letter,
with a solemn injunction that it might be burnt. "The king this morning
complained of Sir John Eliot for comparing the duke to _Sejanus_, in
which he said implicitly he must intend _me_ for _Tiberius_!" On that
day the prologue and the epilogue orators--Sir Dudley Digges, who had
opened the impeachment against the duke, and Sir John Eliot, who had
closed it--were called out of the house by two messengers, who showed
their warrants for committing them to the Tower.[289]

On this memorable day a philosophical politician might have presciently
marked the seed-plots of events, which not many years afterwards were
apparent to all men. The passions of kings are often expatiated on; but,
in the present anti-monarchical period, the passions of parliaments are
not imaginable! The democratic party in our constitution, from the
meanest of motives, from their egotism, their vanity, and their
audacity, hate kings; they would have an abstract being, a chimerical
sovereign on the throne--like a statue, the mere ornament of the place
it fills,--and insensible, like a statue, to the invectives they would
heap on its pedestal!

The commons, with a fierce spirit of reaction for the king's "punishing
some insolent speeches," at once sent up to the lords for the commitment
of the duke![290] But when they learnt the fate of the patriots, they
instantaneously broke up! In the afternoon they assembled in
Westminster-hall, to interchange their private sentiments on the fate of
the two imprisoned members, in sadness and indignation.[291]

The following day the commons met in their own house. When the speaker
reminded them of the usual business, they all cried out, "Sit down! sit
down!" They would touch on no business till they were "righted in their
liberties!"[292] An open committee of the whole house was formed, and no
member suffered to quit the house; but either they were at a loss how to
commence this solemn conference, or expressed their indignation by a
sullen silence. To soothe and subdue "the bold speakers" was the
unfortunate attempt of the vice-chamberlain, Sir Dudley Carleton, who
had long been one of our foreign ambassadors; and who, having witnessed
the despotic governments on the continent, imagined that there was no
deficiency of liberty at home. "I find," said the vice-chamberlain, "by
the great silence in this house, that it is a fit time to be heard, if
you will grant me the patience." Alluding to one of the king's