examples would re-establish the right which Parliament had enjoyed in early centuries, and sometimes exercised in later times, to bring men of the highest position before its tribunal, to subject the administration to its control, and render it responsible. On this very ground King Charles had avoided convoking parliaments, because he feared the reappearance of this demand, which touched the very sources of his power, the means by which the general direction of affairs devolve on the crown. Now however in the course of events a Parliament was assembled in which his opponents had the upper hand: what was to prevent a return to the policy of earlier Parliaments? No one as yet entertained, at any rate consciously, the purpose of overthrowing the monarchy; but it was intended to confine its operations within narrow limits, and to ensure the preponderance of the parliamentary over the royal authority. They wished too to destroy the ministers, to take vengeance on those whom they had hitherto been compelled to fear, from whom they had suffered personal wrongs: it was now the ministers’ turn to experience a reverse of fortune, and feel the power of their enemies. No one was better qualified to lead the attack than John Pym, who had himself announced it in the above-mentioned speech. As in former years he had contended against [A.D. 1640.] Cranfield at the side of Buckingham, then against the latter himself, so too it was well remembered, at least by members of Parliament, with what effect he had battled against Montague and Manwaring[214]. At the time that Wentworth deserted the popular party, Pym is said to have told him that he was going headlong to destruction. This was the man who now for a long time had most thoroughly personified royalist tendencies: on him the first and decisive attack must be made. Pym had for some time been preparing to bring about the fulfilment of his own prediction. When therefore, at the beginning of the appointment of committees, Pym proposed that the affairs of Ireland should be debated in a committee of the whole house, every one saw what his object was. The friends of the Viceroy demanded a separate committee. But the majority on which Pym could reckon when it came to actual impeachment, were on his side in the preliminary question also: by a trifling majority, but still in legal form, the resolution was adopted that the whole house should form the committee on Irish affairs.