Closing the Sea - Map of China: Decoding the Secrets of a Vanished Cartographer - page 31

its sights on bringing him down. Selden was on the committee in 1626 that drew
up articles of impeachment against him. Charles came to Buckingham's defence
byadjourningParliament.Whenitreopenedin1628,Seldenwasagaininvolvedin
preparing the text of the impeachment. Before preparations were much advanced,
adisgruntledsoldiermadetheimpeachmentunnecessarybyassassinatingtheduke
in a tavern.
The final session of Parliament in 1629 ended in uproar over the refusal of the
House of Commons to grant Charles his request to collect 'tonnage and pound-
age'. This was a tax on commercial vessels importing commodities (called 'ton-
nage') or exporting them ('poundage'). Constitutionally the king could not levy
taxes without the assent of Parliament. But Parliament was in no mood to accom-
modate until the king agreed to acknowledge the Petition of Right. This was a leg-
al measure by which Parliament denied the king the right to imprison someone
without a charge or, to go back to Selden's first arrest, to do so claiming 'speciall
causes & reasons of State knowne unto himself'. Selden was one of the Petition's
authors.
AftershuttingdownParliamentonceagain,CharlesIdidashisfatherhaddone.
He had the parliamentarians who offended him arrested. This time there were nine
of them, and once again Selden was among their number. His scholarly reputation
on the Continent was growing, and observers from Huig de Groot to the paint-
er Peter Paul Rubens expressed outrage at his arrest. No charges were laid, as
whatevertheattorney-generalproposed,thejudgesrejected.Thewheelsofpseudo-
justicegroundslowly;ittookeightmonthsfortheninemeneventogetabailhear-
ing. The chief justice who presided over the hearing assured them that the king
would grant them all bail as long as they agreed to sign a bond of good behaviour.
Selden regarded this as an illegal condition of their release and refused. 'We de-
mand to be bailed in point of Right', he stated, not as a gesture of royal favour.
Back to prison they went. Selden was eventually moved from the Tower to easier
conditions in Marshalsea Prison, and passed most of his second year on something
closer to house arrest. No charges were ever laid. Not until May 1631 was he gran-
ted bail, although he remained on probation for another four years. His portrait as
a man in later life probably dates to the time of his release (Fig. 6). The face of
the young scholar in the earlier portrait has given way to the determined look of a
man who has found the measure of his own brilliance and has learned the costs of
commitment to the political high road.