redressing grievances, employing already that dissimulation which afterwards caused his ruin, and assenting to a bill, or petition of right, the provisions of which he never fulfilled. On the other, Laud, who, on the death of Buckingham, obtained an undivided ascendency over Charles, prohibited doctrinal controversy respecting the Arminian tenets, and commanded the suppression of afternoon lectures, which were generally conducted by those Puritan divines who could not conform to the reading of the Liturgy in the forenoon service. This cunning prelate was well aware, that controversy on important doctrinal subjects cultivates the power of thought, and that lecturing cultivates knowledge; he knew also, that men who have been trained to think, and whose minds have acquired a store of sound religious knowledge, are incapable of becoming the slaves of either tyranny or superstition. And as the full development of his measures required the people of England to become superstitious slaves, it was necessary to suppress everything which had a counteracting tendency. The same sort of instinctive perception of the readiest method of promoting mental and moral degradation led Laud to persuade the king to revive the Book of Sports. This was accordingly done in the year 1633, in the name of that sovereign whom the Church of England still delights to style "The Martyr," though it would not be easy to tell of what cause he was the martyr, unless it was of prelatic profanity, superstition, and despotism. It was not over one county that the Book of Sports was now to be set up, in opposition to the Word of God; the bishops were directed to enforce the publication of it from the pulpit through all the parish churches of their respective dioceses. This caused great distress of mind to all pious clergymen. Some refused to read it, and were suspended in consequence; others read it, and immediately after having done so, read also the Fourth Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy;" adding, "This is the law of God, the other is the injunction of man." And notwithstanding the employment of both power and guile, the people generally refused to turn God's appointed times of holy rest into periods of heathen saturnalia.

In the meantime, the tide of political conflict was advancing broad and deep. And as it had been caused at

first by the course of persecution on account of religion, when the Parliament sought from time to time to interpose in behalf of the suffering Puritans, it continued to retain its religious character. Very strong and earnest language was used by several of the leading members of the House of Commons, condemning equally the Arminian doctrines and the tyrannical proceedings of the Prelatic party; and with similar directness and energy did they assail the illegal methods adopted by the king to raise money, and the oppressive conduct of the persons employed in that service. The king finding the Commons determined to defend their religious and civil liberties, and to refuse subsidies till the grievances of which they complained should be redressed, sent them orders to adjourn. This arbitrary command they refused to obey, till they should have prepared a remonstrance against the levying of tonnage and poundage, and accordingly proceeded to frame their remonstrance and protestation. This document declared, in substance, that whosoever should introduce innovations in religion, or advise taking of tonnage and poundage not yet granted by Parliament, or submit to such illegal impositions, should be held as betrayers of, and enemies to, the liberties of England.* The speaker refused to put these propositions to the vote, and attempted to leave the chair; but he was forced back to it, and held there till they were read and carried by acclamation. The Commons then adjourned; and four of the leading members, Eliot, Hollis, Valentine, and Cariton, were committted to the Tower, where Eliot was detained till he died, the others being released upon payment of heavy fines. Charles having now learned that the Parliament would not submit to be made a passive instrument in his hands to accomplish what he might please, determined to assume the whole powers of the Legislature, disregarding the form, as well as violating the spirit of the constitution, and realizing the absolute despotism so fervently advocated by his sycophantic clergy. He ventured even to avow his desperate intention by a proclamation, in which he forbade the very mention of another Parliament. He had yet to learn, that to shut up a strong feeling in the heart, is to increase its sup

* Rushworth, vol. i. p. 659, et seq.

pressed strength, and to give it entire possession of the inner being.

*

As if for the very purpose of imparting additional intensity to the growing indignation of the kingdom, Laud, now Archbishop of Canterbury, proceeded with equal eagerness in imposing fresh ceremonies of the most absurd character upon the Church, and in the infliction of excessive cruelties upon the Puritans. These popish ceremonies drove numbers into non-conformity; and the barbarities perpetrated upon those who dared to complain or to refuse compliance, provoked the nation almost beyond endurance. Alexander Leighton was condemned to have his ears cut off, and his nose slit, to be branded on the cheek, to stand in that condition on the pillory, and then to be cast into prison till he should pay a fine utterly beyond his means, -a sentence equivalent to perpetual imprisonment. Burton, Bastwick, and Prynne suffered similar cruelties. And great numbers were reduced to entire destitution, because they dared to write or speak against Laud's Popish ceremonies, or against the Prelatic system of Church government. Numbers forsook the country, and retired some to the Netherlands, others to the settlements recently formed in America. Never, probably, was there a period in which the principles of religious and civil liberty, and the feelings of human nature, were more shocked and outraged. But a course of crime is also a course of infatuation. At the very time when the cruel tortures of these, wronged and oppressed sufferers were awaking the most intense sympathy in the nation, the king adopted a measure which roused a corresponding degree of political indignation. Finding it difficult to procure supplies as readily as his necessities required, he devised the plan of assessing not only the maritime but also the inland counties for sums of money, for the ostensible purpose of building ships of war. This tax, as even Clarendon admits, was intended not only for the support of the navy, but "for a spring and magazine that should have no bottom, and for an everlasting supply for all occasions." This was clearly perceived, and immediately opposed by the bold and wise assertors of national liberty. The celebrated Hampden refused to pay his share

