437.  Hampden and Cromwell endeavor to leave the Country.

Meanwhile John Winthrop with many other Puritans emigrated to America to escape oppression.  According to tradition John Hampden (S436) and his cousin, Oliver Cromwell, who was a member of the last Parliament, embarked on a vessel in the Thames for New England.  But it is said that they were prevented from sailing by the King’s order.  The two friends remained to teach the despotic sovereign a lesson which neither he nor England ever forgot.[1]

[1] Macaulay’s “Essay on Hampden,” Guizot’s “English Revolution,” and other well-known authorities, relate the proposed sailing of Hampden and Cromwell, but several recent writers question its truth.

438.  The Difficulty with the Scottish Church (1637).

The King determined to force the use of a prayer book, similar to that used in the English Church (S381), on the Scotch Puritans.  But no sooner had the Dean of Edinburgh opened the book than a general cry arose in the church, “A Pope, a Pope!  Antichrist!  Stone him!” When the bishops endeavored to appease the tumult, the enraged congregation clapped, stamped, and yelled.

Again the dean tried to read a prayer from the hated book, when an old woman hurled her stool at his head, shouting, “D’ye mean to say mass[1] at my lug [ear]?” Riots ensued, and eventually the Scotch solemnly bound themselves by a Covenant to resist all attempts to change their religion.  The King resolved to force his prayer book on the Covenanters[2] at the point of the bayonet.

[1] Mass:  here used for the Roman Catholic church service. [2] The first Covenanters were the Scottish leaders, who, in 1557, bound themselves by a solemn covenant to overthrow all attempts to reestablish the Catholic religion in Scotland; when Charles I undertook to force the Scotch to accept Episcopacy the Puritan party in Scotland drew up a new covenant (1638) to resist it.

But he had no money to pay his army, and the “Short Parliament,” which he summoned in the spring of 1640, refused to grant any unless the King would redress the nation’s grievances.

439.  The “Long Parliament,” 1640; Impeachment of Strafford and Laud; the “Grand Remonstrance.”

In the autumn Charles summoned that memorable Parliament which met in November of 1640.  It sat almost continuously for thirteen years, and so got the name of the “Long Parliament."[3] This new Parliament was made up of three parties:  the Church of England party, the Presbyterian party, and the Independents (S422).  The spirit of this body soon showed itself.  John Pym (S432), the leader of the House of Commons, demanded the impeachment of Strafford (S435) for high treason and despotic oppression.  He was tried and sentenced to execution.  The King refused to sign the death warrant, but Strafford himself urged him to do so in order to appease the people.  Charles, frightened at the tumult that had arisen, and entreated by his wife, finally put his hand to the paper, and thus sent his most faithful servant to the block.