10—
Charles's First Parliament

It was not only marriage that claimed Charles's attention. He knew well enough that his life had now to be lived on several levels. Even while he was greeting his wife at Dover and they were coming up river to the cheers of the London crowd, plague deaths continued to rise and economic distress associated with rising prices and unemployment was spreading. The Privy Council dealt with the plague in such ways as it could, closing the theatres, stopping the fairs, halting bull and bear baiting, limiting travel in and out of affected areas, collecting money for the relief of victims. He himself renewed a Commission, headed by Viscount Mandeville, to enquire into the causes of the decay of trade. He had to consider the new coinage necessary to a new reign, the designs for which old Abraham van der Doort was preparing. Questions concerning his coronation and the style by which he would be known needed to be settled: like his father, he wished to be King of Great Britain, but the Judges ruled against him and he had to be King of England, Scotland, and Ireland. He made over Denmark House and its contents to Henrietta-Maria for life, and transferred his pictures, tapestries, statues, and the precious contents of his little cabinet room at St James's to grander premises at Whitehall.

He confirmed twenty-eight of James's thirty Privy Councillors in their offices, excluding only Bristol, still in disgrace, and Lord Baltimore (the former Sir George Calvert) who, now a professed Roman Catholic, felt he could not take the oath of allegiance. Charles merely remarked that it was better for a man to state his opinions than to retain office by equivocation. He remembered his personal friends. His cousin, James Stuart, Duke of Lennox, a man twelve years his junior, became Gentleman of his Bedchamber. Sir Henry Vane remained his cofferer and was still 'well rooted in the King's heart'. Robert Carey, who had taken him in as a weak and backward child,

and who already was Baron Hunsdon and Lord Leppington, now became the Earl of Monmouth, with £500 of land made over to him and his heirs in perpetuity. Carey, who had been Chamberlain to Charles since the death of Henry, felt a pang when James's Chamberlain, Pembroke, was continued in office by the new king. But Charles could not demote Pembroke, who was in any case a younger man, and Carey, after a wry aside made largely for form's sake, conceded that 'the King dealt very graciously' with him. He lived to publish his Memoirs later that year and died in 1639. Cottington was temporarily out of favour, partly because of his initial reaction to the Spanish journey, but mainly because his Catholic leaning led him to oppose a Spanish war. Cottington did not join the Privy Council until November 1628.

If Charles had any doubts as to what it meant to rule a kingdom they were resolved as the papers flowed in for his perusal. Three hundred and forty-six times before the year was out, seven hundred and thirty-three times before the end of 1626 he would sign a wide range of documents of varying importance which came to him from his Secretary of State alone. He was sufficiently conscientious to read them all, and many times amended them in his own fine, spidery hand; and sufficiently punctilious to dispense with a sign manual and actually to write his name on each of those he approved.^[1]

One of the first to receive his signature was a warrant to Lord Treasurer Ley to continue collecting customs duties as in his father's time; he instituted commissions of marque, or reprisal, against subjects of the King of Spain in the Low Countries; he continued the drainage of Sedgemoor in Somerset which his father had begun; he instructed compensation to be paid to a woman whose husband had been killed in the King's ship Speedwell ; he granted dwellings in the almshouses at Ewelme to deserving persons; he pardoned a convicted murderer whose father had interceded for him, paid considerable sums of money to his jeweller, earmarked £150 to help establish the new draperies, and ordered the payment of £120 to Daniel Mytens for a copy of Titian's great Venus (the Venere del Pardo).^[2]

He instituted a stricter regime at Court which rid him of a few expensive parasites and suited the greater decorum he intended to introduce. His own day was planned so that no time was wasted. He rose very early and thereafter every activity — prayers, exercises, Council business, eating and sleeping — had its appointed time. One day a week was set aside for public audiences and neither then nor at

any other time would he see anyone unless sent for. But he gave general satisfaction by mixing with his courtiers in the Privy Chamber each morning, giving a word here, a salutation there. In private he might be observed reading in a little book whose contents were divulged to no one but were thought to consist of maxims in manuscript. His spirit was high. The Spanish Ambassador was told to say to his master that the Queen of Bohemia had now a King for a brother! He could even be firm with the Buckingham family, refusing to attach Kit Villiers to his bedchamber because he would have no drunkenness there. The Venetian Ambassador was delighted with him. 'The King's reputation increases day by day', he wrote to the Doge and Senate. 'He professes constancy in religion, sincerity in action and that he will not have recourse to subterfuges in his dealings'. Amerigo Salvetti was similarly impressed. 'Wise government by the new King may be anticipated', he reported. 'He was well, active, and resolute', wrote Toby Mathew to Sir Dudley Carleton. In Council, it was said, he would listen attentively and weigh the arguments carefully before coming to a decision.^[3]

