lete and strengthen an order which they
intended soon entirely to abolish.[**] They had accused thirteen bishops
of high treason, for enacting canons without consent of parliament,[***]
though, from the foundation of the monarchy, no other method had ever
been practised: and they now insisted that the peers, upon this
general accusation, should sequester those bishops from their seats in
parliament, and commit them to prison.

* Rush. vol. v. p. 385, 386. Nalson, vol. ii. p. 482.

** Nalson, vol. ii. p 511.

*** Rush. vol. v. p. 359

Their bill for taking away the bishops' votes had last winter been
rejected by the peers: but they again introduced the same bill, though
no prorogation had intervened; and they endeavored, by some minute
alterations, to elude that rule of parliament which opposed them. And
when they sent up this bill to the lords, they made a demand, the most
absurd in the world, that the bishops, being all of them parties, should
be refused a vote with regard to that question.[*] After the resolution
was once formed by the commons, of invading the established government
of church and state, it could not be expected that their proceedings,
in such a violent attempt, would thenceforth be altogether regular
and equitable: but it must be confessed that, in their attack on the
hierarchy, they still more openly passed all bounds of moderation; as
supposing, no doubt, that the sacredness of the cause would sufficiently
atone for employing means the most irregular and unprecedented. This
principle, which prevails so much among zealots, never displayed itself
so openly as during the transactions of this whole period.

* Clarendon. vol. ii. p. 304.

But, notwithstanding these efforts of the commons, they could not expect
the concurrence of the upper house either to this law, or to any
other which they should introduce for the further limitation of royal
authority. The majority of the peers adhered to the king, and plainly
foresaw the depression of nobility, as a necessary consequence of
popular usurpations on the crown. The insolence, indeed, of the commons,
and their haughty treatment of the lords, had already risen to a great
height, and gave sufficient warning of their future attempts upon
that order. They muttered somewhat of their regret that they should be
obliged to save the kingdom alone, and that the house of peers would
have no part in the honor. Nay, they went so far as openly t