264 HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN

C H AT.V.

1642 .

of the sword, and to confer it entirely on theirown creatures and adherents.

The severe votes, passed in the beginning ofthis parliament, against lieutenants and their de-puties. for exercising powers assumed by all theirpredecessors, had totally disarmed the crown ,and had not left in any magistrate militaryauthority, sufficient for the defence and securityof the nation. To remedy this inconveniencenow appeared necessary. A bill was introducedand passed the two houses, which restored tolieutenants and deputies the same powers , ofwhich the, votes of the commons had bereavedthem; but at the same time the names of all thelieutenants were inserted in the bill; and theseconsisted entirely of men , in whom the parliamentcould confide. And for their conduct, they wereaccountable, by the express terms of the bill, notto the king, but to the parliament.

The policy pursued by the commons, andwhich h^d. hitherto, succeeded to admiration, was,to astonish the king by the boldness of theirenterprises, to intermingle no sweetness with theirseverity , to employ expressions no less violentthan their pretensions , and to make him sensiblein what little estimation they held both his personand his dignity. To a bill so destructive of royalauthority, they prefixed, with an insolence seem-ingly wanton, a preamble equally dishonorableto the personal character of the king. These arethe words: “Whereas there has been of late a“ most dangerous and desperate design upon the

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