The majority of the Lower House besides was strongly inclined to exclusiveness. They would endure no one in the House who had shared in the exaction of the last imposts, no monopolist, no projector, above all no one who was prevented by his creed from joining in the Eucharist according to the Anglican ritual. The Lower House could not be regarded as an assembly of lawgivers who intended to establish the principles of equal justice for all: their hostility to the royal prerogative led them rather to endeavour to renew, with other laws, those statutes against the Catholics which had been passed in the hottest times of the religious contest. All breaches of positive law, according to their understanding of it, they were resolved to punish as offences, without any regard to royal prerogative. Everything breathed a decidedly aggressive spirit. In parliamentary meetings of the leading members this course was systematically planned, and the resolution taken that the Lower House should act as a sort of high court of enquiry for the kingdom. While it was thought expedient to combine all grounds of complaint in one great remonstrance, it was generally agreed to spare the King, to ignore his personal share, and always to mention his name with respect[213]. All the blame was to be cast on his advisers. They went through the list of men who had most participated in the misgovernment, in the Privy Council, on the episcopal and judicial benches, finding many who might be held criminally responsible, and ending with the special confidential advisers of the King, the junta by which affairs had been managed hitherto, and against which both kingdoms had common grounds of complaint. Hence one of the hardest and weightiest questions of parliamentary life came again to the front. When James I and Charles raised their favourites to the highest posts, so that men who were their mere personal dependants wielded the whole power of the State, we have seen already how often and how [A.D. 1640.] zealously both Lords and Commons resisted such inclinations. Charles I was always extremely sensitive on this point: more than once parliaments were dissolved because they harped on this topic. For a long time Charles I had ceased to have any personal favourites, but the leading members of his government identified themselves with his absolutist and anti-parliamentary policy. It must be left undecided whether the schemes of the administration originated chiefly with the King or his ministers: they were agreed in the idea of a government to be carried on essentially through prerogative. This intimate connexion between the royal authority and the holders of administrative power decided the leaders of the Parliament to begin operations by an attack on the ministers. Not that they were convinced that the ministers had in fact acted independently of the King, and merely covered with his name their own wills and purposes; but a few great