suffered in consequence.[323] And how much greater were
the apprehensions for the future which were connected with this
policy! It was remarked that he sacrificed the interests of religion
and of the country to those of the Catholics and the Catholic powers.

But there was now an organ of political opposition in the country in
which all these hostile feelings found their expression. The
resentment of injured interests, the resistance of the Puritans, and
the excitement of the capital, impressed themselves on the Parliament.

All previous governments had exercised a systematic influence upon the
election of members of the Lower House, and had encroached on their
freedom. When the first elections under King James were about to be
held he declared himself against the exercise of any such influence.
He ordered that the elections should be conducted with freedom and
impartiality, without regard to the bidding of any one and without the
interference of strangers; and that the electors should be allowed to
return the most deserving candidates in each county. He thought that,
as he avoided unpopular measures, men would voluntarily meet his
wishes. It appeared to him sufficient, if, in issuing the writs, he
coupled with them the admonition to avoid all party spirit, and
especially to abstain from electing such as from blind superstition on
the one hand, or from fickleness or restlessness on the other, wished
to disturb the uniformity of religion.[324] But in politics personal
gratitude is only a feeble motive. The elections followed the current
of opinion which had been set in motion by the Hampton Court
Conference. In the very first Parliament of King James many Puritans
obtained entrance into the House: the new line which this Parliament
struck out influenced the whole subsequent period.

The speech with which King James opened the session on the 19th of
March 1604, immediately before the conclusion of the first year of his
reign, has been often and often reproduced. It is full of the ideas
with which his mind was principally occupied, of the union of both
kingdoms in one great whole, and of the establishment of religious
uniformity. He thought that in neither of the two kingdoms ought the
memory of their special privileges to be kept alive, for they were
pure monarchies from the first: no privilege could separate them from
their head. He explicitly called the Puritans an ochlocratic sect.

It is extraordinary that, while h