messages,
where it was hinted that, if there was "no correspondency between him
and the parliament, he should be forced to _use new counsels_," "I pray
you consider what these new counsels are, and may be: I fear to declare
those I conceive!" However, Sir Dudley plainly hinted at them, when he
went on observing, that "when monarchs began to know their own strength,
and saw the turbulent spirit of their _parliaments_, they had overthrown
them in all Europe, except here only with us." Our old ambassador drew
an amusing picture of the effects of despotic governments, in that of
France--"If you knew the subjects in foreign countries as well as
myself, to see them look, not like our nation, with store of flesh on
their backs, but like so many ghosts and not men, being nothing but skin
and bones, with some thin cover to their nakedness, and wearing only
wooden shoes on their feet, so that they cannot eat meat, or wear good
clothes, but they must pay the king for it; this is a misery beyond
expression, and that which we are yet free from!" A long residence
abroad had deprived Sir Dudley Carleton of any sympathy with the high
tone of freedom, and the proud jealousy of their privileges, which,
though yet unascertained, undefined, and still often contested, was
breaking forth among the commons of England. It was fated that the
celestial spirit of our national freedom should not descend among us in
the form of the mystical dove!

Hume observes on this speech, that "these imprudent suggestions rather
gave warning than struck terror." It was evident that the event, which
implied "new counsels," meant what subsequently was practised--the king
governing without a parliament! As for "the ghosts who wore wooden
shoes," to which the house was congratulated that they had not _yet_
been reduced, they would infer that it was the more necessary to provide
against the possibility of such strange apparitions! Hume truly
observes, "The king reaped no further benefit from this attempt than to
exasperate the house still further." Some words, which the duke
persisted in asserting had dropped from Digges, were explained away,
Digges declaring that they had not been used by him; and it seems
probable that he was suffered to eat his words. Eliot was made of
"sterner stuff;" he abated not a jot of whatever he had spoken of "that
man," as he affected to call Buckingham.

The commons, whatever might be their patriotism, seem at first to have
been chie