After the continued receipt of the ship-money for four years, upon the refusal of Mr. Hampden, a private gentleman, to pay thirty shillings as his share, the case was solemnly argued before all the judges of England in the exchequer-chamber and the tax was adjudged lawful; which judgment proved of more advantage and credit to the gentleman condemned than to the king’s service.

For the better support of these extraordinary ways the council-table and star-chamber enlarged their jurisdictions to a vast extent, inflicting fines and imprisonment, whereby the crown and state sustained deserved reproach and infamy, and suffered damage and mischief that cannot be expressed.

The king now resolved to make a progress into the north, and to be solemnly crowned in his kingdom of Scotland, which he had never seen from the time he first left it at the age of two years.  The journey was a progress of great splendour, with an excess of feasting never known before.  But the king had deeply imbibed his father’s notions that an Episcopal church was the most consistent with royal authority, and he committed to a select number of the bishops in Scotland the framing of a suitable liturgy for use there.  But these prelates had little influence with the people, and had not even power to reform their own cathedrals.

In 1638 Scotland assumed an attitude of determined resistance to the imposition of the liturgy and of Episcopal church government.  All the kingdom flocked to Edinburgh, as in a general cause that concerned their salvation.  A general assembly was called and a National Covenant was subscribed.  Men were listed towards the raising of an army, Colonel Leslie being chosen general.  The king thought it time to chastise the seditious by force, and in the end of the year 1638 declared his resolution to raise an army to suppress their rebellion.

This was the first alarm England received towards any trouble, after it had enjoyed for so many years the most uninterrupted prosperity, in a full and plentiful peace, that any nation could be blessed with.  The army was soon mustered and the king went to the borders.  But negotiations for peace took place, and civil war was averted by concessions on the part of the king, so that a treaty of pacification was entered upon.  This event happened in the year 1639.

After for eleven years governing without a parliament, with Archbishop Laud and the Earl of Strafford as his advisers, King Charles was constrained, in 1640, to summon an English parliament, which, however, instead of at once complying with his demands, commenced by drawing up a list of grievances.  Mr. Pym, a man of good reputation, but better known afterwards, led the remonstrances, observing that by the long intermission of parliaments many unwarrantable things had been practiced, notwithstanding the great virtue of his majesty.  Disputes took place between the Lords and Commons, the latter claiming that the right of supply belonged solely to them.