Page 44 - Hampdens Monument Unveiled

against oppression, one man was found to stem the torrent which
was setting in upon the constitution, to stem it not by
rebellion, but by the means which the Constitution prescribed
and contained, resistance by law : and that man was John
Hampden. The first assessment upon a part of his great property
in Buckinghamshire was thirty-one shillings and sixpence. But
with these thirty-one shillings and sixpence would have been
given away the lawful liberties of England. He appealed to the
laws, but the stream of English law had been tainted at the
fountain head. The Lord Chief Justice of England, unlike, and I
say it with pride of my truly noble friend, the present Lord
Chief Justice, who, to his great honour, has allowed his name
to be plead in testimony on that stone, unlike Lord Denman, and
reared in a different school, Lord Chief Justice Finch quailed
upon the judgement seat, and surrendered his great trust before
the footstool of lawless power; and ten out of the twelve
judges gave sentence for the Court against the law. Alas for
the Sovereign who dishonours, intimidates, or corrupts the
appointed guardians as well of the prerogatives of the Crown as
of the rights of the people! From that time, says Lord
Clarendon, who wrote as the personal and public enemy of
Hampden, "the eyes of all men were fixed on Mr. Hampden as upon
the Pater Patriae who should guide them through the storm that
threatened". Public discontent and an exhausted revenue obliged
Charles at length to call Parliament. It began by remonstrances
and redress of grievances before supply, and at the end of a
few stormy weeks, it was dissolved, like those before, suddenly
and in wrath. But a fiercer struggle soon began. Writs were
again issued, and that renowned assembly met the Long
Parliament -an assembly of no ordinary men -men fit for the
great work of grappling with armed tyranny, and destined,
before many years, after all lawful power in England had been
pushed from its throne, to do what? -to restore the
constitution? No! It lay, a wreck among the breakers. But to
wrestle with a despot for both sword and sceptre, and,
snatching them from among the ribs of the stranded
constitution, to place them, till the vessel could be repaired
and refitted, in the hands which had originally conferred the
long -abused trust, the hands of the English nation. But the
whole scheme and system of free monarchy had not yet been
overthrown. The great council of the realm had not yet been
menaced with open violence.

King Invades House of Parliament

That blow still remained to be struck. Contrary to law, and
in breach of the Magna Charta, and in breach of the great
petition of right which he had so lately undertaken voluntarily
to confirm, and which Selden calls the second Magna Charta, the
King had imprisoned divers persons by arbitrary warrant, "per
ipsem Regem." At length, with his German Nephew, Prince Rupert
at his side, and followed by a troop of armed men, he entered