But Charles acted at this conjuncture as he acted at every important conjuncture throughout his life.  After oppressing, threatening, and blustering, he hesitated and failed.  He was bold in the wrong place, and timid in the wrong place.  He would have shown his wisdom by being afraid before the liturgy was read in St. Giles’s church.  He put off his fear till he had reached the Scottish border with his troops.  Then, after a feeble campaign, he concluded a treaty with the insurgents, and withdrew his army.  But the terms of the pacification were not observed.  Each party charged the other with foul play.  The Scots refused to disarm.  The King found great difficulty in re-assembling his forces.  His late expedition had drained his treasury.  The revenues of the next year had been anticipated.  At another time, he might have attempted to make up the deficiency by illegal expedients; but such a course would clearly have been dangerous when part of the island was in rebellion.  It was necessary to call a Parliament.  After eleven years of suffering, the voice of the nation was to be heard once more.

In April 1640, the Parliament met; and the King had another chance of conciliating his people.  The new House of Commons was, beyond all comparison, the least refractory House of Commons that had been known for many years.  Indeed, we have never been able to understand how, after so long a period of misgovernment, the representatives of the nation should have shown so moderate and so loyal a disposition.  Clarendon speaks with admiration of their dutiful temper.  “The House, generally,” says he, “was exceedingly disposed to please the King, and to do him service.”  “It could never be hoped,” he observes elsewhere, “that more sober or dispassionate men would ever meet together in that place, or fewer who brought ill purposes with them.”

In this Parliament Hampden took his seat as member for Buckinghamshire, and thenceforward, till the day of his death, gave himself up, with scarcely any intermission, to public affairs.  He took lodgings in Gray’s Inn Lane, near the house occupied by Pym, with whom he lived in habits of the closest intimacy.  He was now decidedly the most popular man in England.  The Opposition looked to him as their leader, and the servants of the King treated him with marked respect.

Charles requested the Parliament to vote an immediate supply, and pledged his word that, if they would gratify him in this request, he would afterwards give them time to represent their grievances to him.  The grievances under which the nation suffered were so serious, and the royal word had been so shamefully violated, that the Commons could hardly be expected to comply with this request.  During the first week of the session, the minutes of the proceedings against Hampden were laid on the table by Oliver St. John, and a committee reported that the case was matter of grievance.  The King sent a message to the Commons, offering, if they would vote him twelve subsidies,