ing broke up the conference with a threat which disclosed the policy of
the Crown. "I will make them conform," he said of the remonstrants, "or
I will harry them out of the land!"

[Sidenote: The Parliament of 1604.]

It is only when we recall the temper of England at the time that we can
understand the profound emotion which was roused by threats such as
these. Three months after the conference at Hampton Court the members
were gathering to the first parliament of the new reign; and the
Parliament of 1604 met in another mood from that of any parliament which
had met for a hundred years. Under the Tudors the Houses had more than
once at great crises in our history withstood the policy of the Crown.
But in the main that policy had been their own; and it was the sense of
this oneness in aim which had averted any final collision even in the
strife with Elizabeth. But this trust in the unity of the nation and the
Crown was now roughly shaken. The squires and merchants who thronged the
benches at Westminster listened with coldness and suspicion to the
self-confident assurances of the king. "I bring you," said James, "two
gifts, one peace with foreign nations, the other union with Scotland";
and a project was laid before them for a union of the two kingdoms under
the name of Great Britain. "By what laws," asked Bacon, "shall this
Britain be governed?" Great in fact as were the advantages of such a
scheme, the House showed its sense of the political difficulties
involved in it by referring it to a commission. James in turn showed his
resentment by passing over the attempts made to commute for a fixed sum
the oppressive rights of Purveyance and Wardship. But what the House was
really set upon was religious reform; and the first step of the Commons
had been the naming of a committee to frame bills for the redress of the
more crying ecclesiastical grievances. The influence of the Crown
secured the rejection of these bills by the Lords; and the irritation of
the Lower House showed itself in an outspoken address to the king. The
Parliament, it said, had come together in a spirit of peace. "Our
desires were of peace only, and our device of unity." Their aim had been
to put an end to the long-standing dissension among the ministers, and
to preserve uniformity by the abandonment of "a few ceremonies of small
importance," by the redress of some ecclesiastical abuses, and by the
establishment of an efficient training for a preaching cle