money should be demanded from the country
without the consent of its representatives in Parliament. John
Hampden, a wealthy farmer in Buckinghamshire, refused to pay the
twenty shillings required from him. He did not grudge the money, but
he would not tamely submit to have even that trifling sum taken from
him contrary to law. The case was brought to trial (1637), and the
corrupt judges decided for the King.

437. Hampden and Cromwell endeavor to leave the Country.

Meanwhile John Winthrop with many other Puritans emigrated to America
to escape oppression. According to tradition John Hampden (S436) and
his cousin, Oliver Cromwell, who was a member of the last Parliament,
embarked on a vessel in the Thames for New England. But it is said
that they were prevented from sailing by the King's order. The two
friends remained to teach the despotic sovereign a lesson which
neither he nor England ever forgot.[1]

[1] Macaulay's "Essay on Hampden," Guizot's "English Revolution," and
other well-known authorities, relate the proposed sailing of Hampden
and Cromwell, but several recent writers question its truth.

438. The Difficulty with the Scottish Church (1637).

The King determined to force the use of a prayer book, similar to that
used in the English Church (S381), on the Scotch Puritans. But no
sooner had the Dean of Edinburgh opened the book than a general cry
arose in the church, "A Pope, a Pope! Antichrist! Stone him!" When the
bishops endeavored to appease the tumult, the enraged congregation
clapped, stamped, and yelled.

Again the dean tried to read a prayer from the hated book, when an old
woman hurled her stool at his head, shouting, "D'ye mean to say
mass[1] at my lug [ear]?" Riots ensued, and eventually the Scotch
solemnly bound themselves by a Covenant to resist all attempts to
change their religion. The King resolved to force his prayer book on
the Covenanters[2] at the point of the bayonet.

[1] Mass: here used for the Roman Catholic church service.
[2] The first Covenanters were the Scottish leaders, who, in 1557,
bound themselves by a solemn covenant to overthrow all attempts to
reestablish the Catholic religion in Scotland; when Charles I
undertook to force the Scotch to accept Episcopacy the Puritan party
in Scotland drew up a new covenant (1638) to resist it.

But he had no money to pay his army, and the "Short Parliament," which
he summoned in the spring of 1640, refused to grant any unless