work. While Charles was feebly scheming for revenue, he was laying
large and comprehensive plans for a system of oppression, which should
_yield_ the revenue,--and for Arsenals and Forts--and a standing
Army, and a rule of terror which should hold the nation in subjection
while these things were preparing. He was clear-sighted enough to see
that "absolutism" was not to be accomplished by a system of reasoning.
He would not urge it as a dogma, but as a fact.

The "Star Chamber," a tribunal for the trying of a certain class of
offences, was brought to a state of fresh efficiency. Its punishments
could be anything this side of death. A clergyman accused of speaking
disrespectfully of Laud, is condemned to pay 5,000 pounds to the King,
300 pounds to the aggrieved Archbishop himself, one side of his nose
is to be slit, one ear cut off, and one cheek branded. The next week
this to be repeated on the other side, and then followed by
imprisonment subject to pleasure of the Court. Another who has written
a book considered seditious, has the same sentence carried out, only
varied by imprisonment for life.

These were some of the embellishments of the system called "Thorough,"
which was carried on by the two friends and confederates, Laud and
Strafford, who were in their pleasant letters to each other all the
time lamenting that the power of the "Star Chamber" was so limited, and
judges so timid! Is it strange that the plantation in Massachusetts had
fresh recruits?

But the more serious work was going on under Strafford's vigorous
management. "Monopolies" were sold once more, with a fixed duty on
profits added to the price of the original concession. Every article in
use by the people was at last bought up by Monopolists, who were