nts; and, besides supplies from time to time, as they
should become necessary, he demanded a vote of six subsidies and twelve
fifteenths, as a proper stock before the commencement of hostilities.
He told them of his intolerable debts, chiefly contracted by the sums
remitted to the palatine;[*] [58] but he added, that he did not insist
on any supply for his own relief, and that it was sufficient for him if
the honor and security of the public were provided for. To remove all
suspicion, he, who had ever strenuously maintained his prerogative, and
who had even extended it into some points esteemed doubtful, now made an
imprudent concession, of which the consequences might have proved fatal
to royal authority; he voluntarily offered, that the money voted should
be paid to a committee of parliament, and should be issued by them,
without being intrusted to his management.[**] The commons willingly
accepted of this concession, so unusual in an English monarch: they
voted him only three subsidies and three fifteenths:[***] and they
took no notice of the complaints which he made of his own wants and
necessities.

Advantage was also taken of the present good agreement between the king
and parliament, in order to pass the bill against monopolies, which
had formerly been encouraged by the king, but which had failed by
the rupture between him and the last house of commons. This bill was
conceived in such terms as to render it merely declaratory; and all
monopolies were condemned, as contrary to law and to the known liberties
of the people. It was there supposed, that every subject of England had
entire power to dispose of his own actions, provided he did no injury
to any of his fellow subjects; and that no prerogative of the king, no
power of any magistrate, nothing but the authority alone of laws, could
restrain that unlimited freedom. The full prosecution of this noble
principle into all its natural consequences, has at last, through many
contests, produced that singular and happy government which we enjoy at
present.[****] [59]

* See note FFF, at the end of the volume.

** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 137.

*** Less than three hundred thousand pounds.

**** See note GGG, at the end of the volume.

The house of commons also corroborated, by a new precedent, the
important power of impeachment, which, two years before, they had
exercised in the case of Chancellor Bacon, and which had lain dormant
for near two ce