Instead of this, new grievances were constantly accumulating. In the absence of regular subsidies the King helped himself to money by a voluntary loan, which gave great offence, and in this matter also led people to contrast the late Queen's conduct with that of James. She had, so people said, conducted the war in Spain, afforded help to the Netherlands, and maintained garrisons on the Scottish border, three measures which had cost her millions; of all this there was no mention under the present King. On the contrary he had additional revenues from Scotland; for what reason did he require extraordinary subsidies?[329] Men complained of his movements to and fro in the country, and of the harshness with which the right of the court to transport and cheap entertainment on these occasions was enforced; of his hunting, by which the tillage was injured; most of all, of his intended advancement of the Customs Duties, for this would damage trade and certainly would benefit only the great men who were interested in the farming of the Customs. The King had once thought of dissolving Parliament, but afterwards renounced the idea. As it was, when Parliament was summoned for November 1605, a stormy session lay before it, owing to the attack made by the Parliamentary and Puritan party upon the behaviour of the King in ecclesiastical and political questions, as well as upon the financial disorder which was gaining ground.
An event intervened which gave an entirely different direction to the course of affairs.
NOTES:
[316] Économies royales v. 23.
[317] Molino, Giugno 9, 1604: 'Se ben è vero, ch'erano suddite del re di Spagna, è anco verissimo, che quei popoli si erano soggettati alla casa di Borgogna—con quelle conditioni e capitoli, che si sa: i quali se fossero stati osservati dalli ministri di Spagna, senza dubio quei popoli non se sariano ribellati. Da queste parole restarono li Spagnoli offesi.'
[318] Cecil to Winwood, June 13. 'That he is tied by former contracts of his predecessors, which he must observe.
[319] From the reports of the French ambassador, in Siri, Memorie recondite i. 278.
[320] Letter from the South (Winchester) to Berwick, in Calderwood vi. 235. 'I would the scotish presbytereis would be petitioners that our bishops might be like theirs in autoritie though they keep their livings. The King is resolved to have a preaching ministry.'
[321] The High Commission was compared with the Inquisition: 'men are urged to subscribe more than law requireth and by the oath ex officio forced to accuse themselves.' The archbishop answered that this was a mistake: 'if the article touch the party for life, liberty, or scandall, he may refuse to answer.' State Trials ii. 86. The account in Wilkins iv. 374 is more unsatisfactory than the character of the book would lead us to expect.
[322] Art. 36: 'Neminem nisi praevia trium articulorum subscriptione ordinandum'.