a scheme of exaction which made
the alienation of the people from the throne
complete. A writ was issued by the king, com-

This great, brave, bad man entered the House of Commons at the same time with Hampden, and took the same side with Hampden. Both were among the richest and most powerful commoners in the kingdom. Both were equally distinguished by force of charac-manding the city of London to equip and man ter and by personal courage. Hampden had more judgment and sagacity than Wentworth. But no orator of that time equalled Wentworth in force and brilliancy of expression. In 1626, both these eminent men were committed to prison by the king; Wentworth, who was among the leaders of the Opposition, on account of his parliamentary conduct; Hampden, who had not as yet taken a prominent part in debate, for refusing to pay taxes illegally imposed.

Here their paths separated. After the death
of Buckingham, the king attempted to seduce
some of the chiefs of the opposition from their
party; and Wentworth was among those who
yielded to the seduction. He abandoned his
associates, and hated them ever after with the
deadly hatred of a renegade. High titles and
great employments were heaped upon him.
He became Earl of Strafford, Lord-Lieutenant
of Ireland, President of the Council of the
North; and he employed all his power for the
purpose of crushing those liberties of which
he had been the most distinguished champion.
His counsels respecting public affairs were
fierce and arbitrary. His correspondence with
Laud abundantly proves that government with-
out Parliaments, government by the sword, was
his favourite scheme. He was unwilling even
that the course of justice between man and
man should be unrestrained by the royal pre-
rogative. He grudged to the Courts of King's
Bench and Common Pleas even that measure
of liberty, which the most absolute of the
Bourbons have allowed to the Parliaments of
France.

In Ireland, where he stood in the place of
the king, his practice was in strict accordance
with his theory. He set up the authority of the
executive government over that of the courts
of law. He permitted no person to leave the
He established
island without his license.
vast monopolies for his own private benefit.
He imposed taxes arbitrarily. He levied them
by military force. Some of his acts are de-

ships of war for his service. Similar writs
were sent to the towns along the coast. These
measures, though they were direct violations of
the Petition of Right, had at least some show
of precedent in their favour. But, after a time,
the government took a step for which no pre-
cedent could be pleaded, and sent writs of ship-
money to the inland counties. This was a
had not ventured, even at a time when all laws
stretch of power on which Elizabeth herself
might with propriety have been made to bend
to that highest law, the safety of the state. The
inland counties had not been required to fur-
nish ships, or money in the room of ships,
even when the Armada was approaching our
shores. It seemed intolerable that a prince,
who, by assenting to the Petition of Right, had
relinquished the power of levying ship-money
even in the outports, should be the first to levy
it on parts of the kingdom where it had been
unknown, under the most absolute of his pre-
decessors.

Clarendon distinctly admits that this tax was
intended, not only for the support of the navy,
but "for a spring and magazine that should
have no bottom, and for an everlasting supply
of all occasions." The nation well understood
this; and from one end of England to the
Buckinghamshire was assessed at a ship of
other, the public mind was strongly excited.
four hundred and fifty tons, or a sum of four
thousand five hundred pounds. The share of
the tax which fell to Hampden was very small;
for setting so wealthy a man at so low a rate.
so small, indeed, that the sheriff was blamed
But though the sum demanded was a trifle, the
principle of the demand was despotism. Hamn-
and
den, after consulting the most eminent cons..
tutional lawyers of the time, refused to pay the
few shillings at which he was assessed;
determined to incur all the certain expense.
"Till this time,"
and the probable danger, of bringing to a
solemn hearing this great controversy between
the people and the crown.

says Clarendon, "he was rather of reputation in his own county, than of public discourse or fame in the kingdom; but then he grew the argument of all tongues, every man inquiring who and what he was that durst, at his own charge, support the liberty and prosperity of the kingdom."

by the sentence of the Star-Chamber, and sent to rot in remote dungeons. The estate and the person of every man who had opposed the court were at its mercy.

Towards the close of the year 1636, this great cause came on in the Exchequer Chamber before all the judges of England. The leading counsel against the writ was the celebrated Oliver St. John; a man whose temper was melancholy, whose manners were reserved, and who was as yet little known in Westminster Hall; but whose great talents had not escaped the penetrating eye of Hamp-it. den. The attorney-general and solicitor-general appeared for the crown.

