Thus in a few weeks this house of commons, not opposed, or rather seconded by the peers, had produced such a revolution in the government, that the two most powerful and most favored ministers of the king were thrown into the Tower, and daily expected to be tried for their life: two other ministers had, by flight alone, saved themselves from a like fate: all the king's servants saw that no protection could be given them by their master: a new jurisdiction was erected in the nation; and before that tribunal all those trembled who had before exulted most in their credit and authority.
** Clarendon, vol. i. p. 178. Whitlocke, p. 37.
What rendered the power of the commons more formidable was, the extreme prudence with which it was conducted. Not content with the authority which they had acquired by attacking these great ministers, they were resolved to render the most considerable bodies of the nation obnoxious to them. Though the idol of the people, they determined to fortify themselves likewise with terrors, and to overawe those who might still be inclined to support the falling ruins of monarchy.
During the late military operations, several powers had been exercised by the lieutenants and deputy lieutenants of counties; and these powers, though necessary for the defence of the nation, and even warranted by all former precedent yet not being authorized by statute, were now voted to be illegal, and the persons who had assumed them declared delinquents. This term was newly come into vogue, and expressed a degree and species of guilt not exactly known or ascertained. In consequence of that determination, many of the nobility and prime gentry of the nation, while only exerting as they justly thought, the legal powers of magistracy unexpectedly found themselves involved in the crime of delinquency. And the commons reaped this multiplied advantage by their vote: they disarmed the crown; they established the maxims of rigid law and liberty; and they spread the terror of their own authority.[*]
The writs for ship money had been directed to the sheriffs, who were required, and even obliged, under severe penalties, to assess the sums upon individuals, and to levy them by their authority: yet were all the sheriffs, and all those who had been employed in that illegal service, voted, by a very rigorous sentence, to be delinquents. The king, by the maxims of law, could do no wrong: his ministers and servants, of whatever degree, in case cf any violation of the constitution, were alone culpable.[**]