hat the Council should be sent to the Tower,--for
it would come to this,--than that the good relations between the King
and the Parliament should be impaired, and the payment of the
subsidies hindered. Charles I said that it was not merely a question
of money, and that gold might be bought too dear. He thanked them for
the regard which they had shown to him; but he added that Parliament
was aiming not at them but at himself.[457]

The controversy about tonnage and poundage coincided with this
quarrel. The grant, as has been mentioned, had been obtained only for
a short period. Parliament was incensed, that after this had expired,
the King had the customs levied just as before. 'How,' it was said,
'did the King wish to raise taxes that had never been voted? Was not
this altogether contrary to the form of government of the country?
Whoever had counselled the King to this step, he was without doubt the
sworn enemy of King and country.'

Parliament declared to the King that if he insisted on those subsidies
which were absolutely necessary, it would support him as fully as ever
a prince had been supported by a Parliament, but in Parliamentary
fashion, or, as they expressed it, 'via parlamentaria.'[458] The
claims of Parliament included both the right of granting money in its
widest extent, and the supervision of its application when granted.
The King considered that a grant was not necessary in respect of every
source of revenue--for instance, not in respect to tonnage and
poundage, and was determined to keep the management entirely in his
own hands, and to submit to no kind of control over it.

Many other questions, in which wide interests were involved, were
brought forward for discussion in Parliament, especially in regard to
ecclesiastical matters: the proceedings of the High Commission were
attacked again. But the question of the widest range of all was the
decided attempt to alter the government and to overthrow the great
minister, which gave perhaps the greatest employment to the
assembly.[459] It was directed against the favourite personally, for
he had now incurred universal hatred, but at bottom there also lay the
definite intention of confirming the doctrine of ministerial
responsibility by a new and signal example.

How quickly was Buckingham overtaken by Nemesis; that is to say, in
this, as in so many other instances, how soon was he visited by the
consequences which in the nature of things attended his acti