of
religion with the Scots, and the bill for the exclusion of the clergy
from secular office. He showed special energy in his opposition to the
Root and Branch Bill, and, though made chairman of the committee on the
bill on the 11th of July in order to silence his opposition, he caused
by his successful obstruction the failure of the measure. In consequence
he was summoned to the king's presence, and encouraged in his attitude,
and at the beginning of the second session was regarded as one of the
king's ablest supporters in the Commons. He considered the claims put
forward at this time by parliament as a violation and not as a guarantee
of the law and constitution. He opposed the demand by the parliament to
choose the king's ministers, and also the Grand Remonstrance, to which
he wrote a reply published by the king.

He now definitely though not openly joined the royal cause, and refused
office in January 1642 with Colepeper and Falkland in order to serve the
king's interests more effectually. Charles undertook to do nothing in
the Commons without their advice. Nevertheless a few days afterwards,
without their knowledge and by the advice of Lord Digby, he attempted
the arrest of the five members, a resort to force which reduced Hyde to
despair, and which indeed seemed to show that things had gone too far
for an appeal to the law. He persevered, nevertheless, in his legal
policy, to which Charles after the failure of his project again
returned, joined the king openly in June, and continued to compose the
king's answers and declarations in which he appealed to the "known Laws
of the land" against the arbitrary and illegal acts of a seditious
majority in the parliament, his advice to the king being "to shelter
himself wholly under the law, ... presuming that the king and the law
together would have been strong enough for any encounter." Hyde's appeal
had great influence, and gained for the king's cause half the nation. It
by no means, however, met with universal support among the royalists,
Hobbes jeering at Hyde's love for "mixed monarchy," and the courtiers
expressing their disapproval of the "spirit of accommodation" which
"wounded the regality." It was destined to failure owing principally to
the invincible distrust of Charles created in the parliament leaders,
and to the fact that Charles was simultaneously carrying on another and
an inconsistent policy, listening to very different advisers, such as
the queen and Dig