ng the persons
and the property of subjects to be at the absolute disposal of the
sovereign, and in the name of religion inaugurating a systematic attack
on the rights and liberties of the nation.

The people whose representatives a quarter of a century previously, in
1604, had met the insolent claims of James the First with the dignified
rejoinder, that "your Majesty should be misinformed if any man should
deliver that the kings of England have any absolute power in themselves
either to alter religion, or to make any laws concerning the same,
otherwise than in temporal causes by consent of Parliament,"[25:1] were,
however, not easily to be intimidated. Despite a Royal order to adjourn,
the House of Commons of 1629, holding the Speaker by force in the Chair,
supported the immortal Eliot in his last assertion of English liberty,
and by successive resolutions declared that whosoever shall bring in
innovations in religion, or whosoever shall counsel or advise the taking
and levying of the subsidies of tonnage and poundage, not being granted
by Parliament, "a capital enemy to this kingdom and commonwealth," and
any person voluntarily yielding or paying the said subsidies, not being
granted by Parliament, "a betrayer of the liberty of England, and an
enemy to the same."[25:2] Having thus flung their defiance in the face
of the King, the House then voted its own adjournment.

From that time events had marched quickly. Those who had played the most
prominent parts in that momentous scene, including Holles, Selden, and
Eliot, had been thrown into prison, the last-named to die there, the
first martyr to the growing cause of civil freedom and religious
liberty. In 1637, the year of the publication of Chillingworth's work,
the whole question of the right to levy taxation was revived by the
demand on the inland counties for ship-money, and the attention of the
whole country attracted to it by the trial of Hampden on his refusal to
pay same. Later in the year, Charles' attempt to alter the
ecclesiastical constitution and form of public worship in Scotland led,
first to discontent, then to riot, and finally to open rebellion. As a
direct consequence, the King, in April 1640, was compelled to call what
from its brief duration is known as the Short Parliament, in which,
thanks to the Parliamentary tactics of Hampden, the design of the Court
Party, to obtain supplies without redressing grievances, was
constitutionally thwarted. On the