race their steps. Under these
circumstances the popular leaders in the House of Commons, in November
1641, framed and passed the Great Remonstrance, which was practically an
address to the nation, to justify their past action and to appeal for
further support. In this famous document all the oppressive and
arbitrary acts of the past fifteen years were narrated in impressive
language; a detailed account was given of the necessary work already
accomplished, of the dangers and difficulties yet to be surmounted,
declaring the purpose of the House to be, not to abolish Episcopacy, but
to reduce the power of the bishops; and, finally, indicating the line of
future constitutional reform by urging that the King should employ no
Ministers save those in whom the Parliament could place confidence.

Contrary to expectation, the debate on the Remonstrance was long and
stormy, and the division--it was only carried in a full House by a
majority of nine--showed plainly that a reaction in favour of the King
had already begun. Charles had now a final opportunity of regaining the
confidence of the representatives of the nation, and for a few days it
seemed as if he were inclined to follow a moderate, dignified and
constitutional course. But for a few days only. On the 3rd of January
1642, without giving a hint of his intentions to the constitutional
Royalists he had so recently called to his councils, and whom he had
faithfully promised to consult on all matters relating to the House of
Commons, he sent down his Attorney-General to impeach the leading
members of the House, Pym, Holles, and Haselrig, at the bar of the
House of Lords, on a charge of high treason. As Macaulay well
says,[28:1] "It would be difficult to find in the whole history of
England such an instance of tyranny, perfidy, and folly." But worse was
to follow. The Commons refused to surrender their members, and Charles
resolved on their forcible arrest on the floor of the House. The
threatened members, however, had been warned, and had taken refuge in
the City of London; their absence, together with the dignified attitude
of the remaining members, prevented the outrage ending in bloodshed: in
a bloodshed the possibility of which it is even to-day impossible to
contemplate with equanimity.

Though the Militia Bill, which would have given Parliament the control
of the armed forces of the nation, was the ostensible, this outrage on
the part of the King was the direct and medi