1593.

Mar.

II. 21. very extraordinary grant of money. It is usual to ask for half a subsidy a year. Half a subsidy is ten per cent.— two shillings in the pound a year. Burghley proposes to demand from the burgesses a double rate: one whole subsidy a year; four shillings in the pound. So high a tax will not, he knows, be voted by the House, with all its eagerness for war, unless the whole authority of the Crown and Government can be brought to bear. He forms his plans. Drafting such a bill as he hopes may pass, he sends word to Mr. Speaker Coke that he must beat down, in the Queen's name, all such noisy members as shall presume to prate of things in Church and State. No idle threat, as Bromley and Wentworth find; ere many days are gone, Wentworth has talked himself into the Tower, Bromley into the Fleet.

Burghley now asks the House to confer with the Peers on a grant for the Queen's service; and a committee. goes up; among them, in frill and feather, gown or sword, Vere, Raleigh, Greville, Hastings, Cecil, Bacon, and Coke. They hear the Lord-Treasurer's words; and the next day Cecil reports, in their name, to the Commons, that the Peers have decided for them what they shall give, and at what times: three subsidies in three years-four shillings in the pound each year. For them to hear is to obey.

Knight and squire gaze at each other. Four shillings in the pound a year! And the Commons robbed of even the credit of their own gifts! Such a speech is resented as a slur on their patriotism, a curb on their debates.

22. Who rises to warn the minister? Is it the fiery Raleigh, the martial Vere? Where sits the noisy Hastings, the sagacious Greville, the turbulent Coke? Not one of

22. D'Ewes, 468-83.

RESENTS INTERFERENCE OF THE PEERS.

37

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1593.

Mar.

these flames up. Soldiers who have pushed through II. 22. Parma's lines, advocates bronzed in cheek, and Puritans steeled in the fire of controversy, stare and wait. No marvel either. Not one of these men, in a plain, good cause, would shrink from a threat of Little Ease or Beauchamp Tower. The difficulty is, to defend their right of making grants and subsidies without seeming to oppose a war on which the country has set its soul, and without showing to the hosts of home and foreign enemies a broken front. To the bill itself the capital objection is one of form. Cecil counts on the heat for battle; and to fight. for the power of free taxation, against the passionate haste of the people for clash of pikes and roar of guns, needs courage of a lofty and peculiar kind. Coke may fear to offend the Queen, Raleigh to embolden the King of Spain, Hastings to vex the musters and the fleet. Bacon stands up.

A few clear words declare that he does not mean to touch the grant. No man will grudge the funds to fit out ships and man the guns. But there he stops. To give is the prerogative of the people-to dictate what they shall give is not the duty of the House of Peers. In framing this bill the Government, he says, has gone beyond its powers; and he counsels the Commons, in defence, to decline any further conferences with the Lords on a money-bill. From his vest he takes an Answer to the Lords, which he proposes shall be read, and if approved, sent up. This Answer is referred to a committee of fiftyone. The committee cannot agree; and return their commission to the House. Hot debates ensue. Burghley hides himself behind the Queen: but even her august and sacred name appears to have lost its force. Broad lines are drawn, and the members fall into either camp; the courtiers

II. 22. standing with Cecil for continuing the conferences on the money-bill; the reformers with Bacon for resisting this encroachment on the constitutional laws.

1593. Mar.

Coke puts the question from the chair-for a conference; yea, or nay? A hundred and twenty-eight gentlemen cry Yea. Two hundred and seventeen gentlemen cry Nay.

23. A raid of Parma's pikes through Kent would have startled Burghley less than such a vote. It is the first great check he has ever known; it stops the whole machinery of legislation; it covers himself, his measures, and his friends with public shame. He scolds his nephew, and sets the Lord-Keeper on to scold him. These functionaries threaten him with the Queen's ire; but Bacon defends what the Knight for Middlesex has said and done. If words not used by him are put upon him, he will deny them; if his words are misunderstood, he will explain them; but to the sense of his speech he must hold fast. How can he unsay the truth? This is his apology and defence. If her Highness, as they urge, is angry with him, he shall grieve; if she commands him into silence, he must obey; but in thwarting this invasion of popular rights by the House of Peers, he has done no more than his duty to his Queen, his country, and his God.

24. Though the progress of the bill is stopped, all sides agree that the fleet must be manned-the musters armed. Raleigh starts a compromise. Flushed with his glorious voyage, red with spoil from the Santa Clara and the

23. Bacon to Burghley and to Puckering, Montagu, xii. 275, Notes E. E. 24. Townshend, 67; D'Ewes, 488.

1593.

Mar.

Madre de Dios, the adventurer burns to be again at II. 24. sea, chasing the Spanish ships, or forcing the rivers of Guiana. Every day given to debate, he grudges as lost to victory and revenge. To him, delay is disaster; talk is treason. Vote the supplies-send out the fleet-dash at Cadiz or Malaga-sweep the plantations-snap up galleon and carrack-death to the yellow flag! cries that impetuous soul. The members warm to his voice. Resolve, he says, to confer with the Lords on the perils of the realm. Say no more about grants. Listen to what the Government may have to tell about the Papal bull and the Spanish fleet. When you have saved the point of form, vote the money-bill as you list. Well spoken, Raleigh! Not a tongue cries Nay.

25. Set free by this device to discuss their money-bill, April. the Commons fall to work. Cecil stands to the old plan of three subsidies, to be paid in three years. Bacon, neither cowed nor penitent, rises once more to oppose the court; not on the amount, which he approves, but on the time, which is, indeed, the essential point. He asks for six years in place of three; in other words, for two shillings in the pound a year, in place of four. Even for the joy of smiting Spain, he cannot drain the sources of industry, seize the craftsman's tools, the farmer's cider-press and milkpans. Raleigh storms upon him. Will he starve the war? Cecil smiles and cajoles. But Bacon, who has won the ear even of this warlike auditory, insists that time shall be given, and that the grants shall be described as exceptional and extraordinary. In the end, against the warmth

25. Lords' Jour., ii. 184; D'Ewes, 493; Townshend, 72; Statutes, 35 Eliz., c. 13.

1593. April.

II. 25. of Raleigh and the wiles of Cecil, he compels the Government to meet his proposal half-way, to extend the period proposed for the raising of these taxes a year (in other words, to take three shillings in the pound each year in place of four), and to insert a clause in the bill declaring that the money is given solely for the war against Spain.