all the charters, like the walls of Jericho, fall down before him, and returned laden with surrenders, the spoils of towns.”  At the same time a terrible blow was dealt at two of the greatest Whig families in England.  Lord William Russell, son of the Earl of Bedford, and Algernon Sidney, younger son of the Earl of Leicester, two of the purest patriots and ablest liberal leaders of the day, were tried on a false charge of treason and beheaded. [Sidenote:  Secret treaty between Charles II. and Louis XIV] [Sidenote:  Shameful proceedings in England]

By this quick succession of high-handed measures, the friends of law and liberty were for a moment disconcerted and paralyzed.  In the frightful abasement of the courts of justice which these events so clearly showed, the freedom of Englishmen seemed threatened in its last stronghold.  The doctrine of passive obedience to monarchs was preached in the pulpits and inculcated by the university of Oxford, which ordered the works of John Milton to be publicly burned.  Sir Robert Filmer wrote that “not only in human laws, but even in divine, a thing may by the king be commanded contrary to law, and yet obedience to such a command is necessary.”  Charles felt so strong that in 1684 he flatly refused to summon a parliament.

It was not long before the effects of all this were felt in New England.  The mission of Dudley and his colleague was fruitless.  They returned to Boston, and Randolph, who had followed them to London, now followed them back, armed with a writ of quo warranto which he was instructed not to serve until he should have given Massachusetts one more chance to humble herself in the dust.  Should she modify her constitution to please a tyrant or see it trampled under foot?  Recent events in England served for a solemn warning; for the moment the Tories were silenced; perhaps after all, the absolute rule of a king was hardly to be preferred to the sway of the Puritan clergy; the day when the House of Commons sat still and wept seemed to have returned.  A great town-meeting was held in the Old South Meeting-House, and the moderator requested all who were for surrendering the charter to hold up their hands.  Not a hand was lifted, and out from the throng a solitary voice exclaimed, with deep-drawn breath, “The Lord be praised!” Then arose Increase Mather, president of Harvard College, and reminded them how their fathers did win this charter, and should they deliver it up unto the spoiler who demanded it “even as Ahab required Naboth’s vineyard, Oh! their children would be bound to curse them.”  Such was the attitude of Massachusetts, and when it was known in London, the blow was struck.  For technical reasons Randolph’s writ was not served; but on the 21st of June a decree in chancery annulled the charter of Massachusetts. [Sidenote:  Massachusetts refuses to surrender her charter] [Sidenote:  It is annulled by degree of chancery, June 21, 1684]