tation of finding treasonable papers.
These acts of authority were interpreted, with some appearance of
reason, to be invasions on the right of national assemblies.[*] But the
king, after the first provocation which he met with, never sufficiently
respected the privileges of parliament; and, by his example, he further
confirmed their resolution, when they should acquire power, to pay like
disregard to the prerogatives of the crown.

* Rush. vol. iii. p. 1167. May, p. 61.

Though the parliament was dissolved, the convocation was still allowed
to sit; a practice of which, since the reformation, there were but
few instances,[*] and which was for that reason supposed by many to be
irregular. Besides granting to the king a supply from the spirituality,
and framing many canons, the convocation, jealous of like innovations
with those which had taken place in Scotland, imposed an oath on the
clergy and the graduates in the universities, by which every one swore
to maintain the established government of the church by archbishops,
bishops, deans, chapters, etc.[**] These steps, in the present
discontented humor of the nation, were commonly deemed illegal; because
not ratified by consent of parliament, in whom all authority was now
supposed to be centred. And nothing, besides, could afford more subject
of ridicule, than an oath which contained an "et caetera," in the midst
of it.

The people, who generally abhorred the convocation as much as they
revered the parliament, could scarcely be restrained from insulting and
abusing this assembly; and the king was obliged to give them guards, in
order to protect them.[***] An attack too was made during the night upon
Laud, in his palace of Lambeth, by above five hundred persons; and
he found it necessary to fortify himself for his defence.[****] A
multitude, consisting of two thousand secretaries, entered St. Paul's,
where the high commission then sat, tore down the benches, and cried
out, "No bishop; no high commission."[v] All these instances of
discontent were presages of some great revolution, had the court
possessed sufficient skill to discern the danger, or sufficient power to
provide against it.

In this disposition of men's minds, it was in vain that the king issued
a declaration, in order to convince his people of the necessity which he
lay under of dissolving the last parliament.[v*]

* There was one in 1586: see History of Archbishop Laud, p.
80. The author