ll Christians to resist the bishops as "robbers of souls, limbs of the
beast, and factors of Antichrist." Raving of this sort might well have
been passed by, had not the general sympathy with Prynne and his
fellow-pamphleteers, when Laud dragged them in 1637 before the Star
Chamber as "trumpets of sedition," shown how fast the tide of general
anger against the Government was rising. The three culprits listened
with defiance to their sentence of exposure in the pillory and
imprisonment for life; and the crowd who filled Palace Yard to witness
their punishment groaned at the cutting off of their ears, and "gave a
great shout" when Prynne urged that the sentence on him was contrary to
law. A hundred thousand Londoners lined the road as they passed on the
way to prison; and the journey of these "Martyrs," as the spectators
called them, was like a triumphal progress. Startled as he was at the
sudden burst of popular feeling, Laud remained dauntless as ever.
Prynne's entertainers, as he passed through the country, were summoned
before the Star Chamber, while the censorship struck fiercer blows at
the Puritan press. But the real danger lay not in the libels of silly
zealots, but in the attitude of Scotland, and in the effect which was
being produced in England at large by the trial of Hampden. Wentworth
was looking on from Ireland with cool insolence at the contest between a
subject and the Crown. "Mr. Hampden," he wrote, "is a great brother; and
the genius of that faction of people leads them always to oppose, both
civilly and ecclesiastically, all that ever authority ordains." But
England looked on with other eyes. "The eyes of all men," owns
Clarendon, "were fixed upon him as their _Pater Patriae_ and the pilot
who must steer the vessel through the tempests and storms that
threatened it." In November and December 1637 the cause of ship-money
was solemnly argued for twelve days before the full bench of judges. It
was proved that the tax in past times had been levied only in cases of
sudden emergency, and confined to the coast and port towns alone, and
that even the show of legality had been taken from it by formal statute,
and by the Petition of Right.

[Sidenote: The judgement on ship-money.]

The case was adjourned, but its discussion told not merely on England,
but on the temper of the Scots. Charles had replied to their petitions
by a simple order to all strangers to leave the capital. But the Council
at Edinburgh was u