intervention induced him to change sides. After he had, in the debate on the Bill of Attainder, broken with the majority in the Commons, which threatened to make him answer for his language, he was transferred to the Upper House, and obtained a post about the King’s person. He was a man of universal culture, who had seen many countries, and possessed very varied knowledge, amiable when he liked, [A.D. 1641.] and spirited, at once versatile and resolute. His speeches are favourably distinguished by good taste and happy expression from the style of his contemporaries: in the history of parliamentary eloquence he deserves a place. He found his chief support in his father, Lord Bristol, the only one of those who had been admitted into the council at the beginning of the year who exerted any real influence. Charles I once more selected from Parliament an enemy of Buckingham, whom he had attacked with the help of Parliament in former times. Now however their sentiments were no longer those prevalent in Parliament: both father and son had become favourable to Spain and to royalty. Regarded in the light of later events it may seem strange that the King should have chosen his ministers from the minority and not from the majority. At the moment however the prospect was adverse to the demands of Parliament: while the King was sure of a large minority in the Lower House, of a majority in the Lords, of the great episcopal interest, and of a favourable sentiment among the people, he thought that he need not fear a hostile majority. The Queen in the course of December believed that her party would supplant, conquer, and punish the opposition. The French ambassador distinguished between the Spanish cabal, and the other which consisted of his friends. ‘Each of them,’ said he, at the beginning of December, ‘does all it can to ruin the other. The Spanish party has been strengthened by the arrival of the King; he has a great idea of the strength of his adherents in both houses, and hopes with their aid to be able to restore his authority.’ In Parliament there grew up against Bristol and Digby a hatred similar to that which had once been felt against Strafford: on the other hand Holland, Essex, Say, Hertford, saw themselves threatened in their offices by the court party. It was still very doubtful which side would remain masters of the field: meanwhile the leaders of the Commons had reason to fear for their lives. When the nature of the opposing principles and the strength of the parties embodying them were such as to produce a sort of equilibrium, or state of suspense, a change in the municipal representation in London, which went in favour of the revolutionary cause, was of all the greater moment.