Grants to the crown. Court of wards abolished. 2o. The experience of former years had shown that, to restrain within due limits the pretensions of the crown, it was necessary to keep it dependant on the bounty of the subject; but the houses seemed to have adopted the contrary doctrine they attributed the calamities which for so many years had afflicted the nation to the scanty provision made for the support of royalty; they found, on inquiry, that the annual expenditure of the last king greatly exceeded his income; and, to prevent the recurrence of the wants which he experienced, and of the illegal expedients to which he had recourse, they raised the yearly revenue of the crown to the unprecedented amount of 1,200,000l. 3o. But while they provided for the sovereign, they were not unmindful of their own interests. In the preceding reigns, the proprietors of lands had frequently and zealously sought to abolish tenures by knights' service, confessedly the most onerous of the existing feudal burthens; but their attempts were constantly defeated by the monarch and his courtiers, unwilling to resign the benefits of marriages, reliefs, and wardships. Now, however, in secured from dissolution in this extraordinary manner. Drake was this season of reconciliation and mutual concession, the proposal was made and accepted; the terms were arranged to the satisfaction of both parties; and Charles consented to accept a fixed annual income of 100,000l. in place of the casual but lucrative profits of the court of wards. Still the transaction did little honour to the liberality of the two houses. They refused to extend the benefit to inferior tenures and the very act which relieved the lords of manors from the services which they owed to the crown, confirmed to them the services which they claimed from those who held by tenure of copyhold. Neither did they choose to pay the price of the benefit, though it was to be enjoyed exclusively by themselves. Originally, the authors of the measure intended to raise the compensation by a tax on the lands which had been relieved the amount had actually been apportioned to the several counties by the committee, when a member, as it were accidentally, asked why they should not resort to the excise; the suggestion was eagerly caught by the courtiers and many of the proprietors; the injustice of compelling the poor to pay for the relief of the rich, though strongly urged, was contemptuously overlooked; and the friends of the motion, on a division in a full house, obtained a majority of two. In lieu, therefore, of purveyance, military tenures, and their various incidents, fruits and dependences, the produce of one moiety of the excise, a constantly growing and more profitable branch of revenue Nov. 21. than the original compensation, was settled on the crown for ever. ' 4°. The excise, as the reader will recollect, had been The excise perpetuat 12 Car. ii. c. 24. C. Journ. May 25; Nov. 8. 19. 21; Dec. 15. 21. ed. Parl. Hist. vi. 146. introduced by the parliament to defray the charges of the war against the king. To reconcile the nation to so odious a tax, it was first voted for only a short period; and, though it had been continued ever since by successive grants, an understanding always existed that, as nothing but necessity could justify the imposition, so it should most certainly cease with that necessity. By the last enactment, one half of it was now rendered perpetual ; nor was the house slow to dispose of the other. It had taken no measures to raise the revenue to the amount which it had voted: the festival of Christmas approached; the king admonished the members of his intention to dissolve the parliament; and the houses hastily passed three bills to improve the receipts on wine licences, to regulate the post office, and to grant to the king the second moiety of the excise for his natural life, in full of the Dec. 21. yearly settlement of 1,200,000l. From that moment, all hope of its extinction vanished; and, in the course of a few reigns, the streamlet has swelled into a mighty river. The excise then produced 300,000l.; it now produces 18,000,000l. per annum. Disbanding 5o. The existence of the revolutionary army (it of the army. amounted in the three kingdoms, to more than sixty ་༥ R 1 C. Journ. Nov, 27; Dec. 21. In the debate on the post office bill, an amendment was proposed to exempt from the charge of postage all letters to and from members of the house of commons, « sitting the parliament, on the ground that they had as good a right to that indulgence as the privy counsellors by whom it was enjoyed. Though the amendment was stigmatized as beneath the dignity of the house, and fit only for mendicants, though the speaker declared that he was ashamed to put the question, it was carried. The lords, however, rejected it, and the commons acquiesced. Journ. of Com. Dec. 17. Parl. Hist. 163. thousand men) was to the monarch and his ministers a subject of constant anxiety. It had, indeed, contributed to place him on the throne; but it might, with the same ease, precipitate him from it. Monk could no longer answer for its fidelity. When the first ebullitions of loyalty had subsided, many, both officers and privates began to feel surprise that they had lent themselves to a revolution which must put an end to their accustomed licence and long established importance. The royalists, to whom the lord-general had given commissions, possessed not the confidence of the men; the followers of Lambert in his late unfortunate attempt insinuating themselves into the quarters of the military, called on them to reassert the good old cause; and unauthorised meetings were held; the death of Monk was planned, and measures were taken to form a general combination among the different corps. In opposition to these attempts, Charles endeavoured to win the affections of the soldiery by the flattering manner in which he spoke of their discipline and loyalty, and the earnestness with which he recommended their services to the gratitude of his parliament; while his ministers, with the aid of a numerous corps of spies, sought out the sowers of sedition, and, under various and feigned pretences, secured their persons. In both houses, members were instructed to represent the uselessness of so numerous a force in a time of profound peace, the expense which it had already entailed, and the annual amount which it would continue to entail, on the nation. No opposition was offered to the motions with which they concluded. By successive grants, provision was made to liquidate all arrears regiment after regiment was disbanded; and the measure was conducted demnity. with such attention to the wants and feelings of the men, that it was accomplished without exciting mutiny or public expressions of discontent. ' Bill of in- 6o. The proceedings on this subject were tediously protracted by the controversy between the two houses on the bill of indemnity. In his declaration from Breda, Charles had promised a general pardon, subject to such exceptions as might be suggested by the wisdom of parliament. The moment the question was brought forward, a wonderful diversity of opinions was observed. Every member had some friend whom he wished to shield from punishment, or some enemy whom he sought to involve in it: considerations of interest or relationship, of friendship or revenge; weighed more than the respective merits of the parties; and distinctions were made and resolutions passed, for which it was difficult to account on any rational grounds. At last, the bill was transmitted from the commons to the lords, who, as their sufferings had in general been more severe, betrayed a more vengeful spirit. The chief points in discussion between the houses were, that the lords sought to include, in one sweeping clause of condemnation, all persons who ever sate in judgment on any royalist prisoners in a high court of justice; and that they refused all hope of mercy to nineteen of the king's judges who had surrendered themselves in consequence of a royal proclamation. By a clause in that instrument, the disobedient were threatened with exception from pardon both as to life and property : whence the commons inferred that the obedient had reason to expect such exception in their favour; while ' St. 12. Car. ii. c. 9. 15, 16. 21. Clarendon, 10, 11. Burnet, i. 274. |