The question that concerned him above all others was the future of his sister. The restitution of the Palatinate was no nearer than when he had ridden to Spain two and a half years earlier with his hopes high, and Elizabeth was still living at The Hague with an annual pension of £20,000 from England and was so poor that Charles had not only paid a debt of £10,000 on her behalf but sent her money for mourning after the death of James. She displayed, nevertheless, much of her old spirit, unlike her husband who, for all his charm, was indecisive and inclined to melancholy. 'I think', said Charles, who by this time had taken the measure of his brother-in-law, 'the grey mare is the best horse.'

The most important decisions he had to take concerned the war that, in one way or another, directly or indirectly, would lead the Palatine back to his inheritance. Charles appointed a committee of his Privy Council to advise him on foreign affairs and went to Gravesend to inspect the merchant ships that still, as in Tudor times, were the backbone of his naval force. The Parliament of 1624 had earmarked part of its supply for refurbishing that force, Buckingham had lent £30,000, and other navy commissioners had raised a loan of £50,000. On May 1, disregarding the difficulties of earlier impressments, Charles ordered the raising of a further 10,000 men to accompany the fleet as soldiers, and the enterprise against Spain began to take shape as

twelve ships of the royal navy, twenty armed merchantmen and fifty colliers were commanded to rendezvous at Plymouth in June 1625. There was also the question of La Rochelle hanging in the balance. This Huguenot enclave in Catholic France had revolted at the end of 1624 and early the following year Richelieu had asked James for ships — not to be used against the Huguenots but, by their presence, to prevent further rebellion. James was rarely deaf to an appeal to support authority, and he could hardly afford to offend France at this time. The loan of a few ships barely worried him. It took Charles longer to accept Richelieu's assurance that only a show of force would be necessary against the Huguenots, but Pennington sailed for France on 9 June 1625 with eight English ships.

Mansfeld and his hotch-potch army had meanwhile left Dover on 11 January 1625. Contrary to agreement the French refused them landing at Calais or Boulogne and they proceeded along the coast looking for the promised French cavalry. But these were not ready to embark and the little fleet, already in poor condition, cast anchor off Flushing on February 1. Mansfeld had expected to march to the relief of the Palatinate, but without French help he was powerless against the Imperial forces that barred his way. The Dutch begged for his help in holding Breda against besieging Spanish forces. James refused to enlarge the area of the war. The condition of the little force worsened as it waited at Flushing. They were short of food and water, inadequately clothed, so close-packed in their ships that movement was difficult, they stifled below deck and froze above. When at last they disembarked the Dutch provided a modicum of food and of straw to cover them at night, but they were dying at the rate of forty or fifty a day. 'We look for victuals and bury our dead', was a laconic report. By the end of February 1625 barely 3,000 of the original 12,000 were capable of bearing arms. These few Charles ordered on his accession to help the besieged at Breda, arguing that the continued locking up of Spanish forces round the town was an indirect help to the Palatinate. Many of them deserted to the Spanish, the rest remained before Breda for two months, unable to avert the inevitable outcome. When the city surrendered on May 26 the Dutch, with indecent haste, hurried Mansfeld and the desperate and marauding remnant of his army over the border on what they hoped was the way to the Palatinate. It was a sorry beginning to Charles's intervention in Europe. But the broader strategy remained in the form of the fleet which was being prepared

for action against Spain, and the subsidies he had agreed to pay to the Protestant armies in Europe.

It remained to be seen whether he could meet these obligations: £240,000 a year for Mansfeld and his men; £100,000 annually to help maintain troops in the Low Countries; £360,000 for the armies of his uncle the King of Denmark; £300,000 or more to equip and pay for the fleet and army being prepared against Spain; £25,000 to protect Ireland. He had to find something like £1,200,000 in the next twelve months apart from the normal expenses of running his Court and Household. And these had been swollen by new or exceptional obligations: £40 or £50,000 for the old King's personal debts, £30,000 for his funeral, the accompanying receptions and gifts to servants; £40,000 for Charles's marriage and for the presents and entertainment involved; £37,000 a year to his Queen, as well as an immediate payment of £5000 and unspecified further sums to her French attendants — a total of at least £162,000. He could economize on personal expenditure and reduce such standing items as pensions, but the degree to which he was willing to do so made little difference. He raised some income by disparking most of his more remote parks and chases, either selling or leasing the land thus disafforested or turning it to profitable agriculture. He anticipated some of his customs revenue. He borrowed £60,000 from the City of London upon the security of Crown lands. Yet nothing could make an appreciable difference to the financial situation: he needed something like the £400,000 which had been his father's income in 1624 together with £162,000 to cover exceptional expenses, and the £1,200,000 required by his war expenditure.^[4]

