e clear
that Parliament made the validity of its grants dependent on his
compliance with its advice. And on what important matters was that
advice offered! The King complained that his prerogative was openly
infringed by it; that Parliament wished to decide on his alliances
with other sovereigns, and to dictate to him how to conduct the war;
that it brought under debate questions of religion and state, and the
marriage of his son: what portion of the sovereign power, he asked,
was left to him? On the competence which Parliament claimed as its
hereditary right, he remarked that it had to thank the favour of his
ancestors and himself for this: that he would protect Parliament, but
only in proportion to the regard which it showed for the prerogative
of his crown.

If we had to specify the moment in which the quarrel between the
Parliament and the Crown once more found its full expression, we
should choose this.[416] The Parliament, which had dissolution in
immediate prospect, employed its last moments in making a protest, in
which it again affirmed that its liberties and privileges were a
birthright and heirloom of the subjects of the English crown, that it
certainly was within its power to bring under debate public matters
affecting the King, the State, the Church, and the defence of the
country; and that full liberty of speech without any subsequent
molestation on that account must be secured to every member in the
exercise of these rights.

The King would not forego the satisfaction of punishing by arrest a
number of members who were peculiarly hateful to him; he declared the
protestation null and void, and struck it out of the clerks' book with
his own hand. In a detailed exposition of his view of these
transactions, in which he gives the assurance that he will still
henceforth continue to summon Parliament, he emphatically repudiates
this protestation, which he affirms to be drawn up in such terms that
the inalienable rights of the crown are called in question by it,
rights in the possession of which the crown had found itself in the
times of Queen Elizabeth of glorious memory. He affirms that as King
he cannot tolerate any such pretensions.

Parliament demanded the policy of Queen Elizabeth; King James demanded
her rights. The privileges accorded to the crown and the opposition to
Spain had formerly gone together: the surrender of the latter under
King James served to supply Parliament on its part with a motive f