The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution. Samuel Rawson Gardiner
more desirable after a brief experience of war than it had seemed before the commencement of hostilities. That there was no intention of conceding the substance of the dispute, appears from the fact that the claim put forward in the Nineteen Propositions to the command of the militia and forts (§§ 9, 15), is fully maintained in the Oxford Propositions (§ 7). The alterations made on the subject of the judges however require some consideration. In the Nineteen Propositions permanent provision was made for the submission of the nominations of the two Chief Justices and of the Chief Baron to the approbation of Parliament (§ 3), whilst the appointment of puisne judges was left as before in the hands of the King. In the Oxford Propositions the names of twelve persons were recommended for judgeships, and of one person for the Mastership of the Rolls (§ 8), whilst no provision was made for the choice of their successors.
Taking these differences together, we seem to have arrived at a fresh stage in the constitutional ideas of the Long Parliament. In August, 1641, it seemed enough to wrest from the King the special powers acquired by the Crown since the accession of the Tudors, trusting to the power of stopping supplies to give everything else that might be needed. In June, 1642, it seemed necessary that Parliament should directly and permanently grasp the control over the military, administrative, and judicial powers of the Crown. In February, 1643, it appears to have been thought that financial and military control would be sufficient, without assigning to Parliament any permanent direct influence over the judicial and administrative appointments. Is it possible that this change was owing to an increasing perception of the truth that with Charles’s successor it might be easier to come to terms, and that the only important difficulty was to tide over the years whilst Charles I, bred up as he had been under the old system, was still upon the throne?
That Charles I should have consented, even to these modified constitutional proposals, was not to be expected; and it was the less likely that there should be any expression of feeling amongst his supporters in favour of their acceptance, as whilst the constitutional demands of Parliament had become less strict, its ecclesiastical demands had become more strict than in the preceding June. The Nineteen Propositions had asked the King to consent to such a reformation of the Church government and liturgy as Parliament might advise (§ 8). The Oxford Propositions demanded in addition the immediate abolition of Episcopacy. The removal from the House of all the Episcopalian members, who were now fighting on the King’s side, had probably combined with the desire of Parliament to gain the military assistance of the Scots to bring about this change.
When the negotiations at Oxford failed, and the prospects of success in the field grew more doubtful, the need for Scottish help grew more imperative. The terms of agreement between the two Parliaments were set forth in the Solemn League and Covenant (No. 58, p. 267). However helpful they may have been in bringing about the preponderance of the Parliamentary armies, they raised a fresh obstacle in the way of an understanding between the two English parties.
Everything therefore boded a continuance of the war, and the union of the armies of the Parliaments of England and Scotland rendered it necessary to establish some authority which would control the united armies. This was done by the two Ordinances of February 16 (No. 59, p. 271) and May 22, 1644 (No. 60, p. 273) appointing a Committee of both Kingdoms. Though this Committee was only to manage the war, it may be regarded as the first attempt to give practical shape to the idea of a government residing in a body of men acting under the control of Parliament.
The progress of the war in 1643 and 1644 resulted in sharpening the proposals presented to the King in November, 1644, and discussed at Uxbridge in the first months of 1645 (No. 61, p. 275). Not only did the demands for the exclusion from seats in the House of Lords of Peers afterwards created unless with the consent of Parliament, for the permanent submission of appointments of officers and judges to the approbation of Parliament, and for the education and marriage of the King’s children being placed under Parliamentary control, which had been omitted from the Oxford Propositions, re-appear (§§ 19, 20, 21), but the necessity for Parliamentary approbation was to reach to all the judges instead of being confined to three as in the Nineteen Propositions, and there was added a new proposition asking that the right of declaring peace and war might only be exercised with the assent of Parliament (§ 23), and setting up a permanent body of Commissioners to act in combination with a similar body of Scottish Commissioners to control all military forces in both kingdoms with the most extensive powers (§ 17). Besides this, long lists were drawn up of the names of those Royalists who were to be subjected to divers penalties, and whole categories of unnamed persons were added, the expenses of the war being laid upon these Royalist delinquents (§ 14). As to religion in England, not only was it to be brought to the nearest possible uniformity with that of Scotland (§ 5), but the King himself was to swear and sign the Solemn League and Covenant (§ 2). Such demands can only have been made with the object of trampling upon the King’s feelings as well as upon his political authority, and it would have been far more reasonable to ask his consent to an act of abdication than to such articles as these.
Charles’s counter-demands of January 21, 1645 (No. 62, p. 286), are conceived in a far more reasonable spirit. They appeal to the King’s legal rights, asking, in short, that the Constitution should be accepted as it had stood at the end of August, 1641, and as it was to stand at the Restoration in 1660, and that the Common Prayer Book should be preserved from ‘scorn and violence,’ and that a Bill should ‘be framed for the ease of tender consciences.’ If constitutional settlements could be judged as they stand upon paper without reference to the character of those who would have to work them, there could be no doubt that the King’s offer afforded at least an admirable basis for negotiation. To return to a legal position, and to allow the Houses to trust to their exclusive control over the supplies to win piecemeal reforms would be to anticipate the political situation of the Restoration Government. It was the general distrust of the character of Charles which made this impossible, and which made his abdication or dethronement the only possible temporary solution. It was the instinctive feeling that this was the case, combined with a strong disinclination to acknowledge that it was so, which led the party then predominant in Parliament to fling at the King the insulting Propositions of Uxbridge: and this party was that—not of wild fantics or dreamers—but of the steady Parliamentarians, whose voices were always raised in favour of peace.
If the negotiations at Uxbridge failed, as fail they must, there was nothing for it but to prepare for war. The army was remodelled, and the new model army better paid and disciplined than former armies had been must be put under commanders who would think first of military success only, without being hampered by political considerations. To effect this, the Self-denying Ordinance was passed on April 3, 1645 (No. 63, p. 287), and in order to weaken the King’s power the Houses drew up a Negative Oath (No. 64, p. 289) to be taken by Royalists who wished to forsake the King and to live peaceably under the protection of Parliament.
The year 1645, the year of Naseby, was too fully occupied with military events to leave much time for constitutional reforms or proposals. On February 24, 1646, however, Wardship and all burdens connected with feudal tenures were abolished by order of the Houses (No. 65, p. 290), an immense boon to the gentry and nobility who formed the bulk of the members sitting in either House. On April 5, Parliament, hoping to win over some at least of the King’s adherents, passed an Ordinance, authorising them to come under the protection of Parliament, on swearing what was known as the Negative Oath (No. 64, p. 289), engaging themselves to give no support to the King in future.
On July 4, 1646, when the war was practically at an end, and the King was in the hands of the Scots at Newcastle, Parliament, in combination with the Scottish Commissioners residing at Newcastle, despatched fresh propositions to Charles (No. 66, p. 290). The Propositions of Newcastle were framed on those of Uxbridge, and were to a great extent identical with them. The demands for a Presbyterian settlement, for the King’s taking the Covenant, for the appointment of judges and officers, for the sweeping penalties on delinquents, remained pretty much as they had been. The power of the Commissioners was however considerably modified, and the requests for subjecting peace and war as well as the education of the King’s children to the control of Parliament disappeared entirely. The militia was to be placed under Parliamentary control for twenty years, a period which would probably embrace the whole of Charles’s remaining lifetime.
To these propositions Charles, on