t, if any inevitable
necessity ever obliged the sovereign to violate the laws, this license
ought to be practised with extreme reserve, and, as soon as possible, a
just atonement be made to the constitution for any injury which it might
sustain from such dangerous precedents.[***] The first parliament after
the restoration reversed the bill of attainder; and even a few weeks
after Strafford's execution, this very parliament remitted to his
children the more severe consequences of his sentence; as if conscious
of the violence with which the prosecution had been conducted.

* Rush, vol, v. p. 267.

** That Strafford was secretly no enemy to arbitrary
counsels, appears from some of his letters and despatches,
particularly vol. ii. p. 60, where he seems to wish that a
standing army were established.

*** Rush. vol. iv. p. 567, 568, 569, 570.

In vain did Charles expect, as a return for so many instances of
unbounded compliance, that the parliament would at last show him some
indulgence, and would cordially fall into that unanimity to which, at
the expense of his own power and of his friend's life, he so earnestly
courted them. All his concessions were poisoned by their suspicion of
his want of cordiality; and the supposed attempt to engage the army
against them, served with many as a confirmation of this jealousy. It
was natural for the king to seek some resource, while all the world
seemed to desert him, or combine against him; and this probably was the
utmost of that embryo scheme which was formed with regard to the army.
But the popular leaders still insisted, that a desperate plot was
laid to bring up the forces immediately, and offer violence to the
parliament; a design of which Piercy's evidence acquits the king,
and which the near neighborhood of the Scottish army seems to render
absolutely impracticable.[*] By means, however, of these suspicions, was
the same implacable spirit still kept alive; and the commons, without
giving the king any satisfaction in the settlement of his revenue,
proceeded to carry their inroads with great vigor into his now
defenceless prerogative.[**]

* The project of bringing up the army to London, according
to Piercy, was proposed to the king: but he rejected it as
foolish; because the Scots, who were in arms, and lying in
their neighborhood, must be at London as soon as the English
army. This reason is so solid and convincing, t