of two hundred thousand pounds thereby levied on
the people, scarcely one thousand five hundred came into the king's
coffers. Though we ought not to suspect the noble historian of
exaggerations to the disadvantage of Charles's measures, this fact, it
must be owned, appears somewhat incredible. The same author adds, that
the king's intention was to teach his subjects how unthrifty a thing it
was to refuse reasonable supplies to the crown: an imprudent project:
to offend a whole nation under the view of punishment: and to hope
by acts of violence to break their refractory spirits, without being
possessed of any force to prevent resistance.

{1632.} The council of York had been first erected, after a rebellion,
by a patent from Henry VIII., without any authority of parliament; and
this exercise cf power, like many others, was indulged to that arbitrary
monarch. This council had long acted chiefly as a criminal court; but,
besides some innovations introduced by James, Charles thought proper
some time after Wentworth was made president, to extend its powers,
and to give it a large civil jurisdiction, and that in some respects
discretionary.[***]

* Rush. vol. ii. p. 103.

** Rush. vol. ii. p. 136, 142, 189, 252.

*** Rush. vol. ii. p, 158, 159, etc. Franklyn, p. 412.

It is not improbable, that the king's intention was only to prevent
inconveniencies, which arose from the bringing of every cause, from
the most distant parts of the kingdom, into Westminster Hall: but the
consequence, in the mean time, of this measure, was the putting of
all the northern counties out of the protection of ordinary law, and
subjecting them to an authority somewhat arbitrary. Some irregular acts
of that council were this year complained of.[*]

{1633.} The court of star chamber extended its authority; and it was
matter of complaint that it encroached upon the jurisdiction of the
other courts; imposing heavy fines and inflicting severe punishment,
beyond the usual course of justice. Sir David Foulis was fined
five thousand pounds, chiefly because he had dissuaded a friend
from compounding with the commissioners of knighthood.[**]

* Rush. vol. ii. p. 202, 203.

** Rush, vol. ii. p. 215, 216, etc.

Prynne, a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, had written an enormous quarto of
a thousand pages, which he called Histrio-Mastyx. Its professed purpose
was to decry stage-plays, comedies, interludes, music, dancing; but
the a