ordance with the royal theory these doctors declared
sovereignty in its origin to be the prerogative of birthright, and
inculcated passive obedience to the Crown as a religious obligation. The
doctrine of passive obedience was soon taught in the schools. A few
years before the king's death the University of Oxford decreed solemnly
that "it was in no case lawful for subjects to make use of force against
their princes, or to appear offensively or defensively in the field
against them." But what gave most force to such teaching were the
reiterated expressions of James himself. If the king's "arrogant
speeches" woke resentment in the Parliaments to which they were
addressed, they created by sheer force of repetition a certain amount of
belief in the arbitrary power they challenged for the Crown. One
sentence from a speech delivered in the Star Chamber may serve as an
instance of their tone. "As it is atheism and blasphemy to dispute what
God can do, so," said James, "it is presumption and a high contempt in a
subject to dispute what a king can do, or to say that a king cannot do
this or that."

[Sidenote: Distrust of the king.]

"If the practice follow the positions," commented a thoughtful observer
on words such as these, "we are not likely to leave to our successors
the freedom we received from our forefathers." Their worst effect was in
changing the whole attitude of the nation towards the Crown. England had
trusted the Tudors, it distrusted the Stuarts. The mood indeed both of
king and people had grown to be a mood of jealousy, of suspicion, which,
inevitable as it was, often did injustice to the purpose of both. King
James looked on the squires and merchants of the House of Commons as his
Stuart predecessors had looked on the Scotch baronage. He regarded their
discussions, their protests, their delays, not as the natural hesitation
of men called suddenly, and with only half knowledge, to the settlement
of great and complex questions, but as proofs of a conspiracy to fetter
and impede the action of the Crown. The Commons on the other hand
listened to the king's hectoring speeches, not as the chance talk of a
clever and garrulous theorist, but as proofs of a settled purpose to
change the character of the monarchy. In a word, James had succeeded in
some seven years of rule in breaking utterly down that mutual
understanding between the Crown and its subjects on which all
government, save a sheer despotism, must necessaril