The Rise of the Democracy

t under t

bsolutism. Elizabeth, equally despotic, had by good fortune the services of the first generation of professional statesmen that England produced. These statesmen-Burleigh, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Walter

JOHN

a point of getting Parliament to do their will. They governed through Parliament, and ruled triumphantly, for it is only in the later years of Elizabeth that any discontent is heard. The Stuarts, far

e the proposals of the Crown. "Liberty of speech was granted in respect of the aye or no, but not that everybody should speak what he listed." Bacon declar

or her authority controlled Parliament; and so we have Sir Thomas Smith writing in 1589 th

kind soever are available by consent," and that "laws they are not which public approbat

arliament ov

xcepted-nor her knowledge of the English mind. The English Parliament and the English people had put up with Elizabeth's headstrong, capricious rul

the murmuring Parliament of Queen Elizabeth, the mutinous Parli

ir choice of Ministers as Elizabeth had been successful, the House of Commons was equally happy in the remarkable men who became its spokesmen and leaders. In the years that preceded the Civil War-1626-42-three men are conspicuous on the Parliamentary side: Eliot, Hampden, a

dispute can be found in the religious differences between Charles I. and the Parliamentarians. The latter were mainly Puritan, accepting the Protestantism of the Church of England, b

no tax, tallage, or other charge shall be levied or imposed but by common consent in England, and that the

ng the adjournment of the House was disregarded, the Speaker was held down in his chair, and the key of the House of Commons was turned a

ions by dissolving Parliament

ge of Parliament to speak of anything which is done in the House," was his reply to the Crown lawyers. So Sir John Eliot was left in prison, for nothing would

o restrain the freedom of Parliamentary debate; but such an acknowledgment was impossible from Sir John Eliot. For him the privilege of the House of Commons in the matter of fre

rs without interference from the Commons, and only

year the demand was extended to the inland counties, and Hampden refused point blank to pay-though the amount was only a matter of 20s.-falling back, in justification of his refusal, on the Petition of Right-acknowledged by Charles in 1628-which declared that taxes were not to be levied without the consent of Parliament

o the King but to summon Parliament, if money was to be obtained. Earlier in the year the "Short Parliament" had met, only to be dissolve

nt from the temper of the "Short Parliament."[53] For this was the famous "Long Parliament" that assembled in the dark autumn days of 1640, and it was to sit for thirteen years; to see the impeachment and execution of Laud

e tempests and rocks which threatened it. I am persuaded (wrote Clarendon) his power and interest at that time were greater to do good or hurt than any man's in the kingdom, or than

ite say in the spending of that money. As for the royal claim of "Divine right," and the royal view that held passive obedience to be the duty of the King's subjects, and saw in Parliament merely a useful instrument for the raising of funds to be spent by the royal pleasure without question or critici

mands of the Commons in the Remonstrance were not revolutionary, but they stated, quite frankly, the case for the Parliament. The main points were the need for securities for the administration of justice, and an insistence on the responsibility of the King's Ministers to the Houses of Parliament. The Grand Remonstrance was only carried by eleven votes

y from the King, which deprived the accused of their legal right to a trial by their peers, and summoned them before a tribunal which had no pretence to a justification over them. On the refusal of the Commons to surrender their members, Charles came in person to Westminster with 300 cavaliers to demand their arrest. But the five members, warned of the King's venture, w

tep was utterly ill-advised. Parliament was in no mood to favour royal encroachments, and the citizens

nfidence with which most of the popular party were beginning to regard the King was turned into hatred and suspicion. From that moment

grand jury. That a commoner cannot be tried for high treason by the Lords at the suit of the Crown, is part of the very alphabet of our law. That no man can be arrested by the King in person is equally clear. This was an established maxi

through all constitutional precedents

ent, and Pym got an ordinance passed, in both Houses, appointing the Lords-Li

propositions for curtailing the power of the Monarchy in favour of the Commons-were rejected by Cha

ed the royal standard at No

That same year monarchy and the House of Lords were abolished by law; the Est

at would work.[55] What happened was the supremacy of the army. Parliament, attenuated and despised, contended in vain against the Protec

