s
speeches, the aim and intention of which could only be to bring about
a division between the King and his subjects. The Lord Chancellor had
asked the judges for their opinion; but they had declined to give any.
The result was that the Upper House did not accede to the proposal of
a conference.

The Commons were greatly irritated at the resistance which was offered
to their first step. They too in conferences which related to other
matters disdained to enter into the subjects brought before them. They
complained loudly of the insulting expressions of the bishop which had
been repeated to them. An exculpatory statement of the Upper House did
not content them; they demanded full satisfaction as in an affair of
honour, and until this had been furnished them they declared
themselves determined to make no progress with any other matter.

The King however on his side now lost patience at this. He considered
that an attack was made on the highest power when the general progress
of business was hindered for the sake of a single question, and he
appointed a day on which this affair of the subsidy must be disposed
of. He said that, if it were not settled, he would dissolve
Parliament.

One would not expect such a declaration to change the temper of the
Lower House. Speeches were heard still more violent than those
previously made. The Scots, to whose influence every untoward
occurrence was imputed, were threatened with a repetition of the
Sicilian Vespers. There were other members however who counselled
moderation; for it almost appeared as if the dissolution of this
Parliament might be the dissolution of all parliaments. Commissioners
were once more sent to the King in order to give another turn to the
negotiations. The King declared that he knew full well how far his
rights extended, and that he could not allow his prerogatives to be
called in question.[376]

These passionate ebullitions of feeling against the Scots, although
they referred to matters of a more alarming, but happily of an
entirely different nature, made the King anxious lest the destruction
of his favourites, or even his own ruin, might be required to content
his adversaries. On the 7th of June he dissolved Parliament. He
thought himself entitled to bring up for punishment the loudest and
most reckless speakers, as well as some other noted men from whom
these speakers had received their impulse, for instance Cornwallis,
the former ambassador in Spain. He