He could see no way of raising it except through a Parliament. He would have preferred to meet his first Parliament under more favourable conditions; for he knew that besides asking for large sums of money he would have to deal with the suspicions surrounding his marriage treaty, the commitments he had made in Europe, the uncertainties of the war, the failure of Mansfeld's expedition, and the growing unpopularity of Buckingham. He had seen enough of Parliaments to appreciate their potential power, but his experience of the Parliament of 1624 gave him confidence. He even considered reconvening the postponed session of that assembly, but the constitution demanded a new Parliament for a new reign and the writs went out on April 17. No more than the usual patronage appeared to be exercised and there is no evidence of hotly contested elections to the Parliament

of 1625, though there were rumours that those opposed to the Court were 'exciting tumults' in order to win seats for their candidates. In the event the House of Commons was little different from that of the previous year, with Coke and Sir Robert Phelips prominent among the leaders. Sir Thomas Wentworth, who had been returned for Yorkshire, was the only Member with a disputed election on his hands and was absent for most of the session. Sir Edwin Sandys, Sir Dudley Digges, Edward Alford were there and, among the younger men, John Pym, Sir John Eliot, and John Hampden. Once more Benjamin Rudyerd, the friend of Pembroke (with whom he composed verses) was expected to be the spokesman of the Court party. They were all concerned with the authority of Parliament and their own right to freedom of speech. They all intended to safeguard their own interests and those of their constituents. This would be no rubber-stamp assembly. Charles, indeed, made some effort to influence the House through the presence of Privy Councillors. When Sir John Suckling, Privy Councillor and Comptroller of the Household, failed to gain a seat for Middlesex, patronage found him one at Yarmouth, Isle of Wight; and Sir Albertus Morton was helped in Kent by Buckingham, as well as by Westmoreland and Dorset. They need not have troubled for Morton was also returned for Cambridge University. In other respects James had been negligent, raising Conway to the peerage in the spring of 1624, so depriving the Commons of a useful Court spokesman. In the Upper House generally there was little change, and Charles still refused to allow Bristol to take his seat.

Charles was reluctant to face the Parliament of 1625 until his marriage was consummated, and its opening was twice postponed — from May 17 to the 31st and again until June 18, two days after Henriette-Maria reached London. It was unfortunate that by then the fall of Breda and the condition of the English troops in Holland were common knowledge and that the impressment which Charles had ordered for the fleet was causing grave unrest. Meanwhile, with plague ravaging the capital, the meeting of Parliament elsewhere had been considered; but in the end the convenience of London prevailed. The show normally attendant upon a state opening was curtailed, but nothing could stem the enormous enthusiasm which greeted the new King as he came quietly by water to his first Parliament. When he appeared before the House of Lords Charles was not only robed but crowned, in spite of the fact that as yet there had been no coronation, but as prayers were said he knelt by the chair of state and put off the

crown. The traditional sermon was given by William Laud, Bishop of St David's. Speaking with the words of James he expressed the sentiments of Charles: the law and the Parliament were agents of the King, they received their power from the King and their function was to support his authority. It was not a helpful speech and did nothing to encourage the unity which Laud extolled. Charles was wiser. Whether from necessity or from a just appreciation of what his audience wanted, he hit the right note with simplicity and brevity, which made a welcome change from his father's long and erudite speeches. In his favour, also, were his youth, the good impression he had made on earlier parliaments, and the earnestness with which he was reforming the disordered Court.

'I thank God', he began, 'that the Business that is to be treated of at this Time, is of such a Nature that it needs no Eloquence for to set it forth; for I am neither able to do it, nor doth it stand with My Nature to spend much Time in Words'. He emphasized, nevertheless, that Parliament had urged the breaking of the treaties with Spain, that this presupposed war, and that war required money. He asked for 'assistance for those in Germany' and spoke of 'the fleet that is ready for action'.

My Lords and Gentlemen, I pray you to remember . . . what a great Dishonour it were, both to you and Me, if this Action, so begun, should fail for that Assistance you are able to give Me . . . I hope you . . . will expedite what you have now in Hand to do.

