but the stillness was
unbroken. Then he called out, "Is Mr. Pym here?" There was no answer;
and Charles, turning to the Speaker, asked him whether the five members
were there. Lenthall fell on his knees, and replied that he had neither
eyes nor tongue to see or say anything save what the House commanded
him. "Well, well," Charles angrily retorted, "'tis no matter. I think my
eyes are as good as another's!" There was another long pause while he
looked carefully over the ranks of members. "I see," he said at last,
"my birds are flown, but I do expect you will send them to me." If they
did not, he added, he would seek them himself; and with a closing
protest that he never intended any force "he went out of the House,"
says an eye-witness, "in a more discontented and angry passion than he
came in."

[Sidenote: Charles withdraws from London.]

Nothing but the absence of the five members and the calm dignity of the
Commons had prevented the king's outrage from ending in bloodshed. "It
was believed," says Whitelock, who was present at the scene, "that if
the king had found them there, and called in his guards to have seized
them, the members of the House would have endeavoured the defence of
them, which might have proved a very unhappy and sad business." Five
hundred gentlemen of the best blood in England would hardly have stood
tamely by while the bravoes of Whitehall laid hands on their leaders in
the midst of the Parliament. But Charles was blind to the danger of his
course. The five members had taken refuge in the City, and it was there
that on the next day the king himself demanded their surrender from the
aldermen at Guildhall. Cries of "Privilege" rang round him as he
returned through the streets: the writs issued for the arrest of the
five were disregarded by the Sheriffs; and a proclamation issued four
days later, declaring them traitors, passed without notice. Terror drove
the Cavaliers from Whitehall, and Charles stood absolutely alone; for
the outrage had severed him for the moment from his new friends in the
Parliament, and from the ministers, Falkland and Colepepper, whom he had
chosen among them. But, lonely as he was, Charles had resolved on war.
The Earl of Newcastle was despatched to muster a royal force in the
north; and on the tenth of January news that the five members were about
to return in triumph to Westminster drove Charles from Whitehall. He
retired to Hampton Court and to Windsor, while the Traine