of Essex and Manchester. The Earl of Essex, a son of Elizabeth's favorite, became the first commander-in-chief of the Parliamentary army, but though actuated by a high sense of duty, he lacked assertiveness, his abilities were too slender for the difficult situation, and he soon had to make way for a leader of more robust fiber. The Earl of Manchester was a sweet meek man who for a time commanded the army of the Association of Eastern Counties, but was also forced into retirement for lack of vigor.

Early Work of the Long Parliament. Charles could not dismiss this Parliament nor could he resist its measures; for it was absolutely necessary for him to obtain a grant, either to pay off the Scottish invaders or to raise another army to resist them. London became the center of stirring activity. Pamphlets on religion and politics. and fervid sermons contributed to spread radical ideas and to rouse men to carry them into effect; sects multiplied; while mobs of howling apprentices and even of once sober tradesmen menaced the Court at Whitehall and fanned the zeal of Parliament at Westminster. As an act of tardy justice the victims of the Star Chamber prosecutions, Prynne, Leighton, and Lilburne, were released and welcomed in the City with every manifestation of joy. Parliament's valiant labors during the few months of its first session group themselves under three main heads: (1) proceedings against the King's evil councilors; (2) curtailing the royal powers of arbitrary taxation and administration of justice; (3) attempts at religious reforms.

(1) Impeachments. The Trial and Execution of Strafford. Parliament had sat just a week when Strafford, the "dark-browed apostate," whom the Commons regarded as the King's evil genius and their own most dangerous enemy, was impeached and placed in custody. Other impeachments followed in swift succession. Some escaped, but Laud, "too old and brave to fly," was lodged in the Tower, whence he was taken four years later to the block. The charges against Strafford which the Commons sent to the House of Lords declared, in substance: that he had traitorously endeavored to subvert the laws of England and Ireland and to introduce arbitrary and tyrannical government; that he had advised the King to reduce his subjects in Scotland and England by force of arms; and that he had tried to enlist "papists" in support of his political schemes. The trial began 22 March, 1641, in Westminster Hall, which was crowded with spectators. While it was easy to prove the accused Minister guilty of tyranny and contempt of the law, it was not possible to substantiate the charge of treason. According to the existing law that was an offense that could be committed only against the King, and

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the King had approved of all that Strafford had done. The charge which underlay the various counts against the accused was treason against the nation a new offense which had never been recognized by Statute. As the trial progressed the danger increased that he might escape after all, so those most bent on his destruction proposed that a Bill of Attainder — which required no evidence — be substituted for an impeachment; though opposed at first by Pym and Hampden, the Bill passed the Commons, 21 April. Charles did everything in his power to block its further progress: he offered to dismiss the Earl, and even to give his consent to any punishment short of death penalty. But the mob which surged about Westminster demanded the head of "Black Tom the Tyrant," whose fate was sealed by the discovery of a plot, in which the Queen rashly engaged to bring the army down from York to overawe Parliament. In consequence of a dispute which arose between two factions of the royalist supporters, this "first army plot" was betrayed to the popular leaders; Pym seized a fitting moment to disclose the information, and the Lords, who had hitherto hesitated, voted the Attainder, 8 May. Charles withheld his signature as long as he could, but pressed by deputations from both Houses and menaced by the armed and excited throng, he was obliged to sacrifice his Minister whom he had promised to protect. When the condemned Earl heard the decision, he exclaimed: "Put not your trust in princes nor in the sons of men, for in them is no salvation." On 12 May, 1641, receiving Laud's benediction as he passed, he proceeded dauntlessly and haughtily to his execution on Tower Hill. He had served the King faithfully and he was put to death without a warrant of law; but he was a dangerous man who, had he been allowed to live, would have worked to destroy the liberties of the people and the lives of their leaders.

