Schism in Parliament

As long as political questions only were discussed, all the members of the Long Parliament worked together in harmony to reform the constitution; but as soon as religious questions were brought forward, this harmony disappeared. The conservative members, whom we may call the Church party, led by Hyde, Falkland, and Culpepper, had cooperated in all constitutional charges thus far made. Preferring the Anglican system as it was, they were unwilling to tamper with the existing organization of the church. The extreme Puritans, that is to say, the Presbyterians and Independents, led by Hazlerig, Cromwell, and Sir Harry Vane, were, however, not satisfied. They wished to abolish altogether the government of archbishops and bishops, “with all its dependencies, roots and branches." This phrase, which occurred in a petition supported by the extreme Puritans, gave them the name of the Root and Branch party. In August, 1641, they tried to pass a root and branch bill abolishing Episcopacy. So heated was the controversy over this question of "reform" versus "abolition," that when parliament resumed its session in October, 1641, two definite parties were already forming in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords.

Two events increased the excitement created by the debates. In August the king had gone to Edinburgh, and rumors spread that he was planning to ally himself with the Scots in order to overthrow parliament. This report aroused deep anger among the Root and Branch men, and made them more than ever hostile to the royalist cause. In October came the report of a frightful massacre in Ireland, where Roman Catholics had joined with Celtic chiefs to drive out the Protestant settlers in Ulster. The report was enormously exaggerated, but for the moment it looked as if Ireland were lost to England forever. The Puritan leaders in parliament sought for the cause of the revolt and found it, as they thought, in the intrigues of the queen's court and the king's councillors. This conviction decided them to take a step which for some time they had had under consideration. If the nation were to guard against further plots of the king, it was necessary that parliament should more exactly define its position. Therefore, in a memorable sitting on November 8, a Grand Remonstrance, or appeal to the nation for support against the king, was presented for adoption.

In this remonstrance all the members of parliament were called upon to commit themselves to the opinions of the extreme Protestants. The document, containing over two hundred paragraphs, summed up all the woes that the "Jesuited papists, the bishops, and the king's councillors" had brought upon the kingdom during the preceding fifteen years. As the remedy for these evils, it demanded, first, that the king should select councillors of whom parliament could approve; second, and more important still, that a synod of divines be called to reform the church. The Church party might perhaps have accepted the first remedy, but it could not accept the second, because no Anglican would trust an assembly of Presbyterian and Independent ministers to model the church as it pleased. The debate began on the morning of November 22, and lasted far into the night. When finally the roll was called, it was found that the remonstrance had been carried by the narrow margin of eleven votes. The immediate effect was almost a pitched battle on the floor of the house. “ Some waved their hands wildly in the air, others took their swords in their scabbards out of their belts." "I thought," wrote an eye-witness, "that we had all sat in the valley of the shadow of death." For the Root and Branch party it was a critical moment and a great victory. "If the remonstrance had been rejected," said Cromwell, "I would have sold all that I had and never seen England any more." But it was also a deplorable victory, for in consequence the nation was divided into two camps, whose attitude toward each other became daily more hostile and irreconcilable. As a great historian says, “ The Civil War was all the nearer for that night's work."

Arrest of the Five Members

The Church party now went over to the side of the king, and in the following January Charles made Culpepper Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Falkland Secretary of State. With every month the excitement increased, and rumors were abroad that to save the crown and the church, Charles was preparing to treat Pym and Hampden as Pym and Hampden had treated Strafford. That he had deliberately formed such a plan is doubtful, for it was his habit to act rather from impulse than design. Early in January he heard that the parliamentary leaders were resolved to impeach the queen as the cause of all the mischief. The chivalrous instincts of the king were aroused, and encouraged by the schism in parliament and the support received from the Church party in the House of Commons, he determined to impeach the leaders, who were not only trying to destroy the royal authority, but were about to insult the queen.

On January 3, 1642, he sent Attorney-general Herbert with the sergeant-at-arms to the House of Commons with orders to arrest Pym, the main author of the Remonstrance, and with him Hampden, Haslerig, Holies, and Strode, on the ground that they were seeking " to subvert the fundamental laws and government of the kingdom of England."' But this act, which was distinctly illegal, because the king had not the power to impeach any one, was vehemently resisted by the House, and the king's plan failed. At this crisis Charles committed an irretrievable blunder. On the following day, he went in person with four hundred soldiers to seize the men whom he could not impeach. Again the king's plan failed ; for the leaders, having been warned in time, had made their escape. As Charles turned to withdraw, the members of the House whose rights he had ignored expressed their resentment by the cry of “ Privilege!" “Privilege!" It is probable that he had not intended to act treacherously, but he was hopelessly in the wrong, and had committed an act which not only destroyed parliament's faith in him, but rendered compromise impossible.