e, the right
of setting up taverns with a restriction on the entertainment of
guests by private individuals, or by the old inns; and again the right
of arresting acknowledged vagrants. But the most obnoxious grants were
those of patents for the monopoly of some trade, which were annoying
to the whole mercantile class, and brought profit only to a few
favoured individuals. Coke argued that the patents were either in
themselves illegal, or injurious in their enforcement, or both
together. While he proved to Parliament its forgotten or disregarded
rights, Coke won the full confidence of both Houses alike: the Upper
and the Lower House made common cause. Thus the system of government
as it had been developed under the Tudors and continued under the
Stuarts was encountered face to face by another system, which rested
upon other precedents and principles.

And people were not content with merely declaring the patents invalid;
they called those to account who had got possession of them, and even
the high officials who had contributed to issue them. A general
commotion ensued: every day fresh information came in and fresh
complaints were drawn up.[409]

The Lord Chancellor Bacon had been already brought into danger by this
affair. He had assisted in introducing monopolies of different
manufactures under the pretence that work would be found for the poor
by means of them. It was well known that in matters of this sort he
had for the most part followed the suggestions of the Prime Minister.
While Bacon was defending the ideal mission of the monarchy, he had
the weakness to identify himself too closely with the accidental form
which authority just at that particular moment took. In return he
found on the other hand that the attacks really aimed at the
government recoiled in the first instance upon him. In reality they
were directed principally against Buckingham. In order to save him
from destruction, suggestions had been made to the King that he might
prefer to dissolve Parliament, as it seemed plain that he had far more
reason to expect harm from the attacks than advantage from the grants
made by that body. Buckingham saved himself only by coming forward
against the monopolies himself, in accordance with the advice of his
ecclesiastical confidant, Dean Williams. Claims had been made against
two of his brothers also on account of the monopolies. Far from taking
them under his protection, he said on the contrary that his father