ter with 300 cavaliers to
demand their arrest. But the five members, warned of the King's venture,
were well out of the way, and rested safely within the City of London--for
the citizens were strongly for the Parliament. "It was believed that if the
King had found them there (in the House of Commons), and called in his
guards to have seized them, the members of the House would have endeavoured
the defence of them, which might have proved a very unhappy and sad
business."

As it was, Charles could only retire "in a more discontented and angry
passion than he came in." The step was utterly ill-advised. Parliament was
in no mood to favour royal encroachments, and the citizens of London were
at hand, with their trained bands, to protect forcibly members of the House
of Commons.

War was now imminent. "The attempt to seize the five members was
undoubtedly the real cause of the war. From that moment, the loyal
confidence with which most of the popular party were beginning to regard
the King was turned into hatred and suspicion. From that moment, the
Parliament was compelled to surround itself with defensive arms. From that
moment, the city assumed the appearance of a garrison.

"The transaction was illegal from beginning to end. The impeachment was
illegal. The process was illegal. The service was illegal. If Charles
wished to prosecute the five members for treason, a bill against them
should have been sent to a grand jury. That a commoner cannot be tried for
high treason by the Lords at the suit of the Crown, is part of the very
alphabet of our law. That no man can be arrested by the King in person is
equally clear. This was an established maxim of our jurisprudence even in
the time of Edward the Fourth. 'A subject,' said Chief Justice Markham to
that Prince, 'may arrest for treason; the King cannot; for, if the arrest
be illegal, the party has no remedy against the King.'"[54]

Both King and Parliament broke rudely through all constitutional precedents
in their preparations for hostilities.

The King levied troops by a royal commission, without any advice from
Parliament, and Pym got an ordinance passed, in both Houses, appointing the
Lords-Lieutenant of the counties to command the Militia without warrant
from the Crown.

A last attempt at negotiations was made at York, in April, when the
proposals of Parliament--nineteen propositions for curtailing the power of
the Monarchy in favour of the Commons--were rejected by