ews of Laud. The King was in full
sympathy with high Anglicanism, and, like his father, willing to relax the
penal laws against Catholics.)

"By the ancient laws and liberties of England it is the known birthright
and inheritance of the subject that no tax, tallage, or other charge shall
be levied or imposed but by common consent in England, and that the
subsidies of tonnage and poundage are no way due or payable but by a free
gift and special Act of Parliament."

In these memorable words began the declaration moved by Sir John Eliot in
the House of Commons on March 2nd, 1629. A royal message ordering the
adjournment of the House was disregarded, the Speaker was held down in his
chair, and the key of the House of Commons was turned against intrusion,
while Eliot's resolutions, declaring that the privileges of the Commons
must be preserved, were carried with enthusiasm.

Charles answered these resolutions by dissolving Parliament and sending
Eliot to the Tower.

For eleven years no Parliament was summoned. Eliot refused altogether to
make any defence for his Parliamentary conduct. "I hold that it is against
the privilege of Parliament to speak of anything which is done in the
House," was his reply to the Crown lawyers. So Sir John Eliot was left in
prison, for nothing would induce this devoted believer in representative
government to yield to the royal pressure, and three years later, at the
age of forty-two, he died in the Tower.

It was for the liberties of the House of Commons that Eliot gave his life.
Wasted with sickness, health and freedom were his if he would but
acknowledge the right of the Crown to restrain the freedom of Parliamentary
debate; but such an acknowledgment was impossible from Sir John Eliot. For
him the privilege of the House of Commons in the matter of free speech was
a sacred cause, to be upheld by Members of Parliament, even to the death--a
cause every whit as sacred to Eliot as the divine right of kings was to the
Stuart bishops.

Charles hoped to govern England through his Ministers without interference
from the Commons, and only the need of money compelled him to summon
Parliament.

John Hampden saw that if the King could raise money by forced loans and
other exactions, the days of constitutional government were over. Hence his
memorable resistance to ship-money. London and the seaports were induced to
provide supplies for ships in 1634, on the pretext that piracy must be
prevented. I