The arguments of the counsel occupied many days; and the Exchequer Chamber took a considerable time for deliberation. The opinion of the bench was divided. So clearly was the law in favour of Hampden, that though the judges held their situations only during the royal pleasure, the majority against him was the least possible. Four of the twelve pronounced decidedly in his favour; a fifth took a middle course. The remaining seven gave their voices in favour of the writ.

The only effect of this decision was to make the public indignation stronger and deeper. "The judgment," says Clarendon, "proved of more advantage and credit to the gentleman condemned than to the king's service." The courage which Hampden had shown on this occasion, as the same historian tells us, "raised his reputation to a great height generally throughout the kingdom." Even courtiers and crown-lawyers spoke respectfully of him. "His carriage," says Clarendon, "throughout that agitation, was with that rare temper and modesty, that they who watched him narrowly to find some advantage against his person, to make him less resolute in his cause, were compelled to give him a just testimony." But his demeanour, though it impressed Lord Falkland with the deepest respect, though it drew forth the praises of Solicitor-general Herbert, only kindled into a fiercer fiame the ever-burning hatred of Strafford. That minister, in his letters to Laud, murmured against the lenity with which Hampden was treated. "In good faith," he wrote, "were such men rightly served, they should be whipped into their right wits." Again he says, "I still wish Mr. Hampden, and others to his likeness, were well whipped into their right senses. And if the rod be so used that it smart not, I am the more sorry."

The person of Hampden was now scarcely safe. His prudence and moderation had hitherto disappointed those who would gladly have had a pretence for sending him to the prison of Eliot. But he knew that the eye of a tyrant was on him. In the year 1637, misgovernment had reached its height. Eight years had passed without a Parliament. The decision of the Exchequer Chamber had placed at the disposal of the crown the whole property of the English people. About the time at which that decision was pronounced, Inne, Bastwick, and Burton were mutilated

Hampden determined to leave England Beyond the Atlantic Ocean, a few of the persecuted Puritans had formed, in the wilderness of Connecticut, a settlement which has since become a prosperous commonwealth; and which, in spite of the lapse of time, and of the change of government, still retains something cf the character given to it by its first founders. Lord Say and Lord Brooke were the origina! projectors of this scheme of emigration Hampden had been early consulted respecting He was now, it appears, desirous to withdraw himself beyond the reach of oppressors, who, as he probably suspected, and as we know, were bent on punishing his manful resistance to their tyranny. He was accompanied by his kinsman Oliver Cromwell, over whom he possessed great influence, and in whom he alone had discovered, under an exterior appearance of coarseness and extravagance, those great and commanding talents which were afterwards the admiration and the dread of Europe.

The cousins took their passage in a vessel which lay in the Thames, bound for North America. They were actually on board, when an order of Council appeared, by which the ship was prohibited from sailing. Seven other ships, filled with emigrants, were stopped at the same time.

Hampden and Cromwell remained; and with them remained the Evil Genius of the house of Stuart. The tide of public affairs was even now on the turn. The king had resolved to change the ecclesiastical constitution of Scotland, and to introduce into the public worship of that kingdom ceremonies which the great body of the Scots regarded as popish. This absurd attempt produced, first discontents, then riots, and at length open rebellion. A provisional government was established at Edinburgh, and its authority was obeyed throughout the kingdom. This government raised an army, appointed a general, and called a General Assembly of the Kirk. The famous instrument called the Covenant was put forth at this time, and was eagerly subscribed by the people.

The beginnings of this formidable insurrection were strangely neglected by the king and his advisers. But towards the close of the year 1638, the danger became pressing. An army was raised; and early in the following spring Charles marched northward, at the head of a force sufficient, as it seemed, to reduce the Covenanters to submission.

But Charles acted, at this conjuncture, as he acted at every important conjuncture throughout his life. After oppressing, threatening, and blustering, he hesitated and failed. He was bold in the wrong place, and timid in the wrong place. He would have shown his wisdom by being afraid before the liturgy was read in St. Giles's church. He put off his fear till he had reached the Scottish border with his troops. after a feeble campaign, he concluded a treaty with the insurgents, and withdrew his army.

Then,

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