[Sidenote: The king rebuked by the House of Commons.]
In 1621 the king, having arrived at the end of his purse, seized what he thought a favourable moment for summoning Parliament, but found that body more intractable than ever. The Commons busied themselves with attacking monopolies and impeaching the Lord Chancellor Bacon for taking bribes. Then they expressed unqualified disapproval of the Spanish match, whereupon the king told them to mind their own business and not meddle with his. "A long and angry dispute ensued, which terminated in a strong protest, in which the Commons declared that their privileges were not the gift of the Crown, but the natural birthright of English subjects, and that matters of public interest were within their province."[105] This protest so infuriated the king that he tore it into pieces, and forthwith dissolved Parliament, sending Pym, Southampton, and other leaders to prison. This was in January, 1622.
[Sidenote: Nathaniel Butler and his pamphlet.]
As more than a hundred members of this froward Parliament were also members of the Company, it is not strange that the king should have watched more eagerly than ever for a chance to attack that corporation. A favourable opportunity was soon offered him. A certain Nathaniel Butler, governor of the Bermuda Islands, was accused of extorting a large sum of money from some Spaniards who had been shipwrecked there, and very damaging evidence was brought against him; but he seems to have known how to enlist powerful friends on his side. On being summoned to England he went first to Virginia, where his services were in demand during the brief but bloody Indian war that followed upon the massacre of 1622. Then after arriving in England he published, in April, 1623, a savage attack upon the London Company, entitled "The Unmasked Face of our Colony in Virginia." Simultaneously with the publication of this pamphlet the charges against its author were dropped and were nevermore heard of. Such a coincidence is extremely significant; it was commonly believed at the time that Butler bought the suppression of the charges by turning backbiter. His attack upon the Company is so frivolous as plainly to indicate its origin in pure malice. It is interesting as the first of the long series of books about America printed in England which have sorely irritated their American readers. Sixteen of the old Virginia settlers who were at that moment in London answered it with convincing force. Some of this Butler's accusations, with the answers of the settlers, may fitly be cited for the side-light they throw upon the state of things in Virginia, as well as upon the peculiar sinuosities of Stuart kingcraft.