he came down to the House in full assembly, and had
his answer read. Its tenor was, that the laws should be observed and
the statutes put in force, and his subjects freed from oppression;
that he the King was as anxious for their true rights and liberties as
for his own prerogative.

But it is easily intelligible that these words satisfied no one. They
appeared to one party as dark as the sentence of an oracle; to the
other they appeared useless; for the King, they said, was already
pledged to all this by his Coronation Oath: such long sittings and so
much labour would not have been required to effect such a result as
this. The answer however was not ascribed to the King, whose
deliberations remained shrouded in the closest secrecy, and who on the
contrary was thought to agree with the substance of the petition, but
to the favourite, who was supposed to find such an agreement dangerous
for himself.[477] It was remarked that two days before making this
declaration the King had been at one of the country seats of the
Duke, and had held confidential conversations with him. It was thought
that there, under the influence of the Duke, the declaration had been
drawn up, which contained nothing but words that might easily be
explained in another sense, and which did not even make any mention of
the petition at all. It was fancied that Buckingham even wished to
hinder the King from coming to a genuine understanding with his
Parliament, which might be disadvantageous to his interests.[478] His
opponents thought that he was at the root of all previous misfortunes;
and what might they not still expect from him? He was credited with
wishing to alter the constitution of England, to excite a war with
Scotland, and to betray Ireland to the Spaniards. In spite of all that
the King might have originally expected, they determined to make a
direct attack upon such a minister. Popular susceptibility knows no
limits in its anxieties or hopes, in its likings or hatreds. Even
thoughtful and serious men allowed themselves to entertain the opinion
that the prosperity of England at home and abroad was as good as lost:
the former was lost if people were content with the answer given, the
latter if they refused to make the grants demanded, or even if they
made them but left the administration in those untrustworthy hands in
which it was at the present time. On one occasion these feelings gave
rise to an unparalleled scene in Parliament. Those beard