the Long Parliament.

Taking now in order the works of a political nature that were
condemned by the House of Commons to be burnt by the hangman, we
come first to the _Speeches of Sir Edward Dering_, member for
Kent in the Long Parliament, and a greater antiquary than he ever
was a politician. He it was who, on May 27th, 1641, moved the
first reading of the Root and Branch Bill for the abolition of
Episcopacy. "The pride, the avarice, the ambition, and oppression
by our ruling clergy is epidemical," he said; thereby proving
that such an opinion was not merely a Puritan prejudice. But
Dering appears only really to have aimed at the abolition of
Laud's archiepiscopacy, and to have wished to see some purer form
of prelacy re-established in place of the old. Naturally his
views gave offence, which he only increased by republishing his
speeches on matters of religion, Parliament being so incensed
that it burned his book, and committed its author for a week to
the Tower (February 2nd, 1642).

Dering's was the common fate of moderate men in stormy times,
who, seeing good on each side, are ill thought of by both.
Failing to be loyal to either, he was by both mistrusted. For not
only did he ultimately vote on the side of the royalist episcopal
party, but he actually fought on the King's side; then, being
disgusted with the royalists for their leaning to Popery, he
accepted the pardon offered for a compensation by Parliament in
1644, and died the same year, leaving posterity to regret that he
was ever so ill-advised as to exchange antiquities for politics
and party strife.

The famous speech of the statesman whom Charles, with his usual
defiance of public opinion, soon afterwards raised to the peerage
as Lord Digby (on the passing of the Bill of Attainder against
Lord Strafford), was, after its publication by its author,
condemned to be burnt at Westminster, Cheapside, and Smithfield
(July 13th, 1642). Digby voted against putting Strafford to
death, because he did not think it proved by the evidence that
Strafford had advised Charles to employ the army in Ireland for
the subjection of England. But he condemned his general conduct
as strongly as any man. He calls him "the great apostate to the
Commonwealth, who must not expect to be pardoned it in this world
till he be dispatched to the other." He refers very happily to
his great abilities, "whereof God hath given him the use, but the
devil the application." But does the cr