73 Tower; severall otber prela tical! preachers were ques tion'd for popish and treasonable doctrines ; the starre chamber, an uniust and arbitrary court; was taken away, and the h igh-commission court ; an act was procur'd for a trienniall parliament, and ano ther for the continuation of this, that it should not be broken up without their owne consents. There were greate necessities for mony by reason of the two armies that were then maintain'd i1i England, and the people would g ive the king no mony without some ease of grievances, which fo rc'd him against his inclina tion to grant those bills, which, after he had granted, he found he had bound up his owne m hands, · and therefore privately encourag'd plolts tha t were in those t imes contriv'd against the parliament. One of them was to have rescued the earle of Stratford out of prison, and ptrt him in the head of eight thousand I rish, which the king would not consent to disband , when the parliament had some time before moov'd him to it ; then the E nglish arrnie in the north should have bene brought up and engag'd aga inst the parliament itselfe upon a pre tence of maintaining the king's prerogative, episq>pacy, and some other such things. This plott was manag'd by Percy, Germyn, Goring, vVilmot, Ashburnham, system of re1 igion of which he was the unworthy head: that to his conduct its Juin was principally attributable m~y be clearly seen by the speeches preserved by Rushworth, in his fOurth volume, of Lord D igby, Falkland, Fiennes, and especially Grimston. At this day there is perhaps hardly to be found a son of the church who would con~ descend to meddle in such base projects as this archb ishop assid uously employed himself in . mThis act fo r perpetuati ng the parliament was in fact that which gave them a clear ascendency over the ki ng. The proposing this, as it shewed the !ingenui ty and judgment of :Mr. l) ierrepont, to whom .Mrs. Hutchinson attrib utes it, so does it the weaf·mess of the king and hi s <:ounsellors, who having granted this, had no longer auy , power of refusa l left. - I<'o r extraordinary evils extraordinary remed ies are often sought, but thi s, as it soon proyed too strong for the king, so was it at last thought t~o strong for the people. The omnipotence of parliament would !Je indeed dreadful alike to both if, instead of being amov ible, it was permanent.
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