The House of Commons, which had acquired great strength, spirit, and popularity during the reign of James, fully perceived the difficulties and necessities of Charles, but made no adequate or generous effort to relieve him from them. Some of the more turbulent rejoiced in them. They knew that kings, like other men, were selfish, and that it was not natural for people to part with their privileges and power without a struggle, even though this power was injurious to the interests of society. In the Middle Ages, barons, bishops, and popes had fought desperately in the struggle of classes; and it was only from their necessities that either kings or people had obtained what they demanded. King Charles, no more than Pope Boniface VIII., would surrender, as a boon to man, without compulsion, his supposed omnipotence. [Sidenote: Quarrel between the King and the Commons.] The king ascended his throne burdened by the debts of his father, and by an expensive war, which the Commons incited, but would not pay for. They granted him, to meet his difficulties and maintain his honor, the paltry sum of one hundred and forty thousand pounds, and the duties of tonnage and poundage, not for life, as was customary, but for a year. Nothing could be more provoking to a young king. Of course, the money was soon spent, and the king wanted more, and had a right to expect more. But, if the Commons granted what the king required, he would be made independent of them, and he would rule tyrannically, as the kings of England did before him. So they resolved not to grant necessary supplies to carry on the government, unless the king would part with the prerogatives of an absolute prince, and those old feudal privileges which were an abomination in the eyes of the people. Charles was not the man to make such a bargain. Few kings, in his age, would have seen its necessity. But necessity there was. Civil war was inevitable, without a compromise, provided both parties were resolved on maintaining their ground. But Charles fancied that the Commons could be browbeaten and intimidated into submission; and, moreover, in case he was brought into collision with his subjects, he fancied that he was stronger than they, and could put down the spirit of resistance. In both of these suppositions he was wrong. The Commons were firm, and were stronger than he was, because they had the sympathy of the people. They believed conscientiously, especially the Puritans, that he was wrong; that God gave him no divine right to enslave them, and that they were entitled, by the eternal principles of justice, and by the spirit of the constitution, to civil and religious liberty, in the highest sense of that term. They believed that their rights were inalienable and absolute; that, among them, they could not be taxed without their own consent; and that their constitutional guardians, the Commons, should be unrestricted in debate. These notions of the people were _ideas_. On ideas all governments rest.