That pestilent Buckingham,to gratify his own wounded vanity,had by this time involved the country in war with France,as well as with Spain.For such miserable causes and such miserable creatures are wars sometimes made!But he was destined to do little more mischief in this world.One morning,as he was going out of his house to his carriage,he turned to speak to a certain Colonel FRYER who was with him;and he was violently stabbed with a knife,which the murderer left sticking in his heart.This happened in his hall.He had had angry words up-stairs,just before,with some French gentlemen,who were immediately suspected by his servants,and had a close escape from being set upon and killed.In the midst of the noise,the real murderer,who had gone to the kitchen and might easily have got away,drew his sword and cried out,'I am the man!'His name was JOHN FELTON,a Protestant and a retired officer in the army.He said he had had no personal ill-will to the Duke,but had killed him as a curse to the country.He had aimed his blow well,for Buckingham had only had time to cry out,'Villain!'and then he drew out the knife,fell against a table,and died.
The council made a mighty business of examining John Felton about this murder,though it was a plain case enough,one would think.
He had come seventy miles to do it,he told them,and he did it for the reason he had declared;if they put him upon the rack,as that noble MARQUIS OF DORSET whom he saw before him,had the goodness to threaten,he gave that marquis warning,that he would accuse HIM as his accomplice!The King was unpleasantly anxious to have him 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 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 remain a fact,impossible to be denied,that for twelve years King Charles the First reigned in England unlawfully and despotically,seized upon his subjects'goods and money at his pleasure,and punished according to his unbridled will all who ventured to oppose him.It is a fashion with some people to think that this King's career was cut short;but I must say myself that I think he ran a pretty long one.