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LIBRARY

OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF

ALIFORNIA

Continent. It took a century of strife to answer the question. The struggle did not become earnest during the reign of Elizabeth, but it cost Charles I. his head, and the Stuart dynasty its right to the throne. For three generations the kings were willing to stake every thing in favor of the Continental policy, while Parliament was equally anxious to maintain the traditional methods. It was unavoidable that a conflict should ensue; and the Great Revolution of the seventeenth century was the result.

James I., during the whole of his reign, showed a disposition to override whatever principles of the Constitution stood in the way of his personal power. Charles I. was a man of stronger character than his father, and he brought to the service of the same purpose a greater energy and a more determined will. As soon as he ascended the throne in 1625, it began to look as though a contest would be inevitable between royal will on the one hand and popular freedom on the other. The King,

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determined to rule in his own way, not only questioned the right of Parliament to inquire into grievances, but even insisted upon what he regarded as his own right to levy money for the support of the Government without the consent of Parliament. This determination Parliament was disposed to question, and in the end to resist.

Under the maxim of the English Government, that "the King can do no wrong," there is but one way of securing redress, in case of an undue exercise of royal power. As the Constitution presumes that the King never acts except under advice, his ministers, as his constitutional advisers, may be held responsible for all his acts. The impeachment of ministers, therefore, is the constitutional method of redress. It was the method resorted to in 1626. Articles of Impeachment were brought by the House of Commons against the King's Prime Minister and favorite, the Duke of Buckingham.

One of the most prominent members of Parllament, and the foremost orator of the day

was Sir John Eliot. This patriot, born in 1590, and consequently now thirty-six years of age, was appointed by the Commons one of the managers of the impeachment. With such skill and vigor did he conduct the prosecution against Buckingham, that the king determined to put a stop to the impeachment by ordering Eliot's arrest and imprisonment. Eliot was thrown into the Tower; but the Commons regarded the arrest as so flagrant a violation of the rights of members that they immediately resolved "not to do any more business till they were righted in their privileges." The King, in view of this unexpected evidence of spirit on the part of the Commons, deemed it prudent to relent. Eliot was discharged; and the Commons, on his triumphal reappearance in the House, declared by vote "that their managers had not exceeded the commission entrusted to them."

Thus the first triumph in the contest was gained by the Commons. But the King was not unwilling to resort to even more desperate

measures. He determined to raise money independently of Parliament, and, if Parliament should continue to pry into the affairs of his minister, to dispense with Parliament almost or quite altogether. This desperate determination he undertook to carry out chiefly by the raising of forced loans and the issuing of monopolies. But here again the King met with a more strenuous opposition than he had anticipated. Eliot and Hampden, with some seventy-six other members of the English gentry refused to make the contribution demanded. As such defiance threatened to break down the whole system, the King was forced either to resort to extreme measures or to abandon his method. He resolved upon the former course, but he was forced to the latter. He threw Eliot and Hampden into prison; but the outcry of the people was so great and so general that the necessary money could not be raised, and so he was obliged to call his third Parliament. Eliot and Hampden, though in prison, were elected members; and the King, not deeming it pru

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