evenue only temporary, and thereby reducing
their prince to perpetual dependence; they certainly would cut off the
new impositions which Mary and Elizabeth, but especially James, had
levied, and which formed no despicable part of the public revenue:
and they openly declared, that they had at present many important
pretensions, chiefly with regard to religion; and if compliance were
refused, no supply must be expected from the commons.

It is easy to see in what an inextricable labyrinth Charles was now
involved. By his own concessions, by the general principles of the
English government, and by the form of every bill which had granted this
duty, tonnage and poundage was derived entirely from the free gift of
the people; and, consequently, might be withdrawn at their pleasure. If
unreasonable in their refusal, they still refused nothing but what was
their own. If public necessity required this supply, it might be thought
also to require the king's compliance with those conditions which were
the price of obtaining it. Though the motive for granting it had been
the enabling of the king to guard the seas, it did not follow, that
because he guarded the seas, he was therefore entitled to this revenue
without further formality: since the people had still reserved to
themselves the right of judging how far that service merited such a
supply. But Charles, notwithstanding his public declaration, was
far from assenting to this conclusion in its full extent. The plain
consequence, he saw, of all these rigors, and refinements, and
inferences, was, that he, without any public necessity, and without any
fault of his own, must of a sudden, even from his accession, become a
magistrate of a very different nature from any of his predecessors, and
must fall into a total dependence on subjects over whom former kings,
especially those immediately preceding, had exercised an authority
almost unlimited. Entangled in a chain of consequences which he could
not easily break, he was inclined to go higher, and rather deny the
first principle, than admit of conclusions which to him appeared so
absurd and unreasonable. Agree-* to the ideas hitherto entertained both
by natives and foreigners, the monarch he esteemed the essence and
soul of the English government: and whatever other power pretended to
annihilate or even abridge, the royal authority, must necessarily, he
thought, either in its nature or exercise, be deemed no better than a
usurpation. W