About a fortnight after the death of Halifax, a fate far more cruel than death befell his old rival and enemy, the Lord President.  That able, ambitious and daring statesman was again hurled down from power.  In his first fall, terrible as it was, there had been something of dignity; and he had, by availing himself with rare skill of an extraordinary crisis in public affairs, risen once more to the most elevated position among English subjects.  The second ruin was indeed less violent than the first; but it was ignominious and irretrievable.

The peculation and venality by which the official men of that age were in the habit of enriching themselves had excited in the public mind a feeling such as could not but vent itself, sooner or later, in some formidable explosion.  But the gains were immediate; the day of retribution was uncertain; and the plunderers of the public were as greedy and as audacious as ever, when the vengeance, long threatened and long delayed, suddenly overtook the proudest and most powerful among them.

The first mutterings of the coming storm did not at all indicate the direction which it would take, or the fury with which it would burst.  An infantry regiment, which was quartered at Royston, had levied contributions on the people of that town and of the neighbourhood.  The sum exacted was not large.  In France or Brabant the moderation of the demand would have been thought wonderful.  But to English shopkeepers and farmers military extortion was happily quite new and quite insupportable.  A petition was sent up to the Commons.  The Commons summoned the accusers and the accused to the bar.  It soon appeared that a grave offence had been committed, but that the offenders were not altogether without excuse.  The public money which had been issued from the Exchequer for their pay and subsistence had been fraudulently detained by their colonel and by his agent.  It was not strange that men who had arms and who had not necessaries should trouble themselves little about the Petition of Right and the Declaration of Right.  But it was monstrous that, while the citizen was heavily taxed for the purpose of paying to the soldier the largest military stipend known in Europe, the soldier should be driven by absolute want to plunder the citizen.  This was strongly set forth in a representation which the Commons laid before William.  William, who had been long struggling against abuses which grievously impaired the efficiency of his army, was glad to have his hands thus strengthened.  He promised ample redress, cashiered the offending colonel, gave strict orders that the troops should receive their due regularly, and established a military board for the purpose of detecting and punishing such malpractices as had taken place at Royston.566