Part 4 (1/2)

[79:1] _Life of Laud_, 294.

[80:1] From the account in the _State Trials_, III. 576.

[82:1] In his defence he says that he always voted last or last but one. In that case he must always have heard the sentence pa.s.sed by those who spoke before him, and not dissented from it.

His sole excuse is, that he was no worse than his colleagues; to which the answer is, he ought to have been better.

[85:1] Prynne, _New Discovery_, 132.

[91:1] Laud's _Diary_ (Newman's edition), 87.

[91:2] Heylin's _Laud_, 321, 322.

CHAPTER IV.

BOOK-FIRES OF THE REBELLION.

With the beneficent Revolution that practically began with the Long Parliament in November 1640, and put an end to the Star Chamber and High Commission, it might have been hoped that a better time was about to dawn for books. But the control of thought really only pa.s.sed from the Monarchical to the Presbyterian party; and if authors no longer incurred the atrocious cruelties of the Star Chamber, their works were more freely burnt at the order of Parliament than they appear to have been when the sentence to such a fate rested with the King or the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Parliament, in fact, a.s.sumed the dictators.h.i.+p of literature, and exercised supreme jurisdiction over author, printer, publisher, and licenser. Either House separately, or both concurrently, a.s.sumed the exercise of this power; and, if a book were sentenced to be burnt, the hangman seems always to have been called in aid. In an age which was pre-eminently the age of pamphlets, and torn in pieces by religious and political dissension, the number of pamphlets that were condemned to be burnt by the common hangman was naturally legion, though, of course, a still greater number escaped with some lesser form of censure. It is only with the former that I propose to deal, and only with such of them as seem of more than usual interest as ill.u.s.trating the manners and thoughts of that turbulent time.

It is a significant fact that the first writer whose works incurred the wrath of Parliament was the Rev. John Pocklington, D.D., one of the foremost innovators in the Church in the days of Laud's prosperity. The House of Lords consigned two of his books to be burnt by the hangman, both in London and the two chief Universities (February 12th, 1641). These were his _Sunday no Sabbath_, and the _Altare Christianum_.

The first of these was originally a sermon, preached on August 17th, 1635, wherein the Puritan view of Sunday was vehemently a.s.sailed, and the Puritans themselves vigorously abused. ”These Church Schismatics are the most gross, nay, the most transparent hypocrites and the most void of conscience of all others. They will take the benefit of the Church, but abjure the doctrine and discipline of the Church.” How often has not this argument done duty since against Pocklington's ecclesiastical descendants! But it is to be historically regretted that Pocklington's views of Sunday, the same of course as those of James the First's famous book, or Declaration of Sports, were not destined to prevail, and seem still as far as ever from attainment.

The _Altare Christianum_ had been published in 1637, in answer to certain books by Burton and Prynne, its object being to prove that altars and churches had existed before the Christian Church was 200 years old. But had these churches any more substantial existence than that one built, as he says, by Joseph of Arimathea, at Glas...o...b..ry, in the year 55 A.D.? Did the Arimathean really visit Glas...o...b..ry? Anyhow, the book is full of learning and instruction, and, indeed, both Pocklington's books have an interest of their own, apart from their fate, which, of so many, is their sole recommendation.

The sentence against Pocklington was strongly vindictive. Both his practices and his doctrines were condemned. In his practice he was declared to have been ”very superst.i.tious and full of idolatry,” and to have used many gestures and ceremonies ”not established by the laws of this realm.” These were the sort of ceremonies that, without ever having been so established by law, our ritualists have practically established by custom; and the offence of the ritualist doctrine as held in those days, and as ill.u.s.trated by Pocklington, lay in the following tenets ascribed to him: (1) that it was men's duty to bow to altars as to the throne of the Great G.o.d; (2) that the Eucharist was the host and held corporeal presence therein; (3) that there was in the Church a distinction between holy places and a Holy of holies; (4) that the canons and const.i.tutions of the Church were to be obeyed without examination.

