y rest.

[Sidenote: Robert Cecil.]

It was this mutual distrust which brought about the final breach between
the Parliament and the king. The question of the impositions had seemed
for a while to have been waived. The Commons had contented themselves
with a protest against their levy. James had for two years hesitated in
acting on the judgement which asserted his right to levy them. But the
needs of the treasury became too great to admit of further hesitation,
and in 1608 a royal proclamation imposed customs duties on many articles
of import and export. The new duties came in fast; but unluckily the
royal debt grew faster. To a king fresh from the penniless exchequer of
Holyrood the wealth of England seemed boundless; money was lavished on
court-feasts and favourites; and with each year the expenditure of James
reached a higher level. It was in vain that Robert Cecil took the
treasury into his own hands, and strove to revive the frugal traditions
of Elizabeth. The king's prodigality undid his minister's work; and in
1610 Cecil was forced to announce to his master that the annual revenue
of the Crown must be supplemented by fresh grants from Parliament. The
scheme which Cecil laid before the king and the Commons is of great
importance as the last effort of that Tudor policy which had so long
hindered an outbreak of strife between the nation and the Crown. Differ
as the Tudors might from one another, they were alike in their keen
sense of national feeling and in their craving to carry it along with
them. Masterful as Henry or Elizabeth might be, what they "prized most
dearly," as the Queen confessed, was "the love and goodwill of their
subjects." They prized it because they knew the force it gave them. And
Cecil knew it too. He had grown up among the traditions of the Tudor
rule. He had been trained by his father in the system of Elizabeth.
Whether as a minister of the Queen, or as a minister of her successor,
he had striven to carry that system into effect. His conviction of the
supremacy of the Crown was as strong as that of James himself, but it
was tempered by as strong a conviction of the need of the national
good-will. He had seen what weight the passionate enthusiasm that
gathered round Elizabeth gave to her policy both at home and abroad; and
he saw that a time was drawing near when the same weight would be
needed by the policy of the Crown.

[Sidenote: Protestantism in Germany.]

Slowly but steadily the cloud