r indulgence. Laud also
was immediately, upon this general charge, sequestered from parliament,
and committed to custody.[*]

The capital article insisted on against these two great men, was the
design which the commons supposed to have been formed of subverting
the laws and constitution of England, and introducing arbitrary and
unlimited authority into the kingdom. Of all the king's ministers, no
one was so obnoxious in this respect as the lord keeper Finch. He it was
who, being speaker in the king's third parliament, had left the
chair, and refused to put the question when ordered by the house. The
extrajudicial opinion of the judges in the case of ship money had
been procured by his intrigues, persuasions, and even menaces. In all
unpopular and illegal measures, he was ever most active; and he was even
believed to have declared publicly, that, while he was keeper, an order
of council should always with him be equivalent to a law. To appease the
rising displeasure of the commons, he desired to be heard at their bar.
He prostrated himself with all humility before them; but this submission
availed him nothing. An impeachment was resolved on; and in order to
escape their fury, he thought proper secretly to withdraw, and retire
into Holland. As he was not esteemed equal to Stratford, or even to
Laud, either in capacity or in fidelity to his master, it was
generally believed that his escape had been connived at by the popular
leaders.[**] His impeachment, however, in his absence, was carried up to
the house of peers.

* Clarendon, vol. i. p. 177. Whitlocke, p. 38, Rush. vol.
iii. p. 1365.

** Clarendon, vol. i. p. 177. Whitlocke, p. 38. Rush. vol.
i. p 129.

Sir Francis Windebank, the secretary, was a creature of Laud's; a
sufficient reason for his being extremely obnoxious to the commons.
He was secretly suspected too of the crime of Popery; and it was known
that, from complaisance to the queen, and indeed in compliance with
the king's maxims of government, he had granted many indulgences to
Catholics, and had signed warrants for the pardon of priests, and their
delivery from confinement. Grimstone, a popular member, called him,
in the house, the very pander and broker to the whore of Babylon.[*]
Finding that the scrutiny of the commons was pointing towards him, and
being sensible that England was no longer a place of safety for men of
his character, he suddenly made his escape into France.[**]