racked, nevertheless; but as the judges now found out that torture
was contrary to the law of England – it is a pity they did not make
the discovery a little sooner – John Felton was simply executed for
the murder he had done. A murder it undoubtedly was, and not in
the least to be defended: though he had freed England from one of
the most profligate, contemptible, and base court favourites to
whom it has ever yielded.
A very different man now arose. This was SIR THOMAS WENTWORTH, a
Yorkshire gentleman, who had sat in Parliament for a long time, and
who had favoured arbitrary and haughty principles, but who had gone
over to the people’s side on receiving offence from Buckingham.
The King, much wanting such a man – for, besides being naturally
favourable to the King’s cause, he had great abilities – made him
first a Baron, and then a Viscount, and gave him high employment,
and won him most completely.
A Parliament, however, was still in existence, and was NOT to be
won. On the twentieth of January, one thousand six hundred and
twenty-nine, SIR JOHN ELIOT, a great man who had been active in the
Petition of Right, brought forward other strong resolutions against
the King’s chief instruments, and called upon the Speaker to put
them to the vote. To this the Speaker answered, ‘he was commanded
otherwise by the King,’ and got up to leave the chair – which,
according to the rules of the House of Commons would have obliged
it to adjourn without doing anything more – when two members, named
Mr. HOLLIS and Mr. VALENTINE, held him down. A scene of great
confusion arose among the members; and while many swords were drawn
and flashing about, the King, who was kept informed of all that was
going on, told the captain of his guard to go down to the House and
force the doors. The resolutions were by that time, however,
voted, and the House adjourned. Sir John Eliot and those two
members who had held the Speaker down, were quickly summoned before
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the council. As they claimed it to be their privilege not to
answer out of Parliament for anything they had said in it, they
were committed to the Tower. The King then went down and dissolved
the Parliament, in a speech wherein he made mention of these
gentlemen as ‘Vipers’ – which did not do him much good that ever I
have heard of.
As they refused to gain their liberty by saying they were sorry for
what they had done, the King, always remarkably unforgiving, never
overlooked their offence. When they demanded to be brought up
before the court of King’s Bench, he even resorted to the meanness
of having them moved about from prison to prison, so that the writs
issued for that purpose should not legally find them. At last they
came before the court and were sentenced to heavy fines, and to be
imprisoned during the King’s pleasure. When Sir John Eliot’s
health had quite given way, and he so longed for change of air and
scene as to petition for his release, the King sent back the answer
(worthy of his Sowship himself) that the petition was not humble
enough. When he sent another petition by his young son, in which
he pathetically offered to go back to prison when his health was
restored, if he might be released for its recovery, the King still
disregarded it. When he died in the Tower, and his children
petitioned to be allowed to take his body down to Cornwall, there
to lay it among the ashes of his forefathers, the King returned for
answer, ‘Let Sir John Eliot’s body be buried in the church of that
parish where he died.’ All this was like a very little King
indeed, I think.
And now, for twelve long years, steadily pursuing his design of
setting himself up and putting the people down, the King called no
Parliament; but ruled without one. If twelve thousand volumes were
written in his praise (as a good many have been) it would still