the worse for themselves." Not put in a more
complying humour by this, they impeached
the King's favourite, the Duke of Buckingham,
as the cause (which he undoubtedly
was) of many great public grievances and
wrongs. The King to save him dissolved the
Parliament without getting the money he
wanted; and when the Louis implored him
to consider and grant a little delay, he replied
"No, not one minute." He then began to
raise money for himself by the following
means among others.

He levied certain duties called tonnage and
poundage which had not been granted by the
Parliament, and could lawfully be levied by
no other power; he called upon the sea-port
towns to furnish, and to pay all the costs for
three months of, a fleet of armed ships; and
he required the people to unite in lending
him large sums of money, the repayment of
which was very doubtful. If the poor people
refused, they were pressed as soldiers or
sailors; if the gentry refused, they were sent
to prison. Five gentlemen, named SIR THOMAS
DARNEL, JOHN CORBET, WALTER EARL, JOHN
HEVENINGHAM, and EVERARD HAMPDEN, for
refusing were taken up by a warrant of the
King's privy council, and sent to prison without
any cause but the King's pleasure being
stated for their imprisonment. Then the
question came to be solemnly tried, whether
this was not a violation of Magna Charta, and
an encroachment by the King on the highest
rights of the English people. His lawyers
contended No, because to encroach upon the
rights of the English people would be to do
wrong, and the King could do no wrong.
The accommodating judges decided in favour
of this wicked nonsense; and here was a
fatal division between the King and the
people.

For all this, it became necessary to call
another Parliament. The people, sensible of
the danger in which their liberties were,
chose for it those who were best known for
their determined opposition to the King;
but still the King, quite blinded by his
determination to carry everything before him,
addressed them when they met in a contemptuous
manner, and just told them, in so many
words, that he had only called them together
because he wanted money. The Parliament,
strong enough and resolute enough to know
that they would lower his tone, cared little
for what he said, and laid before him one of
the great documents of history, which is
called the PETITION OF RIGHT, requiring that
the free men of England should no longer be
called upon to lend the King money, and
should no longer be pressed or imprisoned for
refusing to do so; further, that the free men
of England should no longer be seized by the
King's special mandate or warrant, it being
contrary to their rights and liberties and the
laws of their country. At first the King
returned an answer to this petition, in which
he tried to shirk it altogether; but, the House
of Commons then showing their determination
to go on with the impeachment of
Buckingham, the King, in alarm, returned an
answer, giving his consent to all that was
required of him. He not only afterwards
departed from his word and honour on these
points, over and over again; but, at this very
time, he did the mean and dissembling act of
publishing his first answer and not his second
—merely that the people might suppose that
the Parliament had not got the better of him.

That pestilent Buckingham, to gratify his
own wounded vanity, had by this time
involved the country in war with France, as
well as with Spain. For such, miserable
causes and such miserable creatures are wars
sometimes made! But he was destined to
do little more mischief in this world. One
morning as he was going out of his house to
his carriage, he turned to speak to a certain
Colonel FRYER who was with him; and was
violently stabbed with a knife, which the
murderer left sticking in his heart. This
happened in his hall. He had had angry words
upstairs, just before, with some French
gentlemen, who were immediately suspected by
his servants, and had a close escape from
being set upon and killed. In the midst of
the noise, the real murderer, who had gone
to the kitchen, and might easily have got
away, drew his sword and cried out, "I am
the man! " His name was JOHN FELTON, a
Protestant and a retired officer in the army.
He said he had had no personal ill will to
the Duke, but had killed him as a curse to
the country. He had aimed his blow well,
for Buckingham had only had time to cry
out, " Villain!" and then he drew out the
knife, fell against a table, and died.

The council made a mighty business of
examining John Felton about this murder,
though it was a plain case enough, one would
think. He had come seventy miles to do it,
he told them, and he did it for the reason he
had declared; and if they put him upon the
rack, as that noble MARQUIS OF DORSET
whom he saw before him, had the goodness
to threaten, he gave that marquis warning,
that he would accuse him as his accomplice.
The King was unpleasantly anxious to have
him racked nevertheless; but as the judges
now found out that torture was contrary to
the law of England—it is a pity they did not
make the discovery a little sooner—John
Felton was simply executed for the murder
he had done. A murder it undoubtedly was,
and not in the least to be defended: though
he had freed England from one of the most
profligate, contemptible, and base court
favourites to whom it has ever yielded.

A very different man now arose. This was
Sir THOMAS WENTWORTH, a Yorkshire gentleman,
who had sat in Parliament for a long
time, and who had favored arbitrary and
haughty principles, but who had gone over
to the people's side on receiving offence from
Buckingham. The King, much wanting such