marched in another direction to attack some Spanish troops which its commander had heard of. As there were no Spanish troops near, the soldiers only got very hot and tired, and as their commander had forgotten to see that they had any provisions with them, they were very hungry too. They found a large quantity of wine in a Spanish village, and swallowed it so greedily that the whole army was soon drunk, and if there had been an enemy near every man might have been killed. The next day the troops marched back to Cadiz; but the town was too well fortified to be taken. The fleet and army came back to England without doing anything at all. In some books of nursery rhymes is still to be found the following account of this expedition :

There was a fleet that went to Spain;
When it got there, it came back again.'

3. The Second Parliament of Charles I. and the Forced Loans. In the next Parliament Buckingham was impeached-that is to say, he was accused before the Lords by the Commons, of making himself rich and ruining the nation. Before the trial was finished, the king dissolved his second Parliament as he had dissolved his first. He was in great difficulty for money. He sent to ask his subjects to give him some; but scarcely any one would give him anything at all, and it was against the law to make any one give. Somebody however told Charles that though he could not make his subjects give he could make them lend. As he was not likely ever to be able to repay what he borrowed, there was not much difference between lending and giving. Nevertheless he took the advice and ordered all persons with property to

pay him money as a forced loan. He threw into prison the chief men who would not pay, and he got a large sum from those who had rather pay than go to prison.

4. The War with France and the Expedition to Rhé. Charles had good reason to want money. In less than a year after the dissolution of his second Parliament he had quarrelled with France as well as with Spain. The king of France was at war with his Protestant subjects, and was besieging the town of La Rochelle. Buckingham went with a great fleet and army to deliver it. He began by laying siege to a fort on the Isle of Rhé not far from La Rochelle. He could not take it, and came home, having accomplished nothing at all.

5. The Third Parliament of Charles I. and the Petition of Right.-Charles was determined to go on with the war, to deliver La Rochelle. As he had no money left, he summoned a Third Parliament. That Parliament presented to him the Petition of Right, in which they demanded, amongst other things, that he should never levy taxes or forced loans without the consent of Parliament, and never put any man in prison without giving a reason for it, so that the man might have his case tried by the judges; whereas if no reason was given, the judges would not know what he was accused of and could not try the case, so that he might be left in prison as long as the king pleased. Charles was most unwilling to yield to this, but he did at last, and the Petition of Right became law. The London citizens rang the bells merrily, and lit up bonfires in the streets.

6. Murder of Buckingham.-Charles, in return for his grant of the Petition of Right, got the money

which he wanted, and gathered another great fleet and army, with which Buckingham was to drive off the besiegers from La Rochelle. Buckingham went to Portsmouth to take the command. There was scarcely an Englishman who did not hate him for squandering the money and lives of his countrymen on these foolish plans which never succeeded. A certain John Felton, who had been turned out of an officer's place by Buckingham, fancied that he would be doing God service by murdering him, just as Catesby and Guy Fawkes had fancied that they were doing God service if they could murder the king and the Parliament. He bought a knife, went down to Portsmouth, and stood outside the door of a room in which Buckingham was breakfasting. At last Buckingham stepped out, and stopped for a moment to speak to one of his officers. Felton struck him hard with his knife in the breast, saying as he did it, ‘God have mercy on thy soul.' Buckingham staggered forward and fell dead. murderer merely slipped away for a short time, but his hat fell off, and he was soon recognised. It was not long before he was sentenced to death, and hanged.

The

7. Breach between Charles and the Parliament.Charles had now to try to govern without Buckingham. When Parliament met again there were new quarrels between it and the king. In the first place there was a disagreement between him and the Puritans about certain doctrines which they wished to have taught, whilst he wished that these doctrines should not be taught. Then there was a disagreement about the payment of duties on goods going out of

the kingdom and coming in, which were known as tonnage and poundage, and which had been granted to the kings and queens before him by their Parliaments for their lifetime. He had dissolved his earlier parliaments so soon that they had never had time to say whether they would grant him these duties or not. He had, however, taken them, as if they had been granted, and as many people had lately refused to pay he had seized their goods. One of those whose goods had been seized was a member of Parliament, and Sir John Eliot, a noble-minded man and a great speaker in the House of Commons, advised that the Custom House officers who had seized this man's goods should be sent for and punished. The king said they had acted by his orders, and should not be punished. He then ordered the House to adjourn, that is to say, to stop sitting for a few days. The House did as he wished once, but when orders came for a second adjournment, two strong members, knowing that as long as the Speaker, whose business it was to keep order in the House, remained in his seat, the House could not be adjourned, stepped forward and held him down by force in his chair, whilst Eliot asked the House to vote that any one who preached the doctrines which. the Puritans thought wrong, or any one who paid or collected the duties without consent of Parliament, was an enemy to his country. There was a great tumult in the House, and just as the members were shouting 'Aye! aye!' in answer to Eliot's resolution, the king arrived. Parliament was dissolved, and Charles determined that, for some time at least, he

would not summon another. This third Parliament came to an end in 1629. No Parliament was summoned again for eleven years.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE UNPARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT OF

CHARLES I.

(1629-1640.)

1. The Imprisonment of Members of Parliament.Charles's first act was to imprison Eliot and some of the other members of Parliament who had taken part in the disturbance. Eliot and the others said that they ought not to be tried in any court except in Parliament itself for that which they had done in Parliament. He and the two who had held the Speaker down were sentenced to heavy fines. He refused to pay, and was kept in the Tower till he died. Though Charles knew that he was dying he would not let him go, and would not even allow his body to be removed, after his death, to his home in Cornwall for burial.

2. Laud's Rule in the Church.-Church affairs were almost entirely managed by William Laud, who was Bishop of London, and who, in 1633, became Archbishop of Canterbury. He was determined that in every church in England there should be the same ceremonies, and that the clergy should read