therefore, were to be entered into, only in so far as that branch of the house of Austria was expected to assist the others in retaining the territory of the elector palatine. Nothing could be more distinct than their stipulations on this point. They were recognised before the death of James. No war with Spain was proclaimed, though correspondence with its court was broken; and when Mansfield received his commission, with twelve regiments, for the service of the Palatinate, he was required "not to make any invasion, or do any act of war against the country or dominion," of the king of Spain.1 How far this first condition was preserved, we shall shortly have occasion to see. Another condition there was, proposed by the king himself, that in order to insure the application of the grant to the purposes sought to be attained, it should be paid into the hands of commissioners, appointed by the house, who should expend the money upon that business alone, for which it was granted.2 The rupture of peace was no headlong enterprise, plunged into by the parliamentary leaders, without regard to the issue, or the means of its attainment. 3

Meanwhile, during these negotiations, no popular grievance was lost sight of. Up to this period, a couplet familiar in the common mouth had embodied the history of parliaments :

"

With the exception of the subsidy bill of 1621, no bill had been allowed to pass for the space of thirteen years. Legislation was now at last resumed. Measures were passed to reform many grievances in the law, and in prevention of vexatious prosecutions. "Their long counsels, which had been weather-bound, came to a quiet road, and their vessel was lighted of statutes which are of immortal memory." 1 The greatest of all these was that which abolished monopolies for the sale of merchandise, or for using any trade. It was nobly drawn up by Coke, Eliot, Philips, and other members, as a mere declaratory statute, reciting that such monopolies were already contrary to the ancient and fundamental laws of the realm. "It was there supposed,' says Hume, " that every subject of England had entire power to dispose of his own actions, provided he did no injury to any of his fellow subjects; and that no prerogative of the king, no power of any magistrate, nothing but the authority alone of laws, could restrain that unlimited freedom.” 2 Following upon this measure, and of an importance no less great, came the impeachment of the lord treasurer Middlesex. For two centuries, - with the single exception of the case of Bacon, too feeble to fix, with any certainty, the precedent, that grand constitutional right had lain dormant. It was now asserted with eagerness by the commons, and promoted hotly by Buckingham, who had long hated the growing independence of the power of Middlesex, and as his caprice had raised him from obscurity, now turned to hunt him to disgrace. In vain

1 Hacket's Scrinia Reserata (Life of Williams), part i. p. 200. He goes on, in his fashion, to say - "The voices all went one way, as a field of wheat is bended that 's blown with a gentle gale, one and all;" which proves that quaint old gentleman to have been a reader of Beaumont and Fletcher

*

"And the people,

the shrewdness of James remonstrated, - "By God, Stenny, you are a fool, and will shortly repent this folly; and will find that, in this fit of popularity, you are making a rod with which your own breech will be scourged." In vain he turned to the prince, and, with a bitterness of prophecy, like that of Bacon to Middlesex ("Remember that a parliament will come!"), told him that he would live " to have his belly full of parliamentary impeachments." 1 The commons were suffered to proceed. They proved the guilt of the lord treasurer 2; and rescued from the disuse of centuries, and beyond the chance of recall, a vital parliamentary right against future ministers of the crown.

James never forgave this. Hacket tells us that, in reference to the matter, " he was quipt every day with ignominious taunts, that the kind correspondencies between him and the parliament began to have a cloud over them." 3 There were other causes besides this. Further grievances remained to be discussed, and the house had entered upon them with unwearying zeal. The king then gave them to understand, that though they were to apply redress to some known grievances, they were not to go on seeking after more; and shortly afterwards, in discontent, prorogued them. He had failed in the object of his concessions. He fancied they would have put him in possession of more money and more power. "He let fall some flowers of his crown," says the quaint Hacket, "that they might gather them up; which, indeed, was no more than defluvium pennarum, the moulting of some feathers, after which the eagle would fly the better." 1 Much to the astonishment and disgust of the eagle in question, however, measures which had for their object the clipping of his wings, the effectual marring of his royal flights, had appeared to be ripening daily. Under these circumstances, on the 29th of October, 1624, the day to which the parliament had been prorogued, the parliament was finally dissolved.

The death of James, sudden and mysterious, followed close upon this event; and the house of commons was almost instantly challenged to a contest by his illadvised successor. They had prepared themselves for it by their exertions of the last five and twenty years. They had obtained little, it might be said, in respect of distinct enactments; but they had fenced themselves round with privileges, never to be questioned more, by favourites or by monarchs. "They had rescued from disuse their ancient right of impeachment; they had placed on record a protestation of their claim to debate all matters of public concern; they had remonstrated against the usurped prerogatives of binding the subject by proclamation, and of levying customs at the outposts; they had secured beyond controversy their exclusive privilege of determining contested elections of their members." 2 Vast rights remained yet to be asserted, oppressive wrongs to be redressed; but an increasing energy in the nation gave new confidence and strength to its representatives; and they assembled at the summons of the new monarch, immediately after his accession, more than ever proudly watchful of privilege, and more than ever sternly resolved on good government. In this parliament, which met at Westminster on the 18th of June, 1625, Eliot was again at his post. He took his seat with a new colleague, Mr. Ralph Specot, for the same borough as before - that of Newport.

It may be well, before we listen to the comments of Mr. D'Israeli, and of others from whom a more liberal consideration was to be expected, as to the severe conduct of this parliament to their young sovereign, to ask whether any reasonable foundation of confidence had been laid between them before their meeting this day? Had any symptoms of a new and better administration appeared in any quarter of the government? Did favouritism, intrigue, or corruption, seem to have abated a jot of their all-governing influence at court? Had oppression and injustice, even for the few little weeks of the new reign, ceased to harass the nation? But for so short a time, had the doctrine and the practice of absolute power and monarchy imprescriptable, been vailed before the presence of the people, as their new inheritor, with admirable hypocrisy, vailed his crown before that people's representatives, on this day of their assembling? 1

The answer which history gives to these questions is a just warrant for the murmurs of distrust which, in his progress to his first parliament, already sounded in the ears of the monarch; which scattered the seeds of disaffection in all directions; and planted bitter thorns in the young crown, as yet scarcely settled on the temples of its wearer.

To the amazement of all, the statement made to James's last parliament by Buckingham, and corroborated by Charles, had been discovered to be one tissue of gross falsehoods. On that statement, it has been seen, the war with Spain was undertaken. We have Clarendon's authority for asserting that they knew it to be untrue.2 "But yet," says Rushworth, "the prince