and calamity was produced in such a way that Henrietta had to reproach
herself with being the cause of its coming.

She had often represented to the king that, in her opinion, one main
cause of the difficulties he had suffered was that he did not act
efficiently and decidedly, and like a man, in putting down the
opposition manifested against him on the part of his subjects; and
now, soon after his return from Scotland, on some new spirit of
disaffection showing itself in Parliament, she urged him to act at
once energetically and promptly against it. She proposed to him to
take an armed force with him, and proceed boldly to the halls where
the Parliament was assembled, and arrest the leaders of the party who
were opposed to him. There were five of them who were specially
prominent. The queen believed that if these five men were seized and
imprisoned in the Tower, the rest would be intimidated and overawed,
and the monarch's lost authority and power would be restored again.

The king was persuaded, partly by the dictates of his own judgment,
and partly by the urgency of the queen, to make the attempt. The
circumstances of this case, so far as the action of the king was
concerned in them, are fully related in the history of Charles the
First. Here we have only to speak of the queen, who was left in a state
of great suspense and anxiety in her palace at Whitehall while her
husband was gone on his dangerous mission.

The plan of the king to make this irruption into the great legislative
assembly of the nation had been kept, so they supposed, a very profound
secret, lest the members whom he was going to arrest should receive
warning of their danger and fly. When the time arrived, the king bade
Henrietta farewell, saying that she might wait there an hour, and if