In passing sentence on Bastwick, the bishops denied that they held their jurisdiction from the king.-Whitelocke, p. 22.

of the tax, and determined to bring the legality of levying such an impost to a public trial. About the close of the year 1639, the cause was tried before the twelve judges in the Exchequer Chamber. The judges hesitated. They perceived clearly that the law was in favor of Hampden; but they held their situations during the royal pleasure, and seven decided that the tax was legal, while one doubted, and four condemned it.* His majesty gained the decision; but Hampden and freedom gained the cause, in the strong feeling which was roused throughout the entire kingdom.

Another act of infatuation speedily followed. For a time the suffering Puritans alone had sought refuge from oppression in a voluntary exile; but now the defenders of civil liberty began to adopt the same course. At length even Hampden, and his cousin, Oliver Cromwell, discouraged with their long and hitherto fruitless struggle, resolved also to seek in the New World that liberty which seemed to have forsaken its ancient English home.† But an order was published, forbidding any to leave the kingdom without permission from the privy council. They remained, returned to the field of danger and of duty, and resumed a contest which presented now no medium between complete freedom and absolute slavery,—no retreat, no cessation, no alternative but victory or death. Thus by this act of despotic infatuation, Charles gave to his most formidable antagonists the terrible energies of desperate necessity, and sealed his own dark and hapless doom.

There was still another element introduced about this time, as if to render the dreadful combination perfect for evil. Although Laud did not attempt to deny the king's supremacy in all matters ecclesiastical, yet the principle first promulgated by Bancroft-the divine authority of the Episcopal order-had taken possession of his narrow and restless mind, and impelled him to endeavor partially to realize it, though its full and ultimate bearing lay far beyond his reach even to imagine. He not only drew the half of the chancery business into the hands of persons nominated to their offices by the prelates, but also prevailed upon the king to allow the bishops to hold their ecclesiastical courts in their own names, and by their own seals, without the king's letters patent under the Great Seal. This was a Whitelock, p. 24. † Neal, vol. i. p. 618.

direct infringement of the royal prerogative; and to this he succeeded in adding another as glaring, namely, the power of the bishops to frame new articles of visitation, without the king's authority, and to administer an oath of inquiry concerning them.* In this manner the prelates became possessed of extensive jurisdiction, both civil and ecclesiastical, not only independent of crown and parliament, but based upon the assumption of a divine right, which rendered them entirely irresponsible, and beyond the control of human law. Had not the spirit of liberty, civil and religious, been at that time vigilant and strong, these prelatic usur`pations must have soon reduced England to a state of the most abject slavery. And although the fearful recoil caused the death of both the wily prelate and the misled king, it is greatly to be feared that the Laudean principle is not yet dead, though it has long been dormant that it may yet awake in portentous strength,—and that it may put forth a power, and give rise to a struggle, of tremendous magnitude, before it be itself destroyed.

At length the king reached the turning point of his wild and reckless course. Instigated by his evil genius, Laud, he strove to impose upon the Presbyterian Church and people of Scotland the whole mass of prelatic rites and ceremonies, for the sake of which he had already driven England to the extreme point of endurance. But that point had been long previously reached in Scotland, and the attempt provoked an instantaneous and determined. resistance. A large portion of the nobility, nearly all the middle classes, the whole of the ministers, and almost the entire body of the people, united in a solemn national covenant in defence of their religious liberties, resolved to peril life, and all that life holds dearest, rather than submit to the threatened violation of conscience. The king raised an army to subdue them by force, but shrunk from the perilous encounter, and framed an evasive truce. abortive attempt exhausted his treasury, and compelled him reluctantly to call a Parliament, from which he hoped to procure supplies. The Parliament met on the 13th of April, 1640, after an interval of twelve years; but the spirit of liberty was now stronger in the bosom of its members than it had formerly been, and stil! less disposed to pros

* Neal, vol. i. pp. 584, 585.

This