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

When the charge against Richard was presented to the parliament, though
it was liable, almost in every article, to objections, it was not
canvassed, nor examined, nor disputed in either house, and seemed to
be received with universal approbation. One man alone, the bishop of
Carlisle, had the courage, amidst this general disloyalty and violence,
to appear in defence of his unhappy master, and to plead his cause
against all the power of the prevailing party. Though some topics
employed by that virtuous prelate may seem to favor too much the
doctrine of passive obedience, and to make too large a sacrifice of
the rights of mankind, he was naturally pushed into that extreme by his
abhorrence of the present licentious factions; and such intrepidity,
as well as disinterestedness of behavior, proves that, whatever his
speculative principles were his heart was elevated far above the
meanness and abject submission of a slave. He represented to the
parliament, that all the abuses of government which could justly be
imputed to Richard, instead of amounting to tyranny, were merely the
result of error, youth, or misguided counsel, and admitted of a remedy
more easy and salutary than a total subversion of the constitution.
That even had they been much more violent and dangerous than they really
were, they had chiefly proceeded from former examples of resistance,
which, making the prince sensible of his precarious situation,
had obliged him to establish his throne by irregular and arbitrary
expedients. That a rebellious disposition in subjects was the principal
cause of tyranny in kings; laws could never secure the subject, which
did not give security to the sovereign; and if the maxim of inviolable
loyalty, which formed the basis of the English government, were once
rejected, the privileges belonging to the several orders of the state,
instead of being fortified by that licentiousness, would thereby
lose the surest foundation of their force and stability. That the
parliamentary deposition of Edward II., far from making a precedent
which could control this maxim, was only an example of successful
violence; and it was sufficiently to be lamented, that crimes were so
often committed in the world, without establishing principles which
might justify and authorize them.

That even that precedent, false and dangerous as it was, could never
warrant the present excesses; which were so much greater