The next morning after this attempt on the privilege of Parliament, the King sent to the Lord Mayor of London, ordering him to call a common-council immediately; and, about ten o'clock, he himself, attended only by three or four lords, weut to Guildhall. He told the council, that he was come to them without any guard, in order to show them how much he relied on their affections; that he had accused certain men of high-treason, against whom he would proceed in a legal way, and therefore presumed, that they would receive no shelter in the city. After many other gracious expressions, he told one of the sheriffs, who of the two was the least inclined to his service, that he would dine with him. He departed the hall without receiving the applause he expected. In passing through the streets he heard the cry, Privilege of Parliament! Privilege of Parliament resounding from all quarters. One of the populace, more insolent than the rest, drew nigh to his coach, and called out with a loud voice, "To your tents, O Israel!" the words employed by the mutinous Israelites when they abandoned Rehoboam, their rash and illcounselled sovereign.

Matters were now drawing fast to a crisis. "The prudence of the King's conduct in this juncture," says Hume, nobody pretended to justify. The legality of it met with many apologies; though generally offered to unwilling ears. No maxim of law, it was said, is more established, or more universally allowed, than that privileges of parliament do not extend to treason, felony, or breach of peace; nor has either House, during former ages, ever pretended, in any of those cases, to interpose in behalf of its members. Though some inconvenience should result from the observance of this maxim, that would not be sufficient, without other authority, to abolish a principle, established by uninterrupted precedent, and founded on the tacit consent of the whole legislature. But what are the inconveniences so much dreaded? The King, under pretext of treason, may seize any members of the op

posite faction, and, for a time, gain to his partisans a majority of votes. But if he seizes only a few, will he not lose more friends by such a gross artifice, than he confines enemies? If he seizes a great number, is not this expedient force, open and bare-faced? And what remedy, at all times, against such force, but to oppose to it a force which is superior? Even allowing that the king intended to employ violence, not authority, for seizing the members, though at that time, and ever afterwards, he positively asserted the contrary, yet will his conduct admit of excuse? That the hall, where the Parliament assembles, is an inviolable sanctuary, was never yet pretended. And if the Commons complain of the affront offered them, by an attempt to arrest their members in their presence, they ought only to complain of themselves, who had formerly refused compliance with the King's message, when he peaceably demanded these members. The sovereign is the great executor of the law, and his presence was here legally employed, both in order to prevent opposition, and to protect the House against those insults which their disobedience had so well merited *."

* In a Parliament of Queen Elizabeth, when Sir Edward Coke was speaker, the Queen sent a messenger, or serjeant at arms, into the House of Commons, and took out Mr. Morrice, and committed him to prison, with divers others, for some speeches spoken in the House. Thereupon Mr. Wroth moved the House, that they would be humble suitors to her Majesty, that she would be pleased to enlarge those members of the House that were restrained, which was done accordingly; and answer was sent by her privy council, that her Majesty had committed them for causes best known to herself; and to press her highness with this suit, would but hinder the whole good they sought that the House must not call the Queen to an account for what she doth of her royal authority: that the causes for which they are restrained may be nigh and dangerous: that her Majesty liketh no such questions, neither doth it become the House to search into matters of that nature."

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But these arguments, however well urged, had little effect in pacifying the minds of the people. Petitions from various parts of the country were sent up to the Commons, promising to live and die in defence of the privileges of Parliament. The very women were seized with the same rage. brewer's wife, followed by many thousands of her sex, brought a petition to the House; in which the petitioners expressed their terror of the Papists and prelates, and their dread of like massacres, rapes, and outrages, with those which had been exercised upon their sex in Ireland. They had been necessitated, they said, to imitate the women of Tekoah; and they asserted equal right with the men, of declaring, by petition, their sense of the public cause; because Christ had purchased them at as dear a rate, and in the free enjoyment of Christ consists equally the happiness of both sexes, Pym came to the door of the House; and having told the female zealots, that their petition was thankfully accepted, and was presented in a seasonable time, he begged that their prayers for the success of the Commons might follow their petition*. Such low arts of popularity were affected, and by such illiberal cant were the unhappy people incited to civil discord and convulsions.

