money without them. His father had done it before
him, he had done it himself. With no Commons there to rate and insult
him, it could be done without hindrance.

He was not grand enough, nor base enough, nor was he rich enough, to
carry out any organized design upon the country. He simply wanted
money, and had such blind confidence in Kingship, that any very serious
resistance to his authority did not enter his dreams. It was the
limitations of his intelligence which proved his ruin, his inability to
comprehend a new condition in the spirit of his people. Elizabeth
would have felt it, though she did not understand it, and would have
loosened the screws, without regard for her personal preferences, and
by doing it, so bound the people to her, that her policy would have
been their policy. Charles was as wise as the {110} engineer who would
rivet down the safety-valves!

Sir Thomas Wentworth (Earl Strafford), who had taken the place of
Buckingham, was an apostate from the party of liberty. Disappointed in
becoming a leader in the Commons he had drawn gradually closer to the
King, who now leaned upon him as the vine upon the oak.

This man's ideal was to build up in England just such a despotism as
Richelieu was building in France. The same imperious temper, the same
invincible will and administrative genius, marked him as fitted for the
work. While Charles was feebly scheming for revenue, he was laying
large and comprehensive plans for a system of oppression, which should
_yield_ the revenue,--and for Arsenals and Forts--and a standing Army,
and a rule of terror which should hold the nation in subjection while
these things were preparing. He was clear-sighted enough to see that
"absolutism" was not to be accomplished by a system of reasoning. He
would not urge it as a dogma, but as a fact.

The "Star Chamber," a tribunal for the {111} trying of a certain class
of offences, was brought to a state of fresh efficiency. Its
punishments could be anything this side of death. A clergyman accused
of speaking disrespectfully of Laud, is condemned to pay L5,000 to the
King, L300 to the aggrieved Archbishop himself, one side of his nose is
to be slit, one ear cut off, and one cheek branded. The next week this
to be repeated on the other side, and then followed by imprisonment
subject to pleasure of the Court. Another who has written a book
considered seditious, has the same sentence carried out, only varied by
impr