(2) Remedial Legislation. - Meantime, Parliament had taken steps to curtail the King's arbitrary powers. On 16 February, 1641, a Triennial Bill became law, providing that henceforth Parliament should meet at least once in three years, a design to prevent such long inter-parliamentary intervals as had occurred under James and Charles. Another measure aimed to stop for the future the summary methods which Charles had employed to block Buckingham's impeachment and Eliot's resolutions provided that Parliament should not be dissolved without its own consent. The King gave his assent II May. Secured against interference with its work, Parliament proceeded to deal with taxation and the extraordinary courts. On 22 June, 1641, a statute was passed granting tonnage and poundage for two months; but providing that henceforth "no subsidy,

custom, impost or other charge whatsoever" should be imposed except by consent of Parliament on merchandise imported or exported. This was followed, 5 July, by an Act abolishing the Star Chamber, and greatly restricting the jurisdiction of the Council of Wales and the Marches. The High Commission was done away with by an Act which became law the same day. In August, ship money was declared illegal. Unhappily, Charles, in spite of his promises, refused to accept without a struggle the limitations thus imposed upon his sovereignty. He tried all manner of devices to recover the ground he had lost; his wife, too, was fertile in suggesting expedients as rash as they were futile, while increasing dissension over the Church question offered him the hope of strengthening his party at the expense of his opponents.

(3) The Attempt to Settle the Church Question. Of the parties opposed to the existing Church of England it seemed for a time as if the Presbyterians would prevail. The Scotch commissioners for completing the treaty of peace brought to London a number of preachers who at first received a favorable hearing; but the hotness of their proselyting zeal and the expense of maintaining the Scotch forces gradually made them unpopular with one section of the English popular party. Throughout that party there was a general desire for a parliamentary regulation of the Church as well as the State, and for doing away with the Laudian, innovations. Sharp differences of opinion, however, arose over the nature and extent of the changes to be undertaken; there were many who demanded the abolition of Episcopacy and the Book of Common Prayer, while others would have been content with modifying the powers of the Bishops and altering the liturgy. Among the extremists, or "root and branch" men, there were at least three groups: the parliamentary majority, led by Pym, wanted a Puritan State Church, controlled by parliamentary lay commissioners in place of Bishops; a second group, made up of a few divines backed by the Scots, clamored for a Presbyterian establishment; a third party, led by the London Independents, strove for congregational control of doctrine and worship. The issue was joined when, December, 1640, "a world of honest citizens in their best apparel came to the House of Commons "in a very modest way with a petition, containing 15,000 names, for the abolition of Episcopacy "with all its roots and branches." For months the whole Church question was debated earnestly but inconclusively, and one bill after another was introduced only to be rejected.

The Second Army Plot and the Incident." - The differences gave Charles "a majority in the Lords and a large minority in the

Commons "; but instead of fostering the moderate party, he allowed himself to be drawn into two wild and wholly irreconcilable schemes. One was to go to Scotland to attach himself to a party that was forming against the extreme Covenanters. At the same time, under the bareful influence of the Queen, Charles hopefully welcomed another attempt to bring the Yorkshire army to London. The Second Army Plot, which proved more futile than the first, served only to strengthen the suspicion against the King. He started for Scotland, 10 August, 1641, concealing his real purpose under the pretext that he was going to complete arrangements for the treaty of peace. While he evidently was not privy to a mad and futile plot known as the Incident " for seizing the Covenanting leaders, he was suspected of complicity in it, which almost amounted to the same thing.

The Ulster Rebellion (1641). —In the autumn of 1641 the news of a terrible rebellion in Ulster reached England. Freed from the iron grip of Strafford, chafing under the ascendancy of an ultra-Protestant Parliament, and infuriated by generations of accumulated grievances, the wild and ignorant peasantry, whom the leaders from the Celtic aristocracy could not or would not control, threw themselves on their enemies with barbarous cruelty. It is estimated that 5000 were massacred outright and that twice as many more perished from starvation, exposure, fright, and other causes. Rumor exaggerated the victims to fabulous numbers, ranging from 40,000 to 300,000. The English, horrified and alarmed, attributed the outburst not to oppression and extortion, but to the savagery of the Irish worked on by the teachings of the Church of Rome. Parliament and the people saw the need of recruiting a large army to deal with the situation, but the leaders feared to trust unreservedly any considerable force to the King, because it would give him just the weapon he needed to recover the power which he had been obliged to yield. So Pym carried a motion that Charles should either " employ such Councilors and Ministers as should be approved by his Parliament " or Parliament would raise an army subject to its own control, and as a means of appealing to the people in a more detailed and formal manner than they had yet done, he and his followers pushed through the celebrated Grand Remon

strance.

The Grand Remonstrance (1641). During the first week after the opening of the Long Parliament a motion had been introduced to draw up such a remonstrance to the King "as should be a faithful and lively representation of the state of the kingdom." It was August, however, before the proposal was adopted, and the discussion might have dragged on interminably if the Rebellion had not brought the