general to enter an accusation of high treason against him. By way of recrimination Bristol accused Buckingham of high treason, and published a full account of the negociation with Spain and Austria.

This accusation, imprudently provoked by the unjust prosecution against Bristol, afforded the house of commons an opportunity of gratifying their anger against the duke of Buckingham. After having voted that common fame was a sufficient ground of accusation by the commons; they proceeded to frame regular articles against Buckingham. It is very remarkable that among these charges, many of which were either frivolous or false, they did not mention Buckingham's conduct in the Spanish affair, the only circumstance for which he was really impeachable.

The impeachment never came to a full determination, and did not prevent Buckingham from being elected about this time, by court interest, chancellor of Cambridge, in the room of the earl of Suffolk. The commons considered it as an affront offered to them, and loudly complained of it; and the more to enrage them, the king himself wrote a letter to the university, extolling the duke and giving them thanks for his election. In the mean time the lord keeper, in the king's name, expressly commanded the house not to meddle with his minister and servant Buckingham, and ordered them to finish in a few days the bill which they had begun for the subsidies, and to make some addition to them, otherwise they must not expect to sit any longer; and two members, Digges and Elliot, who had been employed as the managers of the impeachment against the duke, were thrown into prison. The commons immediately declared that they would proceed no farther upon business till they had satisfaction in their privileges. Charles alledged as the motive of this measure, certain seditious expressions

which, he said, had, in their accusation of the duke, dropped from these members. Upon inquiry it appeared that no such expressions had been used. The members were released, and the result of these imprudences and precipitation was to exasperate the commons still farther, and to render the king's situation worse than it was. The house of peers, roused from their inactivity by this example, claimed and obtained the liberty of the earl of Arundel, who had been lately confined in the tower.

Charles, though not deficient in understanding, had not sagacity enough to perceive, that the genius and disposition of the nation had received a total change, from a better knowledge of the true spirit of the constitution; and the royal prerogative, such as he conceived it, was a sacred pledge which it was not in his power to alienate, much less his duty to abridge. He had accordingly assumed a more stately style with this parliament than with the last; he went even so far in a message as to threaten the commons, that if they did not furnish him with the necessary supplies, he should be obliged to try new counsels: and that they should not mistake the meaning of this language, sir Dudley Carleton, vicechamberlain, took care to explain it, by telling them that parliaments were in use anciently in christian kingdoms until the monarchs began to know their own strength, and seeing the turbulent spirit of their parliaments they at last overthrew them throughout christendom, except in England; he accordingly exhorted them not to expose their country, by an ill-timed turbulence, to be deprived of those blessings for which they were envied by all other nations.

These imprudent suggestions, far from terrifying the commons, exasperated their ill-humour, and made them consider a precarious liberty, which was to be preserved by unlimited submissiveness, as no

liberty at all. Thence they inferred the necessity of employing all means, while yet in their power, to secure the constitution by such strong barriers that no king or minister should ever dare to use the same language with any parliament. They again claimed the execution of the penal laws against the catholics, and presented to the king a list of persons intrusted with offices, who were either convicted or suspected recusants, though the king had promised to the last house of commons a redress of this religious grievance; and as Buckingham's mother was a professed catholic, and his wife not free from suspicion, all indulgence towards the catholics was supposed to proceed entirely from his credit and authority. Such was the bigotry of the times, that to disqualify any one from holding an office, it was sufficient that his wife, or relations, or companions, were papists, though he himself was a conformist.

The next attack which the commons were preparing, was a remonstrance against the levying tonnage and poundage without the consent of parlia ment. This article, together with the new imposition laid on merchandize by James, constituted nearly half of the crown revenues, and the king, deprived of these resources, would have been reduced to total subjection and dependence. Charles, alarmed at the yoke which he saw preparing for him, determined immediately to dissolve the parliament. When this resolution was known, the house of peers petitioned him that he would allow the parliament to continue some time longer. "Not a moment," cried the king hastily; and he soon after ended the session by a dissolution.

As this measure was foreseen, the commons had taken care to finish and publish their remonstrance, as a justification of their conduct. The king like. wise published a declaration, in which he gave the reasons of his disagreement with the parliament, and

of their sudden dissolution. These publications furnished both parties with ample matter of controversy. But all impartial men's opinion was, "that "the commons, though they had not as yet vio"lated any law, yet, by their unpliableness and in"dependence, were insensibly changing the spirit "and genius, while they preserved the forms of "the constitution; and that the king was acting "altogether without any plan; running on in a "road surrounded on all sides with the most dan

gerous precipices, and concerting no proper mea"sures either for submitting to the obstinacy of the commons, or for subduing it."

Charles was now obliged to shew by his conduct, what he did really understand by those double or triple-meaning words he had addressed to the house of commons; "I shall be obliged to try new counsels." He did not probably intend to announce that he would call a new parliament, as in the present state of the public opinion, and with the general spirit of liberty and resistance fermenting among the whole nation, he could not expect from a third parliament more compliance than he had met with in the two others. Did he mean to say, that he would govern without any regard to parliamentary privileges, and even without a parliament? But besides the energy of character requisite for such a bold attempt, and of which Charles was utterly destitute; he could not undertake it without having his exchequer well stored, and a strong, well disciplined and well disposed army, now his exchequer was empty; his army, new levied, ill-paid, and worse disciplined, was nowise superior to the militia, who were much more numerous, and in a great measure under the influence of the country gentlemen. These three words had still a third meaning, which, though perhaps the less plausible, was by far the wisest and the safest of all; namely, the dismission of his present

counsellors, to form a new council, a new administration composed of the ablest and most esteemed men he could engage, and from which the obnoxious Buckingham should have been excluded, which alone would have revived Charles's popularity. This new council would have advised him to conclude immediately a peace with Spain, to introduce the greatest economy in his expenses, and all possible improvements in all the branches of his revenue; to comply with all reasonable demands, and redress all real grievances already complained of; to shew himself eagerly careful of securing the happiness and prosperity of his people by encouraging agriculture, commerce, and industry; to dispel all anxiety about public liberty by suggesting occasionally, that, far from thinking of any alteration in the form of government, he was determined to assem ble the parliament when the violent agitation of minds which generally prevailed, and could not but endanger the constitution, should be entirely subsided. In the mean time, by employing moderately the extraordinary resources so frequently used in the preceding reigns to procure money, such as privy seals, benevolences, &c. he would have found in the dispositions of his happy and grateful subjects, the means of providing for all his wants. After having thus recovered and consolidated in a few years an independent situation, he could have assembled parliaments without any apprehension for his prerogative, and even have it confirmed by them on complying with a few reasonable concessions of no great importance. But Charles's conduct soon proved that such was not his meaning. Convinced as he was, that Buckingham's sole guilt was the being his favourite, no consideration whatever could induce him to abandon his friend; he preferred to recur to the extraordinary resources which had been successfully employed by his predecessors, and