192

HISTORY OF ENGLAND,

CHAP.

II.

at riches, the ostentation with which he squanderedthem, his picture gallery, filled with master-pieces ofVandyke which had once been the property of ruined Ca-valiers, his palace, which reared its long and stately frontright opposite to the humbler residence of our Kings, drewon him much deserved , and some undeserved, censure.When the Dutch fleet was in the Thames, it was against theChancellor that the rage of the populace was chiefly directed.His windows were broken, the trees of his garden cut down,and a gibbet set up before his door. But nowhere was hemore detested than in the House of Commons. He wasunable to perceive that the time was fast approaching whenthat House, if it continued to exist at all, must be supremein the state, when the management of that House would bethe most important department of politics, and when, withoutthe help of men possessing the ear of that House, it wouldbe impossible to carry on the government. He obstinatelypersisted in considering theParliament as a.body in no respectdiffering from the Parliament which had been sitting when,forty years before, he first began to study law at the Temple.He did not wish to deprive the legislature of those powerswhich were inherent in it by the old constitution of the realm:but the new development of those powers, though a develop-ment natural, inevitable, and to be prevented only by utterlydestroying the powers themselves, disgusted and alarmedhim. Nothing would have induced him to put the great sealto a writ for raising ship-money, or to give his voice in Councilfor committing a member of Parliament to the Tower, onaccount of words spoken in debate: but, when the Commonsbegan to inquire in what manner the money voted for thewar had been wasted, and to examine into the maladministra-tion of the navy, he flamed with indignation. Such inquiry,according to him, was out of their province. He admittedthat the House was a most loyal assembly, that it had done