narrow theory of kingcraft.  For wrong-headed obstinacy, utter want of tact, and bottomless perfidy, there was little to choose between them.  The humorous epitaph of the grandson “whose word no man relies on” might have served for them all.  But of this unhappy family Charles I. was eminently the dreamer.  He lived in a world of his own, and was slow in rendering thought into action; and this made him rely upon the quick-witted but unwise and unscrupulous Buckingham, [5] who was silly enough to make feeble attempts at unpopular warfare without consulting Parliament.  During each of Charles’s first four years there was an angry session of Parliament, in which, through the unwillingness of the popular leaders to resort to violence, the king’s policy seemed able to hold its ground.  Despite all protest the king persisted in levying strange taxes and was to some extent able to collect them.  Men who refused to pay enforced loans were thrown into jail and the writ of habeas corpus was denied them.  Meanwhile the treatment of Puritans became more and more vexatious.  It was clear enough that Charles meant to become an absolute monarch, like Louis XIII., but Parliament began by throwing all the blame upon the unpopular minister and seeking to impeach him.

On the 5th of June, 1628, the House of Commons presented the most extraordinary spectacle, perhaps in all its history.  The famous Petition of Right had been Passed by both Houses, and the royal answer had just been received.  Its tone was that of gracious assent, but it omitted the necessary legal formalities, and the Commons well knew what this meant.  They were to be tricked with sweet words, and the petition was not to acquire the force of a statute.  How was it possible to deal with such a slippery creature?  There was but one way of saving the dignity of the throne without sacrificing the liberty of the people, and that was to hold the king’s ministers responsible to Parliament, in anticipation of modern methods.  It was accordingly proposed to impeach the Duke of Buckingham before the House of Lords.  The Speaker now “brought an imperious message from the king, ... warning them ... that he would not tolerate any aspersion upon his ministers.”  Nothing daunted by this, Sir John Eliot arose to lead the debate, when the Speaker called him to order in view of the king’s message.  “Amid a deadly stillness” Eliot sat down and burst into tears.  For a moment the House was overcome with despair.  Deprived of all constitutional methods of redress, they suddenly saw yawning before them the direful alternative—­slavery or civil war.  Since the day of Bosworth a hundred and fifty years had passed without fighting worthy of mention on English soil, such an era of peace as had hardly ever before been seen on the earth; now half the nation was to be pitted against the other half, families were to be divided against themselves, as in the dreadful days of the Roses, and with what consequences no one could foresee.  “Let