CHARLES I. 255'

and what was likely to follow. Seeing everyprospect blasted, faction triumphant, the discon-tented populace inflamed to a degree of fury ,they utterly despaired of success, in a cause, towhose ruin friends and enemies seemed equally toconspire.

The prudence of the king, in his conduct ofthis affair , nobody pretended to justify. Thelegality of his proceedings met with many andjust apologies; though generally offered to un-willing ears. No maxim of law, it was said, ismore established or more universally allowed,than that privilege of parliament extends not totreason , felony , or breach of peace; nor haseither house, during former ages, ever pretended,in any of those cases, to interpose in behalf ofits members. Though some inconveniences shouldresult from the observance of this maxim ; thatwould not be sufficient, without other authority,to abolish a principle established by uninterruptedprecedent, and founded on the tacit consent ofthe whole legislature. But what are the incon-veniences so much dreaded ? The king, onpretence of treason, may seize any members ofthe opposite faction , and, for a time, gain tohis partisans the majority of voices. But if heseize only a few; will he not lose more friends,by such a gross artifice, than he confines ene-mies ? If he seize a great ntimber; is not thisexpedient force, open and barefaced? And whatremedy, at all times, against such force, but tooppose to it a force, which is superior? Even

HAP.

LV.