agitation as was never seen in Parliament before. ‘The House was much troubled.’ ‘Let him go!’ cried certain Privy Councillors, Majesty’s Ministers as we should now call them, who in those days sat in front of the Speaker; ‘Let Mr. Speaker go!’ cried they imploringly—‘No!’ answered Holles; ‘God’s wounds, he shall sit there till it please the House to rise!‘ The House, in a decisive though almost distracted manner, with their Speaker thus held down for them, locked their doors; redacted Three emphatic Resolutions, their Protest against Arminianism, against Papistry, against illegal Tonnage and Poundage; and passed the same by acclamation; letting no man out, refusing to let even the King’s Usher in; then swiftly vanishing so soon as the resolutions were passed, for they understood the Soldiery was coming.[1] For which surprising procedure, vindicated by Necessity the mother of Invention and supreme of Lawgivers, certain honourable gentlemen, Denzil Holles, Sir John Eliot, William Strode, John Selden, and others less known to us, suffered fine, imprisonment, and much legal tribulation: nay Sir John Eliot, refusing to submit, was kept in the Tower till he died.
This scene fell out on Monday 2d of March 1629. Directly on the back of which, we conclude, Mr. Cromwell quitted Town for Huntingdon again;—told Dr. Beard also that he was not wanted now; that he might at leisure go on with his Theatre of God’s Judgments now.[2] His Majesty dissolved the Parliament by Proclamation; saying something about ‘vipers’ that had been there.
It was the last Parliament in England for above eleven years. The King had taken his course. The King went on raising supplies without Parliamentary law, by all conceivable devices; of which Shipmoney may be considered the most original, and sale of Monopolies the most universal. The monopoly of ‘soap’ itself was very grievous to men.[3] Your