atic Prote

he Crown, were no more concerned with the welfare of the labouring people than the barons were in the time of John. The labouring people-generally-were equally indiff

idence, and it cannot be supposed that the substitution of the Presbyterian discipline for episcopacy in

n before, and in Lancashire, Westmorland,

itations, travelling with their wives and children to other parts to get relief, but could find none. That the committees and Justices of the Peace of Cumberland signed a certificate, that there

tnesses; Lilburne and the Levellers made their protest against military rule, and were overpowered; Winstanley and his Diggers e

cal democracy, Winstanley with a social democracy, and in

ons towards democracy, the reaction against Puritani

il War, and he left the army in 1645 with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel (and with ￡880 arrears of

y, clear views on democracy, an enormous capacity for work, and great skill as a pamphleteer, Lilburne was not to be ignored. The Government might have had him for a supporter; it u

he Levellers in the same year, on the proposal of the Presbyterian majority in Parliament that the army should be disbanded, dema

Cromwell-to whom the immediate danger was a royalist reaction-had no pat

"We were ruled before by King, Lords, and Commons, now by a General, Court-martial, an

macy of a Parliament elected by manhood suffrage. He saw plainly that unless steps were taken to establish democratic institutions there was no future for the Commo

ller movement in the army, and the corporals who re

thout being brought to trial. Released on bail, Lilburne, who from prison had issued an "Agreement of the Free People," calling for annual parliaments elected by manhood suffrage and the free election of unendowed church ministers in every parish, now published an "Impeachment for High Treason against Oliver Cromwell and his son-in-law, James Ireton," and declared that monarchy was

the House of Commons was broken by the rule of the Army of the Commonwealth, and Parliament stood in abject submission before the Lord Protector. Only when his health was shattered, and he had embraced Quaker principles, was Lilburne released, and granted a pension of 40s. a week. The following yea

y and "Th

rotest on behalf of the people than Lilburne's agitation fo

ert Ket had before him. But Winstanley's social doctrine allowed no room for violence, and included the non-resistance principles that found exposition in the Society of Frie

ixteenth century, and the Anabaptists on the Continent had been conspi

cultivation of the enclosed common lands, "that all may feed upon the crops of the earth, an

lands with their own hands. And let the common people, that say the earth is ours, not min

ath are called the common people's. And let the world see who labour the earth in righteousness,

m. For let the rich work alone by themselves; an

tion of land, an end was to be made o

HAM

graving by G

g, which are but the actings of the curse. Let those that have hitherto had no land, and have been forced to rob and steal through poverty; henceforth

argument was

f the Lord made these for the use of His creation, surely then the earth was made

urged against priv

l action, and then kills them for doing it." It was a prolific age for pamphlets, the seventeenth century; the land teemed with preachers and vision

land near Wellingboro' was stopped at once as "seditious and tumultuous." It was quite useless for Winstanley to maintain that the English people were dispossessed of their lands by the Crown at the Norman Conquest, and that with the execution of the King the ownership of the Crown lands ought to revert to the people; Cromwell and the Council o

n open letter to Oliver Cromwell, 1652, and after its public

portance in the discussion of social reform. No democratic statesman in our time can propose an improvement in the social condition of the people without reference to the land ques

e rights of landowners and landless, and the relation of poverty to land ownership. State ownership, taxation of land values, peasant proprietorship, co-operative agric

estor

ot contemplated by Cromwell nor by Councils of State; democracy was equally outside the political vision of government. Church of Eng

arge numbers of the middle-class. But to the mass of the people Puritanism was merely the suppression of fu

hoice of its rulers. Winstanley proposed a remedy for the social distress. To neither

ed quite amiably-indeed, with enthusiasm-the restoration of the monarchy on the return of Charles II., an

on Parliament of 1660, "that according to the ancient and fundamental laws of this Kingdom, the government is, a

land and ordered general acceptance of its Prayer Book. Puritanism, driven fro

ared that "the good cause" had perished with its great leader. In reality the House of Commons stood on stronger ground than ever, and was to show its strength when James II. attempted to override its decisions. In the main the very forms of Parliamentary

ment passed for ever from England. Cromwell had set up the supremacy o

s to reside in Parliament. Not till a century later would democracy again be he