army, and serve it with cheese. It
was not supposed that a merchant, so aged and wealthy, would submit to
resume his former mean trade; but the old man, in the spirit of the
times, preferred the hard alternative, and balked the new project of
finance, by shipping himself with his cheese. At Hicks's Hall the duke
and the Earl of Dorset sat to receive the loans; but the duke
threatened, and the earl affected to treat with levity, men who came
before them with all the suppressed feelings of popular indignation. The
Earl of Dorset asking a fellow who pleaded inability to lend money, of
what trade he was, and being answered "a tailor," said: "Put down your
name for such a sum; one snip will make amends for all!" The tailor
quoted scripture abundantly, and shook the bench with laughter or with
rage by his anathemas, till he was put fast into a messenger's hands.
This was one Ball, renowned through the parish of St. Clement's; and
not only a tailor, but a prophet. Twenty years after, tailors and
prophets employed messengers themselves![296]

These are instances drawn from the inferior classes of society; but the
same spirit actuated the country gentlemen: one instance represents
many. George Gatesby, of Northamptonshire, being committed to prison as
a loan-recusant, alleged, among other reasons for his non-compliance,
that "he considered that this loan might become a precedent; and that
every precedent, he was told by the lord president, was a flower of the
prerogative." The lord president told him that "he lied!" Gatesby shook
his head, observing, "I come not here to contend with your lordship, but
to suffer!" Lord Suffolk then interposing, entreated the lord president
would not too far urge his kinsman, Mr. Gatesby. This country gentleman
waived any kindness he might owe to kindred, declaring, that "he would
remain master of his own purse." The prisons were crowded with these
loan-recusants, as well as with those who had sinned in the freedom of
their opinions. The country gentlemen insured their popularity by their
committals; and many stout resistors of the loans were returned in the
following parliament against their own wishes.[297] The friends of these
knights and country gentlemen flocked to their prisons; and when they
petitioned for more liberty and air during the summer, it was policy to
grant their request. But it was also policy that they should not reside
in their own counties: this relaxation was only granted to