been. But James saw no ground for
changing the policy of the Crown. The control of the Church and through
it of English religion lay within the sphere of his prerogative, and on
this question he was resolute to make a stand. The Commons were as
resolute as the king. The long and intricate bargaining came on both
sides to an end; and in February 1611 the first Parliament of James was
dissolved.

CHAPTER IV

THE FAVOURITES

1611-1625

[Sidenote: England and the Crown.]

The dissolution of the first Stuart Parliament marks a stage in our
constitutional history. With it the system of the Tudors came to an end.
The oneness of aim which had carried nation and government alike through
the storms of the Reformation no longer existed. On the contrary the
aims of the nation and the aims of the government were now in open
opposition. The demand of England was that all things in the realm,
courts, taxes, prerogatives, should be sanctioned and bounded by law.
The policy of the king was to reserve whatever he could within the
control of his personal will. James in fact was claiming a more personal
and exclusive direction of affairs than any English sovereign that had
gone before him. England, on the other hand, was claiming a greater
share in its own guidance than it had enjoyed since the Wars of the
Roses. Nor were the claims on either side speculative or theoretical.
Differences in the theory of government or on the relative jurisdiction
of Church and State might have been left as of old to the closet and the
pulpit. But the opposition between the Crown and the people had gathered
itself round practical questions, and round questions that were of
interest to all. Every man's conscience was touched by the question of
religion. Every man's pocket was touched by the question of taxation.
The strongest among human impulses, the passion of religious zeal and
that of personal self-interest, nerved Englishmen to a struggle with the
Crown. What gave the strife a yet more practical bearing was the fact
that James had provided the national passion with a constitutional
rallying-point. There was but one influence which could match the
reverence which men felt for the Crown, and that was the reverence that
men felt for the Parliament; nor had that reverence ever stood at a
greater height than at the moment when James finally broke with the
Houses. The dissolution of 1611 proclaimed to the whole people a breach
between two power