administration had, through a period of nearly twelve years, been
so oppressive and so unconstitutional that even those classes of
which the inclinations are generally on the side of order and
authority were eager to promote popular reforms and to bring the
instruments of tyranny to justice. It was enacted that no
interval of more than three years should ever elapse between
Parliament and Parliament, and that, if writs under the Great
Seal were not issued at the proper time, the returning officers
should, without such writs, call the constituent bodies together
for the choice of representatives. The Star Chamber, the High
Commission, the Council of York were swept away. Men who, after
suffering cruel mutilations, had been confined in remote
dungeons, regained their liberty. On the chief ministers of the
crown the vengeance of the nation was unsparingly wreaked. The
Lord Keeper, the Primate, the Lord Lieutenant were impeached.
Finch saved himself by flight. Laud was flung into the Tower.
Strafford was put to death by act of attainder. On the day on
which this act passed, the King gave his assent to a law by which
he bound himself not to adjourn, prorogue, or dissolve the
existing Parliament without its own consent.

After ten months of assiduous toil, the Houses, in September
1641, adjourned for a short vacation; and the King visited
Scotland. He with difficulty pacified that kingdom by consenting,
not only to relinquish his plans of ecclesiastical reform, but
even to pass, with a very bad grace, an act declaring that
episcopacy was contrary to the word of God.

The recess of the English Parliament lasted six weeks. The day on
which the Houses met again is one of the most remarkable epochs