The Civil Wars. 



00 



future. When James lay down to die, lie liad left as a legacy 

 to liis son a House of Commons whose members had become 

 veterans in the arts of political warfare. Accustomed to kingly 

 evasion, hardened to resistance, inured to disappointment, they 

 knew not only their own powers, but how best to use them. 



It is doubtful if the ablest of kings could have then satisfied 

 a nation in such a mood without his becoming a mere puppet. 

 And yet it were unjust to attribute wholly to James's con- 

 temptible meanness of character all the dire consequences of 

 the succeeding reign. Causes had been accumulating through- 

 out the century of Tudor sovereignty. The Statute of Fines 

 had, it has been already shown, afforded additional facilities 

 for the subdivision of landed estates, and vast quantities of 

 these had been thrown on the market at the time of the Re- 

 formation. Both incidents combined to create a numerous 

 class of small landed proprietors ; many of whom boasted a 

 blood relationship with the ancient nobility, while others were 

 sprung from the citizen class. The new order thus com- 

 bined in its ranks both the haughty pride of the old Norman 

 aristocracy and the cool calculation and shrewd foresight of 

 the merchant. By the infusion of this element into the 

 Lower House of Parliament there arose that formidable estate 

 of the realm, which proudly termed itself the " Commons of 

 England." Without the most intimate knowledge of king- 

 craft no sovereign could have withstood the determined oppo- 

 sition of such people, who were as irresistible in the political 

 arena as they afterwards proved in the field. But it needed 

 far less than kingcraft, merely indeed a particle of common 

 sense, to see that all those demands, which his father had 

 barely succeeded in shelving, must be now ceded by Charles. 

 Feudal incidents and purveyance were as good as moribund, 

 and further attempts to enforce such impositions were as 

 futile and imprudent as would have been the revival of some 

 long obsolete tax like the ship money. And yet Charles was 

 so misguided as to attempt this very step. The musty records 

 of Norman legislation were hunted up, and long forgotten 

 malpractices, such as this particular tax, the law of knight- 

 hood and even the iniquitous forest enactments resuscitated 



