Thus in a few weeks this house of commons, not opposed, or rather
seconded by the peers, had produced such a revolution in the government,
that the two most powerful and most favored ministers of the king were
thrown into the Tower, and daily expected to be tried for their life:
two other ministers had, by flight alone, saved themselves from a like
fate: all the king's servants saw that no protection could be given
them by their master: a new jurisdiction was erected in the nation; and
before that tribunal all those trembled who had before exulted most in
their credit and authority.

* Rush, vol. v. p. 122.

** Clarendon, vol. i. p. 178. Whitlocke, p. 37.

What rendered the power of the commons more formidable was, the extreme
prudence with which it was conducted. Not content with the authority
which they had acquired by attacking these great ministers, they were
resolved to render the most considerable bodies of the nation obnoxious
to them. Though the idol of the people, they determined to fortify
themselves likewise with terrors, and to overawe those who might still
be inclined to support the falling ruins of monarchy.

During the late military operations, several powers had been exercised
by the lieutenants and deputy lieutenants of counties; and these powers,
though necessary for the defence of the nation, and even warranted by
all former precedent yet not being authorized by statute, were now
voted to be illegal, and the persons who had assumed them declared
delinquents. This term was newly come into vogue, and expressed a degree
and species of guilt not exactly known or ascertained. In consequence of
that determination, many of the nobility and prime gentry of the
nation, while only exerting as they justly thought, the legal powers
of magistracy unexpectedly found themselves involved in the crime of
delinquency. And the commons reaped this multiplied advantage by their
vote: they disarmed the crown; they established the maxims of rigid law
and liberty; and they spread the terror of their own authority.[*]

The writs for ship money had been directed to the sheriffs, who were
required, and even obliged, under severe penalties, to assess the sums
upon individuals, and to levy them by their authority: yet were all the
sheriffs, and all those who had been employed in that illegal service,
voted, by a very rigorous sentence, to be delinquents. The king, by
the maxims of law, could do no wrong: his minist