of this scheme which alone indeed James to venture on calling one. Bacon's plan was this, and he had regularly weighed it, and drawn it up for the kings consideration: That, according to a principle afterwards made a maxim by Sir Robert Walpole, every one had his price. That the leaders of the late opposition, Neville, Yelverton, Hyde, Crew, and Sir Dudley Digges, were chiefly lawyers, and there were plenty of means, by prospects of promotion skilfully applied, to bring them zealously to the king's side. That they being once brought over, he had the talking, persuasive power of the house; and that much might be done beforehand also with the city men and country gentlemen each in their own way, and where any obstinate man appeared, means might be used to keep him out. At the same time Bacon assured James that it was necessary to make a show of some concession. That as he had promised to abolish abuses, he should, at least, give up some of the lesser ones; and on his accepting this plan, he and his friends were ready to undertake to manage parliament, and to guarantee his majesty plenty of money and little trouble, provided James would only avoid irritating speeches.
James's necessities were such that there was little use in objecting to the scheme; it was agreed upon, and Bacon, the favourite Somerset, and Neville, an unscrupulous and ambitious man, were made the managers, and very soon, with their coadjutors, acquired the name of undertakers, because they undertook to manage parliament; "a generation," says Wilson, 'about the court, that, to please and humour greatness, undertook a parliament, as men presuming to have friends in every county and borough, who by their power amongst the people would combine to return such members as should comply solely to the king's desires." This base scheme, we shall find, did not succeed well at first, but it was too well suited to arbitrary power to be forgotten; and in after years, and almost to our own time, was in extensive practice by the ministers of the crown.
James's parliament met on the 5th of April, 1614, and he endeavoured to put in practice the Machiavellian instructions of Bacon by delivering a very popular speech,—popular because it promised plentiful persecution for religion, which was the spirit of the day, and a liberal removal of grievances; but, as usual, first of all, he placed the supply of his necessities. But the undertakers had not succeeded in their first out-of-door efforts; there was a sturdy assemblage of popular members, and such faces appeared amongst them, according to a writer of the time, as made the court to droop. The house of commons at once reversed the topics of the king's speech, placing the grievances in the front, and making the supplies conditional on their abolition. The royal party which the undertakers had got together, found their pleas for slavish obedience drowned in a storm of angry demand for justice; and the house demanded a conference with the lords on the subject. The lords asked the opinion of the judges on the question, and especially that of Coke, the lord chief justice. Coke, who remembered the endeavours of Bacon to supplant him in the good graces of the king, and who hoped for no higher preferment, took the opportunity to throw cold water on the conference, asserting that the judges, after consultation among themselves, felt that they were bound by their office to decide betwixt the king and his subjects, and were, therefore, equally bound not to appear as disputants or partisans on either side. The lords, on hearing this, declined the conference, and Neale, who had recently been transferred from the see of Lichfield to the wealthier one of Lincoln, for his services in proclaiming the countess of Essex's divorce, rose and uttered a most unbecoming tirade against the commons, charging them with striking at the root of the royal prerogative, and anticipating that if admitted to a conference, they might use very disloyal and seditious language.
This roused the indignation of the commons: they did not understand the etiquette of our time, which supposes what passes in one house unknown in the other; but they immediately demanded of the lords the punishment of the man who had thus dared to slander their loyalty. On this the bishop, who was as cowardly as he was insolent, and who was hated by the puritans as a merciless persecutor instantly recanted in his place; and with many tears, and fervent declarations of his high respect for the commons, denied many of the offensive expressions attributed to him. But the house was not thus to be appeased. The members were greatly exasperated at the plan of managing them, which had become public, and fell on Bacon as the author of the scheme. The facile lord chancellor pretended to ridicule the very idea of any such scheme being in existence, as the king had done in his opening speech, but the house gave him no credit; they proceeded to question even his right to sit in their house, on his accepting the office of attorney-general, and only permitted it as a special indulgence, which was not to be drawn into a precedent.
The king, who saw no chance of supplies in the present temper of the house, sent them a sharp message, desiring them to proceed to the business of the supplies, attended with a threat of immediate dissolution in case of non-compliance. This produced no effect, and the house was dissolved on the 7th of June. Having thus broken the immediate power of retaliation in the house, he, the next morning, arrested the most refractory members, and committed five of them to the Tower, amongst whom was Wentworth, a lawyer, destined to act a very prominent part in the next reign. These members were not discharged till they had, by their admissions, occasioned the king to arrest others, who were committed in their turn. This parliament obtained the name of the Addle parliament, because it had not passed a single bill, but it had displayed a spirit which was pregnant with the most momentous consequences. It had laid the foundation of the rights of the commons, and at the same time had displayed its rigid temperament, by issuing an order which excluded all catholics, by making it necessary for every member, before taking his seat, to receive the sacrament according to the form of the church of England.
James had indeed received a fright from the determined tone of the house which lasted him nearly seven years. He returned to his usual unconstitutional modes of extorting revenue. Besides the sale of monopolies and privileges, he compelled the payment of benevolences, an odious tax, not only because raised without sanction of parliament, but because its name implied a free gift. Those who resisted these modes of royal robbery were dragged into the star-chamber; and there sentenced to enormous fines. Mr.
