The court was now trying to devise means for checking the growth of the preponderance of Parliament; and as it was desirable to keep within the law, none other could be found than that by which Strafford had perished, and which had often been talked of since, the impeachment in their turn of the leading members. There were five in the Lower House, Pym and Hampden, the two acknowledged leaders, Hollis and Strode, who had taken a conspicuous part in the impeachment of Digby and Bristol, and Haslerig, who had originated the Bill of Attainder and the proposal for the appointment of generals by Parliament. Of the Lords they selected Mandeville, now Lord Kimbolton, chiefly because he had been much concerned in the alliance with the Scots. The charge which had formerly been brought against the Viceroy of Ireland, that he had sought to overthrow the fundamental laws of England, might, they thought, be still better imputed to those six, for they had endeavoured to make the King hated by his people, to induce his army to abandon him, to rob him of his authority: in fact they had [A.D. 1642.] already levied war on the King, and Parliament was kept by them in subjection through terror and violence[302]. At least, they thought, they could support all these charges with no slighter evidence than had availed to prove the accusation against Strafford: why should these men not be convicted of high treason as well as Strafford? Moreover they would be under arrest during the process, and so for a long time be rendered harmless. It was determined that the impeachment should be laid before the Lords immediately in the King’s name. It has often been proved to demonstration that this step cannot be regarded as lawful. The Upper House possessed no criminal jurisdiction over the Lower: the charges against the five members ought to have been brought before a grand jury, or before the Commons themselves. We may add that there was a misunderstanding of what had happened in Stafford’s case. The Lord Lieutenant was not condemned at all in judicial form: his condemnation was a political act of the legislative authority. The Lower House, from which it proceeded, had since gone still further in the same direction, and the Upper House was now paralysed: the impeachment embraced charges against the majority which now enjoyed the whole authority of Parliament. It was bringing the authors of the imputed crime to trial before their accomplices, for a large part of the Upper House belonged to the same party. To what result could this lead?