to profit by his success; and
in 1631 he suffered the Marquis of Hamilton to join the Swedish king
with a force of Scotch and English regiments. After some service in
Silesia, this force aided in the battle of Breitenfeld and followed
Gustavus in his reconquest of the Palatinate. But the conqueror
demanded, as the price of its restoration to Frederick, that Charles
should again declare war upon Spain; and this was a price that the king
would not pay. The danger in Germany was over; the power of France and
of Holland threatened the supremacy of England on the seas; and even had
these reasons not swayed him to friendship with Spain, Charles was
stubborn not to plunge into a combat which would again force him to
summon a Parliament.

[Sidenote: Financial measures.]

What absorbed his attention at home was the question of the revenue. The
debt was a large one; and the ordinary income of the Crown, unaided by
Parliamentary supplies, was inadequate to meet its ordinary expenditure.
Charles himself was frugal and laborious; and the economy of Weston, the
new Lord Treasurer, whom he raised to the earldom of Portland,
contrasted advantageously with the waste and extravagance of the
government under Buckingham. But economy failed to close the yawning
gulf of the Treasury, and the course into which Charles was driven by
the financial pressure showed with how wise a prescience the Commons had
fixed on the point of arbitrary taxation as the chief danger to
constitutional freedom. It is curious to see to what shifts the royal
pride was driven in its effort at once to fill the Exchequer, and yet to
avoid, as far as it could, any direct breach of constitutional law in
the imposition of taxes by the sole authority of the Crown. The dormant
powers of the prerogative were strained to their utmost. The right of
the Crown to force knighthood on the landed gentry was revived, in order
to squeeze them into composition for the refusal of it. Fines were
levied on them for the redress of defects in their title-deeds. A
Commission of the Forests exacted large sums from the neighbouring
landowners for their encroachments on Crown lands. Three hundred
thousand pounds were raised by this means in Essex alone. London, the
special object of courtly dislike, on account of its stubborn
Puritanism, was brought within the sweep of royal extortion by the
enforcement of an illegal proclamation which James had issued,
prohibiting its extension. Every house