2. =Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton. 1637.=--Laud had little hope of being able to abate the storm. One of his best qualities was that he was no respecter of persons, and he had roused animosity in the upper classes by punishing gentlemen guilty of immorality or of breaches of church discipline as freely as he punished more lowly offenders. In =1637= he characteristically attempted to defend himself from the charge of being a Papist and an innovator in religion by bringing three of his most virulent assailants--Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton--before the Star Chamber. The trial afforded him the opportunity of making a speech in his own defence, to which nobody paid the least attention. As a matter of course the accused were heavily punished, being sentenced to lose their ears in the pillory, to pay a fine of 5,000_l._, and to imprisonment for life. It was not now as it had been in =1634=, when Prynne stood alone in the pillory, no man regarding him. The three victims had a triumphal reception on their way to the pillory. Flowers and sweet herbs were strewed in their path. The crowd applauded them whilst they suffered. On their way to their several prisons in distant parts of the country men flocked to greet them as martyrs. [Illustration: The 'Sovereign of the Seas,' built for the Royal Navy in 1637: from a contemporary engraving by John Payne.] 3. =Financial Pressure. 1635-1637.=--Revolutions are never successful without the guidance of men devoted to ideas; but on the other hand they are not caused only by grievances felt by religious or high-minded people. To stir large masses of men to resistance, their pockets must be touched as well as their souls. In =1635= Weston, who had been created Earl of Portland, died, and a body of Commissioners of the Treasury, who succeeded him, laid additional impositions on commerce and established corporations for exercising various manufactures under the protection of monopolies. This proceeding was according to the letter of the law, as corporations had been exempted from the act in restraint of monopolies which had been passed in =1624= (see p. 501). So, too, was a claim put forward by Charles in =1637= to levy fines from those who had encroached on the old boundaries of the forests. It is true that, in the teeth of the opposition roused, Charles exacted but a small part of the fines imposed, but he incurred almost as much obloquy as if he had taken the whole of the money.