nable to enforce his order; and the nobles and gentry
before dispersing to their homes petitioned against the bishops,
resolved not to own the jurisdiction of their courts, and named in
November 1637 a body of delegates, under the odd title of "the Tables."
These delegates carried on through the winter a series of negotiations
with the Crown. The negotiations were interrupted in the spring of 1638
by a renewed order for their dispersion, and for the acceptance of a
Prayer-Book; while the judges in England delivered in June their
long-delayed decision on Hampden's case. Two judges only pronounced in
his favour; though three followed them on technical grounds. The
majority, seven in number, laid down the broad principle that no statute
prohibiting arbitrary taxation could be pleaded against the king's will.
"I never read or heard," said Judge Berkeley, "that lex was rex, but it
is common and most true that rex is lex." Finch, the Chief-Justice,
summed up the opinions of his fellow-judges. "Acts of Parliament to take
away the king's royal power in the defence of his kingdom are void," he
said: "they are void Acts of Parliament to bind the king not to command
the subjects, their persons, and goods, and I say their money too, for
no Acts of Parliament make any difference."

[Sidenote: The Covenant.]

The case was ended; and Charles looked for the Puritans to give way. But
keener eyes discerned that a new spirit of resistance had been stirred
by the trial. The insolence of Wentworth was exchanged for a tone of
angry terror. "I wish Mr. Hampden and others to his likeness," the Lord
Deputy wrote bitterly from Ireland, "were well whipt into their right
senses." Amidst the exultation of the Court over the decision of the
judges, Wentworth saw clearly that Hampden's work had been done. Legal
and temperate as his course had been, he had roused England to a sense
of the danger to her freedom, and forced into light the real character
of the royal claims. How stern and bitter the temper even of the noblest
Puritans had become at last we see in the poem which Milton produced at
this time, his elegy of "Lycidas." Its grave and tender lament is broken
by a sudden flash of indignation at the dangers around the Church, at
the "blind mouths that scarce themselves know how to hold a sheephook,"
and to whom "the hungry sheep look up, and are not fed," while "the grim
wolf" of Rome "with privy paw daily devours apace, and nothing said!"
The s