of moneys received during the last twenty years. Still there was a deficit; and in the winter Northumberland was reduced to appealing to Parliament.
By this time his government had become so unpopular that he shrank from meeting a really representative assembly, and had recourse to an expedient which has been misrepresented as the normal practice of Tudor times. There had already been isolated instances of the exercise of government influence to force particular candidates on constituencies; but the Parliament of March, 1553, was the only one in the sixteenth century that can fairly be described as nominated by the government; and Renard, when discussing the question of a Parliament in the following August, asked Charles V whether he thought it advisable to have a general Parliament or merely an assembly of "notables" summoned after the manner introduced by Northumberland. A circular appears to have been sent round ordering the electors to return the members nominated by the Council. Even this measure was not considered sufficient to ensure a properly subservient House of Commons; and at the same time eleven new boroughs returning twenty-two members were created, principally in Cornwall, where Crown influence was supreme. The process of packing had already been applied to the Privy Council, more than half of which, as it existed in 1553, had been nominated since Northumberland's accession to power. To this Parliament the Duke represented his financial needs as exclusively due to the maladministration of the Protector, who had been deposed three and a half years before; and a subsidy was granted which was not, however, to be paid for two years. Acts were also passed with a view to checking fiscal abuses; but Northumberland again met with some traces of independence in the Commons, and Parliament was dissolved on March 31, having sat for barely a month.
The ground was fast slipping from under Northumberland's feet, and the Nemesis which had long dogged his steps was drawing perceptibly nearer. Zimri had no peace, and from the time of Somerset's fall never a month passed without some symptom of popular discontent. In October, 1551, a rumour spread that a coinage was being minted at Dudley Castle stamped with Northumberland's badge, the bear and ragged staff, and in 1552 he was widely believed to be aiming at the Crown. Even some of his favourite preachers began to denounce him in thinly veiled terms from the pulpit. No longer a Moses or Joshua, he was not obscurely likened to Ahitophel. His only support was the young King, over whose mind he had established complete dominion; and Edward VI was now slowly dying before his eyes. The consequences to himself of a demise of the Crown were only too clear; his ambition had led him into so many crimes and had made him so many enemies that his life was secure only so long as he controlled the government and prevented the administration of justice. There was no room for repentance; he could expect no mercy when his foes were once in a
