CHAP. original scheme of sending his fleet to capture the Spanish ships returning from America.1 VIII. 1625. Aug. 4. Aug. 5. Proposal to confer with the Lords. Objections raised to it. The Commons were fairly puzzled. Though Coke named no sum in particular, it seemed as if he had come round again to Conway's 40,000l. The wildest conjectures were hazarded as to what was really meant. Some thought that the fleet was not to go at all, and that the blame of failure was to be thrown on the House of Commons. Others even thought that a peace had been patched up with Spain. It needed the utmost frankness of explanation on the part of the ministers of Charles to do away with the ill-will caused by the long reticence of the King, followed by the involved and almost unintelligible demands which had been made at the close of the sittings at Westminster, and which were repeated in a form more involved and unintelligible still at the opening of the sittings at Oxford. When the House met the next morning, Mr. Whistler opened the debate by a proposal which, if it had been met in the spirit in which it was made, might have changed the history of the reign. Let the Commons, he said, ask the opinion of the Lords upon the necessity of the action proposed. If they could not get satisfaction there, let them go to the King. Full and complete information upon the intentions of the Government was plainly the only condition upon which the Commons could be justified in acceding to the demands made upon them. But even if Charles had been willing to grant such information, it was one of the evils of the new system of government that there was no one in the House of sufficient authority to take 1 The Prince's answer is unknown, as it was given by word of mouth (Morton to Conway, July 13; S. P. Holland), but it may be gathered from that officially made by the States General. Morton and Carleton to Conway, July 4; S. P. Holland. SEYMOUR ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS. upon himself the responsibility of meeting an unexpected proposal. It was probably from instinct rather than from any knowledge of the King's wishes that Sir George More replied, with courtier-like facility, that it was unconstitutional to apply to the Lords on a question of subsidy. But May, Weston, and Heath sat silent in their places, and before they had time to receive instructions the debate had taken another turn. 269 CHAP. 1625. Aug. 5. attacks the policy of the Crown. If there was a man in the House who would be Seymour consistent with himself in attacking the foreign policy foreign of the Crown it was Sir Francis Seymour, the proposer of the restricted supply which had been granted at Westminster. In itself the fact that the Government had entered into engagements with foreign powers so extensive that it did not venture directly to ask the Commons for the means of fulfilling them was calculated to give rise to the gravest suspicions, and Seymour, the old opponent of the system of Continental wars, was not likely to treat such suspicions lightly. This meeting of Parliament, he argued, had been the work of those who sought to put dissensions between the King and his people. It was absurd to suppose that it needed a Parliament to procure 40,000l. for the fleet. As for the rest that had been said, he had no confidence in the advisers of the Crown. He did not believe that peace had been made in France, and he hoped that English ships would not be used as abettors of the French king's violence against his Huguenot subjects. Then turning to the past, Seymour continued, "We have given three subsidies and three fifteenths to the Queen of Bohemia for which she is nothing the better. Nothing hath been done. We know not our enemy. We have set upon and consumed our own people." What he wished was that they might now'do somewhat for the country,' and CHAP. they would then give his Majesty a seasonable and bountiful supply. VIII. 1625. Aug. 5. May's answer. Distrust of Buckingham's capacity, perhaps of his integrity, was imprinted on every word of Seymour's speech. When May rose to answer him, he knew that the whole foreign policy of the Government needed defence. And if he could not meet all attacks he was able to tell of much that had been overlooked by Seymour. It was something that the King of Denmark was on the move. It was something that France was no longer in friendship with Spain. May then went on to relate an anecdote from his own personal knowledge. When at the end of Elizabeth's reign Mountjoy had been sent into Ireland and was in great danger of defeat, Sir Robert Cecil had protested beforehand that if disaster followed no imputation could be brought against the Government at home. My Lord Mountjoy," he had said, "cannot complain of us. He hath wanted nothing from hence. If things miscarry, the blame must be somewhere else." The application of the anecdote was obvious. It was the business of the House to vote supplies and to throw the responsibility off their own shoulders. 66 May had forgotten that the House courted responsibility, and that it was very far from feeling that confidence in Buckingham's powers as a minister which Cecil had in Mountjoy's powers as a soldier. He did not acknowledge that times were changed, and that those who supply the money for war must necessarily ask for a larger share in its management as soon as they have reason to think that the supplies are being squandered or misused. Nor did Edmondes, who followed, mend the position of the Government by asking Speech of directly for two subsidies and two fifteenths, about 200,cool., a sum far too great for supplying the imme 200,000l. asked for by Edmondes. Phelips. PHELIPS'S GREAT SPEECH. diate needs of the fleet, whilst altogether inadequate to meet Charles's engagements on the Continent.1 If Seymour had hinted at some things which he could have expressed more clearly if he had thought fit, Phelips, who rose next, was certain to speak out all that was in his heart. And speak out he did. For his part, he told the House, he saw no reason for giving. But neither was there any reason for leaving the work to which they had been so unexpectedly called. Let them stay to do something to make his Majesty glorious. Those who were now urging them to war-so far at least the person intended was suggested rather than expressed-were those who had been foremost in urging on the Spanish marriage, and who had for its sake broken up the Parliament of 1621, and had thrown members of the House into prison, himself being one of the sufferers, for refusing to hold their tongues. In the Parliament of 1624 three things had been desired.2 They had asked that the Prince should marry a Protestant lady, that the Dutch Republic should be supported, and that religion in England should be 1 Eliot, as is well known, believed that Buckingham wanted to be denied. I am quite unable to take this view of the case after a full consideration of Buckingham's whole proceedings, of which an historian is now able to know much of which Eliot knew nothing. It is likely enough, as I have before said, that he expected to be denied, and that he intended to make use of the impression caused by his being in the right and the Commons in the wrong, when success came. Nor can I see that he only asked for 40,000!. at first. I fancy he simply wanted that at least, and would take as much more as he could get; a frame of mind the very opposite to that of Gustavus, who at once refused to engage in war except on his own terms. 2 Eliot makes Phelips say that they had been 'desired and promised.' Phelips was an impetuous orator and may have said this. But as it is not true that Charles promised to marry a Protestant lady, I have followed the Camden Debates, 81, giving Phelips the benefit of the doubt. It was, indeed, not strictly true that the House had asked for a Protestant marriage. But the desire of the members can hardly have been a matter of doubt, and may have been taken oratorically as equivalent to an actual demand. 271 CHAP. 1625. Aug. 5. CHAP. 1625. Aug. 5. Want of counsel. preserved. Had this been done? Then, after touching on the sore of the impositions, Let |