Charles was conspicuous, and foreboded the miseries that were to follow. In the midst of the public excitement from this pause, the parliament met at Oxford on the 1st of August. The result was as might have been expected. On the king demanding the restoration of the vote of tonnage and poundage, negatived by the lords, or that other subsidies should be granted in lieu of this, the commons refused both. In reply to the king's inquiry how the war was to be carried on, they replied that they must first be satisfied against whom the war was ready to be directed. They complained that the penal statutes against the papists were not enforced as promised, and proceeded to their favourite avocation of attacking the public grievances. On this topic Coke came forward with an eloquence and a boldness which astonished the court. With unsparing vigour worthy of his earlier years—but in a much better cause than that in which his abilities were then often exercised—he denounced the new offices created, the monopolies granted, and the lavish waste of the public money, all for the benefit of Buckingham and his relations. He insisted that the useless pensions which had been recently granted should be stopped till the late king's debts were paid, and that a system of strict economy should be substituted for the now extravagant expenditure of the royal household. Others followed in the same strain, denouncing the odious practice of selling offices, in which Buckingham and his mother were the great vendors.
A third party showed that they were armed with dangerous matter by the still disgraced and restrained earl of Bristol. They charged Buckingham with his maladministration of affairs, with his incompetency as lord high admiral, and with having involved this country in an unnecessary war with Spain, merely in revenge of a private quarrel with the Spanish minister, Olivarez. They demanded an inquiry into that affair. One of the members of the house venturing to defend the government, and condemning the licence of speech against the crown, was speedily brought upon his knees, and compelled to implore pardon at the bar. Sir Robert Cotton, the founder of the Cottonian Library, applauded the wisdom and spirit of the house in thus summarily dealing with this unworthy member; and after giving a description of the conduct of the late favourite, Somerset, and of the follies and crimes of favourites of former reigns, as the Spencers, the Gavestons, the Poles, and others, pronounced Buckingham as far more insolent, mischievous, and incompetent than any of them.
The favourite, thus rudely handled, was quietly enjoying himself at Woodstock; but the king sent and made him aware of the necessity of defending himself. He hastened to town, and delivered in his place in the peers, a statement of the accounts of the navy, and a stout denial of any personal motives in the quarrel with Spain. He clearly showed that he felt whence the danger came, and alluding to the earl of Bristol, said, "I am minded to leave that business asleep, but if it should awake, it will prove a lion to devour him who co-operated with Olivarez."
To cut short these awkward debates, the king sent word to the commons that as the plague was already in Oxford, it was necessary to make quick work, and that they should furnish the grant of supplies. He offered to accept for the present forty thousand pounds; but the house refused even this, saying that if that was all that was necessary, it might readily be raised by a loan to the crown. This put the king beyond his patience, and he menaced them with a speedy dissolution; adding if they were not afraid of their health, he would take care of it for them, by releasing them from the plague-invaded city, and find some means of helping himself The commons were not in a temper to be intimidated; on the contrary, they went into a most warm and spirited debate on the king's message, and appointed a committee to prepare a reply. In this they thanked him for his care of their health, and of the religion of the nation, and promised supplies when the abuses of the government were redressed; and they called upon him not to suffer himself to be prejudiced against the greatest safeguard that a king could have—the faithful and dutiful commons—by interested persons. Before they had time, however, to present this address, Charles dissolved the parliament, which had only sat in this Oxford session twelve days.
Thus deprived of all the necessary funds for a war, none but so infatuated a monarch as Charles would have persisted in plunging into it. War had not yet been proclaimed against Spain; it was neither necessary nor expedient; on the contrary, every motive of political wisdom warned him to keep peace in that quarter, if he really wished to be at liberty to prosecute the interests of the palsgrave and the protestant cause. But led by the splenetic imbecility of Buckingham, so far was he from seeing the folly of a war with Spain, that he was soon pushed into one with France. In fact, he took every step which would have been avoided by a wise prince, and speedily involved himself in a labyrinth of difficulties inextricable. Spain quieted and even soothed; France cultivated, with the object of obtaining its influence and aid in the recovery of the Palatinate; and the protestants of Germany sympathised with, if not aided substantially in their severe struggle against Austrian bigotry, Charles might have eventually restored his sister and her husband to their old estate, and have won a place in the European world superior to any king of his time. Instead of this, he took the surest means to exasperate his own people, and his most powerful neighbour, that his worst enemies could have suggested.
To raise money for the prosecution of the war against Spain, he ordered the duties of tonnage and poundage to be levied, notwithstanding they were not voted by the peers. He issued writs of privy seal to the nobility, gentry, and clergy, for loans of money, and menaced vengeance if they were not complied with. All salaries and fees were suspended, and to such a strait was he reduced by his efforts to man and supply the fleet, that he was obliged to borrow three thousand pounds from the corporations of Southampton and Salisbury to enable him to meet the expenses of his own table.
At length the fleet was ready to sail with a force of ten thousand men; the English fleet consisting of eighty sail, and the Dutch sent an addition of sixteen sail. In weight and armament of ships such a force had scarcely ever before left an English port. But formidable as was this naval power, it was rendered perfectly inert by the same utter want of judgment and genius which marked all the
