appearing at its bar with the great seal, he made the most humble obeisance, and endeavoured to excuse himself with many plausible words and tears. But all this well-acted contrition did not prevent the house from voting him a traitor, and the next morning sending up his impeachment to the lords. But the cunning fellow had seen sufficient in the house to assure him of its verdict, and had made good use of the time. He was nowhere to be found, nor was heard of again till he was safe in Holland.
Arrest of Lord Stafford.
From the ministers the commons stretched their hands to the judges, who had sanctioned the king's levy of shipmoney, and had condemned John Hampden. They ordered Branston, Davenport, Crawley. Trevor, and Weston to find heavy bail for their appearance to answer the charges of Parliament; and Berkeley, who had exclaimed on the bench that "the law knew no king-yoking policy, but that Rex was Lex," was treated with less ceremony, being plucked from the very judgment-seat as he sat in his ermine, amid judges and lawyers, and taken away as a felon to receive the censure of Parliament and pay a fine of ten thousand pounds. They extended their measures even further than the judges—to the sheriffs and lieutenants of counties who had been very active and overbearing in the collection of ship-money; but they contented themselves with giving those a fright. Not so with the farmers and officers of the customs, who for so many years had insolently fleeced the people at the arbitrary will of the king; they were glad to compound for a pardon by a fine of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds.
Never was there such a scene in the history of nations. The effect was that of magic. It was as if a thunderbolt had fallen in the midst of the haughty advocates of national slavery. They fell flat and licked the feet of then chasteuers. There was an instant hush of all praises of despotism and exhortation to illegal taxation, like that which in a populous city follows the explosion of a mine, and the whole fabric of absolutism dropped at once like a house of cards. Finch, the renegade, and Windebank, the bloodhound of Land, had dropped the strutting honour of lord keeper and secretary of state, and fled hastily from the wrath to come. The servile judges were prostrate in the dust; the two arch-absolutists were in durance, waiting the just award of an insulted people, and only one of the leading offenders had managed to escape deserved censure by a more cunning treason. This was the marquis of Hamilton, who, seeing the tempest ahead, came to Charles at York, where he summoned the
