could exceed the vexation of James when he found that not only
the clergy had disobeyed his orders, but that the Seven Bishops were
sustained by the nation. When this was discovered, he should have
yielded, as Elizabeth would have done. But he was a Stuart. He was a
bigoted, and self-willed, and infatuated monarch, marked out most
clearly by Providence for destruction. He resolved to prosecute the
bishops for a libel, and their trial and acquittal are among the most
interesting events of an inglorious reign. They were tried at the
Court of the King's Bench. The most eminent lawyers in the realm were
employed as their counsel, and all the arts of tyranny were resorted
to by the servile judges who tried them. But the jury rendered a
verdict of acquittal, and never, within man's memory, were such shouts
and tears of joy manifested by the people. Even the soldiers, whom the
king had ordered to Hounslow Heath to overawe London, partook of the
enthusiasm and triumph of the people. All classes were united in
expressions of joy that the tyrant for once was baffled. The king was
indeed signally defeated; but his defeat did not teach him wisdom. It
only made him the more resolved to crush the liberties of the Church,
and the liberties of the nation. But it also arrayed against him all
classes and all parties of Protestants, who now began to form
alliances, and devise measures to hurl him from his throne. Even the
very courts which James had instituted to crush liberty proved
refractory. Sprat, the servile Bishop of Rochester, sent him his
resignation as one of the Lord Commissioners. The very meanness of his
spirit and laxity of his principles made his defection peculiarly
alarming, and the unblushing Jeffreys now began to tremble. The Court
of High Commission shrunk from a conflict with the Established Church,
especially when its odious character was loudly denounced by all
classes in the kingdom--even by some of the agents of tyranny itself.
The most unscrupulous slaves of power showed signs of uneasiness.

[Sidenote: Tyranny and Infatuation of James.]

But James resolved to persevere. The sanction of a parliament was
necessary to his system, but the sanction of a free parliament it was
impossible to obtain. He resolved to bring together, by corruption and
intimidation, by violent exertions of prerogative, by fraudulent
distortions of law, an assembly which might call itself a parliament,
and might be willing to register any e