[298] 16/26 Dec. ‘La cabale d’Espagne et de la cour se fait tous les jours plus faible que l’autre, qui commence à prendre le dessus: et se forment diverses intrigues dans la ville.’ [299] 31 Dec./9 Jan. ‘Les affaires n’ont jamais été si brouillées, le parlement estant maintenant en état, que l’une ou l’autre cabale perisse.’ CHAPTER X. BREACH BETWEEN THE KING AND THE PARLIAMENT. With the personal rivalries which the word cabal implies, there were blended very real and weighty differences, which touched the nature of authority itself. Under the very eyes of the King the party which had compelled him to summon a Parliament, and then wrung from him the condemnation of Strafford and the right of Parliament not to be dissolved without its own consent, had risen to terrible power. When he attacked it, it had regained control of the majority in the Commons. However numerous the minority might be, it remained excluded from all political influence. A member was reprimanded for uttering the opinion that the majority of the Lords and the minority of the Commons had as good right to combine as the majority of the Commons with the minority of the Lords[300]. Now however the majority of the Lords also was reduced to impotence: the views of the leaders of the Commons appeared as the opinion of Parliament. Nothing else was to be expected but that those great demands for the abolition of Episcopacy and the co-operation of Parliament in the appointment of all officers of state, which the King regarded as an insult to himself, would soon be laid before him as bills of both Houses. Yet other demands, of which we have seen the traces at an earlier period, had now grown to full consciousness. The Lower House had voted levies for Ireland: the question was raised whether these could be made without a licence under the great seal, which had always hitherto been regarded as necessary. The [A.D. 1642.] House resolved that this was not indispensable, and that its own order was sufficient[301]. The idea had already been suggested of not entrusting to the King the nomination of leaders for the troops destined for Ireland: it was proposed that the Lower House should name a lord general for the land forces, and a lord high admiral for the fleet. In this manner they thought to fill the offices with a couple of opposition lords, who would have had no chance in the existing temper of the court. At the same time the men who stood nearest to the King were attacked by an impeachment which might cost them their lives. Who after that could join the King and manage his affairs? Strafford was ruined because he had tried to gain for the King a power transcending all earlier precedent: when the King surrendered him he altered his system. Bristol and Digby are not to be compared with Strafford in personal worth; but they belonged to the system which the King was now determined to uphold: what was left him if he abandoned them also?