By issuing privy seals for borrowing money, the king was enabled to equip a fleet of 80 ships, with an army of 10,000 men. Cecil, Lord \Vimbleton, sailed with these to Cadiz; but either finding it impossible, or neglecting to attack the valuable ships of the Spaniards in that harbour, he only landed the army. After storming a fort, where they found a store of wine, the men got intoxicated, and obliged to be reimbarkcd. They would have pro ceeded to intercept the Spanish galleons on their way to Spain, but the plague breaking out on board the fleet, it returned to England, and the issue of the expedition served as another cause of public discontent.
Obliged once more to have recourse to a parliament, Charles thought of diminishing the number of popular leaders by the artifice of making four of them, Sir Ed ward Coke, Sir Robert Philips, Sir Thomas 'Wentworth, sheriffs of the counties; a situation supposed to be in compatible with a seat .in parliament. This measure, without attaining its object, exposed the weakness of the court, and put the commons more upon their guard. They voted the king a supply of two subsidies, but by removing the passing of that vote into a law till the end of the session, they held out an undisguised threat of withholding it, if their demands should not be satisfied. The first exertion of their power and resentment was directed against Buckingham.
The orders of Charles to the Earl of Bristol, not to attend in parliament, had not induced that spirited no bleman to comply With so arbitrary an injunction; and the king, provoked at his refusal, directed his attorney general to enter an accusation of high treason against him. Bristol, by way ol recrimination, impeached Buck ingham with the same crime in the lords, while the comz mons were attacking him from another quarter. Their impeachment never came to a full determination ; but it is remarkable, that Buckingham's accusers never adopted Bristol's charge of misconduct in the Spanigi treaty, but taxed him with offences Iron' which he found, little difficulty to exculpate himsell ; such as administer ing phygredo the late king without consent of his phy sicians. While under tins impeachment, Buckingham was chosen chancellor of the University ol Cambridge, and the king publicly thanked the university for their choice. \\rutin the commons resented, and loudly com plained of this affront, the lord-keeper commanded them in the king's name, not to meddle with his minister and servant Buckingham, but to fish the subsidy-bill, other wise they might expect- to sit no Longer. This threat was lollowed by another, that the king, if supplies were still refused, would be obliged to try new counsels.
To strip this imprudent menace of all ambiguity, Sir Dudley Carleton explained it, by allusion to those mo narchs in Christendom. who had been obliged, by the turbulence of their subjects, to overthrow parliaments altogether. Adding injury to indignity, the sovereign next ordered two members of the House of Commons, Sir John Elliot and Sir Dudley Digges, the chief ma nagers of the impeachment against the duke, to thrown into prison, on pretence of seditious expressio but, as those expregsions could not be proved, and the commons demanded their liberation, lie was oblfged, with a bad grace, to release them. With similar regard for their privileges, the House of Lords claimed and obtained the liberty of Lord Arundel, whom the king had thrown into the Tower. Mixing religious with po litical subjects, the commons, as usual, complained of the increase of popery, and demanded the expulsion of a list of recusants from offices, (mostly insignificant in dividdals.) The king had before promised compliance with the wishes of the house on this point, but, when the supplies were refused, he imagined himself released from the obligation. Besides this demand, the commons intended to petition for the removal of Buckingham from his majesty's councils, and were preparing a remon strance against the levying of tonnage and poundage without consent of parliament. But their session was ended by dissolution, before they had time to conclude one act. The House of Peers in vain interceded, that parliament might be allowed to sit some time longer. Charles replied in anger, "not a moment longer ;" and the king and the commons, at their separation, published each an appeal to the nation. The commons, though culpable "me points, had not hitherto trespassed the bounds of011e constitution. Charles had evidently done so, but his affairs were yet retrievable, if he had dis missed a worthless favourite ; fulfilled some of his pro mises respecting recusants ; abandoned the war with Spain ; and entrenched himself within the limits of legal prerogative. Against the solid power of the represented people he had still a barrier to oppose, in the unques tioned rights of royalty; but in proportion as he stretched the prerogative he weakened it. To fright the consti tutional attacks of the commons with usurped preroga tive, was to oppose a shadow to a substance. The rights on which he now meant to act, in pursuing his new counsels, certainly had once been enforced by the crown but they could now be only recalled as the phantoms of ancient usage.