d be wise, he
added, to undertake any more effectual coercion in the present
distracted state of the kingdom, he left it for the king to decide.

Laud proposed that the council should recommend to the king the
calling of a Parliament. At the same time, they passed a resolution
that, in case the Parliament "should prove peevish, and refuse to
grant supplies, they would sustain the king in the resort to
extraordinary measures." This was regarded as a threat, and did not
help to prepossess the members favorably in regard to the feeling with
which the king was to meet them. The king ordered the Parliament to be
elected in December, but did not call them together until April. In
the mean time, he went on raising an army, so as to have his military
preparations in readiness. He, however, appointed a new set of
officers to the command of this army, neglecting those who were in
command before, as he had found them so little disposed to act
efficiently in his cause. He supplied the leader's place with
Strafford. This change produced very extensive murmurs of
dissatisfaction, which, added to all the other causes of complaint,
made the times look very dark and stormy.

The Parliament assembled in April. The king went into the House of
Lords, the Commons being, as usual, summoned to the bar. He addressed
them as follows:

"My Lords and gentlemen,--There was never a King who had a more
great and weighty Cause to call his People together than myself. I
will not trouble you with the particulars. I have informed my lord
keeper, and now command him to speak, and I desire your
Attention."

The keeper referred to was the keeper of the king's seals, who was, of
course, a great officer of state. He made a speech, informing the
houses, in general terms, of the king's need of money, but said that
it was not necessary for him to explain minutely the monarch's plans,
as they were exclusively his own concern. We may as well quote his
words, in order to show in what light the position and province of a
British Parliament was considered in those days.

"His majesty's kingly resolutions," said the lord keeper, "are
seated in the ark of his sacred breast, and it were a presumption
of too high a nature for any Uzzah uncalled to touch it. Yet his
Majesty is now pleased to lay by the shining Beams of Majesty, as
Phoebus did to Phaeton, that the distance between Sovereignty and
Subjection should not bar