oon passed into actual strife. Pym and his
colleagues saw that the disunion in their ranks sprang above all from
the question of the Church. On the one side were the Presbyterian
zealots who were clamouring for the abolition of Episcopacy. On the
other were the conservative tempers who in the dread of such demands
were beginning to see in the course of the Parliament a threat against
the Church which they loved. To put an end to the pressure of the one
party and the dread of the other Pym took his stand on the compromise
suggested by the Committee of Religion in the spring. The bill for the
removal of bishops from the House of Lords had been rejected by the
Lords on the eve of the king's journey to Scotland. It was now again
introduced. But, in spite of violent remonstrances from the Commons, the
bill still hung fire among the Peers; and the delay roused the excited
crowd of Londoners who gathered round Whitehall. The bishops' carriages
were stopped, and the prelates themselves rabbled on their way to the
House. At the close of December the angry pride of Williams induced ten
of his fellow-bishops to declare themselves prevented from attendance in
Parliament, and to protest against all acts done in their absence as
null and void. Such a protest was utterly unconstitutional; and even on
the part of the Peers who had been maintaining the bishops' rights it
was met by the committal of the prelates who had signed it to the
Tower. But the contest gave a powerful aid to the projects of the king.
The courtiers declared openly that the rabbling of the bishops proved
that there was "no free Parliament," and strove to bring about fresh
outrages by gathering troops of officers and soldiers of fortune, who
were seeking for employment in the Irish war, and pitting them against
the crowds at Whitehall. The combatants pelted one another with
nicknames which were soon to pass into history. To wear his hair long
and flowing almost to the shoulder was at this time the mark of a
gentleman, whether Puritan or anti-Puritan. Servants on the other hand
or apprentices wore the hair closely cropped to the head. The crowds who
flocked to Westminster were chiefly made up of London apprentices; and
their opponents taunted them as "Roundheads." They replied by branding
the courtiers about Whitehall as soldiers of fortune or "Cavaliers." The
gentlemen who gathered round the king in the coming struggle were as far
from being military adventurers as the