monarchy, though it were indeed nothing else but pure anarchy. And those men, whose pens the King most used in these controversies of law and politics, were such (if I have not been misinformed) as having been members of this Parliament, had declaimed against ship-money and other extra-parliamentary taxes, as much as any; but when they saw the Parliament grow higher in their demands than they thought they would have done, went over to the King’s party.
B. Who were those?
A. It is not necessary to name any man, seeing I have undertaken only a short narration of the follies and other faults of men during this trouble; but not (by naming the persons) to give you, or any man else, occasion to esteem them the less, now that the faults on all sides have been forgiven.
B. When the business was *now* brought to this height, by levying of soldiers and seizing of the navy and arms and other provisions on both sides, that no man was so blind as not to see they were in an estate of war one against another; why did not the King (by proclamation or message), according to his undoubted right, dissolve the Parliament, and thereby diminish, in some part, the authority of their levies, and of other their unjust ordinances?
A. You have forgotten that I told you, that the King himself, by a bill which he passed at the same time when he passed the bill for the execution of the Earl of Strafford, had given them authority to hold the Parliament till they should by consent of both Houses dissolve themselves. If therefore he had, by any proclamation or message to the Houses, dissolved them, they would, to their former defamations of his Majesty’s actions, have added also this, that he was a breaker of his word: and not only in contempt of him have continued their session, but also have made advantage of it to the increase and strengthening of their own party.
B. Would not the King’s raising of an army against them be interpreted as a purpose to dissolve them by force? And
