apologists among the Lords, his own
ingenious and powerful pleadings, the King's entreaties and worthless
promises, all were in vain.

The King saw the whole fabric of tyranny {115} crumbling before his
eyes. He was over-awed and dared not refuse his signature to the fatal
paper. It is said that as Strafford passed to the block, Laud, who was
at the window of the room where he too was a prisoner, fainted as his
old companion in cruelty stopped to say farewell to him.

There were a few moments of silence, then,--a wild exultant shout.
"His head is off--His head is off."

The execution of the Archbishop swiftly followed, then the abolition of
the Star Chamber, and of the High Commission Court; then a bill was
passed requiring that Parliament be summoned once in three years, and a
law enacted _forbidding its dissolution except by its own consent_.

They were rapidly nearing the conception that Parliament does not exist
by sanction of the King, but the King by sanction of Parliament.

What could be done with a King whom no promises could bind--who, while
in the act of giving solemn pledges to Parliament in order to save
Strafford, was perfidiously planning to overawe it by military force?
{116} The attempted arrest of Hampden, Pym, and three other leaders was
part of this "Army Plot," which made civil war inevitable. The trouble
had resolved itself into a deadly conflict between King and Parliament.
If he resorted to arms, so must they.

If Hampden stands out pre-eminent as the Champion who like a great
Gladiator fought the battle of civil freedom, Pym is no less
conspicuous in having grasped the principles on which it must be
fought. He saw that if either Crown or Parliament must go down, better
for England that it should be the crown. He saw also, that the vital
principle in Parliament lay in the House of Commons. If the King
refused to act with them, it should be treated as an abdication, and
Parliament must act without him, and if the Lords obstructed reform,
then they must be told that the Commons must act alone, rather than let
the Kingdom perish.

This was the theory upon which the future action was based.
Revolutionary and without precedent it has since been accepted {117} as
the correct construction of English Constitutional principles.

Better would it have been for Charles had he let the ship sail, which
was to have borne Hampden and Oliver Cromwell (cousin of the latter)
toward the "Valley of the