Charles, while he extremely augmented in his
opponents the will, had also increased the ability of hurting him.

* Dugdale, p. 84. Rush, vol v. p. 484, 488, 492, etc.

The more to excite the people, whose dispositions were already very
seditious, the expedient of petitioning was renewed. A petition from
the county of Buckingham was presented to the house by six thousand
subscribers, who promised to live and die in defence of the privileges
of parliament.[*] The city of London, the county of Essex, that of
Hertford, Surrey, Berks, imitated the example. A petition from the
apprentices was graciously received.[**] Nay, one was encouraged
from the porters, whose numbers amounted, as they said, to fifteen
thousand.[***] The address of that great body contained the same
articles with all the others; the privileges of parliament, the danger
of religion, the rebellion of Ireland, the decay of trade. The porters
further desired, that justice might be done upon offenders, as the
atrociousness of their crimes had deserved. And they added, "That
if such remedies were any longer suspended, they should be forced
to extremities not fit to be named, and make good the saying, that
'Necessity has no law.'"[****]

Another petition was presented by several poor people, or beggars, in
the name of many thousands more; in which the petitioners proposed as a
remedy for the public miseries "That those noble worthies of the house
of peers, who concur with the happy votes of the commons, may separate
themselves from the rest, and sit and vote as one entire body." The
commons gave thanks for this petition.[v]

* Rush. vol. v. p. 487.

** Rush. vol. v. p. 462.

*** Dugdale, p. 87.

**** Clarendon, vol. ii. p. 412.

v Clarendon, vol. li. p. 413.

The very women were seized with the same rage. A brewer's wife, followed
by many thousands of her sex, brought a petition to the house, in which
the petitioners expressed their terror of the Papists and prelates, and
their dread of like massacres, rapes, and outrages, with those which had
been committed upon their sex in Ireland. They had been necessitated,
they said, to imitate the example of the women of Tekoah: and they
claimed equal right with the men, of declaring by petition their sense
of the public cause; because Christ had purchased them at as dear a
rate, and in the free enjoyment of Christ consists equally the happiness
of both sexes. Pym came to the door