honours and dignities was in future to be exercised only under definite conditions; the Treasury was no longer to possess any jurisdiction. When we consider the scope of these proposals, we understand why the royal commissioner brought his whole power to bear, by whatever means he could, to prevent the Parliament from advancing to definitive resolutions in the direction on which they had entered. He adjourned Parliament, at first for a short time. This was repeated some eight times in succession: at last he pronounced it to be prorogued from November 1639 until June 1640. This step however raised a question which was as important as any of those which he was attempting to get rid of. The Kings of England and Scotland had hitherto exercised the right of dissolving as well as of convoking Parliament: to other sovereigns who did not possess this right in dealing with their representative assemblies, this had appeared to be a most enviable prerogative. The Scottish Parliament now denied this right; it sought to show that the right belonged to the King and his commissioner only in concert with Parliament. The Assembly broke up, it is true, but it left a committee behind it, which claimed to be considered as representing the Parliament, and transacted public business in this capacity. How completely contrary to the expectations which had been entertained at Berwick was the course which affairs had now taken! We do not join the complaints of treachery and breach of faith which were raised by men of the different parties against one another. Two powers and forces, between which a reconciliation was hardly possible any longer, now stood in opposition to one another. The monarchy on the one side, which, in spite of the great concessions which it made, nevertheless maintained its pretension to possess lawfully within itself plenary public authority; and, on the other, a parliamentary and spiritual power which [A.D. 1639.] had grown up during the rising under the patronage of proud nobles and preachers mighty in the word, and which would not at any price resign the independence which it had once asserted. The attempt which the two parties had made at Berwick to approach one another brought to light the internal opposition between them. The Scots, proceeding onwards with the logical consistency which from the first moment had marked their course, achieved such a measure of independence in determining the internal arrangements of the State in spiritual and temporal matters, that the monarchy was reduced to a mere name. They thought that they were thus defending an universal interest at the same time. Whoever reads the journals and memoirs of the Scots sees clearly for the first time how entirely they identified their cause at home with that of Protestantism, and with the Continental struggle against the Austro-Spanish power. They note the advance of the Swedes, of the German powers allied with them, and of the Dutch and French as an