The King at this period retired from Whitehall, where his person was in danger, and both parties began to prepare seri

* The Parisian females, at the commencement of the French revolution, took a similar part in the atrocious disorders of that metropolis, and even proceeded to more horrid excesses. When the royal family were brought from Versailles, their carriage was surrounded by troops of diabolical females, uttering the most dreadful imprecations, and accusing the Queen of whatever the lowest and most virulent malice could suggest. When the Princess Lambelle was murdered, the common women of Paris were amongst the most forward in the perpetration of that tragedy, and even outstripped the men in the refinement of their cruelty.

ously for an appeal to arms. The nation was now divided be tween the King, and the remnant of the two Houses that remained at Westminster. The greater part of the old nobility and ancient families in the kingdom, who valued themselves upon the loyalty and virtue of their ancestors, adhered to the cause of their sovereign, which was also sustained by all who wished well to the ancient constitution and hierarchy. All in general whom nature had endowed with generosity and benevolence of disposition, whose manners were polished by social and elegant intercourse, and whose minds were enlarged by a liberal education, glowed with ardour in the cause of injured loyalty, upon which nothing reflected more lustre than the approbation and attachment of the learned, loyal, and venerable university of Oxford. The opposite faction was composed of those whom the court had personally disobliged; of men of turbulent spirits and ambitious views, who wished for agitated times in order to mend their fortunes; of republicans and protestant dissenters, comprehending a great number of corporations, manufacturers, and the lower class of people, inflamed with the spirit of fanaticism. The traders were generally averse to the King, partly from the discouragements to which commerce had been subjected during this reign; partly from a spirit of independence become licentious and insolent; and partly from hatred and emulation of the ancient families which adhered to the interest of their sovereign.

The numerical strength of the Parliament party, from the very commencement of the contest, was superior to that of the King's; but their strength did not so much lie in the numbers of their party, as in the materials of which it was composed. Men of energy and vigour, equal to the task of controling the events of stormy times, are not always to be found in the upper walks of life; and a variety of causes had tended to lessen the nobility of England in the estimation of the people at the time when Charles had the most essential calls for their service. It had been the policy of the sovereigns of the house

of Tudor to diminish the influence of the nobility, and to extend that of the Commons. The reformation had gone a great way to effect this purpose; but what, perhaps, had contributed most to bring the nobility into disrepute, was the conduct of James I. who, conferring the highest titles of nobility on his worthless favorites, and making honours vendible, had degraded the whole order of nobility.

At the breaking out of the first dispute between Charles and the Commons, the upper house showed a degree of tameness in regard to the King's interest, which augured unfavorably for their future exertions. The execution of the Earl of Strafford, and the deprivation of the Bishops of their seats, were acts which had much lessened the weight of the House of Peers, and few could rely on, or have much veneration for, a body of men who could so miserably betray their own cause.

But the great advantage which the Parliament party possessed over the King, was in the temper of the nation. The invention of printing, and the Lutheran and Calvinistical reformations, events which trod closely on the heels of each other, had produced a burst of light all over Europe. The tyranny of the Roman see, which for so many ages had held the most potent states of Europe in subjection, had in many parts vanished before the zeal of the reformers of the church; and at no period, from the time of the Greek republics, had the principles of civil government been more freely discussed. The discovery of a new continent, by Christopher Columbus, and the opening of a new route to the East Indies, by the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, had brought a vast influx of wealth into Europe, and given to commerce that honourable estimation which it wanted in preceding times. These materially tended to weaken the royal, and to give strength to the republican party. To the general diffusion of wealth and information, which at this period was so remarkable, and qualified almost the meanest individuals to take a share in the great events then depending, was added a spirit of innovation in civil and reli