ruitless; and that the higher he screwed up the
springs of government, while he had so little real power to retain them
in that forced situation, with more fatal violence must they fly out,
when any accident occurred to restore them to their natural action.

The commons next resumed their censure of Buckingham's conduct and
behavior, against whom they were implacable. They agreed to present
a remonstrance to the king, in which they recapitulated all national
grievances and misfortunes, and omitted no circumstance which could
render the whole administration despicable and odious. The compositions
with Catholics, they said, amounted to no less than a toleration,
hateful to God, full of dishonor and disprofit to his majesty, and of
extreme scandal and grief to his good people: they took notice of the
violations of liberty above mentioned, against which the petition of
right seems to have provided a sufficient remedy: they mentioned the
decay of trade, the unsuccessful expeditions to Cadiz and the Isle
of Rhe, the encouragement given to Arminians, the commission for
transporting German horse, that for levying illegal impositions; and all
these grievances they ascribed solely to the ill conduct of the duke of
Buckingham.[**] This remonstrance was, perhaps, not the less provoking
to Charles, because, joined to the extreme acrimony of the subject,
there were preserved in it, as in most of the remonstrances of that age,
an affected civility and submission in the language. And as it was the
first return which he met with for his late beneficial concessions, and
for his sacrifices of prerogative,--the greatest by far ever made by an
English sovereign,--nothing could be more the object of just and natural
indignation.

* Rushworth, vol. i. p. 612.

** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 619. Parl. Hist. vol viii. p. 219,
220, etc.

It was not without good grounds that the commons were so fierce and
assuming. Though they had already granted the king the supply of five
subsidies, they still retained a pledge in their hands, which they
thought insured them success in all their applications. Tonnage and
poundage had not yet been granted by parliament; and the commons had
artfully, this session, concealed their intention of invading that
branch of revenue, till the royal assent had been obtained to the
petition of right, which they justly deemed of such importance. They
then openly asserted, that the levying of tonnage and poundag