ELIOT
ON THE CONDITION OF ENGLAND[1]
(1628)
Born in 1592, died in 1632; became in 1625 an Opposition orator in the first parliament of Charles I.; imprisoned in 1626, by order of the king, but released when parliament refused to proceed without him; took a leading part in drafting the Petition of Right in 1628; arrested in 1629 and sent to the Tower, where he died.
We sit here as the great council of the king, and, in that capacity it is our duty to take into consideration the state and affairs of the kingdom; and, where there is occasion, to give them in a true representation by way of council and advice, what we conceive necessary or expedient for them.
In this consideration, I confess, many a sad thought has frighted me: and that not only in respect of our dangers from abroad, which yet I know are great, as they have been often in this place prest and dilated to us; but in respect of our disorders here at home, which do inforce those dangers, as by them they were occasioned.
For I believe I shall make it clear to you, that as at first the causes of those dangers were our disorders, our disorders still remain our greatest
- ↑ Delivered in the House of Commons, June 3,1628. Corrected by Eliot himself while imprisoned in the Tower for the third time. Here abridged and printed by permission of Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co.
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