Yet, even as he spoke, there hung over Parliament the broken promises of the previous year, the unrevealed disasters of the Continental war, the ugly rumours of help being given to France against the Huguenots. Charles did not tell them that he stood there perjured, either to them or to his Queen, in respect of the treatment of Roman Catholics; nor did he explain that the promise to reconvene the 1624 Parliament in the autumn of that year had been broken for fear of jeopardizing the French marriage negotiations. He had no reason to advance for not keeping his father's undertaking to account for the money already granted by Parliament. Still less did he speak of the commitments in Europe which he and Buckingham had undertaken in spite of the strongly expressed opposition of the previous Parliament.

Charles's Lord Keeper was hardly more explicit. His statement that the breaking of the treaties with Spain, 'the succeeding treaties and alliances, the armies sent into the Low Countries, the repairing of

the forts, and the fortifying of Ireland, do all meet in one centre, the Palatinate', must have left his hearers decidedly puzzled since it was accompanied by no specific information nor by any statement of the sums of money involved. True, there was no constitutional necessity for an explanation from the King. But the degree to which the monarch had taken Parliament into his confidence had been growing, and James had certainly invited his last Parliament to advise him on foreign affairs. When two days later the Speaker, Sir Thomas Crew, was presented to Charles his speech was understandably cool. He 'trusted' the King would be able to recover the Palatinate and he then plunged into another matter, asking Charles 'really to execute the laws against the wicked generation of Jesuits, seminary priests, and incendiaries, every lying in wait to blow the coals of contention'. A few days later the House settled down to a full debate on the question of religion. Although nothing specific was known of the contents of the French marriage treaty rumour was hard at work and members were clearly not convinced of Charles's integrity. On the 23rd a committee of the whole House was voted to consider the working of the recusancy laws and on the 30th a petition drawn up by the experienced Sandys and the young Pym begging the King to execute the penal laws in all their strictness and to take measures to prevent the spread of papist doctrines, was sent up to the Lords. On the same day Sir Francis Seymour rose unexpectedly in a thin House. He had been vociferous in the previous Parliament in insisting that England should not entangle herself on the Continent but should fight a lucrative war on the Spanish Main. He now proposed a grant of one subsidy and one fifteenth, a mere £100,000, and clearly not enough to provide for any aspect of the war. Rudyerd was taken by surprise. He stumbled to his feet to remind the House of the great expenses of funeral, marriage, coronation, and the entertainment of foreign ambassadors. With the more vital commitments in Europe and the need to supply the navy, he dealt only in general terms. The Commons were not impressed. Phelips, whether by previous agreement or not, quickly rose to support Seymour. The supply given by the previous Parliament had been generous yet was still unaccounted for. 'What account is to be given', he asked, 'of 20,000 men, of many thousand pounds of treasure, which have been expended without any success of honour or profit?' The money had been voted for war, he cried, flinging Charles's unsubstantiated demands back in his face, but 'we know yet of no war, nor of any enemy'. The comparison he drew was intentionally hurtful

and damaging and drew together the religious and financial issues: 'It was not wonte to be soe when God and wee held together; witness that glorious Queen, who with less supplyes defended herself, consumed Spayne, assisted the Low Countreys, relieved France, preserved Ireland.' He nevertheless proposed the granting of two subsidies, some £140,000, which the House supported, partly on the grounds that fifteenths were burdensome to poorer people, though the fact that fifteenths were an assessment upon property may have made them less acceptable on other grounds.

With the petition of religion and the proposed supply, inadequate though it was, going forward on the same day, the issue was squarely before Charles: he had either to break his promise to Parliament concerning religion, in which case there would be no supply, or break his secret agreement with France — which meant, in effect, with his wife. The latter was easier. The French alliance was proving worthless, Buckingham was out of favour in France after his flirtation with the French Queen, Henrietta-Maria's French attendants were tiresome in themselves, a drain upon his resources, and a cause of friction between himself and the Queen. But before taking action he made one effort to secure a larger supply in return for the concession on religion he was about to make. The pestilence was raging in London and Charles himself left for Hampton Court, leaving Buckingham to attempt to hammer out some compromise with the opposition. On July 8, when many Members had left for home because of the plague, Sir John Coke made a fuller statement of the King's requirements than had yet been offered: £240,000 for Mansfeld; the same for the King of Denmark; another £133,000 for the fleet above the two subsidies granted. But it was too late to throw such figures at the House. They needed to be more fully informed. Perhaps they were stunned at the large sums named. Certainly they needed time for full and open debate. But with plague in their midst that time was not now, and there was no response to Coke's statement.

