to the canons, one of which ordered that every clergyman once a quarter should instruct his parishioners in the divine right of kings, and the damnable sin of resisting authority. Others fulminated the most flaming intolerance of catholics, Socinians, and separatists. All clergymen and graduates of the universities were called on to take an oath declaring the sufficiency of the doctrines and discipline of the church of England, in opposition to presbyterianism and popery.
On the publication of these canons, great was the ferment in the country, and petitions and remonstrances from Northamptonshire, Kent, Devon, and other counties, were sent up against them. It was most ungracious as regarded the catholics, who had just presented to the king, at the suggestion of the queen, fourteen thousand pounds. The queen remonstrated against it, and the king gave orders to Laud to desist from further annoyance in that direction. But anger and discontent were fearfully spreading through the country, from the outrageous measures to raise money. Fresh writs of ship-money were issued, and numbers were dragged into the star-chamber for refusal to pay, and fined, so that their money was forced from them by one process or the other. The names of the richest citizens were picked out in order to demand loans from them. Bullion, the property of foreign merchants, was seized at the Mint, and forty thousand pounds extorted for its release; and bags of pepper on the Exchange, and sold at whatever they would fetch. It was next proposed to coin four hundred thousand pounds worth of bad money; but the merchants and other men of intelligence came forward and drew such a picture of the ruin and confusion that such an act would produce, that the king was alarmed, and gave that up. The council, however, hit upon the scheme of purchasing goods at long credit, and selling them at a low price for ready money. All the time large sums of money were levied throughout the country by violence, for the support of the troops collected for the campaign against the Scots. Carts, horses, and forage were seized at the sword's point; and whoever dared to represent these outrages to the king, was branded as an enemy to the government. The corporation of London was dealt with severely, because it showed no great fondness for enforcing the king's arbitrary demands. The lord mayor and sheriffs were cited into the star-chamber for remissness in levying the ship-money; and several of the aldermen were committed to prison for refusing to furnish such persons in their several wards as were able to contribute to Charles's forced loans. Strafford said things would never go right till a few fat London aldermen were hanged.
These desperate measures inflamed the public mind beyond expression, and greatly strengthened the league of the discontented with the Scots. All, except the insane tyrants who were thus forcing the nation to rebellion, could see tempests ahead; and the earl of Northumberland, writing to a friend, said, "It is impossible that all things can long remain in the condition they are now in: so general a defection in this kingdom hath not been known in the memory of man." The disaffection began to find expression, and according to Clarendon, inflammatory placards were scattered about the city and affixed on gates and public places, denouncing the king's chief advisers. Laud, Strafford, and Hamilton, were the marks of the most intense hatred, and the London apprentices were invited, by a bill posted on the Royal Exchange, to demolish the episcopal palace at Lambeth, and "haul out William the Fox."
The train-bands assembled and kept the peace by day, but at night a mob of five hundred assembled and attacked Lambeth palace, and demolished the windows, vowing that they would tear the archbishop to pieces. In a couple of hours the train-bands arrived, tired on them, and dispelled the multitude. Laud got away to Whitehall, where he remained some days, till the damages were repaired, and the house fortified with cannon. Another crowd, said to be two thousand in number, entered St. Paul's, where the High Commission Court sate, tore down the benches, and cried out, "No bishop! no High Commission!" A number of rioters were seized by the train-bands and lodged in the White Lion Prison; but the prison was forced open by the insurgents, and their associates released all but two, a sailor and a drummer, who were executed, according to some authorities; according to others, only one. Clarendon says, this infamous, scandalous, headless insurrection was quashed with the death of only one varlet, whom he calls a sailor; but Mr. Jardine has the printed warrant still preserved in the State Paper Office, for the putting to the torture one Archy, a drummer. He appears to have been a half-witted youth from the north, whom the rioters carried with them to beat a drum. The torturing of this poor fellow, after the unanimous declaration of the judges in the case of Felton, that torture was and always had been contrary to the law of England, is another instance of the defiance of the king and his advisers of all law and constitution.
The king was greatly alarmed at this outbreak; he removed the queen to Greenwich, as she was near her confinement, and placed a strong guard over the palace with sixteen pieces of cannon; nor was he easy till he saw a force of six thousand men at hand.
The time for the meeting of the Scottish parliament had now arrived, and Charles sought to prevent it by another prorogation; but the Scots were not to be put off in any such manner. The king had for some time been treating them like a nation at war; he had prohibited all trade with Scotland, and his men-of-war had been ordered to seize all its merchantmen, wherever found. The Scots therefore met on the 2nd of January, set aside the king's warrant of prorogation on the plea of informality, and the members took their seats, elected a president, an officer hitherto unknown, and passed all the acts which had been prepared during the preceding session. They then voted a tax of ten per cent, on all rents, and five per cent, on interest of money; and, before rising, appointed a committee of estates, for the government of the kingdom till the next meeting of parliament. This committee was to sit either at Edinburgh or as the place where the head-quarters of the army should be, and a bond was entered into to support the authority of parliament, and to give to the statutes which it had passed or should pass the same force as if they had received the royal assent.
But they had not waited for parliament to take the necessary steps for the organisation of an army. They had retained in full pay the experienced officers whom they had