For these offences of ritual and doctrine--offences to which, fortunately, we can afford to be more indifferent than our ancestors were, no reasonable man now thinking twice about them--Pocklington was deprived of all his livings and dignities and preferments, and incapacitated from holding any for the future, whilst his books were consigned to the hangman. It may seem to us a spiteful sentence; but it was after all a mild revenge, considering the atrocious sufferings of the Puritan writers. It is worse to lose one's ears and one's liberty for life than even to be deprived of Church livings; and it is noticeable that bodily mutilations came to an end with the clipping of the talons of the Crown and the Church at the beginning of the Long Parliament.

Taking now in order the works of a political nature that were condemned by the House of Commons to be burnt by the hangman, we come first to the _Speeches of Sir Edward Dering_, member for Kent in the Long Parliament, and a greater antiquary than he ever was a politician. He it was who, on May 27th, 1641, moved the first reading of the Root and Branch Bill for the abolition of Episcopacy. ”The pride, the avarice, the ambition, and oppression by our ruling clergy is epidemical,” he said; thereby proving that such an opinion was not merely a Puritan prejudice. But Dering appears only really to have aimed at the abolition of Laud's archiepiscopacy, and to have wished to see some purer form of prelacy re-established in place of the old. Naturally his views gave offence, which he only increased by republis.h.i.+ng his speeches on matters of religion, Parliament being so incensed that it burned his book, and committed its author for a week to the Tower (February 2nd, 1642).

Dering's was the common fate of moderate men in stormy times, who, seeing good on each side, are ill thought of by both.

Failing to be loyal to either, he was by both mistrusted. For not only did he ultimately vote on the side of the royalist episcopal party, but he actually fought on the King's side; then, being disgusted with the royalists for their leaning to Popery, he accepted the pardon offered for a compensation by Parliament in 1644, and died the same year, leaving posterity to regret that he was ever so ill-advised as to exchange antiquities for politics and party strife.

The famous speech of the statesman whom Charles, with his usual defiance of public opinion, soon afterwards raised to the peerage as Lord Digby (on the pa.s.sing of the Bill of Attainder against Lord Strafford), was, after its publication by its author, condemned to be burnt at Westminster, Cheapside, and Smithfield (July 13th, 1642). Digby voted against putting Strafford to death, because he did not think it proved by the evidence that Strafford had advised Charles to employ the army in Ireland for the subjection of England. But he condemned his general conduct as strongly as any man. He calls him ”the great apostate to the Commonwealth, who must not expect to be pardoned it in this world till he be dispatched to the other.” He refers very happily to his great abilities, ”whereof G.o.d hath given him the use, but the devil the application.” But does the critic's own memory stand much higher? Was he not the King's evil genius, who, together with the Queen, pushed him to that fatal step--the arrest of the five members?

How soon Parliament acquired the evil habit of dealing by fire and the hangman with uncongenial publications is proved by the fact that in one year alone the following five leaflets or pamphlets suffered in this way:--

1. _The Kentish Pet.i.tion_, drawn up at the Maidstone a.s.sizes by the gentry, ministry, and commonalty of Kent, praying for the preservation of episcopal government, and the settlement of religious differences by a synod of the clergy (April 17th, 1642). The pet.i.tion was couched in very strong language; and Professor Gardiner is probably right in saying that it was the condemnation of this famous pet.i.tion which rendered civil war inevitable.

2. _A True Relation of the Proceedings of the Scots and English Forces in the North of Ireland._ This was thought to be dishonouring to the Scots, and was accordingly ordered to be burnt (June 8th, 1642).

3. _King James: his Judgment of a King and a Tyrant_ (September 12th, 1642).

4. _A Speedy Post from Heaven to the King of England_ (October 5th, 1642).

5. _Letter from Lord Falkland_ to the Earl of c.u.mberland, concerning the action at Worcester (October 8th, 1642).