Meanwhile there had been further humiliation to swallow. On July 5 tonnage and poundage was offered to the King for one year only instead of for life, as had been usual since the reign of Henry VI. It is unlikely that this was a deliberate withholding of permanent supply; to have cut Charles off from the monarch's customary revenue at this stage presages a far wider and clearer breach between King and Parliament than had yet occurred. The reason was more likely to be found in the review of the customs which was proceeding and a reluctance,

meanwhile, to pledge any revenue indefinitely. But the effect was the same on the harrassed King. With plague deaths amounting to more than 500 a week in London alone Parliament ground to a halt. On July 11 Charles renewed his promise to enforce the recusancy laws, Lord Conway accepted on his behalf the paltry grant of two subsidies, and the Houses adjourned.

The pestilence broke out in the King's guardroom, in his bakery, and among the Queen's priests. The Court thankfully moved to Wood-stock and the Fellows and students of the University of Oxford moved out to make room for the Parliament men who assembled on August 1 in Christ Church Hall for the second session of the 1625 Parliament. Again religion and supply were coupled and Charles was immediately asked to account for the money granted by the 1624 Parliament and to explain why he had pardoned a Jesuit on July 12, the day after he had promised to execute the penal laws. At the same time the Commons returned to a religious issue which had troubled them in the previous session.

This was a matter not so much of Papists and the Papacy as of dissension within the reformed, Protestant religion itself. It had come to a head with two books written by Richard Montague, rector of Stanford Rivers in Essex. Montague was a scholar and author of some distinction who had publicly disputed with the learned John Selden himself on the subject of tythes. In an argument with Catholic priests in his parish he had taken up the position that they had no need of Rome since much of their doctrine was integral to the true reformed Church of England, a notion which appealed to neither Puritans nor Catholics. The Catholics responded in 1622 with The Gag for the new Gospel . Montague's reply of 1624, A New Gag for an Old Goose , was a vigorous pamphlet which, while rejecting Roman Catholic doctrines, upset Calvinists by its clear assertion of the dogmas of free will and salvation by works. In other respects Montague pleased neither side. He denied that the clergy could compel their parishioners to confession, but claimed that in some cases advice and consolation, even an intimation of divine pardon, might be given by a priest to a repentant sinner. He rejected transubstantiation of the bread and wine but believed in the immanence of Christ at communion. He opposed image worship yet believed that pictures and statues could help to bring God and the nature of Christian worship into the hearts of a congregation.

Montague's book had come to the notice of James's last Parliament. James was delighted with it, exclaiming that if it offered Popish doctrine then he was Popish too! By the time Charles's first Parliament met, Montague had produced another book, written at James's request, in order to clarify his position. Since James had died before its publication, the dedication of the Appello Caesarem was to Charles and the book concluded with the unnecessarily provocative exclamation: 'defend thou me with the sword and I will defend thee with the pen!' Incensed at what appeared to be an anti-Puritan alliance by the Church and the Crown the Commons summoned Montague to the bar of the House at Westminster and bound him over in recognisances of £2000.

Montague was typical of a number of intellectuals who professed to find their inspiration in the Early Fathers and disowned both the mediaeval Papacy and all forms of Puritanism. The English Church settlement of Elizabeth, they believed, brought the Church as nearly as possible into accord with the teaching of the Fathers. They believed that worship could be enhanced by individual acts of piety and good works and that it was in the power of the individual to live a godly life. A Christian was therefore not predestined to either salvation or damnation but could achieve grace through acts of piety. A leading exponent of free-will, Jacobus Arminius, gave his name — Arminianism — to the doctrine.

On the second day of the Oxford session Parliament returned to the Arminian issue and the subject of Montague. But Charles had put him beyond the reach of Parliament by making him his chaplain. The action was typical. Coldly disapproving of the Commons' conduct, he showed his support of Montague warmly by bringing him within his own household and under his protection. The lawyer Edward Alford at once perceived the wider issue: could the King's ministers and other public officers similarly be protected by the King or were they responsible to Parliament who could call them to account if it thought fit? The Commons thus stumbled upon the vital question of ministerial responsibility and inevitably the name of Buckingham was in every mind.

The question of responsibility became, indeed, more urgent as the situation deteriorated both at home and abroad. The delivery of the ships to the French and the rioting following the latest impressment for the fleet were by this time common knowledge, clashes between English and French merchantmen were affecting commerce, the menace of pirates was daily growing more acute and reports were

pouring into the Oxford Parliament of pirate raids on English shores. Hysteria and reality combined to crystallize the feeling against the Duke. One observer coupled 'the neglect of guarding the seas' with 'misspending of the public treasure' as the chief grievances of the Commons and laid the responsibility upon the man who was both the Lord Admiral and the King's chief adviser. All the Commons knew about Buckingham, his accumulation of office, the advancement of his family, his hold upon preferment, his monopolies, his wealth, was suspect. So was his religion. He was the patron of Laud, he had supported Montague; his wife, though apparently converted, was of a Catholic family; his mother had adopted the Catholic faith; he himself was known to have flirted with it; his conduct in Spain was condemned.

Charles did nothing to appease his Parliament. On the 4th he came in from Woodstock to Christ Church Hall and reminded them that the two subsidies they had voted were 'far too short and yet ungathered', he put up Secretary Conway to say that £30–40,000 was needed for the fleet and Sir John Coke to name £600,000 a year as the cost of European commitments. Next day when his Chancellor of the Exchequer moved for a further two subsidies and two fifteenths (about £170,000) the House plunged into a disorderd discussion which reflected its bewilderment at the varying sums named by the King's advisers. Two supply votes were impossible in one Parliament, they said, it was too late for the fleet to sail, was there perhaps no intention that it should sail? Who was the enemy against whom preparations were being made? One voice, indeed, was raised for Charles when it was suggested that some other form of tax might be found which would raise money immediately; but the Members had too great a care of their pockets to support such a proposition. Sir Nathaniel Rich thought that the King's revenue should be examined with a view to its increase, a suggestion that would hardly help immediately, but the sting in his speech was a request that 'when His Majesty doth make a war, it may be debated and advised by his grave council', a hit, surely, at Buckingham. Sir Robert Cotton aimed in the same direction when he begged the King 'not to be led with young and single counsel' but to be guided by his great officers of state.

Buckingham was well aware of the way the debates were tending. Though he had been endeavouring to reach a compromise outside the House he had not heard within it any terms he could accept. So on August 8, never one to shirk responsibility, he himself came before Parliament in Christ Church Hall. He spoke with confidence of his

popularity when he returned from Spain, and of his efforts since then to build up an anti-Spanish party. He asserted that he had always taken advice, that nothing he had done had been without the approval of Council, and denied that it was too late in the year to send out a fleet. 'Make the Fleet ready to go out, and the King bids you name the Enemy', he cried. 'Put the Sword into His Majesty's hands, and he will improve it to your honour.'

But the House was in little mood for rhetoric. The statement of the King's finances which the Lord Treasurer now put before them fell flat: it was, after all, the fourth time the King had offered figures and they could not reconcile the varying sums involved. On the 10th Phelips went to the heart of the matter by asking Sir Robert Mansell, a member of the Council of War, if he accepted joint responsibility for the war strategy? Mansell, after some hesitation, said 'No'. Later the same day Buckingham was named in the House by Seymour: 'Let us lay the fault where it is', he cried, 'the Duke of Buckingham is trusted, and it must needs be either in him or his agents'. Phelips rubbed in the salt. 'It is not fit', he exclaimed, 'to repose the safety of the Kingdom upon those that have not parts answerable to their places.' Well might a broad Scots voice be heard again: 'Ye'll live to have your bellyfull of Parliamentary impeachments!'.^[5]

Charles saw at once the implications and summoned his Council that afternoon. He wanted an immediate dissolution. Buckingham and Williams begged him to be patient, both for the sake of supply and, as Williams strongly urged, to avoid an ignominious end to his first Parliament. But, even with Buckingham on his knees before him, Charles would not be persuaded. On August 12 he dismissed his first Parliament in order to protect his friend. As the Venetian Ambassador pointed out, he put the safety of Buckingham above the needs of the state. He might have added that Charles put the safety of Buckingham above the needs of his sister, for Parliament had granted nothing but a paltry and as yet ungathered supply while the tonnage and poundage bill lay uncommitted. Parliament had demanded that the King's actions on religious affairs be brought into line with its own beliefs, it had refused to endorse his foreign policy, it had condemned the influence and what it considered the ineptitude of the King's favourite. But Charles gave Buckingham a circlet of diamonds and a beautifully moulded little bronze horse. When others found fault with his friend it was always Charles's instinct to reward. The hurt must be wiped away and the world must see how truly the Duke was loved.